Why are investors better at buying stocks than they are at selling? This question and more were on my mind while reading Michael Lewisโ€™ new book The Undoing Project. At the heart of it, the book is a love story (platonic) between two men, Israeli psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, and their incredible work on how the mind alters our perception of reality. I wonโ€™t tell you more than that. But if youโ€™ve read Moneyball by Lewis, you know the mind can play tricks on you. Reality isnโ€™t an obvious thing. This book, as a continuation of the thinking in Moneyball, is about why it plays those tricks.

The takeaway for me from The Undoing Project is that I have spent hours upon hours actually speaking and working with investors in real life, not through questionnaires or studies. If conversations were class credits, Iโ€™d have a PhD. One of the most valuable gifts Iโ€™m able to give my clients is to make non-emotional decisions about their money. Being non-emotional doesnโ€™t mean I donโ€™t care about them. Each one of them knows I care. But I can do what they canโ€™t doโ€”look at their situation from a distance and act accordingly. Itโ€™s my job to help them see reality. And to use that clarity to make them much better investors.

 

 

Michael Lewis with Malcolm Gladwell: The Undoing Project