The Impostors Way

Easy money leads to unsustainable growth. It disincentivises profitability and incentivises the emergence of monopolies (or monopoly-like entities). Monetary policy (printing money and lowering interest rates) have acted like industrial grade fertiliser in the field of business. A intended manipulation which has short term benefits but just as the depletion of the soil in farming, it might very well have detrimental effects on the sustainability of the business ecosystem.

Speculating keeps you humble, it reduces the amount of BS in the world. Speculation is making an educated guess. It is an opinionated take of how the future will look. A clear invalidation of this educated guess exists, meaning that one can know when the opinion was wrong. Speculation therefore needs to be differentiated from idealistic hopes for the future. In this essay I want to make the case for why adopting more of a speculative mindset reduces dissonance in oneself and contributes to a better understanding of the world. Further I want to put forward that focusing less on idealistic visions does not decrease the importance of morality in ones life or action.

This episode is about what boxing taught me about avoidance strategies.  When going through life we often get away with being ambiguous. We can  avoid being wrong by not investing ourselves into any view of what the  future will bring. But every now and then, and inevitably so, life  forces us to take a stance. Then we need to be nimble yet firm in our  opinions. These two modes of operation (running from a fight vs. not  getting hit) require completely different skill sets.

As individuals we do not want to experience dementia, erosion nor inflation if we have a choice. We want to be able to learn from the past, we want to keep tools and materials if we can and also keep money we’ve earned for future endeavours. As individuals we want to maintain state. All kinds of state we have, and we’ve covered three types here (information, physical resources and wealth). In this episode I want to unpack the mental model that helped understand this better. For me it is incredibly helpful to apply to different parts of life. Because the model is helpful for me I want to share it. I hope it serves you just as well. Written version: https://theimpostorsway.com/2022/04/03/24-cog-in-a-system/ [https://theimpostorsway.com/2022/04/03/24-cog-in-a-system/]

As is usual in December I am getting into a reflective mood as the year ends. For this "mood" to be for any value to you I’ll focus on a few key concepts I’ve learned and otherwise let smarter people talk. Quotes from four impactful books I’ve read this year shall be my guide through this episode. Transcripts and links to the book can be found at: https://theimpostorsway.com/23