08/10/2026
A friend asked me to come help him stucco a little wall in front of his house. Neither of us had any experience with Stucco and this was communicated before we began.
However, a couple YouTube videos and AI generated image let us to the "how hard could it be" mindset.
Two things were learned right away:
1) it wasn't that it was hard...per se.. it was that I didn't know what I was doing at all....
2) watching people who do it well on YouTube gives a false sense of confidence.
A pro could have done this job in 30 minutes without breaking a sweat and make it look....well... professional.
We spent hours messing the water to stucco ratios. We tried application with the spatula things (I'm sure there's a name for it), we tried with our bare hands, we threw handfuls at the wall to see if we could get it to stick. In the end, we did finish it.
Here's the thing.. when I look at the wall I'm actually proud of it. It might be an ugly wall, but it our ugly wall.
So I understand the pride one feels over their self-directed investment account. You chose those investments, that's your portfolio. But please, can we acknowledge the damage done by doing a poor job on a small wall and a poor job of managing your investments have very different orders of magnitude.
Can we finally acknowledge that the big firms telling you that you can invest on your own on their platform are doing a massive disservice to you and this industry by giving you that "how hard can it be" mindset toward some of the most important and unforgiving decisions of your life?
It can be weird asking for help. Frankly, not all professional help is what it's cracked up to be. However, don't let yourself be deceived: wealth management is an area everyone needs professional help with.