Are you a good networker? According to research on the size of human brains, most of us are capable of maintaining connections with about 150 other people. This number has stayed the same since hunter-gatherer times.

People who are more socially connected have increased survival rates, reduced risk for cardiovascular disease, stroke, Type 2 diabetes, depression, and dementia. Those are the findings of repeated studies by psychologists and neuroscientists, and are no longer considered controversial.

Other primates like monkeys, lemurs, and chimps have a smaller neocortex and can only manage a social network of around 50 individuals.

Of course, human relationships are layered. Most of us have an innermost circle of about 5 people, usually spouses, children, or other family members, or very dear friends. These are the people you share your victories and defeats with, that you see or chat to daily, and who would take you to the hospital in the middle of the night in an emergency.

After that comes a layer of about 10 additional good friends you see at least once a month. Farther out are your mates, or social circle, that might be up to 35 people that you see semi-regularly. Most of us have an outer ring of another 100 persons (taking you to 150 in total) with whom we are well acquainted.

These 150 are the people that you would go up to and slap on the back if you bumped into them in the security line at the airport. You would invite them to a once-in-a-lifetime party. These are the people who would come to your funeral.

Anyway, apart from my wider family and group of old friends, I feel blessed to know a lot more people from my two other lifetime "passion projects". Those are drawn from the 1 367 Vestact clients, and the 1 612 members of the Tyrone Harriers running club.

Finally, to Friday's advice: make sure you know and can instantly recall as many people's names as possible. You can't really claim to have 150 people in your network if you can't recall their names without hesitation, when you bump into them.

I recently spoke to a new client whose portfolio looked impressive, full of well-known companies and ETFs, but it was actually working against him. He was holding too many positions that overlapped, owning the same stocks multiple times through different ETFs.

This resulted in his best performers being too small to make any impact, and his overall returns looked more like an index fund than an actively managed portfolio. I know it's hard to avoid the new new hot stocks, but discipline goes a long way.

At Vestact, we prefer focus over diworsification, a concentrated basket of about a dozen world-class businesses, each with enough weight to matter. It's this conviction-driven investment philosophy that delivers real compounding over time.

The right move for him, and for anyone in a similar position, is to simplify and rebuild around our model portfolio. As Charlie Munger once said, "The idea of excessive diversification is madness. You're not going to make money that way."

Conviction, not quantity, drives superior returns in the long-term. I love the idea of fewer companies of superior quality and holding them through the cycles.

Forest restoration is embracing old methods. Conservationists are harnessing millennia-old relationships between plants and fungi - Reducing fertiliser use while combating climate change.

US whale entanglements are on the rise. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration confirmed 95 cases in 2024 - Save marine life.

Asian markets are mostly in the red this morning, tracking Wall Street's overnight weakness. Japan and Australia are leading declines, while Hong Kong and South Korea are the few bright spots in an otherwise downbeat regional session. The top mover (+3.1%) in Asia was Icheon-based supplier of DRAM (dynamic random-access memory) chips, SK Hynix Inc.

In local company news, shares in Labat Africa skyrocketed over 50% after the cannabis group's long-awaited update projected a fivefold jump in earnings, marking a dramatic turnaround following its JSE suspension.

US equity futures are further in the red in pre-market trade. The Rand is trading at around R17.36 to the greenback.

Thank goodness it's Friday. Enjoy the weekend.