Behavior

Book Takeaways – Atomic Habits

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This year I’m a part of a book club. Each month we read one book in the genre of self-improvement and meet to discuss our findings and takeaways. January’s book was Atomic Habits by James Clear. Along with the regular book club meeting, I’m going to highlight some key ideas and actionable items for you, my readers. Books may be the single best source of knowledge and wisdom available to humans. I love reading, and I love sharing ideas I’ve read so this exercise will tick a few boxes for me. Here goes. 

  1. Outcomes are a lagging measure of our habits, we get what we repeat. This is great news because it means we can work to change our habits and get different outcomes. 
  2. Goals are not correlated to results. Clear makes an impactful point that winners and losers have the same goals. Goals are helpful for providing direction but mostly worthless in obtaining a desired result. For that, we need systems/habits.
  3. Habits change identities. I consider this Clear’s most profound and important contribution to the discussion of habits. We fail to make lasting behavior changes routinely, regardless of our intention or passion, the size or specificity of our goals, or the breadth of our knowledge. Even when faced with an ultimatum, change or die, (ie, change your diet or your diabetes will kill you) people fail to change. The reason is that our actions are closely knit with our identities, and we fail to change who we are. The antidote is to start with a tiny action. Just do something good, however small. Each good action is undeniable proof that we have acted like (been) a different person, and that begins to mold our identities. The point of all this self-improvement effort is not to accomplish goals, it’s to become different people. I don’t need to lose 20 pounds, I need to become a healthy person. I don’t need to make $200k in five years, I need to become a valuable coach. The pounds and money are only byproducts.
  4. Make good actions easier and bad actions harder. In order to begin taking the small actions that will shape our identities, it’s helpful to set ourselves up for success. Humans drift toward the path of least resistance by default, so remove resistance from good actions and add resistance for bad actions. A few examples: 1) Set out your workout clothes before bed so it’s easy to wake up and get dressed for the gym. 2) Unplug the TV after each use so you have to plug it in if you want to watch something.
  5. An implementation intention is critical for habit building and behavior change in general. We tend to set goals and hope for some motivation to begin working on them. The problem is that motivation is scarce and inconsistent. An implementation intention solves that problem, it means we make a plan to implement our new habit by giving the habit a regular time and a regular place. In order to do something different, you must have a plan for it. If you intend to work out, choose a regular time (that fits into your schedule), and a regular location (whether it’s a space in your house or gym nearby). We make plans for all sorts of important things in our lives, habits call for the same attention.
  6. As a general rule, the more immediate pleasure you get from something, the more suspicious you should be of its long-term benefit. Not that we need to stop doing things that make us happy, just be aware that immediate pleasure and long-term benefits are almost never congruous.
  7. At some point, it comes down to who can handle the boredom of taking regular good action, day after day. You become healthy by eating good meals every day. You get strong by lifting the same weights over and over. You gain wealth by doing the same important function of your work time after time after time. Fall in love with the process, embrace the boredom.
  8. Success is not a goal to achieve, it’s a system of improvement, an endless process of refinement. It’s incredible what you can build if you just don’t stop.

Your new habit initiative is missing something

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Humans are bad at starting new habits and jettisoning old ones. It doesn’t seem to help if we know better (like, smoking will eventually cause you to suffocate to death). Our level of desire or commitment isn’t a useful indicator. We typically come up with a great idea, what could probably be classified as a goal, some change we’d like to initiate in our lives, and then we hope for some motivation to strike so we can implement the new behavior. Unfortunately, motivation is undependable and scarce, and your new habit, as well-intentioned as it may have been, never comes alive.

But there’s a solution to this. James Clear, in his book Atomic Habits, explains that while our usual understanding of how to cause behavioral change (knowledge, motivation, earnest desire, strict discipline) is mostly worthless, an implementation intention plan can make all the difference.

