He’s made millions. He’s retired. He could slow down.
But Ed Hajim has a story to tell and some advice to pass along.
Thus, the 1958 University of Rochester graduate and former chairman of that school’s board of trustees is writing books.
His first, a memoir titled "On the Road Less Travelled: An Unlikely Journey from the Orphanage to the Boardroom," was published in 2021.
In that work, Hajim revealed the circumstances of his own challenging childhood and his journey to a successful career on Wall Street.
In the recently published “The Island of the Four Ps: A Modern Fable About Preparing for your Future,” Hajim, 86, passes along some of the lessons he has taken from his life and his career in the financial industry.
He believes a fable works best to engage the reader. “It’s a softer, but more compelling way to make a point,” Hajim said in a Zoom interview. He noted the effectiveness of other fables, including Dr. Spencer Johnson’s “Who Moved My Cheese? An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life.”
In Hajim’s fable, a young man named Marketus leaves home for the first time, sailing off to the Island of the Four Ps.
The Ps are passions, principles, partners and plans. Each of them is represented by a village on the island.
Guided by a mentor named Archimedes, Marketus goes from village to village. Along the way, they talk about the role that passions, principles, partners and plans have, and will have, in his life.
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It’s a lot for the young man to take in, especially because Archimedes is one of those teachers who, rather than provide the answers, encourages his pupil to think for himself.
In that respect, he’s like Hajim, who hopes his book encourages people to have “conversations with themselves,” to sit down and examine their lives, what they have been, what they will be.
The trickiest of his four Ps may be planning, as so many disruptions — new technologies, let alone pandemics — lie in wait. The best strategy, Archimedes suggests, is to plan, but also to be prepared to change plans when setbacks occur.
To him, setbacks are opportunities. “Never be a victim,” he says, “use that energy to move ahead.”
The life of Ed Hajim
In the afterward of “The Island of the Four Ps,” Hajim steps away from his fable and writes briefly about his own life.