RESOURCES

This classic personal effectiveness book is one of my all-time favorites. I just read it for the third time, and believe everyone should read it at least once per decade. The book examines seven essential habits for personal effectiveness, giving detailed explanations and using real-life stories to illustrate. Dr. Covey did an extensive review of the American literature of self-improvement and found that the earlier literature (the Puritans through the 19th Century) focused more on character, while the twentieth century literature focused more on techniques. There is nothing wrong with learning techniques for success, but only if we start with the foundation of the proper character.

Alternative Investments, or “Alt’s” for short, have being gaining popularity for the last decade or so, and now have been in the headlines for some potential problems, particularly in Private Credit. Let’s take a look at what Alt’s are, and why investors may, or may not want to include them in their portfolio.

Economist and investor John Hussman stated it well, “The defining feature of every bubble is the same: a growing inconsistency between the long-term returns that investors expect in their heads – based on extrapolation of the past, and the long-term returns that properly relate prices to likely future cash flows – based on valuations.

Bloom introduces the concept of the “arrival fallacy” which holds that meeting a goal will bring a lasting sense of satisfaction. He shares his own journey. He was financially successful, but a friend pointed out that since he only saw his parents once a year, he would probably only see them about fifteen more times before they died.

"Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh." Henry David Thoreau