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Sep 2020Calm Has A Coefficient
“Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers, is like trying to tell time by watching only the second hand of a watch.”– Ben Hecht As we continue to live through this pandemic, I have observed that there seem to be two very distinct groups of people. The first group appears to be in a constant state of agitation, frustration and/or…
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Jun 2020Reflection On the Last Six Months
“Our favourite holding period is forever.” – Warren Buffet The first six months of 2020 saw the advent of the worst global public health crisis in a century—since the 1918 influenza pandemic. In response, the world locked down, putting its economy into a kind of medically induced coma. In this country, the immediate effects were (1) a savage and nearly instantaneous economic recession, accompanied by record unemployment, and (2) the fastest, deepest…
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May 2020The Key to Happier and More Productive Life
“If everything is amplified, we hear nothing.” – Jon Stewart At the risk of straying into “life coach” territory I would like to share with you how I became happier and more productive during Covid-19. It all started this past March with our family’s trip to Kenya. I had minimal access to T.V., radio, print media, and the internet given that we were on safari in the middle…
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Apr 2020The Bill Comes Due
“Don’t do anything is the best advice for most people most of the time, but it’s not intellectually stimulating enough for many people to take seriously. Most fields have a positive correlation between effort and results. Investing is one of the few where the correlation is negative, especially for amateurs. The higher your IQ is, the harder it is to accept this.” – Morgan Housel…
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Mar 2020Context is Everything
“Wisdom is intelligence in context.“ – Raheem Faroog It seems like a lifetime ago (COVID time?) when on March 13th I last sent out this newsletter. Back then my family and I were on March Break having breakfast with the local wildlife at Giraffe Manor. Although the “shut in” world we are now experiencing has changed, one thing should not … thoughtful context. Whether it…
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Feb 2020I Don’t Want To Invest My Money Now Because
“The only thing new in the world is the history you do not know.” – Harry S. Truman Every year Stonegate updates the article/graphic “I Don’t want To Invest My Money Now Because …”. Here’s the thing, there will always be a reason not to invest! I have seen too many families handicap their financial future by trying to time their entry into the market….
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Jan 2020It Was the Best of Times, it Was The Worst of Times
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us,…
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Dec 2019Merry Christmas Featuring E.T.
“May you never be too grown up to search the skies on Christmas Eve.” – Anonymous For over 10 years the British retailer, John Lewis, has aired what has become an iconic holiday season commercial. Although this year’s version was well done I thought the parody featuring Donald Trump and Greta Thunberg was even better. However, my favorite 2019 holiday commercial was from Xfinity. I thought it perfectly captured the…
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Nov 2019Steve Jobs Was Wrong
“People who tell you to follow your passion are already rich.” – Scott Galloway I know I’m getting older when young adults increasingly ask me for career advice. Most of them are surprised when I suggest that “follow your passion” is dangerous career advice. This contradicts most of what is passed off as vocational wisdom, perhaps never more famously than in the iconic convocation address Steve…
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Oct 2019Controlling the ”Controllables”
“Knowing what you don’t know is much more useful in life and business than being brilliant” Charlie Munger Having become an avid follower of Stoic philosophy over the last few years I have come to understand that one of its intellectual pillars is classifying all of life’s experiences into one of two buckets. The first bucket I would call “things that you can control”, with the second one…
