Something You Should Know - Why You Ask for Help All Wrong and How to Do It Right & The Myth of “Expert” Financial Advice

Episode Date: June 25, 2018

There is only one right way to build a fire. It has always been this way and it is unlikely anyone will ever come up with a better way. Interestingly, you probably already do it. I start this episode with an explanation on how to build the perfect fire. http://www.pratt.duke.edu/news/fire People tend to ask for help all wrong! Humans like to help, we get joy from helping and if you ask the right way, you will often get the help you want. It’s HOW you ask that really matters. Social psychologist Heidi Grant, author of the book Reinforcements: How to Get People to Help You https://amzn.to/2MRA4Ep has explored the research and when you hear what she has to say, you will become better and more effective at asking for help. How you prepare some food has an impact on how healthy it is for you. For example, you shouldn’t cut strawberries until just before you eat them – but for garlic the opposite is true. You should peel and chop and let it sit for a while first. Why? I’ll explain and tell you how to make several other foods healthier. http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/25/health/eating-foods-wrong/index.html Why are there so many financial gurus, websites, books, magazine and TV shows offering advice on how to invest your money? Is it really that hard? Not according to financial journalist Helaine Olen who writes for the Washington Post and is author of the book The Index Card: Why Personal Finance Doesn't Have to Be Complicated https://amzn.to/2tuVnUr. Helaine explains why so much financial advice is horrible and how anyone can do a great job managing their own finances. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today on Something You Should Know, turns out there is only one right way to build a fire, any fire, and I'll tell you how. Then there's so much we don't know about how to ask for help. When someone has said no to us for whatever reason, when we've asked for help before, that's the last person we're going to go to, right? We figure, well, they turned me down last time, they're definitely not going to help me this time. In fact, the opposite is true. The research is really clear on this. People who have turned you down are actually much more likely to help you. Plus, how to make the food you eat even healthier and the case for managing your own money and not listening to the financial gurus. Financial industry makes billions of dollars selling Americans on the idea that

they're incompetent at personal finance management and they need their guidance to do it right. And in fact, a lot of times the advice we're getting is pretty bad. All this today on Something You Should Know. As a listener to Something You Should Know, I can only assume that you are someone who likes to learn about new and interesting things and bring more knowledge to work for you in your everyday life. I mean, that's kind of what Something You Should Know was all about. And so I want to invite you to listen to another podcast called TED Talks Daily. Now, you know about TED Talks, right? Many of the guests on Something You Should Know have done TED Talks Daily. Now, you know about Ted Talks, right? Many of the guests on Something You Should Know have done Ted Talks.

Well, you see, Ted Talks Daily is a podcast that brings you a new Ted Talk every weekday in less than 15 minutes. Join host Elise Hu. She goes beyond the headlines so you can hear about the big ideas shaping our future. Learn about things like sustainable fashion, embracing your entrepreneurial spirit, the future of robotics, and so much more. Like I said, if you like this podcast,

Something You Should Know, I'm pretty sure you're going to like TED Talks Daily. And you get TED Talks Daily wherever you get your podcasts. Something You should know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers.

Everybody has their own favorite way of listening to podcasts. If you listen on an iPhone, as I do, there's a good chance you use the podcast app that came with the phone. I know some people don't like it, but I think it's fine. But if you have an Android phone, it didn't come with an app. You had to find one that you liked, and if you haven't found one you liked yet, you should know that Google just released, just the other day, released an app for podcasts called Google Podcasts, and it's available in the Google Play Store.

It is for Android devices, and it's gotten mostly good reviews, and it's probably worth checking out if you have an Android phone. First up today, you and I have something in common, and that is we probably build a fire in the same way. It turns out that for as long as humans have been building fires, they have built them the same way. And that is we build them as tall as they are wide. Think about a campfire or even a charcoal fire in your grill.

You instinctively stack the charcoal about as high as the stack is wide. We all do. And we always have, according to Adrian Bajan, who is a professor of mechanical engineering at Duke University. Bonfires are shaped as cones or pyramids, but they too are also about as tall as they are wide at the base. And the reason is that this shape is the most efficient for air and heat flow. Human success in building fires has made it possible for humans to migrate and spread across the globe.

