You're Not Special

Jason’s Random Words

One of my favorite stories about the success of longevity was a news report about a couple who were celebrating their 70th wedding anniversary. They lived in a small town, and the local TV network dispatched a young reporter to interview them.

The reporter’s final question asked the couple how they had managed to stay married for seven decades?

The old woman responded, “You don’t leave, and you don’t die.”

We also have the stories of Ronald Read and Sylvia Bloom.

Ms. Bloom was a secretary at a law firm for many decades, while Read worked as a gas station attendant and janitor after serving in the U.S. Army during World War II. Two people who seemed ordinary to the point of mundanity.

When Read died at 92, it turned out he had accumulated just under $8 million in invested wealth. Bloom lived 96 years, and left a $9 million estate.

Both bequeathed the vast majority of that wealth to causes close to their hearts. Read donated most of his fortune to the hospital he ate breakfast at for so many years, and millions more to the local library he frequented. Bloom left most of her wealth to a charity near her New York City apartment and scholarships at her alma mater.

Nobody had any idea either of them were so wealthy. No fancy cars or big houses. Both lived lives of modest means according to those who knew them.

Read ate breakfast (coffee and an English muffin with peanut butter) daily at the local hospital coffee shop, and spent his free time at the local library. Bloom lived in a small, rent-controlled apartment for many decades. According to a niece who was executor of her estate (like Read, she had no children), she did travel to Europe and Las Vegas with her husband who loved to gamble and it seems had no idea she had accumulated so much wealth.

The extraordinary investing success of Ronald Read and Sylvia Bloom reminds me of the story we started with. Like the old man and woman who saw (at least) 70 years of marriage, Bloom and Read were pretty ordinary people. But they did two very special things that led to their enormous wealth: They didn’t “leave” and they didn’t die (at least for a long time).

Both lived very long lives; Read lived to 93 while Bloom was 96 when she died.

The “not leaving” part? Not selling. Both Read and Bloom were regular buyers of stock for decades. Both made investments and then let the many decades they owned do the hard work of creating wealth.

But they weren’t, I don’t believe, special. Or anymore special than the readers of this newsletter. Their success was in doing a few very important things, for a very long time.

That’s the best part of all three stories. It doesn’t take special people to do amazing things. Special or not, dear reader, you can do it, too. I believe in you!

Jason