The Effective Investor Newsletter

Many people have the misconception that the primary goal of investing is to make as much money as you can as fast as you can. Unfortunately, you can’t just order up outsized returns like a delivery pizza. You have to pay for your chance at them with concentrated risk. The bigger the potential payout, the […]

In Homer’s Odyssey, the hero Odysseus is trying to get back home with his ship intact. At one point in their journey, he and his crewmen must pass near the rocks of the sirens. These are creatures with the bodies of birds and heads of women who sing magically enticing songs that cause men on passing

It seems like all the pharmaceutical ads on TV (or wherever you stream your content) follow the same formula. They say a few words about an illness or condition, then they show ordinary people enjoying the kinds of wonderful activities that make us all jealous on social media: Driving a vintage convertible along the coast,

According to the American Heritage Idioms Dictionary, William Camden was the first to record the saying, “The early bird gets the worm.” He included it in his 1605 edition of English proverbs.1 Its straightforward meaning is that the person who arrives or acts first is more likely to get what he wants. It’s been a

In 1992 American political scientist Francis Fukuyama published The End of History and the Last Man. This highly regarded book declared that global politics had reached its final stage. Liberal (in the classical sense) democracy would continue to spread until it was the standard form of government for the nations of the world.1 At the

A friend who was discouraged about their weight loss efforts was bemoaning the necessity of food. “If you have a drinking problem,” they said, “you can give up alcohol. But if you have an eating problem, you can’t just give up food.” The same is true of money. The drive to acquire it can warp

There are times in life when you should try to win. And times when it’s smartest to simply avoid losing. Take tennis, for example. Simon Ramo, a scientist and statistician, demonstrated that professional tennis players and weekend tennis players play a fundamentally different game. “In expert tennis,” he writes, “about 80 percent of the points

“Regrets, I’ve had a few But then again too few to mention”1 This memorable lyric from the song “My Way,” famously crooned by Frank Sinatra, describes what many consider to be the ideal way to look back on your life. It essentially says that the successful individual rarely makes mistakes. And when they do, they

You’ve probably heard the old sports adage “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” It speaks to our tendency, when considering some important action, to wait until conditions are ideal and our chances of success are nearly guaranteed. We fear that if we try and fail, it will end our chances for success.