Welcome to The Practice of Investing
What to expect from this innovative approach to investment education
Hello and welcome to The Practice of Investing by Stuart and Sharon Crickmer. We’ve been creating and delivering highly engaging investment education sessions for over 20 years with our unique mix of thought-provoking and/or game-based financial experiences exploring key concepts about investing.
If you’ve been to any of our live events, or experienced our online simulations, you probably had an unexpectedly fun time learning about investing. And while you may remember the experience—as a student, retirement plan participant, pro athlete (or wherever we met)—what you didn’t get was the full story. We can’t cover everything in a single session.
Which brings us to The Practice of Investing, the book that we’ve been wanting to write for years.
The title uses Practice as both a noun and a verb. That is to say, it covers what you need to know (in the book there will be sections on Knowledge and Process) and how to get up-to-speed in applying these skills—putting it into practice. This portion of the book will cover Mindset and Experience.
To an extent, this Substack is our laboratory—a place for us to play with ideas and ways to write them. Again, for those who know us, you can expect a similar innovative approach to addressing the topic. It won’t be boring. And it won’t be a rehash of standard investment assumptions—many of which are wrong, by the way. More on that in the posts.
Our simple promise to you—the payoff for giving us some of your valuable time—can be summarized in four words: more money; less stress.
And the second half of that promise is every bit as important as the first.
While we have a pretty good idea of how the book will play out, we don’t really know. As Stephen Fry—who we dearly love—wrote on his Substack recently:
How can I tell you what I’m going to write until I’ve written it?
Substack will allow us to write about topics that will be covered in the book, but this is not the book (there are issues with writing a book on Substack and using the post to be the book). Many of the posts will be commentary on what’s going on in the world of investing in real time.
Who This is For
The Practice of Investing is written for a general adult audience. You don’t need any background in investing—just a desire to get the most out of life by making smart choices about your money.
With that said, we believe this will be of great benefit to those with years of investment experience, including investment professionals. Much of what we’re introducing represents an evolution—possibly a revolution—in how we think about investing. Many common assumptions about investing are wrong. The cost of these misconceptions is staggering, both in terms of money and financial stress. We’re going to do our part to begin changing this.
A Note to Teachers and Sponsors
Once the book is finished, we plan to create a Student Edition suitable for high school and university students. The plan is to include additional resources and assessment tools to make it as easy as possible for teachers to help their students without needing to be experts themselves.
For sponsors wanting to make a meaningful impact with students, supporting this effort will move the needle (finally). It’s the difference between making a real difference and just checking the “we support financial literacy” box.
Core Posts (always free)
We’ll actually have two types of posts: Core Posts and Perspective Posts.
Core Posts are free. This is the fundamental knowledge. Most of these will make you think; many will surprise you.
All Other Posts (also free)
For now, all of our posts are free, but you can choose to be a paid subscriber if you wish.
The Best Reason to Become a Paid Subscriber
As independent writers, we are up against some significant obstacles. Yes, what we have to share is transformational, even life changing. But we lack the financial resources of the big financial firms or celebrity financial gurus. To be fair, we don’t really know how to publish a book—or get the attention of someone who does.
But then, being told we can’t do something has rarely stopped us.
Becoming a paid subscriber makes you part of an effort that can help you directly, help your family members, and help thousands of others who you’ll never meet.
If you’re up to the challenge, please join us.
Stuart & Sharon