YouSaid · the spoken record

Peter Cundill

lines on the record: 47
first: 2020-12-28
most recent: 2020-12-28
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“I'm not sure loved one should be the responsible person, especially when someone is so compromised. Of course you'll do it. You'll do anything for them. But as the shadows circle and the end is inevitable, the time together might be more meaningfully spent in sharing stories, memories, and love and having someone else do the chores. But not so fast. This is Peter Cuntil we're talking about. A man who could move mountains in his professional life, but also a man who had the emotional intelligence of a spoiled child having a temper tantrum. But that's who he was. Wonderful dichotomy. And that is where I'll leave it to get the full story, read the book if you buy the book using the show notes. You'll be supporting the podcast at the same time. That's 160 books down, 1,000 ago. And I'll talk to you again soon.”
2020-12-28 · Founders · #160 Peter Cundill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was hard to read, but the idea that I was alone and responsible for him, and though I tell the story with humor on a couple of occasions the near misses could have been fatal. You could have died, I said as I sat on the floor with him after he smashed into the corner of the bureau. He smiled, a trickle of blood rolling from his forehead and said Well, my dear, well, my dear, you are missing the point at least that would have been with you.”
2020-12-28 · Founders · #160 Peter Cundill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I can make light of my week with Peter and Bermuda, but it wasn't really funny. Not really funny at all. He was a shadow of himself, no less selfish or demanding, but somehow childlike in his utter dependency, almost like an infant. He hated being like it, but he tried to make the best of it. I hated it too. Not the idea of helping my dearest friend or reading to him or rubbing his back when he shook himself to sleep.”
2020-12-28 · Founders · #160 Peter Cundill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“With my back to Peter and the pretty women, I heard a loud scream. As I turned around, Peter was gone. I looked down, and there he was still paddling his arms, but at the bottom of the pole. His part made me laugh, not because of that, although that image, that mental image popped in my mind, but what he says here. I dive down, pulled him up, dragged him to the side of the pool. After his choking subsided, I asked him furiously, what the hell he thought he was doing? Was he trying to give me a heart attack? He grinned and whispered with a crooked smile The backstroke. In her account is when she turns serious though.”
2020-12-28 · Founders · #160 Peter Cundill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A wonderful reason why Bermuda was a perfect place for Peter was the weather, and he loved our daily swims. About midweek we struggled to the pool, him refusing his wheelchair. To begin what he called his laps, walking in circles at the shallow end. Having been a great sportswoman myself, I took pleasure in the notion that although he couldn't walk and was beginning to find speech more difficult and could no longer dance, he still wanted to do what he was calling his workout. That morning was no different. I was in the lead, almost running on the spot, almost running on the spot slowly in the water, with Peter pulling up the rear. There were a couple pretty women sitting in the sun, and I noticed him paddling with a little more purpose than the day before. Funny how pretty women motivated him.”
2020-12-28 · Founders · #160 Peter Cundill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Enough that I notice it from week to week. I've always needed a lot of sleep. I now find solace in sleep, which I never did until now, except in periods of depression, and I am not depressed. I have continued my routines. Sometimes I struggle to keep up with them. There seems to be some clear alternatives fight or give up I know the answer spend or save this is a different question. I do not want to deprive myself of the fruits of my labors, but at the same time I want to leave a material legacy. There must be a balance in this. Retirement is simply a death warrant. Hang on. You're still contributing strategically. Do not look back. Look forward.”
2020-12-28 · Founders · #160 Peter Cundill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Was she frightened? Was she in pain? Or was she determined? Evelyn and I needed some time away. We were in the exercise room when Roger rushed in to say that she had died. We worked on the details of her death. I did love her, and I'm happy I told her so with utmost conviction. She dies he's sixty four at the time. He doesn't know it at the time, but he's got eight more years left of life. But those are not... Those are eight severely compromised years. He does the most he can with them, but his illness progresses and gets worse and worse and worse. And so I'm going to spend some time on that because it's just devastating. Is his thoughts, this is illness progressed. My balance is unreliable. I sometimes suffer extreme fatigue. My strength is slipping away.”
