I have always been a firm believer that if you do the background work things will work out well. Usually that pays off for me. I spend the time studying something that interests me, find the best item and pay a reasonable price. I work hard at learning what is needed to excel in an activity and do well.
Sometimes, all the work still fails. I did that with the new boat and ended up finding out there was a lot of work needed on the bottom to fix a problem that we didn't find when inspecting it before buying. Something we would have passed on if we had found it. It's not that we won't be able to use it. It's that we'll have to throw a fair amount of money at it to do so. Due Diligence may pay off most of the time, but don't think it is foolproof.
