Building and Rebuilding

A big part of life is who we partner with. I have gone through difficult break-ups and a number of years of losing myself in the process of building or rebuilding a picture of the life I wanted. In 2011/2012 I used yoga and my art studio as tools to find myself again. 

One of the investment lessons I had learnt is that you should never be a forced buyer or a forced seller. When you want anything too much, and when it becomes your absolute focus, you can lose focus on everything else. If you are in a corner, and you have to make a decision, that may be the most important time for you to make the opposite decision. When you feel like that is the only thing that matters, at the cost of everything else, then it may be time to walk away. 

I had to really dig deep and come to terms with myself, and so I went to the mountains. I went to Austria, and it was just a magical time. As a South African boy, one of the things that blew my mind was REAL snowflakes. Crystals of fragile beauty. Snow with those mathematical patterns that cast spells as they stop time in their gentle floating till they softly butterfly kiss and lie with the ground. I had seen blobs before. The wet and soggy sort that grinds London to a halt like summer sweats or any other extremes. In Austria, there were magical mornings with clear skies and silent walks. The Yoga Teacher Training I did was over the year end, and a bunch of Swamis came from all over the world to join the small group I was in for the period between Christmas and New Year.

Multiple Canvases

Life is random, ambiguous, and complex. Sometimes things can be interpreted in multiple different ways. That’s okay. 

We interpret the world through our own controlled hallucinations. We take in information. We process it. We create a picture of what is happening. 

We ignore a whole bunch of stuff that we don’t think is relevant, don’t understand, or just don’t have the capacity to absorb. If something happens in an order that we recognize, then we expect the thing that normally follows. Sometimes even if that event doesn’t happen, we will still experience it because our created reality fills the gaps. When we don’t pay attention because we have “seen it all before”. 

This is helpful. The power of biodiversity is we can try different things. Respond in different ways. Fail creatively. 

The “Curse of Knowledge” is that once you understand something, it is hard to imagine not understanding it. If you can read music, you can’t look at a page of music and not imagine the sounds. 

If you can understand Hebrew, Arabic, or Russian... you will unavoidably experience looking at a page where I see squiggles differently to me. Once you understand a language, you no longer hear just a string of sound. It is no longer just noise with no emotional connection. 

Our collective ability to experience differently creates multiple canvases for understanding.

Intricate Knots

We constantly unpack as we move, rebuilding our spoken and unspoken contracts of how we agree to work with each other. Negotiating complex relationships that we grasp at an understanding of. Meeting and not meeting each other’s expectations. 

Our decisions and approaches have both intended and unintended consequences, and sometimes we explode. We need new agreements. 

There are multiple ways of looking at the two World Wars. The simple one is the defeat of Fascism. Another way is first the controlling Empires punching themselves in the face till they couldn’t sustain/justify Empires, then a couple of decades later Colonial Powers punching themselves in the face till they couldn’t sustain/justify Colonies. Ideas of Nationalism and Self-Determination, that also sowed seeds of xenophobia, protectionism and Apartheid. 

Another part of my story is a Romeo & Juliet marriage across the aisle of angry Boers fighting in one of the Anglo-Somebody wars. Descendants of people fleeing the European wars of religion, famines, or heading on civilising missions because of delusions of grandeur. 

South Africa becoming a single country on a Canadian model that was the response of British diplomatic architects reacting to the American war of independence. 

Layer upon complicated layer of people building up and unpicking the knotted mass of strings of who they are and want to be. Deciding on a path with limited information, and controlling a slice of limited resources to make that happen.

Unpacking

A cornerstone of my personal story is having grown up in South Africa during Apartheid. I was born in 1980. Nelson Mandela was released in 1989. 

One of those events where everyone remembers where they were. Like seeing the Twin Towers coming down, or hearing about the death of Princess Diana. I can remember being at close family friends, sitting on a big, puffy, pink cushion. That was where I watched on television as Nelson Mandela left Victor Verster (now Drakenstein) prison with his fist raised. 

The 80s were a tumultuous time in South Africa. A collective existential crisis. Who were “we”? In 1985, P.W. Botha delivered the “Rubicon Speech” as the world’s objection to white minority rule reached crescendo. He attempted to say there was no turning back. Nelson Mandela would not be released. He was wrong. 

We constantly have to renegotiate the way we interact with each other. Our agreements. Who we see ourselves as. What we include in our identity. What we exclude. Who we support. Who we hold down. Who we are. 

