Random Musings

In 1955, Cyril Parkinson wrote a humorous essay meant to critique the "efficiency" of public administration in Britain. The first sentence of that essay spawned a book (60 actually) and a whole new field of study for psychologists. That sentence was "work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion". That's an old timey way of saying most of us make excuses to not do something until the last minute and then rush like mad to complete it.

Does 10,000 hours make you a master? In 2005, Malcolm Gladwell released the book Outliers: The Story of Success , which I just listened to as part of my audiobook adventure. In it, he examined what factors led some of the wealthiest people to success. He looked at why most elite level hockey players are born in the first three months of the year [side note: my son was born in February, so watch for him in the draft one day ;) ] and mentions throughout the book something referred to as "the 10,000 Hour Rule". He hypothesizes that it may be the key to reaching world-class expertise and mastery of one's craft and/or profession.

It's January 2017. You get a thick envelope from your "financial institution". It's your year end statement. Those 18 pages that you look at for 3 seconds, just long enough to see if the number on the bottom of page 1 is bigger than last year. What you may have missed was a new page, added waaay at the back, that tells you exactly how well your portfolio performed. Oh, and exactly how much you paid to be invested. I wrote all about this new section in a post for Manulife's Looking Forward Blog.