Lesson One · The System
Investing that depends on willpower fails. The system that's already running succeeds.
Every month you have to decide to invest is a month you might decide not to. A car repair, a vacation, a 'just this once' splurge — life delivers reasons every quarter. Studies of real retail investors find a of 1–3% per year between what funds return and what humans actually earn from them. Most of that gap isn't bad fund picking. It's missed contributions, panic pauses, and good intentions that never made it to the transfer screen. The fix is simple and unglamorous: the contribution. Set up a on payday, before you can talk yourself out of it. Six months in, you don't even notice the money leaving.
“The best investment system is the one you can't accidentally break.”