Twas the night before Christmas 2024 and all through the house, not a creature was stirring.... Merry Christmas Irma, Elle and Laura.

Dear Irma, I trust this CHristmas Eve letter finds you, and our two daughters well. This time of year was always special for your late father-in-law and, by extension, for me. IT is my hope that it remains, or has become, a special time for you too, Irma. Meeting a Canadian in OKayama City back in 1990 changed your lifepath just as much as meeting a Mexican changed mine. This morning I wish to count it among our family's blessings. Elle and Laura are now around the same age you and I were when we first decided to share our lives together and form a family. While we didn't really know each other well enough yet, we hitched our wagon to the Fates and took the plunge. Do young people still do that? Not with the same ease and confidence, it would seem. All of us are a product of our childhood and we carry that legacy, like a turtle carries its shell, all the days of our lives. Do you recall the three lines of French poetry that I once composed and gave to you? "Le moi, pour toi, je le risque. Le toi, pour moi, tu le risque. Le tout, pour nous, risqu'on le." If you, or any of you, ever have questions or feel the need to talk, let me know. For me, those three lines sum up my thinking back in 1991. in the interim, may the three of you bask in the knowlesge that you are well, that your extended family is well, that each of us is living as healthy and productive a life as we can, and that love is often expressed implicitly if not explicitly. MAy the Sprit of Christmas, like my momoties of my DAd (who cherished December 25 more than anyone I ever knew) inhabit each of you this week, this month and for the coming 12 months. Peace on earth and goodwill to all. Merry Christmas 2025 and Happy New Year 2026. Love, Bern

Happy 28th birthday, Laura. May the coming 12 months be healthy, joyous, productive, and prosperous ones for you and those around you whom you love.

Good morning Laura: Dec. 23, 1996, was a wonderful day. Every year at this time, God is thanked for sending you into our family to brighten the world a little bit and lift the spirits of everyone whose lives have been touched by your kindness and intelligence. Know that your family continues to root and cheer for you as you make your way through life, like a shooting star, guiding others with your wisdom and touching the lives of those you meet along the way. A precocious child, you never failed to impress your paternal grandparents with you ability to reason and verbalize things at a time when other children were still trying to string letters together and form words. It was as though you were in a hurry and had the knowledge and raw horsepower well before your peers. Your paternal grandfather reminded us frequently that: "To those to whom God gave much, much was expected.". From where I sit, Laura, you have always been a contributor, a hard worker, and a tireless defender of the rights of others. From the impoverished corn farmer in Mexico to the vulnerable and unrepresented LEX client in Montreal, you have been in their corner. It remains my hope that the love and joy of a father for his daughter will be felt and received. Like a distant star in a far off galaxy, I shall persist in transmitting light and heat long after my inner force has extinguished... In the hope that even just a glint or a glimmer will one day land on your cheek and be felt not as a sunburn but as a flickering glow of warmth and unconditional, unadulterated love. Stay well, dear Laura in the coming year. Continue to use all your talents, communications ability and fine brain in service to others. You have your Mom's raw intelligence and sense of justice. Use it in service to others. The life path of the gifted child is never easy yet it can be most rewarding. None of us will make it out alive. The best we can hope to achieve is to somehow lighten the load for others along the way. Service towards others is what leads to joy and happiness, I believe. For your paternal grandfather it was his modus operandi,.. his natural state. He led by example and thought by living a good, clean, exemplary life, Laura. And, like the rest of us, Austin Edward cheered the day you entered the world. Dec. 23, 1996. May you feel only the love and warm embrace of an extended family that loves you unconditionally, that is proud of your many talents and how you are putting them to use in service of others, of your inner and outer beauty and intelligence. Happy birthday, today, Laura. Know that you are loved and that your love is felt by others including me. With love, Dad

Letter to Laura

Dear Laura, I trust this letter finds you well and safe. I know that things have been very difficult between us, and I wish to acknowledge how painful and confusing this time must be for you. I am truly sorry for any hurt or frustration you’ve felt. I want you to know that I love you very much. My wish is for us to have a healthy and happy relationship. I understand that rebuilding trust will take time. I am committed to being patient and respectful of your feelings and boundaries. If you ever feel ready to talk or share your thoughts and feelings with me, I am here to listen. You can express yourself in any way that feels right for you, whether it's through words, art, or any other means. I promise to listen with an open heart and without judgment. Please know that my love for you is unwavering. I am here for you whenever you feel ready to take that step towards reconnecting. In the meantime, I shall continue to work on myself and to do everything I can to be the person I was meant to become. With all my love, Dad

Happy 30th birthday today, Elle. Lots of love today (Nov. 28, 2024) from Bernie the Monkey.

