“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

You Are Who You Are: Be Thankful for That! 

It’s damn hard to be thankful.

We know we should. Every shrink, spiritual leader, and self-help guru on the planet espouses the many benefits of being thankful. But it’s hard to do.

That’s because “doing” thankfulness means feeling it – actually feeling grateful in the muscles of the heart.

I have a sort of prayer that I recite every morning: I’m grateful for my health. I’m grateful for my family. I’m grateful for my work, etc. I recite this dutifully and with concentration. But its effect on me has been only a bit stronger than practicing positive affirmations – which is to say, not great.

I do feel grateful now and then. But the feeling doesn’t come when I call for it. Like happiness, gratitude arrives spontaneously, dressed in workaday clothes, ushered in by mundane and trivial matters. Like finding my boarding pass a minute before they close the doors. Or recognizing a familiar landmark when I’m driving, lost on a dark road.

The important things that I should be grateful for – life, liberty, and my right to happiness, for example – I appreciate most in their absence.

I don’t think I’m alone in this. If you’ve been striving to experience more gratitude in your life, you might have noticed the same thing.

Consider this…

 

A Possible Solution

The feeling of gratitude is indisputably a positive emotion. It feels like breathing. Like opening up and becoming lighter.

But there are other emotions that feel very different – sort of like the opposite of gratitude.

They make you feel like you’re being squashed. Like you’re suffocating or drowning. They make your heart race and weaken your muscles. They feel like pressure, like tightness, like you can’t breathe.

Do you know what I mean?

These opposite-of-gratitude feelings – there are lots of them! Feeling ignored, unappreciated, or disrespected. Or insulted, excluded, or misunderstood. Or robbed or cheated or taken advantage of. Or mentally or physically abused. Or just generally feeling victimized – whether by individuals, society, or even the universe.

So, here’s my thesis: Maybe the secret to feeling more gratitude is to make more room for it by clearing out these other feelings.

Maybe, rather than making lists of all the things we should be grateful for, we should make a list of all the opposite-of-gratitude feelings we have, consciously or subconsciously, and focus our attention on getting rid of them first.

I’m talking about clearing out the dark shadows in our hearts and brains. Letting the sunshine in.

To be honest, this is not a brand-new thought for me. I’ve been thinking about it – and even working on it – for more than 50 years.

One of the first negative emotions I tried to banish was jealousy. By the time I was 16, I had figured out that it was, indeed, a green-eyed monster. I understood the stupidity of it, and vowed to excise its gangrenous hold on my heart. But I was an adolescent, and the biology of adolescence is selfish and self-centered. So, I was not entirely successful. (I still succumb to jealousy’s poison today. But rarely.)

I was much more successful in my early attempts to banish most forms of envy. Although I had much to be envious about as a child, it never had a strong hold on me. In fact, if I ever felt envious of anything or anyone, I don’t remember it. I was surrounded by people then – and still am – who were (and are) richer, smarter, funnier, and better looking. But I didn’t/don’t envy them. I don’t know why envy was so easy to exorcise while jealousy wasn’t, but I do know that not being envious has allowed me to feel good about those that have more than I do. By clearing out envy, I’ve been able to let a sort of happiness in.

There is, however, a kind of envy that I have not entirely banished. And that’s the feeling of resentment I had in high school for my classmates that had a higher social status. I thought I had rid myself of feeling socially discounted and underprivileged. But when I went to my last high school reunion, I realized that I hadn’t entirely forgiven my classmates that had been fortunate enough to grow up on the “right” side of town.

There are many other negative emotions – some that set in later in life – that, until recently, I allowed myself to feel, even though they were self-destructive. One of them was about my body image. In my youth, I was always unhappy with my skinniness. Despite lifting weights like a maniac, I was never able to pack on muscle. I started as a linebacker and offensive guard for my high school football team. I was somehow able to do that with sheer aggressiveness at 155 pounds. But when I failed to make the cut for college football, I cursed my body’s inability to grow.

After I turned 40, my body took revenge on me. I ballooned to 230 pounds (still weightlifting) and have struggled to get back down to a respectable 200 pounds ever since. Every time I stepped on the scale and found myself heavier than that (which was almost always), I cursed my genes.

I was also angry at my biology every time I caught a cold. K never got sick. She went years without a sniffle or an ache, but I… I was catching every bug that came along! I was taking supplements. I was eating my damn greens. Why did I get stuck with this crappy immune system?

But the most negative emotions I allowed myself to feel had to do with my self-imposed mental goals and expectations. I would get furiously upset when I’d arrive late to an appointment, and yet I was late to appointments almost without fail! (While I was publishing Early to Rise, my friend AS used to say, “Early to rise, but late for everything else.”)

I would get angry when I failed to accomplish any and every project I committed to. It didn’t matter to me that my failure might have been due to situations beyond my control. Or that the expectation itself was entirely unrealistic. I mentally flagellated myself.

I would constantly chastise myself for the writing I did that was, in looking at it later, not very good. I would do the same whenever I couldn’t keep up with my work, even if I was working (as I often did) 70 to 80 hours a week.

And then there was the self-derision that ensued every time I failed to meet other people’s expectations. Whether it was friends, family, business associates, or even strangers, I allowed myself to take on their expectations of what I should do or be.

I always knew that these negative feelings came from me and my own expectations. I always knew that they were impossible to avoid so long as I took them on. I always knew that they were making me miserable. And yet, I allowed myself to have them.

 

Finally, a change of heart 

One day recently, in my 69th year, this all changed. I am still struggling to figure out how and why – but one day I woke up and thought to myself: “You are forgiven.”

I know how that sounds. Like New Age, narcissistic rubbish.  But that is what it was – a single thought. “You are forgiven.”

I will try to figure it out in a future essay. But for today, I will simply tell you what did and didn’t happen. What didn’t happen was a transformation in my behavior. I continued to set goals for myself that I couldn’t achieve. I continued to try to live up to other people’s expectations. But when I failed, I no longer beat myself up about it. The impulse wasn’t there. And so far, it hasn’t returned.

How to explain?

I feel like Popeye! I yam what I yam, and that’s all that I yam!

The shadows are gone. All that space in my heart that they were occupying is open now to better feelings. When I fail now – and I’m not making this up – I feel a little smile on my face. And for that, I am very, very thankful.

 

 

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“Two things control men’s nature, instinct and experience.” – Blaise Pascal

 

Head vs. Gut, Part II:

How to Educate Your Gut Instinct to Help You Make Profitable Decisions 

 

In Part I of this essay, we talked about gut instinct – what it is and why it is such an important ability to develop as you work yourself up to the top ranks of business and wealth building. Today, I want to suggest a system for developing an A-level gut instinct. 

 

JSN, my second important mentor in business, was also the person that taught me my first important lessons about building wealth.

 

Of his many impressive qualities (a great memory, a mind for details, a skilled negotiator, etc.), the one that most impressed me was his uncanny knack for knowing almost instantaneously whether or not a business idea would work.

