You're listening to TIP.
In today's episode, I'm joined by my recurring guest and close friend, David Fagan, for a conversation about indexing and the uncomfortable truth most investors never hear.
We talk about why indexing works for the vast majority of people and how missing just a few percentage points in annual returns can quietly cost you years of your life.
We also discuss what investors should really look for, with evaluating track records, benchmarks and the value provided by financial advisors, and sometimes the lack thereof.
In this episode, as you'll also hear, we cover asset allocation, rebalancing and what it really means to be the overseer of your investments, even when you trust someone else to manage them.
And finally, the conversation goes beyond investing into expectations, behavior, and leadership.
We discuss how simplicity and consistency compound over time, both in markets and in life.
All opinions expressed by hosts and guests are solely their own and they may have investments in the securities discussed.
Now for your host, Stig Brodersen.
You're listening to The Investor's Podcast.
I'm your host, Stig Brodersen, and I am here today with my friend, David Fagan.
David, how are you today?
I'm doing great, Stig.
Thank you very much for the invite.
I'm really looking forward to this.
Well, David, thank you for making time.
And let's just jump right into the first topic here today.
We're going to talk about why we should index.
So with that very cold start, I'm just going to throw it over to you, David.
No, that's lovely.
Yeah, I wanted to talk about indexing and how I use that with our family's wealth and do a bit of a deep dive of the thinking behind it.
I know many of the listeners come here for value, investing concentrated portfolios and understanding individual businesses.
So this episode might not be directly for you, but it might be for someone that you're connected to.
I've shared my indexing memo titled Compounding Simplicity with more than a few of our mastermind community members.
And it's something that they've passed along to their friends, their family members and anyone just starting out who needs a reliable framework to start building wealth.
So today I want to encourage you to listen, to see if this resonates with you or anyone that you're connected with like a friend or family member, to set them up on a strategy that will teach them about the market.
Or the person who doesn't really want to pick stocks at all and just wants a simple plan that works.
Sometimes there's accounts that are just too small to start out to do anything else in them.
I mean, in Canada, we have what's called a tax-free savings account.
And once you turn 18, you can put up to a maximum of $7,000 in it.
And this is a prime example of something that you can do in an account like this.
Starting out is indexing.
And for a lot of people.
Maybe you have a small allocation of your investments in index funds as well and want to learn a bit more about it.
So to jump right in Stig when someone like Warren Buffett says in his 2013 shareholder letter My advice to my trustees of my state could not be more simple.
Put 10% of cash in short-term government bonds and 90% in a very low-cost index like the S&P 500.
I think that really deserves our attention.
I mean, what is he really saying and telling the world when he says, use index funds?
And Stig.
This conversation is worth having because indexing is one of the very few investment strategies that works for almost everyone, regardless of experience and financial background.
So I guess, before we go a bit deeper, let's just back up and do a quick overview of what an index is.
I mean, there's countless resources out there on what it is, so I'll keep this really simple.
I mean an index fund or an ETF.
It's just a basket of hundreds of companies packed into one low-cost investment.
So, instead of trying to pick winners and outsmart the market, index funds track the entire market and you own all the companies in that chosen index, such as the SP 500 or, in Canada, the TSX.
And as those businesses grow innovate and earn profits, the value of the basket rises with them.
And so you're not just betting on any one company, you're actually buying the entire market.
To share a couple of fun facts about the industry.
I mean, even though there's roughly 50 of assets are now classified as passive, only about 23 are held in true index funds in the US market.
And in Canada and Europe, it's around 12% and 13%.
Index funds account for only 1% of the trading volume in the US.
So even though they own a quarter of the market, they're hardly trading.
And I feel like that means active investors are still overwhelmingly driving price discovery.
Only 17% of individual stocks beat the market over the last decade.
And, as the Bessem Binder Research Report shows, that only 4 of the stocks created all the net worth in the market, going all the way back to 1930.
It's a remarkable study for those that are not familiar with it.
So a tiny number of superstar companies drive all the gains.
And one of the reliable ways that you can ensure that you own those winners is to buy index funds.
And lastly, it's hard even for the pros to beat the market after fees and expenses.
So in the US, roughly 90% of large cap managers underperform the S&P 500.
And in the last 15 years, in Canada, it's even more dramatic.
98% of the Canadian equity managers failed to beat the S&P TSX index.
And just as an FYI, I grabbed those scorecards from S&P Global using their SPIVA reports.
That's on their website.
And Stig.
From my own anecdotal evidence as an accountant, preparing corporate tax returns and reviewing client portfolios for more than two decades, I can count on one hand how many times I've seen long-term capital returns be the simple blend of the TSX and the SP.
And this is even after fees and allocating some, taking into account some fixed income allocations.
The compounding just isn't there for a lot of people.
So yes, Everyone wants to be Warren Buffett and compound at 20 for decades, but very few people live in that reality.
And a lot of us are playing a different game.
I mean, I think of investing for myself in three silos real estate, public equity and private equity in Canadian small businesses.
And early in my career, I was very passive with my public investments.
My focus was on saving money, minimizing taxes, and building wealth through entrepreneurship.
And my wife and I, we have eight accounts, four registered and four unregistered.
And of course, in Canada and many other places, there's RRSPs and TFSAs.
And so it doesn't take a whole lot to have a whole bunch of different accounts.
We index six of those eight accounts.
And because most of our wealth has come from entrepreneurship, I don't need to chase home runs or swing for a 20 CAGR in the public markets.
My priority is just really staying financially independent, protecting what we've built, and indexing fits that reality for us.
I mean, I do have the other two accounts that I spend a fair amount of time on and that's where I run a concentrated portfolio.
