What is optionality? If you want a thorough answer, check out the big juicy book I spent the last couple of years writing.
In the meantime, I’ve written a post that links together everything I’ve written in one place, and gives a taste of what the book is about for new readers.
Here’s my definition of optionality, adapted from the introduction of the book, followed by 10 principles for navigating an uncertain world…
Our meatsack bodies slavishly plod along at the precise rate of one second per second. But our minds are unbounded by the constraints of time or space, free to wander the past at will, and poke into the distant corners of the future.
The ability to create vast, hyper-detailed simulations of the past and future is the closest thing we have to a superpower, because it lets us do the following…
It’s always jarring and mildly insulting to hear that extremely famous and successful people are unhappy with their position in life. You ingrate! How dare you be miserable! Stop appropriating my culture!
The reason I feel betrayed by superstars like Tim Ferriss who talk openly about struggling with feelings of inadequacy is not so much actual class resentment, but the assault upon my own convictions that once I achieve [$NEXTBIGTHING] I will be content with my own position in life…
There’s a stomach-sinking moment of realization that comes in every reader’s life: you’ll run out of years long before you run out of books. Like the monstrous hydra, every title struck off your reading list spawns three more to take its place. The unread piles glowering at you from the bedside table only grow larger. So many secrets, so little […]
Every month, the blogging mafia convene: if you know what’s good for you, the first post of the year better have something to do with goals and resolutions, and at least one mention of the phrase ‘new year, new me’. I’m sorry! They’ll break my kneecaps if I don’t do what they say! My compromise is to write a post […]
After I published my ‘coming out’ essay on the benefits of the frugal life, I got a message from an old school mate who’d been quietly following a similar path. While I was chuffed with hitting six figures by age 25, he totally blew me out of the water. Having successfully tapped into the property boom in our home city of Auckland, he’d managed to become a millionaire at the tender age of 24! Here’s how he did it…
Imagine your dad giving you a stern talking-to about the facts of life, except your dad is Canadian, has an IQ of ~150, and is voiced by Kermit the Frog. That’s Jordan Peterson, the University of Toronto psychology professor whose lectures I’ve been binge-watching recently. When I heard he used a research-backed ‘self authoring’ program with his students to great success, I had to give it a try. Here’s the verdict…
The definition of net worth is simple: It’s everything you own, minus everything you owe. This number strips away the preening, the posturing, and the peacocking, laying bare your real money situation. There’s nowhere to hide. Growing your net worth over time – by reducing debt and building up assets – is the only meaningful definition of financial success. Here’s how to do it.