So what’s an implementation intention plan? Well, stated as simply as possible, it’s your plan for the time and place you’re going to execute your new behavior. Clear says, “Most people think they lack motivation when what they really lack is clarity (P71).” When we fail to make the changes we intend we start to think we lack discipline or maybe we don’t want it enough. That’s purely false. What’s lacking is most likely not discipline, but a plan of action. When we leave our behavior change initiative to the erratic realm of inspiration and motivation we’re begging to fail. But if we’re clear about a time and a place, about when and where we’re going to execute our new habit, the likelihood that we’ll execute skyrockets. This can be as simple as choosing which chair you’ll sit in at what time in the morning to start your reading habit. I have two seats in my living room (there are more seats, just two that I claim), one couch corner for TV and video games, and one couch corner for reading and writing. It makes a weird, incredible difference which one I’m sitting in. When I’m in my reading spot, I read, when I’m in my TV spot, I watch TV. That’s about as complicated as it has to be. I execute my reading habit because I chose my seat and I decided on a regular time (quick aside, reading in the morning is the best).

I think this implementation intention plan, while super simple, is one of the most important concepts in the study of habit formation. We select times and places for all sorts of important things in life, meetings, family time, workouts, church, etc. Why do we try to sidestep this necessary piece when we’re dealing with ourselves?

An implementation intention plan is not the be-all-end-all magic dust that will guarantee the success of your new habit, but it is a critical piece and one that few of us consider. So stop worrying about whether or not you’re disciplined or motivated, pick your time and your place, and execute.

The Investor Behavior Question

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So we looked at the problems with stock picking, market timing and track-record investing. The evidence strongly suggests we should avoid these investing pitfalls. So why do people still engage with them? Many people aren’t familiar with the research, which is an indictment on the investing industry, but the problem goes deeper than that. Even people who understand the research, even people who understand and assent to the research, still don’t consistently comply. Why is this? The industry calls it investor behavior, and it’s big business. I hear a lot about bad investor behavior, but I don’t hear much about why investor behavior is bad, or how to think helpfully about it. Here are a few reasons why I think it’s tough to be a good investor today:

1) The practice of buying low and selling high is ingrained in us. We’re deal shoppers. We see a good deal, something that’s worth more than its sale price, and we can feel great about the purchase. We’ve got TV shows that show us how to buy cheap houses and storage units in order to flip them for a profit. The booming fantasy football business teaches us to perform hours of research before drafting players (no? only me?) in order to find the underpriced guys who will overperform. We’ve got side hustles flipping cars, furniture, clothes, electronics, you name it. We’ve got sale adds spilling out of our mailboxes. That’s just how our world works, we shop for deals, things that are underpriced. Another way to say it, we’re always on the lookout for inefficiencies. But the stock market in not inefficient (see Are you stock picking?). It’s the one place we shop where there are no sales or discounts. It makes sense that we would apply our standard buying principles to investing, but unfortunately, our instincts aren’t helpful here.

2) Active investing feels right. Trading in a portfolio is exciting, especially if you think you’re good at it. A big win in the stock market makes for a really nice adrenaline hit. It’s similar to gambling. You can do it from your favorite chair in your living room, or a bustling coffee shop; it feels meaningful; it provides a perfect excuse to be constantly checking the news; you get to use your favorite tech gadgets (that’s what gets me). And even if you’re not the one making the trades, it just seems responsible to watch the news and track your returns every day. It seems right to talk predictively about the market, to decide on an investing strategy for the upcoming year. We’re not lazy people, we do our due diligence; unfortunately, with investing, we diligently do the wrong things.

3) We’re inundated with encouragement to engage in active investing. Financial news networks and websites were not created to educate their viewership, they exist to drive traffic. Since patience, diversification, minimal trading, (aka the staples of a good investment strategy) are really boring, news outlets lean heavily towards the predictive and active trading slant. Specific stock recommendations and bold market predictions fuel our instinct to do something with our investments. Again, it feels right to try to figure out where the market is going and how to profit from it. The news only tickles that itch.

Investing is counterintuitive and human behavior is often the trickiest part in investing. Sometimes we simply lack the knowledge required to be a good investor, but more often it feels like we should be doing more. When something needs fixing, we put our heads down and figure out how to fix it. Before we decide to buy something we do our research. But the way we make buying decisions in our every-day lives doesn’t work in the stock market. While we constantly look for inefficiencies, sales, discounts, deals, etc., the stock market is efficiently moving along on its unpredictable upwards trend. Instead of working to beat it, let’s ride it.