That's where I've personally chosen to challenge myself intellectually and do studying of different companies.
But indexing is the core that gets us to where we need to go.
And those accounts are indexed to maintain our financial independence.
I mean, I often think of what Howard Marks talks about, about longevity and wealth creation, and that superior investment returns isn't about ranking in the top 5 in any given year.
It's about consistency.
And steady returns over long periods of times.
I mean he just told the story to William in their most recent podcast that early in his career he was reviewing investment returns for different funds and he saw a pension fund that never ranked above the 27th percentile, or that same pension fund didn't rank below the 47th percentile.
Yet after 14 years, guess what?
They were in the 4% overall on the ranking.
And that's a remarkable observation early in his career.
That has stayed with him for 40 years, which is another remarkable piece to that story.
I mean, the message is simple.
Avoid big losses and let consistency win.
And for me, indexing is exactly that.
Average market returns, but for a very long time.
And I guess, just to kind of finish a little bit on my early thinking of this, just to kind of zoom out and look at the macro reasons why I index and the rationale for that,
In line with the Bessem Binder's research report.
It's nice to know that you're owning all the winners, because the winners drive most of the returns.
It's good to apply Occam's razor when you can and understand that simplicity beats complexity, and That's a whole other tangent that we could go on in terms of what that means, because that can go into many different aspects of your life.
Then there's the time paradox too.
I mean, both time in the market and time that you save in your life.
I mean, I spend a fair amount of time and I know you do too, Stig, on a concentrated portfolio.
But the reality for so many people is that they are not going to read investor presentations and 10Ks.
And so you have to understand that there's a big commitment to time if you really want to get concentrated portfolio investing right.
At least I think you should be dedicating a significant amount of time to it.
Capitalism is very competitive.
The other thing about indexing is the tax side and tax minimization.
Studies have shown that portfolio turnover alone can cost up to 2% of gross returns every year.
There's lots of research reports that are out there that support that.
So a 12% pre-tax return can quickly become 9% after turnover and fees and the taxes.
And maybe the last thing about indexing is just fewer unforced errors or, as Munger would say, just being less stupid.
So you know Most people aren't going to have a 40 year relationship with any single fund manager anyways.
You know, often people switch brokers and they trigger a ton of changes when that happens.
So their taxes are significant in their portfolios and you're going to introduce grinds on your returns at some point.
So indexing is for a very long time.
It's going to shield you from making decisions 20 years down the road and switching and getting in and out of investments.
It can also save you from a lot of the behavioral biases that so many people have in terms of herd mentality and FOMO and trying to time the market, all of that stuff.
It helps you ignore noise and focus on what can actually have a profound impact on your wealth.
Savings, discipline, tax efficiency, and just simply good behavior in the markets.
Let's take a quick break and hear from today's sponsors.
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So David, let me just try to play devil's advocate here just because I can't help myself.
Some people, they hear about this 4% business binder stat.
And what they think is oh, we should index because it's so hard to find and hold on to those superstar stocks.
And then the others who think well, if 4 creates all the return, we better go out there and find those 4 stocks.
Stig Brodersen.
With that being said though, I'll be the first to say that 99 of people should index.
And I'm not saying 99 of the people listening to the show.
I do know that there is a certain selection bias of the people who follow our show and their interest in the stock market.
But I would say that 99 of people want to compact their wealth and probably who doesn't want to spend the time on it and doesn't have the temperament to pick individual stocks.
Stig Brodersen And I can just say it's been quite an eye-opener, for me at least, to look at some of the track records of the investors that we had all here on the past and on the show.
And when Preston and I started back in the day, we felt everyone in the space were way smarter than us.
And I think that was probably because it was true.
They're way smarter than us, and perhaps they're still smarter than us today.
But one of the things that we did I know it took us way too long to get to that was we started to look at people's track records.
And we were like hey, you say really smart things and then you study Buffett and Munger.
You're like okay, it's one thing what people say, it's another thing what people do.
And the best way, the strongest signal you can find would be an audited track record where you benchmark towards a reputable benchmark such as the SP 500.
Stig Brodersen.
It really goes to your point before David, about how few investors who actually do that.
And the point is not to name any names.
If you follow someone and you really have a lot of faith in what they do, I think that's great.
I would also encourage you to check out their track record.
And if you can't find the track record, It might be because they're too embarrassed that they are beating all of us and they're the next Warren Buffett and they don't want to tell anyone.
But also it's the same people who are out there in the public space all the time telling you about investing.
And so there is certainly a selection bias.
And we're talking about.
Some of them are billionaires and they're great at storytelling, but perhaps less so at picking stocks.
Stig Brodersen Also, and this was a shock to me.
The name escapes me, but I read a book about this concept a long time ago, and it was about whenever you see a fund that's performed really, really well.
Then the author went back and he looked at how many funds that were started by the same person.
And he was like hey, just by pure math, some of those funds, if they're concentrated enough, are going to show really good returns.
And then the trick is that you just close down the funds that are not performing.
And we see that quite often, to be frank.
But you sort of have to know to think about it like that.
We're like yeah, but again, if they set up 100 fund and there are only two remaining, there could also be that element.
And so I'll sound exciting, but that is what most people should do.
And I don't want this to sound like I'm badmouthing asset managers who are not being the index.
It is incredible difficult to do.
And I also think that, if you do it for the right reasons, managing people's money is one of the most admirable jobs that you can have.
But I would rather encourage you to take a step back and ask yourself why you manage money the way that you do So.
For example, if you invest with an asset manager and they tell you their job is to beat the market well, great and the best of luck.
But then again, make sure that they actually do beat the market.
