Contrary to the industry's bias for action, Howard Marks advocates for strategic inaction, flipping the common saying to 'don't just do something, sit there.' True long-term success comes from owning good assets and letting ideas work, not from constant trading and reacting to short-term market noise.

Some companies execute a 3-5 year plan and then revert to average returns. Others 'win by winning'—their success creates new opportunities and network effects, turning them into decade-long compounders that investors often sell too early.

Contrary to the instinct to sell a big winner, top fund managers often hold onto their best-performing companies. The initial 10x return is a strong signal of a best-in-class product, team, and market, indicating potential for continued exponential growth rather than a peak.

Since it's impossible to know upfront which investments will generate outlier returns, the key isn't picking them but holding them. The biggest mistake is 'cutting your flowers to water your weeds'—selling winners to invest in underperformers. You must 'circle the wagons' around your core assets.

Investors Nick Sleep and Kay Zakaria built their careers on holding just three core stocks for decades. Their lesson is to fight the impulse to trade winners after a quick gain. The greatest returns come from identifying exceptional businesses and practicing the 'active patience' required to hold them for multi-year periods.

Wilson advised against trying to perfectly time the peak of a successful company's dominance. Competition will eventually emerge, but anticipating its impact is futile and often leads to premature selling. He believed you can make a fortune by riding a winner for years before the problems become acute.

The effort to consistently make small, correct short-term trades is immense and error-prone. A better strategy is focusing on finding a few exceptional businesses that compound value at high rates for years, effectively doing the hard work on your behalf.

Buy businesses at a discount to create a margin of safety, but then hold them for their growth potential. Resist the urge to sell based on price targets, as this creates a "false sense of precision" and can cause you to miss out on compounding.

While institutional money managers operate on an average six-month timeframe, individual investors can gain a significant advantage by adopting a minimum three-year outlook. This long-term perspective allows one to endure volatility that forces short-term players to sell, capturing the full compounding potential of great companies.