As you may have heard, Summer 2012 was not the best of times for JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon. On May 10, after having said that a Bloomberg story about one of its London traders making very large, very worrisome bets was but "a tempest in a teapot," the bank announced that said trader had lost approximately $2 billion. On May 11, it was suggested that Dimon's title of most loved-banker on Wall Street was up for grabs. On June 19, Dimon was forced to testify on Capitol Hill. In July 13, JPMorgan was forced to revise the $2 billion loss to $6 billion. Associates who surrounded Dimon during these days said that the stress was visibly wearing on him, and that it was arguably one of the worst periods of his career. And while senior executives logged long hours and gave up weekends and holidays to help deal with the fallout, gathering documents and unwinding trades and trying to manage the crisis, only one busted his ass to actually give Jamie Dimon what he needed: Jimmy Lee. After spending much of July 13 again explaining the trading loss to the media and to research analysts—including making the stunning admission that the traders in London may have intentionally mismarked the trades to make them look less egregious, a potential illegality that the Justice Department is still investigating—the exhausted Dimon got an unexpected call from Tom Brady, the star quarterback of the New England Patriots. (Jimmy Lee, a legendary sports fan, had arranged for it.) Brady reminded Dimon that even Super Bowl champs have bad days and told him “to hang in there.” And after thinking about it and thinking about it and thinking about it some more, snapped his finger and said, "I've got it- we need to get Tom Brady on the line." And then gathered his five secretaries in his office and told them to clear his and their schedules because they needed to get this deal done by the end of the day. And when he finally got Brady on the line, assured him that the call would be welcome and that it wouldn't be awkward* or seem out of left field. "Just tell him he's got this. Tell him that if banking or football were easy everyone would be doing it. Tell him that even on your worst day, you still get to go home and bang that little Brazilian of yours. No, wait, scratch that. Tell him you can't generate profits and be responsible for the losses at the same time. Tell him, 'Keep your chin, up, kid.' Tell him you're down by 7, you just took a huge sack, Gronkowski's got a broken leg and you're not wearing a cup. But there's still time left on that clock, Jamie D. And as long as there's time left on that clock, you're going to score a mother fucking touchdown. Tell him, 'Go get 'em, Tiger.' You still there, pal?" Jamie Dimon On The Line [VF]

Spend any amount of time working on Wall Street and you will soon learn that opportunities for stress abound, whether you're a first -year analyst getting reamed out for an extra space in a pitchbook or a hedge fund manager who just lost $1.2 billion in a matter of minutes. Those who are unable to manage the stress either 1) flame out or 2) become fat, irritable pricks whose change of having a heart attack on the job are high. Presumably, neither of those options sound appealing. But since the terms of the gig aren't changing, what's a ball of nerves like you to do? You might consider risking having the skin burned off your feet, or other such activities. According to Cornell professor Tony Simons, things like a 10,000 point drop in the Dow or seeing a headline flash across Bloomberg that your firm is being indicted-- things that you have no control over- become a lot less scary and cause for flipping out when you've been through worse. For instance, at the workshops and corporate training classes he teaches, Simons will have people do exercises like"firewalks" or have them "snap an arrow that sticks out of a wall with the point in the direction of their neck, by stepping forward and pushing into it." After that, dealing with stuff you previously thought was tough is pretty easy (sayeth one participant: "facing a loved one’s anger and negativity with calm, loving courage and not ducking away from it feels easier after breaking an arrow with the soft part of my throat"). One woman is reportedly planning to "get a firewalk tattoo to remind her of what she’s accomplished." For any employers out there thinking putting on their own Simons-esque workshop but desiring even better results, consider gathering up your employees and having them: * Commit to rollerblading down the Westside Highway to work for a year * Catch a bullet in their teeth * Go through the browser history of everyone at the SEC (no averting of eyes) * Play Spin the Bottle with Rick Santelli's favorite floor traders * Scale the Empire State Building without safety gear * Defend their position why HIG shouldn't spin off its property business to John Paulson on your company's internal sqawk box * Other

Have you ever gazed upon classical Greek philosopher Nassim Nicholas Taleb and thought to yourself, "That man has a body from the gods. I could never hope to match him in brains, but what about brawn? If only I could obtain the details of his diet and fitness regimen"? Well, friends, today is your lucky day. Despite still being on his second tour of self-imposed quiet time, Taleb granted several interviews to publications reviewing his new book, "Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder," and, naturally, the topic of his physique came up, specifically the various ways he keeps it in such enviable shape. (He also touches on the exercises that led to him having a brain three times the size of the typical astrophysicist, though please note that these should be appreciated but not be attempted by average humans, who could hurt themselves quite badly.)

Just you, PV, a friend you deem worthy to tag along and the open water. You can talk about life, fish, and what banking was like in the fifties. Does that sound like something you'd be interested in? Would you go so far as to call it a dream of yours?