Seymour Schulich is a billionaire whose career has spanned stock brokerage, investment counselling, mining and the oil industry. He is Canadian and is among the greatest living philanthropists and many universities has his name on buildings. He also awards 650 scholarships a year. He is in his 70’s and wrote a book to tell students about his life experiences and the book is called Get Smarter – Life and Business Lessons by Seymour Schulich published by Key Porter Books, Toronto, 2007.

The Decision-Maker: A Tool for a Lifetime. Since Mr. Schulich was in his teens he has used an effective tool to making decisions. On one side of the paper write the positives of doing something (and the extra thing is from a 0 – 10 score how you rate  them for yourself.) on the other side of the paper is the negatives and how you rate them. You add up the scores and if the positives outweigh the negatives by over 2:1 then do it. If not, the answer is no or think twice about it.

Know Your Edge – Always ask, where do I have an edge?

Reciprocity – in business and in life: reciprocity. In simple terms it is the idea that people have a very hard time saying no to someone who has done something, even a small favor, for them.

Money’s Value falls 90% every 30 Years. because of inflation. For a long term view, Mr. Schulich recommends:

a) keep a sizable proportion of your wealth in inflation sensitive assets like real estate, commodities, and precious metals. They hold their value against inflation better.

b) If you get the chance to lock in your debts for years at low rates of interest, do it.

c) Be skeptical of life insurance  – only buy term and only get enough to protect your family if something happens to you.

Be a Positive Person – have a positive attitude because you will need to beat the obstacles that the pessimist sees.

“Two men looked through the prison bars. One saw mud, one saw stars” Oscar Wilde

There’s No Such Thing as an Overnight Success – it usually takes 5 to 10 years to build a successful business. In 1983 one third of the companies that were on the Fortune 500 in 1970 had disappeared; the usual lifespan of a multinational company is 40 to 50 years.

Rules for Aging (or Living) Mr. Schulich loves reading and one of the gems was Rules for Aging by Roger Rosenblatt. It is about human nature.

a) Nobody is thinking about you – they are doing what you are doing thinking about themselves – just like you.

b) Avoid swine – people who act in a swine-like fashion

c) Appearance is frequently reality

d) Envy no one

e) Never expect gratitude. If you spend your life expecting glory and praise for the good things you do, you are going to burn a lot of energy when it does not happen. If you get gratitude feel pleasantly surprised.

Patience: A Key to Success in Business and in Life – People who win at business bet seldom and only when the odds are in their favor. Winners put themselves in a position of seeing a very large range of potential investments. They buy into one of hundreds. Warren Buffett states you need a maximum of 20 great insights in a lifetime to become very wealthy and successful.  Besides having patience, you will need a cash reserve, so you have the money on hand to exploit those opportunities.

Charlie Munger (Warren Buffett’s partner) has many stories:

He was speaking to someone selling fishing tackle. My goodness, they are purple and green, do the fish really take these lures? The man says Mister I do not sell to the fish, I sell to the fisherman.

Linking to dividend paying stocks. Mr. Schulich made billions of dollars because he focused on many of the same things anyone can, but rarely do. It does take patience to do nothing, in the book there is a little pie chart 99% patience, 1% action. It means to wait for the correct opportunities and then do it. Later in the book, the way to wealth in the stock market is wait for the market to drop and then buy the best of the breed and have the patience for the markets to go up again. It takes a great amount of discipline to do that and one easy way to learn is buy dividend producing stocks as you wait for your opportunities.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.