Making Connections

Investing + Everything Else

I love stories. Despite being an investment professional, I have never been a numbers guy, nor was I particularly skilled at high level math growing up. So when I first started to learn about investing, you can imagine my excitement after reading that Buffett once said:

“If calculus or algebra were required to be a great investor, I'd have to go back to delivering newspapers.”

Obviously he’s being modest, but in addition to his analytical and mathematical intellect, Buffett is a masterful storyteller, and has an unbelievable way of being able to put things into context. One read through the Berkshire Annual letters reveals just how adept he is at both explaining investment related concepts in an understandable way, while also relating them to his world (think the Ted Williams hitting chart).

Outside of being entertaining, stories help me grasp onto information and help contextualize things in my life as well. I’m always interested in a good story, especially one that is short and sweet and helps efficiently drive a point home, or one that helps me think through a problem I’m working on.

One of my favorite things to do is make connections between my work as an active investment manager and things from everyday life. I have a theory that ‘everything is like something else’, and when it comes to analyzing business models, thinking about portfolio management, and attempting to trigger my pattern recognition, I’ve received a lot of help from sources outside of the world of investing. For example, music producer Rick Rubin has a lot to teach us about investing. Similarly, I learned a lot about business from reading Bruce Springsteen’s biography.

Moving forward, outside of sharing investment ideas and process notes, my aim for this blog is to make it a place where I can share stories aimed at highlighting some of the connections between investing, and everything else. Things outside the world of finance, like art, movies, music and creativity itself. I will showcase interesting people with stories that resonate with me, while telling some of my own stories and sharing my thoughts in the process. These posts will be short and sweet, where I can hopefully make some connections to investing and provide some useful lessons or anecdotes from my own experience.

I’m not the first person to advocate for using this approach, as Charlie Munger is the GOAT of utilizing mental models, and pulling useful pieces of information from disciplines outside of investing. However, along with history, science, or philosophy, I spend a lot of time studying artists and other creatives, and love to pull tidbits from their work, journeys and shared lessons.

I’ve found that of all the disciplines, investing shares the most parallels with art and artists, which is a topic I rarely see discussed. Some of the people who have the most to teach us about investing are musicians, movie directors, painters, actors, writers and the like.

I hope to paint a better picture (no pun intended) of what I’m talking about above, and share some of the useful things I’ve learned by studying artists from all disciplines.

I don’t write full time, so my aim is to publish a new post at least once per month. Maybe the frequency will change as I get up and running. Stay tuned and thanks for reading.

Adam Wilk is the Founder and Portfolio Manager of Greystone Capital Management LLC, a microcap focused, value based investment firm. He enjoys highlighting the connections between various disciplines and writing about the intersection of investing and creativity.