Some Sunday food for thought. I was inspired by James Altucher's latest comment, Bad Coworkers, Dot-com 2.0 Bubble, The Perfect Day, Handling Overwhelming Work, and MORE. First, let's go over Altucher's on how to deal with crappy co-workers:Twitter Q&A – what is the best way to deal with a co-worker who consistently discredits you in a passive aggressive wayANSWER:
- - Never argue with him.
- - Never gossip about him behind his back
- - Never blame him
- - Never respond to anything he says other than direct, factual information or a simple “yes” or “no”.
In other words: NO DANCING. This person is an inconsequential bug. Don’t think about him, talk about him, talk to him, or “think to him” in any way. This creates the atmosphere/ecosystem/training where it will his passive aggressiveness will ultimately have no effect on you.
Remember, he was beaten as a child, or rejected by girls, or harassed by other bosses or co-workers and now he is trying to do all of that to you. Don’t let any of it stick on your mind, your emotions, or your body. It’s hard. But you will do it. And that’s how he will be trained like the dog he is to treat you better.
And once he starts treating you better, give him credit when credit is deserved. Eventually this person will want to be your best friend. But by then you will have long moved on.
Must admit, was never good at dealing with crappy co-workers. I believe in Ray Dalio's Principle #11, which simply put is to "never say anything about a person you wouldn't say to him directly. If you do, you're a slimy weasel."
I never backed down from anyone, which is why I've been fired a few times. Of course, it sucks getting fired, but I've worked for some of the slimiest weasels in the world, people who rise to the level of their incompetence. Nothing more dangerous than working for insecure and incompetent fools who are threatened by your brains and brawn.
Instead of embracing these qualities, these weasels will cut your head off if they feel threatened. Homo Homini Lupus! How can you tell a good organization from a bad one? Easy, just look at turnover rate. When I was fired from my previous jobs, the turnover rate was unacceptably high, upwards of 30%. A high turnover rate signals weak management and a weak organization.
I've seen this both on the sell-side and buy-side. The sell-side people wake up earlier than the buy-side people. They go over all their bullshit stock recommendations and strategy discussions and then call their buy-side clients to leave voice blasts on their phones. The latter then parrot these nonsensical recommendations in their bullshit morning meetings. The end result is I lost many hours of precious sleep listening to these claptraps tell me why they're recommending some dipshit stock or where they think interest rates are going. If I want to listen to nonsense, I'll turn on CNBS first thing in the morning!
So how should morning meetings go? Easy, they should be abolished. Who cares what some strategist, economist or stock analyst with no skin in the game thinks? Yes, there are exceptions, people that are worth listening to, just like there are hedge fund managers with skin in the game who are not worth listening to, but my point is morning meetings suck and they suck precisely because portfolio managers and analysts spend an inordinate amount of time going over a bunch of irrelevant information.
So what's the best way to structure meetings? From my experience, nothing beats those Friday afternoon meetings at BCA Research where Managing Editors challenge each and are open to criticism from all their staff, not just the investment staff. Note: Friday afternoon, not Monday morning! I learned more from those meetings, watching and participating in spirited debates, than from any other meeting I ever had in my professional career. All employees had to participate, and on any given week, different employees had to present their views.
If I was moderating meetings, I'd be the biggest prick on earth with fence sitters, openly challenging them: " What do YOU think? How are YOU positioned? What are YOUR hedge funds and external managers DOING in their portfolios? What are the risks YOU see going forward? Where is your goddamn STOP in case you're fucking wrong???"
Like I said, I'm intense and have no time for nonsense. I prefer being in front of my computer looking at markets and reading market comments from all over than going into some endless meeting where we get absolutely nothing accomplished. That's why I love trading and blogging, it keeps me alert, connected and in the game. As I said before, unemployment doesn't define you. Use your time to better yourself doing what you love most and always remember the best investment you can make is investing in yourself, so always put yourself first.
I do not care what other people think of me, especially the slimy weasels. That is the ultimate secret of success. I care about what I love, pushing myself to think outside the box, question everything, and learning through failure. In fact, that is the last question Altucher tackled in his twitter Q& A this past week:
Embrace failure. Failure empowers you in ways you cannot possibly imagine. Not just when hunting for work, or trading markets, but also in your personal life. Take it from a guy with progressive multiple sclerosis who has been fired, divorced, bullied by pension pricks, blacklisted, and struggling with discrimination and unemployment while dealing with a difficult disease, Nietzsche was right: "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." Learn the value of struggling and never let anyone else or your situation define you as a person. And don't be too hard on yourself! Altucher is right, laugh at yourself!HOW DO YOU SET YOURSELF FROM THE COMPETITION IN A JOB INTERVIEW?
ANSWER:
Be as honest as possible about all of your failures. Everyone can relate to your failures. Everyone else is saying how great they are. You’re saying how horrible you are. Make it funny. You’ve fallen in mud like a slapstick comedian. That’s funny. If you can laugh at yourself, solve your problems, and still show up at the job interview, then you’ve separated yourself out from the competition.
You’re a failure.
And you’re a winner.
Congrats, you got the job.
I started this comment by telling you about some Sunday "food for thought. " Watch all the videos below and share this comment with your family, friends and co-workers, not just those suffering from a chronic disease, but EVERYONE.
The first clip was sent to me from Philippa von Ziegenweidt of Carboholics Anonymous blog. It is a fascinating and very inspiring TEDx talk, Minding Your Mitochondria, where Dr. Terry Wahls, once confined to a wheelchair because of the effects of her progressively worsening multiple sclerosis, started researching diet and developed a hunter-gatherer style meal plan for herself that got her back on her feet. Everyone should watch this to understand how poor nutrition impacts your health.
The second clip is a lecture from Harvard economist, Stephen Marglin, Heterodox Economics: Alternatives to Mankiw's Ideology. I found this a stimulating discussion because I have a Master's in Economics and was always critical of mainstream economics. If you want to speak the "language of power," you need to understand mainstream economics to be able to criticize its deficiencies. Market participants still don't understand why standard economics is so poor at forecasting markets. Very few understand quite well why economists and strategists are consistently wrong in their forecasts. Their standard models have erroneous assumptions baked into them and are failing miserably.
The the third video is a TEDx lecture by David Damberger, founder of Engineers Without Borders and Admittingfailure.com. David discusses the importance of learning from failure. I like this lecture a lot because many organizations, especially in the development sector, are not accountable to their beneficiaries. I can tell you that the same problems plague public and private pension plans. We need to make them more accountable, more transparent and more creative. And we all need to admit failure and learn from it.
Finally, just finished watching the series and I leave you with the wonderful closing scene from the 4th and final episode of HBO special "24/7 Penguins - Capitals: Road to the NHL Winter Classic", that describes the game of ice hockey. These warriors know all about learning from failure and pick themselves up every time they fall.
