One, financial outcomes are driven by luck, independent of intelligence and effort. That’s true to some extent, and this book will discuss it in further detail. Or, two (and I think more common), that financial success is not a hard science. It’s a soft skill, where how you behave is more important than what you know. I call this soft skill the

History helps us calibrate our expectations, study where people tend to go wrong, and offers a rough guide of what tends to work. But it is not, in any way, a map of the future.

returns. Jim Simons, head of the hedge fund Renaissance Technologies, has compounded money at 66% annually since 1988. No one comes close to this record. As we just saw, Buffett has compounded at roughly 22% annually, a third as much. Simons’ net worth, as I write, is $21 billion. He is—and I know how ridiculous this sounds given the numbers we’re

Optimism is the best bet for most people because the world tends to get better for most people most of the time.

But doing something you love on a schedule you can’t control can feel the same as doing something you hate.

no one makes good decisions all the time. The most impressive people are packed full of horrendous ideas that are often acted upon.

Define the cost of success and be ready to pay it. Because nothing worthwhile is free. And remember that most financial costs don’t have visible price tags. Uncertainty, doubt, and regret are common costs in the finance world. They’re often worth paying. But you have to view them as fees (a price worth paying to get something nice in exchange)

Past a certain level of income people fall into three groups: Those who save, those who don’t think they can save, and those who don’t think they need to save.

Charlie Munger once said “I did not intend to get rich. I just wanted to get independent.”