MWB #27 - Wealth & Entropy, Substance & Form and Doing The Opposite

...3 things for you

Hello there,

I have three ideas I couldn’t wait to share with you today. And I won’t wait any futher but dive straight in.

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Understanding Entropy Can Usher You To Wealth

Let me quickly tell you something interesting.

The natural order of the world is entropy. That is, things move from orderliness to disorderliness and from good to bad in that order.

If you do nothing, and just sleep and wake up every day, you will end up in poverty. So to optimize for wealth is to optimize for a negative entropy. An optimization against nature.

That's why wealth is hard to come by. Not all humans are ready to work against the natural order. If you attempt it, nature will attempt to crush you, discourage you and even vilify you. It's also why the road to wealth is laden with many failures.

However, if you persist, remain resilient and don't give up, with time, nature will bend and give you WHAT you want, ANYHOW you want it. What nature won't do is to give you wealth WHEN you want it. It needs to know that you are deserving before it hands it over to you.

Charlie Munger rightly pointed out on this one when he said:

“To get what you want, you have to deserve what you want. The world is not yet a crazy enough place to reward a whole bunch of
undeserving people.”

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You Must Have Both Substance & Form.

From my elementary Accounting class, I was taught the importance of prioritizing substance over form. In trying to apply the principle to live, one might be tempted to think form doesn’t matter at all. But I am here to tell you that it matters just as much. See my thought in the following lines:

Substance over form.

However, have form. You need it.

Substance and form will take you much farther than either alone will ever take you.

Substance without form is blind.

Form without substance is barren.

For example, your substance is the skill you possess and form is how you tell the story that birthed your skills.

If you possess substance with no form to communicate it, you will be blind. Meaning you cannot move forward. If you possess form without substance, you will be barren because your form alone cannot birth anything significant.

A mixture of both alone is acceptable. However, the substance should always be present even there is no form.

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Doing The Opposite of What’s Mainstream Is An Advantage

"In an age of speed, I began to think, nothing could be more invigorating than going slow. In an age of distraction, nothing can feel more luxurious than paying attention. And in an age of constant movement, nothing is more urgent than sitting still."

-- Pico Lyer

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That’s it for this week.

I hope to see you next week.