Almost a decade later, and I'm still following the same patterns I developed in college that helped me work. I've almost ritualized the investing and business process by following the same steps before I set down to analyze something. The only difference is some days, I chose from the gold-rimmed collection, and other days, I choose from the "diner" collection, which are really cheap, great coffee cups I've picked up from around the world, each of which has a story.

A few days ago, Aaron got a message from one of our friends, Jimmy, at about 4 in the morning.  We were both still up working on a project that’s going to have some fairly large financial ramifications for us in about a year or two, so we happened to read it in near real-time.  Anyway, Jimmy said he wished he could come down to our dorm room, curl up on the lower bunk, as Aaron played video games and I read at my desk, drinking coffee out of a gold-rimmed cup and saucer, reading a book with a nice pen.

I just glanced down from reading a new book on the wealthy in America and happened to catch this sight, which made me laugh.  It’s funny how predictable we are as we grow into ourselves and develop patterns that work for our personalities.  All these years later, and if Jimmy were to walk through the door, the same pattern applies.  The only difference is the surroundings keep getting upgraded as the businesses thrive and reinvestment pays off for us as shareholders.

(The coffee cup thing: Since my freshman year of college, I would reward myself with something new when I reached a major business milestone.  They act almost as a self-imposed trophy system.  For instance, when I started to make real money from my Internet businesses during college, I went to Hamilton Jewelers in Princeton, New Jersey, and bought a blue, gold-rimmed William Yeoward coffee cup with saucer – the Avignon pattern- that I would drink out of every time I worked.  At the time, it was something like $212.50 or $250.00, I don’t recall exactly.  The point was, it was tangible proof that I had reached my accomplishment.  Sometimes, this included something like “add an extra 100,000 page views per week to this site …” or “max out my SEP-IRA at $9,250″, etc.  That way, when I was living super cheap, spending almost no money during college, I had something on the horizon; a payoff.  Since then, I’ve sorted of collected these gold rimmed coffee cups and saucers to the point I’m developing quite a collection.  The one that you see in the picture from a few minutes ago, I picked up at Halls Department store in Kansas City, Missouri during a trip there with Ashly and Ian several years ago.)

No related posts.

Aaron sent me a bunch of old photos from college, and here’s one from sophomore year.  I had somehow gotten horrible food poisoning from the campus cafeteria and hadn’t been able to eat in days.  I was out – as you can tell from my hair – and felt like someone had smacked me with a semi-truck.  Anyway, once I recovered on the third day or so, Ellary and Ashly showed up at the door with a gourmet Black Forest chocolate cake to celebrate from a store down the street.  That way, my first solid food in days could at least be something tasty.  You know life is good when you have people that secret away to buy beautiful cakes just to make you feel better.

I think I had to even save the cake for a day or two later because I still couldn't eat very much.

Related posts:

1. The Reason I Love America …
2. Spring Has Sprung
3. Have You Noticed … (This is an Honest Question to Friends, Family and Readers)