Hello Mr. Collier,
I hope everything is going well with you.
Would you mind answering the below questions?
What is your definition of “street smarts”?
Street Smarts in business means you have several vital characteristics:
Critical Thinking Skills: You can pick out the mission critical variables, understand how to impact them, create and implement a successful plan of action that yields the desired results, and understand what constitutes the most critical variables can evolve and change over time as the situation is modified and transformed over time.
High Emotional Intelligence i.e. EQ: Internal EQ: You understand and can manage your emotions (self-aware, self-motivated, self-disciplined); External EQ: You understand others, can sense and respond to their emotions, and can influence, motivate and persuade others.
Possess Survivor Mentality: You don’t take everything/anything at face value; you ask questions, you dig deep. You don’t believe everything you hear/read, you check things out, go to the original sources, insist on hearing in from the horse’s mouth, get out into the field, talk to the front line personally, open the hood, walk behind the buildings, take the path less trod, double and triple check critical information. You assiduously attempt to learn everything about anything that affects or could affect your world/investment/area of responsibility. You assume things will break and you are prepared to deal with it. You have a sense of how things/processes/systems/people work and where things are most likely to go wrong and you check those points of vulnerability regularly. You possess a great deal of common sense, that most uncommon of traits. You never, ever cease learning. You know that more folks are shot with unloaded guns than any other kind and that most truths are only true until they are not.
What makes an asset a good investment?
A good investment yields a decent return for an acceptable level of risk. I understand that is so general an answer as to be useless but the question is akin to “What makes a good spouse?”
What helps you to mitigate risk on each asset you purchase?
Experience, Knowledge, Liquidity, Hard Work, Long Hours, Doing my homework on it before I purchase, assessing all possible risk factors and having a plan to deal with each.
What net worth amount would you consider as a high net worth individual?
Most private bankers think in terms of not net worth per se (which can include substantial sums tied up personal assets like homes etc i.e. Life style assets) but rather “net investable assets” i.e. What funds do they have available for or set aside for investing. Usually $10M is the cut off with $30M being considered Ultra High Net Worth.
As always, I share what I most want/need to learn. – Nathan S. Collier