The title for this piece was influenced by a lyric in a song written by Graham Nash of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. You don’t have to be a fan of classic folk rock to appreciate the message in this essay.

The year 2008 was an extremely important year for me—for various reasons. The major market decline motivated me to examine the way I had been doing business, how I was structuring portfolios, and if my knowledge of the capital markets was as extensive as it should be. This article details how I turned a negative into a positive.

This piece is based on a story a client told me. When people tell me they’re happy with their financial advisor, I no longer roll my eyes. I just give them a copy of this article to read. This article is near and dear to me for a few reasons. The main one may it’s the first one time I used the phrase “You don’t know what you don’t know.”