Finding Resonance

Other people’s stories make more sense to us when they resonate. When we recognize their experience in our own. We can be harsh on historic characters, harsh on our old selves, and harsh on others... distancing ourselves from them... but we can also not see them as essentially bad, but rather take every situation as how we could have found ourselves there. Find the resonance. 

There are learnings to be had in the stories of others. That is the glorious part of being human, we don’t have to wait to make mistakes ourselves... if we recognise there but for, go I. We are all human and we have a common base. Even if that base has shadows and light. “Best Practice” allows us to get quite practical about a menu of approaches to common human experiences, if we are willing to listen. 

One of the ways to take control of your career is to speak to people who already do what it is you are aiming to do. See whether the story you tell yourself matches with their reality. There reality won’t be yours, but it will resonate if you make similar choices. Find out what their days are like beyond the exciting bits that go into the sales pitch. What are their frustrations? What are the tradeoffs they have had to make? What would they tell a younger version of themselves? 

Listening to other people’s stories will help you chart a path for yourself. Not as a stick to beat yourself with, but as a guide for decision making. Being curious about stories, and histories, and lessons in different contexts can help unpack the traps in our own tangled baggage. Increasing awareness of parallel paths or obstacles we didn’t even know about.

That Map

The starting point of Financial Planning is earlier and separate from the specific way you make (and invest, and spend) money. You plot a course within a map. First, you need that map. 

You must reflect on what you value, what your values are, and how you want to create meaning. On the realities you face, the obstacles, the choices, the resources, and your support. 

Risk tolerance is not simply how brave you are. Those who simplify the decision-making to a trade-off between risk and return are, simply, wrong. Knowing two made-up numbers does not give you the answer. You do not get rewarded more for taking more risk. You get rewarded for adding value within specific constraints, not for being reckless. 

Some people who seem risky are not risky at all. They take calculated risks when they have a level of mastery where for another person, doing the same activity, would be perilous. They have done the work. They understand what they are doing. 

We typically just look (because that is all we can see) at the conspicuous. We do not (and cannot) have the full picture. When evaluating other people and what they are doing, it will (by definition) be impossible to see from their perspective. That is why the best financial plans are about working on understanding yourself, your context, and your behaviours.

Atlantis Projection

Big Picture

No one has a view of the whole picture, or the ability to process it. We do not know in advance what the correct destination is, or what our future choices will be. We make our choices based on what we already know, with a limited glimpse forward of the possible consequences of our actions. There are individuals whose choices go against the grain, but if you look at a big enough picture, prejudices and bias starts to show. Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky opened up the field of Behavioural Finance and the study of cognitive biases. When you look at groups and group decisions, you can get a sense of how our processes work. This doesn’t mean we aren’t individuals. But we are individuals who don’t live in isolation. Our choices are affected by the choices of those around us. They are affected by the constraints of physics, time, and our very human limits. Context is everything when grasping at the randomness, ambiguity, and complexity of wrestling with personal choices and understanding. 

Big Picture

 

Finding Others

Find others whose paths resonate with yours. There are lots of people who are generous and willing to talk about the challenges that they have had. Listen to their stories. They are not going to be the same as yours. They are going to be giving younger versions of themselves advice. No one can know your context as well as you. But the more stories you listen to, the more capable you are going to be in various new situations. The more able to avoid mistakes other people have made. That is where the real juice is. Where we learn the most. Through mistakes. Trial and error. Success is less interesting, because success just means there weren't strong enough obstacles in the way. But we don't know why. Admitting that we don't know why is important. Our learning is path dependent. We know what we know, because of the information that has come up on our path. There is too much complexity for anyone to wrap their head around. Particularly if you do it alone. 

Sacrificing Awareness

Developing cars that can drive autonomously requires multiple sources of awareness. When we drive, we somehow manage with one set of eyes and ears. We have a brutal internal system of awareness, triage, focus, and context switching. Yogis would argue it is only possible to focus on one thing at a time. The challenge is just that we are wired to take on an incredibly complex world. This means once a habit is engrained, we embody the knowledge. We let it go and move on. This means we are not always aware of ourselves. We often make decisions in isolation. Even when something is important to us, it isn’t necessarily present in our head. We might forget what we enjoy. We might forget what is important to us. We focus on what is in front of us and how we feel at that moment. When we are making decisions, it is not always in the context of everything that is important to us. This is both a strength and a weakness. We can “handle” the chaos that autonomous vehicles are still trying to conquer... plus more. But that handling can sacrifice awareness. 

