Right room, right time, right place....
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Strava followers
Scrupulous about paying bills
Land I didn’t buy. Clients I didn’t work with. Deals I didn’t make. Miami condos I sold instead of kept. Partnerships I didn’t enter into. Employees I didn’t hire. Trends I didn’t chase. Women I didn’t date. Principles you didn’t fight for. A business you didn’t start. There is no tangible way to measure the benefit of things you didn’t do and chase, but they are as much a part of any successful business or life journey as the celebrated ones that define a career. The silent and quiet navigation away from something - and many times it’s not clear if the decision is right or wrong, and many times it never becomes clear if you dodged a bullet or missed an opportunity. The only thing you can know for sure is that you are not diluting any of your time on it, and hence something else is benefitting by the focus bandwidth available.
House for sale shortly, in Fremont NY.
I've been in the right place at the right time. Late 90’s, early 2000s. There is no excuse. Sitting in the exact chair you would hope to. What am I speaking of you ask, and that would be the beginning of the rise of the opportunity to invest in emerging internet companies and technologies at their very beginning. Amazon, Facebook, PayPal, Google, etc…. I was sitting in a chair is a quasi-tech company, with the technology speak and action all around me and the best I could do was invest in Global Crossing, with my measly $5000 - the fastest growing broadband-laying company, on the cover of lots of magazines that quickly went broke from over-expansion. I was in my early 30’s, in the mix of the whole scene, yet didn’t have one insight into how ride the emerging tech pony. And to be honest, I was surrounded by Wharton grads, business school grads, tech people, and neither did they. They understood how to position to look techie and perhaps become a buyout target, but the water-cooler talk about investing in Amazon or the like didn’t exist even though we spent hours in bars shooting the shit. No brainers only exist in the rear view mirror - nothing is clear at the time, the fog of emerging tech, the free-market chaos and inefficiency of any tech winners and losers- be it tulips, railroads, TV’s, radio, real estate. For the billionaires and millionaires who did ride the tech train, you got to give them credit. There were thousands if not millions of people who were witnessing the same revolution. I couldn't have been closer.
House for sale shortly, in Barryville NY.
I also remember sitting in Starbucks in New Paltz circle 2015 just minding my own business reading the business pages of some newspaper like I like to do and some college kid grabs my attention and starts repeating a mantra to me - ‘buy bitcoin, buy it, buy it, it’s going to explode’ - like a religious revivalist along the Erie Canal in 1850. And he’s right - it did explode, and if I bought $1000 of it, I’d be sitting on millions.
But here’s the issue with that one - there is ZERO chance I would not have lost or misplaced my password or blockchain or whatever they call it - literally zero, so I’d be like that guy who was spending tens of thousands of dollars digging through a public dump looking for the hard-drive or a disc with his bitcoin passwords on it, until the county shut him down. That scenario would be harder to live with than never buying in the first place. But again - right place, right time, wrong mindset.
House under contract, that will sell as soon as the buyer's attorney gets back from a European Vacation.
But to be honest, the odds of me buying Amazon or similar in 1999, then holding onto it for 28 years through ups and downs of the market, through ups and downs of the my financial life, is close to zero. You hear tales of buy and hold stories if you bought Coca-cola in 1930 and just held onto if 100 years you’d worth $100,000,000. Yea, good luck, through depressions, world wars, Cold Wars, recessions, etc…. Who would have held onto their tech stocks during the plummet of 2000, and if they did, whose to say they hung on to the right ones?
The financial life is full of backward looking, FOMA regret. I think it’s just the nature of it. Doesn’t make it true or an accurate emotion - but accurate emotions aren’t the same as having that emotion. I study and second guess my stock portfolio daily, and barely give my large real estate portfolio a 2nd glance. Money is about behavior and discipline and self-awareness - the math behind money is not the primary driver of wealth building - it’s staying out of your own way.
The Delaware River, as seen from the bridge from Callicoon to PA.
