Found Wanting

When you are thinking “I don’t deserve to be at this table”, “I don’t know enough to apply for this job”, or “I am really confused and feel incompetent”... you don’t know how the other people are (also) beating themselves up constantly. 

Even if people do open up, we only get the words they choose, and only in the way we interpret them. We are only exposed to projections. We are only exposed to how those projections land on our internal projections. 

Working on these interpretations is not something that is obvious. Good business ideas are things you can count, and deep work is often not countable. You may need to pragmatically focus on good business ideas to build the internal capacity for work that doesn’t have (obvious) payback. 

I avoided reading “How to win friends and influence people” because the title made me cringe. It seems manipulative. The books surprised me with the well-articulated truth that we are interested in people that are interested in us. 

Truth sits in a feedback loop, as an invited and trusted evolving conversation. 

Feedback is best received when we don’t feel like it is a tool of destruction. When it isn’t a disguise for being “weighed, measured, and found wanting.” When there is a long-term commitment to each other’s well-being. Where there is a foundation of respect and kindness. 

Then feeling incompetent and not enough is the only starting point in every new endeavour, rather than a fearful admission of permanent inadequacy.

Own Silence

A danger with the idea that meritocracy works at an individual level, rather than a hand wavy “life is unfair, but you can progress from where you are” way... is that we can take the decisions people make about *us* too seriously. Whether you get a job. Whether you get a promotion. How big your bonus is. Whether someone recognises and understands the work you are doing. 

The strong temptation is to self-reinforce. To lean into the conspicuous. Separating our identity and the problems we are working on is a hard practice. 

We all want to do well. Which make measures of success feel like they are measuring who we are. Which can be a spiralling, relative, search for recognition. Imposter syndrome means most people are constantly self-judging. 

Aging does help you realise there are no real adults in the room, and everyone is just doing the best they can. Michelle Obama was asked how she managed the stress at being at a table with people that were very impressive. Chief Executives and Presidents are all just people with their own insecuritities. “They are not that smart”, she realised... as a different way of realising that “you are smart enough”. 

Some people get jobs due to connections... marriage, inlaw’s friends, birth, friend of a friend. Some people fake the right skill well to the right person at the right time. 

Even the people who are amazing at their jobs, are also useless at other things. Normal people who sleep, eat, and get confused. We don’t have access to what is going on in other people’s heads. 

Silence can appear like confidence. Our own silence is more raw.

"The Art of Silence" (1911)

Odilon Redon

Weigh and Measure

Wealth is made in containers. We often share those containers with very real human voices. Not just the voices in our heads, but also other people. We have our own vulnerabilities. 

We like each other. We dislike each other. We get on each other's nerves. We can talk about ourselves all the time. We can be difficult to manage, difficult to work with, and difficult to understand. We bring our whole selves to the work we do. 

I have had lots of people that I loved working with, and a (fortunately small) handful where... it was probably just best we worked with others. 

There is something deep inside me that gets rattled when I feel misunderstood. When I feel like they have drawn their conclusion... unfavourably, and unfairly. The emotions that come up when someone effectively believes you are not good enough. 

One response is to want to self-promote, “I am actually quite a big deal”. Another response is to tear the other person down, like one of those rap battles. “YOU think I am not good enough. That is rich. Well... XYZ” in a way that leaves them sobbing in a foetal position. The skill/desire of treating people with kindness and respect can get lost. 

Often to see people’s strengths requires understanding their stories. Engineers might hire engineers. Architects architects. Stock pickers may believe they can do anything, because they pass judgement on businesses... but don’t believe anyone can be a stock picker. 

People hire people because they admire the things they like about themselves. Self-reinforcing what they view as strengths. 

Letting go of the idea of work as a tool to weigh and measure your soul is essential.

Not About Me

There is danger in mastery. In having control. 

The world is complicated, ambiguous, and random. The confidence that comes with control radiates in a way that is impressive. In the same way as people identify with their jobs, they can also identify with “being impressive”. Being respected. Being in charge. 

Warren Buffett talks about being aware of a clearly defined “circle of competence”. Being aware of the danger of the halo effect. Where mastery tends to leave a leakily positive impression in areas where that mastery doesn’t exist. 

In Yoga, mastery of specific abilities developed through intense practice are called Siddhis. These can appear supernatural or magical. Developing Siddhis is dangerous if you identify with them. Over-identifying with something that separates you from other people. It makes it harder to detach and look at waves of anxiety as not being about you. 

Every wave poorly handled can bring your world crashing down. Every conversation can be about you. Your problems. Your solutions. Self-worship. 

A powerful way of getting through waves is “this is not about me”.

