President Joe La Mariana called the meeting to order at the stroke of 12:15. He then raised a wine bottle with an American flag and asked Mike Kimball to lead us in our Pledge of Allegiance.
Invocation:
For inspiration Sheryl Young offered her thoughts.
We are usually given wisdom from a priest, a rabbi and a minister. I won’t do that, but I did ask a few friends for words to share today:
- A 93 year old woman who has devoted to life to empowerment of women and elimination of racism,
- a young woman providing services to farm workers and immigrants,
- a young man who was kicked out of school twice and later turned his life around - just wrote a book during the Pandemic - #1 Amazon seller with 500K copies sold, Joe Poni’s Follow your Curiosity
- and my 5 month old granddaughter:
Here are quotes:
“Make sure you’re at the table or you may be on the menu.”
“Meet each challenge with strength and courage - follow your heart.”
“If you can change your corner, you can change the world.”
“Don’t follow your passion, follow your curiosity.”
And finally - when I was talking to Maddie, I told her I was struggling with what to say - that I was going to be followed by two stellar Rotarians - Fritz and Michael who are experts with words and humor.
Maddy smiled and replied …... (Sheryl aptly demonstrated the raspberry her granddaughter gave her.)
Good reminder that each of us has special talents - and together in Rotary we have fun advancing goodwill and peace! Meet each challenge with strength and courage - follow your heart. Don’t just have minutes in the day - have moments in time.
Sunshine Report:
It was reported that Pierre Bouquet had fallen but is doing fine and will join us for next week’s meeting. Mike Kimball announced, for those who did not know, that he recently had a pacemaker implanted. At o
There were none at the time President Joe made the announcement. But Pierre’s friend Lyle Duncan joined in later.
Announcement:
The upcoming Board of Directors’ meeting will be held on July 28th. President Joe will be hosting a Fireside Chat at 6PM on August 3. District Governor Danielle Lallement will address the Club on August 11th. There will be a special BOD meeting prior to our meeting at 10:30.
Can you hear me now?
As President Joe was having Wi-Fi issues it was decided that it was a good time to go to our break-out sessions. Zoom host Chris Ramirez sent us off to the first of two group chats.
Newscast +After relocating and restoring communication, President Joe then turned the program over to the Newscast committee, Jennifer Pence and Fritz Brauner. Fritz showed us all a page of the Olympic icons representing all the athletic events that will be part of the Tokyo Games. He called our attention to the unlikely event of the trampoline. He asked if anyone currently has a trampoline in their yard. Christine Krolick admitted that her son in Portland, Oregon does indeed have one.
Fritz wondered what it would be like to combine some of these events. What if * wrestling on a trampoline? Possibly one could add fencing or taekwondo. How about mixed team sports events combing men and women? Turns out it already exists in archery.
Water polo was always a mystery to Fritz. He can’t figure out why the horses don’t drown. Speaking of water sports Nancy Bush gave us an update on Past-President Emily Matthews’ progress on the MR340(Missouri River 340-mile). She will be paddling 100 miles today, Wednesday, and hopefully complete the course by Friday.
Program:Jennifer Pence introduced our speakers, our very own Michael Kimball and Fritz Brauner. Fritz has been a financial planner for decades and Mike was an English professor for decades. They have come together to discuss and review the book by Morgan Housel, “The Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness.”
Fritz began by quoting some useful passages from the book such as, “Things that have never happened before happen all the time.” He likened the upcoming discussion to the long-ago team of Siskel and Ebert. Fritz continued by reading a section of the book which remarked that financial decisions are seldom made with a spreadsheet of figures but rather discussed at the dinner table. Fritz then asked the burning question on everyone’s mind, “What is a retired English teacher doing discussing financial topics?”
Mike answered the question by stating that he had been reading books on finance for many years as a guide for self-improvement. This also gave him the opportunity to converse with Fritz. Besides always learning something he appreciates the fact that, unlike those in his profession, Fritz resists the temptation to correct you.
Fritz then reviewed some of the chapters in the book. One is “The most important part of every plan is planning on your plan not going according to plan.” He gave many examples from everyday life such as travel and home remodeling. Therefore, one should always have a back-up plan. Mike expanded on that premise by quoting another principal from the book known as the End of History Illusion. We make choices based on the past without giving serious thought as those decisions will weather over time. Mike asked Fritz how he counsels client to avoid these pitfalls.
Fritz gave examples of decisions that seemed like good ideas at the time, but years later there was regret as time and reality settled in and our values and needs change. To help his clients avoid getting into this situation, he asks them many “what if” questions that they may not have considered. Another tactic is to have the client write down all the reasons they are considering a decision and then look at it a week or more later. This may reinforce the plan or uncover pitfalls that hadn’t been considered. Mike observed that much of the suggestions in the book apply to life in general. Two pieces of advice from the author are deferred gratification and the value of compounding. Both can relate to many aspects in life. There were more references to sound advice by Housel and how they apply to most of us at one time or another.
Fritz then took some question from Rotarians. Bob Doerr asked, “if you have an opinion and I have an opinion which opinion do you regard more?” Fritz’s response was, “It depends”. He values everyone’s opinions as they come from their life experiences.
Adjournment:
In closing, President Joe acknowledged those who had already joined the President’s Club, Emily Matthews, Mark Johnson, Cary Koh, Nancy Bush and Marilyn Orr. He encouraged others to go to the website and join, as well.
We all signed off at 1:30.
