A High Stakes Hunch I had just got the news: the bank I worked for was going to sell the business I was supporting. This was going to be the seventh transition of my 27-year banking career. Should I try to find a new job in the industry or start my own business? Somehow, I … Read more
Financial wellness is a trending priority among business managers, policy makers, financial institutions, consultancies, entrepreneurs and, not least, consumers themselves. In fact, we created Decision Fish to build scalable tools that help people achieve financial wellness. What really is financial wellness, and how are the parties above working to promote it in the US (and Canada)? … Read more
A 29-year old friend of mine asked me recently, “How do I get started investing for retirement?”* Since I prefer education and coaching to “advice”, here’s what I told him. For me, investments should be simple, cheap and take only smart risks. There are more than 9,000 mutual funds out there. How do I choose one? … Read more
No matter how compelling a new change is, it’s tough to override the brain’s natural resistance to new behaviors. Fortunately, there is hope. The SAGE Question Framework uses knowledge about habit formation to help you plan and execute your change in a way that will stick.
What do classical music in the train station, binge-inducing pre-loaded TV show episodes in Netflix, and those “I voted stickers” you get after voting have in common? Read our latest article, “Nudges: For Your Own Good?” about how government and businesses “nudge” your behavior for your own good…or maybe not (5 minute read).
In short an objective decision is a just and fair one, supported by verifiable facts, with which rational and informed people will tend to agree. That said, subjectivity has its place. It’s up to us to determine mindfully the degree of objectivity is required in each case.
Do you want a simple and easy tool for making an important decision? The simplest “tool” is a heuristic. A short-cut like “take the default” or “do what everyone else is doing” may be fine for selecting a restaurant entrée or route to the grocery store. But what about more important decisions like taking a … Read more
On January 31st, Decision Fish led a lively session on how to Help Millennials Make Better Financial Decisions as part of Impact Hub NYC’s 100 Days of Impact program. 100 Days of Impact is a community program to find out what we can do as a community to address concerns and make an impact.
I’ve learned (and re-learned) a lot from tutoring middle-schoolers in math at Top Honors.1 For example, if a math problem is too hard to solve in your head, I counsel my student to draw a picture. That’s one of the best features of decision trees: it allows you to draw a roadmap for complicated, multi-stage … Read more
Think back to the last time you had to make a hard, important decision. Were you picking an asset allocation for your 401k, selecting a health insurance plan or deciding whether it was time to refinance your mortgage? What kind of help did you seek and what kind of help was available? Were you confident … Read more