Some of these stories are inherited. We have to do the hard work of unpacking the consequences of past decisions. Unpacking shared stories. So we can raise our fists and walk forward.

Life is Complicated

Life is way more complicated than any story we choose for sense-making. Stories have narrative arcs that resonate. They set the scene, then something happens, then tension builds, then there is a climax, then there is a result, and consequences, and a conclusion. There are heroes, or moments of redemption, or great insights. Within the constraints of pages, picture frames, or flames of the campfire. 

Half the art of presenting is simplifying the point you are trying to convey into three clear things. So when someone is retelling the story later, they know what they were. They know what the presentation was about. They were surprised by something that was clearly articulated and emotionally engaging, and they could remember it because it found a hook into their world. 

In real life, the narrative is hard to see unless we construct it with hindsight. Our stories layer understanding after the action. Planning becomes a tool to reflect. It is a meditation that can help give you focus. Planning allows you to step out of reality, look at reality, and then adjust the story as reality evolves. Building the capacity for change is a fundamental part of good planning. 

Planning is not about knowing the future. It is not about a specific path. It is very dependent on your decisions and ambitions.

Long-Term Values

Mental Accounting is one of the causes of our biased decision making. We distil complexity into jars. Stories and categories we understand. Building up connections through chunky words, sentences, paragraphs and concepts we grasp and buy into. Money can be used for anything. It is “fungible”. Ideally, we would be able to see that everything is connected, and the specific jar you use does not matter. 

In reality, we need to create rules that help us get to our destination. This might mean having multiple bank accounts for different purposes. Having savings deducted automatically so that you don’t see them, forget about them, and don’t even consider firing (spending) them. Specific accounts for holidays. It might mean having individual accounts, and common pools, to separate or pool decision-making as necessary. Mental Accounting can be used in positive and negative ways. 

The Endowment Effect is how we value things we already own more. So if you are offered $5 or a mug, you might take the $5. But if you are given a mug, then offered $5 for the mug... you might refuse. The mug is yours. That is a story. Reflecting on the very human way you make decisions is important to make sure they connect and add up in a way that is consistent with your long-term values.

Distilling Ideas

Repeated Choices

Life is a series of choices based on the options we are given. Where we end up depends in part on luck, in part on where we started, and in part on how consciously we play our part. A physical demonstration of this is the Galton Board. It illustrates the idea of the normal distribution. Even though there is a lot of randomness in the world, a step or two back often reveals a pattern. A wide variation for the individual, but a lot more predictability around central points. You get distributions of results. You get extremes. Our news and stories tend to focus on the extremes, and pay less attention to long-term averages and normal people. With a Galton Board, a ball will fall down, and it will go left or right, left or right, left or right. Facing repeated decisions. The situations we are in and the choices we make carry Karma. Choices have consequences. There are sometimes opportunities to correct mistakes but you have to work through historic consequences. What we do matters. History matters. We don’t all have (or want) the same choices, but we can increase the set of tools we have to have a degree of autonomy over what lies in front of us. 

Galton Board

Big Kids

We live in a controlled hallucination. As things are repeated, patterns start making sense. We ignore almost everything, but gradually the stuff that means something to us sticks. It sticks as we add, meaning. Which makes unlearning as important, if not more important, than learning. When new information comes in that challenges embodied knowledge. The kind of stuff that requires proper, messy, patient, unpacking. Impacting your own hallucination requires constantly reevaluating your path. With breaks. Unpacking can be draining, so you need capacity to do the work. I call the “adult view” taking another look at what and how you were thinking when you were younger, and being your own mentor. Mentorship works in both directions. We have this idea that adults are higher up the chain, but we are all just big kids. By listening, questioning, and articulating their framework of thinking, the mentor will be refining and developing the story of their own path. Their own way of seeing. Being a good mentor to yourself will help you see more clearly. Listening to younger versions of yourself will help you make better decisions now. 

 

Finding Others

Find others whose paths resonate with yours. There are lots of people who are generous and willing to talk about the challenges that they have had. Listen to their stories. They are not going to be the same as yours. They are going to be giving younger versions of themselves advice. No one can know your context as well as you. But the more stories you listen to, the more capable you are going to be in various new situations. The more able to avoid mistakes other people have made. That is where the real juice is. Where we learn the most. Through mistakes. Trial and error. Success is less interesting, because success just means there weren't strong enough obstacles in the way. But we don't know why. Admitting that we don't know why is important. Our learning is path dependent. We know what we know, because of the information that has come up on our path. There is too much complexity for anyone to wrap their head around. Particularly if you do it alone. 

