Michael Falk, CFA, a partner at the Focus Consulting, applies the lessons he learned as a competitive baseball pitcher to investment teams and discusses the importance of creating a sell discipline for losers and winners in an investment portfolio, his many writing projects, and living with ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease.
The Take 15 Series is a collection of illuminating, short conversations with noted economists, best-selling authors, leading researchers, and successful practitioners on topics ranging from geopolitics and whistleblowing to irrationality and outlooks.
Episode Transcript (PDF)
Topics discussed:
2:10 Michael’s love for baseball and lessons to learn from the sport
4:33 Becoming a better listener
8:05 Sell discipline
11:11 When to retire and succession planning
15:17 Michael’s article, Everything You Want to Know About Investing
18:30 Michael’s new paper on stakeholder capitalism
21:25 Bitcoin: how should investors be thinking about cryptocurrencies
25:30 Michael’s thoughts on blockchain technology
27:28 Michael’s clinical trial
34:28 Embracing vulnerability
38:08 Flight or invisibility?
Related articles and links:
- Everything You Need to Know About Investing
- Enterprising Investor article: Crypto Dreamin’? The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
- Enterprising Investor article: Michael S. Falk, CFA, on Safety Nets, Trampolines, and Opportunity Equality
- NYT article: Drug May Extend A.L.S. Patients’ Lives by Several Months, Study Finds
- Brené Brown’s TED talk, The Power of Vulnerability
- John Hodgman on This American Life ep.178
- HBR video: “Five Whys”
- HBR article: The Contradictions That Drive Toyota’s Success
- This American Life ep. 178: Invisible Man Vs. Hawkman