So we got pretty good at it very early on, and that design still works. In fact, there is no better design for building a fire, and it's unlikely anyone will come up with one. And it remains good advice for whenever you build a fire. And that is something you should know. So here's a topic that, for some reason, I've always found fascinating. And the topic is helping people. So when someone asks you for help, and they ask in the right way, you probably try to help if you can. In fact, you might sometimes feel flattered that someone

asked you for help. And after you help, you probably feel good that you were able to do so. And yet when you need help, you're probably reluctant to ask. You think the person will think less of you for asking. It's weird. We like to help, but we're reluctant to ask. You think the person will think less of you for asking. It's weird. We like to help, but we're reluctant to ask for help. Heidi Grant is a social psychologist who's uncovered some fascinating information about how people helping people works. I think this will surprise you. Heidi is the author of a book called Reinforcements, How to Get People to Help You. Hi, Heidi. Thanks for coming on the podcast. Oh, hi. It's good to be here, Mike. So as I said, it's so interesting to me that we generally like to help others and feel good for doing so, and yet we're reluctant to ask for help for ourselves. Absolutely. You nailed it right on

the nose. And I think, you know, that for me is what was so interesting about the topic in general is that so many of our intuitions when it comes to asking for help are so misguided, even though we all are people who ourselves are helpers, right? So we know how it feels to be a helper. And yet somehow when we're on the other end of it, and we're the ones asking for help, we forget all of that. So, you know, there's probably like two, I think two main obstacles to asking for help that people feel. One is, you know, that feeling of people will think less of me, perhaps like me less if I ask for help. The research on this is really clear.

It's actually the opposite is the case, that people like you more when they've helped you, not less. So it's actually something that strengthens relationships. It's something that actually makes people hold you in higher regard, not in lower regard. So that's one. And I think then the other piece that's really important is that we all think that there's a really good chance or a much greater chance that we will be rejected, right, that people will say no, than is actually the case.

What the research shows is that we tend to underestimate the odds of getting help when we ask for it by more than half. So, you know, we're more than twice as likely to get help, to have someone say yes, than we think. And a lot of that comes from just, again, like a total failure of perspective taking. When we think about asking for help and we're calculating those odds mentally that someone will help us, we only think about sort of how difficult or onerous or unpleasant the thing is that we're asking someone

to do, and we don't think about what it's like on the helper side. And first and foremost, it's very uncomfortable to say no when someone asks you for help, right? So people feel guilty saying no. They feel like they're putting the relationship at risk if they say no. So they're very motivated to say yes, but also helping feels great. Helping is actually one of the most reliable predictors of well-being, of self-esteem, of positive mood. When you give someone the chance to help you, you're actually giving them an opportunity to feel great about themselves. It's a genuine win-win. And we just, we forget all of that somehow when we're in the

position to ask for help and we focus only on the negative. And that's what really kind of stands in the way. Yeah. I've read a lot about the benefits of helping, you know, the helper's high and the fact that when you help other people, it's like one of the best cures for depression, it has all kinds of benefits, psychological benefits, health benefits, that when you ask someone to help you, you're actually giving them an opportunity to feel good. You are, and you know one of the most, one of the other things I think that's so interesting when you look at the research is that, you know, who's the last person you're going to go to for help? Probably the person who has turned you down in the past, right?

And, again, you know, and that's intuitively true, and the research, you know, bears that out, that when someone has said no to us for whatever reason, when we've asked for help before, that's the last person we're going to go to, right? We figure, well, they turned me down last time. They're definitely not going to help me this time. Again, in fact, the opposite is true. The research is really clear on this. People who have turned you down are actually much more likely to help you in the future. And that's because they want to actually repair the damage

that was done. So, you know, if I had to say no to you in the past because I was too busy or I just couldn't do the thing that you were asking me to do, and you give me another chance to help you in the future, I'm really motivated to do that, right? I want to feel better. I might feel guilty about the fact that I said no. I want to, you know, give me a boost of relieving that guilt, and it gives me an opportunity to repair a relationship that may have been damaged. And I have found this personally to be true using this, that people that may have turned me down for something in the past, when I go back to them, they often sort of jump at the chance to make up for that.

So it's really true. It's incredibly powerful. It's something that we do, helping people is something we sometimes choose to do, not even fully consciously, in order to alleviate bad moods, in order to give ourselves a boost. And there's great data that shows that, you know, there's that adage, you know, does money buy happiness? Well, the answer seems to be it depends on how you spend it.

And there's great research showing that, you know, sort of above kind of putting a roof over your head and food on the table and all the sort of the basic necessities of life, how we spend that discretionary money that we have. If you spend it on yourself, if you spend it on gifts for yourself and things that you want, that doesn't actually seem to predict happiness at all. But if you spend it on other people, if you spend it on gifts and charity, the amount you spend is directly related to how happy people say they are.

