Saturday, January 19, 2008

* Investing In What's Important

It is no secret that I work too much and don't spend as much time with my family as I would like. Several weeks ago I learned that my 12-year old daughter had been selected to represent her class at homecoming.


My wife filled in the details, she said my daughter wanted me to escort her, there would be one practice session and then she hit me with the big one - this year's homecoming was going to be in January. Oh my, January by far is my busiest month at work. Integrating a large acquisition this year has made it doubly busy.

I silently stared at my wife for several moments before I said, "I'll make it work". The rehearsal was Wednesday January 18th at noon and homecoming was Friday night. I thought the Wednesday rehearsal would be the more difficult one to make since it was at mid-day and I would have to allow commute time. Being there at 5:00pm Friday night should be much easier since most of the executives usually clear out out well before then on Fridays.

As life usually works, I get an email on Tuesday from the CEO's secretary requesting my attendance at a meeting on Friday from 3:00pm to 5:00pm. This meeting was to provide a detailed briefing to the CEO and CFO on a couple of important matters. As in most companies, meeting times are set at the convenience of the executives. After much finagling, I was able to get the meeting moved to 8:00am.

When I relayed this to my daughter, her face lit up and her eyes beamed wide, "You did all that for me daddy?" Having to overcome this adversity made the time spent with my daughter all the more special to her. As investors we spend a great deal of time analyzing and selecting stocks, sometimes we (I) forget to invest in the lives of those that mean the most to us (me). The dividends paid here are certainly much better than those from equities!


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