Investing is very counter-cultural in its nature since it’s about finding value where others don’t find value.

Tough to be great at investing if your values and paradigm are indistinguishable from society at large.

Growing up in compliance-focused institutions for the first 20 years of one’s life isn’t conducive to becoming a great investor. Likely counter-productive?

The counter-cultural core of investing is often not appreciated because most “investing experts” are more followers than they are pioneers in finding unrealized value.

Kids are naturally “counter-cultural” in the sense they follow their innate drive for play and expression without natural regard to external restrictions.

That is until that is often replaced with caution and compliance as required from them by parents and schools.

But another thing, people who are truly “counter-cultural” aren’t doing it to be different or for the sake of being contrarian. Rather, they’re “counter-cultural” because they hold and aspire values that are antithetical to those held by mainstream.

If you can read fast, I suggest buying several books by Martin Luther King Jr and spending several hours appreciating his defiance of compliance and mainstream culture.