Dear Elle, I just want to tell you that I am proud of the woman you have become. I recall when you were smaller than my hand and seemed so fragile 30 years ago. Months later, I loved dancing with you in my arms in the kitchen and dining room as classical music pieces, including Johann Strauss' Blue Danube, played on the CD player. Years later, it was "underdogs" on the tree swing in front of the house and bicycle rides to Alta Vista Library. All those memories flood back to me today as I think of the first 30 years of your life so far. May you enjoy another 70 years of creativity and connection with family, friends and colleagues. You have always brought so much joy into the lives of children and adults alike. May you bask, this afternoon, in the knowledge that you have become a wonderful young woman. Lots of love, Bernie the Monkey. (insert heart with arrow here) 0000XXXX

Dear Reader: You once asked wisely, how can PM Harper prove he has no "hidden agenda" if its hidden. That was the genius of the attack. It is impossible to disprove. "How do you prove that you don't have a "hidden agenda". You can't. Many people around the world are feeling anxious today. I think they should be feeling hopeful and optimistic. The arc of history bends ever so slightly towards justice. It does not happen overnight, but over time, it bends in the correct direction. For that reason, I believe that she will win and he will lose south of the 49th. That is my hope and that is what I believe shall happen. Thank you for concerns expressed to my little sis. Rest assured that life's challenges have forged an inner strength that shall withstand the vissicitudes that life throws at it. Its the physical health, more than the other, that is likely to wear out first. Lots of love to everyone, especially the three ladies. Bernie the Monkey

