In addition to what I already was envisioning when we published Odds On three years ago, I was pleasantly surprised in two more ways: New friends and new clients discovered us, and our existing friends and existing clients got to know us even better.

Since the book’s release, we’ve been looking for more ways to share meaningful stories and ideas with others. It struck us: For the commuter, the long-distance runner, the family chef, and anyone else who might prefer to listen instead of read … why not take our Take the Long View® to a podcast?

So, you heard it (or technically, read it) here first:

“Take the Long View with Matt Hall” (TLV with MH) podcasts are set to debut in June!

Expect more public promotion in the months ahead, but we wanted to inform our closest followers first. 

Of course, we’ll talk about investing, but don’t be surprised if we shift into related thoughts about emotions, behavior, and time management. They’re all up for grabs as topics to talk about with our guests – thought leaders who we at Hill Investment Group have learned from or are inspired by in our own journeys. Together, we’ll reframe the way you think about what it means (to you) to live richly. Similar to my goal when writing Odds On, I hope you won’t even notice the “vegetables” of educational insights we’ll bury in our sweet conversations with interesting individuals. 

Are you as pumped as we are about TLV with MH? To prime your pump, here’s a clip from Episode 1 with our good friend and respected psychotherapist Marilyn Wechter, talking about why money matters are such sticky subjects for so many people.

Look for more to come, come June!

We liked our most recent quarterly client letter so much we decided to share it again, and more publicly …

It’s a tradition in medical schools for students to stand together and recite the Hippocratic Oath, a pledge to uphold the responsibilities, ethics and values of their new profession. The medical oath dates back to between fifth and third centuries BC. We are sure you’ve heard of the Hippocratic Oath, and we encourage you to look it up if you’ve never read it.

This commitment to the statement, both in the original version and in modern updates, affects all of us because we rely on the medical community’s expertise and compassion to keep us healthy. This oath is especially relevant to Hill Investment Group because of the language it uses. New doctors must affirm their respect for established science and commit themselves to share their knowledge with the world. They also pledge to always put patients’ needs first and to serve them with compassion, specifically reminding doctors that they’re not treating a medical chart or a disease, but a human being.

Sound familiar? It did to us, which is why we were inspired to adopt a similar pledge. Of course, our fiduciary duty already legally binds us to serve our clients’ interests, but we wanted an even stronger statement that fully encapsulates the Hill Investment Group experience. We call our version the “Hillocratic Oath.”

Our Values

• We are a team who honors the trust people place with us to manage their financial lives.
• We respect peer-reviewed academic research and use it as the basis for our investment philosophy.
• We work solely for our clients, offering steady guidance when investing is easy – and especially when it isn’t.
• We strive to continuously improve our techniques for managing money and human behavior.
• We advocate for the whole client and work to create value in big ways and small.
• With these commitments firmly in our minds, we at Hill Investment Group will continue to enrich the lives of our clients and one another.

Our oath reflects the importance of the service we provide clients. While doctors are literally dealing with matters of life and death, we have our own unique responsibility: acting as trusted, experienced and compassionate advocates for your financial health.

Financial success is critical to achieving your most cherished goals and the lifestyle you desire. For most people, that lifestyle includes more important uses for their time than managing investments – even for those with the skill and expertise to do it themselves. Building true multigenerational wealth comes from a unique collaboration between clients putting their talents to work to generate assets, and a fiduciary partner helping to ensure that any money not needed to cover immediate needs is put to work for the long-term. Our pledge acknowledges that we are not just stewards of your wealth, but important allies who free you to put your time to its highest and best use.

Our oath also acknowledges the commitment we have made to each other as members of the Hill Investment Group team as well as to you, our clients. For 14 years, we’ve been building a modern model for the financial advisory industry. As we continue to grow and evolve, we know that our continued success depends on the expertise, passion and commitment of each person working toward our shared goals.

We are proud to share this statement of our values. Thank you for the trust you place in us and for helping inspire us to put into words the values that guide every Hill Investment Group relationship.

For the third year in a row, Schwab Institutional is running a series of TV commercials in support of independent Registered Investment Advisor firms. That’s us! The commercials are an extension of Schwab’s long-running advertising campaign, focused on helping the public understand why terms like “independent,” “fiduciary,” and “Registered Investment Advisor” matter – or at least should matter – to anyone seeking solid financial advice.

You can see the TV ads now through mid-May on CNBC, Fox Business, Bloomberg TV and Golf Channel. They stand out to us for their emphasis on the right kinds of questions to ask when assessing a financial advisor. While most financial services advertising is aimed at products and sales, we’d say Schwab gets it right. Here’s our favorite:

Schwab’s ad campaign is hardly the reason we do business with them. But it’s one more way their thinking aligns with ours, as we turn to them for holding our own, and our clients’ personal investments.