Personal Benchmark: Integrating Behavioral Finance and Investment Management

Chapter 8Pursuing Your Personal Benchmark

Dr. Daniel Crosby

To forget one's purpose is the commonest form of stupidity.

—Friedrich Nietzsche

I was recently asked to speak at a conference in Dublin, Ireland, a city I had never before visited. Although I was excited to visit a new country, in my uninformed imaginings, Dublin was little more than a mid-sized American city with better accents. I did very little research to prepare for my trip, a truth that is confirmed by the fact that I left my passport at home and failed to call my bank to ensure that my cards would not be frozen for “fraudulent activity” once abroad. Notwithstanding my absentmindedness, I arrived in Dublin safe and sound and, after overcoming my initial jet lag and the aforementioned banking mishap, ventured onto the cobblestone streets of the city to do a little exploring.

About a block from my hotel, I came across a fastidiously graffitied fence surrounding an aborted commercial real estate project. The graffiti read, “Back in the day you were born with original sin, now it's original debt. Every man, woman and child in this country is footing the bill for a load of empty buildings. Who listens to the little guy?” I was immediately struck by the message and the way it wove together Ireland's religious heritage seamlessly with their current economic hardships.

What I did not yet know was what the graffiti portended—the worst economic hardship I'd ever witnessed in a developed country. As I walked the streets ...