A friend recommended this book and I've started practicing this "gratefulness flow." Would recommend.
Throughout the day, especially when I feel negativity clouding me or inner criticism lashing out at me, I try to stop and say: "Ten things I'm grateful for. Go!"
I start with something basic. "I'm grateful I'm healthy."
Or my vision. It used to be bad. Like -6.5 bad. After my divorce I splurged on laser surgery because why not. It's a minor miracle that I can see things clearly. All. The. time. Remembering that instantly changes my mood.
My next thought is often about my family. One by one, I'm grateful for their health. What a different day it would be if someone was ill.
"A healthy man has many wishes, a sick man only one."
It may sound silly but it works (for me). First, it changes my attention, gives me a break.
Second, it puts things in perspective. Whatever I was anxious or angry about usually pales in comparison with what I can be grateful for (what could make things so much worse).
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In 1987, six college friends made $30 million with their new trading firm.
Today they're billionaires, having proven themselves on the trading floor, in poker rooms, on race tracks, even in startups.
"In the choice of fame and fortune, they chose fortune."
The story starts with Jeffrey Yass. He was born in 1958 and grew up in Queens. His father was an accountant and ran a small fintech company called Datatab.
When he received warrants he explained the instrument to his son and they studied the financial pages together.
Yass made first trade in high school (through his Dad), buying options on Alcoa!
"I'd see options in the newspaper and I would realize that mathematically they couldn't be right, that you could buy one and sell the other and the odds would be in your favor."
"Our quest is finding durable, brisk compounders. We find them in inefficient volatility. The separation between price volatility and business volatility is ridiculously important. We can exploit volatility [if business value is stable.] If both fluctuate it's very difficult."
"We had some extraordinary right-tail investors in very large markets. How is that even possible? Most of the time, these are very efficient markets. But there are always occasions, and you don't need many a year, where they go inefficient for a moment."
Ray Dalio in 2000, on the history of predicting the future:
"most people who experienced consistent reinforcement for 10 years were inclined to believe that this would continue indefinitely"
"At the end of the 60’s I remember most believed that managing an economy is like managing most things, we get better at it with time; it is why we could expect even lower volatility in the future.
This view was held just prior to the one of the most volatile decades ever."
"I feel my understanding of the world economy is reasonably intimate going back to the 1920’s, meaning that I believe that I have both an intellectual and visceral sense of what they were like."
"I have learned that dramatic change is the norm and to doubt the new era theories."
For the history nerds: the American Archive of Public Broadcasting has old episodes of Louis Rukeyser's Wall Street Week.
As I understand, watching the video is only possible with a US IP address. americanarchive.org/special_collec…
Jeff Bezos on decision making:
If a decision is consequential and (nearly) irreversible: analyze carefully, wait to get more information.
If the decision can be reversed or is inconsequential: decide quickly and don't let it kill your momentum. s2.q4cdn.com/299287126/file…
I tell myself as I agonize for weeks about a new logo or changing my avatar
"The biggest risk to irreversible decisions is deciding before you need to. The biggest risk to reversible ones is waiting until the last minute.
Make reversible decisions as soon as possible and irreversible decisions as late as possible." @ShaneAParrish fs.blog/2018/04/revers…