Thought Canvas

Ubuntu: Why There is No Such Thing As Self-Made

Ubuntu is an African philosophy made famous by leaders such as Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The word literally means humanity, and is often translated into “I am because we are”, or “humanity towards others”. There’s also a popular maxim in Ubuntu: “A person is a person through other people”.

The philosophy teaches the interconnectedness of humanity, and that it is for your benefit to help others. It’s a philosophy that fosters community, compassion and kindness.

In the Western world, we are keen to describe ourselves as self-made, or use the term to describe someone positively. But in reality there is no such thing. In the modern world, we can easily lose a sense of the fact that we are being helped all the time. If we go to the store, we are using money that somebody gave us, to buy food someone grew, made and packaged, using a car that somebody manufactured and taught us to drive, on roads somebody else built, stopping at traffic lights that somebody invented.

The growth of the population and the globalization of the culture makes it much more difficult to remember these things that we can be grateful for, based on other people’s actions. As Warren Buffett said, “Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.”

Ubuntu simply describes that we can’t speak without learning it from others, walk without learning it from others, or even think without learning to think from another human being. We learn how to be a human being through other human beings. Archbishop Desmond Tutu said in The Book of Joy: “After all, none of us came into the world on our own. We needed two people to bring us into the world.”

And that’s why there’s no such thing as self-made. I am because we are. Ubuntu.

The Psychology of Money: Morgan Housel’s Finance Tips

Morgan Housel recently wrote The Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness. No matter how we think about it, managing our own money and trying to build wealth is a game of emotions. Here’s a summary of the main points:

Go out of your way to find humility when things are going right, and forgiveness/compassion when they go wrong. The journey of building wealth is based on risk and luck. Remind yourself that the journey of investing is filled with ups and downs and to be ready for that emotionally.

Less ego, more wealth. Building wealth is simply spending less than you earn. Richness is buying cars, houses and boats. Wealth is what you don’t see – it’s money saved/invested instead of spent. The hardest financial skill is to get the goalposts to stop moving – life isn’t any fun without any sense of “enough”.

Manage your money in a way that helps you sleep at night. If you’re finding that you can’t sleep at night because you’re risking too much investing, you need to rethink your strategy. You may know it’s the “right” strategy, but if you can’t manage it emotionally, you may need to accept a lower risk and lower return by holding a higher percentage of your net worth in cash, or choosing lower risk strategies.

If you want to do better as an investor, the single most powerful thing you can do is increase your time horizon. Time is the most powerful force for growing your wealth. Be patient, and be in it for the long game like Ronald Read and Warren Buffett. In other words, just shut up and wait!

Become okay with a lot of things going wrong. You can be wrong half the time and still make a fortune. Having money in the market means you have to accept that on some days you may lose money, even as much as 30% or more of what you have invested. But if you can use the barbell strategy and invest in some assets with huge upside potential, you can still afford to be wrong most of the time while building wealth.

Use money to gain control over your time. Money means freedom. Being able to do what you want, when you want, with who you want is one thing that having money can bring.

Be nicer and less flashy. You may think people will like and respect you more based on your possessions, but in reality being more compassionate and kind works better. Make sure that when you’re buying possessions it’s for the right reasons – spending money to show people how much money you have is the fastest way to have less money.

Save. Just save. You don’t need a specific reason to save. Saving for something like a car or a down-payment for a house is good, but save as a default strategy too. Who knows what expenses can crop up as a surprise, wouldn’t it make more sense to be financially ready when they crop up?

Define the cost of success and be ready to pay it. The cost of success in investing is the uncertainty, the doubt, and the fear of losing some of your money. But if you want to play the game you need to see those things as a fee for participating. If you’re not willing to pay it, you may be better off just holding everything in cash and settling for a 0% return.

Worship room for error. You never want to be in a position where you could lose all your money, or losses in the market affecting the lifestyle that you live. If you lose a little you can still recover. If you lose it all, you have no money left, and you’ve been ejected from the game with no bankroll to buy back in. Avoid ruin at all costs.

Avoid the extreme ends of financial decisions. The more extreme your financial decisions, the more likely you may regret them if your goals and desires change at a later date. Good investing is less about making good decisions than it is about consistently not screwing up. You can afford not to be the best investor in the world, but you can’t afford to be a bad one.

You should like risk because it pays off over time. But you should be afraid of too much risk that would ruin your chances of winning the overall game.

