Traveling can be quite adventurous. Traveling all by oneself can be even more adventurous. As much as I would love to have a travel partner, that's not in the cards and so I embrace the opportunity to explore new places and meet new friends on my own.
[Since I'm trying to write at least something every single day for at least 20 days... that's all for now.]
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After spending over three decades in the financial services industry, I feel like I've lost a sense of me. My element of creativity, that was sparked in high school, carried into college, and flourished during my travels on Semester at Sea in the early 1980's, diminished over time as the left brain was heavily influenced during my years in my career. Such a shame. We all should attempt to foster both sides of our brain as much as we can. Unfortunately for me, it seemed that, over time, my focus on career had a greater influence and my left brain dominated the essence of who I am.
When I first started working for a large asset management firm in the Bay Area, my work day generally started around 8-8:30 and finished by 5 or 5:30. Over time, those office hours increased such that I was awakening before 5 in the morning to be in the office by the opening of the stock market at 6:30 Pacific Time. My day would often go until at least 6 in the evening, and even then I would continuously be connected to work through technology, perhaps starting with the Blackberry, which was introduced into our work environment around the turn of the millennium (as an aside, interestingly enough, it was the Blackberry, or the company - Research in Motion, which made one of my classmates from business school immensely wealthy). I became a lead portfolio manager of an equity mutual fund in mid-1993. In the beginning, I think I struck a good balance between left brain and right brain. After all, picking good stocks does not solely come down to just the numbers - or, maybe it does today with all the fast processing of big data analytics. No. I don't believe that entirely. There is still some level of human input in the markets with the basic emotions of fear and greed swinging prices. To me, a part of picking good stocks is assessing the management and culture, and very the zeitgeist of that company's product or service. Similar to Phaedrus from Robert Pirsig's book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, I would often obsess on quality. What makes a company high quality? And, more importantly, what makes a stock good. This is the right brain working and it comes down to that feeling one has in one's heart and one's gut. Despite my pointing out to our analysts numerous times that there also can be a difference between a good quality company and a good quality stock, this often seemed to get lost between us. In my later years of money management, I don't think our analysts fully understood me. After all, how does one logically argue that a certain investment recommendation "just didn't feel right" at that particular time. Their job was to provide the rational rationale for why a company was worth more than where it was currently trading in the marketplace. Often, hours of time would be spent cranking through financials and document filings and when they determined their recommendation, it was hard for them to hear somebody dismiss the idea because "it just didn't seem right," or at least right at that particular time. Easily, one could argue, though, that this comes with a certain level of hubris - "I am right and the market is wrong!" To both of our defenses, it was Benjamin Graham who coined the phrase, "In the short run, the market is a voting machine but in the long run, it is a weighing machine." What this means is that sentiment matters. And assessment of sentiment is a qualitative judgment - exercising the right brain based on one's overall knowledge and experience. But, I've really digressed. The point I am trying to make is that now I am focusing on cultivating more of my right brain. Or, as one business school friend said to me, "creating new neural pathways." Being in the same general routine for over a quarter century can cause one to become set in their ways. Stuck in a rut. So now it's time to break-out and one way for that to happen is by taking on all new experiences. Travel is perfect for that. And chronicling one's thoughts is a way to foster the right brain. It is my hope and intention to write something every single day while I am away on Semester at Sea. And one way to start that process is to make it a habit now. It is said that if one repeats something for 20 days in a row, it then becomes a habit, or part of their routine. I have just over two months before I leave to make this so. Starting on September 7, 2016, (or, at least, that is the date I depart the United States for Hamburg, Germany to embark upon the World Odyssey on September 10th), I will be boarding my new home - pictured above - for the next 3 1/2 months. This 20,000+ ton ship will take me, along