On a wintry February morning in St. Louis, we were honored to spend time with Dave Butler, Co-CEO of Dimensional Fund Advisors. Over breakfast, we were reminded why Dave is the type of leader we’d all work for. That’s saying something, as we’re picky about who we’d follow.

We’ve been collaborating with Dimensional since we launched Hill Investment Group, but this was the first time we heard Dave’s own story about how he discovered his life’s calling there.

Dimensional is now one of the largest mutual fund companies in the world, with 1,300+ employees, 13 global locations, and over $500 billion in global assets. But it was a fraction of its current size when Dave joined them back in 1995. At the time, he was working on the East Coast, and wanted to return to his California roots. He sent his résumé to this nascent fund manager in response to a Wall Street Journal ad he spotted, and beat out over 300 other applicants to get an interview.

Knowing very little about Dimensional, Dave told us he’d contemplated skipping the interview. Fortunately for all of us, the Santa Monica office was on his way to something else, so he showed up for the scheduled meeting after all.

Minutes into the interview, Dave was invited to have lunch with a Nobel Prize laureate who was part of the Dimensional team. His impression of the firm changed quickly that day; he could almost physically feel the team’s enthusiasm for its novel approach to “applying academic research to practical investing.” From that day on, he was hooked.

We are grateful to be surrounded by a similar level of enthusiasm in our own firm and among our key strategic alliances, like Dimensional. They and we are mindful of who we work for – our clients, that is – and how exciting it is to help them put the evidence-based odds of successful investing on their side. We’re also very glad Dave made it to his interview!

Financial simplicity, like many goals, is as desirable as it is elusive.  

Or so it seems. 

If you took a sample of 100 investors and asked each one about the vital signs of their portfolios – their fees, returns, and allocations – you’d be hard-pressed to find many who could speak confidently and accurately about them.

This isn’t just a guess from left field. In 2016, MarketWatch cited a Prudential Investments retirement preparedness survey that  found more than 40% of Americans had no idea how their investments are allocated. We’ve seen similar stats from other surveys published since then. 

What’s most disappointing about this apparent collective bewilderment, is that the system seems designed to be this way. We work in an industry where thousands of “advisors” are not only encouraged to sow seeds of confusion, they’ve made millions of dollars doing so. 

When a broker pulls an investor out of their comfort zone and into the weeds, the investor becomes vulnerable. Accordingly, advice becomes a sales pitch, and costs become confusing –  a pattern we see time and again. 

We know investors deserve better, so we’re on a mission to make the complex simple, to make financial conversations comfortable, and ultimately to shed a liberating light into the dark corners where families have been harboring their greatest financial fears for years. 

As our friend Carl Richards has embodied in his Behavior Gap sketch above, an advisor’s job isn’t to prove how much they know. It’s about helping investors see the few, elegant, simple changes they can make to their plan, to make a huge impact over the long-term.  

There’s nothing more rewarding for us at Hill Investment Group than seeing someone’s reaction when the air finally clears for them, and they realize that simplicity wasn’t as elusive as they once thought. 

In the words of pianist and composer Frédéric Chopin, “Simplicity is the final achievement.” 

Who will you be rooting for in Super Bowl LIII on February 3^rd – the Patriots or the Rams? Either way, you’ll be among millions of fans tuning in for the big game.

That means the pressure is on, for both teams. You’d think this would encourage players and coaches to give it everything they’ve got. By some measures, I’m sure they do. But I also believe there’s a secret weapon neither team will be taking advantage of: Forgoing the option to punt.

What if more coaches were willing to let convention-challenging research be their guide? They might end up featured in an HBO “Real Sports” segment. That’s what happened to Pulaski Academy Head Coach Kevin Kelley from Little Rock, Arkansas. He earned a reputation for being “the coach who never punts,” after he decided to heed the data, and employ an atypical tactic of almost always going for the fourth down instead of punting. Check out the trailer here:

Of course, we feel the same sort of data-driven strategy and disciplined perspective should be applied to your evidence-based investing. So do others, which is why our friends at AQR featured a conversation between AQR Principal Toby Moskowitz and the same Coach Kelley in one of their podcasts, “Hot Hands and Cold Feet.” (Fast-forward to minute 10:00 to hear the specific conversation.)

While we call Kelley evidence-based, others have called him “crazy,” “insane” or “mad scientist.” If he is, his results don’t show it. In his conversation with Moskowitz, Kelley notes his record at Pulaski Academy is 179 wins/25 losses, with seven state titles in the past 15 years.

Consider these insights as you enjoy Super Bowl LIII. Consider it, too, as you stick with your best-laid investment plans in our competitive markets. I say, go ahead and let others call you crazy, if that’s what it takes to achieve your personal financial goals.