Make Better Wealth Decisions is a weekly exploration of how the financial services industry shifts peoples’ attention to make them more bullish. It involves a risk most people won’t recognize because being optimistic is usually a good thing. We all have biases – and being biased means you’re taking on unique risks that are not always recognized or acknowledged. It’s a perverse problem – how, exactly, does one address biases that are not even recognized? If we can’t (or won’t) acknowledge our own blind spots, how will we ever hope to overcome them? The most unexpected challenge may come from having a sunny outlook. Optimism Bias can be dangerous because consistently expecting things to work out can often lead to being less careful than one ought to be. Plenty of people think there are significant risks in the stock (and bond… and real estate) market these days, but many choose to actively look the other way – as if the risks will simply go away if we don’t acknowledge them.