And it's not like some kind of random benchmark.
They chose which I also see all the time that it's almost impossible not to beat that or they continue to change the benchmark and the benchmark is going lower and lower.
That's probably not what you want to see, but a reputable benchmark, let's say at the S&P 500.
And so that's one thing to look at.
You probably also want to look at not just the past five years, not just at a period of time where everything has gone up, But at least a decade, preferably two, and make sure that you have some really painful bear markets in that track or two, and see how they reacted.
And so I can't help to encourage you to study that.
And, of course, if the asset manager is then saying no, they haven't been beating the market, but now they've figured out how to do it and they just need your money to do it.
Make sure to be careful.
And also, and I'm sorry, I kind of feel I become a bit nerdy here about this.
And that's just because I attract so many different investors, probably to my own detriment.
And I've seen so many... benchmarks being used, probably also a benchmark that are not reputable.
And I can see a point where you say look, I'm a micro cap investor and I only invest in frontier markets.
Yeah, perhaps there's a good case why you won't be using the S&P 500.
But I think at the same time you can also say people listening to the show, they have access to the biggest benchmarks typically and they can invest in the ETFs tracking those benchmarks relatively quickly.
So I don't know.
I just think that to your point, David, you can do yourself a service of comparing apples to apples.
And I know you have a really good story to this here later about a woman who wants to retire.
Just when I read that, I was like that is exactly why I keep on beating this thing here about the index and what are you really measuring?
But anyways, I know we'll get to that later here in the episode.
And again some of you out there.
You might have been following your show for a long time and you tried to log in the stock market and you thoroughly enjoy it and you don't beat the market.
Is there anything wrong with that?
No.
I think that's perfectly fine.
I just think you should know why you're doing it and the upside and the downside of whatever kind of approach.
And I think as long as you do that, you can not beat the market as much as you want.
But really, one of the things that I also want to talk about is that whenever you, for example David, are talking about the stock market, I think whenever we hear the stock market, we think differently about it.
I think some of the listeners are thinking, oh, that's a dangerous place to be.
Let's hold cash.
Cash is less risky.
And I'd say that that's probably cash is the surest way to lose your money because of inflation.
And I know I'm sort of going in all kinds of direction here, but I'll be the first to say, perhaps the CPI number, which is what 27 whatever, that's probably not the real inflation.
And you could just look at the groceries you're buying or what's happening to your college tuition, whatever.
It's probably not 2.7%.
And so really a big reason why you might want to invest in the stock market and why it's not risky is actually because the biggest risk is not to be able to retain your purchasing power.
Stig Brodersen.
So the last thing I just wanted to say here, before I throw it over to you David, is that perhaps the listeners want to know if I invest in index funds.
I have around 15 at the time of recording in passive indexes and then, closer to probably add another seven-ish percent with you include my position in Berkshire, which It's an individual stock and I think a lot of people out there would say it's sort of like a superpower ETF.
Point taken.
So that's sort of like where I am.
I published my own track record of my own portfolio, and I'll make sure to link to that.
So please take it for what it is.
But I think if you are a yo-yo like me who think they can beat the market, I think it's also perfectly fine.
You see what kind of thought process, what kind of positions, and for you to be able to track that.
So with that said, let me throw it back over to you, David.
I think taking a step back and asking yourself why you invest is a great question.
I had a wonderful lunch with one of our mastermind community members over the Christmas break.
And one of the things we talked about was how our investment style really needs to match our temperament.
And his point went a step further not just how we invest, but generally how we make decisions and how we operate in other areas of our life as well.
And that leads me to thinking about indexing from the perspective of entrepreneurship as well.
We talk about risk and returns often.
And since I run a business where I'm trying to make a 20 to 25 rate of return, when I look at my overall strategy across all three silos of private and public equities and real estate, as much as I want to make the largest returns I can in public securities, I am playing a slightly different game.
And I think it's wise to acknowledge the risk that I'm already taking in the other silos when I put my public market investments and decisions in a broader context.
I mean, entrepreneurship can be fragile.
My business partner, James Allen and I, we often talk about the risk that could take our firm out of business.
Yes, we want to generate high IRRs and These are extreme scenarios and that it could be highly unlikely.
But the government of Canada could say there's zero tax for small businesses in Canada.
That's not completely outlandish.
There's risk in that.
We have key person risk.
We could have a cybersecurity attack and just the plain randomness of the things that can happen when you run your own business.
And you know what it's like when you build a business Stig.
You realize how fragile things can be and how many variables you don't control.
And that's where indexing can fit in so well for entrepreneurs.
I mean, it gives you a foundation that isn't as fragile.
And what I mean by that is, if you believe that the stock market will be a decent asset class for returns over the next 40 years, this strategy can work right.
I mean, invest systematically, dollar cost average, buy the entire market, don't use leverage.
I mean, that should be a durable strategy.
Robert Leonard you know, you want reliability.
You want something that compounds quietly in the background while you're focusing on the business that demands your energy.
I mean for the vast majority of people who don't want to read 10 Ks and study public companies.
I absolutely believe that indexing is the right approach for them.
I mean, Most entrepreneurs don't need an investment portfolio that adds more stress to their lives.
I mean I'm sure the business is already using up a lot of bandwidth their private business that they're running.
So you don't need another arena where you're constantly making decisions and second-guessing yourself and possibly adding more emotional weight.
I mean, you actually need the opposite something that reduces noise and frees up attention, and something that's just going to build wealth without requiring as much mental energy.
And for so many people, indexing can act like the shock absorber to part of their wealth creation plan.
It just lets the business owner worry about their business and not their portfolio.
