Between April 1st and April 10th, four astronauts aboard NASA’s Orion spacecraft traveled farther than any human being in history — 252,756 miles — before splashing down off the coast of San Diego. The mission lasted just under ten days.

In the ten days ending April 14th, the S&P 500 rose 9.8%. Across nearly 20,000 rolling ten-day periods since 1950, that return ranks in the 100th percentile, joining only twenty other instances.¹

Two record-setting journeys. The same two weeks.

One came home. The other is still climbing.

The temptation when markets move fast is to reach for a simple story. Either the worst is over, or we’re being set up for another leg down. The war is winding down, oil is dropping, the economy is turning a corner. Or, the war is dragging on, oil is staying high, not to mention… AI’s going to take all the jobs.

No one knows. And yet, perceived certainty is always available — someone’s selling it.

But moments like the one we just experienced, when deep drawdowns recover quickly, have historically been followed by more uncertainty before more clarity.

The S&P 500’s recent recovery ranks as one of the five quickest on record. But looking back at the other four instances, as well as the twenty times since 1950 when the market has surged as much in ten days, the picture isn’t uniformly bright. Some led to continued rallies. Others, like March 2000 and October 2007, led to further losses.

The weeks and months immediately following the bursts have historically been choppy. Extend the horizon beyond a year, and most returns are positive. But most is most. Not all. The all-clear signal is not guaranteed. It never is.

Here’s what’s worth coming back to, time and again.

Orion splashed down. That’s what it was designed to do: descend, reenter, return. The capsule was never meant to stay up. Its job was always to come home.

Investing is different. Markets do go down, sometimes dramatically, making investors feel like they’ll never recover. But most of the time, markets go up. Then higher. Then higher still. Unlike a spacecraft, they don’t have a designed endpoint.

With over 125 years of S&P 500 history, markets have never permanently splashed down. Following every decline, including the biggest — 1929, 1974, 1987, 2000, 2008, and 2020 — markets resumed their ascent. Not immediately. Not without real pain. Sometimes not without a genuine wound. The financial crisis didn’t just frighten investors; it left many emotionally scarred. But even then, eventually.

There’s a quietly powerful chart: S&P 500 Index Price plotted against S&P 500 Earnings, going back to 1945.² Over 80 years, the two lines track each other with remarkable consistency. The message isn’t subtle. Prices follow earnings. And earnings, over time, reflect the productive capacity of human enterprise — businesses solving problems, serving customers, generating value. Periodically it slows. Sometimes it stumbles. Occasionally falls hard.

But it has never stopped for long.

While valuation is a poor predictor of short-term performance, it does tell us something about the cost of what we are buying.

Think of it as the price of admission for the journey ahead. Pay a lot, and good outcomes could have been a bit better. Pay less, and good outcomes can become great ones.

The S&P 500 forward P/E (Price-to-earnings ratio: what investors are paying today for the next twelve months of earnings) dropped roughly 18% during the recent selloff.³ Not because earnings deteriorated. Because the market dropped 10% while earnings estimates actually rose by 8% from the start of the year.

Declines of this magnitude in forward P/E are relatively rare. When they’ve occurred — during Covid, during the Fed’s aggressive tightening cycle in 2022, and during other periods of elevated fear — the compression was each time followed by a sharp rebound.

As is often the case, fear lowered the price even as fundamentals improved. Today, investors are paying more than they were ten days ago, but still less than they were at the start of the year.

All of this isn’t about prediction. It’s simply observing that the market is now less expensive, and that earnings — the single variable prices have followed most closely for over a century — are pointing higher.

The astronauts aboard Orion trained for years for a journey that lasted ten days. They understood, going in, that the mission would take them farther from safety than any human had ever been. They accepted that uncertainty not because they were reckless or naïve, but because they trusted the architecture, the systems, and the process, built on decades of testing and accumulated knowledge. And they trusted the people on the ground at mission control.

Investors who were rewarded over these last ten days didn’t do anything heroic. They didn’t time the bottom. They didn’t read the signals correctly or move decisively at the right moment. They simply stayed. They were invested when the descent happened, and they were still invested when the ascent followed. The architecture held. The process worked.

That’s not luck. That’s the whole idea.

And that idea spans a lifetime.

The investment journey isn’t ten days. Or even ten years. It’s measured in decades. Like the astronauts, investors require sound systems and processes built on time-proven knowledge, along with a trusted ground crew to help navigate the voyage.

No one knows what the near term holds, despite what the confident voices on television suggest. History shows that a well-diversified equity portfolio, combined with thoughtfully structured fixed income, provides a durable foundation for that journey.

But only if you stay invested.

Investors don’t find returns — returns find investors — most often at unexpected times.

Look no further than the last ten days.

1. 3Fourteen Research

2. Bloomberg, S&P Global

3. Bloomberg, Morgan Stanley Research

Header image generated using AI at the author’s direction.

This article is for informational purposes only and should not be considered investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell securities. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

Plus, it’s Oscar Sunday.

“The third spear carrier from the left should act as if the play is all about the third spear carrier from the left.”

— Sir Laurence Olivier

In 1992, something rare happened at the Academy Awards, a moment that holds the keys to meaningful living.

To understand why, let’s rewind.

Laurence Olivier was renowned for his work on the stage, helping shape modern British theater in London’s West End, before turning his attention to film. One of the most celebrated actors of the twentieth century, he received an Honorary Academy Award in 1947 for Henry V, recognizing his achievement as actor, director, and producer, and then won the Oscar for Best Actor in 1949 for Hamlet.

Olivier treated acting as a discipline, not a temperament. He obsessively marked up scripts and planned movements with surgical precision. Yet something less visible, but more important, sustained Olivier’s success: humility. The man who rose quickly to center stage as Romeo, Hamlet, and Richard III understood the production was larger than himself. Even before becoming a director, Olivier held a reverence for the whole, recognizing that the collective effort gives each role its meaning. He cautioned that the moment the central figure believed the stage existed to serve them, the entire performance began to thin.

In the early 1960s, a young Welsh actor, Anthony Hopkins, joined Olivier at the Royal National Theater in London. Eager and deeply serious about the craft, Olivier took Hopkins under his wing, becoming both mentor and model. Hopkins absorbed Olivier’s devotion to preparation, discipline, and technical mastery. Like Olivier, he embraced humility, but he accessed it through vulnerability shaped by insecurity and self-doubt.

As film rose to prominence for the generation that followed Olivier, Hopkins recognized that the camera didn’t reward effort in the same way the stage did. What played as power in a theater could register as excess on screen. In response, Hopkins cultivated restraint. He embraced silence and mastered stillness. Through a held breath, an unblinking gaze, or a perfectly timed pause, he evoked emotion and created tension that lines of a script could never deliver. “The less you show,” Hopkins said, “the more you allow the audience to do the work.”

Hopkins was the consummate role player, building a foundation of excellence alongside giants like Hepburn, Connery, and Hackman. Yet, after two decades, he still hadn’t broken through to the lead roles that define a career. “I have resigned myself to becoming a respectable actor in London’s West End and the BBC for the rest of my life,” he remarked.

Even so, Hopkins kept at his craft, continuing to hold his spear as if it were all that mattered. In 1991, the ground shifted. He was cast as Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs. A young FBI trainee, Clarice Starling, played by Jodie Foster, is assigned to interview the brilliant but imprisoned psychiatrist in hopes Lecter will help her catch another killer known as “Buffalo Bill.” A psychological cat-and-mouse game unfolds between two locked minds, where power shifts not through action, but through restraint and what isn’t said.

Even though Hopkins appears on screen for only sixteen minutes of the film’s 118-minute runtime, he never loses sight of Olivier’s charge: to act as if the film is all about him. He barely moves. He rarely blinks. He pulls everything inward and bends the room toward him. His stillness becomes more predatory than his rage ever could.

Audiences are left to wonder: was Hopkins playing Lecter, or was Lecter playing Hopkins?

When the Academy Awards were presented in 1992, the industry witnessed something rare. Despite appearing on screen for only sixteen minutes of a two-hour film, Anthony Hopkins took home not the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, but the Oscar for Best Actor.

The Actors of Ourselves

The longer I’ve lived, the more I’ve come to believe the real story isn’t about who leads. It’s about who loves.

We all live, in some sense, as the leading actor of our own story. We wake up inside our own mind. We feel our hopes. We wrestle with our fears. We dance with our excitement and our worries. No one else occupies center stage in the interior life we alone inhabit.

Outside of Hollywood, I suspect few arrive at the end of their days wishing for a mantle of Leading Actor hardware. Instead, I imagine most of us hope to have carved a mountain of meaning.

That’s my hope, at least.

For me, meaning isn’t found by staying inside my story. It’s found by stepping into someone else’s story. Maybe that’s what Olivier was getting at when he said the performance would begin to thin.

It’s my experience that meaning is made in the role of supporting actor. It’s made when we rotate the stage of our lives to sit in heavy silence and listen to someone’s grief. It’s made when we write a note of gratitude and when we knock unannounced. And when we offer forgiveness, seeing someone anew.

Meaning is made when we give ourselves away.

But giving carves only half the mountain.

The other half is made when we receive the giving of others. It’s made when we receive loving presence in the darkness of our grief. It’s made when we let in gratitude even as we want to deflect, and when we welcome the unexpected visitor. And when we are forgiven and imagined anew.

The alchemy of meaning might be as simple as holding a spear on the stage of others, while they hold a spear on the stage of us. Maybe the hope is to arrive at the end of our days with a single piece of hardware on our mantle: the Oscar for Best Actor in Someone Else’s Story.

That’s my hope for all of us.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Share

Gold and silver may have caught your attention recently as their prices experienced a meteoric rise. Or caught your eye during a precipitous fall. Or turned your head as they surged anew.

And with Bitcoin, the so-called “digital gold,” maybe it was the silence that grabbed you as it skipped the rise and almost halved in price, with nary a peep from its devotees.

Curious about the hullabaloo? Or wondering whether these assets hold the keys to retirement?

The answers might be found in a glass jar, along with two Nobel medals in a chemistry lab in Denmark.

The Jar on the Shelf

In 1935, while imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp for exposing Germany’s secret rearmament, Carl von Ossietzky was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Hitler became so enraged he banned all Germans from accepting Nobel Prizes going forward.

Five years later, when Germany invaded Denmark, Hitler’s proclamation created a deadly dilemma. The Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen was safeguarding two solid-gold Nobel medals engraved with the names of German physicists: Max von Laue, who had openly opposed Nazism, and James Franck, who was Jewish.

Once symbols of honor, discovery likely meant death.

Fortunately for von Laue and Franck, a senior chemist named George de Hevesy was employed at the Institute. Raised Jewish before converting to Catholicism, de Hevesy understood the risks, especially for Franck. Nazi raids had a way of finding everything. He knew the medals shouldn’t be locked away or even buried.

De Hevesy chose a novel, and perhaps only, approach to saving the two men: making the medals disappear.

Gold is famously unreactive. But de Hevesy, whose life’s work focused on chemical transformations, knew it could be dissolved by using a precise combination of nitric and hydrochloric acids.

He filled a glass jar with the acids, added the medals, and watched as they dissolved into a bright orange liquid. Next, he placed the jar high on his laboratory shelf, alongside dozens of other jars, in plain sight.

After the war ended in 1945, de Hevesy returned to his laboratory and found it in disarray. Sitting exactly where he left it was the jar. Untouched.

He reversed the chemical process, precipitating the gold back into solid form. He then delivered the gold to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, where it was recast into new medals and re-engraved with the original names.

In 1952, the Nobel Prizes were awarded for a second time to von Laue and Franck.

Gold survived by vanishing.

Two men survived because de Hevesy refused to disappear.

The Chemistry of Investing

De Hevesy combined acids to transform those medals. The chemistry of investing is less exact but similar, combining a range of investments into a portfolio tailored to individual circumstances.

The bedrock of optimizing this risk/return combination is productive assets: stocks, bonds, and real estate.

Why?

Because productive assets are tethered to economic activity. Stocks generate profits. Bonds provide interest. Real estate produces rents. Fundamentals fluctuate with the economic cycles, but prices remain anchored to the value these assets produce.

Today and tomorrow.

That’s not to say that productive asset prices are immune from periodic and sometimes severe declines. They are. It’s just during market downturns, human ingenuity doesn’t stop. In a portfolio of thousands of companies, less productive ones disappear. Newly productive ones take their place. Maturing bonds disappear. New issues take their place. The ongoing process of disappearance and reappearance allows them, as a whole, to renew and compound over time.

Gold, silver, Bitcoin, commodities, and currencies are non-productive assets. They offer no cash flows or earnings; no dividends, interest, or rents. Prices are not tethered to activity, but to sentiment—the belief that someone else will pay more tomorrow. When that belief fades, the floor disappears.

As a result, the prices of non-productive assets tend to be erratic, experiencing spectacular volatility in the short run and stagnant performance over the long run.

On the final day of January, silver crashed 31% and gold plunged 11%. Yet, both remain up nearly 20% year-to-date. Silver has moved more than 2% in a single day twenty-four times since the year began.

Digital gold has fared worse. Bitcoin lost 13% in January alone. It is down 20% in the last three months and nearly 50% since setting a new high only four months ago.

Such is the nature of fast-up, fast-down assets.

The intellectual toll is alarming. The emotional toll is nauseating.

History suggests the toll rarely pays off.

In 1980, gold hit a high of $850 and silver peaked near $50. Twenty years later, in 2000, gold sat at $280 and silver at $5. Most investors would have lost confidence. Some might have lost sleep. Those who held on lost 80% in purchasing power over two decades.

“An investment is only as good as our ability to avoid bad choices while we own it.”

Today, gold hovers near $5,000 an ounce. Silver is close to $80, nowhere near its inflation-adjusted price of $190.

Yet, gold’s ascent is a matter of perspective. What if you had sold an ounce of gold and bought into the productive assets of the S&P 500 Index in 1980?

You’d have roughly $150,000 today.

The point isn’t to pick on these non-producers. It’s not personal. Gold has centuries of history. Silver has industrial demand. Bitcoin is a legitimate financial phenomenon. None of them are going away.

It’s just that when mixing assets in the jar of your portfolio, it’s prudent to forgo the ones that let purchasing power vanish. Steer clear of assets that don’t lift return but impose a tax: an emotional one.

Productive assets remain the keys to retirement. Not because they avoid volatility, but because they reward long-term participation—delivering the growth that non-productive assets historically have not.

Participation Over Disappearance

Gold survived by disappearing onto a shelf, waiting for time to pass. Three men, brought together by Nobel medals, did not. They could have withdrawn. Instead, they continued to participate, to contribute, and to shape the future.

James Franck emigrated to the United States and became a professor at the University of Chicago. During WWII, he worked on the Manhattan Project and co-authored the Franck Report, urging restraint on the unannounced use of atomic weapons. He lived until 1964.

Max von Laue remained in Germany despite being watched closely. After the war, he stayed engaged in rebuilding German science, helping restore institutions rooted in openness and humility. He died in 1960, widely respected for his principled resistance.

After fleeing Nazi-occupied Europe, George de Hevesy settled in Sweden. In 1943, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. After the war, he returned to academic life, making contributions until his death in 1966.

These three Nobel laureates acted with moral conviction and created lasting value. They were productive assets in the deepest sense.

May we too choose participation over disappearance.

In our portfolio.

In our life.

Past performance is no guarantee of future results. This information is provided for educational purposes only and should not be considered investment advice.

— Sir Laurence Olivier

In 1992, something rare happened at the Academy Awards, a moment that holds the keys to successful investing, and a deeper secret to meaningful living.

To understand why, let’s rewind.

Laurence Olivier was renowned for his work on the stage, helping shape modern British theater in London’s West End, before turning his attention to film. One of the most celebrated actors of the twentieth century, he received an Honorary Academy Award in 1947 for Henry V, recognizing his achievement as actor, director, and producer, and then won the Oscar for Best Actor in 1949 for Hamlet.

Olivier treated acting as a discipline, not a temperament. He obsessively marked up scripts and planned movements with surgical precision. Yet something less visible, but more important, sustained Olivier’s success: humility. The man who rose quickly to center stage as Romeo, Hamlet, and Richard III understood that the production was larger than himself. Even before becoming a director, Olivier held a reverence for the whole, recognizing that the collective effort gives each role its meaning. He cautioned that the moment the central figure believed the stage existed to serve them, the entire performance began to thin.

In the early 1960s, a young Welsh actor, Anthony Hopkins, joined Olivier at the Royal National Theater in London. Eager and deeply serious about the craft, Olivier took Hopkins under his wing, becoming both mentor and model. Hopkins absorbed Olivier’s devotion to preparation, discipline, and technical mastery. Like Olivier, he embraced humility, but he accessed it through vulnerability shaped by insecurity and self-doubt.

