A Learning a Day

At the end of every work week, I spend a few minutes reflecting on it. As I look back, I typically remember the screw ups and missteps first.

Then a few good moments pop in to remind me it wasn’t all bad.

Every once a while, there’s a week that had significantly more good moments than bad. And vice versa.

But, most weeks, it is a mixed bag. There are some wins and some losses. I could call it either – it would just depend on my point of view.

Over time, I’ve come to realize that attempting to figure out whether it was a “net” positive or negative is an exercise in futility. It is also besides the point. You don’t know if a good day is a good day. And you certainly have no clue if a week is good or bad for the same reason.

The point of the reflection is to take stock of the good, reflect on the bad, learn from both, and commit to taking the best next step the following week.

The process is all we control. It is all that is worth focusing on.

In the long run, the outcomes work themselves out.

Aristotle defined three kinds of friendship –

1. “Deal friends” or the friendship of utility. These are based on what someone can do for you, or what you can do for another person. This could be the friendship between neighbors who rely on each other or colleagues who need to work together.
   
2. “Fun friends” or the friendship of pleasure. These are based on enjoyment of a shared activity or the pursuit of fleeting pleasures and emotions. This could be the friendship within a pick-up basketball group or a dance class. Similar to deal friends, this type of relationship can end quickly as it is dependent as it is on people’s ever-changing likes and dislikes.
   
3. Real friends or The friendship of virtue. These are the people we like for who they are, who typically influence us positively and push us to be better people. It is based on the character of two self-sufficient people.

It is natural to have deal friends and fun friends in our lives. They’re “easy come, easy go”. Real friendship, on the other hand, requires both strength of character and consistent investment – of time, energy, and often money.

But, of all our friendships, it is this group of real friends that have a long-term impact on our happiness.

Prioritize them, we must.

Often, the biggest breakthrough is at the moment when we realize that the situation isn’t about to change, and that the only option we have is to change how we approach it.

A friend recently started “Designer Discount Club” based on a simple premise – you shouldn’t need to pay retail prices on quality furniture or home decoration.

Interior designers get sizeable discounts on these purchases. She’s now made those discounts accessible to everyone. We tried DDC for two purchases recently – it is simple and it works.

It got me thinking about other such insider discounts and “velvet ropes” that I don’t pay attention to – except in the case of outlier financial transactions.

That was when I reminded myself of the trade-offs of a satisficer strategy. I miss many opportunities to maximize every day and likely lose a lot of money because of that commitment to simplicity. Every strategy has trade-offs.

But that makes me even more grateful to businesses like DDC which make it simple to save money. A win-win. Good luck DDC team – wishing you lots of growth in the years ahead.

PS: If you’re in the market for some home decor or furniture, feel free to use this referral link to skip the waitlist.

I like picking up personal finance books from time to time. I thought Scott Galloway’s book on wealth would be thought provoking given I’ve read many of his riffs on his newsletter. It was.

That wasn’t because there was a novel idea I’d never come across before – instead, it was because it was a well put together synthesis of timeless personal finance and investing wisdom. My reflections –

(1) Most people are going to get wealthy slowly as a function of their ability to deploy capital that compounds over time.

(2) Always watch your burn. A dollar saved is more valuable than a dollar earned (thanks to taxes). Being able to live simply goes a long way in our ability to accumulate wealth. And if there’s one personal finance habit that helps above all others, it is tracking our spending.

(3) To build a great career, don’t follow your passion. Follow your talent. Then work hard at it – being out of balance in your 20s and 30s often gives us balance in our 30s and 40s. Get into the office, do the work.

(4) Diversify. Start with ETFs that cover the stock market. In time, make sure you’re exposed to different kinds of risks. Scott advocates testing buying and holding individual stocks we have conviction in with <=20% of our portfolio. He is also a proponent of real estate investing if you can handle the overhead (property management, maintenance, etc.)

(5) Get off social media and anything that results in us comparing our wealth. Someone will always have the bigger boat.

It was a well put together book – it is one I’ll be recommending.

A simple way to reframe getting things wrong this time is that it is the tuition we pay to get things right the next time.

It is then on us to make sure we’re making the most of that tuition.

Getting things wrong aren’t one-off events. In fact, the more we analyze our mistakes, the more connections we make with seemingly unrelated mistakes.

Make the most of that tuition.

“When they go low, we should go high” is one of those ideas that is infinitely easier in theory than practice.

The flip side of our desire to reciprocate a good deed is our desire to pay back a bad one.

It is of course wiser to let it pass.

But we earn our wisdom from ignoring (sometimes fighting) such impulses.

“Don’t overreact to any stimulus” is both as simple and as profound as universally applicable life advice as it gets.

Science: Analyzing each mistake and ensuring we learn from it.

Art: Knowing which mistakes to spend our time on.

When we prioritize our time, it is normal to prioritize items that have symmetrical upside and downside risk. These are items that present a good amount of upside when done well and vice versa when done poorly.

The challenge, however, is slotting in items that present asymmetrical upside and downside risk – especially those that have little upside but prevent significant downside.

These items are challenging because they often fall to the bottom of the priority list because they aren’t as interesting as other items with more upside. We then don’t do them well and are left with a lot to clean up.

Pay attention to both the upside and downside risk of any item on your priority list.

Especially the downside risk.