When I started Beacon almost 20 years ago, I wanted to do one thing for my clients: Grow their wealth faster than they could grow it elsewhere. That's still true today, but everything else has changed.

The obvious answer to the title question is 'yes of course,' but only one in five actually accomplishes it. Here's the fascinating part - anyone can join the elite 20% any time they wish and outperform 80% of other investors as long as the 80% continues doing what they are doing. By now, it's widely accepted that most actively managed portfolios, whether mutual funds, private accounts, or hedge funds, fail to beat the benchmarks against which they are measured. Yet most investors continue to chase the goal of market-beating returns, despite the low odds of success.

"But language is a treacherous thing, a most unsure vehicle."
Mark TwainMark Twain said that, and I can't disagree with him. Mastering the technical, dictionary definitions of words is good, but will only get you part way to communicating fully. That's because words don't always stick to their technical, dictionary definitions. They reshape themselves, sometimes drastically, based on the countless different contexts in which they find themselves written or read, spoken or heard.

I took a good look at my to do list yesterday. You know the list we add things to and instantly feel we've accomplished a big part of the task merely by writing it down? My list contains things like cleaning the gutters, fixing a crack in...