 

He had, in other words, a world-class gut instinct for money-making ideas. It was much better than mine, and much, much better than that of most of the businesspeople I’ve worked with since. I thought of him as a kind of profit shark. In a vast sea of money-making opportunities, he could detect, sometimes from a great distance, the one that had blood in it.

 

Back then, I thought of this talent as inborn. Now, I believe it’s actually a skill that can be developed.

 

According to the Harvard Business Review article we looked at in Part I, gut instinct is an aspect of emotional intelligence that resides in the part of the brain that recognizes and stores patterns. When it sees such patterns again, it sends an urgent emotional message to the conscious mind.

 

In one situation, it may say, “Watch out! This is going to end badly.” In another situation, it may say, “Wow! This sounds great. Jump on it!”

 

This process, as I said, is based on pattern recognition. And though the stored patterns are not the result of rational analysis, it’s quite possible that they can match up with rational, experience-based conclusions that have been made by the conscious, rational mind.

 

When that happens – when your gut instinct matches some theory you’ve developed over time – you feel very certain that you know what to do, what decision to make. And more often than not, you’re right.

 

Although we celebrate the rational process for being fact-based and scientific, the rational mind alone cannot possibly handle the dozens of small and large decisions we have to make almost every day. That’s why gut instincts are so important. And why we should never disregard them, no matter what is running through our rational brain.

 

But that doesn’t mean our gut instincts are always right. On the contrary, they can be very wrong. And if you act solely on them, you can get yourself into a world of trouble.

 

I’ve thought about why it is that gut instincts can be so wrong. Here’s what I think:

 

1. An insufficiency of experience

 

There appears to be nothing in the emotional brain that classifies, tabulates, and measures our experiences in a scientific way. Instead, the process seems to be a combination of quantity (the number of similar experiences) and impact (the severity of the experiences). A single, traumatizing experience is sometimes enough to create and store a pattern template.

 

This has happened to me many times. The gut feeling is strong. I interpret that to mean it is trustworthy, and I make a confident and hasty decision accordingly. Then later, after discovering that the decision had been a mistake, I think about it and recognize that it had been based on just one or two strong experiences that were similar in some way but different in others. And I realize that had I put more thought into it, I might have made a different, or at least a more cautious, decision.

 

2. The wrong inputs 

 

The emotional brain cannot distinguish between real experiences and imagined ones. Numerous studies have proven that if we imagine a false experience repeatedly, the “memory” is recorded as real.

 

You read in the newspaper that violent crime keeps rising. You read story after story about terrible things happening on the street, and you develop a gut feeling that it’s safer to stay inside. But then you find out that all those stories were exaggerations or outright fabrications. Your rational mind can allow for that, but your fear of going outside will remain until it is replaced with a sufficient number of safe outside experiences to lay a new pattern over the old one. (This is how exposure therapy works.)

 

3. The unreliability of second-hand inputs 

 

I’m talking, here, about, for example, “knowing” that the ozone layer is disappearing and the oceans are rising… even though you are not a scientist and have never actually seen an ozone layer or measured the ocean tide.

 

As suggested above, second-hand experiences are just as emotionally powerful as experiences we’ve had personally. And, again, after they’ve settled in, the brain cannot distinguish between them.

 

4. The perspective problem 

 

Take any experience – a ball game, a traffic accident, a business meeting – and ask four people what took place. Chances are, you’ll get four different answers. Based on each person’s perspective, different elements of the same experience may or may not stand out. This means that the pattern that is subconsciously recorded will be different for different people. And some of those patterns will be partially or even completely wrong.

 

Training Your Gut Instinct 

 

When gut instincts are wrong, they can prompt you to make decisions you will later regret. And yet, you don’t want to ignore them because they are a very efficient way to recognize and store patterns of important information.

 

So, what to do?

 

The good news is that we can teach ourselves to reduce these subconscious mistakes by examining our gut instincts rationally and then paying better attention to new experiences that arrive.

 

I’ve noticed that when I make a bad decision, I have a tendency to delete it from my memory. It’s embarrassing and uncomfortable to acknowledge it. And so, I stop thinking about it. After a while, I actually forget it. Even if someone reminds me of the mistake, I won’t remember it. I believe they’re mistaken, not me.

 

Another thing I may do (I think I don’t, but I probably do) is reinvent the facts that led to my decision. Like false memories generally, this works. You absolve yourself of the pain of remembering the truth and preserve the wrong pattern in your emotional brain.

 

That sort of post-facto rationalization will, if you keep telling yourself those lies, sink into your subconscious. And, as I said above, since the brain cannot discriminate between real experiences and imagined ones, you will carry around not only the false memories but also the faulty gut instincts.

 

The solution is to be careful about the patterns you internalize.

 

* When you make a mistake, resist the urge to rationalize it. Don’t allow yourself to make excuses to those affected by your decision – not only because it will be transparent to them and you’ll look the fool, but more importantly because you will be inserting bad data into your internal memory, where your gut instincts are formed.

 

* Make a commitment to  pay close and objective attention to your primary experiences and be skeptical of everything you read or hear about – especially those things that are told in story form.

 

As a marketing guy, I know this: If I want to sell you an insurance product, I have to stir up your uncertainties – even your fears. I can do that by creating little stories that make the point I want to make. So if I want to sell you accident insurance, for example, I’ll write 10 terrible tales about accident victims. By the time you’ve read three of them, you will have established an internal, subconscious pattern in favor of accident insurance.

 

* Favor primary experiences over secondary ones. Learn from what has actually happened to you, not from what has supposedly happened to others. When you make a mistake based on gut instinct, examine the thoughts and feelings that went into it. Remember that history is written by people who have stories to sell.

 

* Pay attention to the experiences that have a strong emotional impact on you. Be critical of your responses to them.  Ask others, when possible, for their opinions. What happened?  And why? Where did I go wrong?

 

The conclusions you draw from your actual, primary experiences are the most valuable resources you have. Make sure they are valid. If you do that, and treat secondary information very skeptically, your instinct for what to do in any situation will inevitably get better.

My post today is about developing your gut instinct to help you become a more effective business leader. I’m sending it from our home in Nicaragua. As you may have heard, the country was battered by Iota. The east coast was destroyed by 150-mile-per-hour winds. The west coast, where we are, was devastated by flooding. Our family is usually here for the Thanksgiving week. Not this year because of you-know-what-19. So, it’s just me and K. And we’re busy working with FunLimon, our family “caridad” here, assisting in the many relief efforts going on right now to bring clean water, food, and other supplies to the local communities. It was a long day. Now we’re back home, having a sunset cocktail.

 

 

 

“Ideas pull the trigger, but instinct loads the gun.”  – Don Marquis

Head vs. Gut, Part I:

Why Intuition Beats Rationality in Making Good Wealth-Building Decisions 

 

I once read an article in the Harvard Business Review titled “When to Trust Your Gut.”

