(Volume 1, Issue 14)
Topic of the week: <<Perfect>> practice makes perfect
Riding a ski lift with a skiing instructor, he said, "Practice does not make perfect. <<Perfect>> practice makes perfect." I was thirteen or fourteen years old at the time. The twist on this old saying has stayed with me ever since.
Morgan Housel recently wrote in It's Not About Routine, It's About Practice, that practice can also be a physical activity that puts the mind at ease.
Practices are things you do regularly—perhaps daily, perhaps not—but in no particular order. They are things you return to, time and time again, to center yourself. To reset. To reconnect. To focus.
The difference between a routine and practice is that a practice is a never-ending pursuit of an unattainable state, perfection. A routine is an action done at the same time each day. Routines can change, but practices never end. Focus on practices.
Quote of the week
“If a man does not know to what port he is steering, no wind is favorable to him.”
— Seneca
Three recent articles
1. There is a fine line between healthy and unhealthy self-doubt. Nick Wignall defines the difference of the types of self-doubt and how to practice habits that keep your inner voice on the healthy side of the line.
2. As the saying goes: "What gets measured gets managed." So it also applies to financial competence. Nick Magguilli introduces two measures of financial competence, Lifetime Wealth Ratio and Wealth Discipline Ratio. Both compare net worth to lifetime income.
3. Bill Gates compares costs of COVID-19 to costs of climate change. In short, climate change will cost society at least as much as the pandemic in lives lost and GDP destroyed (14 to 100 lives lost per 1,000,000 and -1% of GDP per annum). But, climate change is a known risk and society can choose to proactively address it instead of ignoring it.