To build good models, we have to think like product designers.

There are four stages to learning any new skill. Knowing which stage you are at can help to calibrate your expectations and reduce your frustration.

You can't learn to swim by reading a book. At some point, you have to jump into the water and start moving your arms and legs. It's the same with financial modelling. It's an active skill. You have to do it to learn it.

In 1976, British statistician George Box wrote the famous line, "All models are wrong, some are useful." This is a critical truism to keep in our minds as we build and share financial models. There is only one thing you can say with any certainty about your model&

Every financial model starts with a question.

Intelligence is important. But the self-discipline and consistency you bring to a task make a huge difference to the outcome.

I've taught thousands of modellers from many of the world's top companies over the years. And what I've seen is this: in all but a handful of dedicated modelling shops, it's hard for companies to achieve standardisation across a team.

The different modelling standards are more alike than they are different. They all emphasise similar elements of good practice. What's important is to pick one and apply it consistently.

The myth that systemisation destroys creativity stems from the idea that systems turn everybody into robots, incapable of original thought. This is just flat out wrong. In reality, systems create space, and space opens doors to creativity, inspiration and opportunity. From SYSTEMology by David Jenyns and Michael E. Gerber A

"Nothing worth having was ever achieved without effort" - Theodore Roosevelt