The Best Book I've Read This Year
By Tom Dyson
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Last Friday, I spent all day in Jacksonville, Florida, researching a new and exciting trip I'm planning (I'll be hopping back on the rails)...
On Saturday, I put my wife on a surfboard for the first time in her life...
Then on Sunday, my father and I discussed routes for a bike ride across America...
I'm feeling inspired. It's this new book I'm reading: The Secret of Shelter Island by Alex Green. It's sort of a collection of fables for the 21st century. They show you how to lead a fulfilling and wealthy life...
Take the story of Randy Pausch as an example. He was a professor at Carnegie Mellon University when he was diagnosed with incurable cancer. He was 46 years old, married, and the father of three young children.
With less than six months left to live, Randy Pausch gave his last lecture to the students. He titled the talk "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams" and recorded it on film for his children. It was one of the most popular videos on YouTube last year. It has more than 10 million views total.
I watched the video. I expected to find a downcast, unwell man preparing for death. Instead, I found a man that was so full of life, he was almost bouncing off the walls. "I'm dying and I'm still having fun," he says.
Randy Pausch lost his battle with cancer last summer. The lesson is, you can't control life, so you might as well make the most of the situation, no matter how bad it may be.
Or what about the story of Epictetus? Epictetus was born into slavery on the fringes of the Roman Empire. He was crippled and lived in a small hut with no belongings.
Epictetus was an exponent of personal freedom and the Stoic philosophy. He rose to become one of the most prominent philosophers of his day. People came from all over the empire to hear him speak, including Marcus Aurelius, a future ruler of the Roman Empire.
Shelter Island is full of interesting characters like Randy Pausch and Epictetus. The book has 68 chapters. Each chapter contains one simple idea, delivered with a story.
The irony is, the secrets to living a prosperous and fulfilling life are not really secrets at all. We know them all already... self-discipline, generosity, charity, patience, virtue, etc. The Greeks knew them. The Romans knew them. And hundreds of others have documented these lessons since.
What's so useful about The Secret of Shelter Island is you can find all the secrets in one place, so you can learn the lessons of the Stoics or Paul Getty or Charles Darwin without having to plough through dozens of books. Alex Green has sorted the philosophical wheat from the chaff, in other words.
This book enlightened me. If you like self-improvement books, or you're in the market for great stories, I highly recommend it.
(Now I just need to figure out how to square the three-month bike ride across America with my employer...)
Good investing,
Tom
P.S. I read dozens of self-help books each year, but The Secret of Shelter Island is now my all-time favorite. I read it once and then I immediately read it again... with a notepad and pencil by my side. |
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AN AMAZING RECOVERY IN THE BOND MARKET
Four months ago, in the midst of panic mode, we encouraged readers to keep their eyes one of our favorite "real world indicators," corporate bonds. Despite all the horrid unemployment and foreclosure news, this indicator was signaling good things.
Here's why it's vital to keep bonds on your watch list: The bond market is many times the size of the stock market. It's a huge marketplace where companies like Johnson & Johnson, IBM, and Verizon go to borrow money. If this market is struggling with sinking prices and defaulted loans, it's time to get super defensive with your portfolio.
We use the big corporate bond fund LQD to monitor bonds. This fund is a diversified basket of bonds issued by America's biggest companies. When things got hairy last fall, LQD plummeted from $96 a share to the low $80s. After a brief rally, the March decline took it down to $90. Now, the fund has recovered to pre-crash highs. It's an amazing recovery.
America still has plenty of problems to work through... Government boondoggles and debt could mean rough times in the coming years. But we have to mind what the market is saying. Right now, it's saying, "I'm doing just fine."
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Greedy bankers are routinely blamed for the credit crisis but one British-based poll of, well, financiers spreads the blame more widely.
Gary Jenkins, Head of Fixed Income Research at Evolution Securities, wanted a more specific scapegoat and ran a poll of about 200 mostly fund managers and investors asking them to pick their credit crisis culprit.
Former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan was the clear winner, picking up 35 percent of the votes. Once considered one of the world's greatest central bankers, he has been widely criticized over the past year for low interest rate policies that helped fuel the credit boom.
– Newsmax
Home prices in 20 major U.S. metropolitan areas fell in April at a slower pace than forecast, a sign the plunge in real-estate values is abating.
The S&P/Case-Shiller home-price index decreased 18.1 percent from a year earlier following an 18.7 percent drop in March. The measure declined 19 percent in January, the most since the data began in 2001.
Over the 12-month period ended in April, declines were most pronounced in Phoenix, which showed a 35 percent drop, Las Vegas followed with a 32 percent decrease, and San Francisco with a 28 percent fall.
About 73 percent of all existing houses and condos sold in the Las Vegas-Paradise area were foreclosures last month, up from 56 percent a year earlier, according to figures from San Diego-based MDA DataQuick. Such sales accounted for 51 percent of all existing-home transactions in California, up from 40 percent a year ago, the research company said last week.
– Bloomberg
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"Why I hate to hear the Star Spangled Banner and refuse to say the pledge"
American war veteran tells a sad story of what's happening in the world.
I remember a time when I would threaten a person for not respecting our flag and loving our country. "Love it or leave it," I used to say; "these colors don’t run" was another one. I loved my country and thought it loved me back. |
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