By Rick Waechter, Founder

After the frantic holiday period, a blog suggesting you slow down may seem a bit late – advice better-sent in early December than in early January.

But this advice is one of the best suggestions we can offer to start a year – particularly 2026. Here’s why.

Over the last few years, the market has been on a rocket ship. Over the past 10 years, the US market is up almost 300%, or about 14% annually. That kind of performance tempts many investors to ignore risks. Daniel Kahneman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, would have explained that this is an example of investors “thinking fast” instead of “thinking slow”. Thinking fast works best with easy decisions (“there’s a red light ahead – should I hit the brakes?”). It works poorly with more complex decisions (“how should I invest to maximize financial the success of my 30-year financial plan?”). Check out our blogs, here, on Kahneman.

A recent feature story in the Wall Street Journal, here, inspired me to address this topic. It was the story of Gary Winnick, once Los Angeles’s richest man, a one-time billionaire who died broke in 2023, and whose estate is going through the courts now. I met Gary several times in the late 1990s, and I was on a team advising an Asian client who bought Global Crossing, which Winnick started and ran. In three years, Global Crossing went from a start-up to a company worth almost $50 bn, fueled by acquisitions and borrowing. By the time our clients bought it several years later, it was in bankruptcy, and our clients paid a tiny fraction of Global Crossing’s once lofty value.

As best I can figure, Gary Winnick was always in a hurry. That level of energy can be incredibly useful if you are starting a business. But if you are making critical decisions – like acquisitions by a company or investments by an individual – slowing down reduces the risk of making very big mistakes.

Our job is to help our clients achieve their financial goals. One way we do that is by helping them avoid making very big mistakes.

We wish you a prosperous and happy 2026 – one in which you slow down and carefully weigh any big decisions.