So really, you know, being a helper is great. And giving people the opportunity to help you and to mend fences and to repair relationships and to experience that is really one of the nicer things you can do. And that's one of the things that, you know, I really want to kind of unleash onto the world all of these people who can create these opportunities for each other, both to get the support they need and to also have that great experience of helping others. Yeah, the nuance of all of this are things like who you ask, how you ask, all of that makes a big difference in the outcome.

So talk about that. So there's a couple of things that are really important. First is that there's some things that we do that keep us from getting the help we need. So let's start with that. One of the things we do is, again, you know, we all know what it's like to feel uncomfortable asking for help. And because of that, we have a tendency to actually not want to ask explicitly. We want people to just offer to help us, right? To spare us the discomfort of having to ask. And we often feel like they should be offering because our

needs are obvious and nothing could be further from the truth. So this is something psychologists call the illusion of transparency. We all feel that our thoughts and feelings and our needs are very obvious to other people. It's not true. In fact, most of us actually fail to notice that other people need help on a daily basis, right? Because we're, you know, we don't pay attention to everything. We all mostly pay attention to our own things, right? Our own goals, our own, the demands on our time. And so it's very, very easy to miss the signal that somebody else actually could use your help. So we need to be asking explicitly for help because we cannot just assume that people are going to notice our need.

And the other part of it that goes with that is that even if someone knows that you need help, they may not know you want help. And that's really an important distinction because we've all been in that position where you offer someone help that they didn't actually want and you see how testy people get about that because, you know, they often feel like it's a kind of an insult, right? Like, you know, oh, you think I can't do this myself, which is, of course, not what it meant, but it's how it sometimes comes across. So people are often reluctant to offer help even when they see you need it if they're not sure whether or

not you want it. And that's why really the only remedy to this is to actually be asking and to be asking explicitly for help and to be making sure you're asking just one person. One of the mistakes I see people make all the time is that they'll send out an email to like 10 people or 15 people hoping that one of them will be able to help with something and say, hey, could anybody help me with this thing? You know, could any, you send an email to 10 friends and you say, could any of you help me move this weekend? And like nobody answers. And that's a phenomenon psychologists call a diffusion of responsibility. Basically, the more people who can help you with something, the less likely anyone is to actually do it. They kind of assume

one of the other people on the email is going to help you. And so they don't actually take action themselves. So you want your request for help to be explicit and you want them to be personal. And then the last thing I'll say about that is another very, very common mistake. We send email requests for help to people that we could ask for that help from in person or on the phone. And, you know, sometimes, yes, you have to use email. That's the only way to communicate with someone. But a lot of times we could just walk down the hall, like if it's a colleague, you know, you could just walk down the hall and ask them. But we choose to do it by email because it's more comfortable for us, right? We don't have to face them when we're asking for the help. But you know who else it's more comfortable for?

It's more comfortable for the person on the receiving end to say no via email. Right. So there was a recent study that showed that the requests for help that are done in person are 34 times more successful than requests over email. Basically, you have to send 200 email requests to get the same hit rate of success as six in-person requests. Whoa. Yeah, it's huge. So it's one of those things where, again, that little bit of discomfort you might feel picking up the phone or walking down the hall and asking someone in person is so worth it because the success rates for getting support go up so dramatically when you have these face-to-face

live interactions. My guest today is Heidi Grant. She is a social psychologist and her book is Reinforcements, How to Get People to Help You. Since I host a podcast, it's pretty common for me to be asked to recommend a podcast. And I tell people, if you like something you should know, you're going to like The Jordan Harbinger Show. Every episode is a conversation with a fascinating guest. Of course, a lot of podcasts are conversations with guests, but Jordan does it better than most. Recently, he had a fascinating conversation with a British woman who was recruited and radicalized by ISIS and went to prison for three years. She now works to raise awareness on this issue. It's a great conversation. And he spoke with Dr. Sarah Hill about how taking birth control not only prevents pregnancy, it can influence a woman's partner preferences, career choices, and overall behavior due to the hormonal changes it causes.

