Every Wednesday, we publish our “Investor Toolkit” series on TSI Network. Whether you’re a new or experienced investor, these weekly updates are designed to give you specific investment advice. Each Investor Toolkit update gives you a fundamental piece of investing strategy, and shows you how you can put it into practice right away.

Today’s tip: “Base your investing strategy on these 3 good investor attitudes.”

To succeed as an investor, you need to cultivate three personal mental strengths:

• Patience. Good chess players never “go for broke,” as the saying goes. Instead, they follow an investing strategy of positioning their pieces so they can profit from the mistakes they expect from opponents who are less talented, less experienced or less patient.
  
  Successful investors follow a comparable approach. But the crucial difference is that they have no opponents who can be relied upon to make mistakes. Instead, successful investors try to arrange their portfolios so that they more-or-less automatically tap into the profit and long-term growth that inevitably comes to well-established companies operating in relatively free and stable economies.

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• Persistent curiosity: Investment professionals know more about investing than you do, because they devote their lives to it. But you can get more knowledge than most investors if you simply read widely and ask lots of questions.
  
  It’s always a good investing strategy to read books and visit investing web sites. It pays to read as widely as possible, especially when you’re just starting out and need good advice. Most local libraries have at least a six-foot shelf of investment books. Browse that shelf and borrow an investment book on each visit.
  
  You’ll also find a wide range of Canadian and international investing information online. You could start with our web site, TSI Network (www.tsinetwork.ca), which boasts more than 6,000 articles on investment strategy and individual investments.
  
  Make it fun. Don’t feel obligated to study every web site you visit or finish every book you borrow. The knowledge you need appears in many places, but quality and readability vary widely. You might as well absorb the knowledge from sources that are pleasant to read.
• A realistic sense of optimism: To succeed as an investor, put matters in perspective. Despite wars, recessions and market setbacks, stock prices generally reach successively higher levels over long periods.
  
  You can’t foresee the next downturn. But you can buy high-quality investments gradually during your working years, sell them gradually in retirement, and reinvest your dividends along the way. Follow that investing strategy and you will automatically buy more shares when prices are low, and fewer when they are high.

Next Wednesday, April 13, 2011, Investor Toolkit will show you an investing strategy for investing overseas with less risk.

As a member of TSI Network, you may have already seen “Stock Market Investing Strategy: Pat McKeough’s Conservative Investing Guide for Making Money and Cutting Risk.” If you haven’t yet read this new free report, click here to download your copy today.