Define the game you’re playing. Remember that everyone has their own unique financial goals based on the lifestyle and life goals they have. You don’t even necessarily have to compare yourself to overall market returns either. Just choose a strategy that you’d be happy with, without looking at other people and what they’re doing.

Respect the mess. There’s no single right answer in building wealth. Just find out what works for you.

Want to read more on investing? Read about Benjamin Graham’s value investing philosophy.

Ronald Read: The World’s Most Unexpected Millionaire

On June 2nd 2014, a 92-year-old man died in Vermont. His name was Ronald Read, and he was a retired janitor and gas station attendant. His favorite hobbies included wood-chopping and stamp-collecting. He grew up having to hitchhike to school, and served in the US military during World War II. He liked drinking coffee, and English muffins with peanut butter.

Soon after he died, Read’s name was all over the news headlines. In his will, he left $2 million to his two stepchildren and gave $6 million to his local hospital and library. Where on Earth did a retired janitor and gas station attendant get all that money from? He had lived frugally, and purchased blue-chip stocks throughout his working life. And then he waited, reinvested his dividends and watched his portfolio grow. By the time he died, the value of his holdings amounted to more than $8 million. Read went from janitor, to gas station attendant, to the greatest philanthropist his town had ever produced.

This story just demonstrates that wealth-building comes more from saving and investing than on income. Forming the habit of paying yourself first, and funding investment and savings before paying for expenses is probably one of the most valuable skills I have learned in the last few years. Many people postpone saving and investing for when their income rises to a particular level, but in reality when earnings increase it’s much easier just to spend the equivalent increase in money instead of growing wealth.

It also shows that pretty much anyone in the Western world can achieve this level of wealth, insofar as they live long enough and stay disciplined enough. The capability of the compound effect in investing is so powerful, but only when enough time is given to the compounding process. $82.6 billion of 90-year-old Warren Buffett’s $85.6 billion net worth came after his 65th birthday. And that’s not because he got way better at investing after 65, it’s just the absurdity of the compound effect.

Imposter Syndrome: How Can You Use Doubt Positively?

We’ve all been taught that doubt is bad. Doubt is weakness. Doubt means you don’t believe in yourself or your ideas. Doubt is less persuasive, doubt is insecurity.

But what about arrogance and overconfidence? A mixture of ignorance and conviction in people can be dangerous – in the past, it led to the 2008 global financial crisis and the Brexit referendum.

In his book Think Again, Adam Grant defines imposter syndrome as competence exceeding confidence. On the other side, armchair quarterback syndrome is where confidence exceeds competence. The sweet spot is somewhere in between.

However, Grant argues that it’s better to err on the side of imposter syndrome. The humility of knowing that we can be wrong and fallible would probably have prevented the disasters mentioned above. With a healthy sense of doubt, Wall Street officials maybe would have stopped contributing to a broken system of bad debt leading to the collapse of the housing market in 2008. Prime Minister David Cameron was so confident of a Remain vote in the Brexit referendum that he felt forced to resign when the public voted in the opposite direction.

A potential benefit in imposter syndrome is that it drives us to work harder and to get better. If we don’t feel like we deserve the role or adulation we have been given, we may be motivated to prove ourselves even more. More importantly, imposters seem to learn better, seek out insight from others, and have the humility to know that they don’t know everything.

In some ways, it makes more sense that confidence should come as a result of competence increasing. Personally, my confidence got shattered quite quickly when I started in sales because I thought I was going to be much better than I actually was. Because my confidence was so high to begin with, it was pretty destructive, but luckily I still had the self-belief that maybe I could improve and finally see some results.

Grant advises us to be both confident and humble. Have faith in your strengths but also be aware of your weaknesses. Be confident in yourself but also have the humility to question whether you have the right tools in the present. Learning can be never-ending if you choose it to be.

Think Again: Real Wisdom Is Knowing When to Change Your Mind

Most of us probably go through our lives amazed at how wrong other people’s beliefs are. We’ll even sometimes try to change their mind and prove that we’re right and they are wrong. Most of the time though, we’ll meet stubborn resistance and others will defend their viewpoints ardently, even denying a multitude of points based on logic. In the end, we’ll probably give up, or agree to disagree as the friendship hangs on a thread.

Adam Grant, the Wharton psychologist who wrote Think Again asks us: Why are we so laser-focused on changing other people’s minds when ours is set in stone? How can we expect others to be convinced of our arguments when we show no willingness to consider theirs? How sure are we really that we’re ‘right’?

