Financing Value

An essential part of the practice of being good with money is being good with your emotions. 

Making money involves being good with other people, through social, emotional, and cultural intelligence. Despite this, these forms of soft skills are often not the things that explicitly and conspicuously make money. 

STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) skills are typically easier to monetise because of the direct application to things you count and contain. Acknowledging that good ideas aren’t always good business ideas, isn’t an invitation to ignore social, emotional, and cultural skills. Quite the opposite, it is an invitation to invest in them heavily. 

A yogi is not someone who is completely unruffled. A yogi participates in and is part of the world. Detachment is not exclusion. Unlike in the past where the incredibly wealthy would flaunt gold and palaces, well managed wealth can connect and empower. 

A wealthy person can live a grounded life, with a background engine reinvested in problem solving. Putting capital to work, and labouring on things that are good ideas but hard to monetise. Unpaid work is often priceless, with value that needs to be funded by the priced. 

Detachment becomes that how you make money is how you finance value creation, not how you demonstrate your worth.

Growing in Muddy Waters

I Am Not

Detachment isn’t finding a cave and not participating in society. It is partly about the conversation you have with yourself in your head. I have a friend who said to me, “You talk about yoga and are a yoga teacher, but I have seen you more wound up and angry than anyone else I know.” My inner conversation is often full of righteous indignation. 

The struggle over wanting to care, but both not having the capacity to care about everything, and not having the skill, knowledge, ability, network, influence, or resources to do anything about a lot of what I think should be different. 

Like many others, and definitely many other South Africans, I intentionally carry personal, historical, and global problems with me. If someone is stressed at the table next to me, I will soak that up. Like if you are sitting next to people breaking up in a public place. For most of us, the last few years of news and politics have been really difficult to process. 

Do you stay involved? Do you detach by turning off your connection to the internet? Do you detach by not having conversations with other people? Do you detach by creating an alternative reality bubble? 

I am okay with getting angry. Living with the full range of emotions we were given. Anger can be useful if applied in the right settings with the appropriate delivery. It’s a part of caring. The opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s apathy. When someone has absolutely no interest in you whatsoever, that can cut straight to the soul. Hate normally comes from a place where there is emotion and connection. 

Part of financial resilience is emotional resilience. We aren’t Spock-like detached rational human beings. We are connected to the world in an emotional way, which we need to acknowledge and learn from.

Flour for Grain

The temporary problem that you are solving is not the point. If you need to switch grain for flour, why? Flour does not define your life. It is just the immediate exchange that is happening. That is why we need to talk about money. It is one of the topics we typically avoid because it feels dirty. Avoiding uncomfortable conversations like sex, religion, and politics. We end up carrying the baggage packed through a stuffed relationship with money. The sense of not having enough. Envy. A sense of too much. Guilt. A sense of it controlling us. Frustration. Of it controlling others. Jealousy and neglect. Of not understanding it. Confusion. Money as a hovering external presence. There are basics you just learn. That you copy till you understand. If you fear numbers, you must not fear learning. You must not fear unpacking your fear.

Operation of a Ball Mill

Asking Questions

In the film Equilibrium (2002), John Preston (Christian Bale) is the best enforcement officer. The best “cleric”. In a future world that outlaws feelings and artistic expression, to maintain the peace. A fight with the second best isn’t even a fight. A play on 1984, Father is the leader. Except he isn’t. He is just a story that is maintained even after the original Father’s death. Businesses, like Father, are legal people. We speak of them using human words. We anthropomorphize. A merger occurs when two separate entities join to form a new one. An Acquisition is when one company becomes part of another. Time passes. Colleagues leave. Management changes. The nature of business changes. Nokia was founded as a Pulp Mill in 1865. Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway started as a textile manufacturing company in 1839. Institutions change. They are there to serve us, not the other way around. When Preston skipped a dose of emotion suppressant, he started asking questions. And as the best, did something about it. Always ask questions.

The Word "No"

“No one expects the dramatic Trevor John”, says my friend Stuart. I am generally a positive and optimistic person, but I have had to work very hard at the skill of Detachment. Detachment doesn’t mean not caring, it just means not caring too much. Not allowing any single thing to be more important than everything else. Allocating appropriate attention, but not more. I wear my heart on my sleeve a little too much for the Corporate Environment sometimes. Another friend's favourite trick was to “Poke Trev” before I went into my Annual Reviews. To touch me on my Righteous Indignation. I could easily take work too seriously, and insist on too much consistency. Sometimes you need to play the game. I wasn’t good at that. I don’t like that companies can treat people as disposable. As simple transactional inputs where there isn’t balanced negotiating power between ordinary people and the powerful “legal people” we create. The only real way to detach is to have an independent source of power. The word “no”.

