Maxims for a happy life

Maxims and arrows →Go uptown A hearty collection of the JC’s pithiest adages. Index: Click ᐅ to expand: Maxim Tell me more Sign up for our newsletter — or just get in touch: for ½ a weekly 🍺 you get to consult JC. Ask about it here.

Maxims for a happy life.

Be skeptical

• This time isn’t different. The laws of physics, finance and economics still apply. Even to blockchain ChatGPT. Just as they did before, during and after the dotcom boom, the global financial crisis, Brexit and COVID.
• Be skeptical. The internet has given every person on the planet the power to publish whatever pops into her head, to the whole world. See? The JC is doing it now. There is no bullshit filter anymore. Assume everything you hear and read to be nonsense until you have good reason to believe it is not.

Sub-rule: The more recent it is, the more likely it is to be bullshit, since natural selection hasn’t had a chance to weed it out: better ideas withstand scrutiny. Scrutiny comes with time. See: Disdain fashionable things. Especially ideas.

• The Dead Poets’ Society Rule: There’s no machine for judging poetry.
• Technology has only transitory value: The value of solving problems falls the fewer humans are needed to solve them. No-one made money out of email.
• It’s okay to generalise, but beware of shorthand: Experts use heuristics to exploit knowledge they gave already acquired. Charlatans use heuristics instead of it. See: Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed
• Talk is cheap: Judge people by what they do, not what they say.

Contrarianism

• It’s lonely being a contrarian. Be a contrarian, but be prepared to stand in the cold. If you challenge a popular, bad idea that happens to be “liberal” that doesn’t make you a conservative, or vice versa. Just ask Helen Pluckrose or Kathleen Stock.
• Corollary: When you challenge a popular, bad idea, be wary of the company you keep: bad people whose bad ideas happen to align with yours might seek to bring you in. Don’t let them. Stay aloof. It’s lonely being a contrarian.
• Don’t join in. From the pages of the contrarian handbook. It’s okay not to be joiner-inner. It's best not to be a joiner-inner. If you’re the guy from BlackRock who didn’t post an #iam message ... good for you. That took a ton more courage.
• Disdain fashionable things. Especially ideas.
• Be suspicious of leaders. Especially leaders with their own svengalis. People who are at the top of their field — Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Peter Thiel —are as likely there by good luck and timing as skill and judgement. Make up your own mind. By all means, buy the product, but why buy the philosophy of a guy who may well just have fluked it? Principle applies to leaders who themselves slavishly follow a svengali. Ayn Rand is a red flag.
• Ignore pop stars when they talk about politics. Would you listen to politicians when they talk about pop music?
• It’s not a fucking competition

You

Harden up

• The glass is half full. Always. Whoever you are, wherever you are. If you have the time, resources and cognitive ability to read this diatribe, you’re one of the lucky ones. For Christ’s sake, buck up.
• Don’t be a victim. Own your predicament. Fix it, don’t whine about it. You can change the future. You can’t change the past. If you can’t be the predator, at least don’t be prey. See also: don’t talk your own book.
• If you’re a man, be masculine. Masculinity is not inherently toxic. It is to be strong, not powerful. It is to be chivalrous. It is to have come to terms with who you are. Don’t apologise for who you are. If you don’t like who you are, be someone else.
• Heroes don’t wear capes. Be a hero, do not wear a cape. (Be a hero; substance. Wearing a cape: form.)
• Don’t give or take offence. Don’t indulge those who do. Deliberately giving offence is oafish, negative and counterproductive. Taking offence is cowardly and anti-intellectual. To be offended is to have no better reason to disagree. If you don’t like something or someone, go somewhere else.
• Don’t be needy. Walk up escalators. Give up your seat. See: You’re one of the lucky ones.
• Don’t be easily shocked: it’s called “the shock of the new” for a reason. Shock value isn’t the same as stock value. The longer something’s been around, the more crap it has put up with, and the more likely it is to be worthwhile. See: disdain fashionable things. Especially ideas.
• It’s just a game: If you derive a significant part of your self-worth from the fortunes of a dozen well-paid men you’ve never met and over whom you have no influence, ask yourself this: is that all there is? is something missing in your life?
• It’s okay to generalise. It’s okay to stereotype. That’s how humans work. We apply heuristics. Just be aware you’re doing it. Sometimes, generalisations are unfair. Some fail. All are provisional. It’s okay for others to stereotype you too. Deal with it: it’s not like you can stop them.

The good stuff

• Make gradual changes in direction, but lock them in. There is an optimal degree of variability. If you vary to much, you’ll change away the good stuff. A 5% change is less volatile, more sustainable, more controllable than a 50% change, and you can tack back if you change away from some good stuff. It is safer. It is wiser. See evolution.
• Be provisional. Iterate. Be prepared to change your mind. In a complex environment make decisions based on what you know but be prepared to change them as what you know changes. Avoid making irreversible decisions. See: don’t judge.
• Ski off-piste. The out-sized risks and rewards are not at the top of the curve. They are down the tail.

The good stuff isn’t always obvious till later.

• Rome wasn’t built in a day - but it was built.
• Pass the ball

Don’t be that guy

• Do your talking on the pitch. And leave it there.
• Stay on your feet. Don’t dive. Ever.
• Don’t be that guy.
• Let it go. In the immortal words of East-Enders script-writing collective, “LEAVE IT, PHIL. HE’S NOT WORTH IT.”
• Don’t judge. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.
• Don’t talk your own book.
• If you got to the top of your game, your job is to be a role model, not a whiner. call this “Markle’s rule”, in honour of a serial abuser. There are plenty of people whose physical or cultural characteristics give them cause to complain about their mistreatment by a cruel and prejudiced world. For the most part, they tend not to — they just get on with it — but they could. But if you came from nothing, became a TV star and then married into royalty — if you literally got to be a princess — sister, you ain’t one of them. Be strong. Be humble. Be thankful for your elevated position. Show the people that the top of the tree is a place we can aspire to be. Don’t air your petty grievances, even if you have some. However bad yours, are everyone else’s will be worse.

