Summary of today’s issue
🔑 #1 - Why Trust matters in this country
🔑 #2 - Enduring Ventures Shareholder event
🔑 #3 - Make creating things less scary
As many of you know, SVB and Signature Bank went out of business this weekend.
Over the weekend I received hundreds of text messages from business owners who were scared they had lost all of their hard-earned money. Many worried they wouldn’t be able to make payroll.
This series of scary events made me think of a story I once read…
It’s the story of Isais Hellman.
A Jewish immigrant who came to the US in 1868 with nothing in his pockets. He moved to California and started a dry good store. Then he started a bank…and grew to become the richest banker in California…
It’s a beautiful piece of history. I highly recommend the book.
The reason the book is called “Towers of Gold” is the following story I’d like to share:
In 1871, Hellman started a bank called Farmers & Merchants.
The bank developed a reputation for safe lending, which helped it weather many crises over the years.
Bank runs were more common 100 years ago…but Isais was able to survive them all.
One day while he was on vacation in Europe, his bank president, responding to news of the week decided to close the bank to customers for a month.
It caused a panic.
On learning this news Isais rushed home from his vacation.
In route he passed through New York to pickup a $20,000 loan from his brother-in-law, also a banker by the last name Lehman (yes, the Lehman Brothers one… it’s a small world).
He showed up at his bank in California pulling a chariot, surrounded by armed guards.
His chariot was stacked high with a tower of gold.
As customers nervously awaited in line at the bank to withdraw their cash, he parted the crowd and walked up to teller. He then proceeded to slowly stack gold bars on the counter, one at a time...
Watching him stack gold on the counter calmed the crowd down. People realized their money was safe, and they left…
Three times in his career Isais had a bank run on his hands, and each time he repeated his action. He showed up with a tower of gold to assure his customers.
This weekend the US Government followed Isais’ 150 year-old playbook.
In doing so they restored trust in the system, and likely prevented further bank runs.
I’m a die-hard believer in the importance trust in institutions.
My mother came to the United States in 92’ because she didn’t trust the Soviet Union.
And despite knowing nothing about this country, or even speaking the language…she trusted the United States.
Since then millions of immigrants have followed the same path. They left a country where trust was broken, and came to a place they believed in.
Trust in our institutions allows us to feel safe. It allows us to feel confident in our kids’ futures.
It allows us to avoid hoarding cash in the mattress. And it allows for a healthy lending ecosystem.
One of the reasons entrepreneurship is so vibrant in the US is because of the trust in our society.
Trust is like a wave. It propagates.
You can’t remove trust in one part of society without seeing it ripple elsewhere.
Lack of trust is like a fungus.
If you let it grow, it spreads, and rots, and weakens the beams of the foundation of your home.
Our government makes a lot of mistakes. That’s ok. All humans have faults.
But the government’s most important job is to maintain people’s trust in our institutions. By stepping in and guaranteeing the deposits of people it did exactly that this week.
🇺🇸 Good job team America 🇺🇸
While we’re talking about cash safety, here’s how I manage cash:
You can apply to attend → https://forms.gle/CetgMzCYsPs8D8Tc6
Our shareholder event last fall in Utah was one of my highlights of the past year. From an impromptu huddle on the technicalities of HoldCo construction, to a fireside chat with Romeen Sheth, to a highly competitive business history trivia game, it exceeded all my expectations.
Many of our friends on the East Coast couldn't make it all the way to Utah, so we decided to host an event this year in Miami. I'm especially thrilled that we will be joined by our friend and fellow shareholder, Sahil Bloom. Sahil has built one of the biggest audiences on the Internet from scratch in just a couple of years. We'll be discussing how everyone can leverage the same techniques he used to build their own personal brands.
If you are able to make it, I promise excellent food, excellent conversation and some surprises and insights that you won't get anywhere else.
The dates are Apr 26-28.
We will walk through our recent acquisitions, host fireside chats with our CEOs, and have a few surprises up our sleeves. We will also invite you to share your stories and areas of expertise. We leave plenty of flexible time in the schedule, so you can still take calls while you're there.
We invite you to bring a +1 to the event and some or all of the programming as you see fit.
We do have to charge for this ($1.2k+), as we aim to break even on the event (so as not to impose any cost on shareholders who cannot attend). All lodging, food and activities are included. You can opt to share hotel room with other shareholders to reduce cost if you like.
We like to keep these events very intimate which means unfortunately we have limited spots.
If you would like to join us, please follow this link to tell us a bit about yourself and we will reach-out individually to you.
When was the last time you created something?
An email or work project doesn’t count.
I appreciate the framework Matt shares because it lowers the bar to being a “creator”.
Creating is scary. And most don’t have the potential to be the next Jerry Seinfeld.
But we all have creativity in us.
And to live a full life, we need to cultivate that creativity…
If you lower the friction around creating something, and make it simple & stupid, you’re more likely to do it.
You’ll be amazed by the progress you see when you just start doing something small every day.
In the thread above Matt suggests:
write in your journal daily
It creates momentum for your “creative” muscle! It also helps clears your mind of bad thoughts.
set weekly dates with yourself
Give yourself some time and space to grow personally.
My soon-to-be wife says I’m the king of new hobbies. I didn’t recognize that, but I guess it’s true…
In the last of couple years I’ve: learned to sail, learned to captain a river raft, and last weekend I made sourdough bread.
Learning a hobby helps me “get out of my head, and into my body”.
We all spend so much time living in our own heads with our concerns and anxieties…
I encourage you to find 3 days a week to “Get out of your head”. Even if it’s for just an hour!
Some ways to get out of your head: 1) do a hard activity 2) work with your hands.
Unfortunately going to the gym or a run doesn’t count. You’re being physical but often your thoughts are racing around anyways. A workout class may be a good alternative, or a game of tennis or pickleball :)
How about you? Are you pursuing any hobbies? Are you trying to create something or work with your hands? How is that impacting your life?
Have a great week,
Sieva
ps: Thank you all for your song recommendations last week!! I loved hearing the diversity in music I’ve never explored…
‍
‍
