"IN PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS" BY JUDD BIASIOTTO PHD
POWERLIFTING AUGUST: PG. 40
Edited and comments by Tom Dorsey.
I find interesting articles in all kinds of places. Powerlifting Magazine is probably the favorite magazine I take, for obvious reasons. The articles are generally written by or about people who are successful at something. It might be a world class deadlifter or a top trainer, but the all have the same things in common that anyone in the world has who is successful at something. I came across another article in the most recent magazine that made me think of the investment business. Let's get into the article a little.
"When I was growing up my boyhood idol was a guy named Bobby Guzzo. As far as I was concerned, Bobby was the greatest human being to ever walk the face of the world. In fact, if the truth be known, I was totally convinced that Bobby was nothing less than a supreme being - a god if you will. It might be noted that I was seven years old at the time, and Bobby was my next door neighbor. I may have been a little biased, but I don't think so..........."
"What was so special about Bobby? Besides the fact that he was the only kid in my neighborhood who didn't steal my lunch money, he was by far the best athlete I had ever met and one of the most intelligent..... He was literally the Jim Thorpe/Albert Einstein of our neighborhood. What really set Bobby apart was his work ethic."
EDITORS NOTE: I took pause with the comment on work ethic and thought about our business. The bottom line to success in our business is "work ethic". I talk to so many brokers each day that just don't have it. Or brokers, who just don't know what that phrase means. They either were never taught it at an early age or they simply don't intend to ever obtain it.
"It seemed like every minute of the day he was doing something to better himself. When other kids his age were partying, he was working. All the kids in the neighborhood would say, 'Bobby you never have any fun'....... The strange thing was, though,
Bobby was always happy....... He never drank and he never used drugs. His live literally revolved around academics and athletics. Bobby's idea of fun was a book and a barbell.
Still he was always smiling and always in a good frame of mind. By the time he had graduated from college he had won All-American honors three times in the sport of wrestling. He also graduated with honors.
After he exited college he was immediately hired as the head wrestling coach at North Carolina. No one in our neighborhood had ever done anything like that before." "Finally, it dawned on me. Bobby never had much fun, but he was extremely happy.
The point is that there is a major difference between happiness and fun. In fact, I'm convinced now that people who equate happiness with fun have some misguided ideas about the true nature of happiness. The truth is fun and happiness are barely related. Fun is a short term feeling of pleasure that we experience during an event or act. Happiness is a long term feeling of accomplishment and contentment that we experience after an event or act"
EDITORS NOTE: I thought of myself back in the brokerage business in the 70's and what I was seeking was fun. I was looking for that next option trade from $1 to $2 for a 100% gain and to not go home without any business being done that day. Was seeking fun instead of focusing on building my business by prospecting every day, which would eventually have brought happiness along with a long lasting, stable business. I was interested in being the John Wayne o the investment business. Some of you out there are doing it right now, forgoing stability and a long lasting business for a trade today.
Fun vs happiness, an interesting thought.
"Unfortunately, most of us have been deluded into believing that happiness can only be achieved through a fun-filled, pain free life. Consequently, we have become a hedonistic type of society were pleasure is the absolute goal."
EDITORS NOTE :Have we seen this lately in the Newspapers? "As Epicureans, we are only concerned with wine, women, and song. We seek only the enjoyment in life and attempt to avoid it's struggles by indulging in wild parties, new cars, expensive home, everything and anything that we believe will lead us down the path to happiness. As mentioned, through, fun filled activities do little to contribute to our overall happiness, because they are temporary and fleeting.
People continue to cling to the idea that in order to be happy we need to have fun. As a result, we have created a fun filled world for ourselves that has led us to the exact emotion we are trying to avoid - unhappiness. In fact America, the amusement park of the world is filled with unhappiness."
EDITORS NOTE: These things make me think about the crisis of returns we have now in America. Most investors think it's their god given right to a 30% annual return. They all think they have found the key to success in the market and that is simply plunk any amount of money in it and watch it grow. They are spending money at record levels because of the confident feeling that their equity is growing at 30%. It's fun, at least until the first serious correction. At that point the bills come in from the overspending and the equity in their accounts also peeled back and what do you have? Unhappiness. You brokers are experiencing it with the abject shock some clients have that their portfolio's would have the audacity to decline.
"A recent mental health survey revealed that eighty percent of the Americans surveyed said that they were not happy and that life was a real bust. Eighty Percent!.... and one out of every five Americans will require psychiatric help before they reach the age of forty. Sixty million Valium prescriptions are handed out every year in the United States........ Dennis Prager, a renowned author in the field of psychology, has an engaging theory concerning this very issue. He says, 'If fun and pleasure are equated with happiness, then pain must be equated with unhappiness. But, in fact, the opposite is true. More times than not, things that lead to happiness involve some pain.
As a result many people avoid endeavors that are the source of true happiness, because they fear the work and pain.'"
EDITORS NOTE: What is the most painful thing brokers have to do? I think the overwhelming answer would be prospecting. I know, it was the most painful thing I had to do, so I didn't. The most pleasurable thing I did was figure out some complicated option strategy and then find someone who would try it. The result was a very volatile book of business where new clients were taken in to replace ones that got burned. The net was no real happiness as my business did not grow anywhere near my potential as a broker. How many of you forego prospecting because it's painful? The problem is, this is the only way your business will grow long term, and if you will think about it for a second, a great number of you are trying to attain long term stability in your business but you are having short term fun trading back and forth with clients who will never carry you the distance.
Another thing that is painful for brokers and investors is to learn and study logical organized methods of investing in the market. Settling down on one philosophy that is well founded and has stood the test of time is a chore. It's painful. It's much easier to simply take the last recommendation from research or the idea from the cocktail party, than it is to become a craftsman.
"Unfortunately our naivet, prompts us to be more inclined to choose painless fun over painful happiness.
Consequently, few of us are truly happy, because few of us understand that true happiness does not come naturally. You have to work at it.
EDITORS NOTE: True success in this business or any other business does not come naturally, you have to work hard at it. If you have chosen the right field, your work will become fun, and eventually this work will bring you happiness. "........Happiness means getting your hands a little dirty, struggling a little, suffering a little, and working a little. It means taking the responsibility for choosing and defining your own life. Perhaps Leo Rosen in his very special way, says it best: 'Happiness comes only when we push our brains and hearts to the farthest reaches of which we are capable.' I'm sure Bobby Guzzo would tell you the same."
EDITORS NOTE: I want my son Thomas, who is starting out in college next week, to read this article top to bottom. It's time for him to consider the long term prospects of happiness rather than the day to day happiness he seeks with his skateboard. College has a way of shifting gears for you.
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