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Hi, and welcome to the Longview. I'm Christine Ben's Director of Personal Finance and Retirement Planning for Morningstar.

And I'm Jeff Battack, Chief Ratings Officer for Morning Star Research Services.

Our guest on the podcast today is author and blogger J.L. Collins. J.L. blogs about financial and other matters at J.L. CollinsN.H.com.

His first book, The Simple Path to Wealth, Your Roadmap to Financial

Independence and a Rich Free Life, was published in 2016 and has been an international

bestseller. J.L.'s latest book is How I Lost Money in Real Estate before it was fashionable. That one

came out in 2021. J.L., welcome to the Longview. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.

I appreciate the invitation. Well, we're really happy to have you here today, too. We want to talk about

your path to finding a simple path to wealth, which is the title of your book. How did you get started

as an investor?

And how did you find your way to the minimalist investing path that you embrace today?

That's kind of a loaded question there.

I'll answer the second part first. I found my way to the path I espoused now by basically wandering in the wilderness for decades

and making every conceivable mistake you can think of.

I first started investing in 1975, actually, and I had no idea what I was doing.

I had accumulated the princely sum of $5,000. And I was working in downtown Chicago at the time.

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