Explorative Questions

Find someone who is capable of deep listening and has the skill to hold a mirror up for you in a compassionate way. Genuine listening is hard. 

I clearly speak a lot. Sometimes too much. I like expressing ideas and listening requires work. I am deeply curious and want to hear what others say, but also end up testing my ideas out loud. Getting the balance right by being quiet, asking explorative rather than critical questions, and being truly interested in what others are saying, is a form of fitness that requires exercises to build into your habits. 

Often in “conversation”, people are not listening, but are waiting for their turn to speak. Waiting or interrupting. Showcasing established opinions. When I realise I am in one of those one-way exchanges (especially if I have the self-awareness to realise it is me who is the problem), I try switch gears to limit my speaking and use more pauses. “Speaking in tweets”. 

I met Allan Gray (the man, not the company) at the tail end of his career. At the risk of name dropping, he did not know me well. He knew who I was, and we had conversations, but we did not often work closely. What was fascinating about him though, is that in almost all of my (and others) interactions with him, he was the one getting information. He had an insatiable appetite for other peoples' opinions, even if he was a famous contrarian, who put others' views aside when he finally made his own decisions.

Explorative Questions

Old You

In theory, a contrarian stock picker picks a business listed on a stock exchange they think is “incorrectly” priced. This means they think the price is significantly less than the stocks “intrinsic value”. Price is not value. Intrinsic Value is a fuzzy estimate of what the normal price of the underlying business “should” be. Normal tries to take out the noise of excess short-term pessimism, and looks at the business over a more reasonable time frame. Say the next 3-5 years. Price is a balance of supply and demand, and both change. Lots of profit may mean supply adjusts up as competitors are attracted. Not much may mean competitors exit. Similarly, lots of new demand without new competitors can mean better than normal profits. The analyst doesn’t know the correct price. They do their work, buy, and then wait. While waiting, everything will change. This delay in feedback makes it hard to be honest about whether you were right/wrong. The world of business is complex, and so even if a stock does well, it might not be for the reason they thought. Valuing well requires building processes and feedback loops. Valuing well is a practice. A practice in learning from an old you, and a time, that no longer exists. In a context that won’t be repeated.

Non-Contributory Zero

A Contrarian is not someone who is contrary. If you are contrary, then all the “wisdom” is held in the view of the opposite position. You are a non-contributory zero. A Contrarian must balance the existential crisis between seeming stubborn, and constantly seeking the most visceral feedback they can. The best Contrarians I have met spend a lot more time asking questions than dispensing information. What we have to contribute to the world is our unique perspective. An awareness that that perspective cuts you off from seeing other angles, seeks out the truth in what others are saying. It doesn’t simply seek to prove that other people are morons. The value of being Contrarian is making a contribution, not in simply tearing things down.

Works for You

Just over four years ago, I felt I had a big enough Engine to stop working for money and let my Mini-Me do it for me (if I dramatically cut my expenses). I wanted to focus on things that didn't involve money. Like writing. A lot of that writing has focused on promoting financial security through people building their own Buffers (mini-Engines) and Engines. I am also a Universal Basic Income activist, and believe we could build 150-person Engines called Community Wealth Funds that could pay out 150 UBIs.

One big difference between me being a Breadwinner, and relying on my Engine is the way my Engine gets paid. A Salary is like a Bond. Your employer borrows your labour, and pays you interest (the salary). The employer gets to keep the value you create, but you get the certainty of a regular salary that is quite sticky. Since inflation became a constant feature, people expect salary increases. We get upset if those salary increases are less than inflation. We would get super upset if our boss actually decreased our salary.

My Engine is invested in real businesses. Shares are a fractional ownership of bigger companies. You are an owner, and you don't get a salary. Some Shares pay dividends, but typically that is a smaller part of where the returns come from. A good business would rather re-invest that money in new opportunities. If the owner wants money, they can sell shares.

The challenge is a share price is an estimate of the future earnings of the company. An educated guess. Jeff Bezos, for example, doesn't have a big pile of gold like Scrooge McDuck. His guesstimated worth of $159 Billion is predominantly invested in Amazon. This means that money has been put to work, and that is a guess of the present value of all the money that is going to be made. Like if someone guessed an amount that would be worth the same as all the salary payments you are going to get in the future. If you stopped working, that number would plummet. So would the number 159 if Amazon stopped Amazonning.

