Intentional Investor #17: Jared Dillian

If you don’t know Jared Dillian, I think the pack will really appreciate getting to know him better. Here are my notes as a preview:

I forgot to ask Jared Dillian about his high school yearbook quote.

Before he published short story books, before he wrote personal finance books, before he wrote a novel, before he wrote a quasi-memoir of his time at Lehman Brothers where he invented his long-running Daily Dirtnap letter, before he did the radio show, or the DJ Stochastic stuff, or all the other things…

You know, after his mom raised him in Norwich, CT, after when he played church organ as a side hustle, after when he met the woman he’d marry, but right around when his mom balked at the cost of the colleges young Jared wanted to attend, thus resulting in his joining of the Coast Guard…

Sometime in or around there, he was finishing high school, he picked this one quote to represent him. It’s from Pearl S. Buck and it goes,

Life without idealism is empty indeed. We just hope or starve to death.

So I didn’t get to ask him about it. I had meant to. It was one of those “leftover at the top of the notes right after you stopped recording” things. But then, after listening back to our conversation, I realized I didn’t need to. Because Jared’s full of ideals.

Part of it’s his traders mentality, how he can lock in on something, muster up enough confidence to act, and then figure out how to get out again, profitable or not, on the other side, alive. The other part’s his investor-in-yourself mentality, how he’s so tuned into being both death- and hope-averse in his day-to-day life, he’s consistently finding new ways to affirm his own pulse.

Plus, nobody goes and gets an MFA and starts writing narrative fiction to get rich. You do it to enrich the experience of being alive. It’s a choice. If you’re smart. And it’s also one of a million examples of the types of choices Dillian’s made.

Trade time for trading to trade riches for enrichment, and repeat. If that’s not a form of intentional investing, I don’t know what is. It’s an ethic this whole show seeks to understand and help others talk about.

And if I missed out on Pearl S. Buck, at least we still got into some Barry Hannah. If you don’t know Hannah, just know he’s probably your favorite writer’s favorite writer (and one of Dillian’s personal favorites too, for good reason). Had Dillian not picked Buck for his senior yearbook, maybe at least his recent-MFA graduation yearbook could have included Hannah’s “I am a dragon. America the beautiful, like you will never know.” It would have been fitting on so many levels.

Without further adieu, Jared Dillian’s got stories for you. Listen to them. And, more than anything, really look for the intentions behind them. It’s all right here, only on Epsilon Theory (click here for all the YouTube/Spotify/Apple links)

I’ve been following Jared Dillian since he first showed up at John Mauldin’s conferences. I always liked his down to earth matter of fact commentary. Here’s one of his free commentary.

the number of people who showed up from out of the woodwork around this episode with a “I knew him back when…” or “I’ve been reading him since…” - testament to doing the work, day in and day out. Respect.