A former financial adviser, Carl now works with other advisers on managing their clients’ behaviour.
Carl is well known for his sketches, and one of his most popular is one that helps clients to focus on what really matters.
“If it does not matter, why are you worried about it? And if you cannot control it, why are you worried about it?”
If we can get the intersection of things that both matter and things we can control, then that is really where we should focus because that will make a difference.
Focusing on this intersection of what matters and what you can control is useful in life generally and not just when it comes to investing. It can save you a great deal of time and unnecessary worry.
The good news with investing and about wealth management in general, is if you were to make a list of all the things that mattered, most of the things we have control over.
Asset allocation, our behaviour, when we retire… There is a whole long list of things we have control over.
There is one noticeable thing that matters a lot that we have no control over and that’s our return.
In other words, the markets.
We spend 80% of our time talking and worrying about the one thing and Carl is suggesting that we should flip that a little bit.
“It does not mean ignore that thing, I am just saying why don’t we spend a little bit more time talking about the things that we do have control over that also matter?”