Brain Waves

Thrown Around

If you get the recognition and money you require from what you want to allocate your time and energy to, that is brilliant. 

The danger, and beauty, is that “this too will pass” applies to both good and bad. The world changes. Creative, and destructive, forces constantly renew and refresh the rules. Becoming attached to a fragile external source of recognition and money puts you a false step away from an imploding world. 

Yoga talks of starting the practice, and process, to still the waves. The seven Bhumikas are a map for a personal practice. Financial Yoga would be the same. 

The first step is a desire for knowledge. Then asking the right questions. Doing your due diligence on how the world works and how to still the waves. 

The third step is knowing what to do and doing it. Building a buffer that reduces the impact of the waves. Allowing you to start processing your choices consciously. 

The fourth step is where a sense of control sinks in. The waves haven’t disappeared, but you are in a position where you are no longer being thrown around.

Judo Haraigoshi

Boxing for Respect

When relationships are transactional, there is a need for conspicuous action in order to earn respect. 

Like insisting that someone does half the chores. Famously, in most relationships if you ask everyone what percentage of the chores they do, it always adds up to more than 100%. We know what we do. We only see what is conspicuous from others. 

When you have to box for respect, there is a temptation to indulge in destructive behaviour. If you don’t get recognised, you may tear the other person down, “I don’t think your choices are all that fantastic”. Or you have to pump yourself up, “I am actually quite a big deal.” 

To release yourself from this wrestling match, there is a need to internalise your own sense of value. To let go of the need to be a conspicuously productive asset. To let go of the constant call to prove yourself to other people, particularly if it is conflicting with your own values. 

Then your choices can become relational. There is no scorecard. There are no metrics. You give (and receive) without measure.

Ancient Greek Boxers

Being Conspicuous

There is a wrestle with the way people dole out respect. It is trite to say “don’t care what people think about you”, but umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu (a person is a person through other people). 

Even the most hardcore libertarian has to make agreements to engage with the world. That involves a meeting of minds. That involves respect, trust, and trade-offs. 

Now if you are wrestling for respect using conspicuous “success” that doesn’t resonate with you, it can be hollow. I sometimes get resentful when I do get recognition. 

When the thing being recognised is actually a trade-off I am making, and not what really drives me. When I meet the productive targets of others, but they don’t see me. 

They don’t see the inconspicuous, hidden, hard to communicate ways I am creating meaning. It can then be frustrating when the only time I get seen is when I am doing the things I need to do. 

Joint decision making is hard. Really seeing each other is even harder. 

“Sometimes I do what I want to do. The rest of the time, I do what I have to.” (Marcus Tullius – Braveheart)

Space to Value Time

Tim Urban (waitbutwhy.com) talks of time optimism. It is a euphemism/kind way of referring to being late. Busyness is a form of laziness. If you are time pessimistic, you leave space. You don’t start new tasks if you don’t have the time to give them the necessary container (focused attention). You allow space, to be on time. On time *for* people. As a matter of respect. If you are constantly making people wait for you, you are not going to get many chances. But that does mean, as the time pessimist, you are regularly going to be the one waiting. Because you have created space. That space is partly an acknowledgment that other people’s time is as important as yours. We all get 24 hours a day, rich and poor, powerful and powerless. Busyness is often used as a conspicuous signal of importance. We can’t know what people are doing that matters, but being late implies that thing is more important than the person you keep waiting. When you're doing a presentation, “sorry, I put this presentation together at the last moment” is not good enough. It means in a room full of 10-100 people, that you think that your time is worth more than all their time combined. Because it is the one true point of equality, we should not waste other people's time. 

"Why I am always late", by Tim Urban

Good Enough

It feels good to receive acknowledgement and recognition. To be seen and respected. To move onto the next stage of detachment and a really deep knowledge of what is going on, you have to let go of the idea that it is all about you. The constant internal battles about whether you, personally, are good enough. Whether others are good enough. You have to let go of the idea that we work to fund our lifestyle and consumption and respect. We think of liberty as about the individual, but ironically, the ultimate liberty is the freedom to realise it is not about you. The privilege to be working on issues that are bigger and connected to everything. The capacity to fully accept the world for what it is, because you are no longer being battered by waves that separate you from it. When you are able to genuinely see the world, want to understand it, and start asking the right questions rather than enforcing your own view of what the world should be like. To get there, you do need to deal with the rubbish getting in the way. Building space to breathe. 