Happy Thanksgiving 2024 ladies

Dear I, E and L, It is Thanksgiving Monday 2024 and we all have much to be grateful for. Here are a few things I have learned of late. Some the hard way (at the School of Hard Knocks) and others from an unlikely guru named the late Charlie Munger. Munger's musings are entertaining and also enlightening. First of all, you have his advice on how to ensure that you live a miserable life. It is surprising just how many people opt to follow that path. See: https://jamesclear.com/great-speeches/how-to-guarantee-a-life-of-misery-by-charlie-munger Reading or listening to Munger's wisdom is something I have enjoyed imbibing this year. It is simple, straightforward advice that I believe we can all learn from. And, it would seeem, a great many men and women around the world have turned to this great, late man's reationalist wisdom for solace and guidance. Another interesting person, a discipline of Munger, is the founder of the Dakshana (Infinite Good) NGO. I love the structure of Dakshana. It is a charitable org that I have personally supported for three years running. It reminds me of the time a sibling was without work for over three years and job searching fromm the living room. Finally, I offered to pay him his old salary for one month if he commutted from Rockland into downtown Ottawa with me five days a week for at least one month. Wew would arrive downtown at 9:00 am and he would sit in a BridgeHead coffee shop near Parliament Hill all day job searching on his computer. After work we would meet up at that coffee shop near Sparks St and head back home. "But I can do this same job search from the comfort of my sofa at home," he would note. "Why not pay me my salary and let me job search from home". Because you must come to downtown Ottawa five days days a week," I explained. "That is the one condition". I still recall the day - about two weeks into the four week stint - when he had settled into his favorite table in the busy BridgeHead, had opened up his laptop and was scrolling the job postings. "But I have already checked out all of these new job offers", he said, scrolling quickly down the list. I was about to turn towards the exit door and head to work when he stopped on one new job posting and said "... except for this one... from a drone company in Orleans." That day, he applied for the position. Within two days, he had interviewed for the job and was offered it. He has been there ever since. The experience was not unlike the experience Monish Pabrai had when his family asked him to help a young relative get a job. Monish asked a small IT company in India to hire the relative for one year. Monish said he would pay the young man's salary if the company agreed to hire him. The IT company asked only that Monish provide a desk, a chair and a computer for his nephew to use. In that way, the small company could lend out the chair, desk and computer to another overnight employee. The nephew learned a lot during his stint at the small company. Before the year's end, the young man had the skills and confidence to apply elsewhere. The small IT company kept the man's desk and chair but the man kept his computer. This experience opened Monish's eyes and inspired his creation of the Dakshana Foundation. I., E., and L., you can learn about Pabrai's foundational story at: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mohnish-pabrais-talk-at-pan-iit-conference-toronto/id1494251347?i=1000470134799 This year, I found a new sense of post-retirement purpose thanks to: https://bpcrpl.ca/programs/english-as-a-second-language-workshop/ I love this little ESL Workshop. Your late Canadian grandfather got the Rockland Help Centre off the ground when he retired. The "fripperie" funds the food bank in a virtuous circle, feedback loop. It is a beautiful thing. When I first retired I considered leveraging my Hill experience and wanted to help folks with problems similar to those that I worked on as a MP's assistant (case worker). As a co-dependent, I enjoy helping others. At first I considered hanging up my shingle at Rockland Library in the same way as Saigon's last public writer did for many, many years. Mr. Dương Văn Ngộ was a Vietnamese postal worker and polyglot public letter writer known for being the longest-serving and last public letter writer and translator in Vietnam. During his three decades of work as a letter-writer, Ngộ wrote thousands of letters. He became my inspiration. Until I realized that, unlike the large, busy post office he worked at in Vietnam, Rockland Post Office is a dreary, quiet place with little thru-traffic. That is when I came up with the idea of setting up shop outside of Clarence-Rockland Public Library. Housed inside the same building as the local YMCA and my old H.S., it seemed like a great location to set up shop each morning. It was at that point that I decided to research Dad's Help Centre model and see if I could somehow add value to it by perhaps adding a public writer / advocate dept. tl its list of services. So I looked at the Northumberland Help Centre model and stumbled upon the fascinating life story of CEO Patricia Kamphorst. Patricia Orantes was her name when I first came across her involvement with the Port Hope "Help and Legal Centre": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCipmnfu7UI When I noted that The Help Centre in Port Hope offers free ESL to newcomers, that sparked an idea. I had loved teaching English in Japan in my mid-20s and so I wondered if there might be a need for free ESL in Rockland. This City has seen an influx of francophone newcomers (mainly from Haiti, the D.R. of the Congo and Cameroon) post-pandemic. All speak French yet few have mastered English. Yet English is essential for many if not most local employers. And so the Library's ESL Workshop was born. It brings me great joy to have such an interesting, useful and rewarding post-retirement project to work on Some of my 30 ESL students include: S. (a Cameroonian working days at A&W and evenings at teacher's college), J-R. (a Hatian doc preparing to get his Master's at Ottawa U in Sept in Public Health), Frank of Cameroon, Marie Catherine ("call me Catherine") a retired customs officer from Haii), Georgette (mother to many including Patrick) from the D.R. of the Congo, and Naceur of Kibilya How has your past year gone, I., E. and L. All three of you have tremendous talent and have already achieved considerable success professionally. Be it at the GoC's T.B., at a prominent law firm, or Lu and the Bally Bunch. Your collective talent and intelligence is something you can be proud of. Your heart and caring spirit for others also. To those to whom much is given, much is expected. And so, on this Thanksgiving 2024, let us all unite in spirit if not in person and see if we cannot help make this world a slightly better place than it was in 2023. Make that your Thanksgiving 2024. That the four of us shall leave this planet in slightly better condition than when we first entered it. I love you all and hope you each have a good Thanksgiving Day no matter where you are in the world. Regards, Bernie the Monkey

