Nicolai Tangen highlights a paradoxical challenge of long-term strategy: the immense difficulty of sitting still and taking no action for extended periods. Resisting the daily pressure to "do something" is a critical, yet underestimated, psychological skill required for successful long-term investing.

Trying to beat the market by active trading is a losing game against professionals with vast resources. A simple, automated strategy of consistently investing in diversified ETFs or index funds mitigates risk and leverages long-term market growth without emotional decision-making.

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.

Compounding is a fragile process. Every portfolio adjustment, like trimming or panic selling, is like opening a door and letting heat escape. Treating your portfolio as a contained machine that works best when untouched reframes "doing nothing" as a strategic, structural advantage.

Ali defeated a stronger opponent by absorbing blows and waiting for the right moment. This "masterly inactivity" is a powerful investing strategy. Instead of constant trading, long-term investors should let high-quality businesses compound, understanding that the decision *not* to act is still an active, and often superior, choice.

A Wall Street Journal experiment pitted a monkey throwing darts at a stock list against professional traders. Over a ten-year span, the monkey's long-term, passive 'buy-and-hold' strategy won. This demonstrates the power of long-term investing over short-term, active trading.

To decide whether to sell a long-held asset you're attached to, imagine it was sold overnight and the cash is in your account. The question then becomes: "Would you use that cash to buy it back today?" This reframe bypasses status quo bias and the endowment effect, making the correct decision immediately obvious.

Most investing environments encourage constant, often harmful, action. The speaker actively engineers an environment for inaction by eliminating visual stimuli like financial TV and filtering social media noise. This counteracts behavioral biases and promotes the patience required for long-term compounding.

To combat the urge for constant activity, which often harms returns, investor Stig Brodersen intentionally reviews his portfolio's performance only once a year. This forces a long-term perspective and prevents emotional, short-sighted trading based on market fluctuations.