Short and Sweet – A Wealth of Common Sense

A few months before he died Pope Francis offered some advice to his fellow preachers on how to approach a homily to the congregation:

Speaking off-the-cuff, Pope Francis urged preachers to transmit “one idea, one sentiment, and one invitation to action” within at most 10 minutes.

“After 8 minutes, preaching gets dispersive and no one understands,” he said. “Never go over 10 minutes, ever! This is very important.”

Amen.

In his investment classic Winning the Loser’s Game, Charley Ellis tells a great story about healthcare and simplicity:

Please keep in mind the observation of two of my best friends, who are at the peak of their distinguished careers in medicine and medical research. They agree that the two most important discoveries in medical history are penicillin and washing hands (which stopped the spread of infection from one mother to another by the midwives who delivered most babies before 1900). What’s more, my friends counsel, there’s no better advice on how to live longer than to quit smoking and buckle up when driving.

The lesson: advice doesn’t have to be complicated to be good.

French Author Patrick Modiano has written more than 20 books. He won the Nobel Prize in literature in 2014. A book reviewer once shared that Modiano believes he is more or less always writing the same novel:

Modiano says that like every other novelist he is always writing the same book, ‘on fait toujours le même roman.’ [translation: It is always the same novel.] Modiano more than most, perhaps. The mania for looking back is always there.

His characters collect shreds of old evidence, handwriting, photographs, police files, newspaper cuttings. They follow the footsteps of vanished people, snooping on the world of others like unemployed private detectives who can’t find anything else to do. They have what I take to be Modiano’s own interest in Paris streets, particularly those of the outskirts, and they ceaselessly list addresses, consult old directories, make calls to telephone numbers no longer in service.

The lessons from each of these stories are as follows:

Get to the point. Short and sweet. In the immortal words of Steven Pressfield, “Nobody wants to read your shit.”

Pressfield explains:

1) Streamline your message.

Focus it and pare it down to its simplest, clearest, easiest-to-understand form. 2) Make its expression fun. Or sexy or interesting or scary or informative. Make it so compelling that a person would have to be crazy NOT to read it. 3) Apply that to all forms of writing or art or commerce.

Simple beats complex. People are drawn to complicated solutions because complexity gives you an illusion of control. 90% of investing boils down to your choice of asset allocation. Keep it simple.

You don’t need to recreate the wheel. Stand on the shoulders of the giants who came before you.

Learn from past successes and failures.

Nobody goes to church hoping to learn about an 11th commandment.

Good storytelling and advice rarely changes, even if the world itself is constantly in a state of flux.

Further Reading:
Writing Lessons From A River Runs Through It

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