My reply to a 2014 email

Part 1 My reply to your email: After reading your email to me a few months ago, I felt exactly like I did when you and I first fell out with each other. The man that you describe in your email is not someone I recognize. If I saw myself in your description, I would readily amit it. Unfortunately, the person you describe is not recognizable to me.... in me. I cannot explain how such a thing can happen. It is extraordinary and...to my mind... extroardinarily unfortunate for both you and me. My love for you is overlasting and unegotiable. It is not something I can stop feeling. It just is and has been since the day you were born. In your email, you write about how misguided and hurtful my love has been for you over the years. It reminds me of the question: "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?" It saddens me profoundly to know that you have spent almost 30 years unable to feel loved by your father. While I accept that this is your reality, it is not mine. You may be accurately describing things when you write about feeling unloved by your father. But you don't get to decide how I really feel. You don't get to decide if my love is false love or real love. Just because you don't feel ittidoes not mean it is not real. All it means is that it has been falling on stone for 25 years instead of fertile ground. I must accept reality as it is. To do otherwise would be to be deluding myself. Likewise, you need to know that the person you descibe in your email is not how I see myself nor is it how I am inside. I was loved deeply by my father (your grandfather). So I know what it feels like to be loved by a Dad. And I have never given up on the hope that you would feel my love the way I felt loved by the late Ted "Austin" Nunan. Yes, there have been times in my life when I have not lived up to my own ideal of a perfect Dad or husband or boyfriend. I can count them on the fingers of one hand. In your email, you describe a violent and abusive man. That is not me. It is not who I am. How is it possible that you see me as one thing and I see myself in a totally different way. Am I the one who is deluded or in denial? Are you? In fact, I don't think either of us is. Let me explain what I think has happened to our family: My grandfather in Paris ON. struggled with alchool addiction and was unkind towards his wife (my grandmother). My father and his brother Peter never drank alchool as a result. As the child of an alcoholic, my Dad (your grandfather) displayed co-dependent traits. These traits were passed onto me, as his son. And I passed on some of those traits on to my eldest daughter, Elizabeth. It is not something a parent does consciously. It is unconscious. You once told me that, because of me, you struggled with developing a healthy attitude/relationship with money. As a child, I saw how my mom was always worried about running out of money. My Dad was generous and believed in abundance whereas my mom was always reluctant to spend money. She had developed a "scarcity" mindset. It all began when her father (Grandfather Bertrand) was treated by a quack doctor who accidentally caused Seraphin Bertrand to become incapacitated through accidental blood poisoning. As a result mom and her two sister had to work outside the home to earn money for the family. That is why your Grandmother Bertrand Nunan became worried about money. She passed that unhealthy relationship with money on to me and I apparently passed it onto you. Just as you inherited your relationship with money from me, I believe you unconsciously inherited your difficult relationship with me. The root cause was not what you think it was. I say this as someone who was an adult when you were born. As someone who observed how things were in your infant years and how our father-daughter relationship suddenly went off the rails and never got back on track. If you want to see things the way, I do - even if it's only a glimmer for an instant - you must "invert, always invert" (https://jamesclear.com/inversion). It is the only way you can step out of yourself and see things as they really are and not how you would like them to be. I speak from experience here since I had to "invert" in order to step into your world momentarily just long enough to see things as you do and not as I do. You see, I did not know how my late Grandfather Nunan's alcoholism was impacting me, my personality and my life decisions until my relationship with my youngest daughter went off the rails. It led me to spend years trying to better understand you and myself. The key question that you must ask yourself is this: "Was my father ever abusive or hurtful towards me BEFORE I turned six and began disliking him?" To answer this question truthfully, you must practice the inversion technique. It allowed me to glimpse at reality not as I see it but as my younger daughter saw it when she penned me an email sent from her personal inbox earlier this year. "Inversion can be particularly useful for challenging your own beliefs. It forces you to treat your decisions like a court of law. In court, the jury has to listen to both sides of the argument before making up their mind. Inversion helps you do something similar. What if the evidence disconfirmed what you believe? What if you tried to destroy the views that you cherish? Inversion prevents you from making up your mind after your first conclusion. It is a way to counteract the gravitational pull of confirmation bias. Inversion is an essential skill for leading a logical and rational life. It allows you to step outside your normal patterns of thought and see situations from a different angle. Whatever problem you are facing, always consider the opposite side of things." To my mind, that is the only hope you have of ever sensing your father's love which has been emanating or radiating from me since December 23, 1996. I cannot help it. A healthy attachment occurs when a parent loves their child unconditionally and when the child love the parent unconditionally. That did not happen in our family's case. I fully accept responsibility for the problem but not for the reasons that you outlined in your 2024 email to me. My root cause problem is the same problem as Ross Rosenberg (author of: The Human Magnet) has. I am not blaming anyone else. I take full responsibility for my problem. While it is not the problem you outline in your letter, the end result is the same. A tragic missed opportunity for you to feel loved and loving towards your father. -end of part 1 -

