The AC Interview Series with Ben from Sure Dividend

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If you would like to participate in our interview series, check out the questions here, put together your answers in a word or google doc, and shoot them to me at adam@adamchudy.com and we’ll get you in the mix – Thanks, Adam

Ben from Sure Dividend

This interview is from Ben Reynolds at Sure Dividend.  Sure Dividend helps individual investors build dividend growth portfolios made of shareholder friendly businesses with strong competitive advantages trading at fair or better prices. If your interested check out his investing newsletter here.

What’s your story?

I’ll start my story in 1st grade.  My mom decided to pull me out of school and home school me through elementary school.  I credit this decision with fostering a lifelong obsession with self-directed learning.

I went through junior high, high school, and college – majoring in Finance.  From there, I worked different jobs in sales, logistics, and sourcing.  I have been very passionate about investing since I was a teenager.

My first investing ‘love’ was value investing (we will get more into that in the worst financial mistake I’ve ever made…).  I was burning through books like F Wall Street, The Intelligent Investor, and Security Analysis rapidly.  The basic concepts of my investing philosophy come from the idea that the market is not perfectly efficient and investors are too emotional.

In addition to value investing, I was also very interested in quantitative and rule based investing.  The book Quantitative Value is an excellent read on the synthesis of rule-based investing and value investing (mixed with quality).

Slowly, my thinking on investing changed from a value strategy to a quality based strategy that emphasizes shareholder friendly managements and competitive advantages (while still keeping an eye on value).  This led naturally to dividend growth investing.  The 8 Rules of Dividend Investing are my quantitative rules to identify when to buy and sell (very rarely) high quality businesses with shareholder friendly managements trading at fair or better prices.

I began to research the investment industry in detail.  The high fees that many investors still pay for expensive mutual funds, hedge funds, and 1%+ AUM fees for investment advisors struck me as unfair for the individual investor.

The internet makes it very cheap to quickly spread ideas.  At its core, a sound investment portfolio is just a string of ideas.  The implementation is not hard thanks to discount brokerages.  What’s difficult is finding and sticking with a sound plan.  I created Sure Dividend to help the individual investor build a portfolio that will generate rising income over the long run – without paying exorbitant fees.

The Sure Dividend idea has taken off, and that’s where I am today from a business perspective.

When people ask you what you do, what’s your answer?

I tell them I am an undercover CIA agent saving the world from thermonuclear war – one day at a time – who moonlights as a scientist curing cancer, aids, and seasonal effective disorder.

That, or I tell them I write an investment newsletter focused on dividend growth stocks.

How do you explain your side hustles?

My only real side hustle is to sell things from around our (me and my wife) house on eBay.  I don’t have to explain this too much, as most people don’t know or ask about it.

For a while, I was writing a lot of paid articles for financial websites, which I explained as being a free lance writer.

What’s the best and worst financial mistakes you’ve personally made?

The worst financial mistake comes when I was just learning about value investing.  I found a ‘really undervalued’ Chinese stock.  It was trading at a P/E ratio of 2 or 3.  Of course, the company happened to be a fraud and I lost most of my investment in the stock.  It taught me a valuable lesson – if something is too good to be true, it probably is.

The best financial decision I’ve ever made is to invest in myself.  The more you build your ability to create value for other people, the more value you will create for yourself in the long run.  I am always trying to become a better person.

What area of your life do you indulge in luxuries? Where do you cut ruthlessly?

I live within what I make, save regularly, and don’t live a flashy lifestyle.  I enjoy movies and going out to eat, so that’s something I indulge in.  We don’t have cable, so I suppose that’s a ‘ruthless cut’ to some people.  I don’t do any extreme budgeting or early retirement extreme level financial planning.  I suppose my wife and I have ‘normal’ middle class living expenditures for the most part.

We don’t save money just to stare at the comma’s. What goal are you working toward and why?

The ultimate goal is to generate enough dividend income to completely cover all expenses.  I’d still continue to work after that, because I love what I do.  I believe complete financial freedom only comes when your passive income exceeds your total expenses.

If you can get beyond that, you can really start to give back in a big way through your passive income streams.

What opinion or view have you changed your mind about in the past year?

Wow, that’s a really good question!

One of the most difficult things about trying to be an objective person is fighting confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance.  We try not to change our minds.

I think the biggest thing I’ve changed my mind about in the last year is wanting to move out of the city I currently live in.  For a while, I really wanted to move – to ‘try out’ a new city.  Now, my wife and I have decided to stay put where we are for extra stability and to be close to our friends and family; I really believe that’s the right choice.

What opinion or belief do you hold that most people don’t?

I’m libertarian, so my political beliefs are not very mainstream.

What’s the best $100 you’ve spent this year?

Who needs $100?  Here’s some great stuff to do that’s free:

What does your morning routine look like?

I wake up at 5:30 AM every weekday.  I have ‘stacks’; lists of tasks that repeat every day.  I have a ‘morning stack’ that has all the little things I do every morning from when I wake up to when I get to work in my home office.

The stack really helps me to stay focused and not get distracted by checking my phone when I first get up.  You can also slowly add new habits/tasks to your stack as time goes by.

I make either black tea or yerba mate every morning.  I used to have a shot of espresso, but caffeine makes me crash and hold too much anxiety.  Tea is much better for productivity, at least for me.

What book have you most gifted or recommended?

For investing, my favorite two favorites are The Single Best Investment by Lowell Miller and Quantitative Value by Wesley Gray and Tobias Carlisle.

For productivity and self-improvement, my favorite books are Getting Things Done by David Allen, The Magic of Thinking Big by David Schwartz, and The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey.

For building a business, my favorite books are Built to Sell by John Warrillow, Zero to One by Peter Theil and Blake Masters, and Traction by Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares.

Any favorite podcasts?

I don’t listen to too many podcasts, but I do listen to the following occasionally (or rarely, in no particular order):


To see all our interviews head over to the Guest Interviews Page.

If you would like to participate in our interview series, check out the questions here, put together your answers in a word or google doc, and shoot them to me at adam@adamchudy.com and we’ll get you in the mix – Thanks, Adam


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