|
Today, I've got a little story to share. I learned this from a personal finance guru… Pobre Millenial. The story is true. It’s about a lady called Grace Groner. She was as ordinary as a ham sandwich… or temporary taxes becoming permanent. Born in 1909 in a small town in Illinois, USA. She was orphaned young and raised by neighbours, with no luxuries and few opportunities. She went to college, graduated, and got a job as a secretary at Abbott Laboratories, a major pharmaceutical company. This is where her story seems to settle into the "normal life" routine… But Grace had something most people don’t: patience and long-term vision. She wasn’t in a rush and didn’t act like she was the queen of the world. In 1935, after some time at Abbott, she decided to invest a bit. Just $180. Yes, you read that right—not $1,000 or $10,000 or some big movie figure. Just $180 to buy three shares in her own company. Here’s the best part: she never sold those shares. For the next 75 years, Grace did nothing. While everyone went wild over stock markets, crises, bubbles, and booms, she stayed calm. She didn’t touch her shares when they rose or fell. She was in no rush, and in the meantime, those three shares multiplied thanks to dividends and Abbott’s regular share buybacks. By the time Grace passed away in 2010, that initial $180 had grown to over $7 million. And she never lived like the millionaire she was on paper. She remained the same lady living in a small house, wearing simple clothes, and walking around her neighborhood like any grandma. No Lamborghinis or mansions. And if you think she was stingy, here’s the ending. When she died, she donated her entire fortune to her college to create a scholarship fund for students who couldn’t afford tuition. So, she didn’t keep the money for herself or waste it on luxuries. She just let it grow and then gave it back to the world. 3 Lessons from Grandma Grace
So, next time you’re tempted to spend €100 or €200 or on something you don’t need or… Netflix over a year… remember Grace Groner. The difference between being ordinary and extraordinary isn’t always about making more—it’s about what you do with what you already have. And if you have no clue but want to learn, I can teach you what an average person readying many books and practicing investing every day like me knows... and that all bankers, fund managers, etc. are not interested in you to know. Dozens of people are already investing as Grace... and if not, better than most fund managers, thanks to this. ​Invest better than 99% of people... including fund managers​ PD 1: If you liked this email, don't keep it in secret and forward it to a friend. They will thank you enormously one day. PD 2: If somebody has sent you this email and you want to receive emails like this yourself, visit vicentevalencia.com PD 3: If you want unsubscribe, click the link below. |
Weekly insights on how to perform when it matters | High-stakes decisions. Real situations. No BS. | 👇JOIN +2k readers 👇
There are big, monumental, screw-ups…. Or “cagadas”. And then there are cagadas so big that someone should build a monument to them. The kind that doesn’t just destroy a project. It changes an industry. I’m thinking now about that traffic model that cost a traffic advisor millions and millions because its forecasts were more optimistic than Putin’s three days “special military operation” in Ukraine. That mistake changed the way PPPs with traffic risk were viewed. Contractually. Financially....
Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics did one of those experiments that sounds stupid… Not because you probably pay them with your taxes… But because you realise it explains half of the disasters in business. They took people to a forest. Then they gave them a simple instruction: “Walk in a straight line.” That’s it. No MBA. No strategy deck. No 147-page governance framework. Just walk straight. C’mon you can do it! Several participants were convinced they had done...
There is a famous story about President John F. Kennedy visiting NASA in 1961. While touring the facility, he met a janitor mopping the floor. Kennedy asked him what he did at NASA. “I’m helping put a man on the moon.” Beautiful… Maybe too beautiful to be true. But who cares… the point is brutal. Now, no question how, a few years later, NASA sent three men to the moon using computers weaker than my kid’s lullaby machine. One team. For real. One objective. For real. Not because of an org...