Some Interesting Notes on the Last Couple of Weeks

At this time, the USA is a complete mess. Hard to argue against that with the media calling the election for Biden, Trump stating that he won and hundreds of thousands of COVID-19 cases coming in by the week. Meanwhile, large parts of Asia are completely open and have minimal cases (50) or even zero per day. Europe is already back to lock down and no one knows when the vaccine is going to eventually work. Notice, we’re not taking any side on any of these things and attempt to remain neutral. 

People Will Spin What You Say Related to Politics: Somehow, people that follow our twitter are upset that we are calling the election for Biden while we simultaneously say election fraud is possible. Why? It depends on what the *reader* believes. We’ve already stated we bet in 2017 at 3:1 odds ($100 gets you $300) back in 2017 on Trump. No matter how this election shakes out we will be happy with the outcome and for some reason it befuddles everyone. Again… Why? Because it depends on what the *reader* believes.

If the reader is Pro-Biden he’ll say Trump has nothing and if the reader is Pro-Trump he’ll say it is “for sure” election fraud. Neither is correct at this time since nothing has gone through the entire electoral college process. This is simply a fact. Nothing is “official” and that comment seems to upset both sides. 

How does this help you? Well we don’t have any interest in politics. You don’t need to have any interest either. All you need to take from these events is that people will make strong assumptions about you if you even suggest things can move in the other direction. This means the nation is quite divided. Hence, our opening statement that the USA appears to be a mess. 

Beyond that statement (which should sound reasonable to both sides), it means you should never ever talk about politics with someone who is strongly in favor of any candidate. Why? Well we just described it above. If you come off as neutral, you’ll end up getting attacked from both sides. They will both “assume the worst” about you (IE. You’re against them) and this will severely impact your relationship with them. Instead? You should use the following cheat phrase “I wish i knew what was going on but unfortunately i cannot legally vote so i block all political debates from my search queries and social media accounts”. So far this seems to be the only way to obtain a neutral view of any major election. Also. If you can figure out their political stance in the very first sentence, you know that they are strong left or strong right. When in doubt, use the quote we provided to neutralize all political conversations and turn it to something you can both agree on. 

People are Inconsistent: On both sides of the fence you can find many examples of conflicting beliefs. Just glancing through Twitter we see people on the left say that there was no voter fraud while simultaneously saying we should not do an audit/recount or something similar (a fun and hilarious example is the CEO of Twitter who is pro-Bitcoin but blocks and flags links/tweets relate to election fraud). On the right you find people who believe Trump has it for sure (with his tweets suggesting he won) while simultaneously saying he won’t win officially on January 20, 2021 (instead he’s setting up for 2024! So which one is it? Did he win or is he preparing? Can’t be both). These are pretty interesting statements. Essentially both parties are actually saying they don’t know how it will shake out but refuse to admit it! Interesting indeed. 

We’re not going to make any prediction since we already made our wager back in 2017, pre-covid at 3:1. instead we’re going to go with the same old neutral stance. Since *both* parties believe they won, when you decide the winner you *need* to prove that this was done correctly. If that means delaying the official announcement, that is fine. If that means you have to recount, audit etc. That is also fine. Hard to see any disagreement with that logic. The last thing you want? 49% of the country believing the election was stolen. 

Tulips and Crypto: While the election craziness has continued, Bitcoin has made a pretty big comeback now somewhere in the mid $16,000 range. Who knows where it will be trading by the time you read this post since it has been moving quite a bit. That said, there are only ~11 days where you could have lost money investing in Bitcoin. Remember this when anyone on twitter, real life or in the virtual office say it’s “dead/down”. They were the only ones buying at the absolute peak (for now!)

The crazy part? The negative people still haven’t changed any of their arguments! Crypto has been around for over 12 years and people attempt to compare it to Tulips. This is beyond pathetic. There is no way that analogy holds any weight and it shows they did not do any research over the past four years. If you gave someone four years to look at something and they came back to you with the same conclusion, they are simply slow. Tulips never came back. You know what came back that was a bubble? Technology in 2001. Perhaps technology stocks also go through a bubble phase as well. But. We can all agree it will be a foolish bet to “short innovation” over the long-term. 

