The Asymmetry Between Knowing and Winning
“If more information was the answer, then we’d all be billionaires with perfect abs.” — Derek Sivers
The line sounds playful, but it exposes a serious flaw in how most people think about progress, especially in investing.
We don’t have an information problem. We have a structural problem.
Everyone already knows the basics. Spend less than you earn. Invest consistently. Avoid emotional decisions. Don’t panic at the bottom or chase at the top. Just like everyone knows how abs work: eat better, move more, repeat.
And yet outcomes are wildly different.
The reason is simple. Information doesn’t act. People do. And people are inconsistent, emotional, incentive-driven, and fragile under pressure.
Markets don’t punish ignorance nearly as much as they punish poorly designed decision-making systems.
Most investors don’t fail because they lack data. They fail because their process allows emotion to override discipline at exactly the wrong time. Noise feels productive. Activity feels like control. Prediction feels like skill. None of those are structure.
Structure answers the important questions before emotion shows up.
Where am I wrong?
How much can I lose if I’m wrong?
What forces me to act—or stops me from acting—when stress is highest?
What happens if I’m very right?
Without those answers defined in advance, more information becomes a liability. Headlines amplify conviction at the worst moments. Data creates false precision. Opinions multiply regret and hindsight bias.
This is the asymmetry most people miss.
Information scales easily. Discipline does not. Process does not. Behavior under pressure does not.
That’s why adding more inputs rarely improves outcomes. It often degrades them.
The edge isn’t knowing more than the market. The edge is building a system that limits catastrophic mistakes, defines the downside in advance, and allows the upside to compound without constant interference.
In investing, as in health, the winners aren’t the most informed.
They’re the most structured.
Mike Shell is the founder and chief investment officer of Shell Capital Management, LLC, a registered investment adviser. He serves as portfolio manager of ASYMMETRY® Managed Portfolios, a separately managed account program with trade execution and custody provided by Goldman Sachs Custody Solutions.
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