Editor’s note: This article was first published in February 2013. Its reference to nine years ago points to an investment conference around 2004.
“Separate the shell from the seed” is an expression I’ve always used to explain certain things about people and situations. As we all know, a sunflower seed has a shell (the part you throw away and can’t eat) and the kernel inside (the edible part, which is what we’re after). As a rule, with every person, even if some don’t seem like it, if we stop focusing on the shell, we can make use of the seed. Of course, there are also people who are empty seeds: the ones you trust, and once you peel them, there’s nothing inside. They were all shell.
Scientifically speaking, the human being, and the brain in particular, is one of the most complex machines ever created, and yet many of us behave with utter simplicity. If we want to be smarter, more efficient and even more successful by learning from other people, we have to learn to separate the shell from the seed.
Here are a few examples to try to explain what I’m getting at.
Some time ago I published an article on what the Mafia can teach us about business, because the Mafia has a business model: it is a company like any other, and its managers have their principles. Of course its product and methods aren’t legitimate, but it is a company. This led me to “argue” with some people on social media (or rather, to receive all kinds of criticism). Some said the Mafia had nothing to teach them. “You’re wrong, because if you manage to separate the shell (forget that the advice comes from the Mafia), it can teach you everything.” In fact, Louis Ferrante, a former Mafia capo, is in high demand at business schools.
Does it mean that, after Robert Kiyosaki carried out his strategy of declaring bankruptcy to avoid paying a lawsuit, his books can no longer teach us anything? Certainly not. Whatever Robert Kiyosaki does, his book Rich Dad Poor Dad is and will remain one of the best books for opening people’s minds about financial education. If Kiyosaki committed the biggest embezzlement in history tomorrow, I would still recommend making his book required reading at school.
In the same way, Woody Allen said: “Things aren’t said, they’re done, because by doing them they say themselves.” Two minutes after I posted this quote on Facebook, the first people appeared saying that Woody Allen couldn’t teach them anything either, because he had married his daughter. I didn’t know that Woody Allen had married his daughter, and frankly, he could have slept with his own grandmother for all I care. If the quote is good, makes sense and gives sound, useful advice, whatever Mr Allen has done is the shell, and we can make use of his more “edible” part, which, like most people, he also has.
Nine years ago I attended a conference on investing. I won’t name the speakers, to avoid stirring up controversy. I’ll just say that the conference featured a well-known Spanish guru and three lesser-known young speakers.
In my view, the so-called guru spouted nothing but rubbish while the audience applauded like people possessed. On the other hand, one of the three young speakers explained certain things that I was able to apply to my stock market investment method, and they gave me excellent results. Most of the attendees had come because of this “guru”, who I found disappointing, and very few paid proper attention to the other speakers.
I don’t go along with building a reputation and then resting on it. Some people are all seed at 30, and once they become successful, they gradually grow too much shell.
In a way, we have to learn to listen to the messages, ideas and advice of certain people, and sometimes not waste too much time analysing who the message comes from, but whether it makes sense or not.
In short: everyone can offer us something, just as everyone has their flaws. Not everyone is all shell (apart from a few dreadful exceptions), and not everyone is all seed (apart from a few honourable exceptions). We need to learn to recognise, distinguish and make the most of this in every person who crosses our path, whether in business, in investing or in life in general.
Featured image: Kaldari, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
