If I've Learned Anything From Grad School It's To Check Your Sources, And This Has Proven Invaluable

if I've learned anything from grad school it's to check your sources, and this has proven invaluable in the dozens of instances when I've had an MBA-type try to tell me something about finances or leadership. Case in point:

Good Housekeeping
The Art of Kakeibo, the Japanese
Budgeting System That Could
Change Your Financial Life
Get your spending in line with this
innovative way to save money.

Firefox serves me clickbaity articles through Pocket, which is fine because I like Firefox. But sometimes an article makes me curious. I'm pretty anal about my finances, and I wondered if this article was, as I suspected, total horseshit, or could potentially benefit me and help me get my spending under control. So let's check the article in question.

It mostly seems like common sense. "...track expenses and income for at least a month before setting a budget...How much money do I have or earn? How much do I want to save?" Basic shit like that. But then I get to this section:

Break Your Spending Into Categories and Get
"Financially Naked"

Once you have tracked your expenditures for a month, you can
break spending into categories. The key to kakeibo is tracking it all with a basic pen and paper, rather than using any kind of app.
Why? Research has repeatedly shown that physically writing
things down changes the way we behave. It also creates a little
more friction to our spending.

This sounds fucking made up to me. And thankfully, they've provided a source to their claim that "research has repeatedly shown" that writing things down changes behavior. First mistake. What research is this?

Forbes

FORBES > LEADERSHIP

How To Set Goals (And Why
You Should Write Them
Down)
Annabel Acton

Nov 3, 2017, 05:33am EDT

Updated Dec 10, 2021, 08:30am EST

This article is more than 6 years old.

There's some impressive science to back up goal setting. And yet it's
something we're never taught or encouraged to do. But the statistics
don't lie, and make a strong argument for getting good at this skill; and
making a habit of it. A Harvard Business Study found that the 3% of
graduates from their MBA who had their goals written down, ended up
earning ten times as much as the other 97% put together, just ten years
after graduation.

Forbes, naturally, my #1 source for absolute dogshit fart-sniffing financial schlock. Forbes is the type of website that guy from high school who constantly posts on linkedin trawls daily for little articles like this that make him feel better about refusing to pay for a decent package for his employees' healthcare (I'm from the United States, a barbaric, conflict-ridden country in the throes of civil unrest, so obsessed with violence that its warlords prioritize weapons over universal medical coverage. I digress). Forbes constantly posts shit like this, and I constantly spend my time at leadership seminars debunking poor consultants who get paid to read these claims credulously. Look at this highlighted text. Does it make sense to you that simply writing your financial goals down would result in a 10x increase in your income? Because if it does, let me make you an offer on this sick ass bridge.

Thankfully, Forbes also makes the mistake of citing their sources. Let's check to see where this hyperlink goes:

Sid Savara

>PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT ARTICLES > WHY 3% OF HARVARD MBAS MAKE TEN TIMES AS MUCH AS THE OTHER 97% COMBINED

Why 3% of Harvard MBAs Make Ten Times as Much as the Other 97% Combined

SidSavara. I've never heard of this site, but the About section tells me that Sid is "a technology leader who empowers teams to grow into their best selves. He is a life-long learner enjoys developing software, leading teams in delivering mission critical projects, playing guitar and watching football and basketball."

That doesn't mean anything. What are his LinkedIn credentials? With the caveat that anyone can lie on Linkedin, Mr. Savara appears to be a Software Engineer. Which is fine! I'm glad software engineers exist! But Sid's got nothing in his professional history which suggests he knows shit about finance. So I'm already pretty skeptical of his website, which is increasingly looking like a personal fart-huffing blog.

The article itself repeats the credulous claim made in the Forbes story earlier, but this time, provides no link for the 3% story. Mr. Savara is smarter than his colleages at Forbes, it's much wiser to just make shit up.

HOWEVER. I am not the first person to have followed this rabbit hole. Because at the very top of this article, there is a disclaimer.

(Update: be sure to read the follow up to this post, Fact or Fiction? The Truth About The Harvard Written Goal
Study)

Uh oh!

Sid's been called out before, and in the follow up to this article, he reveals the truth.

I

But ... did this study really happen? Let's find out

recently published a post about Why 3% of Harvard MBAs Make Ten Times as Much as the Other 97%
Combined. In that post, I discuss a Harvard study concerning the effects of goal setting, and specifically
written goals, on future financial success.

You can guess where this is going.

As I mentioned in that past article, the study is sourced from the book What They Don't Teach You in the
Harvard Business School, by Mark McCormack.

I was curious, and searched for the actual study online, but was unable to find it.

From The Horse's Mouth: Yale Says There Is No 1953 Goal Setting Study
I finally came across a page at the Yale Law Library that asks "Where can I find the Yale study from 1953
about goal-setting?“. The answer, in it's entirety:

It has been determined that no "goals study" of the Class of 1953 actually occurred. In recent years, we have
received a number of requests for information on a reported study based on a survey administered to the
Class of 1953 in their senior year and a follow-up study conducted ten years later. This study has been
described as how one's goals at graduation related to success and annual incomes achieved during the period.

The secretary of the Class of 1953, who had served in that capacity for many years, did not know of [the
study], nor did any of the fellow class members he questioned. In addition, a number of Yale administrators
were consulted and the records of various offices were examined in an effort to document the reported study.
There was no relevant record, nor did anyone recall the purported study of the Class of 1953, or any other
class.

(Source : Where can I find the Yale study from 1953 about goal-setting?)

So it appeared that my urging people to write down their goals was based on a study that never happened.

So to go back to the VERY beginning of this post, both Pocket/Good Housekeeping and Forbes failed to do even the most basic of research, taking the wild claim that writing down your budget may increase your income by 10x on good faith and the word of a(n admittedly honest about his shortcomings) software engineer.

Why did I spend 30 minutes to make a tumblr post about this? Mostly to show off how smart I am, but also to remind folks of just how flimsy any claim on the internet can be. Click those links, follow those sources, and when the sources stop linking, ask why.

If I've Learned Anything From Grad School It's To Check Your Sources, And This Has Proven Invaluable

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