Single Serving

We do not have full knowledge of other people’s stories. It helps to build an environment that supports repeated interaction. Connected stories. 

The hardest part of making money is building a relationship with decision-makers with money. Finding clients. 

A decision-maker will do the hard work of deciding they trust you enough to give you money. That is emotional work. They do not need to do that initial heavy lifting again if trust is maintained. Build deep relationships. Superficial relationships will leave you constantly searching for new clients. If you are serving them once, but then maybe they never want to see you again, because you have not acted with integrity, and they regret their initial decision.

Adapt

Investment Analysts build models of businesses to help understand complexity. The point of the model is not to be correct or not. You know in advance that you cannot have an accurate map of the future.

Nature does not subscribe to the simple cause and effect story that we use to try control the world. The point of any of the models in our toolbox is simply to help us make sense of things in a human way. To add a story. To add meaning. Like other tools we have made up – countries, words, money, political parties, ideologies, agreements. They sit on top of reality to process our controlled hallucination.

Personal Financial Plans are similar. They are not fixed in stone. They are not correct or wrong. They are an ongoing conversation. The only thing you can truly plan for is things not going according to plan. A good plan starts with a picture of where you are. Then builds towards capacity to adapt, adjust, and accommodate. As you change. As you live. As you add meaning.

adapt for specific uses

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

Connecting Us

I have done lots of formal presentations. Despite that, I always put in hours of preparation. Each one is brand new, crafting a clear message. A cardinal sin of presenting is apologising to the audience that you were busy, “I did not have time”, and so “slapped a few slides together.” Like arriving late for a meeting, that is the same as saying your time is more important than theirs. Except, you can multiply that by the number of people giving you their attention. I did lots of dry runs. As many as I could with dummy audiences. Ideally people who give good feedback, and are anal in slightly different ways. Some about typos. Some about visuals. Some about facts. The key to communication is realising that how you intend to say something, and how it is heard… is not the same thing. Listening is a part of sharing information. That is why we are all wired to detect the difference between a conversational tone, and someone vomiting their world view on us. The only world view that matters is the one that connects us.

Learn about presenting with Garr Reynolds

Stories that Serve

Compound growth is both powerful and dangerous. I am a believer in both localisation and globalisation. In unlearning and learning. In strong foundations and courageous stretching. Conn Iggulden is a powerful storyteller who bases his tales on as much factual evidence as he can. Then fills in the gaps, collapses characters into each other and creates a story. I think that is how our memory and sense making works. His conqueror series focuses on the rise of Genghis Khan. An interesting part of that is how connected Genghis stays with his people. The life of the leader and the life of the people don’t have multiple layers of abstraction. Genghis still lives in a Ger (a portable round tent). Part of our strength lies in the institutions we build. The Nations, Companies, and Groups that we use. But if they become more powerful than us, we need to reconnect them to the base. Stories shouldn’t be more powerful than the people they serve.

Ger

Snake Oil

Early medieval tradition recognised three professions – divinity, medicine, and law. These Professions realised that not all good ideas are good business ideas. The “learned professions” all work in areas that are difficult to commodify (standardise) and where there is clearly unequal negotiating power. You can put a price on anything. It is just a form of communication that lets two people swap something. There is no right answer. Pricing something works best when there is standardisation and lots of people who are both buying, and selling the thing. Pricing is dangerous when the product/service is bespoke. Then what matters is the story. Our obsession with specially tailored solutions that meet our needs as unique snowflakes, opens the door for Snake Oil Salesmen. If you want a rule of thumb that can stop you getting taken advantage of, it is to only buy democratic goods. Things that lots of people can afford. The original professions had “higher callings”. They were paid enough to meet their expenses. That required financing. Capital or patrons that recognised the value, but didn’t pretend to price the priceless.