Apple named The Jordan Harbinger Show one of the best podcasts a few years back. And in a nutshell, the show is aimed at making you a better, more informed, critical thinker. Check out The Jordan Harbinger Show. There's so much for you in this podcast. The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Jennifer, a co-founder of the Go Kid Go Network. At Go Kid Go, putting kids first is at the heart of every show that we produce. That's why we're so excited to introduce a brand new show to our network called The Search for the Silver Lightning,

a fantasy adventure series about a spirited young girl named Isla who time travels to the mythical land of Camelot. During her journey, Isla meets new friends, including King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, and learns valuable life lessons with every quest, sword fight, and dragon ride. Positive and uplifting stories remind us all about the importance of kindness, friendship, honesty, and positivity. Join me and an all-star cast of actors, including Liam Neeson, Emily Blunt, Kristen Bell, Chris Hemsworth, among many others, in welcoming the Search for the Silver Lining podcast to the Go Kid Go Network by listening today. Look for the Search for the Silver Lining on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. So look, I know you don't like to think about disasters and emergencies, but they do happen.

They happen all the time. And the key is to be prepared. It's why I have a 72 survival system from Uncharted. You see, 95% of all survival situations are resolved in 72 hours. And what you do in those first 72 hours can mean the difference between life and death. The 72 survival system contains quality tools and instructions, and you need these things to survive in a hurricane, an earthquake, or any emergency.

It just makes sense to have this, and I know I feel a little more secure knowing it's in my home. All the tools are housed in a roll-top backpack, and it's so airtight you can even use it as a flotation device. Times are changing, and the 72 is the product every home, office, and car in America should have. When an emergency arises, be part of the solution, because the more prepared you are, the safer the world is. Right now, my listeners get $50 off at unchartedsupplyco.com when you use my code SOMETHING at checkout. That's $50 off your survival system. Use my code SOMETHING at unchartedsupplyco.com for $50 off.

So Heidi, one thing I've noticed, and the homeless is a good example of this, where I live in the Los Angeles area, we have a big homeless problem. And I know that as a giver, I feel better giving money to a guy who's just sitting there minding his own business and looks like he could use a meal and I'll give him five or ten dollars and say you know go get yourself something to eat and and typically he'll be extremely grateful because it more or less came out of the blue as opposed to the guy who's got the sign and he's holding it up to my car and saying please give me something and when I give him something, maybe he says thank you, maybe he doesn't, but he's quickly moved on to the next car, hoping they'll give him something.

You know, you're bringing up, I think, a really important point that happens all the time in everyday interactions when people are asking for help, which is that often we sort of ruin it for the helper. One of the common ways you see this is actually people over apologizing when they ask for help. So, you know, they say things like, oh, I can't believe I have to ask for this. I feel so terrible. You must think the worst of me that I need to ask you for this. All you're really doing is creating this palpable discomfort in the situation that's actually spoiling it for the helper. They no longer get to feel good about this because you so obviously don't want to have to ask for help that it kind of ruins the experience for them. So when we make the situation very uncomfortable, when we're very aggressive,

you'll see this also sometimes people will say, oh, if you do this for me, then I'll do this other thing for you, right? If you help me with this project, then I'll take you to lunch tomorrow. Now you've reduced it to kind of an exchange where it's sort of like, well, you know, apparently I'm not helping you because I'm a good person. I'm helping you because I'm getting lunch out of it, which doesn't, again, make me feel good about myself. So you're kind of ruining it for me in that way. Anything that makes the person feel manipulated, right,

so that they feel like they have to help, you pinned them in a corner, you made it too awkward for them to say no, that feeling of being controlled, like I feel like I have to help almost in this situation because you're not really giving me an out if I want one, that also ruins, again, that person may help you, but they're not going to feel good about helping you. They're not going to give you their best quality help, and they're probably not going to want to help you again.

Here's my best worst helper story. Years and years ago when I was very young, I was still in school, high school, I think. I was in New York City, and I was walking through Times Square, and the Hare Krishnas came up to me and put a flower in my lapel and put their hand out. And I thought, oh, sure, here's a dollar. And I felt great because here I'm helping the Hare Krishnas.

And they said, oh, thanks, but that's not enough to keep the flower. And they took it out of my lapel and walked away. Oh, wow. That is not a... See, this is how you get a reputation for not being somebody that people want to help. I mean, you know, there's a... So that's, again, just entirely a lack of gratitude, which is, gratitude is important. You know, it's not, and it's important to understand, again, bringing up something really critical,

which is that gratitude isn't just about sort of, you know, someone's ego, right? It's not about that. It's actually fundamentally about the fact that we all want to feel effective as helpers. We all want to feel like we made a difference. And because that's really, really important. When people feel like the help they've given didn't really land or that when you ask them for help, they're not sure really what kind of impact their help will have, it is really demotivating. Part of the function of gratitude is to give people that sense of, you know what, the help

you gave really mattered. It had an impact. And here's the impact that it had. And that's really when people feel that warm glow. And that's, again, what motivates future helping is that feeling of effectiveness. And of course, when somebody then snaps the flower back, they've completely left you feeling like you were an ineffective helper, and that's going to be really demotivating going forward. What are some of the other mistakes people make

or things that people don't really understand about helping? A really common mistake, and for some reason this comes up in my life a lot, is the very vague request for help. And those are incredibly off-putting. The one I get, because I write books and people may read or in articles and things like that, and people might read, and I imagine this might happen to you too, you know, people read or are familiar with your work and they're excited about it or there's something they're interested in, and that's great. And then they find you on LinkedIn or they find your email or they find some way to connect with you and they say just that.

