Wisdom of The Dragon Warrior
I will share about one of my life-changing movies, Kungfu Panda 1.
So, spoiler ahead if you haven’t watched. Or you can simply skip the Kungfu Panda’s story if you have watched it before (You may start from ‘The Dragon Scroll’ section).
Po the Dreamer
The main character in the movie is Po, a huge Panda with passion in knowledge of Kung Fu; he memorized all the lore and stories of warriors, famous Kungfu moves, dates, and even artifacts; but somehow a clumsy one and have low self-confidence. Po lives in Valley of Peace with Mr. Ping, his adoptive father (I don’t want to spoil more, just go watch the movie) who owns a noodle shop. Since then, Po had been happily raised in the noodle shop, learning all he knew as a noodle maker from his adoptive father.
Po, now a young adult, is an idealistic dreamer with hopes of becoming a Kung fu legend alongside his heroes, the Furious Five. Due to his love of Kung Fu, he has developed an encyclopedic knowledge of everything related to it. However, this knowledge was only obtained as a fan, as Po’s soft, large, and untrained body made such a goal seem ridiculous to Po and everyone around him, so he kept his dreams secret, even from his father Mr. Ping. Instead, he resigned to the idea that his future would be running the family’s noodle shop.
Long story short, there’s a tournament where Master Oogway will choose who will become the Dragon Warrior. Po accidentally entered the venue in an epic way and fall in front of the Master and audience. Surprisingly, Master Oogway picked him. Everyone else, including Po, was surprised by this.
The Challenge
The Valley celebrated, and Po was carried to the Jade Palace where he was met by Shifu, who was openly hostile and critical of Po, particularly with respect to Po’s physique. On their way to the student barracks, Po overhears the Five joke about his incompetence. Po, disheartened by his heroes’ comments, retreated to the Peach Tree of Heavenly Wisdom.
Oogway, upon finding him, listened to Po as the panda related how he had doubts about ever becoming a kung fu warrior. Oogway advises Po that instead of being concerned about what was and what would be, he should focus on the opportunity he had now. This continues until the Furious Five started to bond with Po and told him why master acted that way (due to his past mistake of Tai Lung’s betrayal)
At the same time, Tai Lung escaped from dungeon and only the Dragon Warrior could stop him, which is Po. Startled and frightened, Po runs off but is stopped by Shifu who, despite his prior disapproval, declares that Po is the Dragon Warrior.
Po confronts Shifu on this claim, stating how Shifu never believed in him, and had been trying to make him quit. When Po demands to know how Shifu planned to make him into a warrior capable of defeating Tai Lung, Shifu admits he didn’t know.
The Real Training
Discouraged, Po again seeks comfort in food and ravages the kitchen in the barracks, punching through cupboards and drawers, even doing a perfect split at one point. When Shifu sees this, he finally understands how Po differs from the Five, and how he can use this perceived weakness as a teaching tool to motivate and train Po.
Po and Shifu began an intense training which enhanced Po’s skills. In other hand, Furious Five has gone to fight Tai Lung and defeated. Shifu assured him that he could beat Tai Lung — with the help of the Dragon Scroll. However, when Po opened the scroll, everyone was shocked to find it was nothing but a golden, reflective surface that was completely blank, causing Po to believe that Oogway was a crazy old turtle who had picked him as the Dragon Warrior by accident.
With no legendary powers to help them, Shifu orders the Five to evacuate the Valley, saying that he would fight Tai Lung himself to buy them all time. They obeyed, Po reluctantly leaving with the others.
The Enlightment
The Five split up to escort the villagers out while Po returned to his father to help him pack and leave. Po, heartbroken that he had come so close to reaching his dream only to be forced to return to his mundane life, falls behind. Mr. Ping tried to cheer up his son by finally telling him the truth: the secret ingredient of the noodle shop’s secret ingredient soup — was nothing.
By Mr. Ping simply believing it to be special, it became special on its own.
Astounded, Po took out the Dragon Scroll, and found himself looking into his own reflection. Mr. Ping’s words made the connection, and at last Po understood the meaning of the Dragon Scroll, the secret to “limitless power”.
The Battle
He went back to Jade Palace to challenge Tai Lung. Physically, Tai Lung was stronger, faster, and more agile, however, by using all his own trials and tribulations, Po kept the kung fu prodigy at bay. In this scene you will notice the changing of Po’s fighting style.
Again, the two fought, Po besting and outsmarting Tai Lung again and again, developing his own improvised style in the process. His greater durability proved to infuriate the angered Tai Lung. Eventually, Po catches Tai Lung in the Wuxi Finger Hold and uses it on him, sending a massive golden shock wave throughout the Valley of Peace and beyond. When the Furious Five and villagers return to see that Po defeated Tai Lung, they cheer and bow to him, accepting him as the Dragon Warrior. Po was modestly pleased, but quickly remembered that Shifu was hurt back at the palace. He rushed back and found Shifu still injured and told him he had defeated Tai Lung.
Shifu weakly thanked Po for bringing peace both to the Valley and to him. Po lays next to the resting Shifu for several moments before asking him if he wanted to get something to eat. He and Shifu later enjoyed a meal of dumplings by the Peach Tree of Heavenly Wisdom, overlooking a new day in the Valley of Peace.
The Dragon Scroll
I was in the same state as Po. In the end of 2020, it was a tough period; it’s hard to find a job,
I have no special skills,
I felt like nothing,
I have no specialties,
what can I offer?
It was the lowest point of my self-esteem, and I locked up myself for an entire year, just to search for my identity.
One day, reading books and journals was monotonous, so I started searching for movies. That’s when I found Kungfu Panda 1 is streaming on Netflix. I have watched it before (but I don’t get the true message of the movie and simply I was just a kid) and planning to re-watch, just to kill the boredom.
