Wound Up

Numbers are blunt tools for communication. The message they convey is more important to us than the countable thing they are supposed to represent. How a number is heard, interpreted, and felt, can wind us up. How they relate to ranking criteria or how we are judged. 

Key performance indicators to measure us. Seeing what you have done. Seeing what you haven’t done. How the environment has changed. Have you put sufficient effort in? 

Has effort resulted in output? How clever are you? Should you be given more responsibility? Should you be given coaching/mentoring/the boot? All the various ways we use to decide if someone is good enough. 

It is always interesting to see how this is connected to the broader questions, and the broader community. Many problems are solved in complex groups. Wealth creation is a team sport. Attributing who did what, and ranking those contributions, can be an impossible task. One that pretends that contribution = value = reward. 

If you look at the long-term growth of countries' “gross domestic product”, it exploded with the industrial revolution. Newtonesque jumping on the shoulders of giants. 

We tend to look at meritocracy as the marginal contribution of the individual (“if they hadn’t been there”) rather than the hard Tim Minchin truth that “If I didn't have you, someone else would do”. 

Accepting that we are inherently replaceable *in the world of money*. People will miss you, but someone else will do the job. Don’t get wound up the numbers. They don’t represent you.

Other People's Rules

Accepting the rules of money... in areas you make money, is a way to create space to completely ignore them in other areas where you want to create different rules. 

Accepting SOME control of money over you, allows you to not let money have COMPLETE control over you. 

To do that, you have to both desire and be in a position to develop a sense of ownership. Ownership of a buffer and an engine to handle the noise. You need a container for those tools, and you need ownership of that container. 

If you are solving problems, and making yourself redundant, there needs to be real commitment from those you are solving the problem for... beyond hand-to-mouth payment. Real commitment. 

Otherwise, the best strategy is just to extract as much as you can, while you can, or make yourself irreplaceable. Solving their problems, but in a way that forces them to keep coming back. 

Otherwise, they can simply say, “I paid you for a job. End of story.” In that case, you have to be realistic enough to realize you are just working FOR them. 

You need a separate container that represents your compounding ownership. You need long-term ownership of a vehicle you control to reinvest what you are paid, to lay foundations for future growth. 

That is the cornerstone of a sustainable engine. An engine that can empower you. That can let you make decisions beyond other people’s rules.

Long-Distance Growth

Someone's Pitch

Money making boils down to solving problems. If you genuinely want to create compounding momentum, you must repeatedly make yourself redundant. To confidently do that, you need a sense of ownership. To feel part of a solving container. Otherwise, once you have a solution, why ask you again? There are 7.8 Billion people on the planet. As Warren Buffett says, “You don’t have to swing at every pitch.” You do not want to be someone’s pitch.

The other more cynical path is to make yourself irreplaceable. Create problems only you can (pretend to) solve.

I do not like that path. I like the path of genuine and honest problem solving. That requires trust, ownership, and inclusion in the containers we build. A strong enough commitment in a relationship to share the truth. One of the reasons we do not talk about what we earn, our real weaknesses, and what we do not know, is it can solidify internal waves of anxiety about inadequacy.

Which means there is a level of darkness about what opportunities are available. Which clogs up realistic paths of skill and knowledge development, and leaves solvable problems scabbing our eyes closed.

You are not the problem. The problem is the problem. Treating people like pitches, turns them into problems.

In Motion

Building Capacity

A business is a legal person. It is a container which has legal rights and is subject to obligations. A share is a slice of ownership of this container. In deciding whether to buy or sell a share, you don’t just look at the product. You don’t just look at what the business does and “is”. Beyond the product they are selling and its profitability, you have to look at the solvency and liquidity of the container. At its strength and flexibility. Solvency is a measure of endurance. Unlike people with reasonably stable salaries, a business can have much more volatile profits. Years it makes no money or loses money. It needs to survive. It needs Capital in excess of the money it has borrowed, to get through difficult periods. It needs self-reliance. Self-sufficiency. To make adjustments. Research & Development. New leaders. New management. New hires. New products. Mergers and Acquisitions. Restructuring. Liquidity is a measure of short-term resilience. Even if you have Capital, you need cash to meet clear and present dangers. To make sure immediate needs don’t drown long-term purpose. When investing in yourself, don’t just focus on what you do. Build endurance and resilience to have the capacity to keep doing, whatever comes in your way.

1914 Volume Measurements

Building Redundancy

The foundations matter more than the fireworks. A key to Capitalism is the idea that you can make yourself redundant if you are an owner. Ownership is absolutely fundamental and not negotiable. Exponential Growth means what you see now isn’t comparable to the end number if you have skin in the game. Especially if the culture is one of “we hire smart people and leave them alone”. If there is no facetime monitoring, then it doesn’t matter how much of your own sweat went into getting a job done. It matters if the job is done. Plenty of managers gradually find people they trust, and do less of the work themselves. If they are buddies with the people cutting the pie up, and were there when the foundations were being built, they can put their running shoes on and head off to the park while the machine keeps moving. Get a corner office. Work on “strategic thinking”. Make sure the effort you are putting in is foundation building. If you are living hand-to-mouth, it is likely you are building someone else’s redundancy.

Redundant Power Supply

Strength Matches Gravity

“Always On” is fragile. The most important factors in meaning and wealth creation, are time and compounding. Building incrementally on what was created before, over the very long term. That requires seasonality, redundancy, and excess capacity. Running hot focuses on creativity at the expense of endurance and resilience. Creativity gets the credit, but endurance and resilience have to be the priority. Sustainable Growth beats headline makers because of the reduced risk of ruin. Sustainable Growth means building the capacity to pause. To reflect. To unlearn. To relearn. You see it in those beautiful moments with dancers. Where their strength matches gravity, and they pause. Seeming to defy the laws of physics. That is true control. Real autonomy. Where complete acceptance of the way things are allows you to see deep enough for time and space to slow down. To go still. Then to emerge from the stillness renewed.

Poncianinho - Mojuba Capoeira London