Mark Twain said “The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them”. While those familiar with the arc of Twain’s life will acknowledge his investing ideas weren’t always the best - losing hundreds of thousands pursuing tech investments and publishing efforts - he was spot on here.

This being a financial and investing site, the reading I’ll implore you to do is that which expands your understanding of the US financial system. Many of the links embedded in the pages of this site point to websites that I consider helpful resources to build your knowledge base, or at least to find better questions to ask.

However, I think the most powerful acts are those that are established into habits. Gym visits, healthy eating, and regular medical check-ups aren’t always exciting to do, but instilling them into a pattern of habit makes these important activities easier to accomplish than if you had to muster initiative each time to wolf down a bowl of greens or set an early alarm for a workout.

During my military career, I had the great good fortune to study economics under a Rhodes Scholar winning, Yale-educated professor. I have many great memories of the impact his instruction made on me, but most lasting influence was a habit he instilled through brute force. He required all of his students to subscribe to - and read daily - the Wall Street Journal. At the conclusion of his economics course this daily reading habit was established and I am now - several years later - a daily reader of this financially-focused newspaper.

This isn’t a plug for the WSJ - this link makes a compelling case for the Financial Times newspaper. But establishing a daily diet of financial news develops your mind much in the same way those regular workouts develop your body. The end result isn’t a superhuman ability to prognosticate market gyrations, but instead a slowly growing understanding of how the financial world operates in this nation, making you a better consumer, investor, and (arguably) citizen.