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When I was at the Prosperity conference several weeks ago, I found myself wandering through a glittering Las Vegas casino at 11 PM. Amid the noise and flashing lights, one man caught my attention. Hunched over a slot machine, he methodically fed it bill after bill, muttering what seemed like a personal ritual with each pull of the lever. A notebook beside him was filled with numbers and patterns—his system to “beat the house.”
I saw him in the same spot the next morning when I went down to get a Starbucks coffee. He seemed fixated, convinced his “lucky break” was just one more spin away.
Watching him, I couldn’t help but see a parallel to how many approach investing—waiting for luck rather than building systems. The contrast between casino gambling and intelligent investing couldn’t be more stark.
Champions Eliminate Luck
“Champions take luck out of the game” isn’t just motivation—it’s investment truth. Elite investors systematically remove luck from their results through:
Proven Systems, Not Chance
While amateurs hope for favorable markets, professionals build frameworks that deliver regardless of conditions.
Data-Driven Decisions
Champions replace hunches with rigorous analysis and time-tested metrics, making “fortunate timing” a predictable outcome of their process.
Scientific Risk Management
By engineering precise position sizing and portfolio construction, top investors neutralize the impact of market surprises.
Unlike that casino patron, investment masters don’t wait for luck—they design systems that make it unnecessary.
Your Path Forward: Financial Self-Education
The single most powerful step you can take to remove luck from investing is education is to read about proven investment strategies. At Physician On FIRE we deliver the best most up to date relevant content so you can reach FI sooner.
Remember: Knowledge builds systems. Systems eliminate luck. Education is your most reliable investment.
Begin your structured learning journey today—don’t be the person still pulling the lever at dawn.
Jorge Sanchez, MD
Naples, Florida
The Sunday Best 03/23/2025
Humanity’s battle against tuberculosis has been one of slow and imperfect progress. The disease no longer kills one in seven people in the US, as it did in the 19th century. But this number is about to go up.
Experts predict the face of university research could be permanently changed, affecting work on treatments for cancer, Alzheimer’s, and diabetes, among other conditions, along with studies on the underpinnings of disease.
Countless Americans are caught in a conflict between insurer and provider. These clashes, long a fixture of the US health-care system, are intensifying as both care providers and insurers employ supercharged tactics to maximize their financial advantage.
Investing in just about anything other than US stocks has been a winning strategy this year. Using a set of ETF proxies shows that American shares are still the only source of red ink among the major asset classes year to date, based on trading through Mar. 19.
We spend a lot of time in the investment world talking about all the optimal ways to invest. But investing is what we all call a loser’s game. You don’t need to win by having the optimal winning strategy – just need an appropriate strategy and to avoid catastrophic losses.
During bull markets there are always certain investors who take things too far. They chase performance, take on too much leverage, speculate on fad investment themes and abandon diversification. Then the tide goes out and we find out who’s been swimming naked as Warren Buffett likes to say.
Schwab chases BlackRock out of the gate with money market ETF to stake out fast-growing cash segment and shore up its dominance in money market funds. The Westlake, Texas giant’s new fund will hit the market May 28, pending regulatory approval, and crash BlackRock’s near-monopoly, but also lend potential legitimacy to the novel concept.
The unemployment rate is pretty low at the moment, but under the hood Americans sure are nervous about the job market. The share of consumers who expect unemployment to rise over the next year surged to 66% in March, the highest level in a decade, per University of Michigan data analyzed by Bank of America Institute.
Ever wonder what’s happening in your brain right before you knock on your boss’s door to ask for a raise? Dr. Joel Salinas, neurologist and brain health expert, joins Paula Pant to explain the neurology of negotiation.
Whether it’s your employer stoking fear that salary sharing is not permitted as part of your contract, or it’s the idea that talking about compensation is not fitting of someone who’s in medicine for the right reasons the idea of openly discussing or sharing salaries just hasn’t taken hold in medicine as it has in other parts of the workforce. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
Frugal living involves prioritizing needs over wants, spending less than earned, valuing quality, and embracing resourcefulness like DIY. Common practices include planning meals, buying used items, and seeking discounts. But are we all on the same page about frugality?
FIRE is not a sprint, it’s a marathon. It takes years of hard work, discipline, and commitment. And just like a marathon, the first few miles feel amazing. You feel pumped. You obsess over your budget. But then you hit mile 13, the boring middle. Excitement wanes. All you want to do is thow in the towel. You’re not alone.