with my 1,000+ newfound friends of students, faculty, administration, other life-long-learner passengers, and staff, throughout Europe, Africa, South and Central America - visiting 11 different countries along the way in what should be an adventure of a lifetime. For me, however, this will be my third (almost) time for such an adventure. Why "almost" third time for me? Well, in the spring of 1983, as a newly graduated "student" embarking upon "the trip of a lifetime," I boarded the S.S. Universe in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, headed for our first port of call in Cadiz, Spain. Almost as a harbinger of our journey, we had to make an emergency stop in the Azores for one of our fellow students who had developed acute appendicitis. In a gurney, she was transported off the ship to a rescue boat to take her to the nearest hospital for an appendectomy, not to join the ship again. Without really any further glitches, aside from what might be expected with a floating vessel with hundreds of college students traveling around the world to foreign lands, we made our way from Spain to Greece to Turkey. Figuring while I was in this part of the world, I might as well take advantage of everything I could, I elected to go with a group of other students and passengers on a side trip through the heartland of Israel, expecting to meet up with the Universe at the next port of call in Alexandria, Egypt. Almost upon our arrival at one of the pre-determined meeting places in Cairo (I think it was a Hilton Hotel), after a long bus ride across the Sinai Desert, we were met with the news that the ship had run aground. Run aground? How could this possibly be with a large, professionally navigated ship? As we found out later, it turned out the captain decided, perhaps feeling some pressure to get the passengers still on board the ship to their next port where various field programs would shortly commence, to guide the ship into port without the aid of a pilot vessel that the Egyptians refused to send out due to rough seas. After all, he had been to this port before and surely he could navigate safely through the channel into the harbor, right? Turns out not. Going on the wrong side of a marker, he suddenly found himself stuck upon a sand bar (as our local comedian and good friend Todd would later tell it, "Who would think a few grains of sand could cause such trouble, but put them all together in a bar and see what happens?"). With the help of the tide and a tug-boat (that eventually was sent out by the Egyptians), the Universe was successfully freed and pulled into port. After being docked at port for about a week, while divers explored the bottom of the ship, our Executive Dean, Lloyd Lewan, determined that the ship needed to go back to Piraeus, Greece to be put in dry dock for it to be fixed. Meanwhile, all the passengers would be "shipped" back across the Sinai Desert by bus to live in a hotel for the next 6 weeks in order to finish up classes. Our new home would now be the Diplomat Hotel (pictured below), in Jerusalem, Israel. Needless to say, the rest of our journey would have to be scuttled. There are many antics I could share of our time in Jerusalem, but we'll save that for a later time. To finish the story about why this upcoming trip will be my "almost" third time, let me just say that our Executive Dean shrewdly negotiated with the shipping company, Tung Industries out of Hong Kong, to allow the students to go back on board the ship for a full semester of travel, for just the price of tuition to Pitt. Wow! Really? For less than $100 per day, we could go around the world again? I'm sold. Now to convince my parents that I would be going back on Semester at Sea again (I still remember that phone call home from the Diplomat).
In the spring of 1984, about 200 of us returned to Ft. Lauderdale to board the ship once again. Why did we not take the fall voyage in 1983? Well, the itinerary of the spring voyage was so much more intriguing. From Ft. Lauderdale, we sailed down to Salvador de Bahia, Brazil, then to Rio de Janeiro. From there, we crossed the Atlantic, docking in Cape Town, South Africa. From there, we made our way up the east coast of Africa for a stop in Mombasa, Kenya. Then, our excursion would just about complete what we had missed out on from the prior voyage, sailing to Sri Lanka, India, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Japan, before crossing the Pacific to return us to the States in the port of San Francisco. I will always fondly remember the site of the Golden Gate Bridge in the early morning light as we made our way into SF Bay. Perhaps it was the allure of this beautiful city that attracted me to take a job in the Bay Area following business school, where I worked for 27 years for the same company before "retiring" in May of this year. And now on to our next adventure with Semester at Sea... |
CONRAD B. HERRMANN
INVESTMENT PROFESSIONAL AND TRAVELER EXTRAORDINAIRE Archives
March 2020
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