And On that same theme of entrepreneurs for many, their businesses is all the concentration they really need in life, and their portfolio should give them breathing room.
And if you're fortunate enough to generate even a 15 to 20 net return on your private business, your portfolio probably doesn't need to.
That's the reality of it.
I mean, as an entrepreneur, you don't have to feel the pressure to beat the market.
You just need to understand that your portfolio has a different job to do to protect your wealth that you've created in entrepreneurship and compound it in another asset class.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, it makes a lot of sense, David.
And it reminds me I was speaking with a business owner the other day and he actually told me that he was frustrated with index investing, even though he understood why you should do it, but he felt like he didn't get the reward that he got in his private business, where if he worked harder, he would make more money.
And so he was said like tongue in cheek, so take it for what it is.
But he was like, if I could get 8 working really really hard or 8 not working at all investing, I would probably just work really really hard to get that 8.
And he said to me he knew it didn't really make any sense, but he felt it was so counterintuitive just to buy and hold and really just set it and forget it.
And I think from one business owner to another, we're wired a certain way to do the hustle.
And that's what you were, quote unquote, supposed to do, sometimes to your own detriment, I guess.
Stig Brodersen Once you start viewing investing through downside risk.
I mean, the next logical question is okay, if I believe that indexing is going to work, how can I actually implement it?
And I guess I want to talk to the listeners and for those that are learning a little bit from this episode about indexing, just how I do it and if they can take some education from that.
I mean in terms of implementation.
I follow Warren Buffett's recommendation to his estate almost exactly.
90% of each of the portfolios that we have are in low-cost index funds, and 10% is in fixed income.
And that small 10 of fixed income allocation.
It isn't for returns, it's actually to stabilize behavior during market cycles.
I rebalance once a year, and my rule for rebalancing couldn't be simpler.
If fixed income falls to 5%, I trim equities.
And if fixed income rises to 15%, I buy more.
And this forces the behavior that every investor knows they should follow, but really struggles to execute sell high and buy low.
And what I'm trying to do is remove the noise and keep myself disciplined around that.
And maybe the last point that I want to make on why I index comes down to my own wiring stick.
I mean, there's the emotional.
2008, vividly.
I was in my late 20s, and I didn't have much invested in today's comparison as I did back then.
But I can remember thinking that if things get any worse in the public market, society as a whole would be busted and we'd have to reinvent how we lived.
I mean, people were talking about building bunkers and food security during that time.
You want to talk about maximum fear and pessimism?
I mean, it was a crazy nine-month stretch, the heart of the nine-month stretch, between August 2008 and March 2009.
But through that period the feeling that I had that I was losing with everyone else because I was indexing, was oddly reassuring.
I mean, I had a sense of alignment during that period.
I mean, I rose with the market.
I fell with the market.
And again, being down with the market was oddly comforting.
I know everyone is wired their own way, but for me, it made a lot of sense.
And I often come back to Nassim Taleb's example of the dentist next door when it comes to indexing.
Go to work, live below your means, structure your life in a way that you can save 100000 a year for 35 years, hopefully earn an 8 to 9 rate of return and retire extremely wealthy.
And as some would say, Stig, it's just that simple and just that hard.
So why do I index?
It's funny, but to your point, indexing in some circles can just be looked down upon and some would say that it just lacks brilliance.
But can't simplicity also be the ultimate form of sophistication?
I mean, we've heard that so many times and I'm rooted in indexing for this reason.
There's a good chance that over the next four decades, I think that the consistency of whole Yeah, I'll be the first to say that picking stocks is just such a competitive game.
It probably doesn't seem like it.
It's kind of like if you're watching sports, you can sort of look at the pits and you're like oh, that looks hard.
I probably couldn't do that.
Or perhaps you're sitting there in your couch drinking beer and like, of course I could do that.
But you probably are thinking, yeah, that looks tough.
Whenever it comes to stock investing, it looks relatively easy because you could be sitting on your phone in your couch buying this stock or that stock.
But as a business owner, you really know how brutal capitalism is.
And perhaps you don't want to start competing in stock, investing in a game with less time and fewer skills than your competitors.
Very few people can do that.
It's like bringing a knife to a gunfight.
And strongly consider why you don't index and if it's for the right reason.
And of course, the right reasons are quite subjective too.
I think personally a small part of my portfolio.
Even if I couldn't beat the market, I think that would always be active.
It's just because I enjoy it so much.
For me, it's like a pure form of intellectual capitalism to sit there and pick stocks.
And I can easily understand if that's not how most people want to spend their life.
But really, if you agree with your point David, about the primary goal of your portfolio is to protect your family's wealth, rather than quote unquote, have fun, then indexing is probably for you.
And indexing using a dollar cost averaging strategy is much more powerful than what it seems.
It's like riding a tailwind, really.
I mean, sometimes, yes, the wind is blowing stronger than other times, but it's always there.
And you automatically recycle the worst companies out of the index and then you include better companies in the index, such as the SP 500.
And also because you compete so much against so many biases whenever you pick individual stocks.
Stig Brodersen One of them is anchoring.
That's one of my favorites because I'm so susceptible to it myself.
And it's so easy to think that the retail price of what you bought a stock at call it a hundred bucks, that is some kind of cosmic average.
And then you see the stock price slide and you continue to average down because it looks cheaper and cheaper.
But actually what happens is that you're probably doubling down on a folding knife.
That's probably really what's happening.
Stig Brodersen, And so unless you're wired the right way for the actual strategy, individual stocks are probably not for you.
And really to the point you had before there, David.
Think about if you do run your own business or you work in a corporation.
Think about how many things you cannot control.
Of course, you can control even fewer things if you're a public investor.