2020-12-28 · Founders · #160 Peter Cundill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So now he's with Jay. This is right before she dies. I spent several hours giggling with Jay before I faded. Although there were some serious and memorable moments, I told her how she'd taken care of me. She said I had given her a wonderful life. I shall treasure the exchange. She wants to stay with the pain rather than give in. During the night, Joni awoke, frightened of the wind. Peter held her tightly until she slept again. She awoke very anxious, and Peter held her hand for five hours as she slipped into a coma. In her coma Jay caressed my face, which was wet with tears, and my body was throbbing. This is right before she dies. He's at the hospital with her two kids. She had two kids from a previous marriage, Roger and Evelyn. So Roger said that the death process had begun. It was not pretty. We took turns being on vigil.”
2020-12-28 · Founders · #160 Peter Cundill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of experience and reach lateral conclusions, an otherwise obscure connections intuitively. Intuition, emotion, and intelligence are inextricably linked. He was struggling. I am going through a personal maelstrom using the notebook to even out your feelings. Be aware of the unity of mind, body, and spirit. Keep to the process. Have measured responses. Try to find a degree of meaning in J's illness. Be never ending curious. We see the advice that he's giving himself trying to go through what has got to be one of the life's worst experiences.”
2020-12-28 · Founders · #160 Peter Cundill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“She feels she can extend her life. Oh how I hope so Now going back to the writing of Chris by mid November he was in Hong Kong and just recovering from a spirited evening out with old friends when he received a heartbreaking call. Jay was in the hospital, having undergone major surgery on her colon. I arranged to leave Hong Kong early and get to Vancouver to be with her. On the long flight Peter marshalled his thoughts trying to accept the idea that Joni's death was inevitable and likely soon. Now this is his writing. I think that you can lose your fear of death by acknowledging that you are already dying from the moment you emerge from your mother's womb. Your body is a form that has no permanence. I find that it can only deal with the prospect of Jay's passing by sticking to all my routines as far as possible reprehensible as some would feel this is. I'm glad he said that because around the time when I'm reading this like this.”
2020-12-28 · Founders · #160 Peter Cundill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So right now he's on a, I forgot where he's at. He's in Toronto, and he's on like a late night on the town with a bunch of friends. He says, later, I thought of Jay. My marriage is unconventionally conventional. She's my rock and my anchor. My angst is because I fear that I'm about to be set loose. I have a desperate sense of malaise. I asked her whether she ever gets scared. She always says she's determined to beat it. I brought up potential nursing care and her will. Later she called me and suggested I loosen up and not panic. That's rather unfair. We are in unchartered waters.”
2020-12-28 · Founders · #160 Peter Cundill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“She's given the diagnosis for nine to 12 months to live. He's still, again, he's set for life at this point. He still decides, he knows his wife has only a short time left, and he's still going out and traveling all over the world for work obligations. He's seeing other lovers. This is not, again, I don't doubt that he loved her in his own way. Whatever, I think his definition would be different than most people. But it was very bizarre reading the section.”
2020-12-28 · Founders · #160 Peter Cundill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“She is scared. So now I'm going to read over several pages of this playing out in his life. I'm trying to think of alternative scenarios. Jay will play it straight. It all depends on the severity of the cancer. She continues to lose weight. Soon we shall have a judgment. For the first time I am frightened for her. Four days later she had the result. The oncologist says she has nine to twelve months to live. The only good thing is that she will probably not have chemo, radiation or surgery, and she'll lead a normal life. I wonder she's in shock. Now here's where it gets really weird.”
2020-12-28 · Founders · #160 Peter Cundill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Do new things. It is a time of high adventure that will probably be accompanied by some turbulence. See there's that ups and downs. He doesn't want the even keel. Twenty one years ago I founded the business on a hope and a prayer. Now we begin again. Okay, so at this point in his life, everything is going well. And then as so happens in life sometimes, it takes drastic turns for the worse. And this is when, unexpectedly, his wife of 25 years is diagnosed with cancer and given a very short term time to live.”
2020-12-28 · Founders · #160 Peter Cundill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Just remember to balance all this taking with some giving. You have what it takes to be exceedingly generous. As an anecdote to the, this is really, this is what I mean about being an odd duck. As an anecdote to the negative thoughts, which still occasionally obtrude from that old Pete Cunheld, I have created an optimistic character in the form of Frank Cunheld. That's his dad's name, interesting enough. So he's got these two versions of himself, right? And they're characters of his own creation. He takes over most, this is the optimistic Frank character. He takes over most of the time, except in the early morning when Pete is too strong. Pete and Frank debate from time to time with the realist acting as an arbiter. I wonder whether the superimposing of a good, healthy persona over a flawed one is a psychiatric trick that is known and in use. In any event this is rebirth time. I am being pushed.”
