Some things you need to know to “get” what we’ll be doing.
My goals in creating Working Profit.
First, I will continue writing, which I love so very much.
Second, try and help people live a more enjoyable, pleasant life by offering the advice I have learned over decades of experience. I often say I don’t make the rules of life but I do know what they are.
Third, to expose bias when I see it, because you and I are played much more often than we realize. It warps our view of the world and therefore, our happiness.
And eventually to turn a profit (working of course) and expand into publishing.
I spent 45 years at Morgan Stanley as first, a Financial Advisor and for the last 25 years, a Portfolio Manager. I was a Managing Director but also a senior partner in a 45-person advisory and money management team and enjoyed national recognition for our work. I had a terrific career and loved (and still love) my firm. I am now separated from Morgan Stanley and Working Profit is my own devise and has no attachment, endorsement or affiliation with my former firm.
I retired in 2025. I will not be offering ideas on specific investments but will offer general commentary on how events affect the behavior of investors. For most of my career, I wrote a daily advice commentary to employees at the firm interested in what I had to say. And along the way mentored many advisors. People seemed to find value in my work and so, I was encouraged to continue to write.
OK, so what you need to know is that I’m a Polymath:
“A polymath is an individual whose knowledge spans many different subjects, known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific problems. Polymaths often prefer a specific context in which to explain their knowledge, but some are gifted at explaining abstractly and creatively.” – Wikipedia
What about my life experiences that lend itself to this? As an example, I catalog all the books I read for fun, and over the past 10 years have read 230 of them, roughly two per month. All kinds of books.
My undergraduate degree is in English Literature from the University of Rochester, and I wrote four books on investment and finance (published by Penguin, Prentice Hall).
I began college on a full scholarship to the Eastman School of Music as a tuba player, training as a classical musician.
That is, I am a consumer of the arts.
I have taught at both the high school and college level (English in high school and Finance at the collegiate level).
I eventually completed an MBA in my spare time when I was fifty.
I am a member of Mensa. My IQ expresses itself in my ability to take disparate concepts and find the lessons and conclusions that are embedded in them, but not easy to see at first blush.
High IQ is a complicated subject and having it has many advantages and disadvantages and we’ll get into all of that. With some thoughts about how you might identify children in your families who should be tested.
I have participated in many sports including mountain climbing, scuba diving, driving fast cars on race tracks as well as the usual country club avocations…golf, tennis and so forth. I played ice hockey until I was 37 and quit when the ER doctor leaned over me and said, “Aren’t you getting a bit old for this?”
I am a happy person and feel that life has been as good to me as one could reasonably hope. I have had my setbacks and sorrows (don’t we all) but I have emerged from them without anger and with a sense of humor, starting with laughing at myself. But life has taught me a lot of things including how to manage those sorrows and problems and challenges and I hope to give you some of that.
Now here is a critical point. Humor is an exaggeration of some truth. But as you know, some people can’t laugh at themselves. And this seems to be getting worse, not better. They are prickly, irritated, and ready to lash out. I don’t think you can be happy without a sense of humor, and I don’t think you can have a good one unless you start by laughing at yourself.
It is fair to let you know my own preferences in full disclosure. Because once you know from whence my thoughts come, you can then dismiss them, weigh them heavily or not and judge whether they’re fair.
I am a life registered Libertarian, in favor of smaller government and free markets. In favor of people being left alone to live their lives unmolested by the government as long as they do not hurt other people. So, you are free to own a chemical company, but you are not free to pollute the river because that hurts other people. We are entitled to free speech but not unlimited speech…you cannot yell ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theatre…the traditional definition.
As such, my politics are not exclusively Right nor Left. They are both. I tend to lean Left in social matters, I tend to lean Right in financial matters. Good to know because if I praise a Republican or praise a Democrat, it is not that I’m speaking to my political party, it’s just they are doing something right. I hope you come to see me as a fair observer, even with my small government bias. You hardly need another rabid partisan in your media consumption menu.
In social matters, live in whatever way makes you happy, as long as you don’t hurt other people or inflict yourself on them, which in turn lessens their own happiness. I do not care whom you love, whom you have chosen to spend your life with and to whom you have given your heart. We’re all human, all of us in the end just want to be loved. Real love makes us happy.
If you make a mess, clean it up, do not burden everyone else with it. Have compassion, but do not take advantage of other people’s compassion…do your share to move us all forward. And try to be nice to people and the animals and the world. It is just the right way to live.
I divide my time between the Smoky Mountains in Western North Carolina and the Atlantic Coast in Florida. After 50 years working in finance, I’ve got some money in my checking account and don’t really lack anything, in the material sense. So, I do not generally fall prey to envy. I like to see other people do well. I most assuredly guard against becoming that cranky old man with that sour disposition and a groaning, complaining personality. I do not want to be him. Nor the braggart. No one finds that attractive. But all this background is just who I am, nothing more or less. We all have our story to tell.
A reasonable grounding so you can have context for what I will be sending along to you. You will not enjoy everything I write; you’ll find some humor sophomoric and silly (even as I will think it’s funny).
You will not agree with all the political and social commentary but that is expected. If you feel I am not playing you or manipulating…that would be important to me.
We will begin publishing randomly, beginning in a couple of weeks. Kate and Rylie are building out the website. After that, we will begin to adjust content and frequency as we go.
Thanks for stopping by. I am flattered and committed to making this an experience you’ll want to tell your friends about.
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