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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…
01
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…
01
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….
01
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,…
20
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…
25
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…
24
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…
24
Sep 2019Are you a Real Investor or a Make-Believe One?
“’If you wish to improve’, Epictetus once said, ‘be content to appear clueless or stupid in extraneous matters.’ One of the most powerful things we can do as a human being in our hyper connected, 24/7 media world is say: ‘I don’t know.’ Or more provocatively, ‘I don’t care.’ Not about everything, of course – just most things. Because most things don’t matter, and most…
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Aug 2019Advice for my daughter
“It takes tremendous strength and resolve to allow your kids to suffer the consequences of their decisions.” – Anonymous My little girl is going into grade nine! If you have children you know the very act of writing this fills me with mixed emotions. One of the many challenges of parenting is trying to teach our children financial lessons without being boring, condescending, repetitive, etc. One…
11
Jul 2019How Much Is Too Much
“Too many people spend money they haven’t earned to buy things they don’t want to impress people they don’t like.” – Will Rogers Reflecting on my past two blogs Money Can Buy You Happiness and The Three Levels of Wealth, I seem to have inadvertently written about and/or stumbled upon the personal utility of money. I promise this will be my last missive on the theme … at least…