2020-12-28 · Founders · #160 Peter Cundill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So he says, what drove me to the verge of suicide was not really the ebb and flow of the investment business with its daily measurement. That I can cope with, but I had begun to see myself as burnt out, and I felt the waning of support and confidence right at the top of my organization. So not only was he beating himself up, but he felt he was losing the confidence of the people around him. So this is part of the way he got out of that. He says, in my endeavors to get my mind back working in top gear, I believe that I needed to improve in the following ways. Reducing procrastination, concentrating with absolute clarity on one thing at a time. So he just feels he was pulled in too many different directions, wasn't have the time nor the mental faculties to actually concentrate and do a good job. However, it is essential to be aware that procrastination and indecision are not the same things as measuring one's response and allowing sufficient time to elapse for a good decision.”
2020-12-28 · Founders · #160 Peter Cundill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Wait's plight made him see his own situation in a different light. So now this is Peter writing. He was held in a single room in solitary confinement without books or writing materials and under the daily threat of execution. And he passed the test with flying colors. What a perspective for me. We all have to pass through the fire if we were able to progress, and for some it is worse than others. My chemistry has changed, he's talking about, I think he's turned the corner now. I'm ready to face the world again. Either this business will be taken away from me, voluntarily or involuntarily, or I shall rebuild it, he chooses the latter, right? What drove me to the verge of suicide, these are crazy words when you figure his dad attempted suicide after the crash of'87 tried to jump out the window his group.”
2020-12-28 · Founders · #160 Peter Cundill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“On how to deal with it and then how to get back on track. So he says it was a make or break day which showed me that the spirit can always triumph. Although you have to quash the negativity and fatalism with absolute determination and just cling to the positive. I may be feeling better for some of the wrong reasons. The gloom is now pretty much universal, so I'm no longer unique. He's talking about investment returns there. I feel ready to be creative again. The newspapers were full of the release of Terry Waite, I think maybe how to pronounce the name. This is a really good idea where you're seeing the troubles of other people and how much they can endure and then stepping outside yourself and realizing, hey, if that person can survive a much more difficult circumstances than I'm in right now, you can draw strength from that. So that's what he's doing with this guy named Terry. Wait, he says, that was the Archbishop of Canterbury's special envoy who had been sent to Lebanon.”
2020-12-28 · Founders · #160 Peter Cundill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No less than eighty percent of my time is based on identifying investment opportunities for the fund and our other clients. He feels that's the unique talent that he has, that is his skill set. That's what he needs to be focused on. The danger in any investment counseling firm is that the principal officer who develops your reputation for sound investment decisions, which Peter did throughout his life, becomes an administrator and has taken away from his primary role. So he's seeing others, mistakes other people make in their career and saying, hey, I've identified that and I want to avoid it. Again, just really smart. Okay, so now we're in the early 90s. He's in his 50s, and he's suffering from depression. And part of it had to do with his poor performance, temporary poor performance. But I don't think that was all attributed just to work. I think there's just a midlife crisis going on that is manifesting in depression. And so this is him on depression. He's got, again, some good ideas.”
2020-12-28 · Founders · #160 Peter Cundill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Told me that I drove like a suicidal maniac, an exaggeration, but the dangers of my impatience with the claustrophobic aspects of wedded bliss and family life are real enough. I must never let that happen again. There are other lives at stake and far too many people relying on me now. He's talking about not only his family but his business. So he continues on what he thinks makes a happy marriage. I think what most characterizes the happy couples that I know is their ability to remain self-reliant on occasion and thereby to de-escalate the grounds for conflict. This implies equality in the relationship and strict adherence to a few maxims. These are great maxims. Don't lie, don't make promises you can't keep, and above all, don't quit. So the second maxim there, don't lie.”