Waste Generation per Capita

 

Surface Waves

Stilling the waves of money anxiety starts small. Like building relief from a storm when you have no shelter. The goal is simply to get dry and warm. If you can build a buffer of three to six months of what you normally spend, you start to create the capacity to make some path-altering decisions. You build a capacity to cope. You increase your control and focus. “You” increase it, but really it is the power of the buffer/capital. It is the same you. Just empowered. Similarly, yogis talk about Siddhis. Siddhis are seemingly supernatural, paranormal, or magical powers obtained through regular practice. In other words, mastery. But they are dangerous. Other people might elevate you and you might start believing that elevation. It is nice getting recognition. And that sets you up for the waves of anxiety to return. Real meritocracy is a call to see the value of people and their connection to each other through the waves. Building buffers and capital to power us without building barriers to divide us.

Stilling the Waves

 

Allowing Space

If you are time rich, rather than money rich, you need to learn to create boundaries. It's very similar to the rich-rich when people start asking for money. People start using your time more conspicuously, if they feel entitled to it because they are busy. When you create space and someone else doesn’t. It's a little bit like being punctual. The people who aren't punctual arrive late and make people who are punctual, wait for them. Which even though it is perhaps not intentional, is a way of saying their time is more important. Tim Urban writes about chronically, late, insane people (Clips). He calls it time optimism. They (and he includes himself) always try fit too much in. I am typically on time, and part of the reason for that is I stop doing whatever I'm doing early. People like me are time pessimists because we leave gaps for the next thing. I do a lot of waiting. We need to build a whole new way of looking at respect and how we recognise people, if we're going to change the way we make our decisions around money. Allowing for gaps. Allowing for the things we can’t see. 

"Why I am always late" Tim Urban

 

The Darkness

The challenge we face with politics is that we want it. The most political people I know use phrases like “leave your ego at the door”, and ask “how do we get rid of the politics?” without a hint of irony. The darkness from lack of transparency protects our interests and vulnerabilities. We like positioning ourselves against other people, if we come out on top. We like the sense of superiority. We like getting better. We like progress. We like being incentivised. We like action. We like feeling like we are doing something right, and moving forward.

We create these hierarchies as a way of making sense of the world. As a way of feeling like we are moving. Feeling a sense of life. It is an easy option to measure the world. Money is like salt, fat, and sugar for the taste buds. It is not subtle flavouring.

Panning for Gold

My oldest brother used to love (as a Medical Student) asking, “What do you call a Medical Student who gets 50% for their final exam?”. The answer is Doctor. It is only in the classroom setting where the false laboratory conditions allow us to weigh and measure everybody. You can even ask university level questions for 2 marks to separate the first and second place 12-year olds who are getting everything “at their level” right. In the real world, meritocracy is limited by the fact that no one cares how clever you are. It is not about you. They want their problem solved. If there is an over supply of problem solvers, you do not have to pay them very much. As more people can read, write, think, create, and exchange ideas, it gets harder to pretend the barrier to wealth is merit. The barriers are not skills and knowledge. The barriers are the containers. Rather than survival of the fittest, it is survival of the most flexible. What is the container in which you make money? Why can’t others make money in that way? What if that container no longer existed?

Where You Are

Stilling the waves of money anxiety is not about having more. In the same way, competitive yoga makes no sense. Although, being people, we have created ways to weigh and measure people in conspicuous progress there too. You are as “advanced a yogi” on day one, as you will be after years of practice. The starting point, is always the same. Where you are. It is also the destination. You are already enough. Despite feelings of inadequacy and manufactured discontent. That realisation does not absolve you of action. It just means the key is not in comparison. Deal with the cards you are dealt. Money anxiety stills through the relationship between what comes in (however big) and what goes out (smaller than the in). Through building a buffer for the unexpected (however big) and an Engine of reserves to reduce your reduction to being a productive asset. Letting go of your judgement of yourself. Letting go of others judgement of you. Price is not value. Salary is not worth. You are not your job. Life is not a competition.

Firm Grip

 “tat param purusakhyater guna vaitrsnyam” Yoga Sutras

“The highest awareness of non-attachment stems from awareness of purusha (the Self)”

You are not your job. There are three elements to making money. A problem to solve, Capital to finance its solving, and a Container to solve it in. You are not the problem, the capital, or the container. They are all tools. “What are you going to be when you grow up?” is completely the wrong question. Money making, and waves of money anxiety, are not about who you are. It’s not about you. The problem with performance reviews, job titles, promotions, bonuses, hierarchy, measures of success, apportionment of respect, and illusions of meritocracy is we associate temporary problems and conspicuous signals with identity. We weigh and measure each other. This leads to impostor syndrome and voices in our heads constantly telling us we are not good enough. A firm grip on a more permanent sense of self lets you hold space between waves of money anxiety and your sense of what really matters.