 

This is a subject I’ve spent some time thinking about. And my feeling has always been that experience-based gut instincts are at least as valuable as MBA-based analyses from the likes of Harvard, Wharton, or Yale.

 

I was surprised to see that this article supported my view.

 

The author, Alden M. Hayashi (senior editor of HBR when the article was published), says quite correctly that, in making good business and career decisions, it makes sense to rely on both reasoning and gut feelings.

 

“The higher up the corporate ladder people climb,” Hayashi says, “the more they’ll need well-honed business instincts.”

 

In lowlier positions, he argues, one should rely more on facts, figures, and established protocols. Instinct is still important, but when you’re new to a company you need to be careful. Those that hired you are alert for mistakes. To avoid costly mistakes, he advises, make sure your impulses align with the facts.

 

Middle managers that are new to an industry should be careful about shooting from the hip. By sharpening your pencils and following the rules,” he says, you’ll keep the bottom line black.

 

After you move up the ladder of corporate power, however, attention to detail becomes less important and gut instinct can help you make the game-changing decisions that will accelerate your career.

 

Hayashi looks to the late Ralph S. Larsen, former chairman and CEO of Johnson & Johnson, to explain why.

 

“Very often, people will do a brilliant job up through the middle-management levels, where it’s very heavily quantitative in terms of the decision-making,” Larsen says. “But then they reach senior management, where the problems get more complex and ambiguous, and we discover that their judgment or intuition is not what it should be. And when that happens, it’s a problem. It’s a big problem.”

 

Richard Abdoo, former chairman and CEO of Wisconsin Energy Corporation, agrees. He says that as business speeds up and decisions must happen faster, instinct is even more important.

 

Henry Mintzberg, professor of management at McGill University and longtime proponent of the utility of intuition, believes the subconscious mind is always processing things the conscious mind may not be aware of. A sense of revelation (the “Aha!” moment) occurs when the conscious mind finally learns something that the subconscious mind has already known.

 

I agree.

 

Decision-making at the higher levels of business cannot rely solely on rational thinking and logic. To make the best decisions, we must also call into play our emotional intelligence.

 

To explain how gut feelings work, Hayashi refers to Herbert A. Simon, a professor of psychology and computer science at Carnegie Mellon University.

 

Simon, who studied decision-making for decades, claims that gut feelings result from observing repeated patterns and rules. Emotional intelligence involves noticing, storing, and “chunking” such patterns so we can retrieve them instantly and automatically.

 

It’s been my experience running and consulting with dozens of growing companies over the years, that this is true.

 

It makes sense: The human mind has an amazing capacity to recognize and “remember” patterns. Much greater than our ability to remember and recall facts.

 

In chess, for example, Simon found that grandmasters are able to recognize and recall about 50,000 major patterns in the huge number of ways in which the various pieces can be arranged on a board.

 

How do they do it? How is it that some executives seem to have the superhuman ability to make good and profitable decisions?

 

It’s all about this mysterious process of recognizing and storing patterns. According to Hayashi, the experts say they do this while also “cross-indexing” them. That’s when our brains find patterns in one experience that correspond to patterns in other experiences and “tag” them for instant and automatic recall when we need them.

 

I – and just about every advertising writer I know – do this routinely. While watching commercials about a Rolex, we may notice a pattern in the pitch that is similar to a newspaper ad on vitamins and/or a radio spot on some financial scheme.

 

We sometimes recognize the patterns consciously. Very often, we don’t. But they are recorded somewhere in our gut.

 

And that’s why, if you want to become a better business leader and wealth builder, you should make your decisions carefully when you are beginning, but, as the years pass, begin to rely more on your gut.

 

Caveat: Sometimes gut instincts are wrong. How can you fix that? We’ll cover that tomorrow.

 

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 “Management is about arranging and telling. Leadership is about nurturing and enhancing.” – Tom Peters

 

Cultivating the “Super” in “Superstars”: the Handful of Employees That Will Make Your Business Soar 

Yes, every one of your employees is important. In some way, every one of the people that work for you – from the rank-and-file on up – contributes to your bottom line.

But there is one group – a very small group – that can do what the others can’t do: generate 80% of your sales, wring out 80% of your profits, and then grow those profits over time.

I have gotten into the habit of calling these people superstars, but I should probably call them something else. Maybe something like “phenoms,” because besides being so remarkable in themselves, they are very rare.

Not Pareto Principle rare. Not just one out of five of your employees. It’s more like one out of 10, if you are lucky. Even one out of 20.

You already know who these people are. (They know it, too.)

* They arrive early and stay late. And they work at home.

* They almost never take a day off.

* They don’t consider their work to be a job. They consider it to be a career.

* They are not afraid of new ideas. They welcome them.

* They take responsibility for any problems that crop up under their watch, even if they are not to blame.

But what makes superstars not just valuable but invaluable is that they are not only great at what they do, they are eager to take on as much additional work as you can give them. Whether it is developing successful new products, creating additional sales, or managing profits, superstars will eventually do it better than you can… and take some of your leadership burden on their shoulders.

And that’s why losing a superstar is like losing a limb. It is a disaster you want to avoid at all costs.

So how do you attract and nurture – and keep – superstars? What are the things they want and need?

 

1. Space 

First and foremost, they need the freedom to do their job as they see fit. You can and should give them the tools they need to do their work. And you should give them your best advice. But give them room to fail, too – quickly and in small ways – so they can learn (and teach their employees) from their mistakes.

 

2. Autonomy 

In a similar vein, superstars need the authority to get their job done without being micromanaged. They should not have to ask for your okay on every minor decision. Agree on the sort of reporting and feedback that you both feel comfortable with, with the understanding that you will be asking for less and less as they become more and more accomplished.

 

3. Challenge 

The main thing that superstars need is big and constant challenges – and it is in their nature to come up with most of them on their own. Give them free rein to learn about any areas of the business that interest them – and welcome any suggestions they may have.

 

4. Fair Compensation 

Superstars are not primarily motivated by money – but you won’t hold onto them if you pay them a nickel less than what they are worth.

How much is that?

I have a few rules that I follow: Their base pay must be equal to or higher than what others in their position get. In addition, they should have some sort of incentive pay based on some mutually agreeable objectives. And if they end up running an entire offshoot of the business for you, they should get some sort of shadow equity.

Just never lose sight of what’s really important to them: the satisfaction of growing and improving the business.

 

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 “A weak currency is the sign of a weak economy, and a weak economy leads to a weak nation.”

– Ross Perot

 

Scary but True: China Paves the Way for a US Digital Dollar

On November 6, I said that I could imagine the US creating a digital currency one day to fend off the threat of Bitcoin (or any other cryptocurrency) replacing the US Dollar.

It would offer all the conveniences of other digital currencies (which is what most concerns the average user), but it wouldn’t have Bitcoin’s most important benefit: the built-in protection against its own devaluation because of its strictly limited supply.