2020-12-28 · Founders · #160 Peter Cundill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, I'm fast forwarding ahead in his life. At this point, he's already been married for quite a while. And this is him on marriage and family life, which I found was he's an odd duck, you'll see in a minute. Nevertheless, even as they approach their 10th wedding anniversary, Peter's latent yearning for the complete independence of his old bachelor life could still engender bursts of impatience and frustration. So I think I picked up, if you read the book, you'll pick up on a theme. He just didn't He wanted money and power, but I think a lot of that had to do because he strove for independence. He didn't like any constraints on his time, didn't like people telling him what to do. And I think having an abundance of money relieves yourself of a lot of the limits that other people that maybe don't have that money have to endure. But more on this particular journal entry. On the drive home from Sun Valley, I almost killed us all. Jay, that's his wife, Joni. She's referred to, and his journal is Jay.”
2020-12-28 · Founders · #160 Peter Cundill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Again, go back to the term routines and orgies. He wanted a life, a unique life full of crazy experiences, but he was driven by his routine. A little while later, Peter wrote again, The more that I think about why can I not read all of a sudden? The more that I think about the way that the Greeks, especially the Spartans, regarded the subject of exercise and the necessity of maintaining peak levels of physical fitness, the more I am convinced that the health of the mind and the spirit are either bolstered or hampered by the condition of the body.”
2020-12-28 · Founders · #160 Peter Cundill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“had been drummed into him from early boyhood, particularly by his mother, and he had spent a lot of time considering how it might most effectively be pursued now he reached the part of where he's actually writing in his journal about this. Both Plato and Aristotle made useful observations about fitness and the pursuit of excellence, and I find myself more and more drawn to their point of view. So now he's going to do some quotes. Lack of physical activity destroys the naturally good condition of every human being, while movement and methodical physical exercise save it and preserve it. That was Plato. This is now Aristotle. Excellence is an art one by training and habituation. That's a great way to think about Peter as well. We do not act rightly because we had virtue or excellence, but rather have those because we've acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act, but a habit.”
2020-12-28 · Founders · #160 Peter Cundill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, that he maintained with religious fervor ever since that decision taken in college that he would never be chubby again. The journal is full of quotations on the subject drawn from his wide reading. However, he has long since read”
2020-12-28 · Founders · #160 Peter Cundill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Another one, you will never have to take losses from time to time, and then you must do it decisively. I think he only had two, if I remember correctly, two down years, I think in 25 years, something like that. No self-flagellation, just a sober assessment of what were wrong and why so that mistake is never repeated. And at the same time that he's laying out the strategy, he goes into another very important aspect of his life, which is this is him writing his journal is filled with his thoughts on the importance of being physically fit. And Peter's favorite subject was history. So he actually used a lot of what I found really interesting reading, was he uses a lot of historical examples to supplement his own thinking, get there in one second. So this is apart from his investment procedures, the most important routines in Peter's life where his fitness regimens that he maintained with religious fervor.”
2020-12-28 · Founders · #160 Peter Cundill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Keeps the mind clear. Intuition based on experience and instinct is what makes investment an art form. You must always be willing to discuss your failures frankly if you're going to learn from them. Patience needs to be combined with nerve and the determination to go to the brink time and time again. There will be humiliations. Another one. Once you've done your homework properly and are absolutely convinced that an investment is right, you should not hesitate or wait for others to share the adventure. A lot of the picks were very contrarian. He had to be very comfortable with a lot of people criticizing what he was doing. The price at which you start buying will almost invariably be imperfect, but that should never discourage you. The initial price is only important in that it must incorporate your margin of safety.”
2020-12-28 · Founders · #160 Peter Cundill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“manager of a mutual fund. This is so fascinating. He's just got a bunch of random thoughts here. I'm just going to read them to you. Values and investment, value in an investment is like character in an individual. It stands up better in adversity and overcomes it more readily. The next one. I have the knowledge and the ability to be a great investor. There's a ton of sentences in there, kind of like hyping them up, telling them, hey, you know, you're on the right track. Don't fuck it up. It's essentially what he's telling himself. Now is the moment to put it all into practice with absolute commitment. There's a ton of sentences in this journal like that. Keep seeking out people who see investment realities as I do. Start to build a network. Do the unappealing things first. Never shirk the detail. Talks about detail over and over and over again. He hates sloppy people. He won't work with them. He finds it disgusting. Detail gives the grounding for strategy and”
2020-12-28 · Founders · #160 Peter Cundill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of current asset value per share as net net working capital per share and made it an essential condition of his investment process. The reason I'm reading this to you is because I think he did something that is extremely intelligent, which he's constantly reading, constantly searching for new ideas. He takes in those ideas and then he adds, he layers on his own thinking. And by doing so, this combination creates something unique. Using the relatively simple methodology, Peter and a small team were able to follow hundreds of companies on an international basis. This is before. He's not working with computers. He's doing this by hand. This collection of sheets was known as the Bible, and Peter took a copy of it with him wherever he traveled. His BMW in Vancouver even sported netnet on its license plate. Peter's journal is a motherload of pithy examples of his thinking, of his thinking processes in his new situation as a soul man.”
