The difference between someone who says a cup is ‘half full’ and someone who says it’s ‘only half full’ is precisely a difference in perspective. The stock market, where share prices fluctuate repeatedly, is often said to ‘feed on fear and excitement’. Chairman Kang Bang-cheon’s words that one must maintain their own perspective to avoid losing composure in such a market carried great weight. This book details the investment principles he established throughout his journey from fund manager to chairman of an asset management firm, along with practical investment techniques and case studies.

To summarize this book in one sentence: **‘Overcome fear to enter the market, maintain composure while investing, and you will succeed.’** If it had merely offered platitudes like overcoming emotional turbulence, selling when the market is euphoric, buying when it’s gripped by fear, and exercising patience, I might have closed the book immediately. However, he demonstrates through real-world examples how he navigated crises like the 1997 IMF foreign exchange crisis, the 2008 financial crisis, and the 2020 COVID-19 crisis—proving his strategies for weathering storms alongside ‘great companies’.

His experience, emphasizing that only by combining a macro perspective—viewing the market through a telescope—with an analytical perspective—examining corporate financial statements and hidden value under a microscope—can one truly develop their ‘own perspective,’ was highly persuasive. He kindly teaches specific methodologies: analyzing a company’s market capitalization, comparing peers using earnings per share ($EPS$), and even his own ‘K-PER’ methodology for quantifying corporate value based on his own criteria.

The book’s mention of the **‘Cocktail Party Theory’** humorously captures the public’s reaction to stocks. When the market is bearish, fund managers who no one talks to buy stocks; when the market is bullish and people around you approach to recommend stocks, that’s when you should consider selling. Just glancing at headlines makes it easy to gauge the public mood. I could sense market overheating when people around me frequently discussed stocks. Last year, I bought Samsung Electronics shares believing they were undervalued, only to see the stock price surge months later as the entire nation’s attention focused on it. This reaffirmed that the public always reacts late and emotionally.

Recently, the stock market’s overheating transferred to the cryptocurrency market, creating a frenzy. Despite the learning effect from the 2018 surge and 2019 crash, the unprecedented expansion of money supply by governments worldwide to stimulate the economy during the COVID era created the largest asset market bubble in history. This demonstrates the accuracy of the prediction in Corona Sapiens regarding ‘K-shaped polarization’ (asset market growth versus long-term stagnation in the real economy).

On May 19th, the cryptocurrency market’s massive crash sent the market into panic, and I too was thrown into confusion by falling returns. However, reading this book at just the right moment provided me with the wisdom to navigate the crisis. It felt as if I were hearing Chairman Kang’s advice directly and timely. By following that advice, re-entering the fear-filled market, and responding calmly, I was able to successfully weather the storm.

This book was truly an ‘investment bible’, imparting the wisdom and experience of Chairman Kang Bang-cheon, known as ‘Korea’s Warren Buffett’.