Wizards of Wealth

How many people have you helped recently?

At Wizardz of wealth, we are always fascinated by the many paradoxes we encounter as we stumble through life. If you have followed us for awhile, you will remember that embracing “paradox” is one of the major themes discussed by Michael Gelb in his classic work on daVinci .

Let me ask you a question:

What’s more important, helping your self or helping someone else?

It seems to me that many wealthy people have discovered how to resolve this conundrum. The rest of us still get in our own way.

The other evening I watched a TV show that was star-studded and loaded with winners. Collabaratively, they were all helping thousands of others.  Bud Selig was speechless, and Steven Kimmel was not.

Again I ask the question, what comes first, the chicken or the egg?

The theme of “When we help someone else, we are helping ourselves” makes perfect sense, and is preached by many.

Staying in the game long enough is the key, and Robert Shemin talks about the need to help ourselves FIRST. The paradox of course, is that we are all taught that it is selfish to think of ourselves first.

We have tried to ilustrate this concept simply through our principle, the flat tire syndrome. The more we become, the more we have, and the better able we are to help others.

Making that choice is up to us.

Here  are a few bright men who have figured out a whole lot of people, and they are extremely wealthy.

I got a new computer the other day, and a few parts were in disarray. I used their invention to resolve my issues within minutes. I bet they have helped you in some way also recently.

How many people are you intending to help?

For those of you who love real estate let me give you a hint.

There are a lot of people hurting right now.

The next crop of millionaires are being grown, and they are figuring out how to help a lot of people like this.

Will you be one of them?

Outlier events lie beyond our comprehension. They are so far out there on the wings of the bell-shaped curve that we believe they cannot happen.

So we tempt fate and take larger risks than we should in our investments, in our behavior, in our personal lives.

The Black Swan discusses this phenomenon, and is a wonderful reminder of the need for conservative approaches to minimize the results of the potential occurence of seemingly improbable events that will do untold damage to our portfolio.

Sixty-seven million to one odds is a pretty safe bet.

I love those odds when placing a trade in the financial markets.

If your investment philosphy,however, is “no one trade idea or investment will ever make me or break me” then you can never take a “bet the ranch” posture on any one trade.

That is the one sure way to avoid getting blindsided when the improbable occurs.

Michael Gelb, author of How to think Like Leonardo daVinci suggests seven principles, that when applied to our daily living, allow us to act like a Genius.

Think of it as becoming the modern Renaissance Man or Woman.

One of the more intriguing principles we have to resolve is the concept of Sfumato (literally “Going up in smoke”).  It is a wilingness to embrace ambiguity, paradox, and uncertainty.

For those of us who would be wealthy, there’s the rub. How do we move out of our comfort zone and take the necessary risks to get what we want out of life?

Several other authors come to mind when we explore this thinking, and are worth reading in my opinion: Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan, Sway, and Take the risk. While many books on trading and Investing deal with technical or fundamental analysis, not many explore the psychological aspects.

Two other outstanding authors come to mind if you are interested in the neuro psychology of trading: Dr Janice Dorn and Brett Steenbarger .

These books make a great addition to Trading in the Zone, which you probably already have if you are following the first of the seven daVincian Principles: Curiosita.

Whatever the scale, large or small, many businesses are run by people, and that introduces the human element. 

If Societe General had applied more diligence in overseeing their traders,  Jerome Kerviel would not have been allowed to accrue a $7 Billion loss. But why did he do it?

Whether in our own small business, or in our personal trading and investment business, we need to establish systems that prevent us from sabotaging our own best interests.

Logic is usally over-ruled by our primitive brain stem and our emotional responses. If you can find a copy of Sway, you will undoubtedly see yourself as I have seen myself.

In the words of Pogo: I have seen the enemy and he is us.

It’s time to change all that.

If we accept that Supercrunching is examining huge sets of data to discover rational, perhaps “hidden” determinations, does that mean that we are forever bound to succumb to “paralysis by analysis?”

The paradox of course implies that we understand the yin and yang of life and expect to find a reasonable solution. Does a counterpart to the work ethic exist?

Blink is one such book that suggests an alternative called “thin-slicing”; an “instinctual” approach to problem solving. The end is already hidden in the smallest of details. The apple is already in the seed, and the seed is already in the apple.

Seeing the parts as meaningful fractals of the whole, however, does not always allow us to make a conclusive leap in our thinking.

What appears to be simple can ultimately be quite deceptive, as the Mandelbrot Set has taught us. An investigation of Chaos theory leads us deeper into wanderings reminding us that these “simple processes can result in infinite complexity”.

It is likely and prudent that resourceful individuals will decide to use both “intuition” and due diligence before deciding to invest their hard-earned capitol.

It would also seem logical that no one will ever be in a position to consistently gain from the insights of intuition without first becomng intimate with whatever is their intended field of study.

Evidently there are no shortcuts or no free lunch, with whatever theory you subscribe to.