Through the Waves

I started going to “5Rhythms” classes about 4 months ago. I am a creature of the head, and 5Rhythms is an intentional attempt to shift attention to what it is my body is trying desperately to have heard. Gabrielle Roth started the practice in the 1970s drawing from shamanistic, ecstatic, mystical and eastern philosophy. Pretty much the opposite of my deep soaking. I do remember a phase of “Slain in the Spirit” embodied work in the Church when I was growing up, but it mostly freaked everybody out. To me it felt fake. I desperately wanted to experience God in that way, if it was real, and had a purpose. I wasn’t willing to fake. I didn’t understand the purpose. 5Rhythms isn’t “Slain in the Spirit”. It takes you through waves, trying to connect with the energy and rhythms of your body. Focusing attention in different places. Releasing. Freeing. Giving permission. The Rhythms are Flowing (Feet), Staccato (Hips), Chaos (Head), Lyrical (Hands) and Stillness (Breath). The workshops I go to are about two hours long, and move you through and with whatever emotions you are experiencing. It is powerful work.

Me in the Corner

A lot of my anxiety comes from a feeling of having let people down, or being in a corner. A lack of control over expectations. Being disempowered. I feel anxiety in my chest. A rise in temperature and a shortness in breath. I like the idea of Buffers. A feeling of comfort that I have the skills, knowledge, and capacity to deliver. Managing expectations allows you to take control. You still engage actively with the world, but whatever happens is a bonus. Something worth celebrating. Unfortunately, that isn’t how the things work, is it? We seem obsessed with meritocracy and playbooks of success. Inspired by the hero rather than the normal. Obsessed with promising in advance what is going to happen when we live in a world that is complex, ambiguous, and random. Weighing and measuring everyone rather than seeing them. I like feeling seen. I am often lost in the grass. Thoughts and actions all over the place with a general sense of direction that only I am comfortable with. “Comfortable with”. Mental Health is a team sport. When we see each other, we are empowered to surrender into the chaos. To return to room temperature and breathe.

Nobody puts Baby in the corner

Welded Shut

I grew up in a culture where self-reliance was highly prized. Letting someone into the voices in your head and heart admits that not everything is under control. There is only so much energy to be allotted, and telling someone you have had, or are having, difficulties feels like a request for help. Emotional scarcity. I don’t want to do that. I want to not only deal with my share, but have some left over to be the rock for others. I don’t like feeling needy. I don’t want to let the team down. I want people to feel confident enough in me to pass me the ball. I particularly don’t like feeling disrespected. To a fault. My behaviour can be quite childish if I feel like someone is trying to alphamale me. Even more so if someone is bullying someone else. Sometimes someone caring for you feels like a form of hierarchy. When you open up, people often feel compelled to give advice rather than just listen. It can be unclear if the response then flips the tables, like by speaking you need to let the listener take the wheel because you are admitting weakness. For their sake. So, it is easier to keep quiet. A buddy of mine always used to say, “I would cry, but my tear ducts are welded shut by toughness.”

US Army Welder

No Point

There is no point in hating money. If money isn’t important to you, the best thing to do is to pay only the necessary attention to it, and no more. That doesn’t mean ignoring it. That doesn’t mean pretending it doesn’t exist. Like toxic anger, contempt, vengeance, regret, or shame… money can control you if you don’t control it. There is no universal rule that we have to work for money. Capital can work for money so that we can Labour for love. But Capital has to be built. That requires time and reinvestment. The first step is getting an income. The second is controlling your spending. That doesn’t require all-consuming attention, but it does require conscious choices. The important part is the gap between income and spending in the right direction. Spending more than is coming in builds debt. Spending less than is coming in builds potential. A gap between hand and mouth can build a Buffer that means monthly expenses and surprises aren’t making your decisions for you. Gradually that can grow into an Engine. An Engine is Capital that acts as a breadwinner. So that money works for you, rather than you working for money.

There is no point

Conscious Choices

There is seldom a good reason to rush. My Father-in-law is a Natural Beekeeper. One of those seemingly crazy people who can move a swarm of thousands of bees with his bare hands, and only get a few stings. Except he calls them kisses. I am learning a lot about investing from his approach to bees. Howard Marks says, “When there is nothing particularly clever to do, the potential pitfall lies in insisting on being clever”. When we rush, we feel obliged to make a decision. I don’t think you should make big decisions when you are hungry, angry, or stuck in a corner. I am not promoting cold, calm calculation in every situation. Emotions should be listened to. But we should be aware of the environment in which we make decisions, and whether they are reactions or conscious choices. Sometimes the answer is not to “do” anything.

