A long time ago, before social media exploded onto all our communications devices, a wise man told me to change the channel on my car radio if the broadcast was rubbish, and rather listen to something uplifting or self-enriching. His reasoning was simple: I had a choice, by just changing the dial on the radio, I could stop myself from becoming negative or despondent and become positive and encouraged to be better instead.
We recognize the genius in people like Beethoven, Michelangelo and Nicola Tesla from days gone by; and more contemporary ones like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs. Although we don’t all celebrate the same type of genius, we all have those people who inspire us to be better and achieve more.
Don’t let people who settle for being mediocre drag you down to their level. Not all of us can run a trillion-dollar company, invent life-changing technologies or compose soul-enriching music, but we can all choose to be better today than we were yesterday.
What has all of this got to do with investments? Quite a lot actually. If you seek out exceptionalism, you will surround yourself with people who make things better. You will learn from them via their actions and writings. You will realize that Jannik Sinner has not become the best tennis player in the world without working exceptionally hard; or appreciate that Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon, works 18-hour days to manage this multi-national company.
We all benefit from people who are exceptional, whether from the returns we earn by investing in their companies; or the courage and enjoyment we derive from listening to their music or watching their movies; or from having access to their life-saving services and medicine. Stand-out corporate earnings had driven shares in the U.S. to near all-time highs again last week. We can perhaps take a minute to thank the people who started and grew these companies and are managing them so profitably now.