Ben Carlson, the Ritholtz Wealth Management portfolio manager and longtime blogger at A Wealth of Common Sense, has built his reputation on a contrarian sort of patience. In a recent appearance on Morningstar’s The Long View, he laid out a paradox that anyone with a brokerage app should sit with: the better investing gets, the easier it becomes to ruin your own returns.

The Paradox of Better Access

“There’s never been a better time to be an individual investor,” Carlson said, pointing to zero-dollar commissions, fractional shares, ETFs that unlock strategies once reserved for institutions, and accounts you can open from a phone in minutes. The catch is what those frictionless rails encourage. “By taking down those barriers to entry, it increases the temptation to make a change,” he warned.

Add in the constant drip of social media takes, newsletters, podcast hot takes, and analyst price targets, and the average investor is facing a tidal wave of inputs. “Drinking from the fire hose is not a long-term winning strategy,” Carlson said.

How to Actually Say No

Carlson’s prescription is less about willpower and more about pre-commitment. Investors, he argued, must “learn about how to limit yourself and how to put guidelines on your actions and how to say no to certain things.” The goal is to reach a point where any new product, fund, or tip becomes “an automatic yes or an automatic no” against a written plan, rather than a fresh debate every time markets twitch.

That sounds simple. It isn’t. Even with the CBOE Volatility Index sitting at 17.26 as of May 14, 2026, well inside the normal 15-20 band, the VIX spiked to 31.05 on March 27, 2026 just weeks earlier. Those whiplash moments are exactly when undisciplined investors abandon plans and reach for whatever is being marketed hardest.

The VC ETF and Private Assets Test Case

The conversation, hosted by Christine Benz, turned to the wave of venture capital ETFs reaching retail investors and the push to put private equity and private credit inside 401(k)s. Both raise the same question Carlson keeps circling: does every financial innovation deserve a slot in your portfolio?

The honest answer for most people is no. Private market wrappers come with longer lock-ups, opaque marks, layered fees, and limited liquidity. None of that is automatically disqualifying, but none of it earns a spot just because it now fits in your account. You can read more from Carlson directly at A Wealth of Common Sense.

The Takeaway

Carlson’s framework is unglamorous, which is the point. Write the rules first. Define what fits your plan and what doesn’t. Then let the next shiny product, the next viral chart, the next 401(k) menu addition pass through that filter. The investors who compound for decades are the ones who already decided which doors stay closed.