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June 5, 2024
Asking for advice is one of the most powerful bonding things you can do in the workplace. It’s an expression of trust—that’s why it’s intimidating. But trust builds trust and deepens relationships. Seek counsel, and your mentor will be invested in your success.
“Side gigs,” in my view, are a distraction, a dilution of the focus you need to be successful. If something is worth doing, make it your main gig.
“Stuff for money” projects take just as much overhead and mental energy (sometimes more) as projects in the core business, and they rob resources from expanding the company’s skill set and momentum in that core business.
Creating opportunities for quick wins is a potent technique in numerous domains. In our personal development, it’s the key to improving our habits and generating momentum to take on much larger tasks.
Don’t follow your passion, follow your talent.
“Time is the fire in which we burn.”
Time consumes us, inexorably and inevitably. The past is a memory, immutable. The future, a dream. What you have control over, and the opportunity to be present in, is the now.
The impacts of our actions compound across all domains, from the development of habits to the strengthening of relationships.
We refer to a financial metric, whether a rate of return or a dollar amount, as “real” if it has been adjusted to account for inflation, and as “nominal” if it has not.
Social media is likely one of the great wealth destroyers in history. It robs young people of years of time when they need it most—when investing in work and (real) relationships can compound.
How many hours do you spend on social media? What is your return, other than the dopamine hits from addiction engineered by thousands of programmers, product managers, and behavioral psychologists? Pro tip: they are not on your side.
My primary time management tactic is ruthless prioritizing. Emphasis on ruthless.
The best metrics have an effect (what they measure contributes to your goal) and can be affected (your actions can change what is being measured).
Awareness encourages discipline.
Consumption is the easiest (for most people)—that’s buying a nicer quality of life right now with consumer goods and services.
Consumption expenditures are not investments.
The long-term budget is for “retirement,” as my generation calls it, though that’s a term that’s fading in relevance. Call it wealth building, long money, the foundation of your economic security.
The third bucket, intermediate spending, is the gray area between short-term consumption and long-term investment.
The purpose of this bucket is to ensure that when the time comes for large expenses (anticipated or not) you have enough cash to cover them. The intermediate bucket is a metaphor to help you manage two factors: liquidity and variability.
You don’t care about variability for your long-term investments, because you will hold the asset through the down phases and can time your sale to avoid them. But it poses a risk for shorter term planning because you may be forced to sell in a down phase.
Intermediate planning is about aligning your liquidity and variability with your anticipated (and unanticipated) expenses, in the context of your overall financial situation.
Highest priority is if you have an employer match in your 401(k), max that out. You will never get a better investment than an immediate, tax-deferred 100% return.
Long-term debt used to finance long-term assets is sensible, even genius. Debt gives you “leverage.” Just as a lever and a fulcrum multiply the force you can apply, debt multiplies the earning power of your money.
A good baseline principle is that debt should never outlive the asset it was used to acquire.
