What My Grandson Taught Me About Human Connection and Capital Markets
Jonas Explains Bonding Without Words
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Over the Thanksgiving weekend, Gail and I got to spend time with my son, Dayton, Kelsey, his wife, and their son Jonas (16 months old). We love every minute we get to spend with them.
There was one moment of the weekend, however, that stands out for me.
It wasn’t the 20 minutes we spent playing peanut butter soccer (rolling jars of peanut butter around the kitchen floor), though that was great—almost as fun as our two-man peanut butter jar drum circle.
It wasn’t building block towers to knock them down. I never tired of building them, but he tired of waiting for me to build them up high to knock them down.
It was at a casual dinner out. Jonas was a bit fussy. His mom and dad both tried to calm him, putting him on their laps, offering him food and drink and otherwise paying attention. Nothing seemed to work. So I offered to pick him up and hold him.
Jonas hugged me tight, put his head on my shoulder and was at perfect peace. I was in heaven. In a precious moment I’ll never forget, I felt a bond with my grandson that will last forever.
Everyone needs that human connection. In 2023, the U.S. Surgeon General issued an advisory calling loneliness and social isolation a public health epidemic. The report notes that:
Lacking social connection raises the risk of premature death by 26–29%.
The overall mortality risk is comparable to smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day.
Poor social connection is linked to a higher risk of heart disease (29%) and stroke (32%), as well as depression, anxiety, and dementia.
Regulated investment crowdfunding is not the solution to loneliness, but I want to call out the radical difference it represents when compared with other investment models. It has a genuine human side to it that simultaneously preserves its financial rewards while creating more humane capital markets.
When I deposit money in the bank—and I do—that money is loaned in turn by the bank to other people and businesses. I have no say, beyond my choice of bank, about where the funds are deployed. They could choose to use them to support businesses I wouldn’t choose to back under any circumstance—and I’d never know it.
If I buy a share of Tesla, love him or hate him, I’m not going to get Elon’s email address and an open line of communication. Tesla doesn’t even get the money—whoever sold the share I bought does.
So, I can align my public company investments with my values by what I choose to own, but my money has no impact on the companies I pick and provides no human connection to the people at those companies.
When I invest in a small business via impact crowdfunding, things are different. I often connect with founders via email and sometimes have them on my show. Sometimes, they seek out advice and feedback from me, which I gladly share. There is real human connection.
There is a genuine bond between a small business owner and a crowdfund investor. It isn’t a replacement for grandchildren or a substitute for quality personal relationships, but it is different than conventional investing—dramatically different.
One of the ways this works is that when I invest via Honeycomb Credit, for instance, if a company is struggling to make payments, the company gets an opportunity to propose to the lenders, investors like me, a plan for payments that could allow the company to survive and even thrive while ultimately repaying the balance due. The lenders can then vote on the plan.
This is a radically different approach to capital, allowing the borrower to put forward a plan for human investors to consider. It changes the feeling of capital markets from being typically adversarial to becoming collaborative and cooperative—more human.
While it is too soon for me to definitively say that my impact crowdfunding portfolio matches or beats stock market performance, it sure looks like that to me.
One reason is the ease of diversification. With some portals (SMBX and Climatize) allowing investments as small as $10, anyone can build a portfolio of diverse small businesses in different communities, different industries and uncorrelated outcome potential. If an investment that represents one or two percent of my impact crowdfunding portfolio, and a tiny fraction of my net worth, needs to be restructured, I can afford to be patient and generous without meaningfully hurting my portfolio return.
Impact crowdfunding is a key tool for a human-centered capital market. If you haven’t joined me in actively investing, I hope you will. It can be a source of fun, real happiness and profit. That’s a pretty good combination—even if it isn’t as great as hugging Jonas.
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