How to Build Something of Enduring Value – Learnings from Investor Nik Sleep
Pursuit of Quality
Hi friends!
Today, I want to share a passage from Richer, Wiser, Happier—a book close to my heart that delves into the habits and routines of highly successful investors.
In my ongoing quest for truth, I’ve found that the answer often lies in the quality of one’s work.
This newsletter shows what happens when an investor focuses on quality—transforming their life financially, spiritually, and morally.
It’s for anyone who strives to create something of enduring value.
Let’s dive into what it truly means to pursue quality in investing and in life.
The Transformative Power of Quality
Here’s an excerpt from Richer, Wiser, Happier about Nick Sleep, an investor whose life was transformed by his unwavering focus on quality:
When Sleep was about twenty, he fell under the spell of Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values.
This memoir-as-tutorial, which had been rejected by 121 publishers, is a strange but brilliant meditation on what it means to lead a life dedicated to “Quality.”
Pirsig exalts people who care so intensely about the quality of their actions and decisions that even the most mundane work becomes a spiritual exercise—a reflection of inner traits such as patience, integrity, rationality, and serenity. Whether you’re mending a chair, sewing a dress, or sharpening a kitchen knife, he writes that there is “an ugly way of doing it” and “a high-quality, beautiful way of doing it.”
For Pirsig, motorcycle maintenance provides an ideal metaphor for how to live and work in a transcendent way. “The real cycle you’re working on is a cycle called yourself,” he writes. “The machine that appears to be ‘out there’ and the person that appears to be ‘in here’ are not two separate things. They grow toward Quality or fall away from Quality together.”
As you might imagine, most of the hyper-ambitious strivers on Wall Street don’t have a lot of patience for mystical mumbo jumbo about motorcycles. But Pirsig’s vision of a soulful, ethical, intellectually honest approach to life resonated deeply with Sleep and shaped the type of investor he would become. In an email about Pirsig’s enduring impact on him, Sleep remarks, “You really want to do everything with quality as that is where the satisfaction and peace is.”
But what does this mean when it comes to investing?
In 2001, Sleep and his friend Qais “Zak” Zakaria created a fund called the Nomad Investment Partnership, which they viewed as a laboratory test for how to invest, think, and behave in the most “high-quality” way. In one of his eloquent and amusing letters to shareholders, Sleep would muse, “Nomad means far more to us than simply managing a fund.… Nomad is a rational, metaphysical, almost spiritual journey (without the sand and camels, although Zak may be happier with them).”
None of this would matter if it weren’t for the stunning outcome of their peculiarly high-minded experiment. Over thirteen years, Nomad returned 921.1 percent versus 116.9 percent for the MSCI World Index. In other words, their fund beat its benchmark index by more than 800 percentage points. To put that another way, $1 million invested in the index would have grown to $2.17 million, while $1 million invested in Nomad rocketed to $10.21 million.
What This Means to Me
This passage resonates deeply with me, just as Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance did for Nick Sleep.
I’ve added this passage to my Daily Reads to remind me of the importance of quality in life.
Here are other resources to inspire you to make quality your life’s guiding principle.
1. 📚 Slow Productivity – Its third principle, "Obsess Over Quality," is especially insightful. Read the distilled summary I wrote here.
2. 📚 Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig – A profound exploration of values and quality in life.
If you’re finding these insights valuable, don’t miss out on the next update—subscribe now to stay ahead!
What Quality Means?
To pursue quality in any undertaking shows that you care about the work and have taken the pursuit seriously.
Care and Quality are internal and external aspects of the same thing. A person who sees Quality and feels it as he works is a person who cares. A person who cares about what he sees and does is a person who’s bound to have some characteristic of quality.
— Robert Pirsig
For me I care about investing and writing and I’ve taken the pursuit seriously.
What pursuits in your life have you taken seriously—where you strive for excellence and truly care about the work?
It can be anything—sport, art, fitness, writing, investing, or business.
I’d love to hear your story.
Share your journey in the comments below, and let’s form a community dedicated to sailing toward greatness.
Key Takeaways
1. Work can be done in two ways: ugly or beautifully with quality.
2. Always aim for quality.
3. Quality is a soulful approach.
4. It reflects you care about your work.
5. It shows you've taken the pursuit seriously.
6. True satisfaction and peace come from quality.
7. Obsess over the quality of one or two core activities in your life.
Content Diet This Week
🎥 What makes a GREAT INVESTOR? | Episode 111 Joel Greenblatt
📝 The Art of Learning- Farnam Street
📖 The Big Secret for the Small Investor by Joel Greenblatt
💭 Quote of the Week 👇🏻
“You want to know how to paint a perfect painting? It's easy. Make yourself perfect and then just paint naturally.”
—Robert Pirsig
P.S.
A couple of weeks ago, I traveled to Dharamshala, India—pure peace in the mountains. ☮️🗻🧘🏻
This week, I finished the book The Big Secret for the Small Investor by Joel Greenblatt and am excited for my next reads: Expectations Investing and the updated Intelligent Investor.
Shifting to more offline reading to preserve and strengthen my attention span.
Just a reminder: guard your attention—it’s precious.
See you guys next week!
#long_attention_span
#you_are_more