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/health/wellness/co-dependency-why-can-t-i-stop-putting-others-before-myself/ar-BB1lyB1Y?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=76320eb1568c4f5a8c0d33bb3dc8898b&ei=9 Co-dependency: Why can't I stop putting others before myself? Story by DR. MIKE GROPPER • 4mo • 5 min read Esti is a 56-year-old divorced woman. She is the mother of two adult sons who are in their late 20’s. Both her sons and her ex-husband live in England. She first came to me to help her quit smoking. Early on in our meetings, she began to tell me about some of the other problems that were troubling her. Esti told me about her years of suffering in a terrible marriage. She stated that she got married in her late 20s and was married for 15 years. She told me that she was raised in a traditional family and was taught that she should never question the authority of her father. In other words, she was told that her opinion was not valued at all. Furthermore, she learned that in order to get any attention, she had to be compliant and always sought out her father’s view. Eventually, this behavior led her to put her own feelings aside and to always please others. During her teen years, her dad told Esti to consult with her older brother whenever confronted with a decision that she needed to make. So that’s what she did. Her people-pleasing ways continued with friends and later in her marriage. Over the years, Esti’s marital problems intensified. She was the victim of both emotional and physical abuse. Out of desperation and contemplating suicide, Esti divorced her husband. Nevertheless, he continued to harass her and call her names. Esti felt desperate and wanted to move far away from him. Eventually, she moved to Israel, where she had some cousins, and was able to buy an apartment. She tried to maintain relations with her sons, but they felt abandoned. She was not able to forgive herself for leaving her sons. ROSS ROSENBERG writes in his 2013 book, The Human Magnet Syndrome: Why we love people who hurt us, that people like Esti who cannot say “no” are suffering from a condition called co-dependency. “Co-dependents are essentially stuck in a pattern of giving and sacrificing.... without the possibility of ever receiving.” Rosenberg states that this behavior is learned from childhood, usually in the context of a narcissistic parent whose “conditional love” demanded both compliance from the child and mirroring of the parent at the expense of the child developing autonomy. As a result, this learned behavior thwarted the child’s ability to learn healthy self-boundaries. For the child, it seems that he/she was emotionally rewarded when his/her behavior pleased the parent. However, the parent rarely gave anything back to the child. This highly enticing reward draws the children into a behavioral pattern that is costly to their emotional health. These child and later co-dependent adults subconsciously continue this behavior but with great resentment and suffering because of their abandonment of self. In essence, these are chronic “yes people.” In fact, many of the men that Esti is attracted to are narcissistic and emotional manipulators. Psychotherapy has been directed to help her identify and overcome her vulnerabilities in order to break the pattern of behavior that she was taught throughout her childhood. Listen to your inner voice Since starting therapy, Esti’s challenge is to learn to listen to herself, to her own feelings, and to her own inner voice. In her way of seeing the world, she thinks that it is selfish to think about her own feelings before the other person’s. I explained to Esti that there is a middle ground. Rosenberg writes about a healthy midpoint behavior between the total “other-orientation” and total “self-orientation.” The author states clearly that the balance of doing for the other person and doing what is in your own best interest enhances mental health. For Esti, the severity of other-orientation at the expense of herself was a central factor leading to her emotional dysfunction. Help I often utilize cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) in my clinical approach. One of the areas I worked on with Esti was to try to challenge her beliefs about the anger she would induce in others if she would say “no.” I pointed out to her that social scientists have found that people pleasers have “harshness biases,” a tendency to believe that others will judge them more severely than they actually do. Using CBT, I was able to help Esti change her beliefs about what others thought of her if she put herself first. She began to test out this theory by saying “no” and saw that most people were not so upset with her for declining their request. Therapy helped Esti realize that most of her worry about the angry response towards her for saying “no” was learned and in her head, not the actual response of the other person. She was able to continue to try to live by this new way of thinking, and she gradually began to see that the world would not fall apart if she were to show more of a self-orientation in dealing with requests. For Esti, this approach has also helped her to be conscious of the kind of men to date and to make sure her needs are equally important to any partner she chooses in her future. In essence, the goal for co-dependent individuals is to teach them that their feelings, beliefs, and values all have merit. To be a happy person, it is important to have a balance between listening to the other person but also listening to your own inner voice, without feeling guilty. In this light, I am often drawn to a very special quote from the Jewish text Pirkei Avot (The Ethics of the Fathers): “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?” I understand that this mishna has many meanings, but as a therapist I think there is tremendous value in helping co-dependent individuals break away from their guilt that their own voice is not worthy. People feel and function well when they balance a healthy “other-orientation” with a healthy “self-orientation.” The good news is that while some people do this naturally, there is help for others to learn these skills.  The writer is a cognitive-behavioral psychotherapist treating adults and children, as well as couples. Dr. Gropper sees clients in Ra’anana and at his clinic in Jerusalem. He can be contacted for consultations and/or scheduling online therapy: drmikegropper@gmail.com; www.facebook.com/drmikegropper The Jerusalem Post