As film rose to prominence for the generation that followed Olivier, Hopkins recognized that the camera didn’t reward effort in the same way the stage did. What played as power in a theater could register as excess on screen. In response, Hopkins cultivated restraint. He embraced silence and mastered stillness. Through a held breath, an unblinking gaze, or a perfectly timed pause, he evoked emotion and created tension that lines of a script could never deliver. “The less you show,” Hopkins said, “the more you allow the audience to do the work.”

Hopkins was the consummate role player, building a foundation of excellence alongside giants like Hepburn, Connery, and Hackman. Yet, after two decades, he still hadn’t broken through to the lead roles that define a career. “I have resigned myself to becoming a respectable actor in London’s West End and the BBC for the rest of my life,” he remarked.

Even so, Hopkins kept at his craft, continuing to hold his spear as if it were all that mattered. In 1991, the ground shifted. He was cast as Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs. A young FBI trainee, Clarice Starling, played by Jodie Foster, is assigned to interview the brilliant but imprisoned psychiatrist in hopes Lecter will help her catch another killer known as “Buffalo Bill.” A psychological cat-and-mouse game unfolds between two locked minds, where power shifts not through action, but through restraint and what isn’t said.

Even though Hopkins appears on screen for only sixteen minutes of the film’s 118-minute runtime, he never loses sight of Olivier’s charge: to act as if the film is all about him. He barely moves. He rarely blinks. He pulls everything inward and bends the room toward him. His stillness becomes more predatory than his rage ever could. Audiences are left to wonder: was Hopkins playing Lecter, or was Lecter playing Hopkins?

Turns out Hopkins and Olivier would have been fabulous investors.

Like acting, investing begins with humility, and the quiet admission that we can’t reliably know where returns will materialize, or when.

With the script in hand, actors work with what is known: a third spear carrier will always be a third spear carrier. But capital markets are unscripted. Markets lurch without warning, pulling supporting actors from the wings to the center while sending leading actors into the shadows.

That’s why the job isn’t to predict who will lead. It’s to fund the ensemble by casting a wide net across asset classes, company sizes, and geographies, bringing thousands of companies into a portfolio. Time and again, the least expected holdings take the lead while others support, waiting their turn.

If humility builds the portfolio, discipline sustains it. It’s maintaining commitment when the role players are out of favor. It’s devotion to the whole. And restraint prevents us from trading on temperament, while stillness, amid the chaos, gives compounding room to do its quiet work.

For a decade, the spotlight barely left America. Large caps played the lead, taking the lion’s share of attention. And within large caps, the Magnificent Seven stole the show, sweeping awards year after year and luring investors into believing the broader ensemble no longer mattered.

Then came 2025.

The global investing stage spun. The spotlight swung.

The lead shifted, and the applause moved.

After years in the shadows, the international ensemble—the “spear carriers” from Europe, Asia, and emerging markets—was thrust to center stage. Just as Hopkins was when the script arrived, these underappreciated role players held their spears, outperforming their U.S. counterparts by one of the widest margins since the early 1990s—when Hopkins played Lecter.

The best supporting actors weren’t the big names, or the usual suspects. They were the tiniest spear carriers in the ensemble. Companies investors would have missed entirely if they hadn’t cast the net wide. Companies committed to their craft, to playing their part, to waiting their turn to contribute outsized returns.

When the Academy Awards were presented in 1992, the industry witnessed something rare. Despite appearing on screen for only sixteen minutes of a two-hour film, Anthony Hopkins took home not the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, but the Oscar for Best Actor.

In a global portfolio, international equities are cast in a similar role, with about 30% of the “screen time”. In the great rotation of 2025, this ensemble delivered a masterful performance, proving, like Hopkins, that a supporting role can steal the show.

And the longer I’ve lived, the more I’ve come to believe the real story isn’t about who leads. It’s about who loves.

The Actors of Ourselves

We all live, in some sense, as the leading actor of our own story. We wake up inside our own mind. We feel our hopes. We wrestle with our fears. We dance with our excitement and our worries. No one else occupies center stage in the interior life we alone inhabit.

Outside of Hollywood, I suspect few arrive at the end of their days wishing for a mantle of Leading Actor hardware. Instead, I imagine most of us hope to have carved a mountain of meaning.

That’s my hope, at least.

For me, meaning isn’t found by staying inside my story. It’s found by stepping into someone else’s story. Maybe that’s what Olivier was getting at when he said the performance would begin to thin.

It’s my experience that meaning is made in the role of supporting actor. It’s made when we rotate the stage of our lives to sit in heavy silence and listen to someone’s grief. It’s made when we write a note of gratitude. It’s made when we knock unannounced. It’s made when we offer forgiveness, seeing someone anew.

Meaning is made when we give ourselves away.

But giving carves only half the mountain.

The other half is made when we receive the giving of others. It’s made when we receive loving presence in the darkness of our grief. It’s made when we let in gratitude even as we want to deflect. It’s made when we welcome the unexpected visitor. It’s made when we are forgiven and imagined anew.

The alchemy of meaning might be as simple as holding a spear on the stage of others, while they hold a spear on the stage of us.

Maybe the hope is to arrive at the end of our days with a single piece of hardware on our mantle: the Oscar for Best Actor in Someone Else’s Story.

That’s my hope for all of us.

Subscribe now

Thank you to two supporting actors who helped shape this essay - and Nicholas Banting, and to the community who helps shape my writing.

Nvidia delivered blowout results last week.

It brought to mind hurricanes.

I remember hearing an analyst on CNBC explain, about a decade ago, that when a storm hits Florida, the local economy doesn’t contract—at least not in the short term. Instead, money sitting quietly inside insurance companies flows back into the world.

Reserves become drywall.

Cash becomes concrete.

Liabilities become labor.

It’s counterintuitive, but hurricanes are stimulative. The local velocity of money rises. Not because something new is created, but because what is broken must be repaired. What was wiped out must be rebuilt. The pace of activity accelerates. Dollars turn over faster than they did the month before. Local families feel none of this “stimulus” in the way we imagine that word. A hurricane doesn’t make a place better. It simply awakens dollars that were sleeping.

On the heels of Nvidia’s report, this phenomenon came to mind as I thought about the “hyperscalers” (Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, and Meta) and the investments they are making in AI infrastructure. Hundreds of billions in cash (parked on balance sheets and sitting comfortably in short-term Treasuries) are now being thrust into the global economy, backed by multi-decade commitments that show no signs of slowing.

But unlike hurricane spending, AI investment isn’t about rebuilding what was lost. It’s about constructing something fundamentally new. Something transformative. In many ways, the hyperscalers are building global power plants, only the output isn’t electricity (though they’ll need plenty of it) but on-demand computing capacity.

Spending today shows up in data centers, fiber networks, cooling systems, energy infrastructure, millions of GPUs, and the teams of people required to build and integrate them—all productive capital. A generative good, not a replacement one. It’s the difference between repairing a roof and building a bridge.

Maybe ten thousand bridges.

When Meta commits $35 billion to data centers, it becomes income to suppliers, wages to workers, revenue to utilities, orders for manufacturers, and long-lived assets that power new applications, seed new businesses, and catalyze new productivity.

The sheer scale of the spending is hard to grasp. It’s so massive that most investors can’t help wondering whether something unsustainable is taking shape—whether the contours of a bubble are forming or already have. And it is, in a very real sense, capital picking up velocity.

I’ve been wondering whether this acceleration, the redeployment of quiet capital into active circulation, might be one of the underappreciated forces beneath the strength of the current economy. Textbooks taught us about the velocity of money. What they didn’t teach was the velocity of capital. Inert savings at today’s scale transforming into productive, fixed assets.

And that makes me think of lemonade.

Those same textbooks often illustrated economic concepts in a two-person economy. Imagine an economy where one person sells lemonade and the other sells cookies. They buy from each other once a week for a dollar. Two dollars change hands. Over a year, GDP is a little over $100. Then they decide to eat and drink twice a week, and GDP doubles to over $200. Not because life improved, but because activity increased.

Velocity matters.

Now scale that dynamic up to the size of the global tech ecosystem. For the past decade, the largest and most profitable companies in the world have generated cash so fast they can’t effectively deploy it.

Corporate treasurers parked the largesse in the safest assets. Quiet returns. Patient dollars.

Then ChatGPT arrived, and the AI revolution began.

Suddenly, that cash had a better home than T-bills.

If a hurricane forces cash to wake up, the AI revolution has pulled it into a race—one with a sprinter’s pace and a marathon’s distance. A race only a handful of firms can run. Again, velocity matters. So does stamina.

Long-term economic growth tends to come from two forces: money moving and productivity rising. The AI investment boom checks both. Skeptics can point to the circular nature of some spending or become unnerved by numbers that are hard to comprehend. But that’s the smaller story. The bigger story—as with the dot-com era—lies in the second- and third-order effects: the efficiencies not yet realized, the applications not yet invented, and the companies not yet created.

For investors, history reveals an important point. The giants of the 1990s (Intel, Cisco, Oracle, Sun Microsystems, AOL, and Yahoo) were early winners of the internet boom, but as the wave matured, leadership changed. New companies emerged, new business models formed, and the next decade belonged to a different set of firms: Google, Amazon, Netflix, Salesforce, Qualcomm, and Apple, to name a few. The winners of the 2000s were not the winners of the 1990s. No matter how big or powerful a company is, most are not adept enough, or led well enough, to make the transition from one wave to the next—Microsoft being the recent exception.

As markets trade near all-time highs, it’s natural to wonder whether we are in a bubble. After all, by early 2000, earnings forecasts proved too optimistic and prices ran too far. Intel traded at almost 50x forward earnings, Microsoft at 60x, Oracle at 120x, and Cisco at 130x. When the earnings didn’t materialize, something had to give.

That something was price, and the bubble burst.

So what about today—are we in a bubble now?

It’s a legitimate question, but the wrong question.

Because if it could be answered, it would imply that acting on that answer is an effective strategy. It’s not.

The truth (one that has endured across every technological wave) is that it’s impossible to predict when Nvidia’s sales will slow or who the next Netflix will be. Long-term gains accrue not to investors who call the top or pick a winner, but to those who stay exposed to the broader currents of human ingenuity and capitalism. That means remaining invested when the market feels expensive and staying the course when it feels frightening.

A better question might be, what will this next transformation be like?

If the past is prologue, volatility will increase as the AI wave brings dislocations. Industries will be disrupted and jobs will disappear, giving way to new ones. Some of the early, big capital bets will prove wrong, rendering some firms profoundly overvalued. Many firms will stumble and never regain their stride; others will vanish entirely.

As markets contend with uncertainty, corrections could become more frequent. But if history is any indication, the foundation itself will be solid, and the friction is nothing more than the sound of the older economy giving way to the new.

Because no one can know how the AI transformation will unfold, investors can prepare for turbulence by taking a page from the corporate treasurer’s playbook and ensuring that a slice of their portfolio—especially capital needed in the short term—is allocated to the quieter, steadier returns of fixed income.

The good news for the growth portion of investor portfolios is that today isn’t 2000. Earnings aren’t promised; they’re present—at a scale the world has never seen. The modern family of tech giants (the Magnificent 7, as they’re often called) generates over $1 million of profit per minute.

One million a minute.

Over $500 billion a year.

Extraordinary.

Historic.

Broad and diversified equity ownership is essential for periods like this—because it ensures you hold today’s leaders while giving tomorrow’s winners room to enter your portfolio long before you know their names. After all, only one of the names in the chart above (Microsoft) was a giant in the 1990s, the others were the second- and third-order companies that emerged from the foundations laid in the dot-com era.

The same pattern is forming now; if history is any guide, there has rarely been a moment when the ground was more fertile. The infrastructure being built at unparalleled velocity is creating the conditions for new companies, new industries, and entirely new productivity to emerge.

The market may not be overvalued so much as undervaluing what’s to come. Investors are well served to remember that long-term compounding happens not by prediction, but by participation.

And all this movement of corporate capital gets me thinking about my own velocity—the times in my life when I’ve held my resources, attention, energy, and money in reserve.

Personal T-bills, if you will.

Looking back, it was prudent at times, necessary at others.

But then, life would serve up new opportunities, such as a different job, a second chance at marriage, starting a business, or becoming a father. And I’d be invited to activate those resources, to redeploy myself. To move from storing to building, from waiting to participating. Looking back, every leap was disruptive and frightening.

And yet...

I am reminded of a final truth: We are most alive in motion. Like capital, when in motion, we grow. We compound.

And over time, we transform.

Feedback Welcome. Leave a comment if you are inclined. I love hearing what resonates with you, and the comment forum is a beautiful source of learning. Reply to this message if you’d like to reach me directly.

Leave a comment

Spread the Love. If you think someone would enjoy this essay, please share, or restack it. Readership spreads through word of mouth.

Share

Leave a Like. If you enjoyed this essay, please click the ❤️ below.

A scent of chocolate lingered in the car. Beside me, a hoppy IPA waited.

The engine clicked to silence.

Through the windshield, the image began to blur as the rain intensified. Down the path alongside the house—twenty yards, maybe less—a man in a dark green slicker was tending the azalea. His hood shadowed his face, his bare hands worked gently at the dead buds.

That couldn’t be Dad, could it? He’d told me he’d be napping.

I flashed back to an hour earlier when we were seated in the living room, reliving stories from our childhood. The orange throw pillow on my lap felt different—not because it was, but because I was—and because everything was or, was about to be. Most of me was there, but another part of me felt on edge, my mind drifting toward what life was about to become.

“I have a few things to attend to. Could one of you run me into town?” Dad asked.

I spoke up before the others could, and they didn’t object. They’d come several days earlier, and I’d arrived only the day before.

Dad rose from his chair, slipped on his gray vest, and headed for my car. I started after him, but he waved me off from helping him in.

“Where to?” I asked.

“The bank,” he said.

It wasn’t the first time we’d gathered around Dad on that couch. Just three weeks before, with my elbows resting on the same orange pillow, he’d told us he was ready to go. Despite pulling through two bouts of pneumonia, he said it was time to end his three-year battle with leukemia. When he’d asked his oncologist how long he might live once he stopped transfusions and treatments, the answer was about three weeks.

“Well,” he told us that morning when we asked him how it would unfold, “the simplest way to put it is that I’m going to bleed from the inside out. It should be relatively peaceful.”

Peaceful?

Relatively?

We spent the first week trying to talk him out of it, and the second week beginning to accept it.

And here we were—a week to go.

We pulled up to the local branch two blocks from where his medical practice used to be.

“I got this,” he said. “You can wait here.”

I wanted to help, to steady him, to let him save his strength, but Dad wasn’t stubborn. He’d ask for help if he needed it. He moved toward the doors, gait measured, pace maybe ninety percent of what it once was. The missing ten looked less like frailty than lightness, as if his body were taxiing off the runway after a long flight, finding its way to the gate called home.

I wondered why we were here.

My phone buzzed and then buzzed twice more in my hand before I realized I’d grabbed it and was halfway through a text message, my reflex moving faster than my intention to stay present. I set the nagging screen back in the console as the absurdity of it hit me—attending to the demands of others instead of tending to time with my father.

Staring at the glass doors, I wondered what it felt like to bleed from the inside out. Could he feel it? Or to walk in his shoes, with only a week left, and still make choices.

I remembered his call years earlier, when he told me the fatigue and shortness of breath he’d felt on a routine morning walk wasn’t just illness, but leukemia. I gazed out the passenger window at the hospital tower, standing where he’d spent half his adult life, where his single-level office had once stood.

I thought of the lives he’d tended as a physician—thirty years of constancy and presence. From somewhere deep in my memory arose an image of the back side of our Christmas trees growing up—the hidden half typically void of presents in most homes—lined with gifts from patients he’d cared for, affectionate appreciation tucked where only we could see it.

The doors opened and he reappeared as he’d gone in—unhurried, deliberate—slipping a thick white envelope into the inside pocket of his vest.

Good grief. Why would he need cash?

“To See’s Candy,” he said before I could ask.

Dad wasn’t a sweets guy—he enjoyed a good dessert now and then, and chocolate was never his thing. I wanted to ask, but I let it go. I had more important questions.

“Dad, is there something you’d like to do that we haven’t talked about? Or see, or experience?”

He took a moment, eyes forward, his crusty golf cap pulled a bit lower than usual. See’s wasn’t far, just a few minutes, and we rode in silence as the skies darkened and it began to sprinkle.

“I’d like to see the ocean,” he said at last, “as I told Tom and Katy. And taste a fresh oyster. I think, if we go first thing Sunday morning, I’ll be up for the drive.”

“You got it, Dad.”

We pulled up. “I’d like your help this time,” he said softly.

I held the door open. “Hello, Dr. Bailey,” the young woman behind the counter said, smiling as she offered us a sample of English toffee. “So nice to see you again. I have your order right here.”

They knew he was coming?

Dad reached into his vest pocket, pulled out the envelope, and peeled off several hundred-dollar bills—barely making a dent in the green stack. The woman handed me two white bags, each with five two-pound boxes of mixed chocolates. Why all this, I wondered again. It was growing stranger by the stop, but I kept still.

