Warning Alert

“The way to be safe is to never be secure.” – Ben Franklin

Before you form an appropriate expectation of my future posts infiltrating your inbox, it’s only fair to offer a couple of caveats. The caveats in this newsletter are far from limited to these two, but I think they give you, at least, a notion of what not to expect.

I) If you think these ideas that I’m providing and the framework of which to apply them will excel you from a position of uncertainty to certainty, I’m sorry.

II): If you think I’ll offer advice on whether ‘now’ is a good time to buy, I’m sorry.

AI / Supervisor Roos with a little warning before breaking ground.

ON CERTAINTY
A search for certainty is a normal tendency in human psychology. But identifying patterns where in reality there are no patterns, is not only unhelpful but straight-out dangerous. Usually, there are just too many variables for us to 1) perceive, and 2) compute. We have an utter lack of ability to not only percept, but also access all relevant information, and even if we did, we would never be able to process the information in a relevant manner.

A running theme throughout my newsletters will be about building a structure of thinking that attacks and destroys the conviction of certainty while making more room for uncertainty. And when we’ve welcomed uncertainty and the notion of ‘I don’t know’, we want to echo one of my favorites, Nassim N. Taleb, when he says: “Embrace [it].”

Investing a substantial amount of time in cultivating the ability to be comfortable and even thrive amidst uncertain circumstances is a worthy pursuit.

“The way to be safe is to never be secure.” – Ben Franklin

ON TIMING INVESTMENTS
Upon reading anything related to investing or finance, we all may be tempted to look for hints on whether ‘now’ is a good time to buy or not. Well, I’ll give it to you straight:

I have no idea whether now is the right time or not. But if I were to buy, I would be sure to have a deep understanding of what I buy. I would ascribe a value to it, and let that value be the signal for whether I buy more or sell. This value is absolutely not tied to the stock price of the company, to the general market fluctuations, or to the economy as a whole. It is not tied to some attention-thirsty pundits on CNBS or self-proclaimed Twitter experts.

If I buy, I enter the long game, the path less traveled, the competition I believe I can win.

I am extremely aware, however, that the venture of an investment of which I'm embarking, will wreak havoc in my mind and emotions. So if I buy, I'll leverage the crap out of my position - not to gear my investment with debt (a big no-no), but to leverage the wisdom of the investor titans who's traveled before us. I'll make sure that my mental framework and emotional equilibrium are as resilient as possible.

CONCLUSION
To summarize these warnings and emphasize what I am offering as a substitute, as an antidote to what I’m steering clear of: instead of a never-ending struggle to get the puzzle of certainty right, I want to turn around and learn how to get uncertainty right. I also want to shift my focus away from timing, and rather build up an armor of principles. In that way, I can defend myself against myself during the craziness that, more often than not, defines the market.