Direction and Hedging

All advice sums to zero.

De Mello talks about letting go of the formulas. Don't board the bus, sit with the shades down, and miss the scenery that is life. Once you adopt someone else's formula, you start seeing a little less of life, your awareness diminishes.

So.........

I probably need to stop absorbing so much content. Yes, that is indeed what I will do over the next week. I am going on a long car trip tomorrow, and I had intended on listening to a few mind expanding podcasts, but I need a break. I need to sit with some ideas, write about them, digest them, then see what my authentic self makes of it all.

What prompted the thoughts around this post was Naval's wealth advice regarding avoiding rank battles (where possible, he acknowledged that some are unavoidable) -> go for wealth creation. This advice resonated with me. I'm not a type A personality. I have a creative side in me, a force that needs nurture in the form of time and energy. So I don't want to be working 80 hours a week striving to the top of some existing bureaucratic hierarchy. That is people, in fact that is a lot of engineers/STEM people, but that is not me.

I watched a Jordan Peterson YouTube lecture recently (damn the YouTube algorithms that bring something up continuously the more you click) called 'What predicts academic ability?". Spoiler alert - intelligence and conscientiousness. Apparently it has been found that creativity is zero, or sometimes negatively correlated with academic success.

Peterson then goes on to talk about entrepreneurship, and how it is hard man, it is damn hard (cue Canadian frog accent). To come up with a new product, get it working (which involves cajoling and influencing others with special skills), get all the other business stuff happening (marketing, finance, operations), then hitting the world shop takes a lot. Of course you then need lady luck so smile - it not only has to be the right product, it needs to be the right time as well. And there better not be a similar product, devised by one of the other 7 billion people on the planet, which is also hitting the market at the same time. If there is you'd better hope it isn't superior because this is a winner takes all game, and second place isn't worth squat. *

JP contrasts the trials of an entrepreneur with that of your bog standard employee - one who operates as a cog in an apparently stable machine. He asserts that it is an easier life, as long as you've got the necessary tools (iq, conscientiousness, eq). You can follow the rules and processes, probably work your way to some respectable place on a dominance hierarchy somewhere, and then get through. 

Entrepreneur life - hard because odds of success are incredibly low. Why would anyone choose this option? The payoff, if it all does work out, can be astronomical. Ultimately creative people need to be creative, they get upset and can't function without doing something new. 

Cog life - bit easier as odds of success are higher, but the ceiling is much lower. Ultimately as cog businesses age they are filled with cog people (and a few psychopaths too). The entrepreneur who kicked it off is usually long gone - so that type of creative talent is now missing. Too many cog people can't react/deal with change and find unique and creative solutions, so the whole business can become fragile and crash. Taleb would probably argue that this happens more than we think, that ol fat tail. #coglife #fattailcoglife

So in summary:

Naval - You'll waste you life as a cog playing stupid rank games and never get wealthy.

JP - Yeah but cog life is safer, Naval you probably just want more entrepreneurs because they will collectively make life better (and for you) but more individuals will suffer.

Naval - You're old man JP, you don't understand the low hanging fruitin tech. So much happens so fast these days. Opportunities abound.

JP - True, but it still is a tough life. Especially if your personality isn't suited to it.

Westy - So this is a 70% chance of having a 70% life, or a 5% chance of having a 99% life. Which route? 

What did Scott Adams do? He hedged. 

I sense I've got a similar disposition to the SA. I am logical and can function as a cog in the machine. But I need to be creative as well. Especially I think the older I get.

So my current answer is a) maximise energy b) do the cog thing without getting swept up with the type As and rank battles c) create in spare energy/spare time. After all - f#$k optimising, enjoy the journey. The direction is to hedge.

Westy.

*An alternative entrepreneur route is the 1000 true fans. Doesn't have the same ceiling, but possibly more achievable.