Marcus Padley THIS MONTH
Marcus Padley is the author of the daily
stock market newsletter Marcus Today. For
a free trial of the Marcus Today newsletter,
go to marcustoday.com.au.Time that’s truly precious
What do you say when the kids ask about the best investment in the world?
I
have four kids. Three are now driving,
which means that in the past five years
we have gone from a ratio of two taxi
drivers being taken for granted by four
passengers to five taxi drivers and one pas-
senger. While that has been a huge burden
off our taxi-driving duties, it is also sad
because I have lost this precious time in the
“cone of the car” with my three eldest.
Taxi driving your kids a couple of nights
a week, picking them up from sports or
dropping them off at parties was never
a burden for me. I saw it as a priceless
opportunity to talk to them about life anda
golden moment to pass on values and expe-
riences and deliver some small parental
legacy, to bond one on one.
It’s a subtle art talking to kids. It’s not
about telling them what to do; it’s about
telling them stories about my life, my
regrets, my mistakes, my glories, my
history and how their dad felt about
all sorts of events and life issues. It
wasn’t about passing out instructions;
it was about passing on some modest
wisdom and values they could choose
to accept, reject, adopt or improve on.
It’s the best any parent can do – talk –
and the taxi is a great place to do it. We
have covered a lot of subjects over the
years, from leadership to investment, and
I only once had to lock the doors to stop
the girls jumping out. I can’t tell you about
that one, but you might be interested in the
answer to the question, “Dad, should I be
investing in anything yet?”
This is my version of investment for kids.
There are a lot of investments you can
make in your life, darling, and you have
some choices to make even now, so let’s
start at the beginning.
The best long-term investment you will
ever make, and possibly the lowest-risk
investment, is in yourself. While every-
one in the sharemarket talks about return
on equity, the return on equity of time
invested in yourself, your education, yourthinking processes, is light years ahead of
anything else.
You should also know that the most lim-
iting factor on your brain’s development is
that its input devices, the eyes and ears, are
terribly slow. So while you can download
a terabyte of information to a hard drive
in seconds, to transfer the same amount of
information into the brain via the eyes and
ears would take years.What a choice: to spend your time
accessing the ideas of Darwin, Einstein,
Aristotle, Newton through the written
word or the wisdom of some of the best
brains in the world through TED talks;
or watching The Voice, Love Island or
Bachelor in Paradise. It’s your call, but
understand that it is a very slow process
and there is more information than there
is time, so everything you do take in is
absorbing the time you could have spent
downloading something else.
The other tremendous investment is in
the people in front of you. Every person
who crosses your path could end up being
your best friend for life, the maid of hon-
our at your wedding, sharing your highest
highs, helping you in your lowest lows,
sobbing at your funeral or you at theirs.
So take the chance, stick your hand
out and say “hello”, catch their name,
remember it and keep using it. Invest in
people. Everyone you meet could change
your life – that person you don’t know
might be standing next to you one day at
your wedding. You never know, so seize the
moment, because it may never come again
and after it’s gone you’ll never know.
On that front, I met my second wife of
25 years in an Austrian ski resort two years
before I married my first wife. She served
me at a bar. I remember telling my mates
that there was a cute Australian behind
the bar and I remember her smiling at us
as we talked about her. If only I had stuck
my hand out and said “hello”. It would have
saved me five years and millions of dollars!
“But what about shares and property
and all that stuff?” my kids asked. “Funny,”
I said, “My best investments have had
nothing to do with money and the best
are sitting right next to me”.You don’t have a USB port in your skull.
With such a slow transfer mechanism, you
have to train your eyes and ears to down-
load as efficiently as possible and be selec-
tive about what you bother downloading.
On that basis, the best investment is
almost certainly in other people’s wisdom.
Sure, you can probably muddle through life
relying on friends, family and Facebook for
your values and ideas, but you will learn
the most from the most skilled thinkers.
One of the most incredible gifts in the
world is that literature, and now the inter-
net and high-class video content, allow you
to converse with the finest minds of past
centuries. TED talks are a start.Marcus and
son Archie