One French Teacher Changed Everything | Adam Butler on the Mentors Who Redirect Lives

Описание: Adam Butler joins The Intentional Investor with Matt Zeigler for an honest, funny, and deeply reflective conversation that traces the origins of one of investing’s most thoughtful minds. From a Dungeons & Dragons-playing kid in Newfoundland to the CIO of Resolve Asset Management, Adam’s story is about curiosity, overconfidence, failure, reinvention, and finding purpose through markets. Along the way, he shares the lessons that shaped his worldview — and the mistakes that built his philosophy on risk, humility, and growth.

Main topics covered:

Early life in Newfoundland and how Dungeons & Dragons sparked creativity and curiosity
The teachers who changed his life and his journey through schools in Quebec and Ontario
Switching majors from physics to psychology to drama and what that taught him about identity
Discovering markets through a university trading competition and winning it twice
Landing a trading-desk job, rising fast, and blowing up during the 1998 LTCM crisis
Lessons in risk, ego, and the importance of humility in investing
Rebuilding through programming, IBM, and a teaching stint in Thailand
How a bus ride on his honeymoon changed his career path and led to Resolve Asset Management
The intersection of psychology, statistics, and portfolio design that defines his current work

Timestamps:
00:00 Intro and overview of Adam Butler’s story
04:00 Newfoundland roots and childhood influences
08:20 Dungeons & Dragons and the power of imagination
14:40 Academic curiosity, ego, and overconfidence
20:00 Leaving home at 17 for prep school in Quebec
30:00 University pivots: physics, drama, psychology
34:50 Discovering markets and the TD trading competition
41:00 Landing on a trading desk during the Bre-X scandal
51:00 Making millions — then losing it all in 1998
56:00 Lessons from failure and humility
58:00 Teaching in Thailand and rediscovering purpose
1:06:00 Returning to finance and building a career in investing
1:08:00 The bus ride that led to a life-changing opportunity