This Isn’t a New Year’s Resolution Post
Behavioral finance and decision-making. Every Monday morning.
New Year’s resolutions fail 80% of the time. You know what doesn’t? Deciding that today matters.
Here is what I know about behavioral finance. Every Monday morning is a fresh start. You do not need January 1st to make better decisions. The “fresh start effect” researchers talk about is not reserved for New Year’s Day. It happens whenever you decide it does.
Today works. Next Monday works. The date matters less than the decision to begin.
That is why I am launching this newsletter now, in late November, instead of waiting for some arbitrary calendar milestone. Because the best time to start building clarity is always right now.
The Social Media Constraint
I have been sharing behavioral finance insights on social media. Quick posts on loss aversion, mental accounting, overconfidence. These are the biases that shape how we make financial decisions. The posts work because they are immediate and actionable. You can read one before a meeting and apply it to a decision you are making that afternoon.
But there is a constraint. I cannot go deep. I can point out that loss aversion exists, but I cannot show you how it compounds over years of decisions that affect your life in areas such as your finances and decision making. I can mention mental accounting, but I cannot build the framework that helps you recognize it in real-time. I can flag overconfidence, but I cannot walk through the specific situations where it costs you the most.
Social media rewards brevity, and I get it. But the frameworks that actually change how you make decisions? Those cannot fit into a social media scroll.
So much gets left on the cutting room floor. Such as the “why” behind the patterns, the systems thinking that connects one bias to another, the frameworks you can revisit when you are stuck on a hard decision.
Why This Matters Now
Markets are more volatile than they have been in years. Information overload is worse than ever. Everyone has an opinion, an AI-generated insight or a hot take on what you should do with your money.
You open your portfolio app for the third time today. Markets are down 2%. Your first instinct is to sell. But is that rational analysis or loss aversion kicking in? Without frameworks, you cannot tell the difference. Without understanding why you react the way you do, you are just riding emotional waves disguised as investment decisions.
AI is changing how people access financial information, but it is not necessarily making them better decision-makers. If anything, it is amplifying the noise. More data does not equal better decisions. More speed does not mean more clarity. You can get an AI-generated portfolio recommendation in seconds, but if you do not understand the behavioral patterns driving your own reactions to that recommendation, you are no better off.
The same behavioral traps are still there such as loss aversion, recency bias, herd mentality. The stakes feel higher. The information comes faster. The decisions feel more urgent. People need frameworks, not more noise. They need ways to cut through the chaos and make decisions that serve their long-term interests.
My Vantage Point
I wrote my MBA thesis on how Singaporean investors make decisions in stock markets. I studied loss aversion, mental accounting, overconfidence. These are the biases that traditional finance models ignore because they assume we are rational actors who always optimize.
We are human. We hold losing positions too long. We let fear drive decisions at exactly the wrong moments. We fragment our thinking, looking at each investment in isolation instead of seeing the whole picture.
I surveyed 203 investors and found that prior losses significantly reduced their willingness to invest even when the opportunities were objectively better. They were looking at each position in isolation, not their portfolio in totality. This is classic mental accounting. Meanwhile, overconfident investors who are typically less experienced, poorly diversified, were taking bigger risks than their situations warranted.
That thesis was years ago. I have never stopped thinking about these patterns. I have watched them play out over and over in real decisions, with real consequences. I have seen how they cost people returns, sleep, and clarity.
I can help more people avoid these traps with space to go deeper than a social media post allows. That is why I am starting this newsletter.
What The Newsletter Unlocks
This newsletter is where we slow down and go deep. Each Monday morning, I will publish an essay (1,000-1,400 words) exploring a specific behavioral pattern or decision-making framework.
Here is what going deep actually looks like: Take loss aversion. A social media post tells you it exists. People feel losses about twice as intensely as equivalent gains. Useful, but incomplete.
The newsletter shows you how loss aversion manifests in three different scenarios. Why you check your portfolio compulsively during market drops. Why you hold onto losing positions longer than winning ones. Why you take actions to avoid realizing a loss which may include holding bad positions, throwing good money after badore restructuring deals to defer the pain. This happens even when accepting that loss and moving on would objectively leave you better off.
Then we go further and explore why this bias evolved as a survival mechanism. In an ancestral environment, losing resources was more dangerous than gaining them was beneficial. Your brain is running software designed for survival on the savanna, not optimal portfolio construction.
Finally, the system you can build to override it such as specific decision rules, portfolio review cadences, mental frameworks that separate the emotional reaction from the investment decision. Not just “be aware of loss aversion.” These are actual tools you can use starting Monday morning.
That is the difference this space unlocks.
We will examine why these biases exist, how they compound over time, and most importantly, what you can do about them. These are not theoretical exercises. Every essay will be grounded in practical applications. These are decisions you are actually facing, patterns you can recognize in your own behavior and frameworks you can return to when you are stuck.
“Clarity that compounds” is the tagline because that is the goal.
Each essay builds on previous ones. Over time, you develop a mental toolkit for better decision-making. Not just in finance, but in any area where behavioral patterns shape outcomes.
What To Expect
Monday mornings: The main essay. One behavioral concept is explored deeply. Practical frameworks you can apply immediately.
Occasional mid-week posts: Only when something timely demands attention. A market event that illustrates a key bias. A decision that is suddenly relevant to everyone. I will not spam your inbox. Quality over frequency.
Coming up in the first quarter:
Why the best buying opportunities feel the worst (and what to do about it)
How mental accounting costs you more than fees
The hidden cost of checking your portfolio daily
Why “just checking” is not harmless
I am committing to every Monday morning for at least six months. This is a long-term build, not a sprint.
A quick note: This is education, not financial advice. I am not telling you what to buy, sell, or hold. I am here to help you understand the behavioral patterns that shape your decisions so you can make better choices for yourself. You are responsible for your own investment decisions.
Join Me
This is not a lecture series. It is a conversation that happens to be delivered on Monday mornings. I want to know what decisions you are wrestling with, what patterns you are noticing in your own behavior, what topics would help you most.
Hit reply to any email. Tell me what keeps you up at night. What financial decisions feel hardest. Where you see your own biases showing up. I have got a quarterly plan, but I want to build this with you that addresses the real problems you are facing. Not just the ones I think are interesting.
Every day is a fresh start. Let’s use them well.
Kenneth