He eased himself back into the passenger seat as I set the bags behind us. By the time I clicked my seatbelt, the car was filled with the sweet air of milk chocolate.

“Where next?”

“The hospital.”

I hadn’t been to the hospital in decades, before Dad retired. We retraced the streets back toward the bank, Dad peering out the window, immersed in April’s colors. For most of his life he’d exclaim when the leaves were turning that fall was his favorite time of year. With new life budding around him, and a week to go, I wondered if he’d now say it was spring.

As we turned onto the hospital grounds, I thought about his decades of tending to others—giving his time and himself to thousands of patients. He’d said more than once how hard it had been, these past few years, to be the one tended to. Dad’s nature was to give, not receive. That’s where he found comfort.

If there was a silver lining to chauffeuring a father with a week to live, it was the freedom of handicap parking. He moved a little slower as we approached the entrance, and I carried the two white ten-pound dumbbells of chocolate.

Somewhere between the lobby and the elevator, I found myself hundreds of miles away, thinking about a client I needed to call and a meeting to reschedule. I wasn’t surprised that my thoughts drifted elsewhere, but I winced when I had no recollection of pressing 2 for Oncology.

I wasn’t sure what to expect when the doors opened. I wasn’t ready. The smell met me first—the same one that unsettled me as a boy tagging along on Dad’s weekend rounds, when he’d tend to his patients and have me wait quietly in the hallway. I’d sit there feeling unease, drawn toward my father-son time yet trying to endure the sharp, antiseptic smell that surrounded me. It was a smell of sickness. A smell of sadness.

Now, fifty years later, I stood in awe as I watched my father embrace the nurses and staff who’d tended his life—extended it, actually—offering them an overdose of chocolate gratitude. For the first time, I realized that for him, it had never been the smell of sickness or sadness. It had been the smell of service.

I smelled it too.

“I thought of something else,” Dad said while I helped him back into his seat. “I’d like to taste my favorite beer—a fresh, hoppy IPA.”

“Oh, Dad… perfect!”

“But first… to the bird store.”

“Why not?” I smiled.

I was beginning to feel like I was on a scavenger hunt without the list.

As far back as I could remember—no matter where we lived—we had birdfeeders nestled throughout the yard and hanging from the eaves above the deck. Alive with song. It was no different when Dad and Mom moved into the care facility a few years back—hanging the feeders was one of the first orders of business, and keeping them full was the second.

“How about the large bag?” I quipped, both of us knowing the large would last about a month. Inside, the smell of cedar birdhouses kept me company. With Dad waiting in the car, I stood at the counter and wondered how often we meet grief with humor—how laughter is sometimes the only way to keep from breaking.

I came back with the medium bag and set it gently on his lap—splitting the difference between hope and reality.

“James,” he said quietly, “I’m fading and could use a nap. Can you take me home, then run back to the Tap House and get that growler of a hoppy IPA—and a second one of your choice?”

“Of course, Dad.”

As we pulled up in front of the house, Dad’s phone rang. He looked at the screen, then slipped it back into his pocket.

“You don’t want to talk with Jack?” I asked, having caught sight of the caller ID.

“No, not right now.”

Moments later, my phone buzzed … a number I didn’t recognize. I started to silence it when Dad looked over. “That’s Jack,” he said.

He hoisted himself up using the handle above the door, then tucked the bag of seed under his arm. “Would you answer and tell him how much I’ll miss him—and how I so loved his sense of humor. The hardest I ever laughed was with Jack. Please be sure to tell him.”

“Hello, Jack… ” I murmured, watching Dad make his way up the walkway in the rain.

A scent of chocolate lingered in the car. Beside me, the hoppy IPA waited.

I drew in the sweet smell and sat transfixed, hoping for another glimpse of him—a break in the downpour, or that moment when four or five drops come together and streak down the windshield, parting the blur. Within a week, Dad’s image, one I’d never lived without, would take up permanent residence inside me.

“I have a few things to attend to.” His words echoed. He hadn’t said a few errands to run, or a few things to take care of. He’d said attend. My phone buzzed again, and it sank in how much of my time is spent attending to the wrong things. Headlines crafted to steal my attention. Inbound requests from people I barely know. How often I confuse urgency with importance, mistaking the nonessential for the essential. I was suddenly haunted by the possibility of becoming so busy, so misguided, that without noticing I might attend my marriage right onto the rocks, attend myself away from closeness with my daughters, even attend myself into poor health.

It occurred to me that attending is not tending—not even close. Tending is how we stay connected to what matters. Unlike attending, tending isn’t a task. It doesn’t start and finish. Tending spans time and expresses love and care through our presence.

And yet, our attending can serve our tending. In one short hour, and now, through the blur of rain, with his body bleeding invisibly, my father gave me a lesson in connecting the two.

We’d attended to getting chocolate so he could tend to lives that prolonged his. We’d attended to getting birdseed so he could tend to the songsters that filled his mornings. And he’d attended to the azalea’s dead buds so he could tend to a life he’d planted—a life no less than any other, one that brought him joy.

And by forgoing a conversation with a longtime friend and giving up a nap, he was tending his priorities. Still making choices.

As the windows began to fog, and I could see no more than a few feet in any direction, something in me stirred—an odd awareness, an intuitive inkling I couldn’t quite grasp. I sensed what I would discover days later when I opened the kitchen drawer beside the utensils—the one with the phone chargers, tape, and scissors—that white envelope with Dad’s nearly illegible handwriting across the front.

For groceries, take-out, and other sundries while you’re here. - Dad.

Though he knew we didn’t need it, he’d attended to getting cash so he could tend to his family—lives that would outlast his. Lives he loved. Lives that mattered most.

I looked over at the hoppy IPA and the hazy cousin I’d chosen, resting on the seat where Dad had just been.

It was time for that taste.

And then, a toast.

Feedback Welcome. Leave a comment if you are inclined. I love hearing what resonates with you, and the comment forum is a beautiful source of learning. Reply to this message if you’d like to reach me directly.

Leave a comment

Spread the Love. If you think someone would enjoy this essay, please share, or restack it. Readership spreads through word of mouth.

Share

Leave a Like. If you enjoyed this essay, please click the ❤️ below.

A special thanks to , , , and , — my writing companions in the community. And —you and your writing inspires me to no end.

Subscribe now

Mom died last week. Naturally, I thought of Muhammad Ali.

Not at first, but shortly after Tom called with the news. Shortly after we conferenced in Katy and Mom’s sister, Sara. Shortly after we shed our first tears and found a bit of laughter. And right after a sense of relief crept up alongside our sadness.

I suspect few times are good times to pass away. In the middle of the night, sleeping peacefully, and approaching your fifth anniversary in memory care might qualify as one.

The four of us dug up the list of friends and family we’d compiled three years ago after Dad and leukemia made peace, then divvied up the responsibilities—Tom coordinating with the funeral home and planning the celebration of life, Katy and Sara starting on the contact list, while I took on the obituary.

I pieced together Mom’s life in chronological order—the way we tend to do it in America, and the way we did it for Dad. Born here and schooled there. Majored in this, minored in that. Married here; started a family there. Accomplished this. Contributed to that.

Rough draft complete, I stared at the screen. There they were—Mom’s high points. Her life’s markers. A compendium of fullness. Yet, it felt like so many others I’d read.

Something was missing.

Mom was missing.

Her essence was missing.

Mom wasn’t her milestones. She was underneath them. She was between them. She was in them—her one-of-a-kind special thread running from her family of origin, into her husband, through her kids, outward to her friends, and beyond to all she touched.

I felt her heartbeat in the millions of moments between the markers… and that’s when Ali appeared.

Muhammad Ali—Olympic gold medalist, heavyweight champion of the world, and humanitarian—proclaimed himself the greatest before he actually became the greatest.

He appeared not because Mom was the greatest—though she was pretty darn great—and not because, at the end of his long journey with Parkinson’s, he contended with dementia like Mom had, but because a single line of his rose up in me.

“Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.”

As my heart raked the ground underneath Mom’s milestones—thoughtful sister, selfless wife, steadfast mother, devoted grandmother, and dear friend to so many—her life of service glowed, illuminated through those millions of moments that defined her.

Mom served.

My mind flashed to my dear friend Susan, mother of twins, and a lunch we shared when my girls were two. I’d barely sat down when she looked at me and said, “Oh boy. You’re still in the pure service years.”

Nice, I thought. “Do I look that spent?”

“You can’t tell yet,” she continued, “but it will start to get better. Your daughters will start to feed themselves, then bathe themselves. They’ll eventually stay in their own beds at night. They’ll start playing together, and when they do… you’ll get big clumps of your life back.”

Years later I discovered Susan was right—and so did my wife Karen, who described that time as one when she started to see in color again.

My mind traveled back in time to Iowa, where during Dad’s residency they started our family—my brother and me, Irish twins less than a year apart. I imagined how exhausting it must have been for Mom, Dad working and sleeping round the clock while Tom and I tore through the house. Daycare? Disposable diapers? A microwaved meal? Not in the 1960s.

Pure service—Mom paying rent, not by the month, not even by the day, but moment by moment.

And then… when I was five and Tom was six, right about the time Mom was due for a break, right about the time it was to get better—when Mom could put the oxygen mask back on herself and finally see in color again—she and Dad re-upped. They started over, expanding the family with Katy and Libby, a second set of Irish twins.

Four kids, seven years apart.

More mouths to feed, more clothes to buy, and more laundry to fold. More rent to pay—and she’d raised it herself. If there was a credit card for time and energy, Mom surely would have maxed it out now and then.

I wondered how she did it. I marveled at the thought of it. Then it occurred to me that maybe she wasn’t completely depleted. My early memories were filled with Mom smiling. Singing. Laughing.

Mom served all right. But it didn’t feel like her service came from a place of obligation. And it didn’t feel like it was only costing her. I wondered—could it be nourishing her?

Maybe, I thought, Ali didn’t fully get it. Perhaps because he wasn’t a mother.

And that’s when another mother came to mind.

Teresa.

Mother Teresa.

This time, something she once said crept back into my awareness:

“Not all of us can do great things, but we can do small things with great love.”

Small things, with great love.

I realized that was core to Mom’s genius—not doing the big, showy things, but in elevating the small, constant things with her love.

It wasn’t just feeding four mouths but fixing our favorites—tacos for Katy, Sloppy Joes with mustard on the bun for me, tuna noodle casserole for Tom, and Swedish pancakes smothered in powdered sugar for Libby. It wasn’t just getting us clothed but driving clear across town for Ralph Lauren shirts that would be stained within a month and wide-leg jeans that would rip before we knew it. And it wasn’t just signing us up for any summer camp to claw back time for herself, but finding the perfect horse camps for my sisters and the right basketball camps for my brother and me. Even if it meant driving twice as far.

Small things with great love.

As my insides swelled with chapters wrapped in deep affection, I wondered: if the totality of Mom’s life were a tapestry woven by service and stitched with love, what color would Mom’s unique thread be?

The answer came almost instantly—and not from anyone famous. Mom served because she loved, and she loved because she cared.

Mom cared.

Caring was her color.

I thought about the difference. We carry love inside us—we can hold it and let it warm us. But caring? It’s hard to hold. Caring is love’s motion. It’s love made visible. Unlike love, we can’t care and stay still for long.

Mom’s caring spent ten more minutes in the aisle of the store, picking just the right birthday card. Her caring wrote the heartfelt message inside. Her caring called friends, time and again, just because. Her caring stayed present when exasperated or embarrassed—like sitting at my YMCA basketball games watching me argue one of a thousand fouls I didn’t commit.

Her caring even earned her a nickname: “The Corrector,” as she corrected grammar with a smile—maybe Mom’s signature act—whether with her own kids or with a house full of our teenage friends. “No, it’s not ‘me and him are going to the movies’!” Mom would boom, still chuckling. “That’s grammatically incorrect. Use the subjective case: ‘he and I are going to the movies.’”

…Huh?

Small things, with great love, and tender care.

Which brings us to Mom’s final years in memory care. I was curious—when the caregiver could no longer care—what was left of her essence?

I reached out to Mom’s caregivers and asked, “What was she like in these final years?” I didn’t know what to expect—hadn’t thought that far ahead. But what they said drew me close to her tender presence in those final times.

“When I put Brada to bed at night, I would squeeze her hand. She’d squeeze mine back—not because she didn’t want me to leave, but because she wanted to hold me.”

“Brada would look into my eyes, with that twinkle in hers, as if saying, ‘thank you.’”

“Brada would reach out to me. When I took her hand, she’d pull me in and kiss me on the forehead.”

“When I’d arrive in the morning, Brada would give me a nod. Sometimes a wink. Most of the time she’d smile. In the early years, we’d hum music together. She wanted to keep me company.

“Brada would reach for me and caress my cheek. When she touched it, she touched my heart.”

“What was it like as Brada’s caregiver? With Brada, it was never one way… she cared back.”

She cared back.

Of course she did, with all she had at the end—the tiniest gestures, the gentlest love, and the tenderest care.

At the end of her 85 years, Mom left us an alternative to Ali’s charge—one that doesn’t drain but sustains. One that doesn’t cost but rewards. One that nourishes.

Caring for others offers us a divine dividend—one that fills us with meaning—during our brief time here on earth.

As Brada ascends to the home beyond all homes, may her divine dividend live on in the way we serve, the way we love, and the way we care.

Leave a comment

If you have a reflection about your mother, or father, or someone close to you, please share it in the comments, I’d love to hear.

As always, please share freely if you wish.

Share

If you’d like receive On Money and Meaning directly, you can do so by signing up below.

Subscribe now

“What do you suggest I do with the part of my heart that is still here?” Jessica asked as a tear found a path down her innocent cheek.

By the time her question came, we’d been crying off and on for hours. Two days earlier, she’d told me she was leaving our firm to start a business with her husband, and I was still struggling to make sense of it. We both were.

She joined us out of college, and within weeks, it felt like a match made in heaven. Within months, she’d endeared herself to clients with her old soul and tender warmth. It now felt like a beautiful marriage and seemed longer than three short years. I thought back to our visit to see our oldest client—a 98-year-old widow in San Diego—watching in awe as her conversational curiosity drew out memories of growing up during the Great Depression, raising children in poverty, and pioneering a career in a male-dominated world. Conventional wisdom said I should be teaching her how to engage with clients. Instead, she taught me.

For all of us at the firm, while we valued her technical expertise and planning acumen, her maternal nature crystallized our connection. She’d become a mother of two at home and, without asking, became a mother of ten at work. She initiated new holiday traditions—our favorite being Teamsgiving, a work Thanksgiving before the actual one. She remembered birthdays with gifts that reflected the depth of her seeing. She instilled regular team outings to ensure we etched memories at work, not just at home. If a continuous and loving presence defines motherhood, she embodied it.

We had exchanged vows the way employees and employers do. She said we were her forever firm, her forever family, and said she couldn’t imagine being anywhere else. We said she was on track to becoming our youngest partner and entrusted many of our deepest client relationships to her.

Her voice cracked and then failed her. Tears welled in her eyes as she told me the news.

Like a thunderstorm on a clear day, I didn’t see it coming.

Neither did she.

The morning sun peeked through the drawn shades of the small conference room as the weight of her question enveloped me and settled between us. I bowed my head, searching for an answer equal to its magnitude. I needed it. Just as much as she did. And I wasn’t going to find it in flashes of anger that begged for blame, the frustration that tangled my thoughts, or the false sense of betrayal that tried to rewrite the past. But I might find an answer in the love that refused to leave, the sadness that softened my edges, and the truth that endings don’t erase what was real.

“What do you suggest I do with the part of my heart that is still here?”

I reached inside. What did I do when my heart decided it was time to move from here to there? How did I handle the pain? The discomfort? The disorientation?

I flashed back to my mid-30s when my heart told me it was time to leave the here of a career on the rise, here of my first marriage, here of childhood friends and proximity to parents, for the there of a new job, there of being alone again, and there of more miles from my most meaningful relationships. When asked why by everyone around me, I mumbled, “I don’t know.” And I didn’t.

I flashed back to the summer before my sophomore year of college—the here of Becky; the there of Sharla—and the pain in between. I saw other times when my heart told me it needed to go there, even when part of it still loved being here. I saw how often my mind resisted, demanding evidence, while my heart, content charting a course known only to it, offered none.

My mind returned to our tear-stained cheeks and the raw calm that filled the room. I noticed the spent handkerchiefs on the table beside us, each a testament to her unwavering dedication and devotion. We all loved her. I loved her. It was going to be hard without her.

I glimpsed a future that would no longer come to pass—Teamsgiving without her, the promotion to partner that wouldn’t happen, and our 98-year-old widow, who, along with so many clients, would deeply feel her absence.

I struggled in thought.

She waited.

I saw my backpack on the floor and noticed the black leather-bound journal poking out the top—the one where I capture wisdom from life’s great teachers whenever they visit me. The one with an almost broken spine. The one with frayed pages from decades of new entries and frequent visits to old ones. My head still bowed, I recalled a passage near the front, halfway down a page, written with a dull pencil in cursive, from a time I couldn’t remember.

