No One Ever Told Us That: Money and Life Lessons for Young Adults

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

ACTS OF KINDNESS

There are seemingly simple things out there that can improve your business lives. These fall in the category of “you never know.”

I went to a cocktail party some years ago. There were about 100 people there. It was summer: a lot of silk dresses, men in khaki suits, blazers, a few guys in seersucker, lawyers and bankers, money people, and real estate types. One of the guests had just sold his private company to a Fortune 500 giant, setting this guest free, financially, not to continue working if he chose. The news was prominent in the financial press. The guest was not a good friend but a really good acquaintance at the time, and I was honestly so pleased with his news. He was very smart and what I would call “cool”: well turned out, thoughtful, it seemed to me, about life around him. I congratulated him on the news, and he went on about the long process and layers of opinion that went into the sale. He was very interested in the human nature side of the story, the dance of negotiations and the egos involved. Then we drifted away into other conversations, although he asked me what I thought of the current stock market. I mentioned the concept of something I called the “Vulture Fund.”

My father had taught me this idea. When stock markets were depressed and energy shares were particularly out of favor, my dad would buy a package of single-digit oil and gas issues on what was then the American Stock Exchange; two-, three-, and four-dollar stocks are ...