2020-12-28 · Founders · #160 Peter Cundill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Journal that it's in all caps, and this is what Peter is writing to himself. This is what I want to do for the rest of my life. Goodman was referring to Benjamin Graham and David Dodd's remarkable book security analysis, which we've talked about over and over again. Ton of the founders and investors that we covered on the podcast also read this book and it changed the way they looked at the world, which Peter dove into as soon as he finished Goodman. His library contained all six editions as originally published in 1934 and frequently updated. Every copy is heavily underlined and annotated, a man after my own heart, showing that he was continually reminding himself of basic principles and evaluating them in the light of contemporary circumstances.”
2020-12-28 · Founders · #160 Peter Cundill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Investment opportunities like that, but he had yet to find them. With growing frustration, he got into a flight in December 1973, nursing a colossal hangover and clutching a copy of the book Super Money. It was written by George Goodman. It was his Eureka moment. Goodman devotes, this is now Peter writing in his journal about how important this book was, because what it led to him, this is an example of what this idea that you and I always talk about, the books are original links. So it says Goodman devotes chapter 3 to Benjamin Graham and the margin of safety. It struck me like a Thunderbolt. There before me was the method. The solid theoretical backup to selecting investments based on the principle of realizing underlying value. My years of apprenticeship are over, and this is the only time in the entire book where Chris is quoting from Peter's”
2020-12-28 · Founders · #160 Peter Cundill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Concerned that the trust company will suffer from this policy by being starved of capital and exposed to potential loss of credibility and reputation should there be any bad investment decisions. The more I think about this, the more I recognize that reputation and credibility are actually all we have to sell. So he winds up leaving, but he's still tied to trouble and he's concerned. This is right before trouble goes to jail. So he says what was really preying on his mind and causing him sleepless nights was his worry about Frank Treble. By early 1972, the worldwide recession that had already precipitated a bear market in equities had begun to affect real estate values right across North America. That's where Trebble had a lot of money invested. Some of Trebble's real estate speculations were looking decidedly shaky. He winds up actually stealing money from another fund to cover the losses in real estate.”
2020-12-28 · Founders · #160 Peter Cundill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Professional life was just like Warren Buffett, he was a student of Benjamin Graham. He believed in the margin of safety. And this is what he thinks of his boss. This is the person he was engaged in a little bit of worship right before he starts his own company. Or first he jumps to another company, then he starts his own company. But he says, after eight years, I'm forced to question whether Treble, that's his boss, has reached the limit of his capabilities. He now seems more emotional than rational, intellectually quite shallow, and incapable of seeing the bigger picture. My own instincts are to make a success of the trust company with investment counseling and mutual fund management as its natural corollary. I cannot see the rationale behind assuming additional risk, which may even be beyond our shareholder mandate. We are not real estate developers, and I am not prepared to take corporate or personal financial risks like trouble, who's much more conservative.”
2020-12-28 · Founders · #160 Peter Cundill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“On marriage and kids. And we see now that question is like do I want my work to be in my obsession? Is now he's already realized, yes, I do want that. And I have to be careful because marriage and kids can get in the way of that. So he says, so a girl he was dating breaks up with him because he refuses to get married. So he says, the loss is painful, and yet I'm doing good professional work. I'm probably better off as a bachelor because my primary ambition is to be a great professional. I'm not sure if I really want children, and I'm equally unsure whether I could ever live with just one woman. The thought of domestic life slightly repels me, and given my strange set of routines, how could anyone possibly live with me anyway?”
2020-12-28 · Founders · #160 Peter Cundill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Want to draw your attention to this idea, this fear Peter wants to feel really alive. And so he goes out and purposely puts himself into dangerous or painful situations so he can feel at the time he's terrified, maybe very, in many cases very, very uncomfortable, but he does things like he climbs Mount Everest. He goes repelling down waterfalls. He gets in experimental planes and does all these crazy maneuvers. He goes on another flight that's like zero gravity. He does all these things that many people would be too afraid to do just because I think my interpretation after reading the book is that he felt alive at that moment. He chased the extremes. He was not comfortable with just the day-to-day monotony of normal life. So here's another journal entry. This is really Peter on dating in his third.”
