Ellen Waltzman on Risk: The Hidden Forces That Shape Investor Outcomes
Risk is Not the Enemy. Blindness Is. In Massachusetts boardrooms, family offices, and kitchen-table planning sessions, investors talk about returns as if they were the crown. But after 30 years advising affluent clients across Boston, Cambridge, Wellesley, and the North Shore, I’ve learned a sharper truth: Returns are simply the visible artifacts. Risk is the architecture beneath. And hidden forces —the ones most investors never see—determine outcomes more than any headline, index, or bull market run. Today, I want to pull back the curtain. Because if you can see risk clearly, you can shape your financial destiny deliberately. If you can’t? Someone else will do the shaping for you. The Massachusetts Investor’s Dilemma: Comfort vs. Consequence Every investor faces the same quiet fork in the road: Do I act based on what I feel … or based on what is true ? Empathy mapping shows us how humans see, hear, think, and behave under uncertainty. When pressure rises, investors ...