Terminal Brain Cancer Inspires Gordon Murray Two Uses Difficulty To Help Main Street Investors page #1

Can a Terminal Disease Be Turned into an Opportunity?

“What a privilege I’ve had to use this disease as a platform to maybe make the world better ”
-Gordon Murray

“There’s something about ‘dying banker’…probably most people think is a good thing…Yes, it’s a very powerful platform. Even my kids listen to me now.”
-Gordon Murray

Gordon Murray

Ask yourself this simple question: how much time do I have to live? Of course most of us don’t have an answer, but we do tend to have certain expectations.

What is the number in your mind? Maybe you expect to live to be somewhere between seventy-five and eighty-five years old? When you’re in your twenties, it seems like you have all the time in the world.

In your thirties, you might start reflecting just a teeny bit. In your forties, you begin to start asking yourself, “Wow, where has the time gone?” In your fifties, you see your children in college and beyond, and say, “If I were their age, I would be doing things differently.”

In your sixties and seventies, you might contemplate how you’ll retire and what you’ll do with your supposed free time. If you make it into your eighties, then what? It’s only natural as we begin getting older to put a greater value on our time. Anything in smaller quantities usually has greater value, and because there are very few ways for humans to add to their time on Earth, they often find their time more valuable as they get older.

In 2010 Murray received the prognosis that a second bout of brain cancer had appeared and was terminal. No one takes that kind of information lightly. Murray was receiving treatment from the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center.

He felt 100 percent confident that the doctors who were in charge of his care knew the best types of treatment available. Once faced with the understanding that his life was limited to less than one year, he had to decide what to do with his remaining moments. The comfort and trust he had in his doctors convinced him that spending his time chasing after alternative treatments was futile. He chose to spend his remaining time raising awareness and sharing his solutions and views on effective investment. This chapter focuses on one individual who knew how much time he had left, and how he chose to spend his remaining days helping others.

With Wall Street bailouts, bank profits, and home foreclosures at an all-time high, a dying banker probably sounds like a good thing to many people. And I’ll admit that before I heard the story of Gordon Murray, I might have been right there with the “many people.” But his story has inspired me.

It may sound morbid, but often I’m inspired by stories of people who die before their time. Why? Because it reminds me how short and unpredictable life is, and how important it is to value every minute of every day-and use those minutes wisely. When I hear of a young soldier killed in the line of duty or a high school friend who has died of cancer, it pushes me to evaluate how I’m spending the short time I have left in my own physical body.

Gordon Murray, who was once a Wall Street investment banker, has inspired me. Not because he made a ton of money, but because of the way he investment his last days on earth in the future of others. At age fifty-eight, he knew that he was going to die and that it was going to be soon.

He decided to devote much of his remaining time to compiling the best of what he had learned in a long banking career, into a short guide on investing. By co-authoring The Investment Answer, he dedicated his last days to guiding individuals from all economic and social backgrounds towards making sound long-term investments that will help them create a stronger, more secure financial future.
Identify a Difficulty
Not long ago you didn’t have to look very hard to see the financial crisis. Official unemployment had been nearly 10 percent for over a year and is not expected to improve any time soon. Real unemployment was much higher. The home foreclosure rate was at a near all-time high.

The year 2012 saw close to the largest single-year number of home foreclosures in the history of the United States. The federal debt is beyond control, and the politicians don’t seem to have any answers. At the same time, Wall Street banks are making record profits and handing out bonuses in the billions- yes, billions! The gap between the top 1 percent of the wealthiest Americans and the rest of the country has never been wider. Never!

Gordon Murray spent twenty-five years working for some of the top New York banking giants until he retired in 2001. He felt that many of the large banking institutions throughout the country were doing a poor job representing their clients. Even so, when he retired, he didn’t know much about alternatives to his experiences of investing.

When it was time to reallocate some of his assets, Murray started dealing with David Goldie, an investment manager with Dimensional Fund Advisors. They had a very different idea about investing, and “it didn’t take long for Mr. Murray to become a true believer in this different way of investing. Mr. Murray said, ‘I learned more through Dan and Dimensional in a year than I did in 25 years on Wall Street,’”

Soon Dimensional hired Murray as a consultant to help teach technical advisers who use Dimensional funds and explain to them the company’s anti-Wall Street investment philosophy so that they can better educate their own clients. Mr. Murray saw it like this: “Where my problem-and where I think the greatest abuses have occurred-is when that Wall Street broker is transacting with Grandma. And she has no idea whether those muni-bonds have been marked up 3 or 4 percent. And I think that’s where Wall Street has really abused the trust with the investing public.”

Murray was able to recognize Wall Street abuses, but what could a fifty-eight-year-old retired banker with terminal brain cancer do against a multibillion-dollar industry that profits from client ignorance? Trading on ignorance is currently Wall Street’s philosophy, and it blatantly disregards the fact that consistent and repetitive fees that stem from clients inefficiently moving assets cut deeply into the long-term profits of their clients.

After being introduced to Goldie and the strategies at Dimensional, and being convinced that they had a superior investment program, Murray and Goldie envisioned writing The Investment Answer, a short, precise investment book that could help dispel the Wall Street money-generating myth that active investing generates superior profits.

The most amazing part of Gordon Murray’s investment conversion is that he used his terminal brain cancer not only as motivation to finish his book before he died, but also as a tool to bring as much attention as possible to his investment guidance. According to The New York Times, “He has tried to use his condition as a way to get people to pay attention. Let’s face it: this was not your typical book promotion tour. Murray did all of his interviews from home, mostly from his bed. He knew he would receive no royalties or signing bonuses.

Goldie and Murray self-published their book and paid most of the expenses.”  In the end, Murray did not live long enough to see The Investment Answer debut on The New York Times bestsellers list in February 2011. Unfortunately, he died just weeks before the hardcover edition made its way onto the list.

None of that would have made any difference to Murray. He was driven, truly driven, by something higher-a belief more powerful than the greed that generates billions for Wall Street bankers, a belief in an idea that could potentially transform the current toxic investment system or, at least, save a few ordinary people some money. His idea offers an alternative to the current system in which Wall Street-style investing permeates our society.

Since the Glass-Steagall Act, which had made it illegal for banks, insurance companies and investment companies to co-mingle access was repealed, every small bank nationwide has the ability to squeeze out every last drop of profits from its clients. Regardless of the impact The Investment Answer ultimately has, we should all take a look at how a fifty-eight-year-old man with brain cancer chose to use his waning energy, with the help of Goldie, to make a positive impact.

The Investment Answer seeks to help individuals keep more of what they earn for themselves and for their families. The major differences between the two types of strategies are the distinction between active and passive investment, the extent of asset allocation, and the types of diversification.

The Investment Answer is a direct challenge to the current pervasive Wall Street investment philosophy. Murray and Goldie promote taking advantage of the inherent strengths of the market, including diversity and stability, throughout the investment spectrum. Mr. Murray has exploited the attention he received from writing with terminal brain cancer and turned that difficulty into an opportunity.

According to The New York Times, “he plays along with the dying banker angle, and would do just about anything to make sure that his message is not forgotten, even if he fades from memory…” Murray explains that ‘To have the purpose and the mission for me has been really special…It probably has added days to my life.’”

Continued on page 2

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