You

• Seize the day. Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it.
• Harden up. Sticks and stones.
• Be careful in what you wish for - on this score, if you want to get to the Olympics, take up curling.
• Wing it. It will be fine. You will figure it out. Overplanning anything is the lawyers’ folly. It cuts you off from serendipitous opportunity. You make a much better decision on the spot in right of circumstances than you can possibly do in abstract in advance.
• Have a plan. Even a bad one have a theory of the game, and act as if you are executing it.
• Walk on the grass. Disobey stupid rules. Fuck ’em.

Use your scone

• Do not buy a warranty on a toaster.

What you’ve got. Be additive

• Do it properly. Build for the long term. The lesson of Worcester: if you make it easy, you will attract the mediocre and encourage them to be lazy. If you do it properly, it will stand for 1,000 years and still take the breath away.
• Don’t be selfish.
• Learn how to speak in public
• Learn how to write beautifully. If you have to communicate dry or technical material, all the more reason to write as elegantly as you can.
• Give it away. Give freely of what you have and know, to those who need it. Intellectual property is for those heroes in their capes.
• Use your resources. You can’t take it with you.
• Be useful.
• Coin metaphors. Be figurative.
• Be good company. You only have four score and seven on this planet, so for Christ’s sake try and enjoy them. Don’t talk about yourself all the time, and certainly don’t go on about your problems. Sub-maxim: Seek out good company. Don’t waste your time on whiners. Tell jokes. About yourself.
• Be on the first lift, not in the last bar. Sure: it’s ski chat. If you think skiing is for wankers, you’re being that guy.

Confidence

• Back yourself.
• There are other fish in the sea.
• Leave it on the pitch, not the table. (see do your talking on the pitch.)

Mental space

• Go off the grid — sometimes.
• Smell the roses. Take pleasure in beauty. Stop what you’re doing and drink it in. Enjoy what nature — and humans — let you have for free. Admire a wood in autumn.
• “No-one said on their deathbed, I wish I spent more time in the office” — Arnold Zack. This may have once been true (but not in finance!) and in any case is no longer true since coronavirus. but the JC’s version maybe, is: “no one’s child said, ‘I wish my parents spent more time at the office’.”

”*Celebrate your mental resilience. Convey it. (See: harden up.) Do not broadcast mental fragility. Solve other people’s problems; don’t expect other people to solve yours. (See: be additive.)

• Switch off. Get good sleep. Per @suzihixson “Nothing good happens when checking email right before bed.”

Learn

• Be open-minded. Never stop learning.
• Find a different way home.
• Write the music you want to hear.

Your nose

• If he gets up your nose, it’s your problem.
• If he gets up your nose, he’s probably got a point. Even Nigel Farage.

Simplify

• Eschew contraptions: don't buy a machine to do something you can do perfectly well yourself. It will break. And closing curtains is good exercise.

Them

• Catch flies with honey, not vinegar.
• People are best placed to look out for themselves. Everyone thinks she knows what’s best for herself. Even when she’s wrong, she’ll be less wrong than you. she has a catbird seat, after all. She won’t appreciate being told.

People are jerks

• Jerks wear capes. It’s not just “heroes don’t wear capes”. People who do are not heroes. They tend to be jerks.
• Pray for peace. Prepare for survival. From the military school of life. Expect people to be jerks, and you won’t be so upset about it. People are jerks.
• Network power is symmetrical. AKA Someone On The Internet Is Wrong . Beware survivor bias. Just as the internet’s network power can surface works of sublime genius it can elevate cats of unspeakable cruelty and supreme stupidity. Exult the former, Don’t rise to the latter. Your public outrage, correction or wry rejoinder won’t change his mind, but it will feed the troll, spread the meme and give the idiot more exposure. Which is, likely, what he wants.

Others

• Don’t be intimidated: they’re more scared than you are.
• First question: cui bono?
• Assume they’re talking their own book until you know otherwise. Value people who don’t.
• Insiders have an interest in making what they do seem hard.
• Challenge. Require an explanation. What a professional can’t explain, she doesn’t understand. If she can’t explain it, but she does it anyway, it’s probably bullshit. Most complicated things are bullshit.
• Leave something on the table. Don’t be too careful in your accounting. The unsettled account is a feature of an infinite game. Mutual indebtedness is a good thing. Be in others’ debt, and let them be in yours.

The team

• Disregard rank. Seniors must earn your respect. You must earn it from juniors.
• Your team. They get the credit. You take the responsibility. Deal with underperformance privately: that’s your job. Never sell out your team.

In a nutshell: respect the team, wherever you are in it.

Complexity and order

• Simplify. The Devil is the detail.
• Perfection is the enemy of good enough.
• It’ll do.

Lessons from a small firm in New Zealand

JC is a smalltown boy who trained in a small firm in a small town on a small island in a small country in the middle of a big nowhere. But you learn big lessons in small places. Here are three, for which he is indebted to the partners and staff of what once was Kensington Swan, in Wellington, New Zealand. Some of these are reflected in the above, but here they are in their raw state:

• Respect the team: Know who your team is. (If you make yourself really big, you can internalise everything). Inside it, be frank. Outside it, be loyal.
• Never believe your own hype. You fluked it. So did he.
• Work to live. Do not live to work. Go out on a work night.

Miscellaneous

• Don’t serve coffee in a glass