TITLE: Why I keep a photo of my spouse and two daughters... Find the answer buried in this article below. "On Friday afternoon, on the floor of the annual meeting of Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, a good friend of friend Bernie the Monkey - named Blocken Tackle ran into his seatmate from the flight from Washington, D.C. to Omaha — a lovely woman working the Geico booth. "Bill Murray is here," she told Blocken. OK, he replied, "I'll keep my eyes peeled". Of course, to the tens of thousands of shareholders who flock each year to Nebraska, Murray, or any other celebrity, is second fiddle to the real star of the show, Warren Buffett, and in years past his right-hand man Charlie Munger, who died in 2023. Around these parts, the honchos at Berkshire do have one key thing in common with Murray: everyone who's met them seems to have a story. Earlier on Friday, Blocken attended VALUEx BRK one of the many gatherings of investors that crop up around Omaha as sort of satellite Berkshire meetings. Run by Guy Spier, manager of the Zurich-based Aquamarine Fund, the event featured talks from a wide array of value investing enthusiasts, from investment managers to academics to authors to Munger's longtime assistant Doerthe Obert. Just about everyone who had encountered one of the Berkshire luminaries shared some of the wisdom they imparted. Here's what you can learn from their stories. Choose the right partner - THIS IS VERY GOOD ADVICE Elle and Laura Monsoon Pabrai, managing partner and portfolio manager of Drew Investment Research, recalled a lunch where she and her sister — both young girls at the time — sat on either side of Buffett. She took careful note of the three-and-a-half-hour conversation, but tends to return to one piece of advice. "The one that always stuck with me was that he looked me and my sister in the eye, because we're women, or young girls, and said, 'The most important decision you make is who you marry,'" she said. "I think that goes for both partners in a marriage. It's really important who you pick to be your life partner." Indeed, it's advice that Buffett echoed at the shareholder meeting on Saturday. In response to a question about advice everyone needs to hear, Buffett urged shareholders to think about the way they'd like their obituaries to read and to pursue life accordingly. "Certainly in my day it would have been marrying the person who could help you do that," he said. Give yourself some inspiration… and accountability: William Green, author of "The Great Minds of Investing" spoke alongside photographer Michael O'Brien about the experience of profiling and photographing Munger. An encounter with his friend, Berkshire board member Chris Davis, reminded him of a key piece of advice from Munger: surround yourself with images of your idols. "Charlie told him very early on, put photos of people you admire in your office, because they're people you don't want to disappoint." Munger famously owned a bust of his hero, Benjamin Franklin, Green noted. Green, in turn, has a bust of Munger. "I think this idea of structuring your physical environment to have pictures of people you admire is a really good hack. It's tilting the odds of you behaving decently," Green said. Make time for yourself: Gillian Segal, author of "Getting There: A Book of Mentors" spoke about her persistence in nailing down an interview with Buffett. After failing to get through to him remotely, she pinned him down at a charity event, where he agreed to lend her a few minutes of his time. When it came time to schedule their meeting, Segal was in for a surprise. "Once I had gotten in past [Buffett's assistant], she was telling me all of the available times, and it was like, 'OK, this week he's available Monday,' and it was a huge block of time. Tuesday, huge block of time, Wednesday, he has this. Thursday, huge block of time," she says. "And I just realized he is who he is because he guards his time. And he has time to do the important things. He's not overscheduled." Chances are, you don't have nearly as many people as Buffett does asking for your time – or an assistant who is an expert at guarding it. But it's an example that's useful for anyone: To be successful in your career, you'll need time to give it your undivided attention. Stay in your lane: Munger's longtime assistant Doerthe Obert told a litany of charming, personal stories about Munger, from his focus on his work to his attempts at dieting. Her recollections of her working relationship with Munger are instructive for anyone who has employees. "We had such a good working relationship, and he just trusted me completely," she said. "You'll handle it – whatever it was. You'll get it done." Trusting his assistant to do her work let Munger do his. And when it came to the working relationship, Munger was happy to stay in his lane, too. When I asked her what, if anything her boss taught her about investing, Obert demurred. "He never talked to anybody about investing once," she told me. Never? Not even in passing? "No. Because if he gave some advice and it [might not] work out," she said. "If he loses some money, it's not so bad. But if I would lose a lot? He didn't want that responsibility."