Making Up

Trev:

Competence and Confidence are guys' version of Make-Up and Fashion. Trying to understand why men struggle expressing vulnerability is similar to understanding why even modern women still tend to beautify themselves. We still seem trapped in the behaviours that are deep soaked into us. If I show vulnerability, it feels like I am asking for a response. It doesn't feel like I am able to just say, "Yes, this is difficult. I don't want input. I don't need help. Just expressing what is going on is sufficient". For the most part, this disturbs the illusion that all is under control. I hate feeling like people are worried about me. It seems connected to whether they respect me or not. I get that respect is supposed to come from within, but that isn't the way any of the communities I have ever operated in work. Respect is the currency.

Sacha:
Sharing the thoughts and feelings going on in your head doesn't mean you are asking for help. It is just letting down the filter. It helps us all realise that everyone is struggling. Otherwise we get a Facebook Profile version of everyone's lives full of exciting holidays, smiley moments, and great successes. We don't hear from the people who get back from work on a Friday night absolutely shattered, feeling lonely, but without the energy to reach out to anyone. Perhaps they have been working so hard, they haven't even invested in friendships enough to be able to reach out. Maybe if the picture that was painted in what we share was more honest, then it wouldn't be something people need to hide.

Richard:
Except the world is designed for winners. The news we follow is about the winners. The Motivational Speakers we hear from are the guys who get up at 5am, run a half-marathon, and then do more before their morning tea break than most people do in a week. We read books about people who have built Businesses. We watch ultra-athletes from around the world performing spectacular feats that are much easier to watch from the couch than to try an emulate. We are constantly being measured, and like it or not, Men are still not really allowed to opt out. Then you are a loser. And losers lose.

Francois:
So why take any notice of that rubbish? It is all in the mind anyway. You choose your own reality. You control the way you respond to the world, and how you feel about it. We all end up dust anyway. Nothing you do really matters. It just seems like it matters. Just make different choices. Feel deeply. Express your weakness confidently.  You'll find, like Sacha says, that you are not alone. The way you feel things is your own, but it is a combination of feelings others have. We are one big web of emotions and actions and reactions and just letting go is a powerful way of actually engaging with the world more strongly.

Arthur:
You lost me there. The traditional model works. If you fight it, it will be more complicated. If you are a man, your job is to be a provider. Your job is to build a solid foundation around which others can thrive. Most great men had huge internal struggles, but they didn't go around have a cry about it. Life is hard? And so? Get on with it. Your boss doesn't give you credit? So? Work harder and start your own company if you don't like working for someone else. You aren't doing the work you like? And so? You made bad choices when you were younger. Take the pain and find out what skills you need to do thing you to get there. Long hours? Shame. Would you like a hug? No. Do what you need to do.

Mary:
That is harsh. Why do you think so many Men crack if you put that kind of pressure on them? To think that you can't express vulnerability and still be successful is ridiculous. There is more to life. The idea that men won't be attractive if they don't come across as competent and confident is also a bit backwards. Authenticity is incredibly attractive. Faking might get you through the door, but if you are talking about building a life the is something sustainable, then you will eventually get found out.

Trev:
I am comfortable opening up about my struggles, but I do have to work on a fairly deeply wired defensiveness. If I open up and then someone proceeds to give me advice, I actually start feeling a little sick. I value my self-sufficiency. I really like being able to make decisions for myself. As soon as someone gives me feedback, it feels like I have to implement it or they will stop giving it. Feedback with strings. I approach ambiguity, uncertainty, and complexity in a fairly detached way. I try be decisive knowing that I will often be wrong. Making small decisions that have limited unintended consequences. Opening up sometimes makes me have to justify myself.  Sometimes opening up feels more like something I am doing for the other person, than something I need myself. I don't actually feel like it.

Paul:
Feedback is incredibly helpful. Most advice is advice to ourselves. You should take it as that. The person can only see the thing your are sharing through their own context. Their advice can only be a projection of their own anxieties, baggage, and world view. You can hold what they say lightly. Sharing doesn't have to be a way of "finding a solution". A good listener can listen without actually interfering with your thought process. Listening as lubrication rather than intervention. If people feel a desire to change your course of direction, that is their issue, not yours.

