For families 50–68 with more than $100k invested
Buy-and-hold doesn't fail in a spreadsheet. It fails the morning you're 62 and you need to sell.
That's exactly when passive-only investing breaks down — and almost nobody who preaches "stay the course" is willing to talk about it. I wrote Index and Regret for the families the conventional wisdom forgot. Get your copy free. Just cover the $7.95 shipping from MN.
You spent 30 years doing it right. Then the rules quietly changed on you.
Max the 401(k). Diversify. A couple of index funds. Reinvest the dividends. Stop looking at it so often. The plan was: ride it out. And for three decades the balance grew.
Then you're 62. The market gives back 35% in 14 months. CNBC is screaming every morning. Your spouse is at the kitchen table asking if you should sell before it gets worse. Your advisor — if you have one — tells you to "stay the course."
Most people sell. And that's the worst time to sell.
That's not a character flaw. That's physics. A 35% drawdown is a completely different number when you're 32 and have 30 years to wait than when you're 62 and need to start drawing down in three. The people who tell you "just buy and hold" aren't wrong about the math. They're wrong about the life. Math doesn't care if you sell at the bottom. Your retirement does.
I wrote Index and Regret after watching too many smart, careful families get to 60 with exactly the wrong portfolio for the next ten years of their life. It's not "indexing is bad" — indexing is fine if you're 35. Indexing alone is a single-point-of-failure plan if you're 55+.
A systems-engineering view of your retirement.
I spent a decade before financial planning building production software. In software, you would never ship a system with a single point of failure. You demand redundancy. Failover. Disaster recovery. You plan for the day the load balancer goes down, the database corrupts, the region goes dark. You do this because you know the outage is coming — you just don't know when.
Then I looked at my own 401(k) and realized the conventional wisdom was telling me to run my retirement with zero redundancy, zero failover, zero disaster recovery, and zero exit ramp — on the bet that the year I retire won't be the year the market goes into a multi-year drawdown.
The families who stay on plan through drawdowns aren't tougher than the ones who panic-sell. They have a different system. That system is what the book teaches.
Is this actually for you?
- You're 50–68 with more than $100k invested
- You've been told "just buy and hold" for a decade and it's starting to feel like a religion, not a plan
- You hate the idea of selling at the bottom and can't promise yourself you won't
- You want to understand what "active risk management" actually means before anyone pitches you on it
- You're 25 with 40 years to ride out anything
- You already work with a planner who stress-tests your portfolio against real scenarios — and you know they do
- You believe the stock market can't have a 15-year flat period because it hasn't happened in your lifetime
- You want a book that tells you everything will be fine if you just stay the course
What's actually in the book.
Index and Regret: Because Your Family Deserves Better Than Average is 140 pages. Two evenings. Written for someone who knows what a 401(k) is but has never had anyone honestly walk them through what "diversified" actually means in 2026.
What "enough" actually looks like.
Enough is not a return. It's not a number you beat the market by. Enough is a plan that survives the year your retirement starts being 2008.
It looks like the cabin you said you'd buy once you had enough.
It looks like your grandkids' college getting paid without raiding the 401(k).
It looks like winters somewhere warm if you want them, and summers on the lake either way.
It looks like being the grandparent your kids actually call — not the one they quietly worry about.
It looks like sleeping through the next CNBC-screaming morning because you built the portfolio for it five years ago.
Average households have hope. Families with a real plan have enough. That's the book's job — to show you the difference.
Here's how you don't lose on this.
1. The book itself is free. You cover the $7.95 shipping from MN. That's it. No subscription. No trial. No hidden charge a month later.
2. If you hate the book, I'll refund your shipping. Email me. I'll refund the $7.95. You keep the book. No forms, no survey, no guilt trip.
3. Your downside, in plain terms: $7.95 and the address on the envelope. I'm not going to put you on a newsletter you didn't ask for. You'll get a short email series walking through the biggest ideas one at a time, and you can unsubscribe from any of them in two clicks.
Dr. Adam Link, CFP®
Founder, Fireweed Capital
I run Fireweed Capital, an active-risk-management firm in Minnesota. I've been doing this work for families across the state for over a decade. Before that: a Doctorate in computer science and ten years building production software systems. Four company exits including one IPO. I wrote Index and Regret and Better Than Average to put the mechanisms I use with my own clients into a format anyone with two evenings can read.
Common questions
The book is free. You pay $7.95 to cover shipping and handling from our MN warehouse. No subscription, no trial, no auto-charge later.
There isn't one, but there's a reason. Selling $7.95 books doesn't pay my mortgage. Helping readers who want deeper help does. Most readers will never become clients, and that's fine — the book stands on its own. Some will want more, and there are optional add-ons for them at checkout.
No. The book is educational — it teaches a framework, not personalized recommendations. Same for the optional live workshop you'll see at checkout. If you want a personal plan, that's a separate conversation with a licensed advisor, and we can point you in that direction if you ask.
It's 140 pages. Two evenings. Written in plain English. If you're over 55 and your retirement depends on a portfolio you haven't pressure-tested lately, two evenings is probably the best-paying time on your calendar this month.
Good. Read the book anyway and bring the questions to them. If they answer them well, you have confirmation. If they dodge them, you've learned something.
The book is a book. The email series that follows is me explaining ideas. At checkout you'll see an optional second paperback (Better Than Average, $9, ships in the same envelope) and an optional live workshop ($147) — you're free to ignore both. I don't do bait-and-switch.
Dr. Adam Link, CFP®. Doctorate in computer science. Four company exits including one IPO. I founded Fireweed Capital, an active-risk-management firm in Minnesota, and I've written two books on investing for families inside 10 years of retirement. The credentials are real and checkable.
The address is used to ship the book. The email is used to send the 6-part educational series that follows. I don't sell or share either. Email adam@fireweedcapital.com any time to delete.
9 copies. MN warehouse. Ships this week.
Get your copy of Index and Regret while this batch is still here. After these 9, the next print batch is ~3 weeks out. Your downside is $7.95. Your upside is knowing what most people find out the hard way.
Ships from MN. Delivery 1–2 weeks. If you hate the book, email me and I'll refund the shipping. Keep the book.
Adam Link is an Investment Adviser Representative of Portfolio Medics, LLC (SEC-registered, CRD# 145958). Investment advisory services, when offered, are provided through Portfolio Medics. Fireweed Capital is a brand of Dr. Adam Link and a separately licensed insurance agency.
Index and Regret and Better Than Average are educational publications and do not constitute personalized investment, tax, or legal advice. Past performance of any scenario or market period is not indicative of future results.
Full SEC disclosures · Portfolio Medics Form ADV · Form CRS · FINRA BrokerCheck