Among other random thoughts during the day in the office, one thinks about purpose, focus and motivation. And in case one’s mind wonders, a snippet of paper taped to a screen:

• Block email from 8:30 to 12.
• One deep work on a new or existing idea this morning.
• Take a Walk with live question.
• Call someone today.

There is another paper with things that involve a golf swing, pushups, leg exercises for skiing and a Kata, but that’s less relevant in theory for investing.

The relevancy here at CSC in case you were wondering is the relevancy of a “whole bunch of 60 year olds” who are self proclaimed at the “top of their game” and “still love this stuff.” Compare and contrast to whatever passes for investment analysis witnessed at grazing professionals at a recent investor conference or herding around NY mid-town pod watering holes.

In the day, we were selected for dollars under emerging manager program auspices, in a day when that meant, “younger, hungry, smaller asset size, seemingly incented for greatness.” I would argue there is a new asset class in which many are woefully underinvested. At least that was what I heard around the lunch table today with some equally motivated and obsessed individuals.

Some interesting tidbits collected around this theme:

“I profoundly believe that 50 through 70 are the peak performance years for professional investors.” – Gavin Baker 

Q. “What is it that keeps driving you to make art?”

“I’m like Clint Eastwood on that: Don’t let the old man in. So, keep working. If you can get out of bed and don’t fall down when you do it, then you just count your blessings and keep moving. So, I’ll work as long as I can — as long as somebody says, Do you want to do this part?” – Morgan Freeman

“I have the answers to the test now. You can’t surprise me on defense. I’ve seen it all. I’ve  processed 261 games, I’ve played them all. It’s an incredibly hard sport, but because the processes are right and are in place, for anyone with experience in their job, it’s not as hard as it used to be. There was a time when quarterbacking was really hard for me because you didn’t know what to do. Now I really know what to do, I don’t want to stop now. This is when it’s really enjoyable to go out.” – Tom Brady 

“But I still felt awkward stepping out and glad-handing strangers. I have never, to this day, felt the desire to impress, to make someone feel a certain way about me. I’m comfortable in my own skin. And I found it difficult trying to sell someone on an idea I thought was obvious if only they had taken the time to study it. At times, I may have let my impatience show, or let potential investors walk out the door rather than chase them.” – John Malone

Ok, no one here is 80, but….

“The best thing about being 80 is that you outlive the clocks that have been chasing you. It’s freedom from that lie that anything was ever under control. You don’t chase the parade anymore. You’re an old king from some vanished country. You’re harder to program. You’re not rushing to become anything and you’re not haunted by things that you did. You’re haunted by how little of it really mattered in the way you thought it would.

The worst thing about being 80 is that you still want to say yes to everything, but the world moves without asking. The old fire in your heart still tells you to do this and that, but your body says we already did it. Also, nothing surprises you. It sounds like a luxury but it’s not, and also you’ve run out of illusions. People treat you like either you’ve solved something or you’ve lost something, and you haven’t. You see life repeating itself everywhere.

The really worst part about being 80 is that you find, at last, you’ve got an understanding of something that might have altered everything in the past, had it come at a time when something could still be altered. When you’re young you think that time moves forward. At 80 you know that it doesn’t, it stands still. We’re the ones that move.” – Bob Dylan

What I think I have learned is to identify the critical variables -and there are not nearly as many as the tabs on spreadsheets and yards of notes – and eliminate the rest. Read widely and aggressively. Shrink spreadsheets but do them. Develop C-level relationships. Listen more.

Fiendishly simple.