Reflections on golf, gravity, and the checklist that keeps me safe
A personal meditation on why the perfect swing requires no tension, why safety in the cockpit demands ignoring your feelings, and how I apply that same rigorous physics to the art of investing.
Dear Partners,
The last few weeks have been truly magical for me. I have stepped back from the daily noise to spend my time reading, absorbing, meditating, and perhaps most importantly golfing.
To the outside observer, this might look like leisure. But in the pursuit of being a great investor, I view it as essential maintenance. Blaise Pascal once wrote that all of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone. I believe this is especially true. Investing is not an activity of constant movement. It is an activity of constant judgment. And judgment requires a quiet mind.
Golf is a ruthless teacher of this truth. On the course, you learn very quickly that you cannot force the ball into the hole. If you swing with tension, you fail. If you let your mind drift to the mistake you made three holes ago, or worry about the score you hope to have at the end, you lose your rhythm. You must be entirely present. You must be centered.
This centeredness is the foundation of my investment process. It allows me to detach from the frantic energy of “Mr. Market” and see things clearly. It reminds me that success does not come from doing more. It comes from doing the right things with absolute discipline.
This brings me to the fifth chapter of Poor Charlie’s Almanack, where Charlie Munger outlines a framework for thinking that goes far beyond arithmetic. He argues that to succeed in a complex world, one must master multiple disciplines. To explain this, he points to the profession of piloting. A great pilot does not rely on instinct alone. He relies on an understanding of weather, physics, and engineering. But more importantly, he relies on the mandatory practice of the checklist. Munger notes that pilots learn to master their own psychology by constantly visualizing errors. They invert the problem. They do not ask how to have a great flight. They ask what would cause a crash, and then they systematically avoid those things.
This philosophy resonated deeply with me because long before I managed capital, I learned this lesson in the cockpit of a single-engine aircraft, crossing the Bass Strait to Tasmania in the dead of night.
When you are suspended over that stretch of water in the dark, the margin for error evaporates. Below you is nothing but cold, pitch-black ocean. Above you is a void. There is no visible horizon to orient yourself. In that silence, the dangers are not just mechanical. They are sensory. Your inner ear can betray you. It can convince you that you are banking left when the instruments insist you are level. A single fuel pump failure turns the plane into a glider. Unexpected ice can alter the aerodynamics in seconds.
You do not survive that journey by being creative or relying on how you feel. You survive by adhering to a strict, unemotional process. You trust the instruments over your own senses. You scan the oil pressure. You calculate the fuel burn. You assume the engine might quit and you plan the glide path before the silence comes. You respect the physics of the situation more than your own confidence.
I have brought this same mindset to managing money, and I take the role of being a good steward of your capital seriously. The market is just as unforgiving as the Bass Strait. It punishes arrogance and rewards preparation. Therefore, we do not simply buy stocks. We run every potential investment through a pre-flight checklist. We look for structural integrity. We ignore the noise of the headlines to focus on the physics of the business.
This is why we obsess over The Physical Foundation. In the disorientation of a market panic, stories and projections vanish like fog. What remains is what is real. We look for the land, the bricks, and the machines—a lesson I learned firsthand when I built my aviation pilot training business. We want to know that if the engine stops and the business closes tomorrow, the pile of things left behind is worth more than the price we paid. It is the only way to ensure we are flying with a parachute.
It is also why we discard complex accounting and search for The Take-Home Cash. The instrument panel of a plane tells you the truth about your fuel regardless of how fast you want to go. Similarly, we look for the money a business generates only after it has paid to keep its doors open and its roof repaired. We ignore the profit that exists only on paper. We demand the cash that can actually be put in your pocket. A pilot does not fly on the promise of fuel. He flies on what is in the tank ;)
This discipline extends to our view on The Financial Weight. To a pilot, altitude is safety and airspeed is life. To an investor, cash is oxygen and debt is a heavy backpack. We prefer to fly light. We avoid companies that require perfect conditions to survive because we know that perfect conditions never last. We search for businesses that can glide through a storm without needing a lifeline from a bank.
We find comfort in The Quiet Corners. The crowd is often like a flock of birds. They turn sharply and unpredictably based on what the bird next to them is doing. They chase the excitement. We prefer the empty airspace. William James taught that the art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook. We overlook the noise. We look for the companies that have been forgotten in the quiet cove where the water is still. It is in this silence that we often find the greatest value.
And perhaps most importantly, we look for Shared Fate. There is an ancient Roman tradition regarding bridge building that guides us here. The engineer who designed the arch was required to stand underneath it when the scaffolding was removed. If the bridge failed, the engineer fell with it. We apply this same test to management. We only invest with leaders who are standing under their own arches with their own net worth tied to the success of the enterprise.
These principles act as our Attitude Indicator (the gyroscope). In the cockpit, this is the most important gauge in the cluster; the primary scanning technique of a pilot is to constantly return to it. These principles do the same for us. They keep us level when your inner ear tells you the world is tilting. They allow us to sit quietly while others rush. We do not need to be smarter than the crowd. We simply need to be more disciplined. We are content to check our instruments, collect our dividends, and wait for the signal to eventually drown out the noise.
Thank you for trusting us with your capital. We treat it with the same care we treat our own, planting it in good soil and watching it grow.
Regards,
Neel