I love this reminder from Russ Roberts in his book Wild Problems:
Instead of savoring your conversational brilliance, savor the experience of interacting with another human being. See what happens without expectation during that encounter and without a plan to steer it in particular directions. Give your conversational partner your fullest attention without thinking of what you’re going to say next.
Now if only I could remember it’s not about my conversational brilliance!
During my college years and after, I worked in the downtown San Francisco financial district. It was a busy place with lots of folks commuting into town.
One of my favorite places during those years (1970-1974) was Stacey’s Bookstore on Market Street. It was such a wonderful bookstore – deep in technical books, an upstairs and a downstairs area, and a great staff who was welcoming and helpful.
Unfortunately, Stacey’s eventually closed – wrapping things up in 2009. Stacey’s was independent, not part of any of the larger bookstore chains. It became one of many independent bookstores that closed during that era – a combination of the effects of Amazon and the larger chains with their bookstores located in suburban shopping malls. It seems like we may be through that “bookstore winter” as we’ve got a couple of thriving local independent bookstores and there seem to me many more now around the country.
I’m not sure what brought Stacey’s into my mind this morning – one of those fleeting thoughts that managed to stick. But those are good memories – a place where I enjoyed endless browsing and made many purchases of business and technical/computer-related books over the years.
Here’s a good article on the final chapter for Stacey’s.
One of my favorite podcasts is William Green’s Richer, Wiser, Happier podcast on The Investor’s Podcast network. Green’s book came out a couple of years ago and has been one of my favorites. His ability to profile a great group of investors is superb and the book is very enjoyable reading.
On his latest podcast episode he’s interviewing one of my favorite financial writers, Jason Zweig, about his about to be published updated 75th anniversary edition of Benjamin Graham’s The Intelligent Investor. The book comes out on Tuesday. For many years Zweig has written The Intelligent Investor column in the Wall Street Journal – one of my favorite reads every Friday morning.
Late in this podcast conversation there’s the following exchange between Green and Zweig – two colleagues who have worked together and apart for many years in the arena of financial journalism:
William Green: And you sent me this lovely quote from Philip Roth, the great novelist who both of us love, who said, “Sheer playfulness and deadly seriousness are my closest friends.”
That’s the formula to describe the concoction that energizes virtually any writer worth his or her salt. I thought that was just so interesting that it’s like you somehow want to go about these pursuits, whether it’s writing or investing, with deadly seriousness and at the same time sheer playfulness.
Jason Zweig: Yeah, I mean, I guess one way I have described this now that you mention it is, is that I take my work incredibly seriously, so I don’t take myself seriously at all. And another way to put that is I have ego in my work, and I have no ego for my work. So I, I throw everything I’ve got into it, I leave nothing on the field but when I’m done, if you ask me, it’s great, right? I’ll say probably not. It’s probably, it’s probably somewhere between terrible and okay. And I’m not really faking it either.
That’s such a great way to approach life – being serious about your work (and family and friends, etc) while not taking yourself seriously at all.
Loved hearing Zweig talk about this on this podcast! And I’m really looking forward to reading his updated commentaries in the new edition of The Intelligent Investor.
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