Every Day

One of the GMB Fitness trainers, João, often trains in his jeans and slippers. This is because he likes wearing jeans and slippers, and his intention in training is to be able to move easily. So he wears what he wants to move in. 

Another technique he talks about is simple repetition, until the movement comes naturally. Which seems like stating the obvious, but sometimes we repeat till first success rather than till smooth and dependable rewiring has taken hold. We scratch the surface and move on before knowledge is embodied. 

Which is why failure and difficulty can be powerful learning techniques, because they force you to slow down. 

Spaced Repetition is an idea Gabriel Wyner (of Fluent Forever) pushes for language learning, and memory work more generally. You stretch out the periods of repetition till you are just about to forget. You gradually increase those periods. Until it becomes a part of what you deeply know. 

When we change behaviours, the key element is sustainability. Particularly for things like long term wealth creation and compounding. 

For upside, it is the behaviours that you do every day, rather than what you do on any given day, that matter. For downside, yes... you can do a lot of damage in a short time. Creation needs time. Sustainable is possible forever.

Moving Well

Our minds, insight, knowledge, biases, and ignorance are not disconnected from physicality and embodiment. 

I have to work at moving out of my head and taking my body more seriously. 

 I enjoy watching GMB.io and other teachers of movement culture using small gentle movements and body weight exercises to work on flowing control. A dance of gravity and strength. 

I definitely feel that I have to make time for exercise, and don't. Particularly when I am desk-bound. I wrestle with deep soaked guilt. Maybe less guilt... and more prioritisation. Even though I *know* I need to move, the bottomless pit of things-to-do always seems to scream loudly. 

 

Movement culture proponents try incorporate movement into life, rather than explicity making time for it. 

How are you working? How are you sitting? While you are making a cup of tea, can you do some stretches as the kettle boils? Building movement into your lifestyle. Like kids, when they have to go somewhere... they run! 

Strength builds endurance. Like weight training where some stress in a controlled environment builds your capacity for when chaos descends. For when you are pushed outside your energy and power comfort zone. 

Flexibility builds resilience. Ideally. you are not just focused on one set of exercises, but you can adapt and adjust to whatever is happening. 

 

Control is the intention behind creativity. Where you move smoothly and consciously, despite - ambiguity, - randomness, and - complexity. 

When you watch masters of calisthenics, their bodies seem to operate according to different laws of physics. Yet their movement looks way more natural than the awkwardness of niggles and knots, when we normally don’t use our bodies then expect them to jump to action. 

Pattern Addicts

When sitting at a roulette table where the option is red or black, and spinning... a series of reds in a row may make the chancer think, “it has got to be black next”. 

But no. This is called the Gambler’s Fallacy, “more frequent in the past means less frequent in the future (or vice versa)”. 

The roulette table has no memory. It is a pure-play live-in-the-moment fanatic. The chance is the same every time. 

This is not something that is natural to us pattern addicts who thrive on story telling. Even trained statisticians are not intuitive statisticians. You bend your heart and mind to accept the rules of chance. Override what seems to be true, to accept randomness. 

Our lives are short, and they may be too short to gather sufficient evidence. When we have enough evidence, it may no longer be relevant, because the driving forces have changed. Significant data mud wrestles with relevant data. 

You can harness randomness to help you make decisions, if you can admit that going right or left doesn’t fundamentally matter. What matters is going. Sometimes waiting for further evidence is just waiting. 

The trick is to overcome the debilitating fear of randomness.

Moving with Grace

It’s not all about you. Part of letting go of anxiety is not feeling like you are being judged in each and every moment. Where your waves of worry are about real problems, rather than perceptions of you. 

When you decide to start paying attention beyond the boundary of yourself, and connect to more, it is a bit of an existential crisis with no clear answer. At least worrying about yourself has very skin and bone constraints! 

Philosophers like William MacAskill and Peter Singer look at effective altruism in a world where we have to think about constraints. Resources aren’t abundant. Opportunities aren’t abundant. Scarcity is real, and scarcity puts up prices and creates walls. Abundance is free and open. 

What is a reasonable amount to consume? How should we think about other people who don’t have enough? Capital provides a foundation and starting point that changes the game. If you stop living hand-to-mouth, and you build up capacity to think long term. 