Trev:
I get that intellectually, but I hate feeling on the wrong side of people. Feeling like I am misunderstood, or that I have disappointed them. Like I haven't met their expectations. I have a high degree of internal confidence, but am much weaker when it comes to feeling that I am a "failure" in other people's eyes. Going back to my initial metaphor. I can imagine it being like someone who acknowledges make-up and fashion are expensive time-wasters, but still wears them because that is the way the world works. You can't pick every battle. Sometimes bottling things up a little is just way easier. Having things under control means I don't have to put so much effort into appeasing the people I care about.

Angela:
We are busy reinventing society. The traditional Masculine/Feminine stereotypes were thrust upon us. As Arthur said, this was perhaps for a reason... but those reasons have changed. If we want a healthier world where we aren't torn up internally just to please others externally, then we have to have these tough discussion. I really don't think this is a Male/Female thing. Much of it is simply cultural roles we have inherited. The more strong men are allowed to show weakness without being judged, the more likely others are to feel free to follow in their path.

[Sacha, Richard, Francois, Arthur, Mary, Paul, and Angela are fictional]

Butchers Twine

We carry beef. There are strings attached. Sometimes the problem is not the problem. The battle is not the war. We carry stuff around with us so that our reactions to things often bear very little relation to the thing we are reacting to. To an outsider, it can make absolutely no sense. It can seem completely illogical. Unfortunately, we are also one of those outsiders. We, being the voices in our heads. We, being the voices in my head. In yours. How we act is mostly not our choice. That is tough to admit. It is disempowering. Most of our decisions are automatic. We carry the way we see the world from the way we have been taught to see the world. Our choices are often as hereditary as our height or eye colour. Unless, we do the work. Unless, we have the uncomfortable conversations. One string at a time.

Butcher's Twine

Safe Space

There are two opposing ideas around Safe Spaces. One is that it is a place where people hide you from being triggered. Full of cuddles. The opposite is that it is a place where people find your triggers. Where you learn to be stronger than them. 

I carry a fair amount of anger around with me. I can be very confrontational. This is not the way a lot of people know me. That is because it is not a side I like.

I like calm Trev. Yogi Trev. I like the version of me that listens, asks questions, and tolerates ideas that are very different to mine. I like warmth and good humour.

But.

I am still someone who will put myself in between a bully and someone else. I am still fairly easy to tease, if I misinterpret it as a jibe rather than banter. I think there is a difference. I tease a bunch of my friends, and they tease me. That is normally because things are fundamentally okay between us. The humour can tease out the truth. 

I still have a Saviour Complex. A Justice Warrior Complex. I still absolutely hate feeling unfairly judged or misunderstood. Shut down, cut off, or pushed to the side.

With some of my closer friends, I let my guard down in the second version of the Safe Space. I let myself get angry. I put aside the Emotional Intelligence tools that you learn in order to make your way through the world. I genuinely don't like myself in those spaces. It is obviously very much a part of who I am though.

Those safe spaces scare me a little. They make me think that maybe that is 'who I really am'.

I don't consciously believe there is a 'who I really am'. I think we are a collection of habits, emotions, reflex responses and stories we tell ourselves. Our ability to forget and to imagine allows us to decide who we are. If we are willing to put the work into understanding what drives us. Anger drives me.

Start with a Buffer

There is what you can do, and what you do do. In between, there is the stuff that gets in the way or helps. That stuff in between is resilience. It determines whether you are fragile and break, or anti-fragile and benefit from the noise in the world. I am a big believer in 'building buffers'. What you can do takes a lot of time to build. What you do do is a collection of deeply wire habits. Changing those habits also takes time. The buffer is where you can be micro-ambitious. The buffer is where you start.

A Financial Buffer may be saving one month's salary, so that you aren't living payday to payday. A slightly bigger buffer may mean you have a few months salary in case you lose your job. Then you can start investing. Grow it a little and you may be able to voluntarily leave a job to train for a better job. Grow it a little and you may be able to have a stab at building your own business. Grow it more and you can build an Engine, so you are freed to work because you want to, and not because you have to. A Buffer doesn't tell you what to do, or how to do it, but it gives you the freedom to have a go.

Emotional Buffers are similar. I don't think there is any point in arguing with someone you don't like. Relationships need a buffer of kindness and respect. Start with that. Once you like each other and can find a few solid points of agreement to work from, only then can you start exploring differences. Grow that through context and understanding and you start to give each other the benefit of the doubt. You start interpreting what people say in the best possible way. Grow that and you have love. Love doesn't tell you what to do, or how to do it, but it gives you the freedom to have a go.

