Blog

I am delighted to say that I am currently in the sunshine enjoying my Christmas break and planning my holidays for 2010. I have made it a discipline of mine to go away every three months for at least a week. There are many reasons for this. Some are obvious and some less so. The "less so" is what I want to concentrate on today.

One of my primary roles in Equilibrium is to "strategise"; to decide on the future strategy for your portfolios and for the business as a whole. It is hard to do that effectively when daily life is so busy and so overwhelming.

 To help me set strategy I take a mountain of books away with me. On this trip I have the following....

·         Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell a great book which analyses the tipping point; that magic moment when ideas, trends and social behaviour crosses a threshold and spreads like wildfire.

·         Liquid Millionaire by Stephen Sutherland. I first met Stephen and his brother Paul in the late 1990s and they both have complete integrity, determination and vision and so when Paul told me they had a system to pick the best funds and time the market I thought the least I could do was read the book. I am looking forward to meeting them in the New Year to see how we can work together.

·         "How to Manage People ", "How to Negotiate", "How to Manage Meetings", all from the Sunday Times series.

·          A marketing book called "Don't Mess with the Logo".

·          The essential manager’s book; "Project Management." To help us to manage the transition the new regulations are forcing on us all.

·         An investment book called "Extraordinary Popular Delusions." This book was first written in 1852. I love old books that are still true today as this makes them timeless. We often fail to learn from history and as this book deal with "bubbles" I thought it essential current reading.

On a lighter note I have Chris Evans autobiography and whilst the fun police at the FSA may not class this as "CPD essential reading", they should! You don't get to amass wealth the size of his, lose it and begin to build it back again without having a few useful lessons to share.