Business & Money
Buffet founded numerous investment partnerships focused on value investing and fundamental analysis. He then moved to investing directly in businesses hitting it big with companies like American Express and Geico.
Dalio pioneered a risk parity approach serving institutional clients.
Howard Lindzon seeds financial technology startups while Fred Wilson likes marketplace businesses and network effects.
At work, my team hunts down deals with medium to large advertising agencies and advertising technology companies, while my colleague manages and grows the large advertising holding companies. We’ve both done well.
Investors, salespeople, and anyone in business have a plethora of strategies to choose from.
In simple terms, it’s about figuring out what works for you and taking tips and cues from wherever you can find them.
Human Progress
I read this post from Sarah Newton of The Delusional Trader blog over the weekend. Sarah isn’t some big shot investment banker or associate on Wall Street.
I’m still just an average Jill, but previously shut and completely unknown doors are beginning to open. My mind is continuing to expand and my personal “Wall of Worry” is coming down like it’s June 1990. For now, I’m just a girl on a Greyhound bus, but maybe next year I will be writing to you from the Acela Express.
I especially liked it because I was reading the post from the Acela Express to Cape Cod.
It reminded me of the first post from Fred Wilson on his blog AVC 15 years ago.
I read blogs a lot. And I think they are great. So I am starting a blog. I have no idea if I’ll write a lot in my blog or rarely. I hope it’s a lot, because I have a lot to say. But we’ll see about that.
We did see about that. Fred’s blog has hundreds of thousands of readers and he’s arguably one of the greatest venture capitalists of all time.
A few weeks ago I got lunch with a friend. He’s starting an e-commerce company. It will be really hard to break through the noise of all the e-commerce companies starting these days, but I love his idea and am happy to see him going for it.
What’s interesting to me is that I hear echoes of Fred’s first post in my friend’s voice and in Sarah’s writing. Just people taking chances and starting something new. Regardless of what that looks like 15 years from now, I think that’s awesome.
And the Internet makes that a possibility. Despite all of the bad things that come with it, it’s a key reason I’m long-term bullish on the Internet and think we’re still in inning one of a very long game.
So start your blog or your company. Take a class. Buy your first stock.
Whatever you do, just get started.
Philosophy
So here’s a question: would you hire someone as a personal trainer if they themselves were not in shape?
A couple weeks ago, I came across this very situation at the gym. The trainer seemed to be in worse shape than the trainee. And worse, the trainer was in jeans and an oversized polo shirt.
But then I realized I was being judgmental for no reason. The trainer was up early making a living and the trainee was a the gym at 6 am. The last thing either of them wanted or needed was my judgment or opinion.
Perhaps I wouldn’t want to be trained by that person, but perhaps it’s less intimidating for someone just starting out at the gym or someone with poor self-esteem. Or perhaps the trainer was actually just a friend helping out another friend in need of extra motivation.
Who knows what the actual scenario was, but harboring negative judgmental thoughts didn’t serve anyone.
Thank you to mindfulness for cutting those thoughts short.
My Latest Discovery
A friend mentioned the Moment app a few weeks ago, so I decided to download it and give it a shot. It tracks your screen time and also which apps you spend the most time using.
Let’s just say it was a rude awakening. I would have guessed my screen time was at around an hour per day, but it’s double that (and occasionally more).
Since downloading the app, I’ve trimmed that to closer to 1 hour and feel like I’ve discovered more time out of thin air. Further, my mind feels clearer and less cluttered. I’d highly recommend that each and every one of you download it!