The analytical trap section is the most honest part of this piece. The spreadsheet becoming a comfort object is exactly what happens when people mistake more research for better decisions.
A scoring framework helps here not because it eliminates uncertainty but because it gives you a concrete starting point. You can act on an 83/100 business at fair value without needing perfect information. The score doesn't resolve the future, however it does reduce the paralysis.
This is all so true. There is a closely related specter. Waiting via neglect. I find myself occasionally falling into that mode and I certainly saw it with my aging parents. This is not FOMO or paralysis analysis. It is simply not getting around to it. Or possibly losing all interest in the subject completely. The outcome is probably not much different, but the prescription to address it almost certainly is.
Great observation. Neglect that starts as avoidance is fear gone cold. The decision didn't disappear, it just stopped feeling urgent. But some neglect is pure entropy, no emotional charge at all, just drift. And you're right that the prescription differs. You can reason someone out of paralysis. Drift requires a different intervention entirely.
This is an outstanding piece of diagnosis, Cosmo. I especially love the lines 'time is not neutral' and 'no plan survives contact with reality.' In my years sitting across from clients, the most difficult trap to break was always the spreadsheet ritual: the false comfort that one more piece of data would somehow guarantee a risk-free entry.
Your PCR (Plan, Course-Correct, Repeat) framework hits the nail on the head. A directionally sound plan that you adapt dynamically will always beat a flawless plan that stays locked in a drawer. Beautifully argued!
I appreciate your comments. Confirmation from someone who for decades sat across from real clients means a lot. The multi-decade financial projection, precise to the last dollar, is the oxymoron nobody talks about.
Thank you Cosmo, so true. The multi-decade projection precise to the dollar is pure financial fiction, yet it’s a myth the industry rarely challenges.
It is up to advisors to clarify that a long-term plan isn’t a crystal ball; it’s just a baseline for assumptions and depends on its implementation (do people follow the actions in the plan). In reality, an investor's life circumstances (marriages, job and compensation changes, health, goals, etc.) change far more frequently than long-term economic cycles do.
That is exactly why your focus on adjusting along the way is the real work! The value isn't in the initial document; it's in implementing the steps in the plan, and in the routine of review and revision.
Waiting feels clean because it keeps all the imaginary options alive. But time is never sitting in cash with you — it’s compounding somewhere, either for your plan or against it. At some point, the grown-up move is not perfect certainty; it’s a decent first decision with a rebalancing policy.
As a professional decision analyst and longtime observer of human behavior, this brings to mind two things.
1) there's a lesser-followed personality typing system called the Kolbe Conative test, which identifies a person's primary day-to-day motivations. There are four types:
- research
- quick start
- implementation
- follow-through
Most people will strongly resonate with one and strongly resist another. I'm a research type who always likes looking for more information. My wife is a quick start who just dives in and course corrects later. At first that drove me crazy, but 30 years later I see the value of all of just getting started. It also helped me because the great majority of my bosses (especially in startups) were quick starts. It's us research-oriented folks who are most prone to not getting started.
2) one of my favorite song lyrics from Rush, written by drummer Neil Peart:
"if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice" ...
"I will choose a purpose clear, I will choose free will"
I'm so glad I got to see "The Professor" perform live. I slept out all night in the winter on a Boston sidewalk to see Rush on the Hold Your Fire tour. As an added bonus, seeing what goes on at 3 am on Mass Ave was almost as entertaining as the show itself.
I love this, Stephen. It’s a perfect example of why self-awareness is only half the battle; the real magic is in team optimization. When you pair a Research type with a Quick Start, then $1 + 1$ doesn't equal $2$. It becomes an entirely different engine. One provides the launch energy, the other provides the navigation. Understanding our own propensities is crucial, but building a life or a portfolio around complementary forces is how we actually protect ourselves from our worst instincts.
Beautifully put (and you can never go wrong quoting Neil Peart)!
Yeah, synergy indeed. But that doesn't make it easy. I can't tell you how many times I've muttered "I'm a little quick start" in a singsong manner under my breath when one of these quick starts launches us unprepared into something that I know will create a mess that I get to clean up.