Autopilot

Capital and Containers

Making money is not just based on skills and knowledge. It also requires capital and containers. Capital provides endurance and resilience. The ability to survive through waves of feast and famine, with a degree of stability. The ability to invest, unlearn, relearn, and adapt as the skills and knowledge that are required and rewarded change. The ability to absorb and accommodate shocks from expected and unexpected risks. Containers give shape and form to what we do. They are the wider context in which we operate. The laws. The agreements. The relationships. The barriers. The incentives. Containers are where the rubber hits the road, and we get paid for our potential. They hold the space for an ask to meet an offer. They allow potential to manifest. Without capital and containers, merit does not get seen.

Giving Shape and Form

 

Broad Framing

Every day we are presented with choices. We have a set of eyes and ears, a nose, a tongue, a whole body of touch sensitive skin, a mind, and thousands of relationships. We are aware. We absorb information. We are conscious. We act. But we cannot keep everything in mind when we do. What we experience soaks deep. Influencing the embodied way in which some choices become automatic. Memories, beliefs, arguments, loved ones, goals and desires disappear from our peripheral vision. Still, we choose. In “Thinking, Fast and Slow”, Daniel Kahneman uses 'Narrow Framing' to describe the way we tend to see each decision in isolation. They become life defining in our mind. 'Broad Framing' incorporates the context of all the other decisions. 'If you need to take care of something, the worrying will make you less rather than more effective' says Tyler Cowen. Broadening the frame gives things their proper place and stills the waves of worry.

"The Frame" Frida Kahlo

Securing your Basket

Choices are made in baskets. Once one is made, the set of options changes. There are both intended and unintended consequences. To explore, Economists simplify this pesky problem with an assumption. “Ceteris Paribus” meaning with other conditions remaining the same. All else equal. The world is complicated, ambiguous, and random. We see only a slice of it, and we see based on how we have seen before. We see only what is meaningful to us. We see only when we notice the change/contrast. We have limits. Our worlds bump into each other, and in the past we lived in bubbles with shared baskets and constraints. Now it is difficult to navigate the lack of shared context that stands in the way of staying in touch with other worlds. Our messages to each other arrive as foreigners. We are constantly unpacking and unpicking. Through the chaos, a foundation becomes more essential. A base. Secure space to retreat to and to advance from. Where conditions remain the same.

Pay Deep Attention

All lives don’t have the same options. The challenge with reading books, watching movies, and spending time with outliers and heroes is their realities are likely vastly different. I went to watch a play about homelessness in the UK. Something as a Soutie, I had been skeptical about (“You don’t know what poverty is. Come to South Africa.”). The Actors took suggestions from the audience, and then played it out. The lesson? We have no idea how to live other people’s lives. We just think we do. The best generic advice is to pay deep attention to your options. Talk to people whose lives resonate with yours. Find mentors who have walked the path from where you are. Friends one page ahead. Don’t underestimate what you can learn from very average people. What you can learn from, rather than teach, people less fortunate than you. Don’t spend so much time trying to surround yourself with successful people that you lose yourself. Meritocracy can hide what we have under what we want.

UK National Charity for Homelessness

In Context

I don’t’ write Blank Cheques. Every decision has trade-offs. Having been born into Apartheid South Africa, I don’t subscribe to the philosophy of abundance. Scarcity is real. This means you can want something, but still not get it, because the price is too high. Everything, has a price that is too high. That doesn’t mean you don’t value “the thing”. That you don’t see the value. That you don’t have the desire. In isolation, every story can be incredibly powerful. But to understand something you have to understand the constraints. You have to understand the context. You have to mitigate for unintended consequences. No single decision stands alone. Unless it is literally the only thing that matters to you.

Best Practice

One of my favourite essays to regularly reread is Scott Alexander’s “I can tolerate anything except the outgroup”. It reminds me of how some of our biggest fights are with the people we most agree with. Because we care so much about the same issues. We understand the same nuance that other people don’t even see. An advantage of being a Global Citizen is the natural social experiment that goes on. We get to see Best Practice at play in a variety of contexts. Our issues, but not our issues. What if we changed this aspect? What if we keep that aspect the same? A strong temptation in any research is to provide Public Relations and Legal Arguments for pre-existing beliefs. Numbers and words to pad our gut feel. Looking far from home is often an easier way to unpack issues that are too close to see. Then, like Bruce Lee, we can take what is useful, discard what is not, and add what is uniquely our own.

