I just knocked another year off the calendar. This got me thinking, thinking about the decisions I have made, the ones I got right, the ones I got wrong and the ones I have not taken. I believe that life is a multivariate optimisation game that you play every single day. The decisions you make have significant impact on how you spend your life. The purpose of this reflection is to highlight the principles that I have found true and to give advice to myself for the next years. I am a believer that there are unlimited opportunities. You can just do things. The biggest risk is not taking any.
Life as a multivariate optimisation game:
The older I get, the clearer it gets that I have scarcity of time and energy. Life is about figuring out how that allocate that energy to solve the multivariate optimisation game of life. There are a range of variables/levers one can allocate energy to: Health, Wealth, Learning, Exploration, Relationships, Pleasure, Impact, Status, Creation, Fame, Legacy. These variables can be positively or negatively correlated. There is also a key decision conflict in optimising for the short term versus the long term. Ask yourself, do I make this decision to optimise the quarter, the game, the season, history?
Choose the rules:
Understanding the relative importance of these variables is crucial. Think about this deeply and honestly. What is important to you, what kind of person do you want to be. I rank the variables on least to most important and also on long term to short term importance. Success often comes from trading short term pain for long term gain. These are the rules I am going to play by. These are the filters that decisions should be judged against. You can make the decision to be optimistic, to be positive, to be happy, to enjoy the little things. These are active choices. You define the rules.
Choose your game:
After choosing your priorities and rules its time to choose your game. Assuming you are going to spend a significant amount of your working ours working, especially in your younger years, picking the right game is key. It will determine your lifestyle, the availability of time and energy and influence your variables in meaningful ways. When you are young it makes sense to play a lot of games to gather more data. The game I have chosen to play so far in life is investing. It meets a lot of the principles that align with the priorities I had when I made the decision ten years ago. The lens I made the decision through was the ability to participate in the upside, constantly learn, improve. Seek out infinite games.
Choose your playing field:
After choosing your game it’s time to choose your playing field. Both physically and thematically. The place you stay matters. It determines the people around you, the climate, your tax situation, the healthcare, the education of your children, your safety and the standards you set in your life. For me, being in a big, fast paced city was the right choice when I made it. If you are an investor there are many playing fields one could choose. From public to private, across asset classes, across styles. The pond you fish in matters, and I arguably made a suboptimal decision in choosing my pond in the past. Be aware that you might be playing the right game but on the wrong pitch. Think about this deeply and honestly. Remember that your life is long. You can always switch.
Choose your bets:
Poker has taught me so much about life as it is a game of imperfect information, you have to make decisions under pressure, luck matters in the short term, managing your emotions is key. It also does not help you to live in the past, hold onto mistakes. Learn and move on. I like to frame decisions as bets. A bet is a calculated, informed, sized decision that you make based on probabilities derived from imperfect information. You are constantly making bets in your life. It could be the company you join, the investments you make, the books you read, skills you learn, the side project you work on, the friendships you keep, the hobbies you pursue. Fundamentally I believe that optimal bets to take have asymmetric risk reward and I believe in a bias towards action. This is also something where I also have been too passive, too timid in my life so far.
Key Principles:
Here are the key principles for the next decades of my life:
Seek infinite games.
Be clear what variables I am optimising for.
Be aware of long-term consequences.
Align my game with what I am optimising for.
I can always change my playing field. Don’t be afraid.
Make attractive, asymmetric bets.
Be bold.
It’s a game. Have fun.
Note:
This is purely my personal opinion. You are playing your own game. All love.