Similarly, my Engine doesn't pay me as consistently as a paycheck. If you think of it too literally as a human Breadwinner, you would get nightmares. Some years (like this year so far), my Engine shrinks rather than growing. Some years it earns more than my paycheck would have been. This can be stressful. 

There is absolutely nothing wrong with earning a Salary. I am not a 'we are all slaves to the machine' anarchist wanting to burn everything down and dance around naked on the burning embers. Although that sounds fun, you wake up in the morning.

Edward Monkton

I am a deep pragmatist. The best investment approach for each person, and the best choice of what work to do, is very individualised. There is no one size fits all model. I know that investing in businesses, like being an entrepreneur, is far less glamorous than it sounds.

The most successful business owner I know says it took him seven years to earn what he was earning before he broke out on his own. Seven years. And he was successful.

Always remember all advice people give is really advice to themselves. Listen. Question. Then find a solution that works for you.

Empowered and Connected

Rather than looking at individual companies that are gathering information about us to affect our decisions, it is more powerful to look inwards. I am not particularly concerned about my privacy for my purposes. That is because I know I am an incredibly stubborn person. I am a contrarian. A Donkey.

I often wish I was more compliant. I completely understand the Conservative World View. I just can't help myself. Instead of unravelling everything, there is someone to whom you can go and ask, 'What should I do?'. There is an answer, 'This is how it is done'. The Abrahamic Religions all emphasise surrender. Abraham is asked to sacrifice Isaac, and 'God wills it' is sufficient justification.

Abrahamic Surrender

I grew up in Protestant Churches - Methodist, Anglican and Baptist. The heart of the birth of Protestantism is in the name. Protestants didn't do what they were told. They read the Bible in their own tongue. Translated, from the translation, of the story that had been past down over the centuries. Then they thought about it. Prayed about it. Then acted. That powerful step of 'personal thought' combined with the democratisation of knowledge was a powerful driver of the enlightenment.

I moved away from the Church while at university. The problem with answering 'What should I do?' , with 'What do you think' is that it is an open question. It opens up options. Choices. Discussion. Worries. Doubts.

What we think is heavily influenced by what we see, who we spend time with, and what happens to us. We are primed to act far more than we would like to believe. 

I do worry about Privacy. Not my own, but that of the people who make me who I am. My story is not my own. It is the combination of all the people in my life. People who I trust enough to ask me really hard questions should I make decisions that do not resonate with the relationship we have.

I have lots of friends who hold me to account. Who ask me challenging questions. We become far more difficult to manipulate when we are empowered and connected.

Deeply and Honestly

Fill a room with Contrarians, and they won't even be able to agree on a definition of Contrarian. Crowds, in general, are wise. This is only true if there is robust, heated, and productive internal conversation. Then the extreme views cancel out each other's rough edges, bending only when compelling evidence is presented, and improve the general wisdom. Defending views at any cost is far more fragile than the strength you get from being open to being wrong. There lies the challenge for a Contrarian... being able to aggressively seek out feedback, listen deeply and honestly, and still be able to have the strength of conviction to act when everyone else disagrees.

Stubborn Donkey

Contrary is Coal

Disagreeing with everything someone says doesn't stop them. It let's them set the agenda. It is the way trolls work to feed the fire of their destructive aims. Contrary is not Contrarian. Contrary is coal for hell fire. Playing devil's advocate, or always critiquing, doesn't build up the power that feedback from a trusted partner brings. If you give someone a Bull Quota, putting to side points of disagreement, and try to understand the thread of their argument, it can allow you to see their actual point. Nothing exists without context, and if the context isn't first understood then disagreement is just bluster. Don't feed the trolls.

Contrarian

A Contrarian is not someone who always disagrees. 'The same but opposite' carries no new information. A Contrarian is someone who gets as much information from the consensus as possible, but is prepared to go against the popular view. There is a very fine line between being contrarian and being stubborn. A Contrarian regularly fights with the spectre of arrogance of giving their view more weight than the majority. Crowds carry wisdom. Being contrarian, and correct, requires a deep understanding of how little we know, how often we are wrong, and how much of what happens is down to chance.