They say, I'd love to set up a meeting with you and I'd love to connect. Or they say, I'd love to chat or pick your brain, right? And here's the thing. They want something, right? They have a specific goal. People actually, generally speaking, don't want to just connect or chat or pick your brain. There's something they want. There's some information that they want.

There's maybe perhaps they want to make you to connect them with someone else. Or in my case, maybe they're interested in a career in my organization. And all of that's fine. Like all of those are totally perfectly fine things to want my help from. But when I don't know what it is that you want from me, and I know you want something, but I don't know what it is, I don't want to have that conversation with you because I don't want to end up in a situation where I'm uncomfortable, where you either, it turns out, want something from me I can't give you,

or you want something from me, frankly, I don't want to give you. And so I find that a lot of times when people make those requests for me, I kind of ignore them. And I don't feel good about that, believe me, but it feels like even worse to be in an awkward conversation with a stranger. So, you know, the requests that I respond to are the ones where people are very upfront and they say, this is why I'd love to meet with you and this is specifically what I'm looking for and I'm hoping you can help me with. I'm much more likely to respond affirmatively to those.

And so I think that's another kind of concrete piece of advice for people to take with them is, you know, be explicit, make very direct appeals to specific individuals, and tell them exactly what it is that you want, because if they don't know they can be effective, they're not going to say yes. Yeah, I love that, because those requests for, let's chat, let's get coffee, let me pick your brain, are hard to say no to because you look like such a jerk. Why wouldn't you want to just let me chat? I mean, that's not asking much. Come on.

What an idiot to say no to that. So like you say, you ignore them rather than respond because how do you respond to that? And you're right. I mean, what's the benefit of chatting if there's no goal, if there's no... Totally. And I think most of the time there is a goal, and the person is reluctant to come out with it. Right. They actually think that, you know, they will sort of lull you into, like, the first step will just get in the door, and then I'll ask you. And I think the mistake there, again, is that it's the wrong intuition.

On their side of it, they feel like that's very innocuous, right? Like you said, it's no big deal. Why can't we just chat? Well, the big deal is I don't know what's coming. That's the big deal. And people do not like uncertainty, myself very much included. Well, we should get coffee sometime so I can pick your brain. Let's chat. Let's chat up a storm. My guest has been Heidi Grant. She is a social psychologist and author of the book, Reinforcements, How to Get People to Help You. There is a link to her book in the show notes. Thanks, Heidi.

Thanks so much, Mike. People who listen to Something You Should Know are curious about the world, looking to hear new ideas and perspectives. So I want to tell you about a podcast that is full of new ideas and perspectives, and one I've started listening to called Intelligence Squared. It's the podcast where great minds meet. Listen in for some great talks on science, tech, politics, creativity, wellness, and a lot more.

A couple of recent examples, Mustafa Suleiman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, discussing the future of technology. That's pretty cool. And writer, podcaster, and filmmaker John Ronson, discussing the rise of conspiracies and culture wars. Intelligence Squared is the kind of podcast that gets you thinking a little more openly about the important conversations going on today. Being curious, you're probably just the type of person Intelligence Squared is meant for.

Check out Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts. Do you love Disney? Then you are going to love our hit podcast, Disney Countdown. I'm Megan, the Magical Millennial. And I'm the Dapper Danielle. On every episode of our fun and family-friendly show, we count down our top 10 lists of all things Disney. There is nothing we don't cover. We are famous for rabbit holes, Disney-themed games,

and fun facts you didn't know you needed, but you definitely need in your life. So if you're looking for a healthy dose of Disney magic, check out Disney Countdown wherever you get your podcasts. When you look at the world of personal investing and money management, it looks pretty complicated. There are a lot of financial advisors and books and magazinesus, and TV shows, and websites that all focus on investing, and how to get the maximum return, and what companies to invest in, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So is it really that complicated? Must it be that complicated? What if all the

financial advice you really need could fit on an index card? Well, that is the premise of this next segment. Helene Olin is a financial journalist and opinion writer for The Washington Post. She's one of Business Insider's 50 Women Who Are Changing the World, and she believes that all the financial hoopla and hype is unnecessarily complicating your understanding of money. She is co-author of the book, The Index Card, Why Personal Finance Doesn't Have to Be So Complicated. Hi, Helene. Welcome. Oh, thank you for having me on. So you came to this revelation or this epiphany or this decision that financial information could fit on an index card.

