When it comes to investing strategies, one of the most influential books available claims that if you keep it simple, you'll actually do better. Here to talk about the philosophy behind his investment strategy is one ofChooseFI's most requested guests, JL Collins, author of The Simple Path to Wealth, and popular blog series, The Stock Series. The influence of JL Collins cannot be overstated. The content he produced changed the trajectory of Brad's life and made him feel comfortable investing. In 2011, JL's daughter was in college but was turned off of all things financial after he pushed too hard. Because he wanted her to know how to invest and handle money, he decided that he needed to write it down for when she was ready. It was suggested that he archive the advice in a blog and share with friends and family. Much to his surprise, strangers began to find it and he quickly had an international audience. The book came out of the growth of his blog. Always having the ambition to write a book, The Simple Path to Wealth became a more organized and concise compilation of his blog articles. Four years later, 2020 has been its best selling year and the success has greatly exceeded expectations. Readers have responded positively to the authenticity of his writing, which he believes is because he was writing for his daughter. Now that she is a young adult, she's been receptive to the information and is now on board with the strategy presented. For Brad, investing always seemed like something that required thousands of hours of understanding and special insight until he began reading The Stock Series on JL's website. It gave him hope that he had a chance at long-term success for wealth that would last for many decades. JL acknowledges the method in the book is the last and best method he came to after going through other iterations involving picking stocks and actively managed funds. The other methods work, but they are harder and a lot less powerful than a low-cost index fund. JL says this method isn't just for beginners, it's the best way to invest for everybody. The most powerful way to invest is the simplest and the easiest. He realized that not everyone wants to think about investing the way he like thinking about it. Most people know it's important, but have more important things they want to do with their lives. His approach allows them to set it and forget it. The investing world is complex by design because the more difficult it is to understand, the more Wall Street can charge in fees. Jack Bogle, the founder of Vanguard, was the first one to invent index funds and talk about index fund investing. Because outperforming the market as a whole is extraordinarily difficult, only 20% of fund managers in any one year can do it. After 30 years, the percentage of fund managers that can do it is less than 1%. Even Warren Buffet wrote in his 2013 Berkshire Hathaway shareholder letter that he would advise the trustee of his estate to invest 10% in government bonds and 90% in a very low-cost S&P 500 index fund. A mutual fund, or similarly, an Exchange Traded Fund (ETF), takes money from a lot of investors and lumps it together to invest it in something. The S&P 500 index invests in the 500 largest US companies that make up the S&P index, while an actively managed mutual fund may focus on a different parameter, such as energy or technology. An actively managed fund attempts to pick stocks that over time will outperform the index which is an expensive route and reflected in what the investor pays for the fund, called the expense ratio. Every fund has an expense ratio, but what matters is how high it is. Because index funds don't have those expensive fund managers, the fees are very low. JL's most recommended Vanguard fund, VTSAX, has a 0.04% expense ratio. Actively managed funds average 1%. The impact 1% has compounded over time is dramatic. On a $1M portfolio, you may be withdrawing 4%, or $40,000, each year, while 1%, or $10,000, goes in