Buffers are about looking after yourself. Looking after others. They are a recognition that the world can be random, confusing, harsh, and unfair. They are a recognition that even the best-laid plans can just be a set up for a cruel joke. They are a recognition that we are wrong more often than we are right. That what sets us apart is our ability to learn. Buffers let us listen and adjust.

Start by building a Buffer.

Build a Buffer to absorb the shocks

Five Temperaments

We can have a bias to Anger and Cheerfulness as righteous or positive emotions. Different moods carry different creative possibilities. The 'Five Temperaments' Model looks at how long we take to come to a conclusion (temperature - hot/cold), and how long we hold onto what we are feeling (fluidity - dry/wet). Sanguine (Air/Pragmatic) moods are impulsive and short-lived. Phlegmatic (Water/Getting) moods take a longer time to form, but are also short-lived. Choleric (Fire/Ruling) come quickly, and last a while. Melancholic take a while, and stay a while. In Melancholic (Earth/Avoiding) moods, we chew. "Against Happiness" is an ode to Melancholy as a creative force. We don't always have to be happy. There is beauty in struggle. We all struggle. Melancholy can lead to deep and meaningful insight. It isn't always something to fight or medicate.

Bad Beat

When I was 25, I was still living in a student style shared house. The back garden needed mowing, but I was a cheapskate. I am still a cheapskate. Instead of buying a lawn mower, I bought a machete. I left the machete on the kitchen table. At that time, a group of friends and I were very into poker. The more you play poker, the more likely you are to learn that anything that has a remote possibility of happening, will happen regularly. If you play regularly. When only one card in a deck of 52 will make you lose, and that is the card that comes. This is called a 'Bad Beat'. I didn't need a lawnmower, because friends who had Bad Beats would take turns on the back garden. Until they (and I) learnt the lesson that you should never put the things that really matter at risk. Only sit at the table with what you are prepared to lose. Even a 'Bad Beat' is just another hand.

Emotional Integrity

Emotional is not the opposite of Rational. Emotions can be, and normally are, Rational. There is a reason for why you feel the way you do. If an emotion is irrational, discovering that can be a powerful tool to let it go. Unless there is some clinical issue that requires help. Emotional Integrity is a variety of happiness. Robert Solomon sees it as an ongoing "meta-emotion". Happiness is a summary evaluative judgement of us being in the world. Spirituality a way of taking that up a level, expanding the judged self to be suprahuman and all-inclusive. Emotional Integrity is developed when reflecting on values, purpose, and whether your emotions are constructive in building the type of life that resonates well. Emotions that serve.

Emotions that Resonate

Emotions that Serve

Two Graves

The Chinese have a saying, 'If you want revenge, dig two graves'. Vengeance is a logical emotion. It is often justified. Robert Solomon argues that the Biblical 'Eye for an Eye' was not as barbaric as it now sounds. Prior to that, if someone attacked you - you let all disproportionate hell loose on them. 'Eye for an Eye' was asking for restraint. The problem is, there is seldom agreement on the perfect proportions for justice. The eye of the beholder. So you end up in a spiral of righteous justification when each round of justice requires a response. Someone has to break the loop. Even though revenge is justified, it is not likely to lead to a better situation. Don't throw everything you love away to prove a point. Don't become your enemy in the attempt to defeat them.

Two Graves

Strength in Stopping

There is seldom a reason to rush. Doing something may make us feel better, because it gives the impression we tried. In a world biased to action, sometimes strength lies in doing nothing. Not passively. Doing nothing with full awareness. Waiting. Listening. Focusing. 'When there is nothing particularly clever to do, the potential pitfall lies in insisting on being clever' (Howard Marks). Reality is a complicated, ambiguous, random beast. Fighting it, is meeting it on its terms. It will win. In active stillness, we can build resilience. The ability to withstand the battering, and come out on the other side stronger. There is strength in stopping.

Sometimes the best way to fight the Beast, is not to

Feeling First

'We very often reason from, rather than to, our convictions' (Hume). This is why we need to think twice about our intent when arguing. If it is simply to demonstrate what we believe like a Peacock looking for a mate, then crack on. If we want to see and understand, then we need to start with understanding people's feelings. Hume didn't believe that all feelings were equal. He also didn't believe in 'finding yourself' or a personal identity. We are just a bundle of ways of seeing things. A bundle that changes rapidly, and is deeply affected by our passions. We can see, recognise, support, and train those in each other. 'People have to learn to be more benevolent, more patient, more at ease with themselves and less afraid of others.'