So I decided to use this parable of the guy who's the world's worst market timer, and I said,

what if he only bought before 50% crash in the 1970s, the 1987 crash, and right before the

dot-com bubble blew up, and right before the great financial crisis?

He only bought then, and he sat in cash between then, but he held onto his shares, right?

How would he have done?

That was Ben Carlson of Ritt Holtsworth Management and the author of the upcoming book,

Risk and Reward, How to Handle Market Volatility and Build Long-Term

Wealth. I'm Robert Prokamp. Today is part one of my conversation with Ben about what we can

learn from the Great Depression in Japan, how even the worst periods for investors eventually

turn out fine over the long-term, and how diversification can help.

We are the Motley Fool believe that investing in the stock market is the best path to long-term

wealth.

But it isn't always easy to stick with stocks.

Here to talk about how to manage and stomach all the risks so you can reap the rewards

is Ben Carlson.

Ben as the director of institutional asset management at Ritt Holtz Wealth Management,

the writer behind The Wealth of Common Sense blog, the co-host of the Animal Spirits podcast and the author of five books, including his latest risk and reward, which will be available on May 12th. Ben, welcome to Motley Full Money. Great. Thanks for having me. So it seems to me that one of the main goals of your book is to convince people that they should invest the stocks, but for that to work out, they have to hold on through thick and thin. And the

evidence is clear. U.S. stock market always recovers from previous downturns, reaches all-time highs.

But people still need the reinsurance, right? Especially during the tough times. You know,

sometimes even I feel like I need the reassurance, especially as I'm getting older, getting

closer to retirement. So why do you think people need that constant reminder? Do you think it's mostly a rational fear? Or is it more one of those behavioral quirks from when we humans were hunters and gathers being chased around by lions? And it doesn't make as much sense nowadays. Yeah, that's, that's part of it. It's funny. I did the audiobook for this one for my first time.

So my publisher's asked, hey, do you want to, do you want someone else to read it or do you

...