Never Rule Anything Out
Never Rule Anything Out
Except really bad stuff
Living by a code is a hard thing to do. I wouldn’t say I live by a code, but I do have tentpoles and guideposts that help me stay on a path that feels aligned with my morals and values. They also form boundaries for how I interact with the public space; i.e. communicating with all of you.
In finance, from a spending and capital allocation perspective I’m fiscally conservative. With investments, at 35, I’m fairly risk tolerant versus risk averse. It’s a nice blend of aggressiveness with thoughtfulness which probably lands me somewhere in the middle of the overall risk curve. This is also why I’ve been so reticent to start really promoting things like cryptocurrency and blind investment in the NFT (non-fungible token) space.
My background in education, work experience and personal studies has largely hovered around traditional finance. Your typical public markets and traditional alternative investment stuff. Before crypto and block chain, the sexiest category would probably have be venture capital - that’s no longer the case though. If you have a pulse, you’ve watch the speed at which fin-tech (financial tech) has been doing end runs around the traditional banking and investment space. My thinking has finally changed.
Two things really helped catalyze this migration in thinking:
Scott Galloway’s The Prof G Show episode titled “Crypto, NFTs, and Blockchain ft. Raoul Pal” - The important of this episode is really the guest, but to be fair, I’m very much aligned with Galloway so it was also nice to see him trying to solve similar equations as me.
Brian Trunzo - He’s a long-time friend and former menswear buddy of mine. He used to be an attorney and then owned a menswear brand. We’ve been talking here and there about the space since he went all in years ago. He’s incredibly plugged and I had a chance to download some of his thoughts which helped me round the bases. Click his name to check out his newsletter.
This isn’t a write up about how important it is to consider Bitcoin or Ether for your portfolio. I’m not the expert, yet. However, this is about a more central theme - keeping an open mind.
There are very few topics for which I have made up my mind past the point of no return. That is an active choice, not a passive one.
In today’s society, it’s really easy to espouse your virtue - “I keep an open mind.” That’s not really how it looks out there yet I know tons of people that at least act as though they’re fine pivoting both sides of the social and political divides. If there was only a good rational argument that could persuade them - I won’t hold my breath. Deciding to have an open mind is a critically active choice. It isn’t just something you say and then when you hear a challenge or critique you instantly move from defense to acceptance. It almost never works that way.
My opening stance on Bitcoin and similar digital currencies was, “I’m not completely sold on cryptocurrency as an asset class or even as a palatable currency on the go-forward. However, I do see the legitimacy of the underlying blockchain technology and some of the legal merits of decentralization as a way disrupting the existing global financial architecture.” I couldn’t visualize a future of consumer integration, nor could I feel comfortable fully endorsing any specific investment. That was probably 2-3 years ago, and my thinking has remained fairly constant since then.
But, I actively kept listening. I can be skeptical, but I kept trying to listen to different arguments from different intellectually cogent and experienced people. I tried to let fact and futurism prevent my natural cynic blinders. I ignored the noise - people looking to get rich or flip trades to instant wealth - and paid attention to the signal. This thing is still working, it still has steam; what am I missing? That’s an active choice.
Today, I’m no evangelist but I have decided that this space deserves a considerable amount of my attention. I left purposeful cracks for new light to seep in, and now the room is awash in brightness. I believe that this new era of digital renaissance is upon us and things won’t look anything like they do now in the next 10 years. As Brian helped me understand, we are leapfrogging the entire history of banking and finance in days, not years. This velocity feels unfathomable but I can see that it’s real. This space will have a place in my thinking with regards to how I invest my money, and how I think and deploy projects as I build businesses.
This is one example of allowing paradigm shifts to take place. The point is and will always be - never rule anything out unless it truly deserves to be ruled out. For instance, I’ve completely ruled out the potential to murder my enemies 😂. I might have strong opinions of how we handle homelessness, legalizing marijuana, and gun control, but I’m actively choosing to not rule out other arguments or strategies. It’s how we learn and evolve. It’s a lesson we need to be reminded of on a regular basis.