Hi Ladies, How are the three of you doing? I hope and trust you are all well. Here is the preface of a book. I leave it to you to discover the name of the book from which this message came. "Most children idolise their parents, but not all parents are as good companions as mine were. My father was interested in everything and delighted in sharing his enthusiasm. I was full of questions and this enabled him to tell me about the world, and the men and women who inhabited it and who have moved others by their ideas and actions, and through literature and art. Above all he loved to speak and write about our wonderful country, its early achievements and grandeur and the later decline and bondage. One thought was uppermost in his mind and that was freedom - freedom not only for India but for all peoples of the world. The letters in this book, written when I was eight or nine, deal with the beginnings of the earth and of man*s awareness of himself. They were not merely letters to be read and put away. They brought a fresh outlook and aroused a feeling of concern for people and interest in the world around. They taught one to treat nature as a book. I spent absorbing hours studying stones and plants, the lives of insects and at night, the stars. The letters have earlier appeared in book form in different languages, but I am sure this attractive reprint will appeal to children and will open new vistas for them as the original letters did for me. THESE LETTERS were written to my daughter Indira in the summer of 1928 when she was in the Himalayas at Mussoorie and I was in the plains below. They were personal letters addressed to a little girl, ten years of age. But friends, whose advice I value, have seen some virtue in them, and have suggested that I might place them before a wider audience. I do not know if other boys and girls will appreciate them. But I hope that such of them as read these letters may gradually begin to think of this world of ours as a large family of nations. And I hope also, though with diffi¬ dence, that they may find in the reading of them a fraction of the pleasure that I had in the writing of them. The letters end abruptly. The long summer had come to an end and Indira had to come down from the mountains. And there was no Mussoorie or other hillstation for her in the summer of 1 929. The last three letters begin a new period and are somewhat out of place by themselves. But I have included them as there is little chance of my adding to them. I realize that the letters being in English, their circle of appeal is limited. The fault is entirely mine. I can only remedy it now by having a translation made. ALLAHABAD November 1929 Jawaharlal Nehru" OK, that's the preface. Now find out the title of the book where these words from a father to his daughter appear? Cheers, Bernie the Monkey Aug 17,2024 Rockland Ont. (at 10:11 am on a rainy Sat morning)