But even in your position, or in my position, where you run your own company, you're supposed to be income podcasting.
Podcasting used to be listened to on iTunes, and some of the younger listeners are sitting out there and like what's iTunes.
Back in the day you listened to podcasts and it was only audio.
No one thought of video and it was two dudes talking about a niche topic fly fishing, whatever.
And today, it's video, it's on YouTube, it's two celebrities shooting the breeze.
Everything is changing, and so we have no control over that.
And again you have even less as a public investor.
But you get that control back from investing in let's call it 500 stocks in the SP 500 or a Vanguard's VT.
It's 10,000.
Essentially, there's no big difference between 500 and 10,000 companies.
But it's a way of as much as it appears like you don't have control, you actually take back some of the control through diversification.
Stig Brodersen Stig Brodersen I really like that you talk there about the great financial crisis.
It seems forever ago today and I think many of the people perhaps listen to the show.
They don't remember how brutal it was.
Some people might think of COVID, but COVID was just so different in so many ways.
But also, especially if you look in the financial markets, that kind of like V-shape and everything just popped up again.
That was not at all what happened during the great financial crisis.
It was very different and it felt very painful in a different way.
And so you really have to figure out how you're wired.
And for better or for worse, I always felt like a bit of an outsider.
So I want to say that I probably never had a problem standing outside the crowd, sometimes to my own detriment.
And that's probably also why value investing resonates so well with me.
But more often than not, there's a reason why the crowd do certain things, and you probably want to follow the crowd.
And getting market returns is kind of wonderful because you'll become wealthy if you're patient.
You live within your means.
And because humans are humans, for the vast majority of us, it's actually quite good for our stress level that we make money when other people make money and we lose money whenever other people lose money.
I know that's not supposed to be that way.
And I know it sounds boring and it sounds like a bit of a defeatist approach, but we're all humans.
Stig Brodersen.
And so no, you won't be thought of as the next Warren Buffett if you index, but perhaps you can optimize for other things in your life that's more suited for you in the first place.
And I would probably make a somewhat bold statement that 99 of people should be happy with that lower stress level and the market returns that would follow.
Yeah, absolutely.
To a lot of the things that we've already talked about.
I want to transition a little bit to overseeing your investment results.
It's an angle that we have to pay attention to and oftentimes goes completely unnoticed.
You talked about this earlier.
It's the idea that you should be overseeing your results when you've outsourced the management of your investments.
And to a lot of listeners it's going to be hard to believe that some people don't spend any time understanding how their investments have actually performed relative to their risk profile and the broader markets.
I've spent decades as a chartered professional accountant, helping business owners build stronger financial futures.
And it's something that I've seen over and over again when I talk to clients.
Last year Stig, you talked about your track record and how intentional you are about measuring it and you think about it often.
But for some people, they're simply not interested in following the results and it can be a fault.
It can actually get to the fault stage.
I mean, I don't recommend people check their investments all the time, but you should check them enough to know whether you're on track.
I mean, it'd be similar to playing 18 holes of golf and never keeping score and having no idea whether you're improving or not.
I mean, when I ask people, about their investment returns.
This is a very quantitative questions.
I usually hear one of three things.
It often starts with, I'm not sure, but my advisor is a great friend.
I trust my advisor or my advisor is a really nice person.
And every time I hear that I smile a little bit, because trust is a wonderful thing, but it can be dangerous when it replaces oversight.
I mean, your investment returns, they aren't just numbers, they're your livelihood.
Being the overseer You have a job.
You have to stay aware and ask the right questions and know your numbers just a little bit.
It would be like handing your kids over to someone and never checking on them and asking how they're doing.
It's just something that you probably shouldn't do.
So let me share the story that I shared with you earlier of getting ready for this, about how this reality has shaped my life.
I had one of my longtime clients who started her career later in life.
She was saving $100,000 a year, and she did this for 16 years.
And she sat across from me one day in the boardroom and said David listen, I'm tired and I want to retire.
And I realized something very painful in that moment.
Her investments had averaged about a 5% compounded rate of return for those 16 years.
And she didn't have enough to provide for her family with the lifestyle she wanted to in retirement.
If she had earned just 8, I could have told her in that meeting on that day yes, I think you're ready to retire.
Missing that 3% meant that she had to work another six to seven years.
She did everything right.
Her shortfall wasn't necessarily her fault.
In part, it was mine.
Early on, I didn't pay enough attention to her investment returns.
Later in my career, I avoided the uncomfortable conversation with her broker.
I was only 28 years old when I started working with her.
But I told myself, just stay in your lane.
You're her accountant.
And maybe I should have been doing a more holistic job and acting as the overseer of her entire financial life.
Missing that 3 represented time time she could have spent with her family traveling or, more importantly, in that meeting, retiring after decades of a demanding career.
And that was the real cost of not paying attention to those investment returns.
So Really, for the listeners of this call and for those that share this episode with people that are learning a little bit about investments as well, I'd encourage everyone to understand how their investment results are doing.
And to do this, you just need to set clear goals.
You have to know exactly why you're investing, whether it's for retirement or freedom, or helping your kids or building a legacy.
You've got to review your actual results every six months.
And this is the important part.
You've got to ask yourself what is my return and how does it compare to the market, given my risk profile?
You don't have to know all the technical details, just whether or not your portfolio is doing its job.
You also, you've got to know the fees that you're paying.
I mean if you're paying over 2 in management fees.
Cutting that in half alone can save into hundreds of thousands of dollars over time.
I will caveat that with the I mean if you're paying five or 6 but are getting rates of returns that are doing well, because then that's wonderful.
But you have to know the relationship there.
