I want to tell you a story about a watch. Many years ago my mother passed away unexpectedly. Dad had died a few years prior and so in my late 30's I found myself without parents and quite frankly, I felt kind of lost in many ways. As my
Core Principles Series - Principle #10 - Fact based on an observation of one is not meaningful... There is a fascinating discipline in the world of marketing and decision science called 'Choice Architecture'. This discipline affects your life every single day and most often does so without any of
Core Principles Series #9 - Whose money is it? In the world of investment, there are three types or categories of investments. Those are: 1) loans, 2) assets, and 3) products. There are lots of different options inside of these three types but each investment will fall into a
Core Principles Series #8 - The Endowment Mindset Nearly all large charitable or educational institutions in the US and Canada have large scale endowments. An endowment is a pool of investment resources that have generally been gifted "endowed" to them or are built from the contributions of the firms members.
Core Principle Series - Principle #7 'Fail to plan - Plan to fail' This principle is crucial for your own protection. If you read through the three scenarios that I posted earlier, you will have noted that each of them had some money, knew it needed to be invested, and
Core Principles Series - Principle #6 "The balance of risk and reward" In any investment there is risk. A person might argue that "well that isn't true for an envelope of cash that I have at home" but even that is subject to theft, misplacement, or at a minimum a
Core Principle Series - Principle #5 "Buy low and sell high" This principle is one of the most commonly quoted phrases whenever a person is asked how they can do well with investments but it is clear that most people don't actually understand what it means. Sure - we all
Core Principles Series - Principle #4 "Follow the money" Principle number 4 is all about separating emotion and hype from reality. Individual motivations reveal a great deal about who a person is and why they do what they do. In the world of finance and investment there is no free
Core Principles Series - Principle #3 Urgent and only available today = wrong. We live in a world with a 24 hour news cycle and instant on demand access to nearly everything. With that kind of access, businesses feed on that mindset by trying to create an impression of scarcity.
Core Principles Series - Principle #2 If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is... We all like a great deal and there is something a little twistedly pleasing to feel like you got a better deal than anybody else. The reality though especially in the finance world