Do you have a framework for life? For Investing? For love or at least getting some lovin’. While the guy who posed the first part of that question may have been more interested in how I answered than what I said, all I could think was, great question, I must have an answer for that.

Here it is – written in real time, so I can think more about my writing framework. The framework for this post was written outside on paper while enjoying a bright winter day communing with nature. It should come as no surprise  when I say that Being There is one of the most insightful movies of all time. Gardens and on the grander scale nature contains most answers!

Chip in if you’re reading along. Leave a comment, turn this into a discussion.

Life is a project! Life’s a game. Plan it, have fun with it. Do it! As JLP said “Make it so.”

To plan is to succeed. It was no coincidence I became an authority on SAP business wide integration and SAP Project Systems. Plan=succeed. Mere words to some, but my over arching framework. I see almost everything as a project. From working in the garden to my entire life to most worthwhile endeavors (my kingdom for a u) in business.

My life plan is on a ten year cycle, although I’ve completed the last ten year’s in seven so I’m flexible on that as I am in most things. Within each ten years there’s multiple projects all the way down to writing this post. Most things work and many repeat on multiple scales.

Just do it. Less chat more action. It’s better to take one step forward even if it is on the wrong direction, Bear Grills et al.

See, I can do detail!

Big Picture. Why? Because that’s me. For the major personality traits,  I find innate or at least learnt early the most likely theory. I’m obviously biased to how great big picture thinking is, and reinforce the superiority of my trait by concentrating on the positives (optimist) while still realising there is value in all perspectives. There’s a place for detail and it has to be done and if required I’ll do it, but my value and what I consider most valuable is synthesizing (I give up on correcting this spell checker! At least wordpress is free). Gotta love free. Freeconomics. I still own the domain payconomics, it’s an idea that can wait, as Levitt has already taken my thunder with freakonomics. Great book… but let’s get back to the story.

Synthesizing the big picture is difficult. It requires more effort, more perspective, more layering.I love doing it and do it well, very well.

Analytical

Projects have problems. Come with solutions. Know why they’re solutions and know why several layers deep. In investing, in business, in most of your external conduct in life an analytical approach will serve you well. As will being ethical. Do the right thing, always. As David Sokol recently found all it take is one mis-step to ruin a career. It’s worth re-quoting Munger

“We think there should be a huge area between what you’re willing to do and what you can do without significant risk of criminal penalty or causing losses. We believe you shouldn’t go anywhere near that line. You ought to have an internal compass. So there should be all kinds of things you won’t do even though they are perfectly legal. That’s the way we try to operate.”

Open Minded

Humans are always wrong. It’s a defining fault in this evolutionary step, to be human is a synonymy for failing…’he’s only human‘. Wrong, wrong, wrong. We’re wrong so often that it’s essential to be open minded and inquiring. You must see where we’ve come from, stand on giants shoulders and look both ways. Always question, always doubt. Oh my! Could I still rebelling against my Catholic upbringing? Nah, I think not.

Regularly toss a belief in the trash, for a while at least. Sometimes you have to retrieve discarded beliefs, smooth them out, shakes the crumbs off.

Fusion

It’s about time I did another post on fusion, particularly fusion investing. When I can type faster it’ll be a book. There is good in most things and always opportunities to learn. Take the best, while recognising the best is just your opinion.

Passion

Without certainty of belief you need passion. Passion about ideas, passion for people, for experiences and maybe for some things. I’m passionate about business and investing.

People used to fell ill over my overt passion for my wife and after 23 years that passion still lights my way. Passion in work, love and the rest of the life is essential. I’m lucky to have had so much of it.

Time – Past present future. It’s all there in front of you to see. Like everything the more you practice the better you get. See through time. The past is there and full of examples of how things transpire. Use those examples to look forward in time to see how you get somewhere. It all repeats, just the players are different.

Jump forward in time and look backwards. Do you know how you got to where you are? I sure hope so! It’s easy as you’re looking back over your life. So place yourself in the time and circumstance that you want to be, then look back to see how you got there. If you haven’t done it before, give it a burl, it’s fun. Learning only by your own experience is too slow.

Arbitrage time. Leverage time. Leverage your own time, through education, through inspiration or perspiration.

In investing the short term in crowded, time is more fruitfully deployed or at least has a higher probability of success if you focus on the long term. Though of course if you’re in a hurry the short game has the positive skew. Good luck with that, you’ll need it.  Most importantly do what is right for you. The long game is right for me as is a continuous investment in myself.

Invert alway invert. More broadly look from different perspectives. Solutions are best if simple, so when I can’t see a solution I know it’s time to invert. Hand in hand with perspective and time is seeing beyond things. It is essential to see beyond problems. See beyond the next quarter. See beyond the hurdles.

With the US market down heavily overnight and the Australian market falling, it’s best to invert. Down is good! Down is what you want. You want the opportunity to buy lower.

Focus. Need it. Should come easily if you’re passionate about whatever requires focus.

Capital is scarce – opportunities are plentiful. Scale that idea! From my kids pocket-money all the way to the global monetary system. In investing and in business capital is always scarce and it’s sensible allocation paramount.

Non-fiction. Hat tip to Paul Craigie for that one. Friends were stunned when Paul said he only read non-fiction. I thought how sensible and now limit myself to a couple pieces of fiction a year.

It’s all in front of us. Nature! My Garden. Growth, patience, competition, co-operation, efficiency, focus and more. The right way to do things. Humans replicating nature will be our deliverance from our current over consumption. Growth is my framework, that’s why I’m 6’5″. Growth, value, momentum, fuse them all to profit from both the weighing and voting machines.

See past the distractions to the gems beyond and then visualize the gems bloom and grow. When I look at a garden I don’t simply see the plants in front of me, I see from seedling to maturity, I see the growth. I envisage what the plants will look like and review what they did look like. Great success in investing can be found in a similar fashion.

Enjoy, smile, love, give, be thoughtful and respectful, improve yourself and all and everything around you, laugh, experience…and so much more.

Dean. Self confessed, self aware, hoping to be self actualized, ENTP, A Type who likes to listen.

This post would not be complete without the two quotes from my front page.

“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.” Bertrand Russell, philosopher, mathematician, author, Nobel laureate (1872 – 1970)

“Too much prosperity makes men greedy and their desires are never controlled sufficiently to stop at the point of attainment.” Seneca

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