“God’s first language is silence.” – Trappist monk Thomas Keating

I let go of my thoughts.

Instead, I listened.

I took a deep breath. Then another. Inhaling as much silence as I could.

I exhaled. “Give it space,” I heard myself say, looking up into her blue eyes.

“What do you mean, it?”

“Your heart. Give it space. A lot of space.”

She looked down and tugged at the corner of her tissue, searching for a dry edge.

“Help me understand,” she finally said, looking back up, her eyes meeting mine.

I wasn’t sure I could.

My shoulders rose and fell as I inhaled more silence, hoping it would continue to speak.

“Give it a lot of space. To be here. And to be there,” I said as my chest contracted. “Give your heart a lot of space to be in both. Hearts can live in two places, not just one,” I continued. “Actually, in thousands of places—but only if you let it.”

I heard my words, wondering where they came from. An entry in my journal I’d forgotten about? Somewhere outside? Somewhere within? A depth I hadn’t before inhabited?

Her tears welled up again. She looked into my eyes, searching for understanding. I looked within for the same.

Dust particles floated in the sun’s rays.

“How do I,” she paused, “let it?”

I waited. Stillness refilled the room. I drew some in.

“By allowing your heart to break, even when your pain wants to piece it back together,” I replied. “And by keeping your heart open when every ounce of you wants to close it.”

We sat with the words, feeling their weight. She covered her face with her hands, elbows resting on her legs, and wept. I wept, too.

“But it hurts,” she whispered, her voice catching.

Her anguish made me wish I could say something, anything, to lessen the pain.

“Broken hearts and open hearts are how love spreads—how love grows. As for the pain—it fertilizes the love.”

She whimpered.

I wanted to hug her. Comfort her.

I wondered how her pain felt. I wondered if this was her first heartbreak. I wondered if this was the first time she’d broken a heart to honor hers. I felt pain from my past. When I broke my wife’s heart, calling off our wedding when my heart was scared and stuck here. How, amid the pain, she gave my heart space to get there.

“You can’t separate love from pain. They form the rhythm of the heart,” I said. “And if you keep your heart open and touch lives with your love when you go there, you never really leave here because your love remains, growing in everything and everyone.”

Her lips parted slightly. She paused, letting the silence settle.

“I think,” she said, her voice coming to life, “if love remains behind and I carry love with me, it wouldn’t spread if I never left here for there.”

“Oh… so true.” I smiled. “It takes courage. And faith. And a willingness to befriend the pain.”

We lapsed back into silence. I noticed it felt less raw—more tranquil.

I took another deep breath.

“Here is where we love and learn to let go. There is where we begin again, loving anew,” I said, witnessing the words as they left my lips. “If love and pain form the rhythm of the heart, here and there are the spaces they echo.”

“Ah… I like that. Thank you for giving me something to hold on to.”

I noticed that a twinkle had returned to her eyes, and the smudges of mascara had dried.

“Jessica, I don’t think I’m the one you should be thanking…

Let’s both thank the sacred silence.”

Leave a comment

If you have a story about your journey from here to there and would like it to serve others, please share it in the comments.

If you know someone who could benefit from what the sacred silence had to say, please share freely.

Share

Thank you, Jessica, for the love you leave here and for allowing me to share our conversation.

Thank you to for your heartfelt collaboration and superb editing; to , , and for your valuable feedback; to , for your ongoing inspiration; and to for helping me see that a seminal moment can become a beautiful essay.

A final thank you to for helping me untangle my thoughts and regain clarity after the shock of Jessica’s news.

If you’d like to read about the space that got me from being stuck here to saying “I do” there, you can find it here (pun intended ☺).

Wednesday, November 5th, 2008. The sun wasn’t up, and the stock market hadn’t opened. My phone buzzed incessantly—six calls in 90 minutes. The night before, Barack Obama was elected president, to go along with a blue House and Senate. A half-dozen distressed clients were on the other end of the line. Bewildered. Anxious and scared. Each convinced the country was headed in the wrong direction and the market would crater. They wanted out.

By the afternoon, calls came in from delighted clients. Elated. Optimistic and hopeful. Each described a rosy future—several even saying they were sitting on some capital to invest. They wanted in.

Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010. The Tea Party wave washed ashore the night before, and Republicans retook the House. Before daylight, the same dynamic started to play out, only this time, the distressed and delighted clients traded places. “The march to socialism has been arrested,” said one. “Gridlock will kill the recovery,” claimed another.

Wednesday, November 9th, 2016. For a brief moment, inconceivable today, clients formed a chorus—united in uncertainty—and most wanted out. On the eve of the election, economist Paul Krugman predicted in The New York Times that if Donald Trump were to win, the stock market could fall “by epic proportions.”

Few remember Krugman’s prediction today; fewer remember what ensued. From November 2016 through January 2018, the S&P 500 notched fifteen consecutive months of positive returns—eclipsing an eleven-month streak that had stood since Dwight Eisenhower’s presidency.

Today. Here we are on the eve of Trump’s second inauguration. Once again, half the country is unsatisfied, anxious, and scared, while the other half is satisfied, happy, and hopeful. Once again, investors uncomfortable with the current political landscape are contemplating changes to their portfolios, believing that this president, his cabinet, and a red-colored Congress represent a grave danger to their hard-earned capital.

Once again, investors are well-served to keep a healthy distance between politics and their portfolios.

Why?

Because parties and policies aren’t the main drivers of portfolio performance. Markets move consistently higher, regardless of who is president or who controls Congress.

A different view isolates each presidential term and baselines the starting point. While spectacular returns during the eight-year terms of Reagan, Clinton, and Obama stand out, the predominantly positive returns across administrations tell the real story.

(Note: Biden's return line would look much like Trump's, but the chart date range had not been updated to include 2024.)

Consider the twenty-four years from 1976 to 2000—spanning Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton. Two Republicans. Two Democrats. Different beliefs, priorities, and policies. Despite their differences, the outcome for investors was the same: growth. At the start of Carter's term, a $1,000 investment in the S&P 500 grew to $29,000 by the end of Clinton’s presidency, an annualized return of 15%.*

If markets rose solely due to policies specific to a party, we’d see clear blue or red winners. We’d experience whipsawed returns. Instead, markets rise because the collaboration of humans to create goods and services for customers—and profits for owners—triumphs over politics. While politics matter in society, earnings from innovation, ingenuity, and business creation matter far more in the context of your portfolio.

Subscribe now

Consider another, more recent, twenty-year stretch depicted in a chart overlaying earnings and market price. At the beginning of 2004, S&P 500 earnings hovered around $50/share, while the index traded near 1,100. After companies close their books for 2024, earnings are expected to reach $240/share, while the S&P 500 trades near 6,000.

During this period—again marked by two Republicans and two Democrats, a global financial crisis, a pandemic, and resurgent inflation—a $1,000 investment grew to over $7,700, delivering a 10.3% annualized return.* While less than 15% annualized from 1976-2000, investors would gladly take it.

What stands out most in the chart is how companies grow earnings through time—not linearly, not without temporary plateaus and periodic pullbacks—and how connected the market is to earnings.

Worried about where the market is headed? Look to earnings, not elections.

“The four most dangerous words in investing are: ‘this time it’s different.’”
– Sir John Templeton

While our inboxes haven’t blown up as they did after Trump’s 2016 victory, we’ve received a steady drumbeat of concerns after his reelection. Client conversations often begin with “It feels different this time,” followed by unease about tariffs, trade wars, tax rates, and deficits. The same questions arise repeatedly: “Who will the winners and losers be? What actions should we take now?”

Our response? It is different this time, as it was for George Bush, who inherited a dot-com bust and presided over a terrorist attack. As it was for Barack Obama, who inherited a global financial crisis. As it was for Joe Biden, who contended with a worldwide pandemic.,

Even though it feels different this time, the optimal response remains the same for investors: Sit still and avoid unnecessary action.

Why?

Consider the CEOs of the most significant holdings in your portfolio: Tim Cook at Apple, Satya Nadella at Microsoft, Andy Jassy at Amazon, Jensen Huang at Nvidia, and Warren Buffett at Berkshire Hathaway. These leaders and thousands of other CEOs in your portfolio are already navigating the myriad variables affecting their businesses—tariffs, tax rates, and more. Together with their teams, they are already acting and making the best decisions to drive company earnings—your earnings as an owner.

Additional actions, layered on top of theirs, will likely diminish returns.

Why?

Because it’s what the data reveal.

We need to look no further than the track record of active fund managers—managers who claim their proprietary research will translate into stock-picking and market-timing actions that will yield investors superior results over time.

Since 2002, S&P Dow Jones Indices have tracked the performance of active fund managers versus benchmarks. The left side of the table above shows that in any given year, the odds are about a coin-flip that the managers who "act for a living" lift return against their respective benchmarks.

The right side of the table shows that fewer than 10% of these active managers have outperformed the broad S&P 1500 index over extended (10+ year) periods. Further, according to S&P Dow Jones, those who outperform in a given period fail to repeat their success in subsequent periods, reinforcing the importance of discipline—true discipline being the ability to sit still.

If investing came with a warning label, it might read: Unnecessary action can be harmful to returns.

“The big money is not in the buying and the selling, but in the waiting.”
– Charlie Munger

Tuesday, November 4th, 2008. By the night of Obama’s victory speech in Chicago’s Grant Park, the S&P 500 had fallen 35% from its all-time high in October 2007. It continued its freefall over the next four months, dropping another 33%. Was any of this Obama’s doing? Or was it simply the market not yet finding its bottom amid the financial crisis?

Conversely, was the market’s performance following Trump’s 2016 victory his doing? Or were the gains simply a result of company earnings accelerating in his first year?

These unanswerable questions are a reminder that, in the short term, the market has a mind of its own.

Corrections are perhaps even more unnerving than elections—even the perception that one might be lurking around the corner. As Trump begins his second term, the S&P 500 has advanced almost 60% over the past two years. Some might say the market has run too far, too fast.

Who is to say?

While we can never be sure of the catalyst or pinpoint the reason, corrections occur regularly and are a part of a well-functioning market. And even though our emotions wish it were so, corrections cannot be reliably predicted. They can, however, be planned for with a portfolio's allocation to fixed income.

When the next correction finally shows up, the charge is the same as with elections: resist the urge to act. Instead, sit still, and in the words of the late Charlie Munger, “wait” for the return.

It has never failed to come, and when it arrives, you won’t want to miss out.

Leave a comment

*Returns calculated with dividends reinvested using: Of Dollars and Data S&P500 Calculator

Nothing expressed in this essay should be construed as personalized investment advice. There is no solicitation to buy or sell securities or engage in any particular investment strategy. Perspective Wealth Partners is an SEC-registered investment advisor.

I thought I’d resurface a post from two years ago. Looking back, the writing feels average, but the message feels above average and may be of service during the myriad gatherings this holiday weekend in the US.

Happy Thanksgiving.

“Each lifetime consists of pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. For some, there are more pieces. For others, the puzzle is more difficult to assemble.

But know this: you do not have within yourself all the pieces to your puzzle. Everyone carries with them at least one and probably many pieces to someone else’s puzzle. Sometimes they know it; sometimes they don’t know it.

And when you present a piece, which is worthless to you, to another, whether you know it or not, whether they know it or not, you are a messenger from the Most High.”

– Harold Kushner, American rabbi, Living a Life That Matters.

Years ago, I observed a two-year-old throwing a tantrum at a store in the mall. She wanted a stuffed animal. Her mom told her no. The girl kept nagging and mom kept shopping. From a mile away, you could see what would come next. The toddler went into full meltdown mode – screaming and stamping, then lying on her back making a snow angel.

We parents have been there before. We just want the scene to stop, our kids to behave, and the judgmental looks from others to go away.

As the mother started to yank her daughter upright and raise her voice, she stopped. Instead, she kneeled. Tenderness filled her eyes as she gently lifted her, pulled her close, and asked her what color she wanted—saying it would be important to know for their next trip back to the store.

I wasn’t sure if the mom typically responded that way or if she decided to take a new approach this time. The way she seemed to change course in the moment, I think it was the latter. I’ll never know.

What I do know is that as a father of twin daughters about the same age, I stood in awe about six feet away while the mother, a total stranger, gave me a piece to my parenting puzzle that day by responding with love and gentleness vs. reacting with anger and discipline—more typical of my approach until then.

At the end of an exemplary performance review during the middling years of corporate employment, I asked my boss if she had any constructive feedback for me.

She gazed out the window for what felt too long while my insecurities wondered about the depth of her list. “James, I don’t want you to take this the wrong way. You’re too nice. You should try and piss people off more.”

I looked at her dumbfounded.

“I don’t think you’ll actually be able to piss people off,” she said smiling, “even if you try. But by trying, it will force you to be more direct and tell people what they need to hear. What you share is valuable and could be pivotal for their development. And James, this might be even more important; you’ll need to let go of that damn worry of yours about how they’ll receive what you have to offer.”

It was my turn to gaze out the window.

The words ‘piss people off’ and ‘let go of that damn worry’ reverberated inside me. I’d spent my life trying to please people and not make waves. I’d never considered that I’d been withholding something of value to others.

I would later realize the pieces my boss gave me that day—candor and trust—were missing from my puzzle and became keystones in my ability to share fully with others.

Subscribe now

We can even receive puzzle pieces from ourselves.

A close friend in her seventies retired from running a retreat center in the Pacific Northwest. For decades, she started her day looking after the lovely grounds—pruning shrubs and hand-watering plants before assuming her executive duties inside the center.

A few weeks after her last day on the job, she began to experience anxiety attacks. She had no prior history. Medical tests revealed nothing out of the ordinary.

After months of suffering and feeling a void of purpose, something inside told her to see if the center would allow her to return as a volunteer groundskeeper. They welcomed her back, and the attacks went away. She discovered her angst was the absence of being with nature – tending to the living greenery every morning.

A puzzle piece from within, in the form of anxiety, directed her back to nature so that she, in turn, could offer the puzzle piece of her loving care to the hostas and hydrangeas.

Even in the unlikeliest of places, and sometimes in the unexpected of carriers, Kushner’s messengers from the “Most High” are either right in front of us or nearby—serving up precisely what we need.

The Dalai Lama tells a story about Lopan-la, a friend and monk who was captured when China occupied Tibet in the 1950s. Lopan-la was sentenced to hard labor in prison for eighteen years. He was tortured regularly.

When Lopan-la was released, only 20 of the 130 prisoners had survived.

Lopan-la returned to India and reconnected with the Dalai Lama. He told of harrowing conditions—especially the cold. When he spit, it would become ice before hitting the ground. He went without shoes, and his toes regularly suffered frostbite. He went without food for such long stretches one time he tried to eat the dead body of a fellow monk, but the flesh was too hard to bite.

As he recounted his almost two decades of torture and all the dangers he faced, Lopan-la told the Dalai Lama that the biggest danger of all was not losing his fellow monks, or losing a limb, or losing his life.

He said his biggest danger of all was “losing his compassion for his Chinese guards.”

For Lopan-la his greatest threat was losing his humanity. Losing his loving-kindness toward all human beings. Losing his heart.

No matter our circumstances, there is always a puzzle piece to receive. We have to be willing to look and listen, to see and hear – even if it comes as a torturous prison guard.

At the same time, there is always a puzzle piece for us to offer. We have to be willing to share it—with our words, with our actions, and through our way of being.

Every day, as Lopan-la practiced loving-kindness in the face of his circumstances, perhaps his beautiful puzzle piece of compassion found its way into the Chinese guards, even if unknowingly, even if only in a small way.

May we hope so.

For Further Exploration

Living a Life that Matters, Harold Kushner

The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World, Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, Doug Abrams

Leave a comment

Share

Subscribe now

Three years ago, when three trillion in stimulus spending tangled with broken supply chains, inflation awoke from its decades-long slumber and rocketed higher by 5% in 2021 and 8% in 2022. After responding slowly, the Fed moved forcefully, hiking interest rates between March 2022 and July 2023. The magnitude wasn't unprecedented, but the pace was.

In response to these shifts, market participants reacted swiftly, underscoring a familiar tension between short-term fear and long-term opportunity. Markets did what markets do. In the first ten months of 2022, the U.S. equity market¹ dropped 25%, and the bond market² dropped 16%. Then, once again, markets did what markets do—for reasons not apparent, indices turned upward, barely looking back. Since bottoming, equities are up 65%, notching 43 all-time highs, and bonds have regained 14%.

Markets typically front-run good news, and there is much to like. Corporate profits are up, unemployment remains low, inflation has dropped into the 2.5% range, and the Fed has reversed course and initiated an easing cycle—cutting interest rates by half a point. 

Yet investors remain on edge—we must look no further than a midsummer flash correction. If you were vacationing with the kids before school started back up, you might have missed it.

From July 15^th through August 5^th, the S&P dropped 8.5%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 10%. The deepest losses came over a Thursday-Monday stretch from August 1^st to 5^th. The drop was worse outside the U.S. as Japan’s Nikkei Index lost 18%—its worst two-day decline in history. 

