Hi, I’m Casey Schorr 👋
A few years before selling my business, something inside me started to shift. The constant pursuit of “more” lost its appeal. A deeper desire emerged though I couldn't fully grasp it. Overwhelmed and burnt out, this marked the start of a transition to a more meaningful "Life 2.0"
So if you now number yourself among the disenchanted, then you have no choice but to accept things as they are, or to seriously seek something else. But beware of looking for goals: look for a way of life. Decide how you want to live and then see what you can do to make a living WITHIN that way of life.
Selling my business turned out to be a fantastic move. Though it wasn't the kind of sale that made headlines, it gave me the chance to pause and reflect.
I wanted a more purposeful, deliberate, and impactful second half of life. But to chase this dream without compromise, I needed to secure long-term financial freedom. I needed to become a better investor.
Already a fan of low-fee index investing, I started there. But I was still young, nowhere close to the typical retirement age. When I started figuring out how to pull money out for 50+ years, I hit a wall. The popular advice didn’t work.
Simple stock/bond index portfolios worked well in my early working years but started to look risky with post-FI withdrawals. The astonishingly low, yet widely accepted 3-4% “safe withdrawal rate” was further proof of this hidden risk. Even at the high end of this range, I quickly realized maintaining my family's upper-middle-class lifestyle would be a challenge.
I didn't want to compromise and kept asking myself: There must be an innovative solution. Do the world's best money managers really advise vanilla index portfolios and squeaking by on a measly 3 to 4%?
I knew investing legends like Ray Dalio and Warren Buffet trusted their fortunes to the same simple, proven, passive investing philosophy I already knew and loved.
But they layer on sophisticated strategies to balance risk, which also happens to dramatically boost the safe withdrawal rate. I researched the hell out of this approach, called Risk Parity (or sometimes All Weather), and determined I could take out maybe 6 to 8% annually without burning through my nest egg.
Achieving FI in half the time seemed like a worthwhile pursuit!
But as an individual investor, I found the complexity of this institutional-level strategy daunting. So it became my mission to adapt it for DIY individual investors like myself.
And that's how Hedgian began. A community of affluent entrepreneurs and executives. The goal? Achieve financial independence faster, with less risk, to “retire” and live a more meaningful life 2.0. Join us.
Not retirement at sixty-five years old, sitting in a nursing home collecting a check retirement—it’s a different definition: Retirement is when you stop sacrificing today for an imaginary tomorrow. When today is complete, in and of itself, you’re retired.
Nothing else like it
While the FIRE movement is also focused on achieving financial independence, it's a plain-vanilla approach for the masses. Our members aren't afraid of a little more sophistication if it gets them there in half the time, with much less risk.
Like FIRE, Hedgians are making a transition. But not toward traditional retirement... instead, a shift from traditional success to something more meaningful.
The Bogleheads community has also been a great source of knowledge. But eventually, I wanted more than just the same old regurgitations of Bogle's legendary advice.
Community-first
I've always wanted a secure, private space to engage with my kind of people. But finding these people in the real world is hard.
“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with”
What's the story behind the name Hedgian?
The "hedge" in Hedgian signifies our balanced approach towards both investments and life.
In finance, a hedge is about risk reduction, similar to an insurance policy. Contrary to popular belief, it's about playing the long game with a sophisticated and balanced strategy, not quick profits.
In life, hedge refers to the Hedgehog concept popularized by Jim Collins. It's the intersection of your deepest passion, what you can be the best in the world at, and what you can get paid for.
The "ian" in Hedgian is about embracing who you are. Words with this ending describe people who follow certain beliefs or lifestyles: Musician. Australian. Vegetarian... Hedgian.
Plus hedgehogs are cute, especially when they're wearing a graduation cap :)
How do I contact you?
Email my first name at this domain, or follow me on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/caseyschorr/