I remember the life-changing scene is when Po talks to his dad about the secret of his soup Noodle. Mr. Ping answered that there is no secret ingredient! Imagine I have expected at least he told his past experiences. And his quote to Po has left me an impression:
“To make something special, you just have to believe it’s special.”
— Mr. Ping
If you feel it’s a bit dramatic or cheesy, I truly can understand.
Afterall, I was in a bad state and those line of word is a hard slap to my face.
That’s my Eureka moment and I felt a volcano of confidence just exploded. It is just simply… Amazing.
The Journey of Investing
Why did I bring this story?
Let me add, I also felt lots of negativity in my early stage of investing journey. I have no mentor and guidance, which I have written on my first story. My family also has no background in investing, so I have no role model for me to be inspired.
Until I read Peter Lynch’s books.
At first, I learned a lot from Lynch’s books, forums, apps, and even videos on YouTube. Due to the lack of self-esteem moment, I become demotivated. Here’s what I was thinking at that time:
“How come this people are so knowledgeable?”
“They all had a great mentor and good education.”
“They know the secret of learning investing.”
And the final question:
“What makes the huge gap between me and them?”
Quoting from my first story, I’ve also experienced where your mentality is challenged; someone with beginner’s luck can gain skyrocketing return while you just spending time reading reports for nothing. I began to question my own knowledge; is this really the right way for me?
Then after reminiscing with Kungfu Panda, I started to map out myself; what are my strengths and weaknesses. First, I have no solid knowledge in understanding accounting. I found the “dragon scroll” in the One Up on Wall Street:
“All the math you need in the stock market you get in the fourth grade.”
Then he explained:
“Logic is the subject that’s helped me the most in picking stocks, if only because it taught me to identify the peculiar illogic of Wall Street. Actually, Wall Street thinks just as the Greeks did. The early Greeks used to sit around for days and debate how many teeth a horse has. They thought they could figure it out by just sitting there, instead of checking the horse. A lot of investors sit around and debate whether a stock is going up, as if the financial muse will give them the answer, instead of checking the company.”
This gave me hope, “So I’m not left behind” I thought. Then I learned accounting, thanks for the lessons in college where we must think of every business model before we solve a business problem leads me easier understanding in learning accounting.
Connecting the Dots
Now I’ve understood the basics of accounting, what do I miss?
I happened to stumble upon a user in one of stock social media apps, where he can tell a story of a company briefly and detailed. How did this guy do that? He’s also reading the same stuff I read, financial statements.
Soon I realized that I never search for the Companies milestone and founding story.
That’s literally the foundation of understanding a company!
I started to read the background story of the company, biography of the founder (if there’s one), the activities that they have conducted, and everything related to the target company.
I have lots of hypotheses that might have formed from the combination of the information. What to do next?
The Detective Way
I love reading stories where there is an intellectual character. These characters happen to know how their opponent thinks, understand a lot of aspects, broaden general knowledge, and deductive thinking. This kind of thinking is what I need right now!
I have a unique habit in which I’m super curious that I’ll search for the roots of stories until there’s no more terms that I don’t know yet. Let me give an example of a random sentence I stumbled upon:
“On September 12, Timothy F. Geithner, then president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, called a meeting on the future of Lehman, which included the possibility of an emergency liquidation of its assets.”
From this sentence, I’ll search all the information about who is Timothy F. Geithner, what is Federal Reserve Bank, who is Lehman, and what is liquidation. Let’s say I will search about Geithner first, and found this sentence:
“As president of the New York Fed, he served as Vice Chairman of the Federal Open Market Committee. In 2006, he became a member of the Washington-based financial advisory body, the Group of Thirty.”
I’ll continue to search about Federal Open Market Committee and the Group of Thirty. This process keeps going until I feel satisfied about the information that I just read. Then I go back to the first article and read it again. This time I must make sure I do understand everything that is written.
I apply this method in every company I read which similar to 5 Whys Analysis Method which I learned back during college. Then, I started to write investment theses which was simply just my investment diary. This is when I realized there’s a progress:
- I know the story from A to Z
- I know specific important events happen during the timeline.
- I know who’s the management in depth and detail.
- There’s a cause-effect in every financial performance, and I can see it now.
And then I realized another stuff, why I’m so sure about investing in certain company?
The reason is I’m slowly able to strip down company’s stories and understand their storyline. This kind of knowledge builds up my confidence and sure enough to invest in this certain company. This is also known as Conviction, where you believe in your analysis and start to develop determination.
The Dragon Warrior
Po finally found his own Kungfu style, which in real life is the Imperial Bear Style Kung Fu. Despite of his physique that might give him trouble, he managed to develop his own style. This is the reason I’m really inspired by this movie. I’ve learned basics (finance, accounting, business model) and I need to master it through my own style, which is the Detective Way (Let’s just say that’s the name for it).
With this, I know what I need to improve and which parts I must learn progressively. I develop my own framework of understanding (which I’m keep on upgrading) to learn companies. It’s just like what Mr. Ping said. “There is no special ingredient”.
I’d like to share this story with fellow beginner investors:
To the ones that has no guidance
To the ones that are still searching for the best way to learn.
To the ones that might feel demotivated or confused.
You need to strengthen the pillars of basic (Finance, Business Model, and Accounting) then the experience of gathering insights for your investment theses. This way, you can eliminate:
- Confusion, which you now know what to search for.
- Misunderstanding, which you now know who to consult or where to learn.
- Uncertainty, which you now know what a conviction is.
And folks, that’s the wisdom of the Dragon Warrior.
“Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom.
Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.”
~ Lao Tzu