And when you talk to your advisor, you have to ask direct questions.
You can't settle for vague answers like, you're doing fine.
You should ask, how are my results compared to a balanced index portfolio?
How am I doing?
I mean, this question shouldn't be confrontational.
It's just now you doing your job.
And finally, you just have to stay curious.
You don't need to be an expert.
You just have to stay engaged enough to notice whether your money is compounding the way it should.
And like I like to tell people, when you hire an investment advisor, trust feels good, but the results are your livelihood.
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I love that point, David.
Compounding is such a powerful force.
And it will test your patience in the beginning and then your establishment later.
And again, if you want to work to your point, if you want to work with an advisor, I think that's perfectly fine.
But think about the value they provide and whether or not it's worth it.
So what I would suggest is basically to do this.
Compare your returns with a globally diversified index.
And we talked about Vanguard's VT before.
So the expense ratio is six basis points.
That's 0.06%.
That's very cheap.
I just want to say for the record.
And now you own a small slice of 10,000 of the best companies in the world.
And then compare those, call the six basis points, to what you are paying your financial advisor.
And keep in mind that you also, if you work with a financial advisor, you are paying both expenses.
You are paying the fees to the advisor, and then you're also paying the ETF cost.
And how does those returns stack up to whatever kind of benchmark you're looking at?
And If you have an advisor, that's a little too fancy with picking individual stocks.
That's one way to go.
That could be a concern, especially if you're underperforming the market.
And there's also a bit of a selection bias here.
And I don't know if I forget to offend anyone here.
I kind of feel I've been offending a lot of people.
But also, to some extent, sitting next to were the next Warren Buffett.
Why is that guy sitting in that chair speaking with you about X, Y, Z?
So there was also selection bias there.
So I think it's really up to you to figure out optimizing for taxes.
There could be rebalancing.
There could be a lot of good reasons why you want to work with an advisor.
But if it's a question of you're going to get some kind of generic portfolio allocation, like 60 stocks and 40 bonds or whatever, you can go to YouTube and And what's?
A free video.
And you probably have to go through some painful YouTube ads first if you don't have YouTube premium.
But that's the cost.
And then the time it's sort of like whenever you rephrase that, you're like okay, I'm going to spend an hour of my life.
And then I won't be paying 1% out of a million dollar portfolio.
So okay, that's 10000 for an hour of your time trying to figure out on a free YouTube video how to do it yourself.
You could take your family on vacation for that $10,000 or donate it to charity.
There's no reason to donate it to the financial advisor without Yacht Foundation.
Plenty of people have been contributing to that foundation.
You don't have to do it.
And really, it's a bit like going to fitness.
The more you move, the more you lose.
And unfortunately, that's also typically how it is with many advisors and active money managers.
So you move around a lot just to bring the metaphor back home here.
And then, no, not losing weight, but probably losing some dollars along the way.
And there's this.
This is going to sound so draconian, but there's this saying that if you want a good friend in politics, you should get a dog.
And to David's point before, I'm sure your financial advisor is nice.
That's very often what you hear is like, oh, but Brian is so nice.
Our family has been using Brian for decades.
How can we... I get that.
It's emotional.
It's very, very challenging.
But you're dealing with your financial future and your family depends on you.
And being a nice person and building generic portfolio should not be enough to earn your business.
And the last point I just wanted to drive home here is that no one cares as much about your money as you do.
And just always make sure to remember that.
Stig Brodersen Yeah, there's a lot to unpack here in that one.
But I think I'll start by saying I don't think there's anything wrong with hiring a financial advisor.
And in many cases, it could actually be the best move that you make.
I mean it's like if you have a coach helping you on the behavioral side, making sure that you don't make major mistakes out of fear and emotion.
And I feel like there's a lot of value in that.
And Stig, sometimes it really does pay to outsource.
I mean, you and I have talked about this before.
You're more than capable of filing your own corporate taxes.
I mean, you taught accounting at university, you wrote a book on Warren Buffett's accounting and yet you still choose to hire someone to handle your corporate filings.
That's a conscious decision around time, focus, and behavior.
And we all have to make trade-offs like that.
And when someone just isn't wired to manage their own wealth but is fortunate enough to have it, hiring the right person can make a lot of sense.
And I guess just to transition a little bit here Stig, because we're talking about the behavioral side
I do want to tie in some stuff that I've been talking about around expectations and leadership and knowing when to simplify things that are in your life and how leadership and the role of expectations can play in how people show up.
And there are some parallels with investing in this.
And, As you know Stig, I look at almost everything in my life through the same three lenses investing, business and life.
And of course, life has a big package there in terms of where that can take you.
In a previous podcast, you and I talked about how being a better business person makes you a better investor, and a better investor makes you a better business person.
Those worlds feed on each other.
And you know, recently I've been thinking a lot about leadership through that same lens and specifically how expectations can shape the people around us.
I mean in investing, we expect durable businesses and we expect certain returns.
And we track our performance and then we reassess.
But do we apply that same clarity inside our organizations?
I'm finding that expectations can quietly elevate someone or limit them without even realizing it.
Sometimes a challenge in leadership is that we hold on to old judgments far too long.
We freeze people in time based on where they were instead of who they've now become.
And I mean we can certainly apply the same thought process to a specific investment that we might have, that we still hold on today, but maybe for the wrong reasons.
And early in my career.
I certainly carried a childhood impression of someone well into my 20s that it took me far too long to update my lens on.
And even today, I have to be mindful of catching myself forming impressions too soon and too early.
Those old judgments, they can turn into expectations before we even say a word.
And I find that people can fall or rise to the expectations we hold of them.
And the truth is that people can often feel our expectations long before we even speak them out loud.
