When we launched Valhalla three years ago, we knew our differentiation would come not just from what we do but from what we believe. Over the past year, I’ve been capturing those beliefs in short reflections I call #ValhallaEssentials. Today, I’m proud to share our first 50. They cover everything from trust and client service …
Our family enjoyed a few weeks of vacation on Bornholm. As we were milling around, a handful of ideas for future blogposts occurred to me; I also took tons of photographs. I thought I would share some of these pictures, and summaries of potential blogposts, here. Bornholm is a small island in the Baltic Sea, …
The exponential information age is like a verbally incontinent person: he talks more and more as fewer and fewer people listen. Nassim Nicholas Taleb: The Bed of Procrustes As a young businessman consulting clients, I recall feeling a tension between two forms of advice from elder consultants. The first form was to always prepare for …
One person, on doing well by others, immediately accounts the expected favor in return. Another is not so quick, but still considers the person a debtor and knows the favor. A third kind of person acts as if not conscious of the deed, rather like a vine producing a cluster of grapes without making further …
The Loughran family lived next door to my grandparents in Paramus, NJ when I was a child. I have memories of sneaking, as a young boy, across the grass over to Mrs. Loughran’s backdoor to pick a few candies from a dish in her living room. Mrs. Loughran apparently shared that, when she asked me …
I enjoy the slow pace of Saturday mornings during the pandemic. This morning included a casual stroll with Becca and Odie as well as some time invested into a Python project; I also listened to an interview with Niall Ferguson. Some meandering thoughts about experiences in personal finance I wrote in a blog post last …
As a resident of Pennsylvania, I was curious about the distribution of votes for US President across geography (e.g. rural-PA compared with urban-PA) as well as vote modality (e.g. in-person compared with by-mail.) I understood that it would take at least a few days after the election to count votes cast by mail, and it …