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Health Is Wealth

News flash…Master, Minion just won an award. I can’t reveal what award until later this year, but I am surprised and delighted. So…if you want an enjoyable read that gets into the psychological dimensions of a financial war, a good read awaits.

It’s the Followers that Scare Me

If someone forwarded this to you, my name is Paul, you can read about me here. This Substack grows via word-of-mouth, so please forward to your friends. If you like this writing, you will enjoy my books Master, Minion and Raising a Thief as well as the podcast. Subscriptions are a vote of confidence, book reviews help lead others to my books.

Cultivating Optimism

If someone forwarded this to you, my name is Paul, you can read about me here. This Substack grows via word-of-mouth, so please forward to your friends. If you like this writing, you will enjoy my books Master, Minion and Raising a Thief as well as the podcast.

Be Wary of Lingo

For those of you seeing these posts for the first time, my name is Paul and I’m a writer and investor. You can read more about me here. Readers enjoy my books, Raising a Thief and Master, Minion and I think you will too. You can support my team with a paid subscription. For those of you in Connecticut, I speak tomorrow night at the Westport Book Shop, an organization with a great mission.

When Facing Tribulation

We all encounter tough challenges along the way. Everyone. The question is how to struggle through them with a degree of grace and poise such that it draws people in rather than repels them and isolates you.

The Flow and Eddies

This year’s posts began with The Barbell as Medicine and will end on a metaphor—we are all in a river with eddies. The goal is to get as much out of the ride down the river as we can and do our best to avoid those eddies. The river flows at a fast clip, there is a waterfall at the end. That’s true in our own lives but also for countries and investing.

The Detour Is The Path

“In any given moment we have two options: to step forward into growth or to step back into safety.” Abraham Maslow (1908-1970), creator of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

Our Problem-Solver Within

Our brains do the work we give them. How is complicated, even mysterious, and the unconscious plays a critical role, particularly in creativity. With surprising speed, as the work shifts brain function shifts, evidenced by Ukrainian software engineers who rapidly went from coding to killing. Since leaving the corporate world, I gave my brain a different problem to solve and I suspect what I’ve observed since provides a lesson for anyone trying to tap their own creativity, which is what today’s post is about.

Intoxicants

If you are new to these essays, welcome! My name is Paul. I am a writer and investor. I wrote the book Raising a Thief about being a parent. You may have seen my writing in The Wall Street Journal. For many years I was at Bridgewater Associates, an investment firm. If you read my stuff, you will better understand money and a number of other topics as well. Feedback: paul@paulpodolsky.com. I read every note and learn from them all.

The Value of Counting

Today, I want to talk about the value of counting, applied to your own life and China. While the two topics might seem unrelated, they aren’t. In both, the simple act of counting anchors perception.