Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

On one of our hiking trips in the Sierra last week Hawk and I chatted with a quartet of older folks who were beginning from the trailhead at the same time as us. One of them became very excited when I mentioned that we're retired. He was electrified that we managed to do it when we're between 50-55. He basically glued himself to my side for the first half mile of the trail and talked my ear off.

"He seemed keen on investing," Hawk observed after we parted ways with their group. "Did you learn anything from him?"

"No," I answered. "If he were as smart as he thinks he is, he'd know to shut up more and listen."

I offered that withering commentary because of two things that happened in our conversation. The first came when we were discussing asset allocation strategy for retirement. We agreed on a fairly basic principle, that it's critical to stay invested in growth equities, as retirement nowadays with modern lifespans could last for several decades. Then, since we were well aligned on that, I offered a slightly more nuanced idea. I framed my explanation by noting, "I basically take the approach Warren Buffett says he has instructed the people who'll manage his personal wealth if he dies before his wife...."

The guy struggled to follow the strategy I outlined. It's not hard, though. In fact, the point is, it's simple. This isn't Warren Buffett writing a book, How to Be Warren Buffett; it's more like Warren Buffett's 5-Minute Advice Any Smart Novice Can Follow. And this wasn't my first time explaining it. I'm practiced at introducing novices to this strategy. He fought me on the first half of my explanation then shut me down on the second half. "That's bullshit!" he exclaimed. "That's impossible. Nobody can do that."

He didn't ask questions like, "Why?" or "How?" He just asserted that it was wrong. Impossible. Bullshit. I'd hoped that name-checking Warren Buffett, the Oracle of Omaha, widely considered one of the top investors of all time, would head off "Bullshit!" dismissals. Oh, well.

Later in our conversation, when the guy was talking about his own investment strategy, he patted himself on the back for his intelligence. "The problem with being so smart, though," he said in summation, "Is having to deal with everyone else."

If I wasn't already gasping from climbing a slope at 10,400' elevation, nearly 2 miles above sea level, I would've choked on that claim.

He's so smart? Hah! That's not what the earlier part of our conversation showed me.

There's an old saying, the fool is confident, the wise man asks. Okay, maybe that's not an old saying. It's my own wording. But similar thoughts have been offered, arguably more eloquently, by people from Plato to Shakespeare to MacGyver. 🤣 It's also what's behind the Dunning-Kruger effect.

I don't fault the guy for not grasping my explanation on the first try. As famous as Warren Buffett is among investors of all kinds, it seemed like he'd never heard this approach before. That's fine. I was prepared to answer questions. I was prepared to answer challenging questions. But instead of asking questions when my explanation didn't comport to his preexisting beliefs, this guy crashed out by yelling, "That's bullshit!"

At some point in the past I might have treated an interruption like "That's bullshit!" as something I could objection-handle, overcoming it with patient explanation. If my livelihood depended on it, like if I was trying to make a sale, I would. But at some point in the past I also decided that when it's not my future on the line, I'm happy to share my expertise, but I'm not going to fight to make you listen.