Market drops are never easy, especially when they’re fast. Nerves fray. Worries abound as investors wonder, “Something bad is happening. What should I do?” If investors aren’t careful, they’ll slip up and interrupt the compounding. Fighting off the emotional urge to act is the primary responsibility in an investor’s job description.

Unfortunately, many investors fell short this summer.

According to Alight Solutions, the third-biggest 401(k) recordkeeper (behind Fidelity and Empower), trading activity in retirement plan accounts reached eight times normal on August 5th—the day the sell-off bottomed—with heavy flows out of equity funds and into money market and bond funds.

Then, as if right on cue, markets did what markets do, and the correction ended as fast as it started. Indices regained the lost ground over ten days. For the Nasdaq Index, it was the fastest recovery from a 10% correction ever.

With tens of thousands of participants in Alight’s retirement plan base, somewhere in the population is a 40-year-old with a $250K equity position who sold after the 8% drop and locked in a $20K loss when the market hit bottom.

Full of regret and bewildered, the 40-year-old investor likely followed other compounding interrupters and started bargaining internally—telling himself to wait for the market to drop again so he could buy back in and erase the unforced error from his memory.

It almost never works. Days turn to weeks. Weeks turn to months—anxiety rising every day to the point of capitulation when buying back in higher becomes the only relief. Assuming this was the plight of our 40-year-old, his damage is far worse than a $20K loss.

Why?

The loss compounds over his lifetime.

Ugh. 

If our 40-year-old lives to his actuarial life expectancy (another 45 years) at 8% compounding, a $20K loss turns into a $650K loss. At a 9% average annual return, closer to historical equity averages, the pain grows to $1MM.

Over a lifetime, the implications are staggering.

"Permanent loss of capital in a well-diversified portfolio remains a purely human accomplishment, of which the market itself is incapable." – Nick Murray.

A short Uber north of Wall Street, The Metropolitan Museum of Art houses 1.5 million works in seventeen curational departments. The Met might be best known for its collection of 19th-century European paintings by the Old Masters: Van Gogh, Monet, and Cezanne. Locals spend their lives taking in the magnificence.

What The Met doesn’t have, nor ever will, is a wing dedicated to investing. If it did, the busts of two Old Masters of Investing, Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger, might adorn the entrance to honor the compound returns they’ve generated for Berkshire Hathaway investors.

It might also be fitting if The Met’s non-existent wing featured a mural of the S&P 500 growing through time.

One simple, majestic line, compounding upward, showcasing the energy of human ingenuity delivered through capitalism.

A magnificent work of art—masterful in its own right, surely holding its own.

Standing back, gazing at the beauty, visitors could pick any starting point followed by a point twenty years later and contemplate the life-changing returns. Moving closer, they would see the jagged drops and occasional jaw-dropping declines that would bring to mind corresponding world wars and pandemics, tech bubbles, and terrorist attacks. Or, looking more deeply, they might recall tightening cycles and tax changes, banking crises, and budget deficits.

Distress, anguish, or discomfort might resurface if the visitor were an investor. Maybe their palms would sweat as they recalled the temptation of an internal whisper, “Just once, move to the sidelines until the coast looks clear.” Or a panicked shout, “Sell now!”

Like our 40-year-old investor this past summer, some might wince, recalling their reaction, giving in to the temptation and interrupting the compounding. Others might remember their ability to surrender during the pullbacks, the corners of their mouth turning upward, as they pinpointed precisely when the market resumed its permanent march higher on the one simple and majestic line before them.

You can’t be an equity investor and not be tempted. It goes with the territory.

Temptation doesn’t just show up in corrections and bear markets. It sneaks up, even at all-time highs, when investors think the market is sure to drop. It arrives like clockwork every two years in the form of elections.

Unforced errors lurking as political beliefs.

We’ve been convinced that bad things are in store for our investments if the “other party" occupies the Oval Office or controls Congress.

Despite what we’ve heard in the news, despite our political lens, and despite what our gut is telling us, it’s not true.

If the mural in the non-existent wing at The Met were painted in presidential colors, it would look like this:

And if the mural in the non-existent wing at The Met were colored by Congressional makeup, it would look like this:

Brushed in red, colored in blue, or painted in a blend of both, the market’s upward trajectory persists regardless of who is president, independent of who controls Congress.

One simple, majestic line advancing through time.

With investing, the collaboration of humans and ideas to create goods and services for customers—and profits for owners—triumphs over political positions, policies, and parties. It’s not that politics aren’t important. But in the context of your portfolio, the economics of innovation, ingenuity, and business creation matter more.

Your investment portfolio is more than just a collection of assets—it is a self-portrait of hard work, saving, disciplined investing, and emotional fortitude in navigating market cycles. Sometimes, that means avoiding unforced errors, like turning a $20K drop into a $650K regret. More often, it means identifying $20K opportunities that grow into $650K of time-optionality and flexibility.

For many, the art of a meaningful life is found in relationships and deep connections with others. Ultimately, the art of investing is not dissimilar; it's about staying in relationship—connected to the compounding.

Resist the temptation to disconnect. Stay the course, remain an owner. One day, you will look back at your portfolio, behold the simple, majestic line that has compounded upward through time, and say, “Oh, my! What a magnificent work of art.”

¹S&P500 Index

²Bloomberg Barclays U.S. Aggregate Bond Index

Thank you for reading. Please share if someone would enjoy the essay, or reach out directly if you like. We help clients stay connected to the one simple, majestic line compounding through time.

When Janet called last month, her voice carried more than a hint of excitement. It was as if her emotion blurred her words. It reminded me of when we first met.

“By God, I’m doing it!” she said. “It’s all come together quickly—I’m leaving the day after tomorrow, and I need a bit of money. I’m going to Stockholm with a girlfriend from my building, and then to London. Oh, and you’ll be pleased, Cort’s coming too!”

I knew Janet was smiling because I was. She’s always been contagious—a warm cold you couldn’t help but catch. I wanted to immerse myself in her liveliness and connect with her emotion, but considering all she’d been through, I didn’t dare risk disrupting it.

“As soon as you’re back, I want to hear every detail,” I said. “Now, how much money do you need?”

Eighteen years earlier, not long after Janet and I met while buried in the recesses of the corporate world, I leapt from my box on the org chart and founded an investment advisory firm. In the middle of my one-room office, located in the detached garage behind my home, sat a conference table—barely big enough for four people. In the middle of the table, atop a three-inch pedestal, sat a crystal ball. Clients would settle into their chairs, gaze into the round abyss, and ask questions like “Are we due for a downturn?” or “Will there be a recession?” Once, a client in his 70s leaned forward with a troubled look, pretended to rub the ball, and asked, “Who will win the upcoming election?”

The crystal ball always sat there, reflecting our images, revealing nothing. We’d invariably chuckle as if we expected anything different.

I thought the crystal ball would be an ideal conversation starter—and it was. But what I failed to anticipate is that it elicited questions that were not only unanswerable but oriented the conversation in the wrong direction—to the outside. The right questions, ones that mattered most and ones that only clients could answer, were questions that tapped into intentions and aspirations that lived inside.  

I’d reframe the questions: “What about a recession troubles you?” “Say more about a downturn – are you restless?” “What about the election, has you on edge?”

When clients wrestled with these questions, fears emerged. Worries poured out. “I’m scared. If there’s a recession and one of us is laid off, we won’t be able to afford the beach cottage we’re dreaming of.” “We’ve saved for our grandkid's education and are worried we might lose it all.” “I fear social security will be cut if the wrong person is elected.” When emotions were on the table, we were on the right track, for where there was a worry, there was a want—a longed-for wish. Hidden behind a fear? An envisioned future.

After clients had left the office, when the crystal ball reflected only my image, sometimes I’d wonder, if clients would wonder, if they’d hired the wrong advisor. Rather than offer opinions about recessions and downturns or who might occupy the Oval Office, which couldn’t reliably be predicted but could be planned for, I’d probe their insides to draw forth anxieties and apprehensions while drawing out one-of-a-kind futures. To empower clients with a tailored financial plan that lived outside, it needed to reflect a future alive on the inside.

I discovered you could glimpse the future, just not in a crystal ball, but in a human heart.

Today, the crystal ball sits on a coffee table inside the front door of our now nine-person firm. It still isn’t revealing when the Fed will lower rates or if Bitcoin will boom or go bust. We keep it around to remind us who we aren’t—presumptuous and arrogant—and what our business isn’t—focusing in the wrong direction and pretending to answer impossible questions.   

A glass bowl now adorns the center of a conference table we’re proud of. Inside the glass bowl are 250 heart-shaped gemstones. Different sizes. Varied colors and unique markings. Beautifully polished. No two alike.

When clients sit down, the hearts catch their eye. “So lovely!” “Gorgeous!” “Where’d you find these?”

Last week, a client exclaimed, “These hearts are magnificent!” as she reached into the bowl and picked out several to examine.

“One of them,” I replied, “is yours.”

“You mean that I can have one?” she asked, unsure.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I meant that one of those hearts represents your heart.” I paused, then continued, “Tell me, what’s stirring inside it?”

She looked down at the hearts, put two back, and held on to a speckled blue one. Rubbing it with her thumb, she said, “You know my daughter, who I’ve been helping through nursing school? She’s now finished.”

“Of course. So terrific.” I said, “Congratulations.”

“Now she plans to apply to med school. If she gets in, I don’t want her saddled with loans. I’m happy for her, but I’m scared how much longer I’ll have to work to help her again. It’s eating at me.”

Wants and worries, a new future marbled with fears, two futures actually, her daughter’s and hers; we are on the right track, I thought.

“That’s a lot to carry around,” I said. “I appreciate your honesty and vulnerability. Let’s dig in and find you some peace of mind.”

After our meeting ended and I’d walked her out, I returned to the conference table. Next to the glass bowl was the speckled blue heart. I took note—that’s how the hearts get their names.

As I placed her heart, replete with its new future, back with the others, I reflected on all 250 hearts—the 241 representing our clients and the 9 representing us. I thought about being in the bowl together, rubbing against one another, touching each other, connections deepening through time, and how nourishing the relationships are. I thought about the futures living in the hearts and how dynamic they are. And how fragile they are. How they can change, often slowly, as we listen to that voice inside that guides us down paths previously unimagined and sometimes abruptly when the unexpected occurs.

As these thoughts swirled in my head, the beautiful, brown-striped heart lying on top, one of the biggest hearts in the bowl, grabbed my attention.

Janet’s heart.

I picked it up and held it. I flashed back to the email I received from her two years earlier:

Hi James,

I hope you are doing great. It’s been such a long time. Well, it’s been 1½ years since Cort died. I still struggle to accept that he is gone and I won’t see him again until I, too, die. OK, how’s that for an opening….good grief.

Before, my motivation for saving and investing was for Cort and me to enjoy our life together. Now, I just need to be smart (or not dumb). Well, all of this is to say that I guess it’s time I started taking some action with my finances. Can we connect sometime soon?

Love, Janet.

We set up a meeting. Janet made me promise that we’d get caught up after our twenty-year hiatus before moving into the crosscurrents of her life. As soon as we saw each other, we didn’t stand a chance. Janet’s lip began to quiver, I started to sob, and we turned into a puddle. After pulling ourselves together, Janet took me back to Cort’s three-year battle with esophageal cancer and then forward into what their old future no longer looked like—coffee shops in Paris they wouldn’t visit, landscapes in the South of France they wouldn’t experience, and Italian Chianti they wouldn’t taste. Her chosen future—stolen by a future that chose her. A future that, after a year and a half, was still unimaginable, still inaccessible, and still awaited her.

In that moment, I realized that while we carry the title of Investment Advisor on our business cards and touch clients with our financial acumen, who we are called to be often has nothing to do with money and everything to do with touching clients with ourselves—with our empathy, with our attention. And when intentions meet impermanence, with our continued presence by holding a heart to help illuminate an impossible-to-see future for as long as it takes.  

“By God, I’m doing it…Cort’s coming too!” Janet’s words, blurred by emotion last week, now reverberated with clarity. Holding her big brown-striped heart in my hand, she touched me with her courage to step into a future she hadn’t signed up for and was willing to recreate. I looked forward to hearing every detail, including how Cort enjoyed Stockholm and London—from the vantage point of her heart.   

I put Janet back in the bowl and reflected on how our glass bowl of hearts embodies the business we are in—empowering one-of-a-kind futures, especially as they change, and epitomizes who we are—heartfelt.

A second bowl—tiny and shaped like a fishbowl, sits in the corner of my desk. Inside are four hearts: one for my wife, one for each of my daughters, and one for me. Wonderous hearts. Maddening hearts. My most precious hearts.

On some days, when my energy is low from tending to the 250, I slip the four hearts into my pocket before leaving for home to remind me that these hearts matter most. They, too, need to be touched—with patience when helping with homework, with sacrifice when carpooling all over town, and with self-care by prioritizing slivers of solitude.  

When I lie in the darkness behind my eyelids, long after I’ve stepped away from my vocation, stepped out of being a dad, and stepped back from being a spouse, more hearts inside me come alive. My brother and sisters. My mom and dad. Extended family. Friends – past and present. Work acquaintances and community connections. Joy-filled hearts. Aching hearts. Beating hearts and deceased hearts. The longer I lie awake, the more hearts there are—always too many to count.

And it occurs to me, aren't we ourselves a glass bowl full of hearts? And isn’t our opportunity to be heartfelt? To rub against these hearts. To touch and be touched. To nourish and be nourished. To hold and be held.

Who are your magnificent hearts?

Who are your most precious hearts?

Whose hearts fill the glass bowl of you?

Subscribe now

End Notes: I could write a 5,000-word essay on the financial acumen we bring to bear for clients, but it might put most of you to sleep and make for a boring story. If you’d like to learn more, please reach out.

Our firm has five core values: Heartfelt, Relatable, Genuine, Service-oriented, and Committed-to-excellence. We personify each one.

If you’re reading this, your heart resides in the glass bowl of me, and I am grateful.

Janet, thank you for allowing me to share your story—you will surely touch others, and your courage inspires. Jack and Sylvia, thank you for being all you are to Janet.

, , and , thank you for inspiring me to write this essay. , thank you for your invaluable feedback.

A special thank you to our clients and our incredible team at our firm. Working with you is truly nourishing.

Leave a comment

Returning to base camp, Edmund Hillary approached the crevasse he had crossed earlier. Four feet wide, it was too far to hop across. He spotted the giant chunk of ice jutting out from the other side, and like on the way up, it would make an easy stepping stone.

Before he could feel the safety of the ground under his second step, the ice chunk broke free.

There he stood—atop an ice mass.

Freefalling.

On the ice field above, Hillary’s partner, Tenzing Norgay Sherpa, slammed his ice axe into the snow, grabbed their connecting rope, and whipped the slack around the handle. Hillary slammed into the wall, and the ice chunk disappeared into the abyss, hurtling toward a splintering end.

Six weeks later, Norgay, a devout Buddhist, dug a shallow hole in the snow, pulled chocolates and biscuits from his pocket, and buried the sweets as an offering to the gods. Hillary pulled a crucifix from his pocket and buried it alongside as an homage to a different god.

On May 29^th, 1953, connected not by their beliefs, but by a lifelong calling and the same rope, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa stood where no one had stood before—on top of what Tibetans call Chomolungma – the mother goddess of the universe, what the Nepalese call Sagarmatha – the goddess of the sky, and what Sir George Everest recorded as the highest point on earth in 1852 at 8,848 meters (29,032 feet).

“At that great moment for which I had waited my whole life,” Norgay said, “my mountain did not seem to be a lifeless thing of rock and ice, but warm and friendly, and living,”

After refueling on mint cake and scouting a climbing route up a nearby peak, Hillary snapped a picture of Norgay. Then, the backup team on the 1953 British Expedition of Mount Everest began their descent, mindful of Hillary’s close call weeks earlier and aware that more lives are lost on the way down than on the way up.

“We thought since we’d climbed it, people would lose interest,” Hillary said years later.

Interest intensified. The climbing regimen evolved, and the Everest expedition industry was born. The following seven decades would see 6,600 climbers reach the top 12,000 times.¹

What didn’t evolve? Human physiology and air. At 5,500 meters (17,500 feet), the air at Everest Base Camp contains about 50% less oxygen than at sea level. On top, oxygen levels drop to 33%. Dull-mindedness and dizziness are table stakes. Headaches and hallucinations are commonplace. Simple feels complex. Yes or no questions remain unanswered. Walking downhill feels like walking uphill.

If there is a marriage that starts compromised, man and sparsely oxygenated air are one. Acclimatization is required therapy. Climbers move up and down between camps in a carefully planned process—pushing higher and then retreating lower—day in and day out for eight weeks. They adapt gradually, connecting their unseeable insides with the hard-to-find oxygen on the outside.

