A Few Things: Reversing Aging, How To Get Lucky, Why You Can't Pay Attention, Milken Conference, Charts That Made Me Think
May 6, 2022
I am sharing this weekly email with you because I count you in the group of people I learn from and enjoy being around.
“A man is like a fraction whose numerator is what he is and whose denominator is what he thinks of himself. The larger the denominator, the smaller the fraction.”
- Leo Tolstoy
“A man is about as big as the things that make him angry.”
- Winston Churchill
“All of our miseries are nothing but attachment.”
- Osho
“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.”
- Epicurus
“Be the change you wish to see in the world”
- Gandhi
A. A Few Things Worth Checking Out:
1. Biologist and genetics expert Dr. David Sinclair is out to prove he can live past 100 years old, and he thinks you can too. He was on the Knowledge Project podcast discussing “Reversing the Aging Process”.
He goes in-depth on the process of aging and the techniques you can incorporate into your life that help you live a longer, healthier life, including optimising your diet, the benefits of exercise, the role of a positive attitude, the importance of sleep, the three supplements he takes every day, why it’s never too late to slow the process of aging.
2. Steven Drobny (Clocktower Group) and Paula Volent (CIO Rockefeller University, $2.5bn endowment) spoke about Where The World Is Going on Ted Seides Capital Allocators. They discussed the changing global landscape, geopolitics, China, fintech, Latin America and ESG.
You might have seen him on CNBC or Bloomberg, he’s in the media a lot.
Javier also wrote this book:
4. The average American adult spends over three hours a day staring into their phone. If you’re a teenager it’s even worse – seven hours. What’s really troubling is that in study after study, people say that they want to be looking at their screens less. They just don’t know how. They’ve lost control.
Johann Hari interviewed over 200 of the world’s leading experts on focus and attention for his new book:
What he found was that your attention didn’t collapse. It’s been stolen from you. He was on Bari Weiss Honestly podcast discussing what he found and what we can do about. Really entertaining, useful and memorable episode.
Bottom line: put your devices away, go on a digital fast, switch off all notifications, don’t try to multi-task, read more fiction on paper, get physical activity outdoors without your phone.
5. Can we be luckier?
The science of creating luck seems like an oxymoron. How is it possible to create more of something which is totally random? Dr Busch's lab has spend years looking at the habits and behaviours of people who have lots of luck to distill down how everyone can replicate this in their own lives.
He was on the Modern Wisdom podcast discussing what they learnt. I liked it so much, that I bought his book.
6. The Milken Conference happened in LA this week, here are my three favourite videos:
Russia and Ukraine: What's Next with Khodorkovsky, Mnuchin and Gillian Tett.
Investing Trends in Biotechnology with Belldegrun, Hite and Nelsen.
The Limitless Potential of Web3: A Conversation with Alexis Ohanian
B. Some Charts That Stood Out This Week
A place where I thought more clients would be looking for bargains.
This has been the worst year for bonds in decades, it is so bad that I’m starting to see clients interested in fixed income again.
All the discussions around Roe vs Wade this week and this one surprised me because it is very sad.
“Every problem, every dilemma, every dead end we find ourselves facing in life, only appears unsolvable inside a particular frame or point of view. Enlarge the box, or create another frame around the data, and problems vanish, while new opportunities appear.”
- Benjamin Zander and Rosamund Zander from the Art of Possibility
Have a great weekend.
the change in US maternal mortality is obviously due to a mix factor or some other unexplored phenomenon. It's not "sad," it's just math.