So how did that happen? I've been a longtime writer about people, money, and society. And in 2013, I wrote a book called Pound Foolish about how personal finance was sold to people as a way of combating income and wealth inequality. And as part of the book tour, I ended up speaking with this super nice guy named Harold Pollack for a blog cast he was doing. And while we were chatting, he said something along the lines of, I think everything you need to know about personal finance can be put on an index card. And we laughed, and we went on with the interview. But several people took Harold seriously when he said that and wrote him demanding to see the index card. And we laughed, and we went on with the interview, but several people took Harold

seriously when he said that, and wrote him demanding to see the index card. And so Harold put one together. And then that went viral, and then the two of us decided to write a book about it. And that is a seemingly unusual thing to say, if I'm right, because so much of the financial advice and information out there seems to be pretty complicated. Right, I mean, there's a couple of different things that go on in the financial world, and the one that we really addressed with the index card was the fact that most personal finance rules are pretty basic and simple. They are not complicated. They don't need huge amounts of special advice.

Nobody is going to give you the secret to how to make more money than the average stock market annual return. And if they are trying to sell you that, you should run in the other direction because why on earth would they tell you that if they know it, right? And that people are often getting misled. Why? Is it just all profit motive? A lot of it is profit motive. A lot of it is people, you know, we're all the heroes of our own story, right? So people think they're genuinely acting for the best. But the financial industry makes billions and billions of dollars

selling Americans on the idea that they're incompetent at personal finance management, and they need their guidance to do it right. And in fact, sometimes we need advice, but a lot of times the advice we're getting is pretty bad. Because the basics are what? I mean, the basics of money management that are tried and true are basically what? Basically, don't spend more than you earn, which, by the way, is easier said than done in American society, right? Save for retirement, invest in index funds, don't keep loads of credit card or debt around if you can help it. And as Harold and I pointed out in the last rule, support things like Social Security and Medicare and unemployment insurance, because in fact, most of our personal finance lives would not exist without the government backstop. But then there's all these other things, hedge funds and futures, and we hear all this people

making money and all this stuff, and we think, gosh, that sounds very complicated, but potentially very lucrative. Maybe I ought to be putting my money over there. Well, that doesn't work for the vast majority of investors. What we know is when it is studied, and it has been studied by academics, less than 1% of investors can beat the market year in and year out. And when we say 1%, I don't just mean me or my neighbors or you. I mean financial professionals. I mean people who run hedge funds. I mean pretty much anybody who has anything to do with money. You know Warren Buffett's name, not because he's so usual,

but because he's so unusual. But a lot of financial advice and a lot of money spent for financial advice, which I have found personally to be very helpful, is tax-related. That if I didn't do this this way, it would have cost me more money in taxes over there. And that's pretty sound advice. Well, most people's taxes are not particularly complicated, right? And they're even less complicated now, thanks to the Trump tax reform, that whatever else you think of it, because it is a huge windfall for the 1%, has also resulted in simplification of taxes for many, many people. And what about the idea, which has, I think, everyone that has money and has thought about it, is maybe I should invest in specific individual stocks, because there's always the stories of

the Peter Lynches of the world or the Warren Buffetts of the world who are really good at investing in just the right companies. And if I could do that, maybe I could be a billionaire. Well, again, it goes back to what I said before. What we know is that less than 1% of people, from financial managers to me and you, can outsmart the markets year in and year out. However, there is a vast industry that is selling all of us on the idea that we can do this. And the reason they do that is because there's billions of dollars at stake in selling us on that idea. As I like to point out all the time, if somebody really has the secret, why on earth are they telling you about it, right?

They're either off trading on their own, living on a yacht on the tax-free seas, or they're trying to get it to some billionaire who can, you know, they can make a lot more money with than, say, your $20,000, right? Yeah, exactly. Time is another factor, though. I mean, I remember, I don't anymore, but I used to subscribe to Money Magazine years ago, and I guess the reason I stopped was you'd get the magazine one month, and it would say, here are the top mutual funds to buy.