Our politicians don’t know much about economics, but realizing that such a feature would severely limit their ability to spend money, they’d make sure the US Digital Dollar would come with counterfeiting provisions.

The second major benefit of Bitcoin is that it’s a cryptocurrency, which means it allows users to transact their business anonymously. That, too, our government wouldn’t allow, because it would make it near impossible to crack down on income (and other) tax evasion.

The US Digital Dollar would come with some patina of privacy – perhaps limiting access to transactions between users. But the government would make sure it had full and easy access to all such transactions. It would sell this idea by pointing out that it would put an end to illegal drug and sex trafficking. However, it would surely be used by the IRS to eliminate tax cheating. And eventually, it would be the perfect tool for the government to know just about everything every one of its citizens was doing.

I know that sounds like an idea from some dystopian novel. But assume for the moment that you were the dictator of a big, powerful country with more than a billion citizens. How could you resist using a tool like this? How could you say no to being able to know exactly what all those people were doing – every place they went, at every hour of the day?

As with so many things these days, China is several steps ahead of the US in the move towards a government-issued digital currency.

China’s president, Xi Jinping, in announcing the new digital yuan, said that it was going to “accelerate the digital economy, digital socializations, state and industry digital developments, and updates.” And that it would move China “ahead of our competitors.”

According to my colleague Tom Dyson, writing in “Postcards From the Fringe,” China’s “pull together” should be considered an advantage in the digital currency race – an advantage only further solidified by Jinping’s words. The president’s push for advancement in the field certainly will impact China moving forward with the digital yuan, but it had an impact on Bitcoin as well. Following his speech, the Bitcoin/US Dollar parity jumped from $13,300 to $14,000.

In preparation for promoting the use of the digital yuan on an international level, China has tasked smartphone developer Huawei with stateside implementation. Huawei’s new phone, the Mate 40, is expected to have all the latest technology and features as well as its own proprietary digital yuan wallet. This will ensure that China’s new digital currency will find its way to the US. And the timing couldn’t be better. Due to recent supply restrictions, the Mate 40 might be Huawei’s last phone to be sold in the States.

If their new digital yuan succeeds, it would be a massive accomplishment for the Chinese Communist Party. According to a Reuters report, Yi Gang (governor of the People’s Bank of China) claimed that 4 million separate digital currency transactions had taken place since the start of the “human trials” last month.

And it’s not just China. From my friends at Tradesmith:

“The Bank of International Settlements, BIS for short, is known as the central bank for other central banks. In January 2020, the BIS published a new research paper – not its first one – on central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).

“Eight months ago, the BIS found that 80% of all the central banks they surveyed were investigating CBDCs, and 40% had moved from the research stage to the concept and design stage.”

China is definitely the front runner in the race. BIS and the European Central Bank (ECB) are trailing. Right now, the US is behind. But if China does succeed, you can bet that the US will be looking to follow.

 

Sources:

https://www.somagnews.com/digital-currency-statement-by-xi-jinping/

http://www.qstheory.cn/dukan/qs/2020-10/31/c_1126680390.htm

https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/04/investing/china-yuan-us-election-intl-hnk/index.html

https://www.theregister.com/2020/11/02/huawei_mate_40_digital_yuan/

https://www.reuters.com/article/china-currency-digital/spending-with-chinas-digital-yuan-around-300-million-pboc-says-idUSL1N2HO0B1

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“Ultimately, there is no such thing as failure. There are lessons learned in different ways.” – Twyla Tharp

 

12 Things I’ve Learned About Living a Full Life 

I’ve got a thousand ideas about how to do things better. That’s because I’ve made ten thousand mistakes that I later realized I could have avoided by making a different decision or taking a different approach.

Most of those are small. But here are 12 big ones…

 

1. Work your job with purpose.

 

Increasing your personal income is a purpose. A valid purpose. But so is growing the profitability of the business you work for. And so is working to improve product quality and customer service. If you start with serving the customer and link that to the company and then finally to you, you’ll have found a way to stay motivated by and satisfied with your work for the length of your career.

 

2. Be generous – with your money, your time, and your words.

 

Generosity is not a one-sided virtue. It’s a behavior that enriches not only the recipient but also the giver. The repayment is seldom direct. And seldom in kind. But if the giving is done without the expectation of repayment, the first reward – emotional satisfaction – is immediate. And other rewards – which are many and varied – continue almost indefinitely throughout your career.

 

3. Make plans and set goals. But don’t attach yourself to them.

 

Satisfaction in life doesn’t come from accomplishing goals. Anyone that has achieved any goal of significance understands that. And although many goals can be reached by effort and endurance, not all can be reached. Some are thwarted by forces beyond your control. In setting goals, you should begin by accepting the possibility of failure, but then commit to pursuing the goal nevertheless.

 

4. Make quiet a part of your daily life.

 

The beneficial effects of mindfulness are well documented. Mindfulness does not mean achieving a higher state of consciousness. Quite the contrary, it means allowing yourself to be fully conscious – in the here and now. And to do that, all you have to do is listen to your breathing three or four times during the day.

 

5. Do one thing at a time.

 

Multitasking is a skill that can be developed, but almost always with detrimental effects. Rather than doing two or three things simultaneously, learn how to focus on a multitude of things sequentially, giving full attention to each one.

 

6. Ignore what is annoying.

 

Life is – or can be – full of annoyances. And if you allow them to take hold of you, they will drain your energy and halt your forward progress. It may seem impossible, but you can learn to ignore almost every kind of annoyance. It takes practice, but it can be done.

 

7. Accept the little disappointments.

 

Like annoyances, life can be jam-packed with minor disappointments. If you get upset about them, you will eventually blame and punish yourself each time they occur. Instead, accept the fact that minor disappointments are an inevitable part of life. In fact, the more you try to accomplish in life, the more of these small disappointments you will encounter. Learn to shrug them off. Learn to say, “I guess that didn’t work.” And move on.

 

8. Respect danger. Do not fear it.

 

Most things we fear are not worthy of the stress they cause. They are ephemeral things like shame and embarrassment that come with failure. They are ineluctable aspects of living a full and rewarding life. Learn to distinguish between real danger and this other sort. Respect the first and overcome the second by exposing yourself to it.

 

9. Welcome the new.

 

As we get older, we become more comfortable with the routine and less welcoming of new experiences. This is understandable. What is new is often unknown. And what is unknown can often create new challenges, which means more work. Keep in mind that it is only by welcoming the new that you can take best advantage of it. Some caution is fine. But the dominant emotion should be delight.

 

10. Embrace challenges.

 

Some small portion of your daily life will be emotionally or physically challenging. Don’t run from it. Distinguish between the challenges that will make you stronger or take you farther and those that have no beneficial potential. Do not shy away from beneficial challenges, for doing so will make you weaker and will reduce the scope of your experience. Develop the habit of taking on a challenge as soon as you possibly can.

