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The Behavior Gap: Simple Ways to Stop Doing Dumb Things with Money Hardcover – Illustrated, January 3, 2012
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-From The Behavior Gap
Why do we lose money? It's easy to blame the economy or the financial markets-but the real trouble lies in the decisions we make.
As a financial planner, Carl Richards grew frustrated watching people he cared about make the same mistakes over and over. They were letting emotion get in the way of smart financial decisions. He named this phenomenon-the distance between what we should do and what we actually do-"the behavior gap." Using simple drawings to explain the gap, he found that once people understood it, they started doing much better.
Richards's way with words and images has attracted a loyal following to his blog posts for The New York Times, appearances on National Public Radio, and his columns and lectures. His book will teach you how to rethink all kinds of situations where your perfectly natural instincts (for safety or success) can cost you money and peace of mind.
He'll help you to:
• Avoid the tendency to buy high and sell low;
• Avoid the pitfalls of generic financial advice;
• Invest all of your assets-time and energy as well as savings-more wisely;
• Quit spending money and time on things that don't matter;
• Identify your real financial goals;
• Start meaningful conversations about money;
• Simplify your financial life;
• Stop losing money!
It's never too late to make a fresh financial start. As Richards writes: "We've all made mistakes, but now it's time to give yourself permission to review those mistakes, identify your personal behavior gaps, and make a plan to avoid them in the future. The goal isn't to make the 'perfect' decision about money every time, but to do the best we can and move forward. Most of the time, that's enough."
- Print length192 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherPortfolio
- Publication dateJanuary 3, 2012
- Dimensions5.74 x 0.79 x 8.54 inches
- ISBN-109781591844648
- ISBN-13978-1591844648
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"Carl Richards is the anti-Jim Cramer. He doesn't pick stocks, and he doesn't shout. In wise, calm style, The Behavior Gap teaches us how to rein in the emotional saboteur within us-the voice that leads us to double-down when the market is peaking and to make a panicky exit when stocks are a bargain. Richards shows us that, when it comes to our financial security, slow and steady wins the race." — Dan Heath, coauthor of Made to Stick and Switch
"Ah, clarity! Carl Richards can see the mistakes that humans-being human- make again and again with money. Then with humor and an I've-been-there nudge he sets them on the right course." — Jean Chatzky, author of Pay It Down
"The Behavior Gap throws light on an important question: How can we think more clearly about money and its role in a happy life? Carl Richards shows how to shape our behavior to invest, save, and spend to foster greater happiness." — Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project
"Who says common sense is common? Smart, tactical, practical advice for anyone who has done dumb things with their money." — Seth Godin, author of We Are All Weird
"Carl Richards's deceptively simple sketches in The Behavior Gap will make you laugh, change your relationship with money, and leave you the wealthier for it. This one is bound to be a classic!" — William Bernstein, author of A Splendid Exchange and The Investor's
"Carl has a knack for showing-gently and with charts!-that when it comes to money, most of us are idiots. Carl prods us to master money, rather than letting it master us." — Laura Vanderkam, author of All the Money in the World
"A brilliant guide to the ways we often trick ourselves into staying poor. Read this before you make your next financial decision." — Zac Bissonnette, author of Debt-Free U
"If a picture is worth a thousand words, Carl's sketches could change a life! He captures the essence of life and money." — Marty Kurtz, president of the Financial Planning Association
About the Author
independent advisors. He contributes to the Bucks blog at The New York Times and is a columnist for Morningstar Advisor. Richards appears regularly on National Public Radio's Marketplace Money, and is a frequent keynote speaker at financial planning conferences and visual learning events. You can find more of his work at BehaviorGap.com. He lives in Park City, Utah, with his family.
Product details
- ASIN : 1591844649
- Publisher : Portfolio; Illustrated edition (January 3, 2012)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 192 pages
- ISBN-10 : 9781591844648
- ISBN-13 : 978-1591844648
- Item Weight : 10.4 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.74 x 0.79 x 8.54 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #152,661 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Carl Richards is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ and the director of investor education for the BAM ALLIANCE, a community of over 130 independent wealth management firms throughout the United States. He is the creator of the weekly Sketch Guy column in the The New York Times, and is a columnist for Morningstar Advisor. Carl has also been featured on Marketplace Money, The Leonard Lopate Show, Oprah.com and Forbes.com. In addition, Carl has become a frequent keynote speaker at financial planning conferences and visual learning events around the world.
Through his simple sketches, Carl makes complex financial concepts easy to understand. His sketches also serve as the foundation for his first book, The Behavior Gap: Simple Ways to Stop Doing Dumb Things with Money (Portfolio/Penguin). Carl’s art appeared in a solo show at the Kimball Art Center, in Park City, Utah. Other showings include The Parson’s Gallery in New York, The Shultz Museum, and an exhibit at the Mansion House in London. His commissioned work is on display in businesses and educational institutions across the country. He lives with his family in Park City, Utah.
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Here are my notes from the book:
1. Cycles and other factors do cause markets to go to ‘inefficient’ high and low extremes.
2. Stocks should be treated as potentially useful, but also dangerous. And increased potential upside does generally come with increased risks (but the converse isn't true: higher risk doesn't always mean increased potential upside).
3. In the long run, the vast majority of people who attempt market timing do worse than the markets, and we shouldn’t fall prey to the hope that we can rely on others to make such predictions. So it’s best to formulate an approach which will likely work well long-term regardless of how markets fluctuate in the short and intermediate terms, since the long-term trend is up; but this does assume that the future will repeat the past in the long-term, whereas there have been bear markets of more than a year in the past, so 'riding out' long bear markets can be a painful process which wouldn't be a good situation for people nearing retirement or already retired.