What usually happens when we form a belief or opinion is that we have pride and conviction in it. We then allow it to become part of our identity – the belief becomes rigid, to the point that we distort our reality to only see what we want and expect to see so that it confirms the belief. Especially in today’s algorithm culture, it’s easy to get stuck in filter bubbles and echo chambers where the only stimuli that surround us are the ones that reinforce existing beliefs.

Grant shows that we form three different archetypes while arguing our own beliefs and opinions: the preacher, the prosecutor, and the politician. The preacher requires no proof for their idea and delivers sermons on his ideals; the prosecutor relies on flaws in the other individual’s reasoning and tries to prove them wrong and win their case; the politician campaigns for the approval of the audience and attacks the character of his opponents.

Grant invites us to think more like scientists – people who are willing to find out where they may be wrong, in the search of truth. They allow peers to attack their ideas to see if they can uncover blind spots in their thinking and their experiments. They have the humility to doubt their beliefs and they are careful not to become too attached to their beliefs. They have the mindset of curiosity and discovery – they’re happy to find out that they’re wrong because now it means that they’re less wrong than before.

Try to know what you don’t know. Dare to disagree with your own arguments. Too often we favor feeling right over actually being right. Our calcified ideologies are tearing us apart, and we banish other people purely for their beliefs without understanding how they got them in the first place, and in the scary possibility that: We might actually be the one who is wrong.

A Simple Method to Improve Relationships and Provide Value

It’s much easier said than done, but:

Treat every person you meet as if they are the most important person on Earth.

In today’s society, it feels like narcissism and inflated egos are on the rise. How do we stop that within ourselves? Follow the rule above.

There’s nothing in the world that people need more than self-esteem, the feeling that they’re important, that they’re needed, and that they’re respected. Once you’re able to give them this feeling, they will give back with love, support and loyalty.

Act toward others in the way you’d like them to act towards you.

Treat every person you meet as if they are the most important person on Earth.

The Eczema Solution: The Story of How I Conquered Eczema

I’ve spent 99% of my life with eczema. And probably about 99% of my body has at some point had eczema. When I was 15, the eczema on my hands got infected and I had to take a 10-day course of antibiotics and take five days off school. I remember a period where I had to wear a scarf when I went out just to cover the eczema I had on my neck. I’ve had plenty of flare-ups over the years and when I’m in the middle of one, it’s hard not to get self-conscious and lose a little bit of enthusiasm to go out to meet people.

When I was 21, I had the mother of all flare-ups while I was working abroad. My body was covered in deep wounds, and spread to parts of the body that had previously never had any issues. I had to go to the doctors, and got given the strongest steroid ointment available.

I had to take a few days off work, and I was experiencing a lot of physical and emotional pain. While most people with childhood eczema grew out of it, I was still there aged 21 with the worst it had ever been. I was feeling sorry for myself, and was almost completely resigned to a lifelong struggle with eczema. In anger, I searched on Google “How to cure eczema”, knowing that there wasn’t one.

But results came up. I found out that there was a book called The Eczema Solution by Sue Armstrong-Brown, an English sufferer of eczema that had developed “a revolutionary 6-week program to overcome eczema that will show results in 3 weeks!” I can’t remember what the price was, but at that point I would have probably paid hundreds or thousands of dollars if the book’s claims were really true. So I bought it and it was delivered within a few days.

In The Eczema Solution each chapter represents a visit to the doctor, and one chapter should be read per week. The opening introduction explains that 20-30% of the general population is atopic, meaning that they’re genetically prone to eczema, asthma, and hay fever. And although atopy cannot be cured, not every person who is atopic suffers with eczema. Only 2-10% of adults have eczema. In other words, there’s hope and it’s in your control!

Armstrong-Brown highlights that it’s not possible to have chronic eczema without scratching, since the skin can heal itself and become healthy again. But if scratched, it can get stuck in a vicious cycle of eczema where the eczema leads to dry skin and to itching and scratching. It’s also highlighted that itch is not the same as scratch. Itch is a feeling, and scratch is an action. And what happens a lot of the time in eczema is that the scratching can occur even without itching – that is, the behavior becomes unconscious and automatic, and does more to damage the skin.

So the tasks of the first appointment were to write a personal history of the eczema, to review where the eczema was and to what severity, and finally to become conscious of the scratching. The book tells you to buy a tally counter, and log how many times you scratch during the day, and notice when and in what situations you’re most likely to scratch.

On the first couple of days, I logged well over 100 instances of times when I scratched. I was astounded. There was no wonder that my eczema had gotten so severe because there was no time for my skin to heal at all. Even though the book didn’t advise any change in behavior, just simply knowing that I was scratching so much and being conscious of it, the number of daily scratched started decreasing as the week went on.

