Paul:

Well said.

I was pleasantly surprised to hear Duke and Housel acknowledge both luck and humility. And, for good measure, they mentioned confirmation bias and Nassim Taleb's quote about cherry picking.

I guess if you life long enough you see just about everything.
: )

The article also mentions decision aversion, which is a challenge for investors who are routinely ask themselves: "what did I miss?" As investors, we must all make decisions despite uncertainty, and it is hard to be decisive when we know that our information will always be provisional and incomplete. In addition, our clients may confuse our humility with indecisiveness.

If I may make a suggestion, one way that I address this is through risk management. It depends on the client, but I typically use asset allocation bands that limit deviations (especially for retirement portfolios, which usually have different goals and risk tolerances).

Another way to balance humility with decisiveness is to use "soft stops": Stop-loss rules that force me to reconsider my decisions. For example, if I am long equities and there is a three-sigma event that goes against me, I better revisit my thesis.

Clients don't always need to hear all this stuff since it may just confuse them. They just want to know that you're not so stubborn that you'll just drive off a cliff, taking their money with you.

Thanks for a thought provoking read.

Rob