Sir John Templeton died recently at the ripe old age of 95. If you want a study in a life well lived, you would be hard pressed to find a better example than Sir Templeton.

In a Wall Street Journal column that followed his death, a few short paragraphs hit on just a few of the high points of this nonpareil’s life.

At the end of WWII he bought stock in 104 companies whose shares were $1 or less. Only a few of those companies failed while many went on to produce huge profits. Templeton always subscribed to the philosophy of buying at “points of maximum pessimism”. He went on to build Templeton Funds, one of the most successful mutual fund companies in the history of the industry, around that very proposition.

In 1972 he established the Templeton Prize. Sir John, himself a devout Presbyterian, believed that achievement that enriches religious experience is the greatest achievement attainable. The Templeton Prize trumped the Nobel Prize (which gives no recognition to faith) by assuring its monetary award to be higher than the Nobel monetary award. Presently it is in the $1.6 million range.

Sir John was so zealous with the notion “that God is vastly greater than human beings can comprehend” that he employed his wealth to reconcile science and religion, each deepening the other. He set up the Templeton Foundation which now has over $1.5 billion in assets and distributes awards annually around $70 million.

Sir John, being a paragon of wisdom, saw how many modern philanthropies tend to begin with good intentions and then morph away from donor intent over time. He carefully crafted his foundation with the appropriate checks and balances so his original intent would never be diluted.

Sir John first came in my awareness in 1989 when I read what has now become a legendary interview in the annals of investment literature. At that time the buzz on Wall Street was Japan; the Japanese stock market had outperformed virtually all other markets for several years and there was no end in site. The US stock market was seemingly stalled and was directionless.

The interviewer asked him what worried him. Without script he waxed eloquent about why investors in general should not worry. He pointed out that there were more scientists alive today seeking answers to the biggest problems facing humans than over than had been alive cumulatively in the history of the human race. Further, computing power was growing exponentially (this was before anyone had heard of the Internet) and freedom (capitalism) was spreading faster than any time in human history. The rest is history.

Oh, he did add one chilling note. He said if you want to worry about something, worry about the price of a square foot of real estate in Tokyo. Within one year the Japanese stock market began its historic collapse. You see, while Sir John subscribed to buying shares at maximum pessimism, that was only half the equation. He espoused selling at maximum optimism. He made history a decade or so later by shorting the tech stocks right before they tumbled.

Sir John Templeton was a model of optimism, wisdom and long term thinking. He’s left this earth, but his wonderful values will benefit mankind until the end of time.

Posted in BIG Blog, Inspiration