Be Part of the SIM Community
Saturday Iced Mocha (SIM) is written and orchestrated by Josh Rosen. Rather than aiming to build a large subscriber base, SIM was started as a project to share my personal reflections with the goal of providing greater connection with members of my personal community, while challenging myself to be more consistent in my thinking and communications.
I quickly developed great appreciation for the forcing functions inherent in the process of writing. I’m often surprised at how loosely held opinions and beliefs fall apart quickly when they need to hold sentences and paragraphs together.
This community has gradually expanded outward and I welcome new members. I write about what interests me, sometimes sporadically, and often related to current events. Please feel free to share with others; I’m honored when people take the time to give attention to what I write. I particularly appreciate when members of the SIM community respond back to contribute to this journey, which is largely an attempt to separate signal from noise.
Who am I?
I’m a card-carrying member of Gen X, having proudly driven a minivan (friends call me a minivangelist) for much of my adult life, and I like to think I’m unconventional, whether that’s true is debatable. My childhood in Wisconsin was idyllic to me, but I’ve always been a bit oblivious to my surroundings. As a toddler, I lived in a group home that my parents managed, got thrown in a washing machine and one of the young men that took an interest in teaching me to walk was later convicted of homicide. My parents divorced young and I won the parent lottery with four fantastic parents that passed me back and forth with intra-week joint custody. Said parents are now retired from social work, teaching and non-profit leadership. I grew up an only child in one house and with a bunch of siblings in the other. This included a Vietnamese refugee foster brother and a disaffected-teen foster sister (temporarily) to go with two big-hearted half brothers that were both under six when I went off to college. I went to high school in what was a fairly rural, mostly Christian small town outside Madison and made great friends. Perhaps this was despite my Jewish last name and what was a very different family structure than others; I was definitely the only one with four parents trotting out for parents’ night. I was fortunate in so many ways, including developing great relationships across cultures and socio-economic levels through sports and travel. As an introvert, I learned a lot through observation, perhaps most profoundly that we’re all trying to survive and thrive in our own ways, every human, every day. Sounds simple, but we always seem to forget how much more we have in common than in difference.
I studied economics and philosophy in college and played division 3 soccer and basketball. Sports were a primary focal point until I was 20 and I remain fascinated by the zero sum nature of sports and the intersection with analytics, as well as how tangible our tribal biases are in the world of fandom. My physical coordination and awareness made up for a lack of fast-twitch muscles and I managed to do well for a small-school athlete.
I’d like to describe my professional career as intentional, but in reality, it has simply been a journey of transitioning to the next thing that made sense at the time. It was definitely not any early specific aspirations, as I can’t remember any; my journey is much more attributable to serendipity, curiosity and good mentors and friends. I went the opposite of my family and ended up working for a large investment bank; it was an incredible education and I have an affinity for analysis and logic. I made more money than all four of my working parents combined when I was 24; that was definitely strange in hindsight considering I hardly knew what I was doing, but I tend to just roll (impostor syndrome was very high back then). It rolled all the way to being the CEO of a publicly-traded cannabis company with several hundred teammates; I transitioned back to my investing roots in 2020 and back to leadership again in late 2022. The intense work schedule I kept in my early career translated to very little outside social interests other than the Green Bay Packers and ugly health club basketball; this was eventually remedied by my now wife when I was in my early 30s. We have two children, who I force to read and talk about my writing (so I know someone reads SIM). It was upon having our first child that I left the investment banking world, hoping to avoid living on the road while our kids were young. I mostly succeeded in that.
Despite my introvert tendencies, I’ve developed a community I’m proud of, largely by being honest and kind, with a willingness to listen. I’ve grown more confident with experience, likely to a fault. I often wish I didn’t see so much nuance to things and I believe it often takes me too long to figure something out that should have been obvious. The skill of cutting through BS is one I greatly admire in others and I tend to be attracted to content that accomplishes this.
And, as might be evident, my writing tends to be on the long side. I find context to be important and between my philosophy and economics majors and having copy editors slashing my written research reports when I was in my early 20s, I picked up habits that are hard to break (they can be good or bad depending on the circumstances). Or perhaps it’s the fault of my father, who forced me to take a college extension class on writing when I was in high school because he was concerned my small high school wasn’t properly preparing me. If you made it this far, you are likely a good candidate for the SIM community.
How Often
I try to share something I write approximately once a week, but that’s clearly not consistently maintained, particularly when work and family life are higher priorities. Once subscribed every new edition of the newsletter goes directly to your inbox. Perhaps this evolves and I’m always open for input.
Still want to join?
If after all that, you still want to see what this community is all about, we will welcome you. I’m hopeful that the musings and responses prove worthy of your attention and it’s easy to opt back out. If you choose to comment, my ask is that you commit to trying to be relevant, insightful or comedic, and without resorting to any ad hominem attacks on others. Differences of opinion are encouraged.
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