The next chapter of The Eczema Solution was an education on emollients (moisturizers) and steroid creams. I learned that emollients are best applied as frequently as possible, and instead of rubbing them, the approach should be to try not to wake up your skin. Using a variety of different emollients is a useful strategy too. Creams are easier to use for large areas of dry skin, while thicker ointments can be used for the driest areas. I also learned that the inflammation that comes from eczema occurs beneath the level of the skin too, which means that steroid application should continue for two weeks longer after the skin looks completely healed. I continued to log the number of scratches on a spreadsheet and started two new checkboxes to make sure I was applying the steroid cream each morning and night.

The third week of appointment addressed habit reversal a little more. It teaches that we need to create a new learned response to itch. Whenever the feeling of itchiness comes, instead of scratching immediately, leave your hands by your side and clench your fists for thirty seconds. If the itchiness is still there after thirty seconds, feel free to pinch the area of itchiness, without scratching. This should relieve the itch without damaging the skin. Armstrong-Brown also suggests to keep your hands busy as much as possible – you can only scratch if your hands are free.

This is the amazing thing – by the end of the third week of the six-week program, my skin had gone from the worst it had ever been to completely healed. I had gone from over 100 scratches per day, to single figures and by the end there were a few days of zero scratching. To put this into context – I had never been fully free from eczema for as long as I can remember. Hallelujah!

In the eight or so years since then, I’ve never had a flare-up as bad. I feel much more equipped to deal with any flare-ups that come my way, because I understand the disease much more than I did before I read those three chapters. I still haven’t read the remaining chapters.

The issue with psychosomatic disorders like eczema is the doctors that eczema sufferers usually visit spend about five minutes with the patient and then prescribe a steroid cream and emollient. At best they’ll receive a generic statement about how dry skin means itchy skin, and how often to apply their treatment. But there’s no insight into unconscious scratching or any other type of plan to stop the scratching that causes so much of the misery of eczema. This is why I recommend The Eczema Solution to any person who has eczema, especially severe eczema.

One topic that The Eczema Solution neglects is the influence of food on itchiness and inflammation of the skin. As I write this, I still have some eczema on my skin, and I still have to display the discipline not to scratch throughout each day. But some days I experience itchiness more than others, or I can feel that the layer below my skin is inflamed. It’s important then to think about any foods or environmental stressors that may have contributed to that particular bout of itchiness.

What makes The Eczema Solution so brilliant is that it provides the insight and knowledge about eczema that can empower the individual to be able to do something about it. Because so much of the disease is a behavioral, incorporating the methods outlined in the book is such an effective strategy. I now feel mentally and emotionally ready for any future challenges because of the understanding I now have about the disease.

Happiness the 80/20 Way

Richard Koch writes in his book The 80/20 Principle some daily and medium-term stratagems for happiness. Unlike money which can be saved and spent later, happiness is experienced in the Now and the more happiness we experience day-to-day sets up us for happiness going forward.

Koch’s Daily Happiness Habits

Exercise
Mental stimulation
Spiritual/artistic stimulation or meditation
Doing something for another person or people
Taking a pleasure break with a friend
Giving yourself a treat
Congratulating yourself on a day’s worthwhile living

Koch’s Medium-term Stratagems for Happiness

Maximize control in your life. This could come in the form of self-employment for example, and usually requires planning and some risk-taking. Those that lack autonomy in life usually end up stressed or bored.
Set attainable goals. Goals that are too easy lead to complacency, and those that are unrealistic lead to demoralization. Attainable goals give us something to stretch to and keep us stimulated. Err on the soft side when setting goals. Remember that hitting goals is good for happiness!
Be flexible. Chance events tend to interfere with expectations, and it’s our job to do the best we can do given the situation. Goals and strategy may change and the more ready we are to take the challenge on, the happier we will be.
Have a close relationship with your partner. Koch reminds us that the happiness of your partner will have a huge bearing on your mood too, and vice versa. In that case, choosing your partner is one of the most important decisions to be made in life – teaming up with an unhappy partner is likely to lead to you being unhappy too. This also highlights your own happiness you bring to the relationship, since it’s just as bad to be bringing your partner’s happiness down too.
Have a few happy friends. Most of your happiness will usually derive from a small number of friends. Make sure you are spending the most time with the friends that give you energy and happiness.
Have a few close professional alliances. You shouldn’t be friends with all your work colleagues, but it makes sense to be close friends with a few of them. Not only could this help with your career, it also increases the pleasure you take from the time you spend at work.
Evolve your ideal lifestyle. An ideal lifestyle is unique to each of us. Consider where you’d need to live and who with, what kind of work you’d be doing, and how much time is allocated to family, socializing and hobbies. An ideal life would be one where we are equally happy at work and outside of work.

