Lake Zurich

and made notes on the stations of my journey, now almost at an end.

The days I had spent on various inquiries at Bad Kissingen, the panic attack in Baden, the boat excursion on Lake Zurich, my run of good luck at the casino in Lindau.

my visits to the Alte Pinakothek in Munich and to the grave of my patron saint in Nuremberg, of whom legend has it that he was the son of a king from Dacia or Denmark who married a French princess in Paris.

During the wedding night, the story goes, he was afflicted with a sense of profound unworthiness.

Jung's own making extended beyond writing.

The Library of Congress documents that he began the tower at Bollingen, beside Lake Zurich, in 1923, and that the building developed through successive additions.

In 1950, for his 75th birthday, he carved a stone monument.

Its imagery includes telesphorus within a circular design, accompanied by Greek writing, while another face carries a Latin dedication.

But it started with his goals.

He wanted to have the ability... to ride around Lake Zurich with his children, who are savage athletes, by the way, they both go to Harvard and very sharp individuals.

And that was important to him.

He also wanted to get into a racing car with his son and be able to go around the track.

First, he'd be able to fit in the racing car and then be able to go around the track a few laps without feeling breathless and feeling like he needs to get out and couldn't wear the helmet.

that's how important it was that's how deep he went with the goals and lo and behold his life's been changed his health's been optimized and he's able to do that he's now able to we've got factual proof of this because i was there when i went to zurich earlier this year do a bike ride around lake zurich with the coach and with his children and that's why we do what we do

Touching on these kind of highly successful people there, what do you think kind of separates them, the Conor Bens, these kind of CEOs? What separates these people from your average kind of person on the street?

I used a word earlier, and that word's resilience.

Zurich is a happy place for me.

I recall swimming in Lake Zurich day after day at the age of 19 years, just a few kilometres south of Zurich itself, enjoying the mild sting of getting into the water, cool but not cold, easily accommodated, enjoying the majestic background of mountains still snow-laden, its ridges crisply divined by still low morning sun.

i thought then i could make a habit of this swimming in a lake which i did decades later i never got to swim in zurich itself something that only started in my sixties when i was invited to lecture there and to do research in st gallen just an hour or so away by train from zurich I had been blown away by how much a swimming city Zurich is, right into the city, mostly in the lake, but also in the river Limat.

This podcast is from my book Memories Like Water, 65 Swims at the Age of 65 Years.

Three places in Lake Zurich, in the city itself, each swim very different, despite only being separated from each other by a few kilometres.

account number one of swimming cheese and sex at lake zurich at tiefenbrunnen i arrive in zurich bright and early at least early but not really so bright having left home at four in the morning to get to heathrow to be there in time for the working day and for a swim before work i love zurich it is a hugely livable city very friendly efficient clean with all the amenities that make a city civilised the biggest amenity for me is lake zurich some twenty-nine kilometres long a glacial basin filled with the most beautiful crystal-clear and soft water Silk and water are often evoked together.

Velvet, too.

Lake Zurich water is both silk and velvet to the touch, soft to the taste, with a view of the Alps that forms a perfect backdrop to swimming.

Ja.

Also da seht ihr oben rechts den Bodensee, unten links den Zürichsee und wir sind quasi östlich, äh, da wo Nesslau steht, ähm, am Säntis.

Für die, die das, die halbwegs in der Region sind, die höchste Erhebung in der Ostschweiz mit zweieinhalbtausend Meter sind wir hier auf tausend Meter quasi direkt an der Passstraße.

Mhm.

Indeed.

So okay, picture the Lake of Zurich, Fionnuala, and the city is at the top due north.

We here in Monocle Studio 4 on the upper right bank if you want, and then as you go down the right coast, it's what's known as the Gold Coast here in Zurich.

Well, if you were to sail due south from the pier outside our studio here at the Monocle Cafe, after about 30 minutes of navigation, you would reach the lakeside town of Stäfa.

And the evening steps back, a hundred years or so, to a different desk entirely.

The desk is in Küsnacht, a small town on the shore of Lake Zurich in Switzerland.

It belongs to a large, solid house with a steep roof, built a few years before the First World War.

The house faces the water.

I was itching for a new challenge, and fortunately, it arrived in 2004.

CDL Investors, a boutique research firm in Zurich owned by my good friend Peter Wick, hired me.

CDL's main activity was sourcing and analyzing investment ideas for Dr. Dieter Tetamanti, a successful industrialist and activist investor in Switzerland.

I moved with my wife and our eldest daughter, Amelie, to Kilchberg, home of Linton Sprungli, to start work there.

As I wrote in my twenty sixteen letter, when I started investing, I thought the wider the moat, the better.

I realised it is far better to invest in a company with a narrow moat that is growing than in one with a wide moat that is static or even shrinking.

I am reminded of this when I look out of my office window onto Lake Zurich.

It does not matter how big the lead one rowing boat has over another.

Yes

... on Lake Zurich.

Beautiful.

Cool.

And to the right-

It's a man on a horse

... that was a tribute to the last known centaur, Maximilian, that used to roam Lake Zurich in the late 1890s.

What? Cen- what?