Wall Street is littered with the bones of those who knew just what to do, but could not bring themselves to do it.

Bluntly put, there's no chance that your doctor, dentist, or attorney is a high-school dropout. Your stockbroker, however, just might be.

No one in his right mind would walk into the cockpit of an airplane and try to fly it, or into an operating theater and open a belly. And yet they think nothing of managing their retirement assets. I've done all three, and I'm here to tell you that managing money is, in its most critical elements even more demanding than the first two.

You have to ask yourself, what are the things that matter to you most in your life? If you have to have a latte every day that'snice to have right now, but if you take that latte every day right now, you may wind up eating cat food when you are 70. And you have to decide which is worse.

There are two kinds of investors, be they large or small: those who don't know where the market is headed and those who don't know what they don't know. Then again, there is a third type of investor: the investment professional, who indeed knows he doesn't know, but whose livelihood depends upon appearing to know.

You have to understand what market history looks like. What market history tells you is that the very, very best investments are made when things look the worst.

The purpose of investing is not to simply optimise returns and make yourself rich. The purpose is not to die poor.