VALUE: After Hours (S07 E35): Why Writing Down Your Thoughts Makes You a Smarter Investor

During their recent episode, Taylor and Carlisle were joined by Justin Carbonneau, Jack Forehand, and Matt Zeigler. They discussed: Why Writing Down Your Thoughts Makes You a Smarter Investor.

Jack: Yeah. So, my initial reaction we had this idea, was that I need to suck up to the host. That’s what I decided to do here. I actually think it’s a really good idea you had and it’s also a really good idea with what’s happened since you came on the podcast and you did this. Because you were one of our first guests. So, this has been years since you said this. But you talked about the idea of writing it down and writing everything down.

I think that the reason I wanted to bring that one up, is first of all, it’s a great idea. But when you came on and you said that, I was like, “All right, I’m going to start writing everything down.” I literally did not write one thing down after that. But now, I do all the time. And the reason I do is because of AI. I think AI makes that an even more powerful lesson, because now, I can write my thought process down all the time and I can have like that running thought process that I can see that I’ve had over time, but also, I can get feedback on it and I can get feedback on maybe where my blind spots are.

So, I just think not just in investing, in terms of business strategy, in terms of stuff we do with the podcast, I’m trying more and more to write my reasoning down for things I’m doing and keep it as part of a thread, because I think I have a better mechanism to analyze it now.

Tobias: Where do you write it down? Where do you record it?

Jack: I just write it into ChatGPT, or Claude or any of those places. So, I do the same thing you would have done on paper, but I’m just writing it in there and I’m trying to write stream of consciousness or what I’m thinking or anything like that. And then, I’ve just got this huge thing it can remember about what was I thinking. Because the big part about that lesson is what was I actually thinking the moment I made that decision. Because it’s impossible to go back and think what was I actually thinking the moment I made that decision.

I think when you put it in AI, AI is going to remind you of what you were thinking the moment you made that decision. As I build up accumulate that over time, so I actually am following your lesson now.

Tobias: Well, JT’s got a product that does that too, The Journalytic Engine. You want to pitch it, JT? Give us some of the data.

Jake: Jack just pitched it for the most part.

[laughter]

Jake: It’s investment specific. Recording of your thoughts, feelings, decisions, run checklists, record pre-conviction or conditional pre-commitment contracts, like, “If this happens, then I will do this.” Yeah, it basically tried to operationalize all of the behavioral best practices and put it into a software.

Jack: That’s really cool.

Tobias: You should check it out, dudes.

Jake: That’s good. And even more things coming down the pipe.

Tobias: You want to hit us with yours, Matt.

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