By worldly standards, many would call my life successful and say, “Well done.” Yet as my mortality has become undeniable, I have faced a struggle unlike any before. Part of it is physical, but much of it centers on how I will spend my remaining time and the condition of my soul.
For most of this millennium, I have combined secular investing with biblical teaching in both my personal life and my financial-services career. For 20 of those years, that approach felt especially fitting because I worked with professional athletes through Christian sports ministries. Since leaving that work five years ago, however, I have sometimes felt the secular side gaining ground. The rewards from my five most successful years of investing stirred my flawed human nature to want more, not less. My Catholic guilt now reminds me how far I fall short of God’s calling to teach that faith and finance belong together. That tension has deepened because I believe I have found the one person I should follow and invest alongside whenever possible: Michael Gentile.
It therefore seemed logical that, to focus fully on what I believe is my calling, I must step away completely from the part of the market that has served me and others so well in recent years. My thinking was “out of sight, out of mind,” because I believe that is the only way I can truly concentrate on faith and finance.
Beginning with the New Year, I will no longer discuss individual equity positions publicly. Once Northisle Copper & Gold releases its PFS, I will stop commenting on that position as well. I will continue sharing my views with our financial-planning clients and with my two financial-advisor friends, JD and Tim Grable, who may then share them with their clients.
I still feel the urge to return full-time to the metals and mining industry because I never been more bullish on its fundamentals. Thankfully, one biblical verse keeps me from doing so: “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?” — Mark 8:36
It is time to embrace my Catholic Christian faith fully—in my work and throughout my life, 24/7/365.
