David shares his observation that many individuals and teams set achievable goals that ultimately fail because their action-first approach is surprisingly counterproductive. Successful goal setting prioritizes ownership of the objective before taking action toward its intended outcome. Listen to hear why and how this secret to successful goal achievement works. Formerly Episode 3.1.

The seemingly unstoppable era of mass shootings demands urgent on-the-job security planning and protocols. David once experienced an eerie reminder of why a safe and secure workplace is as important as quality control and financially stable operations. Does your organization have an emergency plan and does it work the plan? Listen as David discusses how having an emergency plan to prevent and deal with workplace violence is paramount in the era of mass shootings.

David discusses the buying and holding of the stocks of quality companies with the history and continued likelihood of compounding total returns from capital gains and dividends. During an uncertain market, it is crucial to evaluate downside risk and other measurements of the stock's margin of safety. Listen to learn how to search for a wide margin of safety for compounding returns through all market cycles. Formerly Episode 1.14.

David discusses how Black Swan events, although unpredictable, often produce excellent value opportunities to add or reduce holdings in your common stock portfolio. Self-directed, value-oriented, common stock investors buy wonderful companies with strong fundamentals when macroeconomic events produce attractive valuations. Then sell or reduce the holding on weak fundamentals or inflated valuations when microeconomic events erode the company's financial strength or the demand for its products and services. But Mr. Market continues to entertain the purchase of attractive fundamentals at otherwise high prices and narrow margins of safety. Listen to hear why The Self-Directed Life Model Portfolio is currently more a watch list than a buy list. Formerly Episode 1.13.

David discusses how to define the value proposition of the products or services of a publicly-traded enterprise, and then confidently explain it via an elevator pitch. Can you illustrate the value proposition of the company behind your favorite stock with a crayon, i.e., a short sentence or phrase? Successful, do-it-yourself investors don't buy what sounds or feels good but allocate their hard-earned dollars to the common stocks of businesses they confidently understand and appreciate. Listen on how to better define and explain the value proposition of the products or services of your owned or targeted companies. Formerly Episode 1.12.

Portfolio allocation or how to assign investable capital and reinvested dividends to common stock or ETF holdings is as important as asset allocation. Why automatically reinvesting dividends is not always the best strategy. Whose beach or lake house are you building? Listen as David shares the two most common weighting mechanisms for portfolio allocation and why one method makes the most sense for the self-directed, buy-and-hold investor. Formerly Episode 1.11.

Self-directed, common stock investors can and should measure shareholder yields beyond just dividends. You can screen for common stocks generating multiple shareholder yields that are comfortably exceeding the ten-year Treasury rate, despite being out of favor on Wall Street. Listen as David offers an alternative yield methodology to outperform Treasury rates without the limitations of the dividend growth strategy or the inherent risks of high yield dividend investing. Formerly Episode 1.10.

In this inaugural stock investing episode, David discusses eight unique strategies of successful, self-directed, common stock investors.

In this episode David  discusses  the primary fear of many investors in his observations – surprisingly, it is not a market crash.