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_{Exploring a general rule, dunning-kruger, and avoidance}

Happy Sunday! Thanks for reading Intentional Dollar — where we look at old money ideas through a new perspective.

What’s inside?

• One idea to experiment with

• Two quotes from others

• Three questions to dig deeper

• Four lines of poetry for the point

Disclaimer: This is not investment advice. These weekly posts represent my simple thoughts, a few quotes, and some questions — for educational purposes only.

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_{One idea to experiment with:}

A General Rule:

Social media has turned attention into a marketplace. The time we are buying and selling also touches our dollars. We buy on recommendation or on brand promise.

Some people are buying attention, trying to grow an audience, monetize influence, or build a name. Others are selling it, deciding who deserves their time, trust, and money. But this dynamic isn’t limited to social platforms. It shows up everywhere.

Whether we realize it or not, we are constantly marketing ourselves.

Sound bites and highlight reels market influencers. Brand stories market products. Clothes, cars, houses, and job titles market status. Even silence can be a strategy. And if you want someone’s attention, you have to make a pitch compelling enough that they choose you over everything else competing for them.

That’s marketing.

And in a world saturated with it, a simple rule has started to settle in my mind:

Be cautious of the person who repeatedly announces, “Trust me.”
Be wary of the one who declares, “I’m an expert.”
Pay attention when someone insists, “I’m disciplined,” “I’m wealthy,” “I’m generous,” “I’m different.”

Real traits tend to reveal themselves. They don’t need megaphones.

We trust experts because we have to. No one can master every domain. But think about the most competent people you’ve encountered, the true professionals, how often did they introduce themselves by proclaiming their greatness? Warren and Charlie were two of the most prolific investors in history. They didn’t self-promote. They shared thinking, ideas, lessons, failures. Their results spoke their status.

They didn’t.

The louder the claim, the thinner the substance often is. When someone leads with adjectives instead of evidence, what is being sold is perception, not proof.

This doesn’t mean confidence is a red flag. Clarity is not arrogance. But credibility is earned through demonstration, not absolute declaration.

Trust patterns over promises, track records over taglines, and broadly, trust what people repeatedly do, not what they repeatedly say.

Because the people most eager to convince you who they are are often still trying to convince themselves.

_{Two quotes on dunning-kruger:}

Certainty of knowledge is not indicative of validity of knowledge.

_{Three questions on avoidance:}

1. What am I avoiding because I know it will be difficult?

2. Is the projected path of my current reality harder than the change I am avoiding?

3. Have I ever had a seemingly insurmountable difficulty arise that I didn’t eventually work through?

Which question stuck with you? Questions like these are spotlights for the mind. Reply to this email and let me know which one shined light on a previously dark cave.

_{Four lines of poetry for the point:}

Contact Me:

Content ideas, questions? Reply to this email or reach out to me at [email protected]

Disclaimer: This is not investment advice. These weekly posts represent my simple thoughts, a few quotes, and some questions — for educational purposes only.

Ray Dalio: "The S&P Fell 28% Last Year." Wait, What?

He's measuring in gold, not dollars. And that's the point.

The dollar dropped 10% in 2025. So, yeah, your portfolio went up in dollars, but, Dalio says your real return isn’t so exciting.

And the decline is reportedly advancing as macro conditions don’t improve.

So, what investments offer protection against that currency risk?

Well.. billionaires have an answer. And now 70,819 everyday investors have joined in.

This unexpected asset class outpaced the S&P 500 overall with low correlation since 1995.*

Not real estate or PE. Post war and contemporary art. Seriously.

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_{*According to Masterworks data.  Investing involves risk. Past performance not indicative of future returns. See important disclosures at masterworks.com/cd.}