a good problem

It’s Wednesday and it has just occurred to me that I haven’t had any time to update the blog so far this week! A few years ago, I would have been freaking out about that. But this morning I am thinking more along the lines of, “Well, there’s a good reason for that. You’re busy.” It’s a good problem to have.

The most challenging part of my job as CEO is being involved in hundreds of different aspects of the business each week, and interacting with almost everyone who works with or for us in some way, shape or form.

…but also…

The most rewarding part of my job as CEO is being involved in hundreds of different aspects of the business each week, and interacting with almost everyone who works with or for us in some way, shape or form.

The breadth of stuff we’re working on right now is incredible. I’m miles away from where I was a decade ago professionally – when I first started The Reformed Broker – and I love it.

Last week I was in Chicago with my partners Kris and Michael, visiting with our four employees there and spending some time discussing our goals for the organization. Tadas Viskanta (Abnormal Returns) and Ben Carlson (A Wealth Of Common Sense) also joined us. It was a fantastic visit and it’s so cool to see everyone gelling as a team, despite our geographic spread. Or perhaps because of it – knowing you’re not going to see a co-worker everyday makes the time you do spend together even more meaningful.

Here’s the whole crew in the West Loop last Wednesday, a block away from our office:

And before I forget, thanks so much to Jonathan, Colleen, Anna and Brian for planning it out. It’s so great to have you guys as our Midwest home base.

This week I took 14 members of the firm to Governor’s Island to celebrate our fifth anniversary volunteering for a community farm. We built wooden planter boxes, shoveled dirt into wheelbarrows, carried hundreds of sacks of compost and topsoil out of the back of a truck, shoveled and shoveled some more, harvested green beans, jalapeno peppers and other vegetables and built up a retaining wall. We labored outdoors and spent quality time together. We gave something back to the community – this farm is visited throughout the school year by children from inner city schools that wouldn’t otherwise have much of a chance to learn about how food is grown and what agriculture is all about.

It’s an amazing program, if you want to get in touch with Grow NYC and bring a group out there, go here.

I’ll have some pictures up later in the week. For now, here’s my firm’s CFO Bill Sweet and I conquering this digging site with shovel and pickaxe…

Yesterday I taped an episode of Anthony Pompliano’s Off The Chain podcast, look for that to go live soon.

I also got to check in with both Cullen Roche and Allan Roth, who came by the office to say hello. Cullen’s blog, Pragmatic Capitalism, is one of the only financial blogs older than mine at this point. He does a great job explaining the way banks, Fed policy, inflation, etc actually work in real life.

Allan calls himself “the most argumentative person in the world” and his scholarly articles serve the critical role of keeping everyone in our industry honest about their conflicts, their business models and their value-add. he put this out the other day, about how “high income” is the wrong goal for clients to chase. Read it.

Anyway, I’ve never been so busy and at the same time so gratified with the types of projects I’m involved with. If there’s a gap between updates here, it’s only because I’m not an octopus. Stick around, some major announcements to come later this year 🙂