This past week, I received news like many of you that our friend Jim Forsythe has passed away. I wanted to write a special tribute to him, as he touched a lot of lives.

Note – to help his family out with the expenses – please take a look at the gofundme site setup for his memory.

I never met Jim in person – as neither did many of you, but it still hurts just like a lifelong friend has left us. During the COVID lock downs, everyone went online to places like Reddit and talked with Zoom. This meant there were a lot of different ways for people to connect than before.

I had been a fan of Jim’s before we every spoke on Zoom. I think the first time I really got to know a bit about him was from Tom’s interview of Jim on Palisades Gold Radio. Why was I a fan?

When I was in my 20s, I had read a quote of something like – “you will be in 5 years who you surround yourself with today”. So I really took a lot of stock in trying to surround myself with people who are far smarter than me with things. With the Palisades Radio interview – I had learned Jim had a PhD, was a former Air Force pilot for 12 years, and a former NH politician. He also taught at the Air Force Academy – which is a career achievement in itself.

With all of those accomplishments – it was hard not to gravitate towards him. I had written a lot in this blog, an article blew up, and I was then on YouTube channels talking about the silver story. Jim came across my articles and through the non-profit he was running, nominated me for a Sound Money award in 2021. That began my path to learning about Kinesis, and Jim eventually put me in touch with the CEO of Kinesis – Tom Coughlin – which helped me get my dream job today.

Later in 2021, Jim asked me to come on his show for Citizens for Sound Money. It was only their second video, and I was honored to be on it.

I had put together a slide show and we nerded out on silver, gold, money, and asset classes for hours. This started a closer friendship, as we were both in search of the academics – finding ways to bring sound money back again, understanding the deep history of it, and our shared love of everything silver (and that shiny gold thing) would endure for years to come. Some of my family members who wanted to buy monster boxes of silver, I pointed them to Jim – and even they were touched by him on the very brief encounters they had.

During the 3 years that I knew him, the last 2 or so I was in chat groups with daily communications. What you would learn about him is a few things…

  1. The man seemed to not sleep. He could be making silver until 3 or 4AM – or just as easily on Reddit until 6AM trying to build bridges with people.
  2. Speaking of the last part, he was someone who always wanted to create bridges between groups of people. The politician in him was always trying to mend fences and find common ground with everyone. I had half begged him last year to run for Congress, and that was not something he was interested in. He had been a politician – but like they used to do it – sign up, do your service, go home. THIS was the type of person all of us wanted in Congress. HE was someone I would vote for.
  3. He had sooo many networks of people in his life. He connected with so many people. It’s hard to express this – from a person you never met in person – but he genuinely made everyone feel like they were his best friends. I know he had a million friends and contacts, and I was just one of them – but his impact was to make everyone feel in the inner circle. He gave trust of everyone, and that is soooo rare.
  4. He was a servant leader. With my time working in the military as a contractor, you learn the concept of the servant leader. He gave of himself to projects, to people, to missions – and then was able to lead from within this space. This is true with the military, with his political service, and with his non-profit where he wanted to bring gold and silver back into being money. He would find these missions, organize, and lead people for higher callings. Nothing about him was selfish, it was always to serve the greater good. THIS is something to be deeply admired. And THIS is what doesn’t translate out to those who didn’t know him like many of us did.

“They say you die twice. Once when you stop breathing and the second, a bit later on, when somebody mentions your name for the last time.”

There are a lot of variations on this quote, but it speaks a lot to legacy. What do we leave our children? Our family? Many of you think of inheritance, but many think of legacy. I started this blog for legacy – so my children would have something to remember me by in case something unfortunate happened. There was even conversation in our chat about Jim being on some currency note down the road with currency as a symbol of his legacy. While I didn’t make a comment to this – as there are a ton on this group, the idea rattled around my head, for sure.

His impact behind the scenes was that profound, and that suggestion isn’t as silly as it may sound at first to put someone like him on currency. Those who are close to him in the silver/gold orbit know that this is EXACTLY the type of person who should be on currency. At the very least – he needs his own coin. And those in this orbit also are aware of the hundreds of contacts he had in all levels of the gold/silver orbit, AND the political orbit. I’m not talking about replacing the $1 bill with Washington – but maybe someday there are gold Valaurum type of currencies and Jim has a place on one of them for eventually succeeding in making gold and silver sound money again. Perhaps one of these bills in the state houses that are passed are named the Jim Forsythe Sound Money Act to honor him for his service to the cause.

The Valaurum notes are made to be rather indestructible – and hundreds or even thousands of years from now – someone could have these bills with his face on them wondering who he was and look him up. I believe Jim’s ethics, honor, and servant leadership to causes will produce a legacy that lives on for generations.

I know there’s a lot of people out there that knew Jim better than I. This wasn’t meant to eulogize him – but rather I wanted to begin to start getting his written legacy going – keep his name and efforts alive for many years to come, and have a place where some can learn a little more about him. For people like me – it still doesn’t seem real. It was a freak kite surfing accident, just months after he had suffered a stroke. While I am grieving the loss of my friend – I know those in his closest orbit are absolutely devastated. I’m hoping this relieves some of their pain, and puts a smile on their face in commemorating the good and how he touched people from all over the world without ever even meeting them in person.

Just a few weeks ago, he was driving down to South Carolina to settle his mother’s affairs. My mother passed away at the end of 2019 from pancreatic cancer, and when his mother was diagnosed with cancer, I had reached out to him to offer support. During his drive down – we chatted for almost an hour and caught up. It was great to hear his voice, and I was lucky to have the time to talk to him.

In my life – I have a “little” brother who is 2 years younger. I never had an older brother, and my father wasn’t exactly the best role model. When my parents split when I was 16, I had then spent a good portion of my adult life trying to find examples of people to emulate, so I didn’t wind up like my dad. There were three father figures who I had looked up to since that day, and there have been 3 “older brother” types – and Jim was the older brother type. In another universe, another lifetime, someone like me would be honored to have had him as an older brother to look up to.

While Jim knew the impact he had on many in the gold and silver space, maybe he didn’t know the impact he had on some of us from afar by being someone who was looked up to. Not only as a trailblazer, and for the career achievements – but most importantly, the kindness and ability to make friends so easily with people – in all walks of life. He had this rare trait of being able to just get along with everyone.

Jim’s absence in this world is huge. The weight he carried for all was massive. No one person can ever fill those shoes – and in fact – it might actually take hundreds of us to do the heavy lifting he was doing behind the scenes. Each of us will have to push ourselves a little harder to get this sound money thing to happen, and each of us needs to call on our inner Jim voices to press on.

I feel terrible for his family, who has gone through a lot of tragedy lately. Just know all of us have you in our thoughts, and there’s a lot of people behind the scenes here to help the best we can.

For a humorous story here to wrap this up. I know Jim was crazy good with math, and he had shared a spreadsheet of how to do call options strategies. Blew my mind. Well – other have been in awe of his math abilities. There was a story shared in the group that I had just learned. Apparently, each person in the group had a nickname, and his was Heisenberg because he was able to cook up “math” like no one they have ever seen. This is what a PhD in Aerospace engineering will get you. It was also because he was a “walking miracle” with the clot he had from the previous stroke – where in the TV show, the character had cancer. He liked the nickname because on the show the character was a bad ass 🙂

Here are a few pics that I was just sent – I cropped a bit.

Anyone that has worked in an engineering firm understands this crazy math!

This led to a lot of hours of casting for him!!

And finally – him as Heisenberg all geared up a little to work with molten metal!

So – with legacy, you want his name to be remembered for generations to come. In that spirit – I ask…