While the more familiar expression, “no pain, no gain,” may apply to many parts of life (such as my first half-marathon), sometimes pain is just pain, with no gain in sight. When that’s the case, shouldn’t you do something to avoid it?

That’s the point of a recent video produced by our friends at Dimensional Fund Advisors, “Tuning out the noise.” The first minute is admittedly stressful; it evokes the angst many investors feel when they try to navigate nerve-wracking markets on their own. Bear with it though, because you have much to gain from the video’s message: By showing investors how to Take the Long View® with their investments, our aim is to help people tune out the pointless pain, look past the daily fray, and get on with investing toward their lifetime goals.

Check out the video for yourself. Or, if you prefer to read rather than watch, here’s an article Dimensional produced along the same theme. Last but not least, if you could use some rational advice to cut through the clamor, we’re here to listen.

We’ve all been there, done that: When the markets grow volatile, they can literally make your stomach churn. As a team member of Hill Investment Group, I know better than to get too hung up on the never-ending breaking news in the popular financial press, but I do still find it helpful to read the perspectives of other thought leaders who are as committed as we are to evidence-based investing.

Here are two such pieces published during the recent jolts of market volatility. I found them helpful; I hope you do too:

“When Investing in Stocks Makes You Feel Like Throwing Up and You Do It Anyway,” by Jason Zweig of The Wall Street Journal

Zweig reflects on how awful it felt to stay invested during the Great Recession, but how glad he is now that he overcame his deepest doubts: “A happy few investors, among them Warren Buffett, his business partner Charles Munger and their mentor Benjamin Graham, may have long-term thinking built into them by nature. The rest of us have to cultivate it by nurture.”

“Some alternatives to Evidence-Based Investing,” by Josh Brown, the Reformed Broker

Satire can be a great healer. Here, Brown lists some of the “better” tactics people use instead of evidence-based investing and concludes: “The harvestable errors of emotionally unaware people in the marketplace are a bumper crop for the patient, the sane and the disciplined.” Tough but true love about the wisdom of evidence-based investing.

Back in February, Rick Hill posted his reflections on why he’s not yet retired from his lengthy career as a financial professional. “Why am I still here?” he asked. “Because I am still in a great place!”

I, for one, am glad he is still here. We may tease him about his white hair, but from my first encounter with Rick in 2012 (which I still remember vividly – we talked about my alma mater Trinity University and San Antonio), he has shaped many of my own personal and professional values. Had Rick instead opted for spending every day on the golf course, I’d be poorer for it – this much I know.

I’m not the only young buck who has been inspired by Rick, the mentor. Check out this recent post: “This Lesson I Learned from a 75-Year-Old Man Might Earn You a Career.” It’s about Rick, written by one of our past summer interns, Dominic Vaiana. In sharing a few of his own takeaways from his internship with us, Dominic wrote that Rick “oozes wisdom and has a contagious energy that people half his age do not.”

I hope that 20-somethings will be saying the same about me when I’m 75 and still working at Hill Investment Group. That sounds more rewarding than any day on the links.