Let what you despise teach you

There is no honor in forcing things

I have a hard working friend doing new construction in California. He's smart, capable, has unquestionable character, and like all humans he's great at a few things and terrible at most.

To fund his projects he raises money from private investors and has had a good bit of success from it. When you have a few deals and all are profitable it isn't remarkably difficult to raise money, even I've been able to do it, but raising capital at scale requires a lot more focus and infrastructure. It doesn't take long before it's a full private equity firm that multiple people have to spend considerable time and energy working on.

This week I asked him how his latest project is going he messaged me this:

I’m being super generous with the partnerships splits but I despise raising money and just want to operate deals

I immediately called a mutual friend who raises capital for a living in an attempt for both parties to do what they love and for neither party to do what they don't want to. The word despise got my attention because it's so strong. I knew this was deeper than just a passing comment, he does despise it. Has there ever been a moment in your life that you said you despise something that you don't truly despise? I think we very often are telling the truth when we use words like this.

Have you ever been good at something you hate doing?

We all do things we don't love doing, but how many things are you great at but despise doing? I bet there are none.

It's very difficult to be proficient at something that you only do out of necessity. Who is good at chores?!?!? The things we have to do are the things we outsource, cheat at, procrastinate on, or do the bare minimum to accomplish.

In the business world the phrase "outsource your weaknesses and triple down on your strengths" is common, but do you have a great way to recognize your weaknesses? I think it's simply the things we hate doing, the activities you tell people you despise, the activities that make you procrastinate. Our body tells us what not to do, the difficult part is listening.

“Few understand that procrastination is our natural defense, letting things take care of themselves and exercise their antifragility; it results from some ecological or naturalistic wisdom, and is not always bad – at an existential level, it is my body rebelling against its entrapment." - Nassim Taleb

Tell yourself the truth

Choosing what to do with your time requires experimentation. For example everyone needs to make time for fitness but not everyone will do it the same way. I don't run, period, but some folks love running. The more correct explanation is that some folks enjoy the challenge of running. I enjoy the challenge of lifting weights. I wonder how many people who hate running do so on a regular basis? Or how many people hate lifting weights but go to the gym consistently 4-5 times a week over a long period of time, years? At what point do you accept that you hate a certain method and find a different process for fitness? I think it's more common that people try running or lifting weights, hate it, and just quit. Proving my original point that people don't do the things they hate, but leaving open a massive opportunity to find something they love.

The same is for creative or business ventures. I am very adamantly not chasing the current trend of buying boring businesses because I don't want to be a business owner. I'm completely unemployable and I'm a terrible boss, owning a small business is not a good fit for me. This doesn't mean I'm destined to be poor it just means I have to find a way to generate income that fits my personality. The error occurs with people when they listen to society or trends or an influencer and not to their biology, they fail, and don't understand why.

Start a podcast, create a course, build a community, buy bitcoin, be a day trader, buy real estate, open a quilt shop. These are all profitable adventures and can all work but which exactly is the right one for you? I know folks building online communities but don't want to talk to people, I know people who have podcasts but are boring as shit, and I've seen people try to get into wholesaling but hate sales.

WHY?

Because they hear the trend and get excited about the potential outcome but don't think about what personality traits and type work these things require - usually for years on end.

What do I despise?

Over the past few months I've been thinking about this (probably false) story from the famous Italian artist Michelangelo as a mental exercise to find my own identity and to find my greatest vocation - the highest usefulness of my time and skills.

when asked how he carved the statue of David, Michelangelo replied ‘Simple, I just chipped away everything that wasn’t David’….”

I love this idea because it aligns with other complimentary ways of thinking that I often use like finding anti-models rather than role models, or "via negativa" the idea that to improve your life you take away things rather than add to it.

If you chip away at all the things you despise to be or do, hopefully the things that are left start to paint a much clearer picture. Here are a few things I despise:

• Systems (I call systems the "s word")
• Marketing
• Fluorescent lighting (unbounded hate)
• Charlatans
• Bureaucracy (humanity's worst creation)
• Predictability
• Trends
• Conformity
• Excuses

After reading this (non-exhaustive) list can you imagine me working in an office setting for long periods of time? zero chance. It also means I'm probably not set up to a business owner of any sort or start sell a course online, maybe I could force myself to do these things and see some results but if I build a life around things I despise - the ceiling of my success would be very low.

I worry there are many people who are about to make this exact mistake over the next few years as the "boring business" buying trend produces a trail of carnage as it chews up and spits out thousands of young ambitious folks who jump in only to find out that they despise owning a laundromat. Not to discredit the risk taker or discourage the inherent right of passage that requires a person to experiment with many things to find the ones they despise. There is little to no way to avoid the pain of doing the wrong thing first, but once you have felt the pain that you hate - ensure you learn the lesson quickly.

I like being an investor because it allows me to use my brain and find inefficiencies in the marketplace and never answering to a corporate middle management jackass. Interestingly I find the reverse is true about my entrepreneur friends, they don't seem to want to sit at a desk and find inefficiencies, they want to go to work and build something each day. The hard part over the last few years for real estate investors has been that there aren't many underpriced assets on the market, so many are looking for the next hot trend and saying "I should buy a business", but thank goodness I know I don't want to do that so instead I've been asking myself "what is the next asset I want to invest in". Without this reflection I would be getting myself into a heap of trouble over the next few years.

What do you despise?

I would love for you to do this exercise with me. Tell me the things you despise, does it help guide what you're supposed to do with your time? Do you build your decisions around them?