Lee Geiger

“Wish I didn’t know now what I didn’t know then”

Bob Segar, “Against the Wind” (1980)

I recently spent several hours cruising north on Highway 101 after a poignant weekend catching up with my brother Steve. I was listening to an episode of Malcolm Gladwell’s excellent podcast, “Revisionist History,” when somewhere outside of Paso Robles he cut to a commercial break and blathered on about some product that required the listener to go on the advertiser’s website and type ‘GLADWELL’ into the promotional code to get their free trial. That’s when the bell rung inside my head, the divine guidance I’d been seeking since the demand for sell-side Wall Street traders began disappearing faster than landline telephones. The answer was right there in front of me, as indisputable as the directions to the nearest In-N-Out Burger emanating from my car’s navigational guide.

I want to grow up and become a promotional code.

I turned sixty a few days ago, and like most birthdays that end in zero my inner id required some critical commentary and introspection, to pull off to the psychological side of the road and examine where I am, how I got here, and where in the name of God’s green acres am I’m going?

Where to begin? How about at the beginning? In 1969, on the day of my tenth birthday party, I was tossed out of Disneyland like a bag of discarded Mickey Mouse ears after one of my friends who I had invited to spend the day riding the Matterhorn with me thought it would be a good idea to pilfer a coin purse from a souvenir shop in Frontierland. I can’t remember what I had for breakfast this morning, but I can still see the piggy eyes of the burly security guard like it was yesterday. Boy, was I upset. It’s a good thing social media hadn’t been invented yet. Or the microwave oven.

I was too stupid and immature to know anything at twenty, and I was too busy and distracted at thirty to give a damn. Next.

By forty, I was at the top of my game, 100% certain that the dot-com frenzy and Wall Street’s propensity to grossly overpay for marginal talent would continue forever, propelling me and my budding family toward a comfortable life of rainbows and 800-thread count sheets, to an early retirement spent sitting beachside drinking magnums of Chateau d’ Expensive while hand-picking antique furniture for our cozy villa in Tuscany. Or the other one in Maui.

Ten years later, after life and the financial crisis had delivered a swift kick to my balance sheet as well as my inflated ego, I spent my fiftieth birthday deliberating whether the best way to fund my children’s college education was to contract a quick-acting terminal disease. Because, as the numbers staring at me from my life insurance policy clearly stated, I was worth far more dead than alive.

But I made it to sixty, folks. Trust me, I’m as surprised as anyone, especially those who got burned by taking the under. I’m in a really good place right now and, truth be told, if someone had told me in my youth that by the time my age came with a six-handle I’d be where I am today, I’d have raised my hand and said, “I’ll take it!” My wife is happy, the kids are good, and I live in a fantastic neighborhood with plenty of great friends. I’ve got enough stashed away in the piggy bank to carry me to my expected expiration date, and I get to come into work every day and learn something new, as well as hangout with some really smart and fun people who treat me like a millennial-ized version of Yoda. I play plenty of golf, and the only thing I’m addicted to is fantasy football. I’m a pretty happy and contented man right now, and I’ve got the waistline to prove it.

However, the rear-view mirror perspective of taking inventory of myself after almost 22,000 days walking the planet has convinced me that two forces of nature are primarily responsible for where I am today. And it’s my firm belief that I can’t really know the person I’ve become until I identify and accept those two things.

The first is luck.

I’m lucky to have never longed for food or shelter while growing up. I’m lucky to have gone to high school in Carmel. I’m lucky Claremont Men’s College (now Claremont McKenna) accepted any 18-year old who could fog a mirror. I’m lucky to have been assigned to mentor The Pretty Blonde at my first job after college. I’m lucky she said “yes” a year later.

I’m lucky she helped me raise two healthy children. I’m lucky my kids turned their backs to drugs. I’m lucky my children have become well-adjusted adults. I’m lucky the oldest married well. I’m lucky the youngest knows who he is. I’m lucky he knows who he isn’t.

I’m lucky to have been asked to auction off a coffee cup during my first MBA interview. I lucky to have stumbled into a career suited to my God-given talents. I’m lucky to have found the right neighborhood to call home. I’m lucky to have met fine people who are willing to call me their friend. I’m lucky to have my health.

Yes, there was a certain amount of hard work involved, and I’ll admit to some level of critical thinking taking place from time to time. But there was no scheme, no blueprint, no master plan. I’m sitting here at my desk at my comfortable home in bucolic Moraga for one reason and one reason only; plain, divine dumb luck. I believe it down to my core.

The second force to shape my life, though, is completely on me. I own it, 100%. I wear it like the noxious scent I carry with me whenever I forget to put on deodorant. It’s this nasty little trait that’s as discrete as a blow to the head.

It’s called arrogance.

Merrian-Webster defines arrogant as, “having or revealing an exaggerated sense of one’s own importance or abilities.” Common synonyms include haughty, aloof, pompous, smug, vain, conceited, self-important, opinionated, and superior. Those are just the adjectives. The plethora of nouns are much more fun; idiot, bastard, and jerk are just a few of the politically correct ones. I cop to all of them, folks. Guilty as charged. There’s a reason many people can’t remember my first name and instead fall back to calling me “F-ing Geiger.” Why not, they figure. Everyone else does.

