In his prime, few athletes dominated a sport like Wayne Gretzky dominated professional hockey.
Gretzky is hockey’s all-time leader in points, the sport’s key production metric. But more incredible than Gretzky’s point total is how far it is beyond the totals of other elite players — more than 49% higher than second place.
Outperforming other Hall of Fame players by such a large margin is unheard of in professional sports. The competition among world-class performers — all extremely talented, all batting for fame, respect, and money — is so intense that first place is typically just barely better than second and third place.
Standing just six feet tall and weighing 185 pounds, Gretzky wasn’t a big player who bullied his way to success. He had phenomenal agility and coordination, but his greatest advantage was his mind. He was the athletic equivalent of a chess grandmaster. He saw the game and where it would progress like nobody else. Gretzky had a superhuman knack for being in the right place at the right time.
You’ve surely heard his most famous quote on strategy. It’s been repeated thousands of times. The late great Steve Jobs loved and lived by it.
Gretzky said the secret to his success was skating to where the puck would be, not to where it was or to where it had been.
Let me translate this brilliant line of thinking and apply it to business and investing: If you want to get ahead or get rich, focus on what will happen, not what is happening right now.
That’s the way to build true wealth …
Nobody can truly know the future.
But the most successful investors and entrepreneurs study their markets, spot potential opportunities, and place their bets on what they believe customers will want in the future. The rewards for careful study and outthinking the competition are extraordinary.
Looking around the corner and seeing where the puck will be — not where it is — can allow you to make huge capital gains as an early hypergrowth investor.
Getting to big opportunities ahead of the crowd can be lonely, sure. But it’s where the big money is made.
Imagine investing in internet stocks in the early 1990s, for example.
You could have made more than 10,000% in internet plumbing company Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) … and more than 9,000% in software maker Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT).
A 9,000% gain turns a $10,000 investment into $900,000.
This kind of monster investment return can set up you and your family for decades. It can allow you to buy vacations … cars … homes … and just about anything else you want.
Those kinds of investment gains are possible when you invest in businesses and technologies that change the world. The greater the change, the greater the gains.
The key is getting in early … and that’s where most investors fall short.
I’ll never knock a 100-fold return … or a 9,000% winner. Ever. That kind of gain is absolutely incredible.
Gains like these are the investing equivalent of skating to where the puck will be. Getting into early stage trends before the masses … and years before Wall Street has ever heard about them.
Those are the kind of investment themes we follow here in MoneyWire. The hypergrowth trends that will change our future … the way we live and work and play.
And we have been very successful. We’ve had multiple investments double, triple, and even more.
But I’ve uncovered a way to take our early stage investing one step further … it’s like early stage investing on STEROIDS.
We’ve made those gains in publicly traded stocks. Imagine what we can do investing in companies before they’re public.
That’s the excitement and potential of private equity.
In 1968, the wealthy and connected investor Arthur Rock invested $10,000 in a little-known startup called Intel (NASDAQ:INTC). It was developing computer processors that would change the world.
Rock’s small $10,000 stake grew to be worth more than $1 billion. That’s a 10,000,000% return!
Or take WhatsApp, a free messaging application for smartphones. A $25,000 investment in its private seed round would’ve turned into $68 million. That’s a 2,750-fold return.
What could you do with $68 million? How would that kind of money change your life?
Backing private businesses is the highest upside investment you can possibly make. It’s going one step further than early stage investing — which reaps incredible rewards on its own.
It’s more like investing in a company at inception.
Until recently, this world of private investing was off limits to the average investor. It was a secret. Only the richest and wealthiest could access it … and they just kept getting richer and richer.
Now it’s our turn.
On Tuesday I held a special event that highlights the previously off-limits opportunity that’s just opened up. I explain the kind of upside that’s possible … and I tell you exactly how to get involved now.
If you missed it, I urge you to watch the replay now.
To take advantage of the opportunities ahead, I also launched a brand-new service called Private Deal Group. And I’ve already recommended three private companies that are set to generate incredible wealth for their earliest backers.
You can be one of those angel investors.
If you want to set yourself up for the kind of gains that mean you never have to work again, click here to learn more.
On the date of publication, Matthew McCall did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article.
Matthew McCall left Wall Street to actually help investors — by getting them into the world’s biggest, most revolutionary trends BEFORE anyone else. Click here to see what Matt has up his sleeve now.
