Get Smarter: Life and Business Lessons - Seymour Schulich

[onyx1]

[amazonsearch]Get Smarter: Life and Business Lessons[/amazonsearch]

 

If you don't have a mega-wealthy mentor to provide you with guidance on life and business, you can have the next best thing. Self-made Canadian billionaire Seymour Schulich offers simple and practical advice on 48 difference topics, including decision making, negotiations, aging, gold, and making good investments.  He also describes how he started with nothing and through hard work (and a little luck) ammassed a fortune that has allowed him to give away over $200mm to charity.

 

 

Although everyone will learn something useful, this book as a must read for anyone under 35.

[hardincap]

I thought this book was terrible. Not very many insights, almost all surface and little substance. And why does Seymour have to list his top five movies, twice?

 

Re-read Munger's Almanack instead.

 

 

 

[Valuebo]

It doesn't look very convincing!

 

An author bragging about his philanthropy seems like a big red flag. Also, a book of 250 pages (excluding appendixes) discussing almost 50 subjects...? How good can those insights be? No one is an expert on 10 subjects, let alone 50. And if you have to discuss each subject in a few hundred words, you are going to disappoint a lot of knowledgeable people.

 

One of the reviewers claims it's a page-turner, but that doesn't seem hard with 100-150 words per page. :D Maybe others here have read it and can convince me..

[Vizi1]

I agree.  The book wasn't worth the time spent reading it.  Its an easy read, but not much to be gleaned from it.  I was expecting some decent insights, but was deeply disappointed.

[augustabound]

I kind of remember flipping though it at Indigo and wasn't too interested. 

I'm pretty sure it was for the reason tombgrt mentions, too many topics.  I couldn't care less about gold etc.

 

I love reading about how people made their millions/billions but this one didn't pull me in.

[bonechip1]

I actually enjoyed this book.  It was a quick read for sure, and didn't delve deeply into topics, but I don't think that was the point.  I think it was more along the lines of Jim Rogers "A Gift to My Children". I don't think it was geared to those who have deep experience in finance.  However, I especially enjoyed his thoughts on philanthropy and partnerships, and his recommendation of Roger Rosenblatt's Rules for Aging is also a fantastic recommendation.  When I read a book these days, if I change my thinking about 1 big idea, I feel it was a worthwhile effort and I feel Get Smarter did that for me.

[rogermunibond]

I think you guys might have taken the wrong tack with this book. After reading it, I immediately started looking at what Mr. Schulich owned and thus stumbled on New Gold, at the time a small junior gold producer that both Schulich and Pierre Lassonde owned a lot of. New Gold has undertaken a rather amazing series of value generating deals, and returned nearly 7x for me.

 

Of course Schulich is also a big holder in a loser, Birchcliff Energy, which because of its gas focus I was able to avoid.

[netnet]

Well it takes two to make a market.  I love the book and give to graduating nieces and nephews.  Short, sweet, pithy.  The "decider" and the (inevitable) devaluation of paper money alone are worthy lessons for 22 year olds!

 

Now tell me in all seriousness, what did he say that was worthless and shallow--  simple yes but certainly not trite.  The book does suffer from what I call the "first time author kitchen sink problem"--first time authors often throw everything imaginable into their books, in this case the top ten movie, .

 

(The Munger book also suffers from those asinine illustrations, which I find unbelievably grating and more importantly the Munger book itself is not so easily assimilated by 22 year olds.)

[twacowfca]

As a publisher, I can't give it an A as a literary work, but there are some practical take aways that make it worthwhile.  His fortune maker was Carlin Gold which was a very large but low grade deposit.  They took a royalty interest in it, and when the price was strong they were able to find a lot more economical areas to mine.  That's a lot better than speculating on something new that might not pan out or if it does pan out might be behind the price curve before it can become a large producer. :)

[ItsAValueTrap]

That's a lot better than speculating on something new that might not pan out or if it does pan out might be behind the price curve before it can become a large producer.

Schulich also made some nice money on Canadian Oil Sands trust, which was into unconventional oil.  ;)  It was a leveraged bet on oil prices going up.

[Guest notorious546]

I just finished this book today. I would recommend it to friends. He has a good framework for thinking and I think his simple logic for decision-making (2 to 1 ratio, simplifying good/bad) more than pays for the book. It's a nice and easy read!