Arrogance doesn’t necessarily make you a bad person. But it can make you a foolish one. Exhibit A is my portfolio. I’ve spent three decades trading stocks on Wall Street, and I always believed being on the front lines of the financial markets gave me a profitable advantage. But the market mantra of “a rising tide lifts all boats” is true, and the truth is anyone could have made money investing in the stock market during the past thirty years, including and especially this dope. I’ve owned Amazon at 69, Netflix at 50, Facebook at 17 and Apple at 22. I brag about this at cocktail parties, only I never mention where I didn’t own them. That’s because I was under the mistaken impression that I was a highly skilled trader, and I knew the psychology of the marketplace better than any Hedge Fund Moe on the Street. I could buy at the bottom and sell at the top with my eyes and ears welded shut, simply because I knew how to hit a bid or take an offer. But the truth is this: had I just given every dollar I ever saved to the cast of brilliant portfolio managers I met over the years at T. Rowe Price, I’d be typing this pithy missive from a comfy beach chair in St. Barts.

Mind you, I’m not applying for food stamps anytime soon. But at one time I was a cocky dues-paying member at three swanky private golf clubs spread across the country, including one near Baltimore that required me to wear a bright red sports jacket and strut around the manicured fairways looking like an overstuffed cherry tomato. Now, I buy my golf balls at Costco.

Arrogance made me believe I was made to manage people. I was competent, for sure, but my leadership skills ranged somewhere between disagreeable and questionable. For a guy who on a good day has to stand tippy toe just to reach 5’8”, I spent way too much time looking down my nose at those who were cursed to report to me. Some liked me, yes, and some even found a reason to respect me. But the vast majority of those who at one time called me Boss seemed to have lost my phone number. Their silence is deafening, and I’m reminded of it every day.

Arrogance made me think I could make it as an entrepreneur. So what if Lehman Brothers couldn’t raise five bucks in 2008? I could raise a million dollars anywhere, anytime, even for a high-end motorcycle accessories company, an industry I knew absolutely nothing about. Because, I brilliantly thought, I was Lee Geiger. But one simple fact turned out to be the primary cause of the financial dumpster fire that ensued, and made me question my worthiness as a walking, talking member of the human species. I was Lee Geiger.

Arrogance told me I could maintain discipline. But that is sadly not the case. Just ask anyone who shares a meal with me. Or worse, a bottle of red wine. I conveniently blame my inability to control my appetites on the cacophony of expectations and judgements that come with being a provider as well as a producer. But that’s just an excuse. At times I don’t like myself very much.

Six decades doing laps around the sun has taught me that the fragile line between confidence and arrogance is humility, and a lifetime of bonehead mistakes has given me a boatload of it. It’s taken nearly the full scope of my entire life to understand the distinction and to accept its reality. Arrogance is a self-defense tactic used to disguise insecurity, or as author Tim Schneider once wrote, “Confidence is a nice suit. Arrogance is the same suit with suspenders, Italian loafers, and golf cuff links.” That about sums it up for me.

Confidence is knowing what God has given you and using that information to stay in your lane. Confidence allowed me to try out for the football team with no talent. Confidence allowed me to apply to Dartmouth’s Amos Tuck School of Business with no pedigree. Confidence allowed me to buy a wedding ring with no money. Confidence allowed me to buy a home with no job security. Confidence allowed me to write a controversial novel with no platform. Confidence allowed me to retire three times with no idea about what I would do next. And confidence allowed me to return to Penserra and accept a completely new job with no skills, no experience, and no clue.

I could have never accomplished any of these without some measure of confidence that I could succeed. But more importantly, I was confident I could survive if I failed. There was always a backstop; another sport, another school, another town, another job That wasn’t the case whenever I let my confidence shift into overdrive, causing my testosterone driven R.P.M.’s to drift into the dangerous red zone known as arrogance. Arrogance was like a drug, a drug that convinced me that that no matter the risk, the cost, or the situation, I was impervious to failure. Downfalls and defeats might happen to others faced with similar circumstances, but not to me–I was Lee F-ing Geiger. What a moron.

It’s actually a cathartic exercise to expose the truth about yourself and your experiences, to take inventory of the good and the bad, and to burrow through the self-doubts and accept those parts of you that are weak. Because, in the end, we are all human, and there’s no rational reason to deny that. We are all flawed. I’ve evolved as a person over the years, but that doesn’t mean I’ve gotten any better or worse. My flaws evolved with me.

So, after grappling with the truth and running a lawnmower over my psyche, where am I now? Here’s what I’ve determined after pulling off to the shoulder of my life’s journey and taking stock of the lint in my navel. There isn’t much I can do about where I was, and I may not be too happy with myself over where I could have been. But I’m very satisfied with where I am right here, right now. I’m a good guy to most, a bother to some, and a complete unadulterated asshole to a few. Health-wise, I’m at the seventh inning of life, and while I’ve got a few issues keeping me up at night, I’ve still got a few more good pitches to throw. I’ve done everything I’ve ever wanted in life, and I consider myself blessed not to have a Bucket List. My boys, and my daughter-in-law, make me proud every day of the week, and they’re destined to take the family name to heights I never dreamed of. I’m grateful The Pretty Blonde, who has hung on for 34 very long years, still believes in me, but like the general manager of a football team she has ironclad control over the option to renew my contract.

I don’t pretend to know the key to happiness, and I’ll admit to an unhealthy amount of regret that I’m not as big a deal, financially or socially, as I had hoped I’d be at this point of my life. But that being said, I’m beginning to suspect that the next few chapters of life are about learning to let go of everything I feverishly collected over previous chapters that wasn’t loving or human. Unlike my younger days, I no longer measure my own feelings and wants based on the ones impressed upon me by others. And I’ve come to the conclusion that avoiding certain people to protect my emotional health is not a weakness. It’s wisdom

There is one reality about being sixty that I’m more than happy to accept—nine o’clock is the new midnight. And thank God for that. As for that promotion code, stay tuned. You just never know when typing the name GEIGER might get you a free trial.