Changing Story

We only have one life, and as we grow older we tell ourselves a story about ourselves. It is hard not to grow attached to the story, and want it to make sense. 

As if we need to explain or justify ourselves, our path, and our identity to others or to typically our harshest critic – ourselves. Most other people don’t care about our stories as much as we think they do. They are too busy beating themselves up about their own. 

Capital on the other hand, is inanimate. It can be allocated to any problem, and can move around the world (if the rules allow) to change shape and form almost instantly to apply itself to different problem-solving. “Permanent Capital” is valuable, because it is sufficiently patient to wait for compounding to kick in rather than seeking short-term returns, but it is still detached enough to be available to move should the need arise. 

Much of our opportunity as people is tied to the lottery of birth, which means our meritocracy has individualized denominators. Our potential is grounded in artificial and temporary constraints. Grounded in biases and boundaries. 

Freedom of movement of goods, services, capital, and people looks to chip away at the weight of those constraints. We should be able to solve problems wherever they are, and have people from wherever they are and whatever their irrelevant constraints are solve them if they want to. 

We can dismantle the illusions that separate opportunity. If you have freedom of movement for Capital, Goods, and Services, but not for people... that has a name. Apartheid. You get areas around the world that are far better at mixing groups so that you don’t have bubbles of wealth.

Moving between illusions of difference

Job Rotation

My first job change was internal. This meant different dynamics to normal job hunts of deciding if someone is “good enough”. There was a rotation committee, and an understanding that people are on learning curves. You are balancing an individual’s career path with the needs of the company. There is still the challenge of limited roles and seats being open or not. You cannot simply pick a job you want and develop the skills required. Timing is a thing. A seat came open for the Marketing Actuary role in Joburg. I had not finished learning what there was to learn in Product Development. My old boss and new boss had overlapping interests though. Marketing Actuaries work with Product Development to listen to what is needed, and iterate towards solutions. There are always trade-offs as people come and go. It helps when there is the common ground of a bigger container.

Social Capital

One part of the job search process I do not enjoy is CV writing. As someone who includes “Price is not Value. Salary is not Worth. You are not your Job” as one of his mantras, a CV feels very much like a boastful autobiography. Public Speaking is the best example of where everything works more smoothly when the focus is the content, not the person. When you speak passionately about something you care about, to people who care about it too. Magic. When it is a school oral in front of a class of bored 14-year-old ingrate inmates, no wonder people are scarred for life when they have to present. LinkedIn and Facebook partly solve this, with my tendency to think aloud and befriend strangers. Ideally, as you grow in your career, you are not starting from scratch. You are part of a community. Ex-colleagues, “competitors”, suppliers, clients, classmates and others in my (privileged) network turn it into a team effort. Like the compound interest of investing. Always worth remembering in whatever role you are currently playing.

Tough Crowd

Behind the Curtain

“Equality of opportunity is a political ideal that is opposed to caste hierarchy but not to hierarchy per se” https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/equal-opportunity/. To maintain the little man behind the curtain in the Wizard of Oz, you need to create the illusion that the hierarchy is both there, and deserved. The reality is, that even if you caste your hereditary privilege eyes wider than the family and eldest son, there are still limited opportunities. Both in time and space. Roles become vacant only when people leave or die. Teams have limited sizes. Team dynamics make it awkward when someone from the outside is picked (loyalty vs meritocracy). Problems are not defined by how many people want to solve them. They are just priced that way. It is well known that there are plenty of diamonds in storage. The price is high because of controlled supply and manipulative marketing. Give them enough to keep them hungry. It becomes a Game of Thrones when there is only one seat at the head of the table. When you fight for opportunity, only because you want that seat. A seat that does not get relinquished. For equal opportunity, you need more opportunities. For that, you need to be genuinely interested in solving problems. Not focused on keeping your throne warm and diamond-encrusted.

Discovering Fire

A foundation of our superiority challenges is a core belief in Second Class Citizens. It is hard to separate out some of the complex problems around sexism, xenophobia, racism and classism from things we hold to be true. One of those is that we get taught preferences from a young age. We overhear stories about successful people and unsuccessful people. The voices of people we admire soak into the voices in our head. We question if we are good enough. Then we start seeing the strengths of others through this view. Engineers hire Engineers. Accountants hire Accountants. South Africans hire South Africans. Oxbridge graduates hire Oxbridge graduates. Even when we superficially break from these categories, seeing the strengths that don’t resonate is challenging. Wealth creation is a team sport. But if you have a God Complex thinking you are the source of value, and everyone else is there to support you, then clearly you are not going to see the strengths of mortals. Till they discover their fire and topple you.