4. The most effective investors are moderate and humble rather than overconfident, and recognize their inability to reliably make accurate predictions. In fact, people with the highest proportion of accurate extreme forecasts tend to do worse overall. And because of the lack of predictability, rather than trying to adhere to rigid long-term plans, we should take a more flexible approach of adapting to evolving circumstances by making small but consistent course corrections. This means that we need to pay attention to what’s happening in timeframes of weeks and months in order to make decisions which will tend to work well over years, while ignoring intraday or day to day fluctuations, and recognizing that sometimes doing nothing is the best option.
5. Following the herd and doing what’s popular will usually mean buying rather than selling when markets are high, and selling rather than buying when markets are low. Ironically, people who are relatively disciplined and really try to stick to their plans are most vulnerable to this, because they’re among the last to 'give in' and buy (near tops) and among the last to sell (near bottoms). 'Safety in numbers' isn't a valid maxim for investing.
6. Financial planning is part of life planning, and needs to be personalized – what’s suitable for one person may be unsuitable for another. Generally, we should only take as much risk as needed to meet our financial goals (rather than trying to maximize return and thereby taking on unnecessary risk), while keeping in mind that additional money has diminishing value in terms of enhancing our lives once we reach upper middle class (personal relationships, experiences, and the feeling of doing worthwhile work matter more, once our basic needs are met). The harm we suffer from a major loss is usually greater than the benefit we derive from a major gain, so loss aversion makes sense.
7. Because of regression to the mean and the role of luck, funds which performed well in the past are less likely to do well in the future. Unlike most other fields, in investing, past performance is NOT a reliable indicator of the future, and may even be a misleading indicator. The only consistent correlation is that funds with higher expense ratios tend to perform more poorly.
8. Because of good and bad luck, sometimes bad decisions will result in good outcomes, and good decisions will result in bad outcomes. Rather than being mislead by that, we need to stick to approaches which are likely to work longer term.
9. Most of what’s reported in the financial media is just noise, and is best ignored. Try to keep your models simple and robust. That doesn’t mean we should ignore important developments on large geographic scales, but we should accept that context as ‘given’ and focus our financial planning decisions on where we can have an influence.
10. A good test for evaluating a portfolio is to imagine being in cash and then asking how similar and different your portfolio would be if you reconstructed it. Don’t keep things the same just because of wanting to preserve the status quo, attachments, laziness, or wanting to ‘break even’ on an investment. A portfolio should be evaluated based on anticipated long-term future performance, not what has happened in the past to get to this point.
11. Don’t fall prey to hindsight bias and compare your current portfolio value with a previous peak, as though the portfolio is at a 'loss' compared to that. Such extremes aren’t meaningful reference points. Instead, look at rate of return over longer timeframes. (It's not mentioned in this book, but given that the long-trend of markets has been upward, buying low is a better and generally safer strategy than trying to sell high. And of course, things will usually look bleak - 'blood in the streets' - when markets reach lows.)
12. If an investment option looks too good to be true, it probably is. Scrutinize such options intensively.
13. Investing should be done dispassionately, rather than approached as an entertaining game. This will generally lead to better decisions. If you sense that you’re about to make an impulsive decision, sleep on the decision for one or more nights before deciding.
14. Take responsibility for all of your investment decisions, rather than selectively taking credit for gains and blaming others or situations for losses.
15. Don’t be penny wise and pound foolish in making financial decisions. Maintain perspective on what really matters by considering absolute dollar amounts, and prioritize your time accordingly.
Richards displays a true understanding of human nature with his words, but also with his disarmingly simple sketches that portray powerful truths about people's behavior around money. You will recognize yourself in many of them. With amazing insight into how our brains work, he uses real-life stories and humor to show how we are our own worst enemies when it comes to money management. He also offers up great advice on how to make better money decisions.
Some of my favorite "behavior gap" insights include:
* Investments don't make mistakes. Investors do.
* Figure out which emotion is the bigger issue for you--fear or greed--and invest accordingly. You can't have it both ways.
* Planning for your financial future is a balancing act rather than a single-minded pursuit of the highest return.
* There is no such thing as the best investment.
* Planning for your financial future is personal. A good plan will be unique to your situation.
* No one knows what the future holds.
* Our real task is getting to know ourselves and our goals, making choices aligned with those goals, and adapting to the surprises that are bound to come along.
* Financial decisions are almost always life decisions. Before you decide on your financial goals, you need to choose your life goals.
* Focus on your personal economy and stop worrying about the global one.
* Our deepest instincts will tell us that money doesn't mean anything, it's simply a tool to each our goals.
Two thoughts kept running through my head as I read Carl's book: "I wish I had written this" and "All of my clients need to read this." Even if you don't have time to read the book, flip through and take in all the sketches. They tell the story of our behavior gap just as well and may just motivate you to stop doing dumb things with your money!
Just handling greed and fear, which drive the majority of stock trades.
I didn't find this book overly useful - I would say there are a handful of much more useful books out there.
I also don't like how the author recommends hiring a Financial Advisor, which is not very necessary if you do your due diligence and research... Read the below books and you will get the majority of what you need...
JL Collins - Simple Plan to Wealth (Definitely read this one!)
Beth Kobliner - Get a Financial Life
Erin Lowry - Broke Millenial
Ramit Sethi - I will teach you to be rich
Top reviews from other countries
One of the best books I've ever read on the subject.