If anything, the crypto currency community is exhibiting a lot more parallels to the dot-com evolution. Similar to the dot-com bubble, new ways of using the internet sent prices up *after* the bubble popped. Currently we have decentralized finance, new on ramps, new non-fungible tokens, new betting networks and more. Feel free to bet against it. That said, you don’t even need a large position to hedge against being entirely incorrect in a big way. The decision should be clear!

People Want You to Validate Their Suspicions: When it comes to anything big, love, religion, politics etc. People already believe what they believe and expect you to validate their suspicions. Even extremely logical people have odd superstitions. When it comes to those big emotional topics, remember that everything you say is going to be “interpreted” in a different way. If you say something factual “elections can be rigged” you’ll be labeled as a Trump supporter. If you say “I bet on Biden after COVID-19 hit” you will be labeled as a Biden supporter even if you really just thought it would swing the election his way. This happens time and time again in our day to day lives. 

This is why it is more important to know “what someone thinks about you” vs. “what you know you are”. The second part is less relevant which is why self-awareness is important. If you can figure out what someone “thinks about you” then you know how all of your words will be interpreted even if there was no interpretation. No one is 100% certain. Meaning, even if you’re extremely self aware and are good at predicting how someone perceives you… you won’t always be right. That said, you should continue to look at it from that view point. It isn’t about what you say (words) it is about how you make them feel and how they perceive you. This is probably 90% of the communication and the other 10% is what you actually said word for word. 

Before moving on, the last item to remember is that it is difficult (extremely difficult) to pivot a perception. In general, it is 10x harder to increase your perception in a positive way for every 10% decline in your perception. Said another way, if you had 100 hours to spend with someone, you could at maximum increase your perception by 10% while you could potentially go to zero (they end up hating you). While we cannot prove this mathematical formula we hope the big picture comes through. It is easier to lose positive perception than gain positive perception. IE. Credibility is gained over long periods and lost rapidly in many cases. 

The Bigger You Get The Higher the Standards: One of the last items we’d like to note about the human experience is the step-function up in standards. If you are successful, every single year, you will have to remember that your standards are being raised. If someone is less successful than you, they expect you to act in a perfect manner. If you go higher and higher, your wiggle room only declines. This is why you end up giving away some of your money by default. Anyone who has helped you move up needs to be pulled up the ladder in some way.

This is best described with an example. If a person suddenly gets $10M and comes from a poor family, would you respect him if his parents were living in section 8 housing? Probably not. Unless they did something wrong to him (kicked him out and disowned) it would be a bad look. Rightfully so. Remember this as you make friends and move up the socio-economic ladder. If there are people who really helped you along the way, you should set aside a “reserve fund” to bring up these individuals. 

This relates quite a bit to the USA today. If you look around, take a look at which people are attempting to keep their communities/groups afloat. If they are simply “running for the hills” this says quite a bit about who they are. Yes there are exceptions. We are not saying that recent college grads should stay in cramped apartments shelling out $5K a month. Instead, we’re saying that it is wise to take note of the individuals who *care* about their communities. This is the way you can filter for the right type of people. The ones who are trying to support the community are the ones you want to be associated with. Not only are they well off, but they are clearly willing to send the elevator back down. 

Back to You: What should you do at this point. Well, if you learned nothing from this, it is that you should take copious notes on your *perception*. Perception is reality to the entire population. If someone thinks you’re a smart guy, it doesn’t matter if you have no experience related to something, they will likely listen. Seriously. People take health advice from overweight guys simply because they have degrees (no real life experience). Similarly, if someone thinks you’re an idiot they will happily bet against anything you have to say. In that scenario, you know who to go to for your wagers =)

We don’t live in a world where results matter for 99% of society. We live in a world where perception matters. Industries have been created where *prestige* must be present… which means they don’t require any real skill. If an industry required real skill, it wouldn’t matter if your degree said “Harvard” or “University of Nebraska”… The only thing that would matter is your performance/product. 

When it comes to getting ahead, focus on how you’re perceived by the “right” people. This opens the door and you get so show your performance. Without the perception the door remains closed. 

Newer Readers: For those that are unfamiliar with our blog we have three high quality products in order: 1) Efficiency, 2) Triangle Investing and 3) Spending for Maximum Return. In order, you learn how to make a good amount of money (a million liquid within 10 years or so), how to correctly invest it and finally how we’d avoid blowing it all with intelligent spending and PED use to improve quality of life. We hold Q&As 1x a month for purchasers only.