 

11. Forget Attila the Hun strategies.

 

When it comes to making deals – either in business or in your personal life – don’t try to come out “on top.” Forget all the Look-Out-for-Number-One BS that’s popular in some success circles. Look for win-win deals. Win-win deals make good relationships flourish, which means less work, less stress, fewer ugly breakups, and more benefits later on. If situations change during the course of the relationship and you find yourself at an advantage, adjust the relationship first. Don’t wait till your partner asks you to.

 

12. Forgive but don’t forget.

 

If you follow #11, your chances of getting screwed by your partners will be seldom to none. But if someone does take advantage of you, refrain from lashing out. Do what you can to work yourself out of the relationship as equitably as you can. Don’t fight for the small stuff. Try, if possible, to have the other person feel like he got out on his own terms. You may find, as I’ve found, that you can even have good though distant relationships with these people afterwards. But don’t be tempted to get back into another relationship with them. If you do, you will definitely regret it.

 

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“We in America do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate.” –Thomas Jefferson

 

Are You Qualified to Vote?

“Voting is the most important responsibility we have as citizens.” Or so I’ve been told.
“If you don’t vote, you don’t have a right to complain.”

I understand the logic. But the argument is wrong. There are dozens of things we can do that are more likely to result in a better world – all of which require discipline and commitment. It’s easier to cast a vote for someone that seems to share your values and count on him or her to do the work you could be doing yourself.

It’s a moral cop-out. But that’s not the main problem I have with voting. What bothers me the most is that, with few exceptions, most people don’t have any idea about how to solve our common problems. And neither do our politicians.

In any given election, candidates may align themselves with one or another view. They might argue – as Trump has done in explaining his tariffs on Chinese goods – that they are aiming to achieve some common good. But if and when the policy is implemented, it doesn’t always achieve its advertised purpose. The result is often very different.

Take Lyndon Johnson’s “war on poverty,” which he announced in his 1964 State of the Union Address. “Our aim,” he said, “is not only to relieve the symptoms of poverty, but to cure it and, above all, prevent it.” What followed was the implementation of initiatives that to date have cost the country $23 trillion and produced only a marginal drop in the poverty rate.

And what about prohibition? Despite the good intentions of its supporters, the 18th amendment (the only one that’s been repealed in its entirety) led to the rise of alcohol smuggling and the violent criminal underworld known as the mafia.

Or more recently, the war on drugs – an abject failure that has cost the US about $1 trillion over the past 40 years. With an overall disregard for the underlying issues of substance abuse, policies were established that created an increase in corruption, violence, and tension between minorities and the police.

The fact is, human society is immensely diverse and infinitely complex. The US is an imaginary construct applied to 330 million individual people with different ideas, habits, and preferences – interacting with one another countless billions of times every day.

We understand, at best, only a small fraction of how our country works. And yet, when it comes to politics, we act as if we can fix our social, legal, and economic problems by voting for politicians that generally have no more knowledge of or experience in solving complex problems than we have.

Not to mention the problem of presidential political power dynamics: Because of the division of power between the president, the House, and the Senate, the most significant accomplishments of presidents often contradict what we would have expected when we voted for them.

For example…

Who was it that liberalized US relations with Communist China?

Answer: It was Richard Nixon, a staunch anti-communist.

And…

Who was it that passed the toughest law on crime, the law that turned the US into the country with the highest percentage of its citizens in prison?

Answer: It was Bill Clinton, an outspoken advocate for liberal policies.

And…

Who was it that ordered 542 drone strikes that killed 3797 people, 324 of which were civilians?

Answer: It was Barack Obama, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”

It’s for these reasons that I’ve felt that voting was a citizen’s #1 civic duty. I see the process today as a once great idea (including the electoral college) that has degenerated into a great, sad sham.

But the issues are real. And the problems need to be fixed. As we move towards our next election, we are being asked to choose candidates on the basis of our belief in their ability to make good decisions on such issues as:

* Black lives matter vs. all lives matter

* Gun rights vs. gun restrictions

* Equality of opportunity vs. equality of outcome

* Individual liberty vs. social justice

In a recent blog about why he rarely votes, James Altucher touched on the above with a sarcastic suggestion:

“Most people shouldn’t vote. Most people vote for the candidate their friends or colleagues are voting for. And many people are swayed by cognitive biases triggered by campaign materials and media. People follow the personalities of the candidates. I hear things like, ‘I just don’t like XYZ as a person,’ etc. So? Does anyone follow issues?”

He then gave his readers a six-question quiz on some of the issues that are being talked about in the current presidential election. We liked that idea, and came up with 20 questions of our own.

Take the following quiz and see how you do.

 

Are You Qualified to Vote?

20 Questions to Help You Decide 

 

1. What is a tariff?

___ The amount by which the cost of a country’s imports exceeds the cost of its exports

___ The amount by which the value of a country’s exports exceeds the cost of its imports

___ A ban on trade or other commercial activity with a country

___ A tax or duty to be paid on a particular class of imports or exports

 

2. Which statement is true of the US balance of trade with China?

___ It is positive.

___ It is negative.

___ It is about equal.

 

3. How do free-market economists generally view tariffs?

___They are necessary to protect against unfair trade practices by foreign countries.

___They result in higher overall consumer and material costs and are bad for the economy.

___ They are political in nature and have a net neutral economic effect.

 

4. Factoring in all other variables, including experience, hours worked, and using precise job descriptions, what is the gender wage gap in the US?

___ 17%

___ 7%

___ 2 %

 

5. US senators are elected to serve a term of office that lasts how long?

___ 6 years

___ 4 years

___ 2 years

___ indefinitely

 

6. Trump often claims that the employment rate for African-Americans rose to a historical high before COVID-19 and the shutdown. True or false?

___ True

___ False

 

7. Trump’s handling of the COVID pandemic has been criticized harshly by the Democrats and the media. He denies this and proffers, in his defense, his early decision to ban most travel from China. Putting that aside, how did he respond to the WHO and CDC guidelines and to Fauci’s directives in the first three months of the pandemic?

___ He ignored them completely.

___ He was resistant and slow.

___ He followed them as they were announced.

 

8. Which one of the following is NOT a member of Trump’s cabinet?

___ Benjamin Carson

___ Elaine L. Chao

___ Kayleigh McEnany

___ Alex Azar

 

9. During the Democratic primary debates, Kamala Harris attacked Joe Biden for his past opposition to school busing. How does she explain running as his vice president?

___ She changed her mind after he sent her a note apologizing for his former opinion.

___ She said that her comments were taken out of context.

___ She said she didn’t really mean it. She attributed the accusations to debate tactics.

 

10. Kamala Harris and Joe Biden received their law degrees from _________ and _________, respectively.

___ Howard University, University of Delaware

___ Syracuse University, University of Delaware

___ University of California, Syracuse University

___ Howard University, Syracuse University

 

11. What is the name of the governor of New York?

___ Andrew Cuomo

___ Chris Cuomo

___ Bill de Blasio

___ Rudy Giuliani

 

12. Which of the following acts did Trump NOT sign into law?

___ Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture Act

___ Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act

___ Tested Ability to Leverage Exceptional National Talent Act

___ Save Our Seas Act

 

13. Trump issued 137 executive orders in the first three years of his presidency. Some in the media have criticized him for that, suggesting that he is using his authority to override Congress. Which of the following statements is true?

