Authoring Part Deux

To author effectively you need tools. A couple tools I think are useful. One is AoF’s spreadsheet course over on Udemy. This course will teach you how to make an effective financial analysis tool using XL or another spreadsheet. I highly recommend. A spreadsheet allows actually granularity to be applied to the future and your projected need as opposed to the MMM 4th grade math approach. Granularity is how you move the ball rightward on the Galton Board. Granularity implies the application of a Bayesian understanding to reality.

The second tool is Jordan Peterson’s self authoring tool It’s not a financial tool per se but a means to create and add and record granularity to your narrative, and make a record of the thought process. Memory is a vital component of creating the future. If you can’t remember what you were thinking or doing accurately you can’t adjust the probabilities. Sometimes it becomes evident the scheme needs whole sale revision and future directed journaling is quite useful. It is a means to grow your tree of life and it can not be done wrong. Here is a 2 second example

“my time is my own so this course is to find how to spend my time. I want enough to live without the need to work or worry about finance. I want enough to be able to provide for catastrophic situations. I want enough to see my kids get a BA or BS degree the prestige of the school is not relevant, getting educated is relevant”

By writing down short statements needs and wants get specifically elucidated and a plan can be developed around each and later modified because you will be able to actually remember what you were thinking. The Peterson tool is specifically designed to create future narratives which can have a high probability of success since they are directed and not just sitting down with Notepad and creating pages of gobbledygook. If you want to pound in a stake you need a hammer. To pound in a BIG stake, BIG hammer

The journal provides the narrative and nthe spreadsheet provides the quantitative means to understand funding the narrative. Big Hammer

6 Replies to “Authoring Part Deux”

  1. Thanks for featuring me! I was not aware of the self authoring tool, I shall check it out. Self-reflection always pays dividends but it can be so hard to start since it doesn’t seem on the face of it to have much ROI. It’s often only in hindsight that the ROI becomes clear.

    1. U da man AoF. The self authoring has direction built in and you can’t do it wrong. It’s the old “every journey strarts with the first step” I would like to pair at some point with Peterson and create an actual investment oriented narrative tool but first gotta get my pipes done.

  2. Will look forward to what you do after the plumber. Had not heard of the Peterson narrative tool before, sounds very applicable.

    A quick return to health,

    CD

    1. I read a post by Mad Money Monster about why she quit her obsession with FIRE. She quit because it didn’t fit. She didn’t hate her job UNTIL she got caught up in FIRE. FIRE sowed the seed of discontent. What she hated was ultra frugality, all the soap that gets sold as wisdom by some mustached plumber guru with his crack showing, and the whole narrative. What she liked was some form of financial discipline and predictability in her financial life. She wrote her own narrative. Her life is not about the lookin good of “retiring” at 30 with a million bucks to live a meager fixed income existence. Nothing like early bird specials as your source of fine dining! That’s the power of self authoring your life. I think a lot of FIRE types might do well to explore creating their own narrative sans the bogglehead dogma.

  3. Doc, I’ve been intrigued with your writings. I have a background in politics and computer systems. I don’t understand how you can leave out the politics of the day in understanding the gyrations of the market. Your logic has been fascinating but I think it falls down on the Wuhan lab. If they have been working on this then they probably have some type of vaccine in the works. Stay safe and thank you for sharing some very profound thoughts as well as your expertise that you’ve spent a lifetime accumulating.

    1. Hey George

      There’s plenty of politics involved just not made for TV politics. Corona virus is old virus. Every kindergarten known to man has corona virus. Virus tends to go from very virulent and each succeeding generation the virulence tends toward to be lower. I’ve never seen such a virus as this though I’m not a virus expert, however something like this would be taught in every medical school in the world, and well known in every biology dept in every college. I know about SARS Dengue polio influenza HIV MERS Pox CMV Corona as a common cold and 50 other virus. Why not this? So if Corona virus is so common, how come this one is so uncommon? How is it this virus originated in a city with the only level 4 lab in China? How is it the virus was traced to a wet market 200 yards from the level 4 lab? Chinese shop every day not once a week. I’ve been to China a couple times, it’s very normal to pick up a fish or something on the way home. How is it the head Corona researcher at the level 4 lab seems to no longer be alive and seems to have died 2 months before the virus was announced in Dec 2019? Her job was posted on a job site about 5-6 weeks before the end of 2019. How is it the WHO refused to name a pandemic until March 11 even though all of its criteria for pandemic were met? Back them when they were being pressured to name a pandemic they balked. How is it China basically ended the virus on Feb 12? China a country of 1.3 billion had about 80K cases on the 12th and has 83K today over 2 months later despite lock down in several other provinces than Hubei, yet 3000 cases is the growth. There is no individual data for Providences only the country statistic which is clearly phony. The bats with this “virus” come from several hundred miles south. Do you really think some bat farmer loaded up his truck to bring some bats several hundred miles north to a Wuhan market? How is it the bean deal signed in mid Dec had in it a clause excusing China from it’s obligations in case of natural disaster LIKE PANDEMIC? Why does China claim the virus was introduced by the US military or Italy? Did you know China claims the 3K extra cases were from the virus being imported from abroad? Why have you never heard of this stuff? Political?

      The bottom line of this is China got caught screwing around creating deadly virus and the peeps at the level 4 lab got sloppy, and now we suffer. The thing about virus is it’s not alive per se’. It has no energy like a bacteria and no ability to reproduce. It’s merely a bit of RNA and requires a host to multiply. It’s spread by the host and so it’s the behavior of the host that determines the outcomes.

      As far as my market perspectives, I’m very much a quant and not particularly driven by narrative. I used to watch TV but I don’t anymore because it’s all 100% propaganda. Did CNBC get you out at the top? CNBC is paid to sell stocks and gold (and my pillow) PERIOD, not paid to have you sell stocks and pocket the profit. Narrative is used to sell you shit, it is not what drives the market. QQQ is up 6% year over year but the country is shut down and 22M are unemployed and tomorrow more will be unemployed. One of these things is not like the other. Which one is based on reality and which on narrative? Any day now a rainbow will appear in the mean time how are you going to navigate the famine? The QQQ would indicate you will buy a new iPhone with that $1200. Call me a contrarian but homey don’t buy that.

Leave a Reply to mdonfire Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.