Too Close

Advice is Autobiographical

All advice is autobiographical. As we stumble through the madness, we learn lessons. These can feel like dramatic insights we evangelically want to share. Without context, the broadcasting of these views is simply telling our own story. In a transactional world, people will often pay for advice. Paying for a slice of other people's stories to mix into their own. The results will always be different.

"All Advice is Autobiographical" Austin Kleon

I am clearly noisy. I don't hold back on sharing my story. I am significantly more nervous when it comes to giving advice. I always worry about "what if things go wrong". I don't like the idea of bumping someone else's story and then them turning back at me with a glare when they crash. I find keeping a vague sense of my own control tough as it is.

I am also aware that I have no idea what it must be like to be in other people's situations. As the world stretches and we struggle to define Global and Local communities, our lives stop being replicas of our parents, siblings, friends, and elders. There are really very few people to turn to with significantly similar stories, but one step ahead. There are very few adults. We are all pioneers in a world that is changing rapidly. Work, relationships, and communities are all blowing around in the wind.

I talk a lot about money and financial security. I don't like this. I would far rather be talking about other things. It was my distaste for being controlled that led me to aggressively try gain financial freedom. My superpower is delayed gratification. If something hard needs doing, I would rather do it first. Ofen grumpily, but I will do it. With the elusive carrot of "can you just leave me alone now?" dragging me along. I looked at the menu I had, and picked the thing that would get me this freedom. I spent significantly less than I earned from as early as possible, and got my extra money a job. Until I felt like I could constrain my spending enough to let my money work, and be left alone. I love being left alone.

This is not an option for most people. I know that. It is an option for a lot of people who choose to constantly improve their lifestyles as their earning capacity expands. We live in a world in which the life you live is largely determined by the work you do. The lifestyle to which we become accustomed is determined by our work's market price. Which becomes our price is we spend most of our time working and live hand-to-mouth. Constantly expanding into the gaps. 

The harsh truth is every financial decision has tradeoffs. If you have the skills/knowledge or the capacity to develop them, then you can have whatever "thing" it is you desire. With consequences. The challenge is broadening your vision wide enough to choose the whole package consciously. No decision is isolated.

That is a problem. A bigger problem is the people who can't even get the process started. Who aren't even in a position to cut back their spending because they aren't spending. Step number one in Financial Security is finding a source of income. There is a basic amount that you need just to play the game. There are Billions of people who don't even have that. Who are under incredible financial stress that keeps them gasping for breath. Not false gasping because of choices. Gasping because of exclusion.

That is where my advice falls really flat. That is where for my advice to mean anything, I have to be asking far more questions than giving answers. I have never been in poverty. Even when I felt poor, it wasn't poor... it was just my allergy against being controlled flaring up. I had choices. I made them. 

My sense is the people who are best placed to give advice are those whose stories resonate the most. The ones whose lives are closest to those with similar problems. I love the "Humans of..." series. The more stories we make a part of our own, the more relevant the words we release. Our ears are likely to be better problem solvers than our tongues. Your answers are likely to be much closer to you, than they are to me. Close enough to hear if you are paying attention.

Korthand

Vooroordeel is 'n nuttige kortskrif vir beginners. Wanneer iemand sê, 'Ek kan nie die klavier speel nie', beteken dit nie: 'Dit is onmoontlik vir my om die klavier te speel.' Wat hulle werklik bedoel, is: 'Ek het nooit die nodige moeite gedoen om te leer hoe om die klavier te speel nie.' Die speel van die klavier is soos om 'n taal te leer. Dit is moeilik. Dit verg konteks. Dit verg koördinasie tussen die hande, die oë, die geheue en die emosies. Rassisme is effektief dieselfde ding. 'Al X mense lyk dieselfde' is kortliks, 'Ek het nog nie geleer om die individue te kan sien nie. Ek het nie genoeg konteks en begrip om buite die wêreld waar ek grootgeword het, te sien nie. '