Shut Up And Wait!

In Life, there are a lot of times that we look for hacks, things that could get us something or somewhere quickly, but there are a few things, that just can’t be, and shouldn’t be, rushed! This post describes such scenarios.

Get rich quick schemes, crypto, day-trading, drop-shipping and whatnot, all present us with the allure of quick gains that could set us for life, have us be able to quit our jobs, travel the world, and do everything we have always wanted.

Let me tell you something, those schemes, those methods, they do not work. As simple as that, so you don’t have to read the remaining post, and I am sure you already knew that, so let me break down my thoughts.

Nothing Is Ever Built Overnight - Mastery Takes Time

Rome wasn’t built in a day

The above quote is a great adage, good things take time, great things take a lot of time to build. The sheer amount of time that’s invested into getting what you want is the juice that makes the fruit sweeter.

Imagine this, you ask for whatever you want, you get it immediately, is that fun? Definitely not. But if you did the work, persevered to get the same thing, that thing is suddenly multipliers more worth to you, because of the time and effort it took you to get it.

Whatever is built overnight can also go overnight, “Overnight success” is a term used to refer to a lot of people who are successful by subjective standards, but those overnight successes usually have years that were spent to get the one lucky break that turned them into successes in the first place.

“Oh they just got lucky”, maybe, but luck likes people who work for it, and anyone who’s running plainly on luck, will often have luck as the reason for demise.

Stay with a person the right amount of time, and they form connections with you, a friendship that’s gone on for years is probably going to go for many more!

The reason giving good ideas and things time is so important is that time puts luck on your side, let’s look at the people’s favourite example to demonstrate, the stock market. On any random day, the stock market has a 50-50 chance of going up or down, so if you put money in today and take it out at the market close, you would either gain or lose, put the same money in for 10 years, the chances are significantly in your favour, there’s a high chance you will come out with a profit, put it in for another 15 years, there’s no force in the system that could get you to lose money, at least not yet, nobody who’s been invested in the market for over 20-25 years has ever lost money! Because that amount of time takes care of all the corrections, recessions, problems.

The very title of this post is picked up from my favourite paragraph from the book The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel:

None of the 2,000 books picking apart Buffett’s success are titled This Guy Has Been Investing Consistently for Three-Quarters of a Century. But we know that’s the key to the majority of his success. …

There are books on economic cycles, trading strategies, and sector bets. But the most powerful and important book should be called Shut Up And Wait. It’s just one page with a long term chart of economic growth.

A great read indeed.

Time also allows for the most powerful force in the world to take over, compounding! Practice a skill for 2 days, doesn’t make a difference, practice a skill for 10 years, and if it’s economically viable, you’re looking at a hugely lucrative consulting or employment contract! Practice it for 40 years, you’re the best in the world at it, or at least one of the best!

Luck Runs Out Sometimes

Luck is an interesting concept, we tend to not acknowledge it enough for all that it has done. History is built on top of luck and guess what, it is also shaped a lot by people who have been influenced by luck. If I tell you that wherever you are today, luck is the most important factor in having gotten you to this point, you would call me rude. But humans tend to assert the role of luck in other people’s success, but not their own, because we don’t like to acknowledge that our achievements are not by our sheer determination.

However, luck is in fact the most important factor in pretty much anything. The very fact that I am a human sitting down in a universe of infinite stars, planets that could have given rise to intelligent life, but didn’t, is entirely built on top of luck.

When you’re building wealth, it is an even more important factor, who knows what happens tomorrow? No one, what’s the chance there’s a black-swan event tomorrow that wipes out half of the stock market? What’s the chance the stock market goes on rising forever?

Those are very improbable scenarios, but then again, the probability of those events is a distribution, the probability of those events are never 0, and there are alternate realities where those events would substantiate. I.E: We need to consider luck as not random but as a function of whatever has come before it as well. You could make a million on a Crypto bet tomorrow, but the odds of it going to 0 are also present, and if luck runs out, and eventually, it will, it will go to 0!

What’s the chance the person you admire will like you too? Depends a lot on how you present yourself, treat them and behave. But there’s another very important factor at play, luck, you could suddenly, out of sheer co-incidence, meet them at a place where you are not dressed for the occasion or send a message about them, not to your best friend, but to them accidentally. That could literally put an end to your pursuit of impressing the other person.

It’s true for everything, your efforts, your planning and strategizing is important, but luck is equally, if not more, important. And the fact about luck is, it runs out sometimes. Most sports in the world follow a method of a coin flip to decide who will decide to play first, even something as simple as getting the ball first in a Football match or getting to bowl first in Cricket on a windy day, can change the entire outcome of the match. Conditions and skill of the players are important, but it’s luck that decides who goes home with won bets at the end of the day.

Time allows calculated risks to work

What is risk? Risk, in essence, is the opposite of luck, it’s the chance that a plan will not according to plan.

It’s extremely important to take risks in life, without it, life turns bland. Calculated risks are those where the odds are tilted in your favour, for example, investing, it’s not a gamble, the world economy grows, the company grows, the outlook is positive, your stock holdings grow (It used to be that way, today is madness, however), the odds are in your favour in the long run.

But as I explained in the section above, luck is an important factor, as long as there is luck, the risk is kept at bay, but when it runs out, risk kicks in and that 5% chance of you losing your entire investment, actually substantiates. I know, a bummer.

But if you play the game long enough, with enough margin for error, even if risks do come to substance, they won’t do you much damage. If the market goes down 25% tomorrow, and you have been in the game for 15 years, guess what? You are still 200% richer than when you started! There’s risk in everything, sticking to something that you’re confident will payback is worth it.

In Conclusion

A lot of our restlessness or hurry seems to be driven by what others around us have achieved, or the feeling that we need to do more for our age. It might seem like you’re behind, or you need to be far ahead in life than a lot of people around you. But the moment you start comparing is when things start getting problematic, there is no end to comparisons and there is no fixed timeline of what you need to do in life at what age, after all, who created those timelines?! No one is ahead or behind, we all have our own timelines!

If something that you’re confident should work, isn’t working, then just shut up and wait! It will work. On the other end, something that’s not working and you’re not confident enough about it working, learn to let go. Know what works for you and put in the time required to make that work.