I interview corporate executives for a living. I have spent nearly three decades analyzing businesses and managing other people’s savings. And yet, when my wife and I decided to remodel our house, I felt completely naked.
We are taking a perfectly good 25-year-old house and spending 20% of the purchase price on a sizable remodel. Many parts of it are going back to the studs. I had never done a big remodel. I knew nothing about construction, and I was shocked by how many landmines, wrong decisions, and outright deceptions we had to avoid just to start.
Strangely, the experience gave me incredible empathy for anyone seeking help from a specialist in an unfamiliar industry, including the people who walk into a financial firm like mine. They are smart, highly educated people: lawyers, doctors, engineers, businesspeople who have accumulated a sizable nest egg through hard work. They lack domain expertise, and they are making one of the most important decisions of their lives (after whom they marry): who will manage their savings.
I am embarrassed to admit it, but now I get it. They feel what I felt: a mix of confusion, fear, and paralysis.
So I interviewed a dozen contractors and designers the way I would interview a CEO. I talked as little as possible. I asked questions and listened, not just for the answer but for the thoughtfulness behind it. Every conversation started the same way: I really don’t know anything about this, so I am going to ask you a lot of basic questions. From the competent ones, I learned new things; from the incompetent ones, I learned what incompetence looks like.
