portfolioafterlife
too fast for love
A truth that applies to almost every field is that it’s possible to try too hard, and when doing so you can get worse results than those who knew less, cared less, and put in less effort than you did.
There can be a difference between knowing what’s right and making a living delivering what you know to be right.
This may be most common in investing, law, and medicine, when “do nothing” is the best answer, but “do something” is the career incentive.
Triste ma vero:A doctor once told me the biggest thing they don’t teach in medical school is the difference between medicine and being a doctor – medicine is a biological science, while being a doctor is often a social skill of managing expectations, understanding the insurance system, communicating effectively, and so on.
The gap between the two, which applies to many fields beyond medicine, can lead to mistakes only experts can make, or only an expert can advise.
“Half of the 15,000 mutual funds in the US are run by portfolio managers who do not invest a single dollar of their own money in their products,” the FT writes.
Trying Too Hard
Thomas McCrae was a young 19th Century doctor still unsure of his skills.