Life seems to me to be a series of trades.
Right now, you are trading exhales for inhales and your attention to consume this information.
The purpose of this is to outline a simple framework with which to look at everything. At any particular point in time, a person can and does facilitate trades. Successful people make better trades than those that are not successful.
Components of a trade to consider:
1. Did you try to enter the trade? Did you get in? Are you still in the trade?
2. How repeatable is this trade? Can you copy-pasta it? If so, how quickly can you do it or can you find a system of other organisms to complete it?
3. For any given trade, how much is in it for you?
4. Is it scalable? That is to say, can you increase your end by 10x? How?
Ok, let’s look at some examples:
1. Jobs. Jobs are a subscription trade. You get paid a fixed rate on your time and in turn return effort. You likely see no equity upside to this trade. Subscriptions are designed to be highly repeatable, low margins, and take advantage of human insecurities on the buyer’s end. In this case the buyer is the employee. Not scalable. Not much in it for you in the long run.
2. Investing. Not very repeatable. Hugely scalable. If you’re good, this is single handedly the highest ROI on your time. If you don’t have capital, you should consider borrowing/using other people’s money if you are confident in your bets. It’s a shame not to borrow when you are highly confident and can put that money to productive use. Do Not Let Overconfidence Plague You Here. YOU WILL LOSE EVERYTHING. I have done this myself. It sucks.
3. Owning a business. This one is pretty straight forward. If you own a business and you can own the proceeds of the labors of your employees and can guide them to making the best use of their time, then you get the surplus value of their time that other people pay for that you have negotiated away from your employees. This is highly repeatable. This is difficult to start. If you’re good, there’s a fortune in it. Difficult to scale compared to investing. Easy to scale compared to jobs.
4. Bringing in leftover ribs to work. It will save you money from having to go to the food court. It makes the assumption that you are and have to go to work (see point 1). Ribs are probably better than other lunch alternatives. You have to carry them, and people of significant power aren’t usually seen carrying their food around — they usually have minions to do that for them… Eating out — because they can… etc.
5. Calling your mom because you love her. It takes time. You probably won’t learn anything, but it’s good to do. Strong family relationships are built on the summation of all the little things that at the time are actually pretty dumb but in aggregate are very meaningful… at least to you.
6. Taking time out of your day to write something important. It’s probably the best use of your time as long you don’t get in caught or in trouble. Other people probably would prefer you to do something more remedial and meaningless, but screw them… today is your day. Really, it’s all you’ve got. The past is unchangable. The future, unknowable, all we can really do is tinker around in the present to make the future better than the past.
7. Drinking beer for lunch. It’s probably going to make for a looser afternoon. You probably won’t be able to focus for a few hours. You are trading your ability to think for a little warm feelings of passing content and optimism. May or may not be in your best interest depending on who you are with and what you should be doing. Note that what you should be doing is probably not what you’re supposed to be doing right now, in fact reading this is probably better for you… Go on with your procrastination.
8. That’s all I have to say about that right now.
Binary things to think about:
1. Did you identify something you want more than something you have?
2. Did you offer something you have for something you want?
3. Did you offer enough?
4. Did you get it?
5. Are you happy now?
6. Do you think you did the right thing?
The long run answer to #6 (In case you’re not sure) is reflected in:
1. Your bank account, your relationships, your predisposition, your happiness, etc.
Trade up… or don’t trade at all. Doing otherwise merely is not going to get you to where you want to be…