Below excerpt extracted from Joe Aston's final Rear Window...

Below excerpt extracted from Joe Aston's final Rear Window column in the Fin Review (my favourite funny enough) and adapted to STA from my own perspective, though of course it's relevant to almost every ASX company and CEO. ASX CEO's requires and attracts a certain personality type, ironically shareholders demand it... so long as they are already set and/or are well connected enough to hear and front run reality.

Ironically, it’s the social (lack of) regulation that helps these people rise to the top that abandons them when they get there. The higher they rise, the less tethered they are and when the self-delusion takes over, along come the wild flights of fantasy.I’ve seen it again and again. It’s always the lies they tell themselves. Human beings are endlessly fascinating and our capacity to delude ourselves is limitless, especially if we’re being rewarded at every step of the way.

Who gives them the sense check? Who’s in the room saying, “Twiggy (Luke), you are speaking complete nonsense.” Absolutely nobody. When you’re running on the treadmill of high corporate life, people only say, “Great idea Hamish Douglass, that’s a ripper!” Nobody says, “Hammer, buddy, you’re being a gigantic fool.”

I got to be that person they don’t have, saying “Yeah, nah, but good try" That’s what you can do in a format like Rear Window (HC). You can analyse their inventions and half-truths – because the best lies are lies of omission – and you can say “This man is talking pure crap, dear reader.” That’s difficult or even impossible to do when you’re relying on their voice, not your own, to tell the story.

This was the fabulous triage point, to observe these creatures striving, spinning, preening, misrepresenting and incrementally, I learned to stop and ask, “What’s really going on there?” The real story lay beneath, and how lucky am I that I twigged?

I'm often asked why I post like I do, what my angle is, who I work for lol, when calling out BS is more than enough cathartic satisfaction by itself. Dodging misleading bullets spun out like a machine gun through interesting research is a bonus... except when you let your guard down

GLTAH