Peter Cundill’s Tips for a Good Life

June 28, 2024

I recently came across Peter Cundill’s advice for living a good life, and I had to share it. Cundill was a successful investor, but these aren’t just money tips – they’re about living life fully.

Here’s what he believed in:

Health and Lifestyle

  1. Exercise daily for 30 minutes to 2 hours, with more on Saturdays. Take one rest day every two months. Keep body fat under 10%.
  2. Don’t be afraid of eating junk food but eat lots of fruit as well. It you choose to eat fat-free yoghurt, make sure you complement this with plenty of hot-dogs, hamburgers and French fries.
  3. Sleep a lot.
  4. Drink alcohol two days a week; once in a while to excess. 
  5. Cigarettes are bad. Cigars after a meal are good. 
  6. Once a year run a marathon. Once a year do something that scares the shit out of you: a bungie jump, the Cresta run, white-water rafting.

Personal Growth

  1. Read even more.  
  2. Stay curious and never stop learning.
  3. Laugh a lot but be reflective.
  4. Strive for balance through contradictions.

Living Fully

  1. Be a warrior. Be a priest. Be a monk. Be a hedonist.
  2. Reason and passion go together but not reason before passion.
  3. Switch between daydreaming and sharp awareness. Do reality checks and focus on details.
  4. Think positive thoughts even when lying to yourself – your brain won’t know the difference.
  5. Seek balance through harmonizing the different aspects of life: physical, spiritual, emotional, sexual.

Wisdom and Philosophy

  1. The physical world is an illusion but deal with it as if it were real. At every moment in all societies contradictions are developing and these inevitably lead to discontinuities. In his book “Beyond the Mexique Bay,” Aldous Huxley wrote, “Life is a series of routines punctuated by orgies.” It is and it should be, and neither Huxley nor I mean it in the purely conventional sense.
  2. The Roman stoic philosopher Seneca said a lot of useful things.

“Happiness is balance; to teach is also to learn; knowing is better than remembering; we are born unequal, we die equal; to govern is to serve, not to rule.” 

Living with Contradictions

  1. Be passionate without becoming zealous.
  2. Balance political correctness with being down-to-earth. Look to Bill Clinton’s style – wear simple clothes, embrace some pain, but enjoy luxury too.
  3. Own a house and enjoy hotel rooms.
  4. Travel to extremes, but make each stop feel like home.
  5. Seek high awareness and enjoy those brain moments.
  6. Be responsible while remembering true freedom means no obligations.
  7. Stand by principles but stay flexible and fair.
  8. Be optimistic or pessimistic, but always realistic.

Final Wisdom

  1. Seek order, face chaos, then step back.
  2. Be open, keeping just a few dark secrets.
  3. Think like both a historian and prophet.
  4. Use both deductive and inductive thinking.
  5. Remember – the stock market is usually wrong, but occasionally right.

I found these tips fascinating because they’re not about perfection – they’re about balance. Cundill clearly believed in embracing life’s contradictions rather than fighting them.

And that last bit about the stock market? Coming from a successful investor, it’s pretty telling.

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