___ 137 is more than twice the number of executive orders that Obama issued during his first three years.

___ 137 is roughly equal to the number of executive orders that Obama issued during his first three years.

___ 137 is 29 more than the number of executive orders that Obama issued during his first three years.

 

14. What do NYC, Baltimore, Portland, and LA have in common?

___ As a group, they reported 90% of the country’s COVID-19 cases.

___ They were devastated by damages following looting and rioting.

___ They cut funding to their police departments.

___ None of them imposed mask regulations.

 

15. As a state attorney in California, what was Kamala Harris known for?

___ Going easy on marijuana offenders

___ Being tough on marijuana offenders

___ Going easy on cocaine users

___ Being tough on cocaine users

 

16. Which of the following is NOT a policy position held by Kamala Harris?

___ Supports the right of transgender females to compete in women’s athletic competitions

___ Supports raising teacher salaries and expanding early childhood education programs

___ Supports ending Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from the EU

___ Opposes pro-choice legislation, supporting a bill banning abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy

 

17. Which of the following is true about the US Electoral College?

___ It was created by Republicans to favor Republican candidates.

___ It was created by Democrats to favor Democrat candidates.

___ It was created to reduce voter fraud.

___ It was created to give states with smaller populations more of a say in Congress.

 

18. Presidents Barack Obama, Theodore Roosevelt, and Jimmy Carter were all nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Which of the following statements is true for Trump?

___ He has never been nominated.

___ He was nominated once.

___ He was nominated three times.

 

19. When asked, in an interview, about the humanitarian crisis at the border, who said, “Our message absolutely is: Don’t send your children… on trains or through a bunch of smugglers”?

___ Donald Trump

___ Joe Biden

___ Mike Pence

___ Barack Obama

 

20. What was Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s position on “packing” the court?

___ She was in favor of it.

___ She was opposed to it.

 

Answers 

1. A tax or duty to be paid on a particular class of imports or exports

 

2. It is negative. The trade deficit increased by 5.9% ($67.1 billion) when measured in August – the highest deficit since August 2006, when it was $68.2 billion.

 

3. They result in higher overall consumer and material costs and are bad for the economy. Free-market economists obviously prefer a free market, an unregulated system of economic exchange that limits or excludes interventions such as quotas, tariffs, quality controls, etc. Check out my essay on this very topic HERE.

 

4. 2% – According to a PayScale analysis, when adjusted for men and women with the same job and qualifications, women earn approximately 98¢ for every $1 earned by men. Review the info HERE. And HERE is a pretty informative video on the subject. Plus, HERE is a podcast interview (with transcript) between journalist Steven Dubner and Claudia Goldin, a Harvard economist, about the wage gap.

 

5. 6 years

 

6. True – The data showed that black unemployment was at a record low 5.8% in February before the virus hit. It rose to 16.8% in May, according to the Labor Department.

 

7. He followed them as they were announced. Fauci himself stated that Trump followed his recommendations. Additionally, in a January 30 press release, CDC director Dr. Robert Redfield wrote, “We understand that this may be concerning, but based on what we know now, we still believe the immediate risk to the American public is low.” And before Redfield’s statement went out, Trump had announced the formation of his coronavirus task force with Alex Azar, Fauci, and Redfield, among others.

 

8. Kayleigh McEnany – Kayleigh is the White House Press Secretary, a non-cabinet position.

 

9. She said she didn’t mean it. She attributed the accusations to debate tactics. In an interview with Stephen Colbert, Harris laughingly said, “It was a debate!… Literally, it was a debate!” Watch the video HERE.

 

10. University of California, Syracuse University – Harris received her JD from the UC Hastings College of the Law in 1989. Biden received his law degree from SU’s College of Law in 1968.

 

11. Andrew Cuomo – Chris Cuomo, Andrew’s brother, is a CNN television journalist. Bill De Blasio is the mayor of New York. Rudy Giuliani is the former mayor of New York (1994 – 2001).

 

12. Tested Ability to Leverage Exceptional National Talent (TALENT) Act – This was the last bill passed by Barack Obama. The other 3 are acts all signed into law by Trump.

 

13. 137 is 29 more than the number of executive orders that Obama issued during his first three years. According to the National Archives’ Federal Register, in their first three years as president, Obama and Trump signed 108 and 137 executive orders, respectively.

 

14. They cut funding to their police departments. NYC (with 477,000 cases), Baltimore (with 18,000), Portland (34,000), and LA (281,000) account for only about 10.5% of the total cases in the US. Note: All of these cities have imposed mask mandates.

 

15. Being tough on marijuana offenders – Harris is on record for having jailed nearly 2000 people for marijuana offenses.

 

16. Opposes pro-choice legislation, supporting a bill banning abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy. Harris is generally considered extremely pro-choice. She actually fought against the bill that would ban 20-week pregnancies, which caused some backlash.

 

17. It was created to give states with smaller populations more of a say in Congress.

 

18. He was nominated three times – by (1) Christian Tybring-Gjedde of the Norwegian Parliament for “trying to create peace between nations”; (2) Magnus Jacobsson of the Swedish Parliament for leadership in the accord between Kosovo, Serbia, and Israel; and (3)

David Flint and other law professors in Australia on the basis of Trump’s “Doctrine Against Endless Wars.”

 

19. Barack Obama – He said this in an interview with ABC in 2014.

 

20. She was opposed to it. Watch the video HERE.

 

Primary Sources

Difference Between Joe Biden and Donald Trump

https://www.thebalance.com/u-s-trade-deficit-causes-effects-trade-partners-3306276

https://www.investopedia.com/news/what-are-tariffs-and-how-do-they-affect-you/

https://hbr.org/2019/01/research-gender-pay-gaps-shrink-when-companies-are-required-to-disclose-them

https://www.marketscreener.com/news/latest/Coronavirus-Obliterated-Best-African-American-Job-Market-on-Record–30746362/

https://people.com/politics/dr-fauci-says-trump-listened-his-recommendations-not-being-forced-to-say/

https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2020/p0130-coronavirus-spread.html

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2020/08/17/kamala_harris_dismisses_past_biden_criticism_it_was_a_debate.html

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/09/28/fact-check-false-claim-biden-harris-during-race-dem-nod/3506180001/

https://2020election.procon.org/view.source-summary-chart.php

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-trump-administration/the-cabinet/

https://www.federalregister.gov/presidential-documents/executive-orders/barack-obama/2011

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/hr39/summary

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/11/opinion/fact-check-trump.html

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcevoy/2020/08/13/at-least-13-cities-are-defunding-their-police-departments/#6c01eebf29e3

https://www.businessinsider.com/who-is-kamala-harris-bio-age-family-key-positions-2019-3

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/cortneyobrien/2020/09/28/trump-nominated-for-nobel-peace-prize-for-third-time-n2577092

 

 

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“There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give to our children. One of these is roots, the other, wings.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

 

The 7 Best Gifts We Gave Our Children

There is a view of parenting that advocates giving our children every advantage possible in order to accelerate their development and increase their chances of having happy and successful lives.

