PIC No. 79:
• Title: Experiencing The American Dream: How to Invest Your Time, Energy, and Money to Create an Extraordinary Life
• Author: Mark Matson
• Publisher: Wiley (Aug. 27, 2024, 400 pages)
• Management Bucket #15 of 20: The Budget Bucket
Welcome to Issue No. 79 of PAILS IN COMPARISON, the value-added sidekick of John Pearson’s Buckets Blog. This blog features my “PICs”—shorter reviews of helpful books—with comparisons to other books in my 20 management buckets (core competencies) filing system.
“The only secret is there is no secret.”
Raise your hand if...you’re retired or looking forward to retirement.
Raise your hand if...to prepare for retirement, you’ve read a helpful book on money management in the last 12 months. The last three years? The last 12 years?
YIKES! As Rob Lowe writes in the foreword to Experiencing The American Dream, “…we all have a complicated relationship with money. We love it. We hate it. We want it. We’re scared of it. We’re scared of not having it. We’re confused by it.” He adds, “Some are ‘ambivalent’ about all things financial, which as you will see, can be the most dangerous mindset of all.”
And get this! The Wall Street Journal, just last week, reports: "The American Dream Feels Out of Reach for Most. A Wall Street Journal poll shows people want a home, a family and a comfortable retirement, but say those goals are tough to achieve even with hard work." Read the article. But...there's hope!
GOOD NEWS. Mark Matson will help you demystify your relationship with money—and along the way on your lifelong-learning journey, you’ll also pick up principles on how to effectively invest your time and energy to create a more meaningful life.
This book will surprise you. Here’s a taste:
YIKES! “Sir Isaac Newton invented calculus, discovered gravity, and is considered one of the most brilliant people ever to walk the face of the earth. You would think he could use his intelligence to make a killing in the stock market. Well, so did he.” Read how Newton got “wiped out” at age 78.
YIKES! “Sometimes your intelligence can work against you as an investor. It doesn’t matter how successful you are; knowledge in one area does not make you an expert in another. This is an easy error to make.” Examples:
• “No matter how successful you are in your career, you would never in a million years assume you could hop into the cockpit of a 747 and fly the plane without any training.”
• “People can read a few articles, watch some videos, and suddenly think they can engineer a portfolio that will help them consistently beat the market, sadly to find out their genius as a brain surgeon did not translate to investing success.”
YIKES! Mark Matson, “an American entrepreneur, author, and innovator in the fields of investing science and financial education,” wants to help you properly invest your time, energy, and money—but he warns in Chapter 7, “What you think you know might not be so.”
That got my attention! It reminded me of what Peter Drucker would often say: “What everyone knows is usually wrong.”
The author invests six chapters in laying the groundwork, and then delivers a few pokes-in-the-ribs for lazy or self-assured investors. He writes, “If you’re still experiencing cognitive dissonance or doubting any of the concepts discussed, consider this chapter the ace in the hole that will force you to test the limits of your claims.” He suggests three exercises for readers:
EXERCISE #1. “If you had a million dollars to invest, and you had to put that money into three separate stocks, which three would you pick? Close your eyes for a moment, choose three stocks, and then write them down before you continue reading this.”
Yikes! (You can open your eyes now.) “There are over 20,000 stocks you could choose from, and I can still list five that end up on most people’s lists.”
By the way—if you need a reminder that popular companies do go bankrupt, Matson reminds us about the Dutch East India Company, Kodak, Blockbuster, and the current travails of Boeing. He adds, “Capitalism waits for no one. The Kodak CEO failed to see that if he didn’t embrace the technology, another company would. With my company, we aim to reinvent our business model every three years.”
EXERCISE #2. “How much have you saved for retirement?” Matson writes, “The truth is that the average investor is doing poorly according to the Dalbar research. They just don’t know it, and they don’t know they don’t know it. The better question is not whether you failed to beat the market; it’s how would you even know?” In determining the average return on your investments, the author warns about “survivorship bias.” He adds, “By only remembering the winners and forgetting about the losers you become overconfident and think that you’re good at stock picking when your track record is terrible.”
EXERCISE #3. “Is your portfolio toxic?” Matson also warns about the gurus who pitch “get-rich-quick schemes” with their “gunslinger investments that look sexy and feed your ego.” Caution! “It’s a lie to say that if you want to be a billionaire, invest like a billionaire. The industry perpetuates this belief, and it’s arguably one of the biggest misconceptions of investing—people have been watching too much Shark Tank.”
He adds, “Many of these wealthy gurus imply that they will give away secrets during their workshops, master classes, and yes, their books. The only secret is there is no secret.”
This book is both technical and practical. I’d suggest you tackle a chapter a week with a family member or friend. Invest at least as much time in your future as you do in watching football this fall! And don’t skip Matson’s final chapter, “It Won’t Get Any Easier.”
And if you’re not retired yet and you’re still innovating and building something yourself, you must read his four-page conceptual framework for a new experience he’s creating in Arizona. Read “My Vision Statement.” His aspiration is this: “Think of the space as you would a ride at Disney. It tells a story, and the guests become part of that story.” (Must-read! Wow!)
By the way, Steve Forbes endorsed this book—and he affirms that it’s not just about the money, it’s also about “the power and beauty of the American Dream.”
PAILS IN COMPARISON: Reading this book reminded me of several other must-read books in the Budget Bucket, plus other buckets/core competencies.
[ ] Dollars and Sense: How We Misthink Money and How to Spend Smarter, by Dr. Dan Ariely and Jeff Kreisler. (Read my review.)
[ ] MoneyZen: The Secret to Finding Your "Enough,” by Manisha Thakor. (Read my review.)
[ ] The Best Investment Advice I Ever Received: Priceless Wisdom from Warren Buffett, Jim Cramer, Suze Orman, Steve Forbes, and Dozens of Other Top Financial Experts, by Liz Claman. (Read my review.)
[ ] The 5 Money Personalities: Speaking the Same Love and Money Language, by Scott and Bethany Palmer. (Read my review.)
[ ] Jesus’ Terrible Financial Advice: Flipping the Tables on Peace, Prosperity, and the Pursuit of Happiness, by John Thornton. (Read my review.)
[ ] The God Guarantee: Finding Freedom From the Fear of Not Having Enough, by Jack Alexander. (Read my review.)
To order from Amazon, click on the title for Experiencing The American Dream: How to Invest Your Time, Energy, and Money to Create an Extraordinary Life, by Mark Matson. For more reviews, visit John Pearson’s Buckets Blog and subscribe to Your Weekly Staff Meeting. And thanks to the publisher for sending me a review copy.
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