Generalist/Specialist Expertise One of the greatest balancing acts I have ever encountered in business is the choice between being a generalist or a specialist. I’m not sure how many people focus on this juxtaposition, but I believe it is a primary choice that every professional must make. Some will suggest that this does not apply to people who choose a specific professional track like medicine or law, but I think this choice exists in almost…
The Hanoi Hilton President Trump is in Hanoi meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jung Un. I’m not sure what hotel he is staying at and I’m sure Hilton would not place a hotel in Hanoi given the historical significance of the prison with the moniker Hanoi Hilton. What I am sure of is that he has no business being there at all. The reasons for this are known to most Americans whether they agree with…
A Croc and Ball Story Last year, at my wife’s urging, I wrote a book about her dog, Cecil. The book is 80 pages long, is called Eat Play Poop, and is about the good fortune of one rescue dog who landed in the lap of luxury, as told from the perspective of the unbelieving husband. I won’t claim that the book is a page-turner, but I enjoyed writing it since the entire experience of…
The Curse of an Active Mind Rich glanced again at the clock and saw that 6:30am had finally come. The pillow-top mattress of his NYC apartment bed had done a decent job of cushioning his glitchy hip and it had not been the reason for his semi-wakefulness for the past two hours. That was more likely due to the unplanned nap he had taken while getting his late afternoon fix of MSNBC and the daily…
The Meanness of Meaning I just finished reading an article in the New York Times Sunday Magazine about how miserable in their work 895 Class of ‘01 graduates of Harvard Business School are. Imagine that, the best and the brightest, earning over seven figures being unfulfilled in their work. It sounded in the telling like the root of the problem was money. Imagine money being the root of all evil. Oh, that’s right, they’ve been…
Stream of Consciousness One of the pros/cons of being a storyteller is that you occasionally stumble over some old prose you’ve filed away in a remote corner of your Dropbox. Such is this stream from several years ago. Aug. 9th, 2017 My name is Richard A. Marin, but I go by Rich. I am a 40+ year financial professional, most of that spent on Wall Street, but more recently focused on real estate development. I’ve…
Mark Antony in Sanskrit I went to high school in Rome, Italy. I took four years of Latin, which my UN diplomat mother swore would make me a better person. I can quote the opening lines to Caesar’s Gallic Wars, which has really come in handy over the years. Since I am neither a doctor nor lawyer, as best I can tell, I was best able to use “living Latin” while I was in Rome…
iPad Espionage September 4, 2018 – Memphis, TN (AP) – Today the Department of Homeland Security announced that it had confiscated and was holding for investigation, an iPad Pro that had been traveling globally through the FedEx system for an indeterminate time for indeterminate purposes. A spokesman for FedEx said, “We just ship and deliver the stuff.” A DHS official who preferred not to be identified said, “This iPad was suspicious in its origin, purpose,…
The Political Risks of Cruising We have done four cruises now and have signed up for at least one more next year down the Nile. Whether River or Ocean, these cruises are a political minefield in these days of galvanizing global views. It is no secret that the world has bifurcated into distinct cohorts of red and blue. In everyday life, one can manage the situation because we know the lay of the land. To…
The Calm of the Cruise In the Fall of 1963, when the world was reeling from the assassination of John F. Kennedy, a little girl in kindergarten in the Miami Elementary School in Wabash, Indiana was scheduled for afternoon nap time. When her teacher wondered why she had not come back to her mat after her excused visit to the Girls’ Room, she went to the bathroom to find her. When she opened the door,…