3 Questions to Ask your Financial Advisor

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Your investment advisor is a very important person. You rely on this person to help you navigate your lifelong financial journey, and hopefully guide you to a successful outcome. There are obvious characteristics we want in an advisor: integrity, honesty, diligence, etc., all good things. But there are other, almost equally important things most of take for granted in an advisor: What’s their investment strategy? What’s their view on the market? How do they expect to help you capture returns? These are questions we don’t tend to ask, after all, they’re the professionals, but the answers to these questions will have a profound impact on your future.

  1. Do you think the market is efficient or not?

This is a simple question with massive implications. Basically, you’re asking whether or not your advisor thinks he/she can consistently get you better returns than the market by actively buying and selling stocks (stock picking), moving in and out of different market sectors (market timing), and using funds with the best recent return history (track-record investing). If the market is not efficient then these are valid exercises. An inefficient market means that stock prices could be underpriced or overpriced and assumes that smart advisors should be able to figure out which stocks are which and pick the ones that will outperform all of the others. Unfortunately, advisors don’t consistently beat the market, they can’t consistently pick the winners. The results of choosing stocks and timing the market have been overwhelmingly negative and research has resoundingly supported the assertion that the market is actually efficient (Efficient Market Hypothesis). An efficient market means a stock is never overpriced or underpriced, its current price is always the best indication of its current value. If the market is efficient, that means it’s impossible for anyone to consistently predict or beat it, in fact, attempts to do so are more like gambling than investing. Instead of trying to outperform the market, the goal should be to own the whole of it as efficiently as possible. This brings us to the next question.

2. What Asset Classes Do I Own?

In order to efficiently own the market, you need broad diversification. That means you want to own many companies, but more importantly, you want to own many companies in many different asset classes (large companies, small companies, value companies, international companies, etc.). When you ask, most advisors are going to tell you that the large majority of your money is in Large US Growth companies (S&P 500), which is unfortunate because the Large US Growth company asset class is one of the lowest returning asset classes in history. That’s not to say the asset class is a bad investment, it’s great for diversification, but it’s certainly not where you want most of your money. Small and Value asset classes return better over time, so you want to ensure you’re broadly and significantly invested in those asset classes.

3. How will you help me capture returns?

There are three important components to successfully capturing returns: 1) diversify, 2) rebalance, 3) remain disciplined. Diversification (1) means you’ll have ownership in companies of all different shapes and sizes all over the world. Good diversification does two things for an investor: it reduces risk/volatility and increases return. Since we don’t know which sectors or stocks will do best this year, we own all of them, and then we rebalance, which brings us to point 2. The goal in rebalancing (2) is to keep an ideal percentage of each of the different asset classes in your portfolio. Since stocks and asset classes don’t all move the same way every year when one asset class is up and another is down your portfolio percentages get out of whack. That’s where rebalancing comes in. In order to rebalance your portfolio, your advisor will sell some of the asset class that went up and buy some of the asset class that went down, bringing the percentages back into alignment. This must happen systematically, for example, it could be every quarter, in order for it to be effective. The end result is that you’re automatically selling high and buying low. There’s no gut instinct, no guessing, no market timing, it’s committed disciplined rebalancing, which brings us to point 3. Discipline (3) isn’t something that comes naturally to most of us, but it’s extremely important in capturing returns and planning for your future. There’s a behavior element that all of this hinges on, if an investor doesn’t have the discipline to ride out the ups and downs in the market they can’t be a successful investor. The average investor switches advisors and funds and strategies every 3.5 years, that’s a losing game. So how will your investor help you stay disciplined and on track to capture those returns and achieve your goals?

Since I’m writing this and I’m an advisor, you probably assume I’ve got answers to these questions, your assumption is correct. But this isn’t just a sales pitch, good answers to these questions are critical for successful investing, and far too many people simply have no idea what their advisor is doing for them, whether good or bad. So ask a few questions!