Given that so many of our family and friends can’t travel to see us during this pandemic, Aaron and I wanted to share an early access glimpse into our asset management firm’s new home. It’s not the same as seeing it in person but it should at least give you an idea of where we will be spending a lot of our time in the coming years as we allocate capital and scale operations.
Along with 1 out of 2 Americans, including the entirety of the rest of the State of California, Aaron and I have been sheltering-in-place and practicing social distancing. Given that we spent a vast portion of our lives together living semi-retired, this is not a significant change for us. If anything, it feels like a return to our Missouri days, especially considering that after two years in the heart of Newport Beach, we decided not to renew the lease on our existing place and, instead, move up to Newport Coast so we can decide if that might be where we ultimately want to buy a house once our kids are born.
As we celebrated my 37th birthday today, I thought about three questions that Aaron and I have used in managing our lives that help us live better, avoid mistakes, and improve our outcomes. I wanted to share them so they might help you in your own journey.
The masterpiece Middlemarch, a Study of Provincial Life is considered by many literary critics and academics to be the greatest novel written in the history of the English language. A work of historical fiction, the story is set during the years 1829-1832 and follows the lives of the inhabitants of a fictional town, Middlemarch, as threads, both visible and invisible, weave the fate of their their homes, marriages, businesses, fortunes, happiness, and misery together.
So many of our clients, friends, and acquaintances bike, including for pleasure, exercise, and/or commuting to work, and we had grown so accustomed to seeing people on their bikes all the time out here given the near year-round perfect weather, Aaron and I decided that one of these days we were going to visit a nearby bike store in Costa Mesa, California. Yesterday, we finally checked this off our task list and we’re so happy that we did.
One of the benefits of our relocation to the West Coast was going through boxes and containers dating back to early childhood, discovering things that we didn’t realize we had; toys from our nursery, birthday cards from elementary school, choral music from high school and college. This included migrating old computer archives before destroying the physical drives, resulting in large amounts of data we now need to organize and catalog over the coming years as a part-time personal project
We spent our Saturday morning reading and enjoying cinnamon roll French toast at the Oak Grill at the Fashion Island Hotel in Newport Beach.
There is a bubble tea shop called Omomo in Irvine, California that Aaron wanted to try. He mentioned it for a few weeks then, on a whim back on March 20th, we decided to go discover for ourselves why it is so popular.
If you ever wanted to try the infamous “New Coke” that resulted in global boycotts of Coca-Cola when it briefly replaced the classic formula, now is your chance. Of course, me being me, this post ended up turning into an academic discussion about long-term investing including a mini-case study of Coke over the past 34 years.
I’ve always been introspective. Over the past year, though, I find that I am spending more time examining my life so far; re-evaluating decisions, trying to gain additional insight from my experiences, and really being honest about what I want for the rest of the time I’ve been gifted. I think there several reasons for this.