So, to that point, with Space X at its lowest post-IPO price ever (now quickly rebounding), count me in. Not about metrics, cash flow, quality or logic, etc…. It’s about learning from the past - I’m buying, I’m holding. Talk to me in 15 years. All you can do with investing is look yourself in the mirror and say, what would I do differently next time? Thing is, few people actually act on their pronouncement, and when the markets slide or gyrate they quickly lose track of their principles and sell, pivot and protect.
Me, in Sardinia, on my Enfield. The same group of guys are mostly now signed up for a trip through the Spanish Iberian Pennisula.
I did however pursue with great gusto a great idea of how to augment, add to and enhance an entire’s region’s architectural and building landscape, and single-mindedly executed a vision, day after day, decade after decade, no matter what business or life threw my way. So, no, I wasn’t able to capitalize to being at the right place at the right time, in the right room, surrounded by the right people and ride the creation of tech to the financial heavens, but I did end up putting my distinctive stamp on most every little town, hill and valley in the one of the most beautiful areas of the world. A concrete, tangible, good looking stamp.
I'm 3/4 through an aggressive land and house build investment cycle, with a house in Fremont NY finishing up in 2 weeks, and a house outside Barryville NY finished, now staged, and hitting the market in a week or so. We also just entered into Contract on a spec house in Kerhonkson, and one is in Saugerties is making good progress. I'm now expecting 2026 to be a pretty good year - which is pretty extraordinary since all sorts of possible head-winds are out there - from increasing inventory of homes for sale, to the crazy world, to interest rates, to competition, etc... I'm a master sailor in all types of seas it appears. I'm also surrounded in the field and in the office with the most talent I've ever assembled, talent that is complementary to my goals.
Like Oscar Schindler said his father told him, you need most in life a good lawyer, accountant and doctor. I have those, and on the medicine front I opted into a decade ago to a concierge retainer type relationship with a doctors group out of NYC - The Princeton Longevity Center offers 'executive style' health care, comprehensive head to toe, state of the art approach and facilities.
So I pay a few thousand dollars a year for 24/7 access to Dr Karlsberg, who is like a pretty high level NYC doctor, who literally and personally responds to any and all texts and emails and phone calls, with all the time in the world that I need.
To stay subscribed to that service, you have to opt in to their head to toe exam every two years which gives you the low down on everything from your heart and all other organs, to full body scans, cancer scans, plaque scans, hearing, seeing, EKG heart activity under exercise, a nutrionist.
This all takes place on the 71st floor of the Freedom Tower in downtown Manhattan. It's all day affair, with your private room, lunch, etc... Since it is NYC, there is always a bit of smoke and mirrors, paying for prestige element to it, but at the same time, the comprehensiveness and expertise of the staff is world class. And what is one of the primary secrets to longevity - preventivw care, and early detection. If shit doesn't sneak up on you, you stand a much better chance at surviving it.
Turns out, I test out like I'm a 38 year old. Heart function, weight, heart health, artery health, organ function, body mass/fat levels, muscle tone, flexiblity. That's good to hear that the results are matching the effort, since I think the last 3 years of my life - even though they have been a shit show of stress and problem-solving - have probably been the three healthiest years I've stitched together in decades, when measured by activity, nutrition, amount (or lack of) drugs and alcohol, and general intentionality to my health. Not perfect by any means, but a consistent good effort that has the doctors smiling. So to have this touchstone evaluation every two years is a motivator to stay on the right track.
In your 50's shit hits the fan. You are either taking care of yourself and beating back the hands of time to some degree, or you are quickly showing your age. Both approaches reveal themselves further in the early 60's. And to end this post with a complete surprise full circle - the benefits of good health aren't always tangible- you never know what sprain, tear, break, disease didn't happen because you paid attention and ate well, stretched and kept moving.
I took my road bike along with me and after I checked into the Moxy on Ann Street, grabbed the bike lane along the west side highway and road it up to the GW bridge.
Got rained on on the way back, so I stopped in Harlem for some Indian food. My typical order - veggie samosa, butter chicken, regular naan, rice and riata. I also had a delicious sweet lassi.
Little did I know as I was capturing this fogged in NYC from the GWB it was moving my way.
It's been raining for a few days now in this whole region. For some reason, i don't seem to care.