Uncomfortable, often tortuous monotony for one twelve-hour shot at the top. Unless you are a sherpa. Native to the high mountain region of eastern Himalaya, it turns out sherpas have broader arteries and wider capillaries, enabling twice the blood flow of visiting climbers. Evolutionary genetics have earned sherpas a head start, needing only to acclimate to the mountain's upper reaches. Darwin would smile.

Most of us don’t dream of standing on top of the world—especially knowing what it would take to get there. But we do dream of retirement. We envision work flexibility or a more meaningful yet lower-paying vocation. We imagine time optionality. If retired, we dream of making it further down our bucket list.

Which is why we save. And why we invest.

As investors, we become climbing partners with the stock market. Like Hillary and Norgay, we rope ourselves together. But unlike Hillary and Norgay, our connection doesn’t last eight weeks; it lasts a lifetime. We discover the stock market is a fabulous and reliable long-term partner, taking us to heights never fathomed. We also discover the stock market is a vexing and unreliable short-term partner, taking us to lows that terrify us and test our resolve.

If we looked back to when Hillary and Norgay broke bread with the goddess of the sky, we would stand in awe of a climb even greater than theirs.

●      In the two decades following their ascent, as the world endured the Korean and Vietnam Wars and John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King’s assassinations, the S&P 500 Index² climbed from an index value of 25 to 85.

●      During the 1970s and ’80s, as the U.S. contended with Watergate, Nixon’s resignation, and double-digit inflation, the stock market rose from 85 to 350.

●      In the 1990s and 2000s, while digesting the dotcom bust, the 911 terrorist attacks, and the subprime lending crisis, the stock market ascended from 350 to 1,115.

●      Over the last thirteen years, while crawling out of the financial crisis and battling a global pandemic, the stock market increased from 1,115 to over 5,000 today.

A 20,000% increase. A tripling or quadrupling every two decades.

A straight shot up? Riiiight.

A walk in the park? Hardly.

Like high-altitude climbers, the stock market constantly acclimatizes—pushing higher, then retreating lower. 53% up days, 47% down days. 80% up years, 20% down years. As investors, we are roped to our climbing partner and connected to the up-and-down acclimatization process. Unlike climbers, who determine when to retreat and for how long, we have no control over when, how fast, or how long our partner retreats. This lack of control stirs our insides. Agitates us.

Sharp falls frighten us.  

On Monday, October 19^th, 1987, investors felt like Hillary when the ice chunk broke free, as the market dropped 20% - in one day. The week after the 911 terrorist attacks, investors felt like they were backsliding down a glacier when the market fell 11% in one week. As the global pandemic enveloped the world in March 2020, it was as if a blizzard hit and fog set in over investors before plunging into a crevasse when the market lost 34% in one month.

In the seventy years after Hillary and Norgay stood 5½ miles above sea level while achieving stratospheric gains, the stock market acclimatized monumentally, pulling back at least 10% twenty-five times, falling more than 20% ten times, dropping 30% three times, plunging more than 40% two times, and crashing more than 50% once.

Yet, for all the stock market’s unplanned, inconvenient, and unnerving trips down the mountain, we must not lose sight of two things. First, 44% of the time, the market was within 5% of its high, and 70% of the time, it camped within 15% of its top. Despite our fears, most of the time, the market was acclimatizing near its top.

Second, every time the market slid down a glacier or fell into a crevasse, it arrested its fall, reversed course, and climbed upward to an even higher high than before. Unlike Mt. Everest climbers, who will never stand above 8,848 meters, our climbing partner has yet to reach a permanent top.

All investor problems stem from our inability to sit quietly with our emotions while staying roped to our climbing partner. Altitude sickness lurks in headlines we don’t like, current events we don’t understand, and outcomes that don’t come to pass. Emotional sickness takes hold when our partner suddenly turns downward.

Like climbers, we must acclimatize. Our marriage with the market—our staying roped in—depends on it.

We acclimatize by countering our fears with perspective. When markets are high, we become fearful. Doubts creep in. We get scared the market is due for a retreat. We become attached to our gains. How dare we give them back? We tell ourselves, “I’ll just unhook my rope and hang out here while my climbing partner heads down the mountain.” We delude ourselves by believing we’ll rope back in when the coast looks clear.

With perspective, we remind ourselves that not only do markets spend most of their time near highs, but current highs beget more highs. When we fear our climbing partner is due for a big fall, the opposite usually occurs. One-year investment returns from all-time highs exceed one-year returns from all other starting points. And about one-third of the time, when the market notches a new all-time high, it continues upward and does not drop back below the high it just made. Over time, today’s peaks become tomorrow’s base camps.

When markets are falling, we acclimatize by summoning patience. When losing money, our fears turn to anxiety—dread. We want our discomfort to stop. We tell ourselves we knew better and should have acted when the market was high. Then we bargain: “I’ll unhook my rope—let my partner keep going down and reconnect once the dust has settled and the market is rising again.”

What if we knew that historically, those 10% trips down the mountain take about three months to bottom and about three months to recover? The 20% slides—about seven months to bottom and eight months to recover. And about that 30% pandemic plunge—a one-month drop and a four-month recovery. 

When our partner is done descending, its upward turn is often rapid and forceful. After the pandemic bottom, the market notched one-day gains of 9%, 7%, and 6% over 2½ weeks. The risk isn’t that we keep falling. The risk is that we get left behind when our partner resumes the climb.

In 1914, Namgyal Wangdi was born to a Tibetan yak herder and his wife. As a child, Namgyal attended a local monastery and was given a new name: Tenzing Norgay. Chosen by the head llama, Tenzing means “thought grasper” or “thought holder,” and Norgay means “increasing wealth.”

As investors, may we grasp that the risk to our retirement, to a more meaningful vocation, to time-optionality, and a greater number of bucket list experiences lies not with our climbing partner but with ourselves.

May we acclimatize by broadening the arteries that attend to our perspective and widening the capillaries that serve our patience.

May the result be increasing our wealth³ and, more importantly, our well-being.

Subscribe now

³ The word "wealth" comes from the Old English word Weal - meaning "a sound, healthy or prosperous state. Well-Being."  

² The Standard and Poor’s 500 (S&P500). A diversified index of the largest 500 US stocks, weighted by market capitalization. "The market," "market," and "climbing partner" refer to the S&P 500.

¹ Sherpas are responsible for the majority of the repeats. Kami Rita Sherpa holds the record for the most ascents of Mount Everest. He recorded his 28^th summit on May 23, 2023.

Thank you for reading, and I’m sorry for the length. I hope you made it through and it was worth it.

Leave a Like. If you enjoyed this essay, please click the ❤️ below.

Spread the Love. If you think someone would enjoy or benefit from this essay, please share it.

Reach Out. If you’d like to connect, reply to this email, leave a comment, or DM me through Substack.

Leave a comment

Thank you to for contributing time and energy to this essay. I’m grateful for our friendship and am blown away by your writing.

People take up residency inside of us.

People who warm our hearts when they say just the right thing. People who inspire us with their courage. Those who enchant us – our first kiss. A deep love who becomes a lifelong soulmate. Even those who irritate us and hurt us.    

Our inhabitants work on us from the inside out. They challenge us. They encourage us. They teach us. They shape us. Without realizing it, they influence who we become.  

Thirty years ago, Peter and Linda Biehl, two people I’d never met, checked into a room inside me – coming by way of the nightly news. Parents of four children, career professionals, and Sunday school teachers, they were a conventional couple living a typical life in Newport Beach, California, when they confronted every parent’s nightmare. 

The lead story was their twenty-six-year-old daughter, Amy. A high school valedictorian, champion diver, and accomplished swimmer, Amy excelled in everything she poured herself into. While earning her degree from Stanford University, her giant and service-oriented heart discovered a passion for South Africa and the plight of the Apartheid-oppressed black population. At graduation, she wore a cap with the words “Free Mandela” across the front.

After college, Amy’s desire to help bring lasting change in South Africa intensified. She won a Fulbright scholarship to work on the post-apartheid future and touched down in Cape Town in 1992.

It was a restive time – fifty years of Apartheid rule had been officially repealed, and the country was caught between its awful past and its promising future. Trust was low. Tensions were high. Radical whites were desperate to remain in power. Radical blacks didn’t trust that whites would relinquish their rule. Both sides waged an unofficial war on each other. Sixteen thousand died over three years.

Two days before she was to fly home, blonde-haired and blue-eyed Amy was dragged from her car by a 100-strong mob, stoned unconscious, and stabbed to death on the side of the road – killed by the very people she was working to help.

Subscribe now

As I tried to wrap my mind around the horror, Amy’s murder hit closer to home when I learned she was planning to marry a high school friend of mine. My heart ached. My gut wrenched. And my attention kept returning to Peter and Linda.  

I was twenty-seven, had no children, and kept wondering, what does the pain of losing a child feel like? How does one contend? How would you even go on?

These questions hung in the air of the room Peter and Linda occupied inside me.

Six weeks after Amy’s death, Peter and Linda set out for Cape Town. They visited the site of Amy’s murder. They met political leaders Amy worked with to craft the country’s new constitution. They retraced her steps through townships where she helped register blacks to vote. 

Peter and Linda were moved to become part of the solution. They set up the Amy Biehl Foundation and focused its mission on breaking the vicious cycle of violence through youth programs, skills training, and literacy initiatives. A short time later, Peter and Linda gave up their careers in the US and reoriented their lives to transforming South Africa – just as Amy had.

How did Peter and Linda find the strength to travel halfway around the world – into the violence, into the pain – only six weeks after Amy’s murder? I’d spent my life avoiding pain, and when I couldn’t, I’d do my best to deflect it. I felt sure I’d remain stuck in place, paralyzed by grief. 

Where could I find that strength? What did Peter and Linda possess that I didn’t?

“Questions are lanterns we swing ahead of us to see in the dark.”
– Mark Nepo

A year later, the four men responsible for inflicting the final blows that killed Amy stood trial. With Linda looking on in the courtroom, all sat motionless and expressed no remorse. Each was found guilty. The prosecution sought the death penalty. The judge rejected the request, saying that despite their lack of remorse, the killers could be rehabilitated. Each was sentenced to 18 years in prison.

Peter and Linda were asked if they were disappointed that the judge didn’t impose the death penalty. They answered that killing Amy’s assailants wasn’t going to bring her back, adding that they, too, hoped her killers could be rehabilitated.

Rehabilitated, I thought? Really?

Could I sit in the same courtroom as my daughter’s killers, look in their eyes, see no remorse, and hope for rehabilitation? I knew my answer and I wished it was different. 

How was it that Peter and Linda could choose empathy over vengeance? What could they see that I couldn’t? A kernel deep inside me yearned for what Peter and Linda had.

I kept swinging the questions, waiting for answers to emanate.

In 1996, three years after Amy’s murder, newly elected president Nelson Mandela established the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The commission sought to bring forth transgressions committed by all parties during Apartheid rule, the premise being that if truth could be accompanied by forgiveness, healing could occur, and a new multi-racial South Africa would be born. Victims would offer unrefuted statements, and for those who committed crimes, if you confessed your guilt to those you harmed, you would not be punished. If you had already been punished, you could apply for amnesty.

In 1997, Ntobeko Peni, Easy Nofemela, Mongesi Manqina, and Vusumzi Ntamo applied for amnesty.

Amy’s killers.

For a second time, Peter and Linda sat face to face with the four men who took Amy’s life. This time, the men admitted to killing Amy, testifying they did not trust that the post-Apartheid reforms would be enough to transform the country.

When it was their turn to speak, Peter and Linda brought forth Amy’s spirit, telling stories of her childhood, showing pictures of her infectious smile, and reading from her valedictory address. They concluded their testimony by telling the commission they supported the reforms in South Africa, just as Amy had, and that they supported amnesty.

Then, Peter and Linda looked at the four men and forgave them.

Outside the hearing, Ntobeko Peni wept, telling Peter and Linda that when they forgave him, he didn’t care if he received amnesty because he had just been freed.

Less than a year later, the four young men who took Amy’s life walked out of prison free men.

When Peter and Linda offered forgiveness, my questions finally illuminated answers – as if a light switch flicked on. Bright, life-changing answers.

I realized I could see the same as Peter and Linda, but they possessed the capacity to recognize – to look beyond what they could see – a subtle but profound difference.

Seeing is external and lives in the past. We say, “I’ve seen it with my own eyes.” Or “I don’t see it.” Seeing is limited by what has happened.

Recognizing involves our insides and contemplates an unseen future. We say, “There’s more than meets the eye.” Or “I recognize the potential in that person.” By accessing virtues in our hearts – empathy, compassion, kindness, courage, hope, forgiveness, faith – recognizing becomes unlimited by expanding the view of what is possible.

With this new lens, I reflected on Peter and Linda’s choices over the years and envisioned what they had recognized.

When Peter and Linda traveled halfway around the world six weeks after Amy’s death, they recognized the way forward was to act – to go on – no matter how hard, and the way through pain was into it, not to avoid it.

When Peter and Linda hoped for rehabilitation, despite no remorse and no proof that anything would be different, they recognized that an unseeable future could be different.

When Peter and Linda supported amnesty, they recognized their role in opening the door for Amy’s killers to manifest a new future. 

When Peter and Linda offered forgiveness, they recognized a new future can’t be fully authored while carrying the emotional weight of the past, that everyone has goodness in them, and nobody should be defined solely by their worst action.

On a stage vastly larger than a Sunday school room in Newport Beach, Peter and Linda taught me that while we see with our eyes, we recognize with our hearts.

And even the inconceivable becomes possible when we choose to recognize.

After their release from prison, Ntobeko Peni and Easy Nofemela were determined to chart a new path and make a positive contribution to the next generation. They set up a youth club in Guguletu Township – the very place of Amy’s murder and began an afterschool mentorship program. 

Could it be that over five years, two trials, and through hope, empathy, and forgiveness, Peter and Linda slipped into Ntobeko and Easy and took up residency inside them?

A year after establishing their club, Ntobeko and Easy reached out to Peter and Linda and asked to meet. Face to face for only the third time, over dinner, Ntobeko and Easy showed photos of hikes with their afterschool group. They told stories of youth who had found jobs with skills they’d been taught. They showed off T-shirts they’d designed for the kids. By the end of the evening, they were laughing and smiling.

Peter and Linda saw the impact Ntobeko and Easy were having and the men they were becoming. Peter and Linda recognized they could make an even greater impact – together.

Peter and Linda offered Ntobeko and Easy jobs with the Amy Biehl Foundation. They would go on to forge a deep and lasting relationship. Easy spent fifteen years with the foundation, and Ntobeko continues his work there to this day. 

Two people who gave Amy her life and two who took it away freed themselves from the weight of the past and came together to change lives and transform a country.

When we recognize with our hearts, the inconceivable, indeed, becomes possible.

May Peter and Linda take up residency inside of you, too.

Photo by Johanna Baldwin: Easy, Linda, Ntobeko, & Peter. Guguletu, Cape Town 1999

Subscribe now

I hope this essay touched your heart and brought meaning to your life. Special appreciation to and for their time and invaluable feedback on this essay.

For Further Reading: Amy’s Biehl’s Last Home, by Steven Gish

As I grew up, I felt compelled not only to aspire to great things but to achieve them. To differentiate myself. To land that first job. To make a name for myself through hard work, smarts, and charisma. To notch achievements, earn promotions, and achieve status. To parlay it all into the next job, the next pay raise, the bigger house.

Without thinking about it, I saw my identity and my path in life as essentially self-made.

Somewhere along the way, probably around the age of forty (I wish earlier), I realized that while I had agency over my actions, the line where I stopped and someone else started was much less defined than I thought. Quite blurry, in fact.

Successes at work were achieved through teamwork, not individual contribution. Strong finishes in golf tournaments were two-man best-balls, not individual competitions. Raising kids and running a household, the hardest of all, a two-person tango, not an individual accomplishment

When I took the time to look inside myself, I felt the presence of so many people.

Did my curiosity come from within, or was it influenced by my father's wonderful question-asking quality?

Was my generosity innate, or was it shaped by my college roommate Greg who gave me the gift of deep listening whenever I needed it?

Was my business acumen instinctual – or was it primarily formed by the intelligence of my first boss, Ben?  

Did my capacity to forgive others grow through practice, or did it expand when I became a father?

How much has my capacity to love grown on its own versus being shaped by my wife Karen?

My younger self would have claimed these attributes as my own, or their growth of my solitary making. Today, my humble and mature self sees it differently. The contribution of others has been pouring into me for decades.

I’ve come to realize that in this class project called life, I’ve been, and continue to be, forged by a large student body, of which I’m only a single member. While I’m in charge of my path in life, I’m most certainly not self-made.

And thank God for that.

This Thanksgiving Day, two thousand years after Cicero graced us with his wisdom, join me in giving thanks to the student bodies of our lives – all those who invisibly pour into us and shape who we are and who we are becoming.

Then, after we’ve celebrated the others, let’s give thanks to ourselves – as we, too, pour ourselves into those around us – helping shape who they are and who they are becoming.

Not unto ourselves are we born.

