Ryan Caplet > Recent Status Updates

The end of the book he gives a nice overview of modern history after world war two from a financial perspective.

People often believe stories people tell over the numbers of reality. They even go to a point where they are have convinced themselves something the opposite of what might be actually going on and often people have an incomplete view of what’s going on and a lack of understanding of what’s always happening.

Other good stories of pessimism is like when the Wright brothers went to invent an airplane many people thought they couldn’t ever get anyone why but now look at us. Same goes for the computer that Stephen Hawking uses to talk. People are quick to listen to the negative voices that things are impossible.

When it comes to money people like pessimism, they don’t like optimism. Often optimism gets ignored, and people pay attention to pessimistic attitudes. A good example was what actually happened in Japan after the war, but no one said it was gonna be like that.

Next chapter is talking about how nothing is free and you can’t just steal stuff because it ends up with worse consequences in the long run. It’s best to commit to something and watch it compound overtime but there’s always a price to pay.

Recently read the chapter about you changing overtime. Sometimes who you are when you are in college it’s completely different than who you are 15 years later. You may need to adjust your financial planning multiple times, depending on your needs at each age.

The best way to navigate a world of odds is to have a margin of safety or room for error. Sometimes spending on major purchases the spending is more or decline happens. If you make room for error it allows you to endure all sorts of outcomes and once in a while you get big gains but it happens infrequently.

Also, you can’t predict things will happen, but you can have a understanding of how things might go based on calculations of risk and error chance.

Since then, I’ve been learning about surprises and starting on having an understanding of error when your plans go wrong. The big thing was surprises is you can’t predict them but you can kind of see what might cause a surprise change. When certain people people come along are certain things get invented it can change how people think about things.

Just like with money people like reasonable stuff like how it benefits, their family or their health or how they sleep at night.

When it comes to carrying stuff out Morgan Housel tell us a story about how people use fevers to destroy syphilis. They intentionally made them sick with other sicknesses to get rid of it while a very technical and rational that was not a reasonable thing though quite interesting people like the reasonable way these days.

Sometimes true wealth you don’t see. People who are truly rich usually don’t need to buy a whole bunch of stuff or they are living above their means.

There is also an aspect of having freedom to do things. While certain jobs can be exciting they come at cost of time. We also don’t work physically as hard as we used to.

There is a tail event which is an outlying rare event that happens that is very successful. He talks about Carolco who made big money on some blockbuster movies only to have a bunch of flops and go bankrupt. Those who cashed in on those lid of companies made a lot of money.

He talks about people not having enough with money and getting greedy that the end up doing foolish even illegal things. Also talks about how some people have trouble staying rich, so much that they take their own lives. Sometimes living like you will go bankrupt all the time helps you to take you money management seriously.

So far there have been topics of how people manage their money especially when their rich. Some use what they have foolishly and end up losing it all others can be very good with their money and be a janitor who ends up being a millionaire. Also some riches are because of luck and just being in the right place at the right time.

In the quest to get better and improve, it’s always good to review and make adjustments just like when Pat Riley gave each player a CBE number. It was designed to help them see something they could improve reviewing yourself is the best way to make improvements and change priorities.

The way to stay motivated is to keep working even when something isn’t as exciting. Don’t let life get in the way. Be happy with the little wins and loses along the way.

Steve Martin, the comedian was like that where he just enjoyed being up in front of a small crowd for years and years and years. Eventually, he got famous and enjoyed many years of touring all over the country, but he found something that wasn’t too hard. It wasn’t too easy, but was just right for him to do.

There’s a good place to stay motivated and that’s called the Goldilocks zone. In the Goldilocks zone you’re not bored from lack of competition and difficulty and you’re not feeling like a failure because you’re going against somebody too good for you or something that’s too much for you.

Greatness always takes hard work. Don’t just rely on your Genes. Natural abilities just make it easier or allow you to know what you like the most.

Good questions to ask are what feels like fun to me but work to others? What makes me lose track of time? Where do do I get greater returns than the average person? And what comes naturally to me?

Often the right habits might be easier if it’s something we enjoy based on our personalities. But throughout life we also have to figure out what you like and through trial and error you go through is what is called explore/exploit trade-off. When you are winning exploit when you are losing explore.

Sometimes it’s even natural things about our personalities that help us to enjoy different activities. Some are more open, more conscientious, agreeable, extroverted, and neurotic. These five characteristics might show us what we enjoy more than someone else who might have different characteristics.