There is another view that is about protecting our children from hardship and danger. 

There is still another view about giving our children the privileges and luxuries that we didn’t enjoy as children.

And there are parenting professionals out there supporting one or several of these notions. The secret to raising wonderful children, they aver, is to protect them from adversity and to give them everything possible to make their lives fuller, easier, richer, and happier. 

And by “everything,” they are talking not just about material possessions but also about such things as freedom, friendship, dignity, comfort, security, and the all-time favorite: unconditional love.

These were not the ideas that K and I embraced in our parenting. 

Our childrearing was based on a different philosophy: leaving the road before them pot-holed and bumpy, and allowing them to experience all the difficulties and challenges we ourselves had faced. 

Judging by the results of our experiment and those of our coevals that embraced the more widely held parenting philosophies, I’m glad we did what we did. Because our boys turned out to be people we both like and admire.

Here are the ”advantages” we gave to our children:

1. The Experience of Relative Poverty

K and I grew up in working-class neighborhoods. The low end. We felt the usual level of embarrassment that working-class kids feel about all the things they don’t have. Like new clothes. And lunchboxes (vs. paper bags). And spending money. When our children were young, we provided them with those same embarrassments. And when they were old enough to drive, we didn’t buy them cars, as some parents did. If they wanted a car, they could pay for it with the money they earned after school. So they drove the sort of cars we drove when we were in high school: junkers. (I still fondly remember watching Number One Son scrubbing the torn plastic seating of his 20-year-old pickup truck before his first date.) 

2. Second-Class Status

We grew up in families that had double standards. And we imposed those double standards on our boys. Parents had privileges that children were denied. Children had rules that parents were exempt from. Until our boys were old enough to leave home and fend for themselves, they had to accept their position as second-class family members. We could eat what we wanted. They could not. We could go to bed when we wanted to. They went to bed when we told them to. As they got older, we gradually gave them more autonomy – but only if they earned it by acting like responsible adults. The bottom line was always an absolute: We were the parents. They were the kids. Our family was not a democracy. And they were not our equals.

3. Insecurity

When you grow up as K and I did, you become instinctively insecure. You recognize that sometimes things roll your way. Sometimes the world eats you for lunch. C’est la vie, we explained to our kids. We did not then and do not now view insecurity as a bad thing. We saw it as necessary for survival in the real world. We made sure our boys understood that they were guaranteed nothing. That anything they got must be earned. And that there were dangers lurking that we could not protect them from – some of them inescapable. They needed to understand that life is tough, and if they wanted to succeed, they had to learn to overcome obstacles. Again and again.

4. Deprivations

Our children were not free to do what they wanted. We (mostly K, to her credit) put restrictions on just about everything they enjoyed – from watching TV to playing video games to hanging out with their friends to going out on weekends when they were in high school. We knew that they would push whatever boundaries we set, and so we made those boundaries very firm.

5. Disapproval

Like most parents, we wanted our children to succeed in their work – as students and in their extracurricular activities. We never made them feel that we expected them to excel at anything in particular, but we made it clear that we expected them to approach everything they did in earnest. When they did, we rewarded them with well-earned praise. When they did not, they got what they knew they deserved: our disapproval.

6. Punishment

K was a big believer in reasonable but consistent sanctions for undesirable behavior, which included speaking disrespectfully to adults and treating their peers unkindly. Our boys’ behavior mattered to us. Their manners mattered, too. So we used punishment for the bad as well as praise for the good to raise our children. 

7. Conditional Love

Where did it come from – the idea that unconditional love is a good thing? The meaning is patently bad. How does it do either party – the lover or the beloved – any good? It makes a masochist of the one and a solipsist of the other. 

Parental love that is unconditional is irresponsible. It is the act of yielding when withholding is called for. It says: You can do whatever you want. When people say they love their children unconditionally, they actually mean that they refuse to take on the responsibility of doing the tough things that a parent must do to raise a responsible, affable, and admirable human being.

 

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”There is a difference between listening and waiting for your turn to speak.” – Simon Sinek

 

Why I Wasn’t “Loyal” to My Broker

 

I called my broker but was connected to someone I didn’t know. She told me my broker was “no longer with the company.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“He’s just not with us anymore.

“So why wasn’t I told?”

“We were just about to notify you.”

That concerned me. I had open trades that needed managing. What if something fell through the cracks?

A few days later, I was visited by the branch manager and a young man who was to be my old broker’s replacement. The manager apologized for not notifying me immediately, explaining that the situation was “difficult and personal,” and then assured me that my account was being tended to properly.

That was half the reason for their visit. The other half was to convince me to keep my money with them.

Investment firms generally prohibit their brokers from trying to take their “book” of clients with them when they move to another firm. But it’s hard to do that when the broker-client relationship is a longstanding and trusted one.

When a broker leaves a brokerage, the house initiates a “retention” protocol that involves routine efforts to persuade the broker’s clients to stay with the firm. But when a departed broker leaves a “book” of “whales,” the protocol is more like a cold war, with each side doing everything they can legally do to grab or retain as many of the big fish as they can.

I knew that. And I suspected that my broker had been legally restrained from contacting me while he was still with his old firm or shortly thereafter, which accounted for my being in the dark. I expected he would contact me soon, and about a week later he did.

But by that time, I had already decided to keep my money with the brokerage.

Why I did that is the subject of this essay.

My broker was a bright person. He knew the markets. He understood the game. And, as a top earner in his office, he had proven himself to be a superb salesman. But what was important to me was that I trusted him to do a good job. And that meant helping me make buy-and-sell decisions based on my insights and my temperament, not on his inclinations or the directions of the firm.

But there was one little thing about him that always irked me. He had a tendency to talk when I wanted him to listen.

I’d call him up to ask a specific question about some of my bonds. His answer would come in a rush of statements replete with data I could not verify and financial terminology I did not completely understand.

When I’d attempt to interrupt him for clarification, he would talk over me. He didn’t do it rudely. Had he been rude, I would have ended the relationship immediately. He seemed to be motivated more by his excitement about the investment. Every so often, I would ask him, politely, to slow down and listen to me. He’d apologize profusely, but it was a habit he couldn’t break. And it was annoying. But I wrote it off as a peccadillo.

I believed then and I still do that in his mind he had my best interests at heart. And since my accounts were growing at the time, he had good reason to feel that way.

But then one day I received a notice saying that I had bought shares of an IPO. It was a digital business that was all promise but no performance. Exactly the kind of company that, had he ever actually listened to me, he would know I would never buy. Why had he done this?