Deutsche Fotothek

Fat Men Searching

Bob Dylan sings about fat men and thin men looking for dignity. Searching high, searching low. Have you seen dignity? It is one of my biggest quibbles with Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of Nations”. He chips away at the idea of wealth creation as a battle to the death, but doesn’t quite let go of the linear development of the age. There is still the idea of more is better. He just argues we can all have more. Against barriers. For mobility. But he also argues for a greater expense for supporting the dignity of the monarch in an opulent society. “As in point of dignity a monarch is more raised above his subjects“. One of the biggest obstacles to financial security, and even adequate climate responses, is “the lifestyles to which we are accustomed.” Tying dignity to conspicuous consumption. If you want to become financially secure, one of the most powerful tools is to become a Minimalism Geek. Get a copy of “Seneca – letters from a Stoic” and chew on the lessons on how to become immune to life’s setbacks. What people see without effort, is not who you are.

Wealth as Opulence

Louis XIV of France "The Sun King"

Reigned 1643 -1715

Beyond Contest

Meritocracy is supposed to be a push back on Hereditary Privilege. The idea of social mobility where you can still make a success of life and “climb” even if you are born into difficult circumstances, “if you deserve it”. Money and consumption as a measure of personal worth. One of the mistakes made during the European Colonial era was a pissing contest revolving around Civilising Missions. Different colonial pretenders trying to spread their world view faster as a superior form of civilisation. Simplifying our drive down to a road from savage to sage. Progress. Development. Upliftment. A linear step ladder. Assuming we know the goal. Meritocracy says it is still okay to divide people into groups of better and worse, as long as there is a path to move between them. We obviously want the people we care about, and ourselves, in the best container. Incentivising us to create more than just for ourselves. Barriers to entry and exit protect people from instant and true meritocracy. This constant weighing and measuring stops us from seeing. Money is made with Capital in Containers that solve Problems. But the good things in life aren’t problems, and personal worth isn’t measured.

Manneken Pis

How to Learn

The French word for fate is sort. One of the worst mistakes we make is premature sorting. Deciding based on early information whether people have a particular aptitude for a group of skills or area of knowledge. Quite often the abilities needed to pick something up quickly, and the skills needed to master it are very different. I always remember a talk given to us at school by Professor Swart. He told us to treat every subject like History. Practice and Past Papers. He told the story of a girl who went from failing maths to getting an A simply by doing as many past papers as possible. Eventually, she started to see the patterns. The main skill you were picking up at school was how to learn, not who you are. One friend at school struggled along with the rest of us Durban Boys in Afrikaans. Now he is fluent because he met, and married, a girl. Mastery normally comes not from sorting, but from seeing a reason to put the sustained effort in. Find the why, map the process, and put in the work.

Education isn't for putting us in our place

Life Pulses

Life can be pitched as a story of progression. In a world with salaries that promise to go up, with time and experience. With one directional promotions, as we take a step up on the ladder. A gradual expansion of the standards to which we are accustomed. Till we retire. If we accept this, I can see why people confuse price and value. Why salary gets mixed up with worth. Roles and grades in big corporations try to standardise levels of success and seniority across the incomparable. Mirroring what markets do with price. An illusion of control and sense. Markets allow us to put a number on anything if two people agree. But don’t confuse this with value, permanence, or a ranking of souls. A buyer and seller have options, and constraints. They have preferences and choices. Those change. In both directions. The problem with the corporate world is it tries too hard to mirror our class and caste structures. Our prejudices. Our loyalties. Our egos. To over time turn people into a big deal. Price does no such thing. Today’s price makes no promises. It is today’s price. What you do with it is up to you.

Up and Down

Free Rider

An Engine is Capital that can earn money on your behalf, so that you can focus on value that is hard to monetise. Income is the lazy man’s way of comparing the incomparable. We don’t have the capacity to understand each other’s worlds without concerted effort. We are mostly too busy on our own stuff to try. We don’t appreciate Free Riders and Lazy Eaters. The base assumption is if you aren’t earning coin, you are leeching. It is a terrible assumption. A symptom of our societal obsession with weighing and measuring each other, rather than seeing the person. Not all ideas are good business ideas. Not all business ideas are good ideas. Most of my time is spent on things that don’t make money, because I “front loaded” my earning. I didn’t spend it all, but instead got it a job. It still earns money. That enables me to do unpaid work. To explore. To get lost in the grass. To appear lost, because I don’t have a big pay-check to print on my shirt. I don’t have a boss to justify myself to. I am cool with that. The world mostly isn’t.

Free to Wonder