Welcome to the latest edition of our irregular and irreverent newsletter. In this issue, you’ll get advice on your finances from Barron’s #1 financial advisor; links to my recent podcast conversations with Malcolm Gladwell and Tom Rath; and 10 articles worth your time and attention.

Let’s get started . . .

WHAT DOES THE GLADWELL SAY?

It might not have the thermonuclear virality of the What Does the Fox Say?, but Office Hours — the talk show podcast that we call “Car Talk . . . for the human engine” — has been drawing tons of new listeners. The fall season has 3 new shows ready for immediate download and 3 more coming in the next month.

Right now you can listen to:

Malcolm Gladwell — On why hardship can be an advantage, why severe punishments sometimes increase crime, and why you might want to send your kid to Hartwick instead of Harvard.

Tom Rath — On why sitting can be as bad as smoking and why not getting enough sleep can impair your thinking more than heavy drinking.

Brad Stone, author of the hot new book about Amazon and Jeff Bezos — On the secret to Amazon’s success and what it was like telling Bezos’s biological father that the son he hadn’t seen in more than 40 years was a billionaire.

Seth Goldman & Barry Nalebuff, founders of Honest Tea — On how to combine a for-profit business with a social mission and how to use near failures to create new successes.

And in the next few weeks, you’ll be able hear two special episodes devoted to education. Get ready for my conversations with:

— Diane Ravitch, education historian, former US Assistant Secretary of Education, and author of Reign of Terror

— Amanda Ripley, author of The Smartest Kids in the World

For more, visit:
Office Hours on the web
Office Hours on iTunes

BARRON’S #1 FINANCIAL ADVISOR EXPLAINS HOW NOT TO GET SWINDLED

Something interesting happened last week. The Nobel Prize in Economics went to three guys — one of whom says that markets are efficient and rational and the other who says they’re subject to hysteria and bubbles. (The third guy stayed out of the fray and developed new method to figure out prices).

Which economist is right?

Probably both of them. But the bigger question — at least for those of us trying to save for retirement, college tuition, and the ups and downs of a roller coaster economy — is this:

What do we do about it?

When financial matters get complicated, many of us seek advice from trained professionals. But as Steven D. Lockshin points out in his excellent new book, Get Wise To Your Advisor, the financial advice industry is awash in conflicts of interest. Lockshin knows what he’s talking about. For two decades, he ran his own fee-only, conflict-avoiding advisory firm — and his combination of scruples and savvy earned him the #1 ranking on Barron’s list of independent financial advisors.

I found Lockshin’s book so compelling that I asked him to give readers some guidance on how to plan their financial futures. The conversation turned out to be long, so we’ve posted it on the website. Even better, Lockshin has provided, exclusively for Pink Newsletter readers, an 8-page PDF the questions you should ask before signing up anyone to give you financial advice. You can find that here.

Lockshin interview
8-page PDF on choosing an advisor

10 ARTICLES WORTH READING

Yes, this has become so popular that it’s now officially a regular feature. From my Instapaper account to your email inbox, here are 10 articles that kept me thinking beyond on last paragraph:

Are You Ready for the Post-College SAT?
The Wall Street Journal covers an important development: Recruiters no longer trust college GPA’s as a proxy for ability, so they’re moving to an alternative assessment of graduates’ skills.

Why Are There Still So Few Women in Science?
Whatever your gender, if you’ve got a daughter, a wife, or a sister, please read this compelling but disconcerting New York Times Magazine article.

Don’t say “I can’t” if you can say “I don’t”
In The Guardian, Oliver Burkeman describes research showing that we resist temptation better through autonomy and consistency than through mere restraint. In other words, avoid saying, “I can’t go to the gym today.” Instead say, “I don’t skip going to the gym.”

All Is Fair in Love and Twitter
In more than 140 characters, the New York Times Magazine describes the treachery, duplicity, and backstabbing that led to Twitter. One takeaway: Don’t believe the “creation myths” of company founders.

4 Extreme Hiring Techniques
My favorite from this Inc. article: The company that rejects everyone who applies for a sales job, then hires those with the moxie to try to argue against the rejection.

Listen Up Apple-Haters: IPhone Sales Eclipse Microsoft and Amazon Revenue
BusinessWeek reveals that the iPhone, a product that’s just 6 years old, is doing better than recent Apple-is-over press accounts would have you believe. “If this single product were its own company in the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index, iPhone Inc. would outsell 474 of those companies.”

Snubbed by Oracle, Workday’s Duffield and Bhusri Hit Jackpot
A wonderful George Anders story about 72-year-old Dave Duffield, who just debuted on the Forbes 400 list on the strength of a software idea he didn’t get cranking on until his 60’s.

Why Women Prefer Working Together (and Why Men Prefer Working Alone)
TheAtlantic.com‘s Derek Thompson explains a central reason: “[M]en demonstrate more overconfidence in their own abilities and distrust their colleagues’ aptitude, except under key situations.”

Science confirms: Politics Wrecks Your Ability to Do Math
This one bummed me out.  A Yale Law School study “finds that people who are otherwise very good at math may totally flunk a problem that they would otherwise probably be able to solve, simply because giving the right answer goes against their political beliefs.”

Behavioural Economics for Kids
It’s not an article exactly. It’s an entertaining 32-page PDF teaching kids about hyperbolic discounting, sunk cost bias, and loss aversion. No, really. Check it out.

That’s all for now.

Cheers,
Daniel Pink

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