Unit 4 · Level 4 · Staying the course
The one-page synthesis
Here it is, graduate. Inflation melts idle cash; compounding builds patient wealth. Own the world through cheap index funds: the haystack, not the needle. Costs compound against you; automate so behavior can't sabotage you. History says crashes come AND that broad markets have always recovered, so far. Write the rules before the storm, review once a year, change course only when life changes. That's the page. Everything else is commentary.
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What you get asked
Assemble the graduate's plan, first step to lifelong habit
Safety first, engine second, autopilot third, rulebook fourth, ritual forever. Note what's absent: predictions, timing, and last year's winner.
For most people, which combination decides investing success?
How much, how long, how calm: three levers you control completely. The clever-sounding levers mostly feed the behavior gap and the fee machine.
Benjamin Graham: the investor's chief problem, even his worst enemy, is likely to be ___ .
Written in 1949, proven every cycle since. Fees and inflation are real enemies too, but they're at least predictable ones.
The course in four principles: match each to its one-liner
Four principles, one page, a lifetime of application. Tape it somewhere your panicking future self will find it.
You've absorbed the whole course. What remains between you and the outcome?
Knowing was the easy 10%. Doing it every month for 30 years, through five crashes and a thousand headlines, is the degree. Boss fight next. 🐜
The rest of this unit
Rules for storms, rituals for calm: how graduates behave for decades.