After writing about using words to your advantage in life and business, I began thinking of one of my all-time favorite mental models. It comes from legendary marketing psychologist Clotaire Rapaille, who wrote about it in his treatise “The Culture Code“. Before we get into that, let me say that Dr. Clotaire Rapaille caught my attention so…
Words and phrases are interesting things. Each represents a package of ideas and associations, instantly unwrapped the moment we encounter them. If I say, “She stood in a cold, dark, damp basement on a winter day, with only a bit of gray, overcast sky visible through small windows around the perimeter; the rhythm of ice rain hitting…
I get a lot of requests for real-world examples or homework assignments that have to do with some of the more important investing concepts. This morning is your lucky day if you’re fairly new to the finance game and want to give diving into SEC filings or annual reports a try. Here’s a (fairly) easy introduction to how things can appear better, or worse, than they really are. Ready? Let’s go.
When I posted the butternut squash soup with cinnamon sugar crouton recipe I wanted to try after a friend of ours made herself a pot back on Captiva Island, I mentioned in one of the photo captions that our cutting board was on the verge of giving up the ghost after years of faithful service. …
Get ready to add yet another secret millionaire to your case study files. Ronald Read passed away last June at 92 years old. The Brattleboro, Vermont man, who had no college education and drove a Toyota Yaris, always made a point of living below his means. He spent many years working as a gas station attendant and…
I would argue, strongly, that an abundance of evidence shows the typical investors grossly misunderstand the mathematics of diversification and the role it can play in a well-constructed portfolio. Allow me to walk you through some examples that might provide further insight to how you should be thinking about the concept.
Butternut Squash Soup with Cinnamon Sugar Croutons When we were down in Florida, our friend, Karen, had some butternut squash puree in the refrigerator the chef, Sebastian, had left for her and Blake as he didn’t need it. She used it to make herself a butternut squash soup for lunch one day after coming back…
A college student wrote asking a question involving a conflict he had with one of his professors. The student was right. The professor was wrong.
After my recent semi-annual rant on the sorry condition of the maple syrup industry in the United States, which began with our discussion of the food industry polluting its products last Autumn, it should come as no surprise that, lately, we’ve been on a quest to find the ideal luxury maple syrup; honest-to-goodness, real, from-the-Earth maple tree sap with nothing else added that will become our go-to syrup for enjoying with breakfast, cooking in recipes, or using as a sugar substitute when the occasion calls for something with a different flavor profile.
Over the past couple of decades, quiet, subtle, barely-noticed changes in the methodology of the S&P 500 have resulted in the index barely resembling the one that produced the historical returns investors now seem to implicitly assume they will earn in the future.