ACV28: Teaching Yourself About Personal Finance (Alvin Chow, CEO of DrWealth, Part 1)

Alternative CV

On this podcast, I talk to Alvin Chow about 0ur motivation behind the financial choices we make, effective strategies to approach a brand new subject area you want to learn about, and Alvin's journey from hobby personal finance blog to full-time company.
Alvin Chow is the CEO of DrWealth, an online platform providing investor education and portfolio management tools. What started as Alvin’s personal blog has grown to a full suite of offerings, and thousands of followers. He teaches courses on Factor-based investing, and has authored two books - Secrets of Singapore Trading Gurus and Singapore Permanent Portfolio.
3 Things I Learned:

1. Create structures that drive your behaviour - if you struggle to find motivation to make positive financial choices, Alvin suggests to put in safeguards to automate behaviour. So if you’re not a natural saver, set up direct transfers which force you to consistently save money.
   
2. You don’t know what you don’t know - When developing new expertise, it’s very important to remain aware of your level of knowledge. If a resource is too difficult for you to grasp, it’s fine to disregard it for a later time - but you have to push through the not knowing in order to fully build a new bed of knowledge. You don’t know what you don’t know, so you have to persist.
   
3. Executing ideas is driven by your priorities - Alvin’s transition from passion to mission was driven by the fact that he had chosen to prioritise Dr Wealth’s growth. He goes on to say that the ideas you end up executing align with your priorities, so to be motivated to make changes, you first need to shift your priorities.