Letting Go Of Everything To Make The Best Of Your One Life - Investing, Decisions And Happiness With Taylor Pearson (#113)

Introduction to guest:

Taylor Pearson is an entrepreneur and author of The End of Jobs.

Over 36,104 founders, investors, business owners, and executives subscribe to his newsletter to get research-backed systems on how to make better decisions about investing their time and money.

Enjoy the show…And don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel!

More from Taylor:

Website: taylorpearson.me

Twitter: @taylorpearsonme

Key quotes and takeaways from the show:

“The goal of adulthood is to let go of the other possible existences and to make the best of the one. A successful adult is one who understands that it doesn’t matter which life you ultimately pick, only that you live it well.” – Chris Ballas (The Last Psychiatrist).

Technology is making it easier for us to find quality goods/services (online search), agree on terms for such goods/services (agreement) and trusting goods/services (trust); therefore, it is becoming more favourable to outsource services than it is to employ people.

Get your personal finance right first, then look at investing. Usually the best investment is in yourself.

Try to attain real diversification in your investment portfolio – stocks, bonds, cash, commodities, alternative investments, etc.

Making decisions: Easy to reverse or hard to reverse? Important or not important?

Intuition develops over time. If you’ve been doing something for ten years or more, you can trust your gut instincts much more than if you’re a novice.

Four stages of competence: Unconscious Incompetence > Conscious Incompetence > Conscious Competence > Unconscious Competence.

Optionality – The quality of being able to choose from a range of possibilities. This is good during an “exploration phase” where you can move between opportunities quickly. However, At some point you must dive deep into a decision so you get the most out of it. This is the “explore and exploit tradeoff” – if you’re exploring new things using optionality, it’s difficult to deeply focus, appreciate or exploit single opportunities. At some point, you must make a decision.

Both options can be equally as good – just choose an option. Indecision is a decision. Buridan’s Ass is an image of a philosophical paradox relating to free will. The image is of an ass that stands precisely midway between a bale of hay and a pail of water. The ass ends up dying of both hunger and thirst since it cannot make the decision of whether to eat the hay or drink the water first.

With the growth of technology (i.e. the internet), really niche, narrow, specific skills and products can be profitably sold – for example, high-end premium cat furniture.

Freedom often changes over time from “Freedom From X, Y, Z” to “Freedom To do X, Y, Z.”

Meaning in life is personal. You have to find it yourself. No one can tell you what your meaning is.

You don’t need a long term plan. Everything in the world is going to change, including you. However, that doesn’t mean that you don’t commit.