No Lack of Headphones or Problems
Your Saturday roundup
Professionally, I focus on creating social benefit startups. In my Saturday morning emails I share what I’m learning and thinking. Topics range from better living and parenting to business and philosophy.
No Headphones. I tried a week of no artificial audio input: No podcasts, no audio books, no radio and no music (unless the kids played the music). The goal was to listen to my own mind and observe what happened. I felt bored and itched for my phone. On the plus side, I was more creative. Yet I couldn’t last a week. I broke down after 4 days when I was driving alone for almost 2 hours. And now I’m back to happily listening to podcasts and audiobooks at 2.5x speed. Do you take breaks from input?
Not Investment Advice. A friend recently asked for advice on managing personal investments. Some of the things we discussed were finding a peer group and considering diversifying not just across assets but also institutions, people and styles. We also talked about how action as founder is key. As an investor, inaction can be a better choice (assuming you own something). Reasons include: a bad investment is worse than missing a good one, fees add up, transaction costs are the worst and the secondary markets are zero-sum. Yet that just scratches the surface. I wanted to share my go-to books for personal finance:
Starting Your Journey: I Will Teach You to be Rich and Smart Women Finish Rich.
On the Path: Family Inc, Unconventional Success and The Little Book of Behavioral Investing.
Managing Wealth: Family Wealth and Wealth.
No Lack of Problems. A recent post of mine on LinkedIn that may shed light on my repeated mention of Beginning of Infinity. It applies to founders and non-founders of course! What does quantum computing pioneer David Deutsch have to teach us about entrepreneurship? Relying on both physics and philosophy, he convincingly argues both that:
Problems are inevitable, and
Problems are solvable
As founders, solving problems is our job. More problems = more opportunities.
Knowing that problems can be solved (if not prohibited by the laws of physics) should push us to look for solutions. Is it guaranteed that we can find the solution? No. But don’t give up too soon.
Let’s not worry that:
We’ll run out of companies to start (as problems are inevitable)
There isn’t a solution to this problem (unless it is prohibited by laws of physics)
We’re experiencing a lot of problems in our startup (as problems are inevitable)
Until next week,
Miles