The analytical trap section is the most honest part of this piece. The spreadsheet becoming a comfort object is exactly what happens when people mistake more research for better decisions.
A scoring framework helps here not because it eliminates uncertainty but because it gives you a concrete starting point. You can act on an 83/100 business at fair value without needing perfect information. The score doesn't resolve the future, however it does reduce the paralysis.
This is all so true. There is a closely related specter. Waiting via neglect. I find myself occasionally falling into that mode and I certainly saw it with my aging parents. This is not FOMO or paralysis analysis. It is simply not getting around to it. Or possibly losing all interest in the subject completely. The outcome is probably not much different, but the prescription to address it almost certainly is.
Great observation. Neglect that starts as avoidance is fear gone cold. The decision didn't disappear, it just stopped feeling urgent. But some neglect is pure entropy, no emotional charge at all, just drift. And you're right that the prescription differs. You can reason someone out of paralysis. Drift requires a different intervention entirely.
This is an outstanding piece of diagnosis, Cosmo. I especially love the lines 'time is not neutral' and 'no plan survives contact with reality.' In my years sitting across from clients, the most difficult trap to break was always the spreadsheet ritual: the false comfort that one more piece of data would somehow guarantee a risk-free entry.
Your PCR (Plan, Course-Correct, Repeat) framework hits the nail on the head. A directionally sound plan that you adapt dynamically will always beat a flawless plan that stays locked in a drawer. Beautifully argued!
I appreciate your comments. Confirmation from someone who for decades sat across from real clients means a lot. The multi-decade financial projection, precise to the last dollar, is the oxymoron nobody talks about.
Thank you Cosmo, so true. The multi-decade projection precise to the dollar is pure financial fiction, yet it’s a myth the industry rarely challenges.
It is up to advisors to clarify that a long-term plan isn’t a crystal ball; it’s just a baseline for assumptions and depends on its implementation (do people follow the actions in the plan). In reality, an investor's life circumstances (marriages, job and compensation changes, health, goals, etc.) change far more frequently than long-term economic cycles do.
That is exactly why your focus on adjusting along the way is the real work! The value isn't in the initial document; it's in implementing the steps in the plan, and in the routine of review and revision.
Waiting feels clean because it keeps all the imaginary options alive. But time is never sitting in cash with you — it’s compounding somewhere, either for your plan or against it. At some point, the grown-up move is not perfect certainty; it’s a decent first decision with a rebalancing policy.
As a professional decision analyst and longtime observer of human behavior, this brings to mind two things.
1) there's a lesser-followed personality typing system called the Kolbe Conative test, which identifies a person's primary day-to-day motivations. There are four types:
- research
- quick start
- implementation
- follow-through
Most people will strongly resonate with one and strongly resist another. I'm a research type who always likes looking for more information. My wife is a quick start who just dives in and course corrects later. At first that drove me crazy, but 30 years later I see the value of all of just getting started. It also helped me because the great majority of my bosses (especially in startups) were quick starts. It's us research-oriented folks who are most prone to not getting started.
2) one of my favorite song lyrics from Rush, written by drummer Neil Peart:
"if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice" ...
"I will choose a purpose clear, I will choose free will"
As a drummer (my wife would correct me and say former-drummer), I love that you quoted Neil Peart!
I'm so glad I got to see "The Professor" perform live. I slept out all night in the winter on a Boston sidewalk to see Rush on the Hold Your Fire tour. As an added bonus, seeing what goes on at 3 am on Mass Ave was almost as entertaining as the show itself.
Haha, that's for damn sure!!!
I love this, Stephen. It’s a perfect example of why self-awareness is only half the battle; the real magic is in team optimization. When you pair a Research type with a Quick Start, then $1 + 1$ doesn't equal $2$. It becomes an entirely different engine. One provides the launch energy, the other provides the navigation. Understanding our own propensities is crucial, but building a life or a portfolio around complementary forces is how we actually protect ourselves from our worst instincts.
Beautifully put (and you can never go wrong quoting Neil Peart)!
Yeah, synergy indeed. But that doesn't make it easy. I can't tell you how many times I've muttered "I'm a little quick start" in a singsong manner under my breath when one of these quick starts launches us unprepared into something that I know will create a mess that I get to clean up.