Category: Fundamentals

Skill Development At Its Foundation

Discipline as well as its parent, respect, cannot be taught. They can only be learned.

April 22, 2020

A subscriber on GaryNorth.com queried for potential solutions to an immediate skill development problem for his young-adult son:

My unmarried sister has gifted my 17 year old son $1500 in a Schwab account of which I am custodian. I’d like this to be a learning experience for him but I’m in the dark as to how to proceed. My son has inherited from me a lack of self-discipline in financial matters as well as propensity for poor judgements regarding the future. He understands that he is not to touch the money for 5 years, so there’s a little time to work with. I’m not so much concerned with great returns as maximizing the growth of his character & life skills. Any suggestions will be appreciated. Thanks.

From https://www.garynorth.com/members/forum/openthread.cfm?forum=1&ThreadID=280337#280337 (Website subscription required.)
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Looking for the “Buck Switch”

Tips, tricks, and techniques are only consistently effective when used on a solid foundation; when fundamentals are in place.

Recently, a forum member on GaryNorth.com wrote:

“Okay, you have 2 types of people who will respond to posts. The first type are people who give you specific answer…The second type will give you high level responses and may not help you much. Please search this forum on…You will find very directed responses to your specific situation. The others are high level information. I am having trouble with these other responses and I suspect are bullshit. You need to decide whose advise is more pertinent to your situation.” [Sic]

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Understanding Expectations

Once we defined a set of requirements, we both knew what we had to accomplish that would meet the other party’s expectations…

I recently spent time with my attorney on personal legal matters, and being somewhat obsessed with attaining objectivity in interpersonal communication in the workplace, I used the occasion to practice using precise terminology in the discussions. My attorney rose to the occasion and responded as someone who appreciated that she didn’t have to talk to me as if I were non-educated with confused vocabulary, and we both enjoyed the conversations.

In the course of working through the legal matters, we were careful to understand “rights” and the “correct” manner to pursue (or protect) those rights. (“Correct” being an objective definition.) My attorney appreciated that I did not confuse right with correct.

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