Is It Better to Be a Big Fish in a Small Pond?

Malcolm Gladwell writes in David and Goliath of bright students who apply to university. These students typically apply to a range of universities, some more prestigious than others. If we were to imagine that a bright student applied for five universities and got offers from them all, which should she choose?

Our default strategy would be to accept the offer from the university highest in the rankings, and decline the offers from the lower, less prestigious institutions.

The issue with this, Gladwell says, is that most students that get accepted into prestigious universities go from being top of their class for their whole lives to being average or below average amongst their peers in this new environment. And this can be difficult to deal with.

The drop-out rate in the bottom third of high-tier universities such as Harvard are the same as the drop-out rates in the bottom third of lower-tier universities. But the students that would be in the bottom third at Harvard would be at the top third of almost any other university!

The truth is, there’s so many smart people in places like Harvard, it’s hard to feel smart there. Instead of being dragged up by the standard of the others, being in the bottom third of a top institution can demoralize the student and lower self-belief.

So should the student choose a lower-tier university? It depends. The student has to accept that if he chooses the top-tier school he should be prepared to potentially be near the bottom of his class. If he’s not willing to accept that, the lower-tier school may be better for him, where he can shine as one of the best students in his cohort.

In my personal experience as a bright student, I applied for Oxford University and was interviewed there. Even in the couple of days I was there, I could feel how smart everyone was, as well as how extremely posh they were too! In a way I was relieved to receive a rejection letter and ended up going to the University of Manchester – a less prestigious but still reputable university.

At Manchester I didn’t have to adapt so much – I went from probably the best in my college class to second-best in my university class. Being in the upper percentile of my class meant that I was able to be picked for an international work placement, which would have been unlikely in a place like Oxford University. In the end, I still had thoughts of dropping out as one of the best students, so I’m quite grateful I didn’t get selected for Oxford University – I would have probably been too flattered to decline.

The Five Love Languages: Which Do You Speak?

The Five Love Languages is a book by Gary Chapman outlining how the key to love that lasts is through identifying your partner’s primary love language and loving them in the way that they respond to.

Chapman writes that when we are in the initial “in love” phase for the first two years or so, we are experiencing a temporary emotional high, and when we come down from that we have to be ready to truly love. One of the main reasons our “emotional love-tank” will be so high in this initial phase is probably because we are using all five of the love languages frequently.

But it turns out that what makes us feel loved differs from person to person. Chapman identifies the five love languages as:

Words of Affirmation

These are verbal compliments and words of appreciation. This can come in the form of writing notes, messages or verbally on the phone and in-person. Tone of voice and eye-contact are also important – it not only matters what you say but how you say it.

Quality Time

This is expressed as going on dates together, quality conversation between the two of you, and times where there are no distractions and you can simply be together.

Receiving Gifts

Receiving a gift translates to the feeling that your partner was thinking of you.

Acts of Service

This is when you do a task such as cooking, taking the bins out, taking the car for an oil change for your partner. Acts of service can be easily identified by requests that your partner makes of you – those are the things you can therefore do to make your partner feel loved. Even if they’re things you don’t really enjoy doing, knowing that it’ll make your partner feel loved should give ample motivation.

Physical Touch

This not only includes sex, but also more subtle touches like a hand on the shoulder, an embrace or hand-holding.

So how do you know which one is your primary love language?

If you are in a relationship, you can ask yourself what it is that your partner fails to do that hurts you the most. You can also think of the way you express your love to your partner – this could be the way you want your partner to love you.

Although it is easy to think it would make sense to choose a partner with the same primary love language, it doesn’t necessarily indicate maximal compatibility. For example, a person who loves receiving gifts may not be very good at giving them. In another case, one person’s version of quality time could be dining out at a fancy restaurant, while for the other it could be going camping and fishing. Chapman describes that there are different dialects of the same love language that exist.

What’s most important is knowing each other’s primary (and secondary) love language, and loving your partner in the way they feel loved. By filling each other’s emotional love-tank, we feel significant, and energized to meet life’s other challenges.

For Tony Robbins’ tips on relationships, click here and here