Author’s Note: On this day of thanks, I planned to publish a piece on forgiveness. After many rewrites, it wasn’t ready.

I forgave myself and went for a run.

While running, it occurred to me I could republish this essay from last Thanksgiving when thereadership was one-tenth of what it is today.

Please feel free to share with others or leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you.

I’m grateful for you all. Happy Thanksgiving 2023.

Subscribe now

During an especially exhausting time, I signed up to run a marathon.

We do things like this, don’t we?

Race day was six months away, so it was still an idea. I heard that effective training was about increasing mileage during the week and extending a long run each weekend. That’s all I knew. A friend suggested I join a local marathon training group. “Follow their schedule and join others for the long runs. They’ll get you across the finish line. Oh, and you’ll love it, too,” he said.

The following Saturday morning, I met up with a few hundred runners. While I stood around sizing everyone up, I noticed we couldn’t have been more different. Old and young. Husky and lean. Fast and slow. First-timers and veteran marathoners. It felt awkward standing around at daybreak with no one I knew. I almost abandoned the scene to run alone. Somewhere behind the strangeness of it all, amid the physical differences and alongside our common purpose, I heard my friend's words again, “Oh, and you’ll love it, too.”

The organizers called us together and outlined our training regimen for the next eighteen weeks. They separated us into pace groups and assigned each group an experienced marathoner who would keep us on track. Other volunteers would handle the aid stations along our routes – supplying the Gatorade and fruit slices.  All we needed to do, they said, was focus on our running and take care of each other.

After brief introductions, our slow and steady ten-minute-per-mile group set off on the first of our long runs – a reasonable eight miles.

26.2 still seemed like only an idea.

Our first few Saturdays were pretty quiet. We focused on our running and mostly asked questions of our leader. On race day, is it best to maintain the same pace or start fast and then slow down? Or start slow and speed up? Is Gatorade better than water? What’s better – bagels or bananas? He told us he’d run nine marathons. Vancouver, BC, was his most memorable – his worst but most picturesque race.

By the fourth week, our guards were down. Reduced to shorts and short sleeves, un-showered and sweaty, and joined at our hips for two hours, there wasn’t anywhere to hide. In our pod of fifteen, two were newlyweds – one starry-eyed and one scared sh*tless. Seven of us were divorced, two of us twice. One of us had a successful IPO. Three of us suffered business failures. Most of us longed for job changes but lacked the courage to act. Those of us who were parents felt like failures most of the time. Our lives were as up and down as the hills on our routes, and I discovered the sources of my exhaustion were hardly unique to me. We were a microcosm of life.  

In week ten, the wheels blew off – almost literally. Somewhere around mile six – while trail-running under the canopy of old-growth oak trees, the biggest personality in our group – the twice-divorced IPO victor, exclaimed, “I can’t hold it anymore!” and hurried over the hillside and took refuge behind an oak.

We ran in place for what seemed like several minutes. Mr. Big reemerged and wondered if any of us had some toilet paper. Big potty.

Turns out there was somewhere to hide.

“To maintain a joyful family requires much from both the parents and the children. Each member of the family has to become, in a special way, the servant of the others.” 
– Pope John Paul II.

Communities are a mainstay in our lives. Our first communities are circumstance – starting with our family of origin and evolving to the small communities that follow – classrooms, teams, and clubs. Later in life, as we discover our passions and exercise agency in how we spend our time, our communities are our choice – coalescing around our interests and the people we choose to be around.

Running groups, writing groups, and hiking groups. Book clubs and bridge clubs. Tennis leagues, basketball leagues, and softball leagues. Fishing clubs and flying clubs. Music groups, travel groups, and birding groups.

If close friends are the siblings of our choosing, these special communities, not confined by geography or limited by an inherited family, are the families of our choosing. If we are willing to open ourselves emotionally, if we are willing to be vulnerable, and if we are willing to be servants of each other, with the critical yeast of time, these families can become the source of great joy and meaning.

Our slow and steady ten-minute group met for our final long run before race day. There was a touch of seriousness in the air. As if twenty miles in front of us weren’t enough, it was windy and rainy. This morning, we were joined by a new face in our group – Amy. She told us she’d been training with the 9-minute group but had struggled on the last two long runs, failing to finish and walking at the end. She’d been putting in the mileage during the week, so she was hopeful a slower pace on the twenty-miler would be just what she needed.

We welcomed Amy, along with her spunk, and enjoyed getting to know her during our first ten miles – when conversing didn’t compete with rhythmic breathing and seemingly scarce oxygen in the back half of our run. She told us she was newly divorced, a mother of four, had just switched careers and had signed up to run a marathon because she needed another challenge.

Amy fit right in.

Shortly after taking a break at our final aid station – about mile seventeen – Amy’s stride started to shorten. Her shoulders began to hunch. Given her 9-minute-per-mile conditioning, she’d been running near the front of our pack all day, so while we noticed the change, we couldn’t tell if she would be able to push on.  

After laboring through another ½ mile, Amy dropped back, head down, and motioned for us to go on. We didn’t. She told the woman next to her she’d be OK, again telling us to move ahead. With only the sounds of our soles slapping against the wet pavement, we slowed to match Amy’s pace. Several of us dropped back behind her, me included. Several others moved alongside Amy. As if we were tending to something wounded, we closed in around her just a bit – a way of telling Amy we were with her.

We were a school of fish in shoes, with Amy at our center. 

Amy pleaded with us one more time to maintain our ten-minute pace – that our training depended on it, that our marathon depended on it. No one said a word, and we continued to surround her with our energy, traveling about twelve minutes per mile. As our legs rose and fell in unison, we recognized we’d been in Amy’s shoes before, and any of us could have been in her shoes on this particular morning.

There are infinite ways to serve – sometimes with empathy, other times with compassion. Sometimes with kindness, other times with reassurance. On this particular morning, in a family of our choosing, three hours deep on a wet and windy run, we served by simply slowing down.

So often, I have gone to work on one thing, only to discover I am actually working on something different, to finally discover I am the one being worked on. I signed up with a training group to help me cross the finish line, only to discover the joys of training with a community of runners to ultimately experience the meaning of helping someone else cross the finish line.

We experience things like this, don’t we?

I hope this piece made you smile, contributed meaning to your life, or touched your heart. Please feel free to comment or give any feedback. I would be grateful if you did.

Can you bring to mind someone who has had an outsized impact on your life? A high school teacher or college professor who inspired your desire to learn or find your lifetime vocation? A work colleague who mentored you, maybe even without you asking or noticing at first? Perhaps a college roommate or close friend who was always there for you, who instilled confidence in you, no matter what?

Pause and reflect.

We’ll return to the person you brought to mind in just a bit 😊.

For me, this person was my first boss, Ben. The year was 1988. I was a freshly minted college grad and had just landed a job with a technology division of United Parcel Service. Starting salary – a whopping $18,000 a year.

Ben was a Vietnam War veteran who served in the Special Forces. He earned a Bronze Star for heroism in ground combat. His love of his country was boundless. His service-oriented nature was endless. His love of people – infinite.

Ben was the VP of Sales, and when my name slipped into the tiny rectangular box at the bottom of Ben’s org chart – Outside Sales Rep – his love found an outlet in me. For three years, our twenty-year age difference was the only thing that separated us. At the end of our sales day, Ben would walk me through the engineering cubicles and out to the manufacturing floor, educating me on how our different business functions came together to create world-class products. At the end of each quarter, he would show me how our revenue and costs cascaded through our income statement to generate profit.

Our business relationship blossomed into an enduring friendship. On weekends, if we weren’t playing tennis at sunrise, we were crisscrossing the state, searching for rainbow trout in hard-to-reach streams. During the dead zone of our long drives, Ben would tell war stories of combat, conflict, and teamwork – case studies in human nature from which we can learn – he would say. Every few months, he’d drop a book on my chair – sometimes business-related, more often personal – offering subjects that expanded my worldview. I soaked them up.

My time with Ben was like earning a personal MBA wrapped with his worldly wisdom.

Ben’s greatest gift was teaching me to get inside the world of others. “Young James,” Ben would say, “Our job is not to sell potential customers our product. Our job is to discover what problem they are trying to solve and determine if we can help solve it for them. We do this by becoming skilled at asking questions and becoming masterful at listening.” 

When I’d return from prospective customer visits, Ben would always ask, “What were your three best questions?” After telling him, Ben would offer suggestions for turning good questions into better questions and better questions into high-quality ones.

Then he’d ask what I’d heard. Not what the customer said but perceptions I’d gleaned – from body language, wayward glances, or conversation pauses. “Masterful listening,” Ben would say, “is being able to hear and feel what isn’t expressed through words.”

In Ben’s sales organization, our only quota was high-quality questions and masterful listening.

Ben’s love, wisdom, and unique quota-setting philosophy went on to a permanent home at UPS corporate headquarters until his retirement. I left UPS for another tech company, and though I moved from sales to marketing, asking questions and listening for what wasn’t being said remained an indelible part of my DNA.

For most twenty-somethings not long out of college, problems exist as rent to pay, student loans to service, and cars to buy. Around the corner are more significant aims – a first home, a family to feed, children’s education to save for, and vacations to afford. As I forged my path, cultural norms in the form of traditional questions – how can I get ahead, advance my career, and make more money – became my focus. 

Increasing my income was the solution, so I set my sights on increased responsibility and bigger titles. I coveted promotions and contorted myself to secure them. I fashioned my identity by advancing and achieving. I measured success in ½ inch increments – moving my name into rectangular boxes higher up the org chart. On some days, when I misplaced my humility, I’d source my importance from the number of rectangular boxes below me. 

All the while, my ego took delight.

After fifteen years, I was working for my second Fortune 500 company and had made it above the fold on the org chart. I’d achieved a half dozen promotions and no longer needed to budget. And I was exhausted. As I badged into work each day, I found myself manufacturing motivation. 

One day, the ground shifted. An unfamiliar awareness startled me. Alarmed me. “I don’t want my boss's job,” I thought. It happened again – “I’m not having fun anymore.” And again – “I’m so tired of tech.”

Distressing questions followed. “How long do I need to slog away at this job? Is this my legacy? Could I volunteer at the YMCA? Could I coach a team? My God, where would I find the time?” Questions not directed at someone else, but questions being asked of me, by me, for me, from somewhere deep inside me.

It was as if these questions formed as bubbles in my subconscious and floated upward to the surface of my consciousness. At first, I discarded them. Next, I tamped them down. Then, I imposed my will and ignored them. Nothing worked. Their frequency increased. I’d awaken in the middle of the night – Am I getting ahead? Where exactly is ‘ahead’? What does ‘ahead’ even look like? 

As foam from the bubbles swirled in the eddy of my exhausted mind, I realized that my soul wanted in on the action. It desired my attention. It hoped I would ask it questions. It wanted me to listen to what it had to say. 

And so began a new and courageous conversation with myself. I initiated the internal dialogue by returning to Ben’s wisdom. I thought, “What are three high-quality questions I can ask my soul?” 

In the subsequent weeks, dozens of questions surfaced – many good, some better. Three high-quality ones stood out:

How do I wish to spend myself? (Not spend my time. Not spend my money. Instead, spend my self.)

What future can only be authored by me?

What must be present for me to feel fulfilled?

The mere presence of these questions, my quintessential questions as I would call them, caused me to recognize that the rectangular boxes I’d been aspiring to – sitting ever so regally near the top of the org chart – were too small for me. The titles, my perception of their importance, and the money, didn’t feed my soul.

My soul contemplated the questions, sending new bubbles to the surface with answers. As my listening got better and my hearing improved, clarity emerged. My soul told me to find a vocation where I could serve people directly. It told me I would be happiest bringing meaning to the lives of others – one person at a time. And my soul told me to create outlets to share my unique perspectives¹ with others. 

For the next several years, I unmade my life to remake my life. I walked my way down the org chart and then leapt off it when I started a business to serve people and bring meaning to their lives. I relocated to a new city where my soul felt at home and ended a relationship that had run its course. I found a soulmate and created a family. I sometimes felt scared - not knowing how these new headings would play out. Yet, when I’d check in with my soul, it would float a bubble upward and tell me we were on the right track.

A few years back, 2 ½ decades after the universe connected us, Ben called. We hadn’t talked in several years, even though we exchanged seasonal warmth by way of Christmas cards. When two question-askers connect, it can be awkward as questions collide. We fell into a rhythm – Ben going first – catching me up on his family, especially his four grandsons. I could sense his affection in the pauses between the words. I caught him up on my family, my new vocation, and the clients I was privileged to serve. From there, we moved into recent fishing escapades.

As our conversation wound down, it was as if muscle memory kicked in. “Ben, what are the three best questions you’re asking yourself these days?” I inquired. 

Ben pondered his answer while I listened to the silence.

He replied, “Not-So-Young-James, my kidneys are starting to fail. I don’t have as much energy as I used to. My days are filled with reflection, so I dwell on relationships and feel immense gratitude. My three best questions are:

For what am I grateful? To whom am I grateful? Am I expressing my gratitude?”

Ben continued, “When I reflect on my life, it was a privilege to serve my country. It was even more of a privilege to serve with remarkable men. I’m grateful for the opportunities UPS gave me, yet I’m even more grateful for the people I worked with. I loved the cities Charmaine and I lived in, along with the comfortable houses, but I most relish the backyard barbecues with close friends and my children and grandchildren. Not-So-Young-James, I’m grateful for those fish we caught – they were beauties – but I’m even more grateful for our belly laughs, camaraderie, and companionship. I consider you my son and love you like my daughters.”

It was beautiful.

I realized after we hung up that Ben called that day to express his gratitude. It was like he was waiting for me to ask him for his three best questions – knowing deep down that I would – just like he’d modeled to me – so that he could share his appreciation. ❤️

It was our last conversation. Ben passed away less than a year later.

When it comes to living a meaningful life, my only quota is asking my soul quintessential questions, listening masterfully for the answers, and expressing gratitude.

In honor of Ben, I leave you with three questions:

What is a quintessential question you could ask your soul?

If you listen masterfully, what are the bubbles from your soul saying to you?

Returning to the person you brought to mind at the beginning, have you expressed your gratitude to them? (If not, perhaps forward this email to them with a note of appreciation.)

In the words of the German theologian Meister Eckhart, “If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.”

I hope this piece made you smile, contributed meaning to your life, or touched your heart. Please feel free to comment or give any feedback. I would be grateful if you did.

Thank you to for his feedback and partnership on this essay.

¹During the years of unmaking and remaking my life, I participated in a personal development course in which I named my soul. The name of my soul is Perspective.
One of its outlets is this blog.

The Sea of Galilee is a lush oasis in the heart of northern Israel. Formed from the north by the River Jordan and fed internally by natural springs, it is only thirteen miles long and seven miles wide. Despite its size, it is grand in stature and teems with life. Twenty species of fish thrive on its rich nutrients. Groves of olive trees line the shore, offering coveted shade in addition to their harvest. Sparrows soar overhead while nightingales offer a concert with their unique and varied song. Pink cyclamens fill the air with a sweet fragrance.

It’s no wonder the Sea of Galilee was the center of action and the locus of miracles in biblical times.

At the southern tip, the Sea of Galilee returns to the River Jordan, and the Jordan travels sixty-five miles before terminating into the Dead Sea. Unlike its life-giving neighbor to the north, the Dead Sea is four times bigger but is lifeless. Not one fish. Barely a tree. No vegetation. Only an occasional wayward bird surveys the emptiness.

The same nutrient-rich river feeds both seas. Only sixty-five miles separate them. How could one be so full of life while the other so desolate?

The answer is flow. Inflow and outflow. Giving and receiving. Entering and exiting.

The Sea of Galilee receives from the River Jordan and its natural springs, then gives all of itself back into the River Jordan. In between, it gives by sharing itself – into the gills of fish, into the roots of plants, as nourishment for nearby crops. It even provides a cool respite for beachgoers. The Sea of Galilee starts with nothing and ends with nothing, yet because it gives and receives — because it flows — it has been a life source for over two thousand years.

The Dead Sea does not give. It only receives. It has no way to cleanse itself, and with no outflow, the nutrient-rich water can only evaporate and leave its impurities behind. The result is a mineral-laden body of water – ten times saltier than the ocean — that loses three feet each year. The Dead Sea cannot sustain life and cannot even hold on to itself.

If we wish to be a source of life, a center for action, or maybe even the locus of a miracle, the essential question is: how can we flow like the Sea of Galilee?

Fifteen years ago, I confronted this very question.

***

I was engaged and planning an intimate ceremony on a secluded beach in Hawaii – just my fiancée Karen and me. Leading up to our day on the sand, I felt nervous. On better days, my apprehension felt like butterflies, the kind I would feel on the first tee of a golf tournament. On worse days, my anxiousness was full of dread, like when I stared at a college exam and hardly knew an answer.

On the eve of our departure, my anxiety gave way to panic. I called it off – wounding Karen’s heart while numbing my own.