2020-12-28 · Founders · #160 Peter Cundill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Very interesting. Let me pause there and I'll go back to let me interrupt my own self, I guess. It's interesting that he chose that time frame the next 40 years of my life. There's going to be incredible changes the next 40 years of my life. He lives another 41 years from this time he's writing that. So he's almost dead on there. There are going to be incredible changes in the next 40 years of my life and I look forward to them whatever they may be and I hope to have many more high points. Yesterday sailing in a brisk wind was one. It combined a feeling of mastery of the elements and of man-made materials with an understanding of how they can interrelate. There is a really sensual pleasure in the illusion that one is dominating the sea and chasing the clouds with some additional spice from the occasional prickle of fear.”
2020-12-28 · Founders · #160 Peter Cundill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But we're not there yet. This is the inner monologue of Peter after the trip. You need to get into some situations which make your gut tight and your balls tingle. I think I can now afford a few hates. I hate people who are imprecise, and I hate those who want to create chaos and mayhem in the world. I believe in change, but measured and controlled. I do see that the establishment needs the avant garde. What is brand new challenges complacency in any way in a consumer society where obsolescence is vital to progress, only stasis is frightening. That's a great, you could almost summarize his life, like his guiding philosophy, stasis is frightening. I'm looking at the moon, this is right around the moon landing in 1969. I'm looking at the moon with new eyes now and much curiosity. There are going to be incredible changes in the next 40 years of my life, and I look forward to them whatever they may be.”
2020-12-28 · Founders · #160 Peter Cundill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“very low lows. We see more of his inner monologue. He's in his late 20s, almost 30 years old. He says, I have a real terror of doing a bad job. But this has a positive side effect as a spur to performance. My shyness and awkwardness with things unfamiliar can make me brash and egocentric, and I fear this characteristic too. I think ambition is healthy, but it can also be a corrupting influence which can obscure good intentions. I really want to lead a useful life. It's a really interesting and I think admirable goal. To learn not only to make but to keep friends and to feel that I am succeeding in filling my life with rich experience at all times. In a way, I do fear for my ability to control my ambition properly, to channel it in a positive direction. So part of his job is this constant travel. He continues his”
2020-12-28 · Founders · #160 Peter Cundill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“desired to be one of those people who are really taken with the world sees life as this great experiment is a great adventure and I think that's something he held his entire life i cannot imagine i can't even begin to convey how much life he fit into the seven decades that he was alive so let me go back to the sentence and to the realization of how few people there are who are truly enthralled by the world around them with the desire to understand it this awareness which i owe to her is deeply enriching So this is around the time there's another book. It's called There's Always Something to Do I think The Investment, the subtitles The Investment Philosophy of Peter Kunto, that's more if you want to learn how he got rich. This is much more of a biography. We hear highlights, so I'm going to read this sentence. This is his job at the time. He's in Canada. That's where he's from. Eventually, he's going to relocate and live in London. But he says he was appointed vice president of Yorkshire Financial Corporation. The holding company.”
2020-12-28 · Founders · #160 Peter Cundill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Percent body fat. He runs, he cycles, he does all kinds of strenuous physical activities. Even when he's after he's diagnosed with that rare disorder where, you know, he can lose his balance, eventually he's confined to a wheelchair. I'll go into more detail about that later on because it's very devastating. But this obsession that we see when he's 27, he carries with him throughout his entire life. He was obsessed with being in the top percentage of fitness levels. He applies this not only to physical fitness, but in his work and almost everything else he does as well. But he was obsessed with being in the top percentile of physical fitness for people his own age. And this is a little bit about his mother from this time period in his journal. She's made a huge contribution to my intellectual life, to books and to music, and to the realization of how few people there are who are truly enthralled by the world around them, and now understanding his life story, he definitely...”
