Daniel Crosby, The Laws of Wealth:Psychology and the Secret to Investing Success

[Fudge102]

I took a glance at the Art of Manliness podcast this morning and saw a new posting up discussing finances.  Link below to the overview and episode below, but I was curious if anyone else listened in and what their thoughts were.  There were some portions I agreed with about general investing, financial advisors, etc.  Many things I wish I knew back in the day before I gave away money in the forms of fees and insurance to people who sounded like they were in my best interest.  But now after the gf and reading this forum, I've seen things in a much better light.  But there were still some areas I'm suspect to.  He does say that it's okay to go outside the typical index fund route and even discusses some of the newer companies that MMM has experimented with such as Betterment.  I'm curious what others think on the episode, book, or author.

http://www.artofmanliness.com/2016/08/02/podcast-222-the-laws-of-wealth/

[clarkfan1979]

The background of the author is in Counseling Psychology and it sounds like he didn't finish. When talking about behavior applied to decision making it's mostly going to be within Social Psychology. As a result, it seems as though the author has an advanced level of undergraduate Psychology applied to investing. I find this area to be very fascinating because I have Ph.D. in Social Psychology.

The discussion about self-esteem is supported by research. However, I don't understand how is applies to investing. There are much better applications elsewhere.

In the show notes there is a link for the intelligent investor. IMO, I think that book is better. It's applied to securities, but you could apply the principles to anything.

[clarkfan1979]

I just finished listening to the entire 33 minutes podcast, while cutting my hair. Overall, it was pretty disappointing. It was all over the place, vague and not well connected to research. Surprisingly, the next episode (#221) was an interview with a prof from Florida State on the topic of expertise. The general idea is that expertise is achieved with practice and not genetics. The interview goes into depth on one concept that is explained well and well connected to research. The prof talks about actual studies and the most important result from each study. 

[danielcrosby]

Hey all - Daniel Crosby here and wanted to respond to a few things.

1. I did finish my PhD. I mentioned becoming burned out/disillusioned with clinical psychology but pushed through and finished. I have spent my career in finance, however.

2. Brett had significant trouble with his technology and had to call me back weeks later to try and "patch" the various parts of the interview that had been erased/omitted because of the glitches. The effect is that the interview is disjointed and repetitive at times, in major part because I could not remember what I had said before or what had been asked/answered previously. While part of the redundancy owes to technology, it's certainly possible that part of what you found unappealing is human error as well :)

3. The self-esteem research mentioned was part of a book called "You're Not That Great" which has nothing to do with finance. My new book, The Laws of Wealth draws on psychological constructs more germane to the topic.

4. I think someone mentioned The Intelligent Investor as a must read and that someone was correct. Highly recommended.

Apologies for the subpar interview. No one was more disappointed than me that it came out flawed as the AOM is obviously a great platform for me.

[TomTX]

Daniel - thank you for coming to visit and give more background.

Is there anything you would like to elaborate upon?

[Fudge102]

Wow, we have the author himself!  Daniel, thanks for stopping by and letting us know about some of the issues!

[HAPPYINAZ]

Daniel also did a podcast with Radical Personal Finance.  I listened to that one the other day while driving to a meeting.  I thought it was good.  Maybe it's less disjointed that the other podcast? 

here is the link:
https://radicalpersonalfinance.com/364-2/