Investing in Ecomaps

I am eagerly anticipating Brandon Stanton’s book “Humans”. A large part of our collective social capital is that we aren’t alone. Our lives are path dependent, and our perspectives limited, but that helps us see better as a team. Like blocking out the light so your image is clearer on your lockdown video chat. Not seeing, is a part of seeing. Most stories of financial security start with a source of income. Before that, you have to develop the appropriate skills and knowledge. Appropriate to the target job. Appropriate to your starting circumstances. Appropriate to your finances. To do that, you have to gather information. I had two gap years between school and university. Lots of conversations. There was no LinkedIn to see a world’s worth of career paths. I benefitted from the privilege of amazing teachers, introductions, and friends of friends. An “Ecomap” is a diagram used by social workers showing someone’s social and personal relationships. Books like Humans and tools like LinkedIn democratise the lessons freely available if you pause to gather information. If you invest in your Ecomap.

Story of Self-Reliance

Self-reliance is incredibly empowering. It is a story in which I have been deep soaked. Lower your expectations and you can’t be disappointed. If something needs doing, just do it. Discover your ability to find joy with very little, and every little bit extra will be a delight. One of my privileges is that I don’t feel anybody owes me anything. This frees me up to give generously in the belief that good stuff will come back. To build my ability to stay in it for the long term. To build my ability to cope with the inevitable challenges involved in doing anything worthwhile. If this comes across as a little preachy, it is possibly because I learnt it in Church. Friday nights & twice on Sundays. My path led me away from religion, but our stories don’t change overnight. Bruce Lee said, “Absorb what is useful. Discard what is not. Add what is uniquely your own”. It is hard to understand other people. They didn’t do all their schooling in Westville (Durban, Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa). University in Cape Town. Work in Joburg & London. Gradually, spending time with people allows us to see their stories. How connected our self really is to non-overlapping stories that don’t make sense to us. I’m adding a pinch of salt to my story of self-reliance.

Pillow Fighting my Mom at the Westville Methodist Church

Through the Chaos

The reality we experience is a controlled hallucination. We interpret everything in the context of what we have experienced before, through the filter of a constructed story. We change our memories to suit us. We create containers to allow us to think contradictory things. We find people with shared hypnosis to hold our hands and hearts. The world is too complicated, ambiguous, and random for us to process. We process our slice. Buffett talks of a “Too Hard Pile”. You don’t have to have an opinion on everything, so it is worth filtering where we allocate our energy. With investing, the filter I use is Money as a Labourer. If you hold cash, your worker is doing nothing. Government sets its salary with interest rates (at the moment, that is almost nothing). A Bond is lending your worker to someone else. Equity (Stocks and Shares) gets your money a job. It can get quite a few jobs. I like the number 20. Small enough for me to understand the job I get my money. Big enough to admit I don’t understand all the things that can go right or wrong in any of those jobs. Controlled enough to focus on creativity and learning as the underlying driver of sustainable growth. Through the chaos, keep breathing, keep moving, keep creating.

"Chaos" George Frederic Watts

If You Care

I did Marketing courses at University, but I didn’t learn Marketing there. My approach comes mainly from following Seth Godin. I was once told by a client (who actually liked me) that I am “the worst salesperson they know”. This is because I don’t play the game. In a world that is complex, ambiguous, and random, the product is normally confidence. Clients are confused and are looking for someone to provide clarity in the form of Point A (here, problem) and Point B (there, solution). I believe in relationship building (which takes time), trust (which takes competence, vulnerability, and time), and expectation management (which takes honesty, and time). Three key pillars of Seth Godin’s approach are Storytelling, Permission Marketing, and Tribe Building. You need to understand the story of the listener for your story to resonate. The stories need to merge. You need to see each other. You need to get to a stage where if you weren’t there, you would be missed. Your voice and help isn’t interrupting, it is desired. Good marketing isn’t a transaction with the pressure on one party to deliver. It is a relationship. The word may seem dirty, but if you care about something, you are a marketer.

Seth's Blog

Just a Device

Garr Reynold of Presentation Zen talks about paying attention to the stories you see in everyday life in order to improve the quality of your own storytelling. You can learn about presentation-giving from jazz, road signs, a good movie or anything that captures your attention in a powerful way and conveys a message that moves you. Everything is a device for learning. The Karate Kid washed car windows to learn to defend himself. My favourite tool at the moment for learning about learning is the Rubik’s cube. Learn the form. Learn the transition. Then leave the form, and flow. The same is true of learning about business or money making. It all boils down to problem solving. Not everything is a problem, but we can’t focus on those things until we are released from the obsessive control of our time and space by problem solving. In “The Art of Learning”, Josh Waitzkin talks of “Numbers to leave numbers, Form to leave form”. That is how I see Capital. Money is like form & numbers as a counting device. Something that can either control us, or if we can master it, can be released.