Full disclosure: I work for a firm that provides financial advice. I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t think we were helping our clients, but I still cannot pretend to be an impartial party. But, I hope this also makes my opinion a little more informed. A recent paper on how we use expert financial advice has been grabbing a bit of attention lately – Dan Ariely called the results “troublesome, perhaps even frightening” .

This is the first (brief) official post of this blog. And perhaps a good intro to talk about learning curves. In March, I went snowboarding for the first time (I was 27 at the time). It was painful and humbling. Nothing prepares you for having to balance and manoeuvre on a completely new surface. By the end of the third day, I was ready to quit – every fall was like feeling all previous falls again at once.