An investor can leverage their understanding of the role of luck and risk for personal gain by incorporating these factors into their investment strategy. This can be done by acknowledging that luck and risk are inherent parts of investing and by not discounting their impact. For instance, they can diversify their portfolio to spread risk and not put all their eggs in one basket hoping for a lucky break. They can also learn from the experiences of successful investors like Bill Gates who had both luck (going to a high school with a computer) and made good decisions (hard work).

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Someone's personal experiences make up only a small portion of what happens, but it makes up most of how that person thinks the world works. In theory, financial decisions should be driven by an investor's goals and the characteristics of investment options available to them. Economists from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that instead, investment decisions are anchored by early adulthood experiences. They found that investors tend to weigh more heavily the experience of the economy when they were young than what the economy is like now. Both luck and risk are often the factors that determine success and failure. Because they are hard to measure, they are often discounted. Some of Bill Gate's success can be attributed to hard work and good decisions. Some of it can also be attributed to his going to a high school with a computer. This was a roughly 1 in 1 million chance in the '60s. To account for risk and luck in decisions, an investor should: 1) Avoid idolization of s...

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The Psychology of Money

How should investors manage the inevitabilities of risk? What are the most powerful wealth-building tools that require little technical skill? How do...

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