I read a quote recently that says, “When you know a thing to hold that you know it and when you do not know a thing to allow that you do not know it, this is knowledge.” Confucius.

Settling into my first month doing my new daily show, The Final Bar, one of the biggest lessons I am learning is  how to speak more effectively. Throughout the course of my career I have learned a lot about communication, but having only a 30-minute window has given me an entirely new perspective on mindful communication.

In digging through my cavernous repository of articles in my Pocket queue, I uncovered a piece from Slate that declared The Death of the Telephone Call.  I’ll never forget when a prominent investor once shared the story of dismissing America Online as a viable investment option because, “Why would I send someone an e-mail when I can just pick a phone and call them?!?”

My family and I recently relocated from Cleveland to Seattle as I prepare to join up with the good people at StockCharts.com.  So far, that has meant 37 hours on I-90 West (which was a fantastic adventure for the Kellers!), unpacking a great many moving boxes, holding endless family meetings on where specific chairs will go in the new house, and many other key issues.

“The road to mediocrity is paved with good intentions.”

“You can’t use these while you’re using this,” I explained to my daughter, pointing to my ears then to my mouth. One of the things no one tells you about being a parent is that you will spend much of your life coaching your children to be better communicators. Unfortunately for many of us, they tend to pick their worst habits from their parents!

This week the Wall Street Journal provided yet another article about moderating and/or flat out eliminating your usage of social media.  As with many things in life, a little bit can be a positive, but too much is too much.  So what’s the right balance for investors?

It's so easy to reduce Behavioral Finance to a bottomless list of biases.  As with many aspects of the financial industry, we get way too focused on labeling things instead of understanding them. A recent article from Behavioral Scientist pointed out the limitations of defining Behavioral Economics (which I tend to use interchangeably with "Behavioral Finance" because as far as I'm concerned they're the same thing) as a series of fallacies.

Two recent articles caused me to think about how social media has affected communication.  More importantly, I've thought about how I can best use social media along with other modes of communication to grow personally and professionally.

My family and I are on Spring Break this week in Sicily.  We decided to go full immersion and rented a house in a small town outside of Palermo.  We travelled via Munich and had a couple days there to explore before heading to Italy.  As I had hoped and expected, we're learning so much about new people and places.  At the same time, we're learning a great deal about ourselves as well as the universality of the human condition.