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

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

WHEN YOU'RE FRIGHTENED BY THE NEWS

I had a client, long passed away, a woman I called “The Countess” because she was highly theatrical and seemed like an actress who could have played Catherine the Great. She'd dress expensively and make grand entrances into any room. She lived in Manhattan and had escape places in Cape Cod and Palm Beach. Her husband was a serial entrepreneur who had many ups and downs: very rich for patches of their long marriage, quite broke for different periods. Always confident that he could come back stronger than ever from the bumps.

During one low point, she said to him, “Harry, I'm scared.”

“Where are you most scared?” he answered. “Palm Beach, Cape Cod, or Park Avenue?” She laughed when she told me that story.

For years I have written a quarterly memo to clients and friends: chatty comments about markets, trends, and where we're comfortable (or not) investing their money and our own. One of my themes for a long time has been, “Folks, the news is going to be terrible every day for the rest of your lives. But most of it will have nothing to do with your business or the effects on your own family. If you're in business for yourselves, you're not in a fetal position under the desk because of the headlines. You're doing your best to invent or reinvent yourselves, trying to beat the competition and bringing home a paycheck to feed your families.”

Personal events can devastate us. The loss of people so dear and reversals that take nicks ...