Money, Behavior, and The New Diligence: Turning Financial Knowledge Into Action

My wife Katelyn teaches second grade. When friends ask how insanely challenging it is to work with that age group, she usually says, “Their attention spans last about ten minutes.”

Now imagine standing in front of a room full of seven-year-olds and giving an hour-long lecture. How well do you think that would go?

If you were to list the most effective ways to teach elementary students, lecturing would be at or near the very bottom. Instead, great teachers focus on understanding students’ diverse backgrounds, recognizing their strengths and weaknesses, and tailoring their approach accordingly.
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For some reason, when we seek out education as adults, we forget that the same principles still apply. Just because we’re older doesn’t mean we automatically retain information better. We assume that reading or hearing something is enough to absorb it and act on it. But knowledge, on its own, isn’t enough. Being told something isn't the same as internalizing it, and it's certainly not the same as living it.

I see this disconnect all the time in the world of money...

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We live in an age of endless financial advice: podcasts, blogs, LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube. The content machine never stops churning out tips on what ETFs to buy, how to save money on taxes, or how to utilize a backdoor Roth IRA. Can it be useful? Sure! But most of it is just content. Quick hits and surface-level guidance meant to grab your attention and monetize your time.

Information alone doesn’t create progress.

Consider this: the age of the internet has left us with an abundance of personal finance knowledge and education, yet almost 9 in 10 people reported financial stress in 2024, and even worse, 65% of people say that money is their most significant source of stress.¹
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It’s no secret that we’re all still falling into the same money traps: spending more than we should, neglecting long-term saving, being too lazy to cancel subscriptions we don’t use, avoiding tough conversations about money. The list goes on.

This isn’t because we don’t know better. I would wager that almost everyone knows that it’s a good idea to live within our means, save consistently, and avoid credit card debt. So why is it still so difficult to avoid these pitfalls?

Because knowing isn't the same as doing. 

This is the psychological gap I want to explore, and help bridge, with The New Diligence. The blog is rooted in a simple but powerful idea: to make meaningful financial progress, we need more than just information; we need insight into how we all think, feel, and behave around money.

We need to understand the cognitive biases that quietly steer our decisions. The emotional triggers that shape our spending habits. The social dynamics that nudge us to compare, compete, and consume. Most importantly, we need to translate that insight into action by leveraging new ideas and new technology.

The New Diligence is my effort to fuse the “hard” science of various financial strategies with the “soft” science of behavioral psychology. I’ll explore what truly motivates us, what holds us back, and how we can build better financial habits. Not through willpower alone, but through smarter decision-making, greater self-awareness, and a deeper understanding of our financial behavior.

Welcome to The New Diligence.
 

​More Reading:
The Subscription Trap: How Consumer Psychology is Quietly Sabotaging Your Financial Plan
The Less I Know the Better: How Over-Monitoring Your Investments Sabotages Your Success​
When It Comes to Money, It Pays to Keep Things Simple

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References

¹ “What Is Financial Stress?” MarketWatch Financial Guides, https://www.marketwatch.com/financial-guides/banking/financial-stress/.

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