“I hope you can figure yourself out,” Karen said. “I don’t know how long it will take, and I’m not sure how long I can wait,” she added, looking at me, searching in vain for a sign that wasn’t there.

I was disoriented. Bewildered. Confused. And I loved Karen so much.

In a move only George Costanza might understand, and one I still don’t, I retreated to my childhood home and then inside myself. I holed up. Ashamed, I cut myself off from friends and acquaintances while keeping up my work as best I could. When I wasn’t at therapy, I was digging into self-help books. I beat myself up for being forty-two and sleeping in the same twin bed I did when I was fourteen. And I held myself hostage for not being who I should be and what I wanted to be.

Days turned into weeks, weeks to months. I spent the time excavating myself, looking for answers. It felt like assembling three one-thousand-piece jigsaw puzzles with the pieces mixed together.  

One day, while getting nowhere, the universe brought me the parable of the two seas of Palestine.   

I read it.

I reread it.

“Which sea am I?” I wondered, even though I already knew.

I recognized that I was personifying the Dead Sea. By retreating, cutting myself off from the outside world, and telling myself that I needed to figure things out before putting myself back out there, I was diminishing the flow of giving and receiving. Worse still, beating myself up and being overly critical was making me bitter. Salty.

I was evaporating. Slowly. Steadily. Invisibly.  

The recognition I was the Dead Sea stung. But the sting saved me. I vowed to reorient myself to the Sea of Galilee. I closed my eyes and asked, “How do I start?”

Galilee answered, “Start by giving, and first, give to yourself.”

I gave myself space to be exactly where I was, telling myself it was OK. I gave myself compassion, telling myself I was worthy, no matter what, no matter the circumstance. I gave myself love, loving myself for all I was and still wasn’t.

Then I received my compassion and self-love, even though they ran counter to the story of unworthiness in my head.

This simple and essential giving and receiving brought me back to life. I felt lighter. An ember of joy sparked within. I felt like I was running downhill. With a tailwind.

From there, I extended myself outward. I reconnected with friends, not to lament my circumstance, but to give by listening and occupying their lives. Adding the water of lives outside of my own made me feel bigger. Less salty.

As I began to consider reconnecting with Karen, I discovered a deeper aspect of giving I hadn’t yet recognized – that giving my life to our marriage was being held back by wanting to “know the future.” (Looking back, I chuckle ❤️)

The source of my anxiety came from the fear and worry of “not knowing.” Not knowing how we would parent together—not knowing how we would resolve differences—not knowing how our past lives would integrate with our future life together.

This deeper dimension of giving asked me for greater trust. For deeper faith. To surrender to not-knowing.

When I reached out to Karen, I discovered that receiving is also an act of giving. How often are we offered something only to reject it? Or deflect someone’s giving because we feel undeserving? What if the Sea of Galilee told the River Jordan, “I feel so bad about taking so much from you. I don’t deserve all that you’re offering.”

These feelings washed over me when I saw Karen for the first time after calling off our wedding.

After three months, she was still there. Waiting. Open. Holding out magnificent gifts of patience and understanding instead of resentment and judgment. Miraculous gifts.

She offered them. I felt I didn’t deserve them.

Karen told me that by receiving her gifts of patience and understanding, I would give to her by accepting them. She went on to say that if I fully received her gifts, they would become part of me and that I, in turn, would give them away to others as if they were my own, just as the Sea of Galilee gives away what it receives from the River Jordan, into the roots of plants, into the gills of fish.

Today, when people compliment me on my patience and understanding, I smile and call up gratitude for the River Karen, who kept giving to me without my knowledge — and for just long enough for me to “figure myself out.”

***

Little does the Sea of Galilee know that halfway around the world, its life-giving nature contributed to a marriage and helped to create a family. That’s how it is with giving and receiving – the flow is infinite, and the downstream effects can span lifetimes.

Five months after starting my journey from the Dead Sea to the Sea of Galilee, Karen and I said, “I do,” with sand between our toes and love flowing between our hearts.

I hope this piece brought a smile to your face or touched your heart. Please feel free to share this with others or leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you.

Share

Special thanks to at The Intronaut, at Pitching a Tent without Poles, and at Pivot to the Podium for the flow of their unique insights into this essay.

And to for your continuous inspiration and remarkable essay on Giving in your book Consolations.

Subscribe now

---------------^---------------

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, “My son, the battle is between two “wolves” inside us all.

One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, doubt, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, forgiveness, truth, compassion, and faith.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: “Which wolf wins?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

---------------^--------------

Dear Aly and Bella,

Remember the movie The Karate Kid?

I have a dear friend, Ron, who is like Mr. Miyagi. Japanese. Calm. Wise. Peaceful. The old sage you would find on the peak of a mountain capable of answering your most longing question. He’d answer your question with another question,  just the right one – that would lead you to your answer. That’s Ron.

Twenty years ago, long before your souls were gifted to Mom and me, Ron and I took part in a personal development retreat and found ourselves in a conversation about love. Ron told a moving story about his grandma and her unconditional love. I still remember it as if it were yesterday.

As a young child, about the age of ten, Ron and his cousins would pick strawberries in the fields near their home. On Saturday mornings, Ron’s aunts and his grandma would prepare a breakfast banquet for their extended family. Eggs, bacon, waffles with strawberry syrup, fresh strawberry jam, and best of all – buttered toast – Ron’s favorite.

Reflecting on this family ritual almost fifty years later, what Ron remembered most wasn’t the occasional berry fights, the food flavors, or the camaraderie of the family gatherings. What Ron remembered most vividly was how his grandma buttered the toast.

Why a ten-year-old would watch Grandma butter toast remains a mystery to Ron. But he did watch, and he was taken by it. Mesmerized by it. Later in life, moved by it.

Grandma wouldn’t just spread the butter here and there – well enough to get breakfast on the table – or well enough for the hungry mouths of Ron and his peeps to devour a piece in four or five bites. Instead, with an artist's discipline and careful touch, Ron’s grandma would slide a warm knife into the butter, start spreading at the center, and work outward to the edges. Slowly. Tenderly. Patiently. Meticulously ensuring no area was left uncovered, and there were no unwanted dollops.

The same precise process. Over and over. Slice after slice. Dozens of perfectly buttered pieces stacked eight-high, with diagonal creases.

To Ron, it was unconditional love in action.

It is said that how you do anything is how you do everything. It is also true that how you love anything is how you love everything – a piece of toast, your children, your grandchildren.

***

Aly and Bella, one day, a few years back, in the kitchen of our old house with the big magnolia on 10^th Street, you started your day with a royal argument. You were ten at the time. I recall you both wanted to wear the same shirt to school. Back and forth you went about whose turn it was. True to form, Bella, you escalated with force – pushing and elbowing your sister. Aly you retaliated with your sharp tongue to get under Bella’s skin.

Standing about ten feet from ground zero of your fight, I was preparing your breakfast and packing your lunches. I raised my voice to get you to stop. It didn’t work. Your egos kept up the tug of war, and the standoff continued. Irritated, I threatened to withhold something of value to you – I can’t recall what – and that didn’t work either.

I got madder.

Then your toast popped up.

Bella, within an instant, you yelled, “I’ll take peanut butter!”

Over the top of Bella, Aly, you yelled, “I’ll take cinnamon!”

Our typical daily routine: same packed lunches, same toast.

Today: same shirt! Different toast?

Really?

You should be more grateful, I thought. You have about thirty shirts to pick from. And why could you tell each other “I love you” before falling asleep every night and then wake up most days and pick on each other?

I felt even more irritated. I was about to throw your toast in the sink. And then…

I remembered Ron’s grandma.

Her love. Her devoted service to others – buttering toast and asking for nothing in return. Did she have mornings where she got irritated and fed up with others? Or wished to be somewhere else than preparing the buffet?

Even with the presence of Ron’s grandma, I still didn’t want to spread my love to the edges of your toast.

Or did I?

The two wolves inside of me were locked eye to eye.

I saw the bad wolf smirking; head tilted toward the sink – raising an eyebrow – tempting me to give over to the anger. To drop the toast.

I saw the good wolf smiling warmly, head leaning toward the cinnamon and sugar – signaling that my deft touch could indeed paint to the crust with sweet love.

Neither Ron nor I will ever know how his grandma did it week in, week out. But at that moment, in our old kitchen on 10^th Street with the big magnolia in the front yard, because of Ron’s grandma, I recognized that I had a choice – to give over to my anger and feed the bad wolf. Or nod to it, acknowledge it, and not feed it while re-orienting to the kindness and generosity inherent in the good wolf.

“The one you feed.” - replied the old Cherokee.

Starting with the center and working outward, I spread butter, sprinkled cinnamon & sugar, and then spread peanut butter – all the way to the edges. 

Little did Ron’s grandma know fifty years ago, or would Ron know in his childhood, or would Ron suspect when relating the buttered toast story to me, or would I know when I heard the story before you were born, that Ron’s grandma and her unconditional love would visit us in our kitchen that morning?

***

Bellz and Deedz (I love calling you by your nicknames), the two wolves are always present in us. At your innocent age, you might think you can starve the Evil wolf to death. You can’t. He’ll always be in you. He’ll always be in me too.

People die. Memories fade. But love? Love doesn’t die. It endures by nourishing our Good wolves. We do this ongoingly with our thoughts, with our attention, with our energy, and with our actions.

So I leave you with this: What is the toast you can butter with your love today? ❤️

I love you more today than all other days combined.

Dad.

***

I hope this piece brought a smile to your face, meaning to your life, or touched your heart. Please feel free to share with others, offer a comment, or ❤️ at the bottom.

Share

Subscribe now

Thank you, Haley Brengartner at Insane In The Membrane, John Nicholas at Creator’s Corner, and Drake Green at Green’s Thoughts, for your contributions and superb editing help.

The ball rolled down the hill and into Rae’s Creek.

Tiger stared.

***

Augusta National

Host of The Masters, Augusta National is the most recognized golf course in the world. The Green Jacket, presented to the winner, is the most sought-after prize in professional golf.

Known for its breathtaking beauty, the land on which Augusta sits was once the site of Fruitland Nurseries, a large-scale horticultural operation that specialized in importing trees and plants from all over the world.

When club founders Clifford Roberts and Bobby Jones first set eyes on the property in the mid-1920s Jones remarked, “It seems as though this place has been waiting here for years to be turned into a golf course.”

Today, Augusta National features pine and magnolia trees more than 150 years old and showcases more than 30 varieties of azaleas.

Inside the ropes, Augusta is known for compelling risk/reward choices on almost every hole.

Well-placed tee shots tempt pros to reach par fives in two – where eagle prospects beckon and two-putt birdies await. Generous landing areas on par fours allow for aggressive approach lines to tucked-away pins. The short par threes lure the daring to fire directly at the flag instead of aiming for safety in the middle of the green.

Immense slopes and well-placed water hazards serve as Augusta’s first line of defense. Missed approach shots often retreat fifty yards back into the fairway. Delicate pitch shots can end up further away from the hole if not executed perfectly.

Yet, Augusta’s magnificent greens and enormous bunkers deliver its primary and finest defense. Three-putts lurk everywhere. When pros are asked which hole they are most likely to four-putt, they say, “All of them.”

So severe are the undulations that lag putts are often aimed more than ninety degrees away from the hole to have any chance of getting close. So fast is the speed that during Masters week, pros rent historic homes to practice putting on hardwood floors that break.

At any course not named Augusta, a sought-after birdie gone awry, or a brief lapse in concentration might result in a bogey. At Augusta, the cost is often worse. Far worse.

Which makes for high drama.

Particularly on Sunday.

Especially at Amen Corner.

Amen Corner

In 1958, journalist Herbert Warren Wind coined the phrase Amen Corner to describe holes eleven through thirteen, an intimidating stretch at the far corner of the course.

“If you could make it through holes 11 and 12 with pars, and get off the 13^th tee in fine shape, it was best to say ‘Amen’, count your blessings, and move on.”

Pros don’t even try and make birdie at eleven, playing their approach to a safe area short and right of the green, and then attempting to chip close and save par.   

So terrifying is the approach, Ben Hogan once said, “If I’m on the 11^th green in two shots, you’ll know I missed my second shot.”

The theatre then turns to the short par three 12^th where Rae’s Creek takes its position to protect the front of the green. A long-held certainty at Augusta is if a shot lands short on 12, it will roll down the steep hillside and into the water.

In 2016, cruising to a second straight green jacket, Jordan Spieth knocked not one, but two balls into Rae's Creek and saw a one-shot lead turn into a second-place finish.

In 2019, after going 5-0-0 in the fall Ryder Cup, Francisco Molinari led playing partner Tiger Woods by two. As Tiger looked on, Molinari’s eight-iron came up short. Right on cue, the ball retreated down the hill and into the water.

Molinari made a double bogey.

At age 43, after four back surgeries and five knee surgeries, Tiger won his 15^th major and his fifth Green Jacket.

***

Amen Corner 2020 - The Sequel

After a grueling 78 on Saturday Tiger stepped onto the 12^th tee, three under par and well out of contention. Even without a Green Jacket in his sights, there’s no place Tiger would rather be than competing in the Masters, on Sunday, in the middle of Amen Corner.

Despite what would come next.

Suffering the fate of Molinari a year earlier, Tiger’s eight iron landed short.

The ball rolled down the hill and into Rae’s Creek.

Tiger stared. In a way only Tiger can.  

Playing from the drop area, Tiger’s next shot landed on the green, spun backward, caught the slope, and rolled down the hill and into the water.

Two balls wet. Two penalty strokes.

Tiger’s fifth shot flew the green and settled into a bunker.

He thinned his next and watched as his ball flew back over the green and hopped into the water.

Four shots. Three penalty strokes. Tiger still wasn’t putting.

Tiger blasted his eighth shot onto the green and two-putted for a 10.

A septuple bogey – his highest score on a hole. Ever.

Man does not simply exist, but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become in the next moment. - Viktor Frankl

Walking off the 12^th green, Tiger faced a choice.

He could call it a day and head to the clubhouse – a choice weekend golfers might make.

He could continue, but mentally pack it in, simply go through the motions on the final six holes.

He could continue, remain committed to his process, and approach each shot as he has thousands of times - as if he still had a chance to slip on another Green Jacket.   

Tiger chose the latter.

Standing over his ball on the 13^th tee, he drew the club back and laced his shot down the middle.

Whether he said “amen” we’ll never know.

What we do know is that Tiger’s next ninety minutes of golf was a sight to behold.

The very same process that yielded a septuple bogey just a short time before resulted in a near-perfect finish.

Birdie. Par. Birdie. Birdie. Birdie. Birdie.

Six holes. Five birdies. Twenty shots.

Watch the highlights here

***

Process and Presence

There is a lot to learn from Tiger Woods. And there is a lot not to learn from Tiger Woods. As is the case with all of us.

The primary lesson from Tiger’s back nine on this particular Sunday is the importance of process and presence.

Golfers cannot escape vulnerability. With clubhead speeds topping 100 miles per hour, every time a golfer draws the club back, they open themselves up to a wide range of outcomes – positive and negative. Spectacular and dreadful.

The litany of balls in the water at Amen Corner offers only a glimpse at how vulnerability nips at the nerves of the best in the world.

Elite golfers use process to counteract vulnerability. It is the bedrock of their being. They hone it, refine it, and adhere to it through thick and thin. Jack Nicklaus once said, “Professional golf is 90% process and 10% execution.”

Check the wind. Visualize the shot. Select the club. Pick a target. Go through the pre-shot routine. Initiate the swing.

Commit to the process. Surrender to the outcome. Leave the last shot behind and the future shots ahead. Be fully present.

Process and presence beget birdies. Making birdies is how professional golfers earn their living.

Successful investing is a lot like golf.

While investors don’t buy securities at 100 miles per hour, they are still vulnerable. Market drops are sudden and rapid. Inflation threatens to erode purchasing power. And the press traffics in gloom and doom.

However, over time process and presence beget positive returns, paving the path to retirement.  

Process excellence is part strategic: Define goals. Choose the investment mix. Diversify broadly. Keep costs low. Avoid unnecessary tax friction. Rebalance. Remain patient. Revisit when warranted.

Process excellence is also part tactical: Ignore the news media. Remain invested. Disregard short-term outcomes. Remain invested. Don’t follow the crowd. Remain invested. Eschew investments du jour. Remain invested.

So simple, yet so hard. Our human brains are wired to seek safety.

Imagine if Tiger Woods was the stock market. Investor selling would have started when the first ball touched the water, accelerated on the second splash, and turned into a deluge by the time his sixth shot got wet.

Some investors may have had the fortitude to start buying when Tiger finally tapped in on twelve or stepped onto the 13^th tee, but the vast majority would have stood on the sidelines and missed out on the unexpected bull market in birdies that came next.

If Tiger was indeed the stock market, the strategic process would ensure initial ownership, while the tactical process would assure continued ownership.

It is through continued ownership that patient investors earn the long-term returns they are entitled to.

Want to be an elite investor?

Master your process and stay present.

Amen.

***