So, okay, so you buy those. Well, guess what comes in the next issue next month? The new best money market things to buy, But I just put my money in those other... So how do you know? Well, again, this is why you simply invest in basic index funds so that you don't have to worry about beating or not beating the market. You'll simply match the market. And something else I should discuss that was not in the index card

but was in my previous book, Pound Foolish, is that there was actually a study done of recommendations of 10 best mutual funds in various financial magazines. I believe this was done around 2004 or so. And there was a shocking correlation in many of the articles, specifically in the magazines, not so much the newspapers. The more the fund advertised, the more likely it was to turn up on a list in a magazine of best mutual funds. I wonder if the same thing that drives this desire to beat the market and find that special investment that's going to make you a billionaire. I wonder if what drives that is the same thing that drives people to go to Las Vegas and spend their money in hopes of beating the house, knowing full well that the chances of doing so, at least over time, are almost impossible.

But there's something about the thrill of trying that drives trips to Las Vegas, and I wonder if it's the same thing that makes people try to beat the market. Well, I would say a couple of things. First of all, if that's your idea of fun, I hope you have some money put aside, right? Because most people aren't going to do that. And in fact, this isn't gambling, except in the sense of you're gambling with your future, right? Because you're not going to Vegas for fun here. This is your retirement or money for your house or your children's education. This is not money you should be having fun with.

The third thing I would say is while certainly some people feel that way, the vast majority of people, both male and female, routinely tell surveyors they really want as little to do with this as possible. They don't want to think about it, they don't want to have to engage with it, and they don't want to deal with it. But there are other questions about, well, maybe I should put it in real estate. No, maybe I should put it in stocks. Maybe I should put it in bonds. Maybe it should be a little bit of all of those things, and that's advice that perhaps you need a third party. Well, we have nothing against seeking out advice.

What we are saying, however, is that a lot of the advice being given is not in people's best interest. It is in the interest of the people giving the advice, right? And they're getting paid based on the advice they are giving. One of the rules in the index card is that when you seek advice, you should always go to somebody who has a legal duty to act in your best interest, something called the fiduciary standard. Most financial advisors do not have to meet that test. Survey work shows that most people think they do, that they think when they get financial advice,

they're seeing the equivalent of a doctor who has to act in their best interest. This isn't true. And the only way people will know is if they ask. Generally speaking, if the person giving the advice makes a commission on what they sell, it's hard to imagine that there is an objective fiduciary responsibility in play there. I would agree with that there is occasionally there is a way where that works but i would basically agree with you it is very hard to convince me that that it that it works under fiduciary standard uh... but i have to say there is a

run around now where and the front row to pick up the for some time where you could both be paying for the advice and the person still does not have to act in your best interest. So the only way to know if you are getting advice in your best interest is to flat out ask if somebody needs to act according to the fiduciary standard. Whether they have to, not whether they say they are.

Well, yeah. Do they legally have a responsibility to you? And that is, you know, to act, I should say, legally have a responsibility to act in your best interest and to put your interests ahead of their own. In terms of, though, building wealth, of watching your money grow, isn't it true that there aren't too many people who got wealthy that didn't have at least some money in real estate? Most people who are wealthy do invest in real estate. That's a fact. Whether that's how they get wealthy or not, I think is a slightly different issue. But in terms of your index card, is that a good place to be putting money? It depends on whether you're going to be in the house long term or not, or the apartment or condo, right? I'm sitting in a co-op.

If you're going to be living in the residence long term, it probably is decent, right? But if you're planning to sell in a couple of years, it's certainly no guarantee. The other thing that's worth mentioning, of course, is that unlike mutual funds, houses often need expensive maintenance. You can get whacked with $20,000 in roof repair kind of out of nowhere. It does seem fascinating to me that there is so much emphasis put on. I mean, there's shows on television of, you know, stocks to watch and things to do and the best mutual funds. And a lot of this is showbiz, and a lot of this is hype. And actually, what you're saying is most of it is hype, and there isn't a lot of facts and truth and best interest behind it. Right. I took this apart less in the index card and more in Pound Foolish, where I basically showed that there was an entire industry devoted to peddling a lot of this stuff. Some of it is

good, a lot of it isn't. Most people, unfortunately, don't have the ability to tell the difference. Yeah. But the idea of trading individual stocks, I mean, it seems almost foolish now because it would require so much work. And maybe it's just my perception, but it seems that that's changed over time. And certainly before there were mutual funds or before they were that popular, that's what people did. Well, I mean, keep in mind, I mean, the idea of an index fund is, you know, relatively recent. I mean, frankly, the computer technology didn't exist for it until about 40 years ago. So, of course, people traded individual stocks. What else were they going to do? Or, you know, or they bought into mutual funds that traded individual stocks for them. But that was what there was. Now we have index funds, so things can be different. And when the dust all settles, seemingly makes all the sense in the world.