2020-12-28 · Founders · #160 Peter Cundill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I was probably unsuccessful with women because of that and not my looks are physique. I changed my physique anyway, and I'm glad of that, but I have also begun to confront the other hangups, especially my relationship with my dad's much closer to his mom. His dad's away from the war, comes home as kind of a stranger. Later on, he talks about resenting the fact that he used to have all of his mother's attention and his dad comes back, then he has a little brother and he winds up pulling away from his family. And he thinks later on after his mom dies, he's writing on his journal and he's talking about, you know, that was very, she lives well into her 90s. And he said, you know, that was a mistake. I intentionally hurt her because I was hurt. And then this writing about his physique, he was made fun of when he was younger because they called him pudgy or chubby. He becomes completely obsessed with physical fitness. He has a goal in his life to have a below.”
2020-12-28 · Founders · #160 Peter Cundill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And this is an entry from Peter's diary when he turned 27 years old. A lot of them are going to be similar to this, where he's documenting his life in real time, but he also has a fairly critical eye for the things that he needs to fix in his own life. His birthday entry sounded an introspective note, this direct writing from Peter now. A young man ought to express what he thinks deep down at least once. I believe that the major influences on my life so far have been, and then he lists them in bullet points here, this is the first one, the fact that my family, though well connected, was poor. He's obsessed with becoming wealthy. The next one, I essentially rebelled against parental authority from the time Dad got back from the war, and it got worse when Greer was born. Greer's his younger brother. This is the last one. For a while, I became a self-satisfied, arrogant snob.”
2020-12-28 · Founders · #160 Peter Cundill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Winds up answering this question for himself in the near future. Do I want my job to become my exception? I'm not sure. What I do know is that I want to do something which will engage my spirit in all of my faculties. My very being, and why should this not be my profession?”
2020-12-28 · Founders · #160 Peter Cundill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So he was drawn to accounting and to investing he works in the industry. This is long before, probably about a decade before he starts his own fund. And so he's still trying to figure out, trying to answer a question I think a lot of us ask ourselves from time to time, like, what do I want my work life to be? What do I want to get out of my craft, right? He says, Peter began to think about what really constitutes job satisfaction and whether for him this meant power or money or both or possibly something entirely different. His early questioning is revealing, now direct quote from his journal. Do I want my job to become my obsession? I'm not sure. His job, I didn't know that when I highlighted this, it is the single most important thing in his life. He winds up after much reluctance, does wind up settling down, he's married for a very long time, but his job comes before, I don't think he ever has any biological kids. He's got two stepkids, but his job becomes before everything else in his life.”
2020-12-28 · Founders · #160 Peter Cundill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so now we get into some direct quotes from his journal. It says, I'm convinced that to achieve real greatness, a person needs above all to have passion, but at the same time immense discipline, concentration, patience, and an unshakable determination to become a master of his craft. He's writing these words at 25 years old. And I would say that's the path that he pursues If so, I'll need to make something interesting of myself first”
2020-12-28 · Founders · #160 Peter Cundill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It says his most natural tendency was to write about investment matters, drawing useful inferences from his reading. Sports and fitness were frequent features, including the competitive instinct and the drive to excel. Warren Buffett's got this great quote that says, intensity is the price of excellence. And I think that's something that Peter definitely believed in. The nature of human love, sexual attraction, and sensuality, especially in the context of his personal sexuality, was another preoccupation. It's covered in his journal a lot. And he was a critical observer of human behavior and habits.”
2020-12-28 · Founders · #160 Peter Cundill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He had learned that a private diary could potentially be one's best friend, an uncritical confidant for one's frustrations and pent up emotion, and a sounding board for the pros and cons of life's decisions. The exercise can be habit forming, even addictive, and Peter was naturally disposed to establish strict routines that he respected, bearing compelling reasons to change. And so it's these excerpts out of his journal, out of his diary that makes this book so interesting and compelling to read, because way before, we see his thought processes, his inner monologue, his struggle with depression, his addiction to success and praise from others. We see all of this way before he becomes one of the greatest value investors of all time. So this is the why and what of his journal, his opinions as a young man on how to achieve greatness. And then he's got a great idea about living your life as if somebody wrote a book about it.”
2020-12-28 · Founders · #160 Peter Cundill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“His journal. So I want to let me just go right to the beginning where he gets this idea. He says during this time he's 25 years old at the time. Peter made a momentous decision. On August 16, 1963, he began to write the journal that he then kept faithfully day by day for over 40 years.”
2020-12-28 · Founders · #160 Peter Cundill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source