I called him, and he told me that my son, who also had an account with him, had asked him to buy some of the shares for him. It wasn’t easy to get shares of this company’s IPO at the time, but he gave some to my son and he gave some to me. He said he was doing me a favor.

I believed him. I was, after all, one of his bigger clients. If he had a stash of these hard-to-get shares, he’d be smart to distribute them to clients like me. But it bothered me that he had gone ahead, without asking me first, and spent my money on a business whose P/E ratio was about 100 to 1.

For all his many good qualities – and they were numerous – he wasn’t a good listener. And his poor listening skills were a problem for two reasons:

 

* He wasn’t good at teaching me about the technical side of investing because he didn’t listen to my questions.

 

* He never really understood my core investing philosophy – the principles I live by because they have worked so well for me in my wealth-building career.

 

Those thoughts were in the back of my mind when I was visited by the branch manager of the brokerage and the young man – Dominick – who was going to be handling my account “if” I decided to leave it with them.

After the introductions and pleasantries were over, the manager presented Dominick’s credentials, which were solid.

I was a bit worried about his youth. He looked to be in his early to mid thirties. But my worries were diminished almost entirely when he began speaking.

The first thing he said to me was something like, “Mr. Ford, I’ve been studying your accounts and their history. I know where your portfolio is right now. What I’d like to know is where you want to go with it. And what else I could do to make you happy with me as your broker.”

Wow! That was a very good opening. He was young but he was saying all the right things. He had the initiative to have studied my accounts before we met and he had no intention of telling me what to do. He wanted me to tell him how he could help me.

This, in my view, is the right relationship to have with your broker. You are the owner of your wealth, not your broker. You pay him. He works for you. You are his boss. He should treat you like his boss.

You may be thinking, “Gee, I don’t want to be my broker’s boss. He’s the guy that knows about investing. And he has much bigger clients than me. I certainly don’t want to insult him by bossing him around when he knows and I know that I don’t know what I’m doing.”

If that’s the way you think about your broker, you need to change things. And fast.

It doesn’t matter that you know less about stocks and bonds than he does. It doesn’t matter that you feel like a small fry because you don’t have 10 million bucks in your account. It doesn’t matter if all your questions feel “stupid.” If you aren’t the boss of that relationship, you are in trouble.

In the weeks that followed, Dominick was in touch with me at least twice a week.

We reviewed my entire portfolio, made key changes to restructure it in accordance with my asset allocation preferences, and agreed on buying and selling parameters so we could work more fluidly in the future.

As the months passed, I felt better and better about my decision to say goodbye to my old broker and work with Dominick. It wasn’t that I felt Dominick had better insights or even better intentions than my old broker. It was that he was going to let me be in charge of how my money was being invested.

It may seem strange, but after so many years of being in the financial information business, I still felt insecure about investing. I felt confident in my core ideas. I was definitely a conservative investor. But because I did not have the detailed understanding of specific investment strategies that brokers have, I often found myself deferring to them when my gut was saying “Don’t do it.”

If I, as someone that’s been in and around the financial industry for 30 years, can feel that way, I can only imagine the pressure someone else – who hasn’t had my experience or success – must feel when being pitched.

If you’ve ever felt like that, this story was for you. And the takeaway is this: You have to be in charge of your relationship with anyone that is handling your money. That includes stock and bond brokers, life insurance agents, financial advisors, estate planners, and even your tax attorney.

Don’t allow them to intimidate you. Don’t feel embarrassed when you don’t understand what they are saying. Say, “Stop right there and say that again, but without all the gibberish. If you aren’t able to explain it to me clearly, I will have to find someone who can.”

And if that’s not enough, remind them that you are the person paying their fees. You are the boss. Their job is not just to give you good advice and execute your wishes, but to make sure that they understand your preferences and follow them. And that they never, ever make you feel like you have to shut up and defer to them.

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“Not voting is not a protest. It is a surrender.” – Keith Ellison

 

How to Vote If You Consider Yourself an Independent Thinker 

Most of the people I know have locked down on certain slogans that parade themselves not just as ideas but as full-blown ideological philosophies. Make America Great Again, Systemic Racism, Right to Life, Right of Choice, Black Lives Matter, the Green New Deal. And they vote on their adherence to those slogans. For them, the decision between Trump and Biden is black and white.

The pollsters know who those people are. They represent the vast majority of the population. But it will be the independently minded voters that will likely determine this election.

From The Washington Post:  Olivia Troye, who was part of the coronavirus task force, said recently that in her view the president has a “flat out disregard for human life.” Trump’s main concern, she said, “was the economy and his reelection.”

We weren’t at those meetings, so we have no way to judge her first characterization. But let’s assume that she’s right about the second and the third. (I’ve seen enough of his public statements to believe it.)

I am good with his concern for the economy. I think that should be our president’s primary concern in this regard. (We can talk more about this later.)

As to his single-minded desire to get reelected, why should that surprise anyone? For Trump, the political experience is a game of winning. That’s how he approached business. That’s how he frames all his ideas, appeals, and promises. In the entire population of our elected representatives, I can think of only one in my lifetime that was different. Ron Paul.

The nature of politics is about power. And the means to power is getting elected. People that want to become politicians want to play that game, which means they are essentially untrustworthy.

Which means: We shouldn’t vote for politicians based on what they say, but what they do. That’s a statement most people would ordinarily agree to.

But here’s the problem: That’s too difficult for most people. We are too busy with our quotidian lives to pay attention to the dozens of issues that are researched, discussed, and debated every day in the oval office or in the halls of the Senate or the Congress. And that is just at the national level. State and local government is just as complicated.

Since we can’t possibly understand particular issues well enough to make informed decisions about them, we do the next best thing. We elect politicians to represent our general sentiments about what kind of world we want to live in and give them the responsibility to do all the analysis and thinking.

Of course, they don’t have time for that sort of work either. They are too busy meeting with their supporters, raising funds, and campaigning to do any serious analysis of the problems. Studies have shown that most senators and representatives read only the equivalent of executive reports on the bills they are responsible for deciding.

That’s why, for me, the rule is:

* Assume that all politicians are not only willing to misrepresent their thoughts and feelings, but are actually very good at it.

* Assume that when it’s election time, politicians have no problem with prevarication, misdirection, and, if needed, outright lying about what they actually believe, think, and do.

* Pay zero attention to what candidates say during their campaigns.

* Spend what little time you have to finding out what they have actually done in the past. What actions they took in office. And how those actions tie into your idea of the world you want to live in.

If I were to decide between Trump and Biden based on what they are saying right now, I’d stay home and watch old movies on Election Day. Half of what they are saying I don’t believe because it contradicts what they actually did when they had power. And the other half sounds either senile or insane. (Take your pick.)

But when I look at what they have done – what Trump has done as president and Biden did over 47 years as a politician – the choice between them is not so very clear. To make my decision, I’m going to have to spend some time researching what they’ve actually done and then think about it.

 

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