Boring is a term which I find very harsh to be used to describe someone.
I have been called boring a lot of times since my 12th grade and in college as well, my interest towards finance portraited me as someone who is a “boring” guy.
To be honest, such labelling is inevitable.
College is the time when people “enjoy” their life and reading about finance doesn’t fall into enjoy in the conventional sense.
Nobody wants to know what the difference between a steel and composite cylinder is, difference between CPVC and PVC pipes, how a gold loan business works, precast vs normal cement, co-lending model, what happens when a company pays off its debt, etc.
For me, it is very fascinating to read about different industries and to know things which I never knew mattered to me. But being active in the stock market you never know which information can become relevant to you at what time.
I enjoy talking to security guards in my campus to get information about security services industry, talking to coffee shop owner about coffee, talking to drivers about CNG vehicles, looking at dustbins to find names like Nilkamal and Cello, etc.
Connecting of dots is very important thing in investing.
The process of analyzing a company is not completed when you are done reading about it, but when you let your mind process that information and think independently about it.
That is where questioning also comes in.
You question why a competitor is doing better than its peer, why a business is losing its quality, why there are structural tailwinds in the sectors, etc. but still at the end of these questions you have to remind yourself about vast ocean of information and knowledge out there which you are not aware of.
Coming back to the start of the post, yes, I might be “boring” in the most conventional sense but there are similar people out there who, like me, find it fascinating to discuss industry trends and discuss why some businesses are doing what they are doing.
But unfortunately, when something about businesses or investing is told to a non-finance person, they find the discussion boring, which is understandable as every person has different interests but labelling the person just because your interests didn’t match is not appropriate as sometimes, one’s passion can be wrongly labelled as “boring”.