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Dear Friends and Financial Partners!

It’s true that 2017 was and will remain one of the most memorable years for the stock market. We all have much for which to be grateful and not just in the monetary sense.

About two years ago I came across a TED Talk: “What makes a good life? Lessons from the longest study on happiness by Robert Waldinger.”1 Waldinger is a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He is the fourth director of one of the longest-running studies of adult life ever done. It is the ongoing 75-year-old Harvard Study of Adult Development.

The study answers the important questions about what keeps us happy and healthy. Here’s a hint: It’s not about fame or money or our stations in life. It’s about family. It’s about relationships. It’s about the people in our lives.

Another validation about relationships comes from the late Randy Pausch. “People are more important than things,” Pausch said in his book The Last Lecture.2 When Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give such a lecture, he didn’t have to imagine it was his last lecture, since he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Again, “People are more important than things.” The keys to a good life involve the family and friends in our lives. It’s the people we know and our relationships with them that truly drive happiness.

We cherish you, our clients, and our special relationship with each of you. We never want to take you for granted. Thank you for being the greatest people on the planet.

Bullish Best Wishes,

Roger M. Smedley, CFP®
CEO

1. Robert Waldinger, “What Makes a Good Life?,” TED Talk, November 2015.
2. Randy Pausch, “Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams,” Carnegie Mellon University, December 20, 2007.

SFS