Page 201 - Psychology of Money - Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness-Harriman House Limited (2020)

Sandy Gottesman, a billionaire investor who founded the consulting group
COBACOBA
First Manhattan, is said to ask one question when interviewing candidates
for his investment team: “What do you own, and why?”

Not, “What stocks do you think are cheap?” or “What economy is about to
have a recession?”

Just show me what you do with your own money.

I love this question because it highlights what can often be a mile-wide gap
between what makes sense—which is what people suggest you do—and
what feels right to them—which is what they actually do.

Half of all U.S. mutual fund portfolio managers do not invest a cent of their
own money in their funds, according to Morningstar.⁶⁹ This might seem

atrocious, and surely the statistic uncovers some hypocrisy.

But this kind of stuff is more common than you’d think. Ken Murray, a
professor of medicine at USC, wrote an essay in 2011 titled “How Doctors
Die” that showed the degree to which doctors choose different end-of-life

treatments for themselves than they recommend for their patients.⁷⁰

“[Doctors] don’t die like the rest of us,” he wrote. “What’s unusual about
them is not how much treatment they get compared to most Americans, but
how little. For all the time they spend fending off the deaths of others, they

tend to be fairly serene when faced with death themselves. They know
exactly what is going to happen, they know the choices, and they generally
have access to any sort of medical care they could want. But they go
gently.” A doctor may throw the kitchen sink at her patient’s cancer, but
choose palliative care for herself.

The difference between what someone suggests you do and what they do
for themselves isn’t always a bad thing. It just underscores that when

dealing with complicated and emotional issues that affect you and your