Why Jim Rogers says his timing is terrible - CNBC -

Why Jim Rogers says his timing is terrible - CNBC -

Jim Rogers always says his timing is terrible, particularly when it comes to the markets though it`s hard to believe that of such a successful and inveterate investor. Still, he admits he was completely wrong about the decision that now dominates his life, to have kids.


"I thought children were a terrible waste of time, energy, money" I felt sorry for my friends who had children," he says. "I thought it was something I would never do. I was terribly wrong. They are so much fun."

Having become a father at the age of 60, Rogers, now 68, is trying to devote himself to his family. They famously uprooted from New York and moved to Singapore so daughters Happy (full name Hilton Augusta, about to turn 8) and Beeland (known as Baby Bee, now 3) can learn Mandarin.

Rogers is becoming a familiar sight to his neighbors bicycling his two daughters to school, and picking them up each afternoon, eight kilometers in four round trips. Bar travel for his many speaking engagements around the world, he does it each day.

"I came to all this late in life and I do have the time and the energy and the money that I can devote a lot of time to them, so I try to," Rogers says. He's out of breath as we speak, gasping a little as he rides his exercise bike, which he tackles daily for an hour or two if he is at home.

That's fairly typical of his behavior, his wife, Paige Parker, says. "He is an unbelievable multi-tasker," she says. "There are rare minutes where he does not have something that he needs to do. I don't think you become successful unless you're an over-achiever, and I think Jim is."

James Beeland Rogers Jr. was born in Maryland but grew up in the small town of Demopolis, Ala., where his father, James Beeland Rogers, was the plant manager of a chemicals factory. As a young man, he recalls telling people he was going to drive around the world â€" without really knowing what that meant.

He eventually made good on his pledge, driving first a motorbike .............