You know, we talk about quality in our mastermind community and how there's a frequency to quality.
And I feel like there's a frequency to expectations that often go untalked about and unsaid.
There's a famous study that was done in 1968 by psychologists Robert Rosenthal and Lauren Jacobson called Pygmalion in the Classroom.
And these teachers were told that certain students had exceptional potential.
Nothing about these students changed.
Only the teacher's expectations of those students changed.
Eight months later, those students posted significantly larger IQ gains.
The teachers changed their belief and their tone with those kids and then their encouragement.
And that belief changed the student's performance.
I mean, it is a unbelievably remarkable study, just how changing expectations can change outcomes.
I mean, only if investing were that easy Stig, if we could just be so lucky to expect a 15 rate of return.
And it just happened just like that.
But there is a parallel here.
In investing, discipline can compound returns.
And in leadership, I feel that the right expectations can compound behavior.
And For listeners who don't know who Helen Keller is, she's a wonderful example of how expectations can elevate someone.
I mean, she went blind and deaf at 19 months old and lived in silence for years.
Most people thought that she would never communicate.
Then Ann Sullivan arrived and eventually became her lifelong friend.
I mean, Ann was around 20 years old when they met.
I think Helen was maybe around nine or 10.
And Anne carried one unshakable expectation that Helen could learn.
She treated Helen as capable of learning long before Helen believed it herself.
And as their story unfolds, the moment that Anne spelled water in Helen's hand while running cold water over her other hand, everything changed.
Helen made the connection What she felt in one hand was water and spelt in the others.
And her world opened up after that.
I mean, her learning sped up.
And she went on to graduate from Radcliffe College and publish books and lecture globally.
I mean, it's quite a story for those who aren't familiar with her.
And Helen and Anne's story was an amazing success of expectations and what they can do.
Just know that expectations can go the other way as to, and I'll just share a short story here.
Back when I was in school I knew a couple of students that were getting ready for a Christmas concert that was coming up.
And the two of the kids in this Christmas concert were really struggling with their tone.
And the music teacher, who was completely impatient, moved them to the back row.
And over time, she expected less and less of them.
And then obviously what's going to happen is those students started expecting less of themselves.
I mean, it's not a great story.
I mean, this is just.
And then the final blow was a week before the concert.
She actually asked them to lip sync during it.
I mean, one small sentence and it became a lifetime wound for these kids.
And I am not making this story up.
I mean, this is awful.
And that's the... quiet destruction of negative expectations.
And of course, the comment was just that much worse.
But I said this before, there's a frequency to expectations that we have to respect.
And people can feel them even before we speak them.
And I love this quote from John Wooden.
John Wooden was the legendary UCLA coach who won all those national championships.
And he said it beautifully.
He said, the best leaders are those who expect greatness from others and communicate that expectation with belief and not pressure.
And, you know, when someone believes in us, that belief transfers.
I mean, it changes behavior and ambition and those expectations fuel effort.
Effort drives results.
Results reinforce belief and it becomes a flywheel just like compounding.
And if we can remove some of the noise and bias in investing and we put systems in place and let the investments do their job.
That's the same idea behind the right expectations.
And when we set the right expectations, we can uplift someone and give them direction and start to see them compound their behavior in a positive way.
And expectation can be just a powerful compounding engine for leadership, and We can use them to elevate people or relegate, but the choice is ours.
And Stig, I know you run a small business similar to the size of mine and I'm wondering who in your world might rise if you simply expected more of them.
And does the Rosenthal study resonate with you?
It very much resonated with me.
I had to say that I'd forgotten everything about it until, well, I saw the outline.
We'd sort of like been chatting back and forth and we talked about the study.
And then something from my childhood sort of like popped up, because I remember my mom telling me about it whenever I was a kid.
So I haven't been thinking about it for the longest time.
And some of you might be thinking, that's the weirdest thing for a mother to talk to a kid about.
I don't know if that's what you're thinking.
My mom, she's retired now, but she used to work in early childhood education.
So we probably spoke a bit more about children's psychology around the dinner table compared to the average family.
So anyways, no, it is a study I'm quite familiar with.
And I can't help but say tongue in cheek that I'm a child of the 1980s.
I was born in 1980s.
I was born just before kids were special.
And I know I'm going to sound like a grumpy old man as I'm going to say this you know suckers, or so there's like this.
I'm going to butcher the quote, but it's something along the lines of the children now love luxury.
They have bad manners, contempt for authorities, they disrespect elders and they love chatter in place of exercise.
Children are now tyrants and not servants of the household.
Stig Brodersen, And so I know how ridiculous it's going to sound whenever I'm bashing the younger generation, because all people, such as my, I sometimes wonder about the new generation entering the workforce today, who have been told that they can do anything they want and who have parents who have removed every obstacle in your child's way.
And we tried to fill a position at some point in time here in our company and someone's father applied on behalf of his son.
And needless to say, the son didn't get the job.
But I kind of feel like I'm a bit torn, right?
Because it's super empowering that kids are told, oh, you can do anything.
But in reality, of course, kids are like the rest of us.
They're humans and they have a lot of potential and they have a lot of limitations.
And whenever they start, after graduation and whatnot, they start at the wrong of the ladder.
And I've noticed that a lot of people are completely unprepared for the fact that few, if any, are going to listen to them.
They've taken this very nice education and the study management and they're like I'm going to be the new CEO.
And then they get their own cubicle and no one cares.
And they're on their own and they probably haven't developed the social skills to navigate a workplace with adults.
Stig Brodersen I certainly hadn't after I started management.
Now I came out of school.
