Shirley M. Mueller, M.D.

You may not even realize it, but physicians make up a large part of the collector community. Why is that? One reason is the sense of passion it brings that helps balance life outside of the clinic.

Everyone has fears and many people have fears of failure or stepping into the unknown, and that’s ok. No matter how detrimental it becomes there is a way to combat your fears. Even Tom Brady has his own fears, and his method of combating them is one you can do to.

I will be flying to Lake Michigan in a WWII military airplane.

According to the meta-study, four of the five Big Five personality traits decrease in intensity 1-2 percentage points each decade, however, specific aging individuals experience a more marked decline than others.

"The ease of transferring appreciated stock with donor-advised funds sounds so delicious.” — Anonymous

The role of loss-aversion and ownership.

Art observation training for first-year medical students demonstrated significant improvement in clinical ophthalmology observational skills.

Booking travel accommodations online may seem like an effortless process, however, if things go array, the situation is different.

How to give: Required minimum distribution versus appreciated stock.

Since TIAA-CREF stock funds are generally higher in expense than other low-cost options, conducted studies have important implications to clients.

Doctors have been collectors and artists for centuries, expressing their artistic side even though they're trained as scientists.

Nearly two decades ago, Shirley Mueller and her husband invested in their granddaughter's future under the Uniform Gift to Minors Act (UGMA). The physician turned financial advisor assesses the present and future outlook of the contribution.

Hobby Lobby: Nipped by a bargain, or something worse?

Taking a closer look at the sudden rush to buy stocks.

As an investor, it's critical to document your reasons and expectations for purchasing stock. This helps to counter hindsight bias, which tends to make people overstate after the fact what they anticipated before they made the decision. This is an approach professional investors use, but other individuals do not.

Are we on an investment cliff? It’s in our nature to assume that current trends – whether good or bad – will continue. But it’s important to keep in mind that the market is random. Predicting its future from the recent past is less than accurate. That’s where the statistical principle, regression to the mean, comes in.

Elon Musk is now saying that private citizens can fly to the moon. The cost? A lot — millions and millions and millions. But, there is a way for us lesser beings to participate. By visiting the Atacama Desert, the driest place on earth. Its terrain is like the moon. The advantage to more minor mortals is that the price is minimal compared to a moon jaunt, plus getting there and coming home is easier (also safer, I assume).

Often doctors are collectors. In fact, some diversify their financial portfolios with fine art, wine or cars. This begs the question, what are collectors aside from sometimes being physicians? Two philosophers, John Dewey (1859-1952) and Jean Baudrillard (1929-2007), tackled this issue.

Inheritance can increase a family's fortune by 40%, on average; however, this money is not guaranteed to the benefactor's relatives.

Studies have found that an advisor can only help so much. The client's own financial knowledge has a large impact on financial perform.

Going against the grain is difficult. But it is nice to back a loser, especially if it ends up a winner.

High earners become uncomfortable near a peak in the market and exit, while low earners continue to buy with unbridled passion, according to the results of a study.

With the ups and downs of the stock market smoothed out, investors might be ignoring its inherent risk. Is this the lull before the storm?

Within the city of Munich are a number of opulent palaces housing art collections. Some of these rival Versailles and will take the better part of a day to explore.

What is known as Degenerate Art from World War II is found all throughout Germany, but it is a part of the country's painful past.

A 3-day trip to Frankfurt, Germany, that included art museums, an auction house, the boyhood home of Goethe, and a detailed look at the bombings of WWII and the continued reconstruction efforts.

Finding the right accommodations while on vacation is not always easy. Even opulent, well-reviewed hotels have their own little quirks and oddities, Shirley Mueller, MD, finds.

Manhattan real estate has been on a tear. However, despite being in a desirable location, Shirley Mueller, MD, didn't find it easy to sell her Upper East Side co-op.

Identifying the trustworthiness of a person's actions is important to the financial advisor-client relationship and can be the difference between success or disaster.

In the majority of us, the most important factor that influences our financial decisions is intuition, not analytic thinking, and a new field of science is studying this notion.