I’ve been thinking about Christmas a little differently this year.

In some ways, I feel like I’ve already had mine. And I don’t mean the holiday itself. I mean the everyday version. Each day, we get to do work that matters for families we genuinely care about. We help people make better decisions, reduce anxiety, and create order where there was once noise. That’s a gift, and one I don’t take lightly.

This season naturally invites gratitude. Gratitude for trust. For relationships that deepen over time. For the privilege of being invited into important conversations about life, money, and meaning. That sense of gratitude runs through everything you’ll find in this month’s Journal.

It’s also a time of momentum. We’re finishing strong, learning constantly, and quietly building what comes next. I’ll simply say this: the ideas taking shape for 2026 have the potential to be deeply valuable. Not louder. Not flashier. Just more useful, more beneficial, and more aligned with what long-term thinkers actually need. Stay tuned.

As always, thank you for being part of this community. Whether you’re a client, a friend of the firm, or simply curious about how we think, you belong here if you value sound judgment, long-term thinking, and progress over perfection.

I hope you enjoy this month’s Journal, and I wish you clarity and steady momentum in 2026 and beyond.

Take the Long View,

Every once in a while, an event reminds me just how much our work together matters. Our evening with Carl Richards was one of those moments…a room full of people opening up, reflecting, and reconnecting with what’s truly important.

A number of you joined us at the Racquet Club in St. Louis for a conversation that was part money, part meaning, and entirely human. Thank you for being there. And for those who couldn’t join in person, we felt your support from afar.

The energy in the room was palpable. People leaned in, shared openly, and allowed themselves to be moved. Since then, we’ve received thoughtful notes inspired by Carl’s sketches. It’s a reminder that a simple line, drawn with intention, can shift how we see our decisions and ourselves.

In my introduction that evening, I shared a story about meeting a couple on vacation whose wife was “famous to some.” That phrase describes Carl perfectly. He isn’t trying to be famous. He’s trying to be useful. Based on your reactions, he was.

The questions I asked Carl reflect the way we think at Hill Investment Group:

• What’s the story behind the sketches that make the complex simple without being simplistic?
• What feelings sit just below our financial decisions?
• How do we align the values we claim with the choices we make?

Carl reminded us that money is rarely the real topic. It’s a doorway into purpose and clarity.

My biggest takeaway from the evening is this:

At Hill Investment Group, our job is twofold. We help clients make the most of their capital, picking up every penny possible through evidence and disciplined implementation. And we help clients make the most of what matters in their lives through goal setting, accountability, and behavioral coaching.

We’ve been doing this work for 20 years, and we plan to keep doing it for 20 more, for a select group of long-view thinkers.

For those outside St. Louis, we want you to feel part of the experience too.

If you’d like a complimentary copy of Carl’s newest book, just email us and we’ll send one your way.

Here’s to a year ahead defined by gratitude, clearer choices, and deeper alignment between money and what matters most.

Take the Long View,

The power of slowing down when everything around us says hurry.

I just finished Lonesome Dove (widely considered one of the greatest Westerns of all time). At 850 pages, it doesn’t move quickly, and that’s the point. You can’t rush it. You get pulled into the dust, the dialogue, the ache of it all.

Right after closing the book, I was on Mackinac Island. No cars, no horns. Just horse-drawn carriages, bikes, and time measured by the clop of hooves. Real horsepower! It’s one of the few places that forces a slowdown, and in that stillness, you actually start to notice things again – texture, tone, the weather moving through.

In investing, there’s no reliably fast way to get rich. We all know the parable of the tortoise and the hare, but modern life makes it so tempting to rush. The social media feed refreshes, the markets move, and it feels like we need to move too. It takes real discipline to slow down; to stick with something through the long, quiet stretches.

Fall feels like the right season to remember that. It’s a time of gratitude and reflection, of harvesting what we’ve grown, and of preparing the soil for what’s next.

Investing well isn’t about reacting to every market twitch. It’s about owning global capitalism, rebalancing patiently, and letting time compound the quiet and yet powerful work happening underneath the surface.

We’ve been at this long enough to see it firsthand. Our clients’ returns over the last 20 years, and more than 25 years if you go back to when we first started using this evidence-based approach, tell the story clearly. The discipline of staying invested, diversified, patient, and calm through every kind of market storm pays off.

In a world obsessed with speed, the slow things still win.

Take the long view.