Curiosity - The Weekly Dose of Wisdom
Weekly dose of learning
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1.
Making sensible decisions
We should not be aiming to be the perfect decision maker nor someone who rarely ever makes a decision. Instead, our focus needs to be on avoiding major, consequential mistakes.
All most investors really need to do is make some reasonable decisions over time and they will be just fine.
There is no ideal set of choices that we can make (except with the benefit of hindsight), and striving for incredible outcomes is often the cause of our worst decisions.
After the fact there will always be better choices we could have made. We will also always make decisions that have disappointing results. That is inevitable and perfectly acceptable. These really won’t matter that much – it is the big mistakes that will count.
And what do these major mistakes look like? Not investing at all, selling equities near the trough of a market decline, abandoning investment principles to participate in a mania or bubble, constantly switching between assets or funds as performance waxes and wanes, becoming concentrated in a particular fad, theme or trend, I could go on…
While these are different types of mistake they are all driven by our behaviour and all have the potential to incur significant costs that compound over time.
2.
Don’t miss the territory for the map
Cognitive science tells us that human beings are wired for shortcuts. Our brains look for patterns. We favor narratives that simplify. We anchor to the first frame presented to us. Being buggy through simplification is a very human feature - one that has helped us survive as cavemen.
Models, frameworks, and labels help reduce cognitive load. But they also make it easy to stop asking questions. To stop seeing the ground for what it is.
It’s not that we’re lazy. It’s that our tools work so well - until they don’t.
The solution isn’t to abandon maps, but to keep checking the territory. Here’s how:
Question your models: Treat every model as a guide, not gospel. Ask: What could this be missing?
Use multiple perspectives: Look at the problem from different angles - customer experience, market dynamics, direct observation.
Get hands-on: Don’t just read reports - visit the site, use the product, talk to real users. Talk to people who are on the ground.
Watch your words: Be mindful of labels and categories. Words are heavy. They shape your expectations or decisions in unintended ways.
Trust, but verify: Use the map, but check reality often. When in doubt, believe what you see, not just what the model says.
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Thought of the Week
“Many people take no care of their money till they have come nearly to the end of it, and others do just the same with their time.” - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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