The personal website of Matt Henderson.
20 September 2012
My new book, Money for Something teaches the fundamentals of investing, and hopefully motivates the reader that they should be investing.
The actual act of investing, though, requires making a personal and very important decision — the choice of the particular "asset allocation" in which to invest. The book, and its companion website, provides a handful of popular allocations that should work well for most people.
When wrapping up that particular chapter, though, it occurred to me that when I've read such books in the past, I've always ended up thinking, "I sure wish that in addition to giving me the information necessary to make a decision, the author had also described the decision they took!". And so I decided to go one step further, and conclude the chapter with a short note about "what I do", in which I describe my own asset allocation, known as the Permanent Portfolio.
As it turns out, the great majority of emails I've received from readers getting started with their own investment program have chosen to invest in the Permanent Portfolio, and I think that's worth of a bit of reflection.
Whether we are product designers, lawyers, tax advisors, or writers, it's easy to assume that the job-to-be-done is providing the information or tools necessary for our users to make decisions. In reality, though, the job-to-be-done in the mind of our users is to make the right decision, and we can support that objective by taking our services one step further, with a suggestion, recommendation, perhaps thoughtful defaults settings, or in the case of my book, a section called, "What I do."
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