Moving from day-to-day, to week-to-week, to month-to-month, to year-to-year, to the point where your short-term decisions are connected and constructive. Where you can absorb difficult times, learn from them, and respond in an empowered way. 

Where you move through life with an additional level of grace not available to those who are being flung around by the elements.

moving through and with the elements

Jonty Dive

Less than a once-off answer, financial planning is like going to gym to build your risk tolerance. Initial conversations are about seeing where you are, and what your goals are. Then you exercise. Lengthening and strengthening your muscles. 

As we get older we tend to (sometimes) pick one sport. Kids do everything, and movement is built into their curriculum. Bar the times they are forced to sit on their hands in classrooms that ominously precede office work. Instead of walking down corridors, kids run. Sprinting even if it is just between the toilet, lounge, kitchen, and bedroom. I used to do “Jonty Dives” by running down the passageway and jumping onto my parent’s bed. Kids are always learning. 

As we get older we tend to be pickier and get swallowed by narrowing responsibilities. Then when things change, we struggle. Even when adults are fit, it is often in a particular way. With children, the variety maintains options. Like the Greek athletes of old where they did all the events. 

Today our athletes specialise. Long-distance runners have short torsos, long legs, and are very light. Swimmers have long torsos. Sports get dominated by particular physiques. In real life, the sport changes. As time moves on, the sport is changing more regularly. 

Plan for change.

Ready to Move

Subtle Change

Stilling the waves of money anxiety starts with understanding your relationship with money. With the stories you tell yourself, and the daily practice you create around that. How you wake up. What you choose to do. How you choose to think. What new information you expose yourself to. What areas of embodiment you are exploring. The movement, you are creating. The flexibility, you are creating. The strength, you are creating. The control you have over how you move. Your autonomy. Your transitions.

Understand the situation that you are in, and the situation you want to be in. Understand the path, and the required skills and knowledge. That starts with paying attention to where you are, reflecting on it, and seeing what your choices are. In a way that you are fully present and able to grapple with that with a sparkle in your eye. To see a point in subtle change. To celebrate marginal progress that adds up. That powers small achievable steps every day.

Detail from "The School of Athens" Raphael

Euclid studying Change

Comfort within Discomfort

Find comfort within discomfort. That does not mean pushing through pain. With yoga and stretching, to progress, you do not need to hurt yourself. You can learn within limits. You can learn by understanding the boundaries, and doing the work inside of that. Playing, and moving around, in your areas of slight discomfort. Be curious about transitions that are not smooth.

A lot of meditative work can be done through movement and dancing. Being aware of, “Ooo, this bit there is tight. I am going to move my shoulder more. I am a bit stiff in my lower back, I am going to do some moving there.” It is about understanding where you carry your tension. You can go for a run. A swim. Lift your arms over your head. Pick something up. Reach for something. Our minds learn in the way our body does. Through an embodied use-it-or-loose-it process of leaning into areas of discomfort (without hurting yourself) and building endurance and resilience. Through consistent engagement.

Twist and Breathe

Pleasure and Meaning

One of the most powerful tools in your financial stability kit is the ability to find meaning and pleasure in the plentiful. Price is not value. It is more of a measure of scarcity. A pulsing dance of supply and demand. A thrust forward of supply when the price is attractive. A retreat when it goes too low. Increased demand when the offer catches more eyes. Decreased demand when the beat becomes repetitive. Price is a signal. You need to hold on to the ability to accept or reject its offer of movement. You need to be able to find your own flow, and connect when and only when what is offered meets your needs. Autonomy. Consent. Movement. Meaning and value are there to find, but you have to build the resources to look for them. To not get swamped by the noise. To draw strength rather than fear from the gaps of silence. The music starts in the moment before the first note.

Drawing Breath

You don’t learn much about whether a process works, when it is working. The most powerful creative forces are time and consistency. But for the long term to be long term, the process needs to be able to adapt, adjust, and accommodate. Strength, flexibility, and control in the face of randomness, complexity, and ambiguity. Like gaps in music, real mastery lies in the ability to draw breath and gain perspective. To step back and gain a broader view of how everything is connected. To use disruption as a learning opportunity. 5Rhythms is a movement meditation developed by Gabrielle Roth in the 1970s. It takes you through Waves to release obstructions and inspire creativity. You move through flow, staccato, chaos, lyrical, and stillness. The key is movement, and being still is part of that. This too will pass.

5Rhythms