Right. I mean, for most people, they're not going to beat the averages. They are not going to invest, you know, find, you know, the right investment that's going to make them amend, right? You know, everybody has this sort of idea that they're going to, you know, discover Amazon the day it goes public. But in fact, people are more likely to have, like, invested in AOL. We have black thumbs when it comes to investment, as I like to put it. We make almost every wrong move we can make. We sell the stocks at the wrong time. We buy them at the wrong time.

Our instincts are just horrible. And that's just human nature, isn't it? That is human nature. And that's why I tend to support index fund investing. And what else, lastly, is on that index card of yours that we haven't talked about? Basically, the last one we always are very conscious of, which is the fact that people should support things like Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance. We have this idea that most of us don't benefit from government services. That's absolutely untrue.

Ninety-plus percent of us will ultimately benefit from government services. That's absolutely untrue. 90 plus percent of us will ultimately benefit from government programs. And in fact, our financial lives as we think of them really wouldn't exist without them. For all that we talk about saving for retirement, prior to Social Security, the vast majority of elderly people lived in poverty. So when you say support those things, what does that mean? I mean, don't badmouth them. Recognize that they're there for a reason. Don't think people can live without them. They can't. And support proper funding of them. Well, hearing your advice, I think, comes as a relief to people who have probably suspected for a long time that you're right, but to confirm that, you know, maybe we don't

need all this financial advice and gurus and everything else, that financial investing is actually fairly simple. Helene Olin has been my guest. She's a financial journalist and an opinion writer for the Washington Post, and her book is The Index Card, Why Personal Finance Doesn't Have to Be So Complicated. There's a link to her book in the show notes. Thanks for being here, Helene. Thank you so much for having me on.

You know, it's not just what you eat that matters. It's also how you eat it. For example, strawberries. If you're going to cut or slice strawberries, you should do so at the very last minute because strawberries are sensitive to light and air, and once cut, the nutritional value quickly begins to deteriorate. Garlic. Well, for garlic, it's just the opposite of strawberries. Allicin, the cancer-fighting enzyme found in garlic, actually benefits from exposure to air. So it's recommended that you peel and chop garlic and then let it sit for 10 minutes before you use it.

Greek yogurt. You know that watery substance that you often find on top of Greek yogurt that you probably pour down the sink? Well, that's whey, and it contains protein and vitamin B12 along with minerals like calcium and phosphorus, and so rather than dumping the whey out, give your yogurt a quick stir so you retain all those health benefits. Tomatoes. If you want to absorb their lycopene, which is the phytonutrient responsible for the fruit's cancer and heart disease-fighting properties, you should eat them cooked rather than raw. Cornell researchers also found that tomatoes' antioxidant content increases when they're heated to roughly 190 degrees Fahrenheit.

And broccoli. It's full of nutrients, and steaming is the best cooking method to preserve those nutrients. Boiling and stir-frying were found to cause the biggest loss. And that is something you should know. If you have a question, comment, or would just like to say hello,

you can always reach me. I read all the emails that come in, and you can email me at mike at somethingyoushouldknow.net. I'm Micah Ruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager,

but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church for possible criminal activity. The pair form an unlikely partnership to catch the killer, unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law, her religious convictions, and her very own family. But something more sinister than murder is afoot,

and someone is watching Ruth. Chinook. Starring Kelly Marie Tran and Sanaa Lathan. Listen to Chinook wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, this is Rob Benedict. And I am Richard Spate. We were both on a little show you might know called Supernatural. It had a pretty good run, 15 seasons, 327 episodes.

And though we have seen, of course, every episode many times, we figured, hey, now that we're wrapped, let's watch it all again. And we can't do that alone. So we're inviting the cast and crew that made the show along for the ride. We've got writers, producers, composers, directors, and we'll of course have some actors on as well, including some certain guys that played some certain pretty iconic brothers. It was kind of a little bit of a left field choice in the best way possible. The note from Kripke was, he's great, we love him,

but we're looking for like a really intelligent Duchovny type. With 15 seasons to explore, it's going to be the road trip of several lifetimes. So please join us and subscribe to Supernatural then and now.