If you were working on a team in the 90s, it is likely that you played some team-building games - or you may have even played The Question Box Game or Table Topics game at home with friends and family members. A question asked may be “if you were on a dessert island, what are the three things that you want with you?” These playfully oriented questions are painted to reveal where someone’s beliefs and ethics fall in a more relaxed manner than what could be comfortably revealed an “inquisition”, so to speak.
Investments frequently give insights to someone’s values, too. If you put your money where your social responsibilities align, then you feel comfortable knowing that your investments support the community habits and projects you choose to support. Perhaps you put your money on “Made in America”, showing that even if the costs of construction are a little higher here, you want to invest where you live and your national community. Then again, you may just select stock that is high risk in order to maximize returns - and that’s okay, too.
New opportunities for investments include fine arts - including paintings, sculpture and wines. These unique objects cannot be replicated and never truly duplicated (only mimicked). Returns on purchases of master paintings, original sculptures or fine wines increase independently of the stock market. It’s about the value to the eyes of the beholder… and the one who covets that prize.
You can take a hobby into a fun investment and learn new things at the same time. But watch your security systems - who knew that you could steal a bottle of wine and sell it for $25,000 or more? Or that $2.5 million in wine was easy to heist?
What this article really tells you is that someone who choses fine art realized he had a hot bottle of wine and did the right thing - returned it to the rightful owner at a huge financial hit. But it was the right thing to do instead of furthering sour grapes. He did have a reputation, though, in that small circle of doing the right thing and that matters more than an old bottle.
Make good investments and choices in your life. When things start to ferment, it can only get explosive and sour from there. Remember what matters most and act on it.
