Teachers.....................

 

     Everyone loves to teach, but rarely do any of us take unsought advice well, and even more rarely are we truly teachable.  Being teachable means being open to learn.  In order to learn, one must listen, and we learn to listen only if we know the most important thing—that we do not know everything, that we do not have "all the answers." . . .

In the long history of spirituality, those recognized as somehow spiritually "great" have consistently been called "Teacher"—they help others to learn, to become teachable.  Spiritual teachers (who are never "experts") do three things:  First and foremost, they listen.  Second, they ask questions.  Third, they tell stories.  Each practice reflects the acceptance of not having all the answers, and each teaches the essential truth of spirituality's open-endedness.

-Kurtz and Ketcham, The Spirituality of Imperfection: Storytelling and the Search for Meaning

Buy the coffee...................

 

It's the cliche that refuses to die: Personal finance nag Suze Orman warned investors that if they "waste money on coffee, it's like peeing $1 million down the drain.

     I disagree.  If the difference between success and failure is the cost of a cup of coffee, you have much bigger financial problems.  A daily $5 latte does not amount to much in the grand scheme of life. . . .

     Here is what really gets me annoyed: Orman tells her audience that "Your Daily Coffee Habit is Costing You $1 Million," with this calculation:   Let's say you spent around $100 on coffee each month.  If you were to put that $100 into a Roth IRA instead, after 40 years the money would have grown to around $1 million with a 12% rate of return.

     Nope.  This calculation is nonsense, and worse, it is intellectually dishonest.  The actual real numbers are almost 75% less. . . . So, 12% annual returns for 40 years?  That's 50% better than the markets give you.  I literally have $5 billion for anyone who can get my clients fat 12% returns annually for the next 40 years.

-Barry Ritholtz,  How Not To Invest: The Ideas, Numbers, and Behaviors That Destroy Wealth—And How To Avoid Them

Just say no............................

 

............................................to bad advice.

outsourcing........................

 

     There is an endless torrent of media advice.  It is an overwhelming firehose of speculation and opinion.  Most of it can be safely ignored. . . .

     The bigger issue is not the bad advice, but rather, the outsourcing of your thinking to a third party.  You need to do your own thinking.

-Barry Ritholtz, How Not to Invest

Financial advice................

 This was some good father-son financial advice on Landman:

You got two choices in life: Get really good at balancing a check book or make enough money that you don’t have to.

Most personal finance experts focus on the former while most people would be better off striving for the latter.

-Ben Carlson, from this list

My business partner and I decided a long time ago that one of our goals in business was to be able to out-earn our mistakes.  While it may not be a goal everyone would embrace, it's worked for us—so far.

admit it.............

 

Admitting that "I don't know" at least once a day will make you a better person.

-Kevin Kelly

If you could..........................

...................advise your younger self.  (or your older self for that matter)

From Chris Lynch's..............................

..........................................latest substack:

 Analysis true! Good life advice for avoiding problems and unworthy people...

Coaching.........................

 

     Coaching is the opposite of what we usually do when we need help.  In trying times, our first instinct is to pick up the phone and ask for advice.  We're better off pausing to reflect on the advice we've provided in the past or calling someone in a similar situation and offering them some suggestions.  We should listen to the advice we give to others—it's usually the advice we need to take for ourselves.

-Adam Grant, Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things

On winning and losing................

 Some days I feel like I have a really strong grasp of the situation and somedays everything seems upside-down. And again, I eat, sleep and breathe this stuff. I have global strategists and chief economists from Fidelity, JPMorgan, Vanguard, BlackRock, etc literally on speed dial. It doesn’t matter. If anything, the proximity to all this intel is probably even worse for most people because of how delusional we can become when we think we know something.

-Josh Brown, from here

Three ideas...................................

 ........................from James Clear:

Most of the time you don't need more information, you need more courage.

 Avoiding mistakes is an underrated way to improve. It's easier to fend off a bad day than achieve a perfect day. Rather than do your best, avoid your worst.

Being good at what you do is partially about competence, but not exclusively.  Two other things that matter:   Reliability. You do what you say you're going to do—on time and as expected.   Enthusiasm. You're excited to be here and eager to work on this problem.   Skills matter, but in many cases it's your reliability or attitude that separates you from the pack.

Recommended................................

 

Always be quick to give credit, and to take blame.

To manage yourself use your head, to manage others use your heart.

Don't let your inbox become your to-do list run by others.

Don't ever work for someone you don't want to become.

Experiences are fun, and having influence is rewarding, but only mattering makes us happy.  Do stuff that matters.

Greatness is incompatible with optimizing in the short term.

The greatest teacher is called "doing."

Ah............................

 If you can't tell what you desperately need, it's probably sleep.

-Kevin Kelly, Excellent Advice for Living

consistency.....................

 The consistency of your endeavors (exercise, companionship, work) is more important than the quantity.  Nothing beats small things done every day, which is way more important than what you do occasionally.

-Kevin Kelly, Excellent Advice for Living

Surely you jest......................

 

Stuck...................

 When your are stuck, explain your problem to others.  Often simply laying out a problem will present a solution.  Make "explaining the problem" part of your troubleshooting process.

-Kevin Kelly, Excellent Advice For Living:  Wisdom I Wish I'd Known Earlier

On giving............................

 It is impossible for you to become poor by giving.  It is impossible for you to become wealthy without giving.

-Kevin Kelly, Excellent Advice for Living: Wisdom I Wish I'd Known Earlier

wisdom...................

 Perhaps the most counterintuitive truth of the universe is that the more you give to others, the more you'll get.  Understanding this is the beginning of wisdom.

-Kevin Kelly, Excellent Advice for Living: Wisdom I Wish I'd Known Earlier

Is this a great country or what....................

 CONTRA-INDICATOR: Inverse Jim Cramer ETF outperforming market trackers after just 2 weeks. “In the two weeks since its launch, the ‘Inverse Cramer Tracker’ exchange-traded fund (ETF) has been outperforming the market by allowing investors to short any stock CNBC Mad Money host Jim Cramer recommended buying.”

-via

Advice I won't be taking...........

 It's worth reading a microeconomics textbook from start to finish.

-Naval Ravikant