the power of compounding relationships
OOH …Here’s One Thing
Let’s Give ‘Em Something to Talk About
by Jim Johnsen,
Managing Director, Johnsen, Fretty & Company
“So for some strange reason, I looked up an old friend on LinkedIn recently. I am admittedly one of the worst users of LinkedIn out there. I can’t stand the “smartphone” notifications so I turned those off many moons ago. In addition, all my email notifications go right to my spam box. But every once in a while as I am trying to dig something else out of spam, I see 500 LinkedIn notifications and one seems slightly interesting. Once on LinkedIn, I usually find myself down a 45-minute rabbit hole with nothing to show for it.
But I digress. On this fine morning, I am trying to remember the name of David Dorfman‘s new private equity group (shout out to David’s old partner, Marc Miller) and I see that he is a friend of someone I knew in the late 80s. Besides the fact that he dated my wife for a short time (if you are wondering, it was before we were married), I thought he was a pretty decent guy and he did go on to be the youngest partner at Goldman Sachs before they went public, so it’s hard to argue about his pedigree. (Climbing to the top of Goldman was and still is a full-contact sport). He left GS at the ripe old age of 40 or something like that, with bags of cash and even more contacts and has gone on to do some really cool stuff including preserving the Highline in NYC (elevated train tracks turned public walking park) and seeding Peloton.
…Fantastic Johnsen, but where are you going with this? Ya, I know, that’s a long lead-in. Apologies. In any event, here it is. In the profile, this is what he posts:
“I believe deeply in the power of compounding and that it applies to personal relationships and organizational cultures as well as investing. It has taken me many years and many mistakes to internalize the significance of this simple formula. It is now so central to my personal and professional life that I try to exclusively focus my attention on the long-term when I make commitments of my scarcest resources: my time, my emotional energy and my financial capital. As I have become better at applying this to all facets of my life it has led me to be surrounded by family, friends, colleagues, companies and causes that are having significant and positive impacts on my life and in their chosen fields. I wake up every day feeling excited to root for all of them and the frequency and nature of their many successes is a regular source of joy.”
So the first time I read it I thought, perfect for a Wall Streeter. Reduce all human interaction to a financial concept. (THE MOST powerful financial rule btw but that’s beside the point). But then I read it again and it began to resonate. When you are working with another individual or a team, and you are “in the flow”, whether it be for an hour, a day, a year, or a lifetime, that relationship(s) is compounding, and the results, they are compounding. So long short, I really want to marinate on this over the next few weeks and work it into my psyche.
Shout out to the fine individual who put this out there. I will not mention any names to protect the innocent. Would love to hear your thoughts on the power of compounding relationships.
Hear the song, see the video here ⇒ Something To Talk About
“Laugh just a little too loud (a little too loud)
Stand just a little too close (too close)
We stare just a little too long
Maybe they’re seeing something we don’t darling”
Bonnie Raitt
jfco.com
Securities transacted through StillPoint Capital Member firm FINRA/SiPC