But anyways, striking the balance of setting the right expectations and then lift up young people is not easy.
And again, most things are done with the best of intentions.
I know you're kindly asking to the team here and I'm just going to use myself as an example here, but take it for what it is, David.
But I remember I was probably...
I was probably 11 or 12.
That's how I remember it.
But a family friend told me that it was expected that I would win at least one Nobel Prize.
And perhaps it was just said as a joke.
I don't know.
Today, I think that comment did more harm than good.
And I don't know if anyone is familiar with Carol Gregg's growth and fixed mindset, but I think I'd probably, because it spoke to my ego.
I don't know.
But I think that experience perhaps a few others kept me very much in a fixed mindset for the longest time.
Stig Brodersen.
David, to your point.
Whenever you are a business leader, you are a coach for everyone in your organization, especially in a small organization.
Perhaps in large organizations with tens of thousands of employees, you're more indirectly involved in the development of the people, but the first thing you want to learn is how this specific employee is wired and what makes them tick.
And there's this saying that to treat everyone equally, you have to treat them different.
And I kind of think that's very true.
Everyone wants to feel appreciated, but how they feel appreciated can vary.
Some people like to be giving very few guidelines on a major project and then go out into the world and solve it and then hand it back to you.
And then others like constant feedback and make sure they're on the right path.
But then the first group might feel like they're micromanaged if you give the constant feedback, even if that's what you think that they want.
So, as a business leader, you are responsible for helping your team become the best version of yourself.
And of course, I've been on both sides of the table, both as an employer and as an employee.
And as an employee, I've heard my colleagues say complain about their bosses, about a million different things.
But I've never heard an employee ever complain about their employer telling them too often how much they were appreciated.
That's still left to be seen.
And I've since taken that to heart and promised myself that if I ever had something nice to say to someone on the team, I will let them know, because why wouldn't I?
This comes to mind because, as I got this message from you the other day David, I was reading a book about Michelangelo, and it talked about how he was asked by the Pope about the famous David sculpture that you can see in Florence.
And Michelangelo said that David was always there in the marble.
He simply took away everything that was not David.
And I want to make sure that our new host, or newish host, Daniel he's already been with us for a year now.
It's like, that was just the first thing I thought of.
That dude has so much raw talent.
It's unbelievable.
And a part of my job is sort of metaphorically, to see this big block of marble but then find that future masterpiece that's there and help and guide him.
I don't necessarily know if I should do sort of like my annual performance review here live on a podcast.
But it was just like one in real time example of hey, I want to tell Daniel how much he was appreciated.
So I did that the very next morning.
And I sent him a message about how awesome he was.
And I hope he was happy about that message.
And so I guess that's my way of saying that to the employers who are tuning in.
Like, Please never hesitate to tell your team how much they are appreciated.
Most bosses get their employees they deserve, and most employees get the bosses they deserve.
And whenever you think about it like that, you might do a few things differently.
But appreciation takes many shapes and forms, and much has to do with what we are telling ourselves.
Because expectations are a complex thing.
Most people have good intentions, but they can backfire, as we've seen so often.
You can think of the parents who, figuratively and metaphorically, went hungry because they were wealthy and gave their kids everything they ever wanted, because they did not want their kids to experience what they did.
But really what they achieved was that they ruined their kids in the process.
And so...
The way I approach people on my path is to access the current level and help guide them to the next level, whatever that next level is.
And I typically would encourage also listeners here to extend trust and providing loved ones with those resources that they need.
And then together with them, for example, Let's say that this is a team you're working with.
We define goals, but then also make sure to get out of the way and then observe what happens whenever they do their magic.
And of course, the world isn't always that kind.
Some ships will find a harbor and others won't, but your team will always grow in the process.
And finally, I want to mention that you, as a boss, might be the best person to see the potential in your team, but you might also be the worst, because you might have these preconceived notions of what they can and can't do.
Which goes back to your original point David, about you have to update your lens all the time.
Yeah.
I mean, expectations, they can be complex.
I mean, this is a wonderful conversation.
And maybe sometimes they can have unintentional consequences.
I mean, sometimes if we set the bar too high, people don't rise to them.
They might freeze.
They might stop taking risks because they're afraid of letting you down.
I mean, I think of this a lot as a parent.
And there's such a fine line between setting expectations that can motivate your kids and pushing them so hard that they burn out or feel like they can never quite measure up.
And you've just shared some personal stories on that.
I mean...
Often in sports, the kids who last late into their teens and go beyond maybe high school and play at the next level, at college and whatnot.
Sometimes I've noticed that those are the kids that come from parents who didn't push their kids too hard.
Yes, there's the Tiger Woods and Serena Williams parents of the world, but there's more that I've seen in my life where the kids who get to the next level they're ones that didn't have too much expectations put onto them.
It's complicated.
And I think we'll just stop talking about parenting now.
We can tackle that on another episode.
But to your point about getting the boss and the employees you deserve.
The older I get, the more I appreciate culture inside an organization.
It's incredibly important and often underestimated.
I mean, I wish there was a screen for public companies on culture.
Like, what is your culture like?
And there was a box you can tick and get some information that way.
I mean, maybe I'll just have to step up my scuttlebutt game, Stig.
I don't know.
But in terms of culture...
To your point that you talked about, I mean, it's amazing how far simple things go.
A thank you and recognizing someone for their efforts.
I mean, those small signals can compound over time.
I cannot think of a better way to end this episode, David, than with those words.
This is lovely.
Thank you so much.
Just want to give a small shout out to some of the TIP community members that we have and we're able to connect with and just thank Kyle and Clay for all their hard work in the community.
It's lovely.
Thanks for listening to TIP.
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