johnmaconline

I wouldn’t let Mike Tyson punch me for any amount of money. Even at 58, he’s a giant scary wrecking ball. I know that if he hit me, I’d be dead.

Unless…

There’s always a price.

“Don’t throw good money after bad.”

The first time I remember hearing that was as a teenager. It was my Dad that said it, and we were leaning into the open engine compartment of my dilapidated car.

The sunk cost fallacy. It has a strong pull.

Just a little more. It’s cheaper to fix it. If I stop now, it will all have been for nothing. Which more than likely is, I’m emotionally attached, I don’t want to change, or I don’t want to be wrong.

Don’t throw good money after bad is sage advice if it comes from the right source. Salespeople will use it to get you into the newest, fancier, best for them, but your Dad wants what’s best for you.

Don’t throw good money after bad.

Bitcoin is made up.
Bitcoin isn’t real.
Bitcoin is a scam.

You don’t have to pay attention, but maybe you should give it a look. It’s running like gangbusters right now.

I think it has value as a concept. Maybe as a tangible asset. We’ll see. I believe Bitcoin, or some other similar concept for money exchange, will be a part of our future economy. Maybe the most important part. I don’t know when that is. Maybe not in my lifetime.

(A lot of intentional maybes)

I heard a good analogy that helps explain why Bitcoin might be a good investment and store of value over the long haul.

Bitcoin was first traded in 2009. We’ll use that as the reference year.

If you put a dollar in your mattress in 2009, you’d need $1.47 to have the same buying power today. If you bought $1 of Bitcoin in 2009, you’d have received 1000 Bitcoins. As I write this, Bitcoin is trading around $87k per Bitcoin. For $1 in 2009, you’d currently have $87M.

But that’s not really what makes it interesting. History provides tons of rags to riches asset stories like Bitcoin.

What makes Bitcoin an interesting asset to watch is the system its built upon compared to the system that the US dollars is built upon. The US dollar system includes an infinite supply and inflation by design. The Bitcoin system includes a fixed supply and slowing generation as we near the end of that supply.

Hold on to a dollar and it’s worth less in the future — by design of the system.
Hold on to a bitcoin and it’s worth more in the future — by design of the system.

None of that means Bitcoin is better than the US dollar, nor will it overtake fiat currency, but its probably worth watching it.

Thousands of years ago, you wanted to live near the water source. As close as possible. Because you spent a lot of your personal and communal time and energy managing your water supply.

Traveling to it and back. Carrying it. Caring for it. A lot.

The closer you were to the source, the less time and energy you needed to spend on traveling and carrying. Therefore, the community usually arranged itself around the water source, both geographically and organizationally.

Then someone had a great idea: “You know, if we dug here, and put some rocks over there, I think we could make the water come to us.”

Boom. Less time. Less energy. More Options.

So the question now is, where are you spending that extra time and energy?

Nothing.

The data is just data. It says nothing. It’s your history, experiences, and worldview that project your voice onto and into the data.

It seems like the data is talking, but it’s really you.

And that’s a good thing because the story emerges when you combine yourself with the data. It might be a true story, or it might be fiction. Most likely there’s some of both. Stories uncover questions. Questions lead to more questions. Science happens when you investigate the questions.

In any case, the power of the data isn’t its voice. It’s yours.

Imagine you invent, design, and introduce a new product. You’ve built a startup company around this product.

You build some prototypes and get some alpha testers on board. This process teaches you that your widget isn’t ready. You have some fundamental flaws. You need to rethink and redesign some critical systems, but you’re still convinced you can get there.

In the meantime, the marketing team has done an amazing job. They have about 500 people signed up for the beta program that’s supposed to launch next month. These 500 people are expecting some “glitches” and a product that probably won’t work as advertised, but they’re expecting something that’s reasonable.

Your units are not reasonable. Not right now. They barely work.

But remember. The first airplane barely flew. The first car barely went faster than a walk. The first computer could barely perform kindergarten math.

Your new product doesn’t need to revolutionize the world, look beautiful, and be flawless out of the shoot. Can you turn it from barely working into fully working. Is there a path? If so, you need to keep improving, sharing, and believing until its there.

If it barely works, it still works, right?

Plate spinning looks like magic. 

The juggler’s art of plate spinning originated in China during the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC – 9 AD) and then migrated into Western circus acts around the 1300s. The first instructional book on plate spinning was published in 1901. The first plastic, purpose-built spinning plate on the market was the Whirely Whirler, which came out in 1958. 

Here are some important instructions for learning how to spin plates:

1. Don’t use just any plates. Juggle/spinning plates have specific characteristics. 
2. Start with one plate and two hands (one on stick, one on plate).
3. Then learn how to use one hand to hold the stick and spin the plate without needing your other hand.
4. Then move to spinning multiple plates. Rhythm and focus are critical for multuple plates.
5. You get 20-30 seconds per spin per plate, so plan accordingly. 

Go for it. You’re gonna drop them a lot. Watch more videos. Try slight variations on the techniques. It’ll take time and effort. 

But even though it looks like magic, it’s not magic. Anybody, including you, will get it with enough practice. 

One thing is true, however, about spinning plates — the juggler always has to know which one is about to stop and fall. He has two options for a plate that’s coming to the end of its 20-30 second spin cycle: spin it again, or let it fall.  

You’re a juggler. You just gotta figure out which plates to keep spinning and which to let go. 

I’m an advocate for uncovering nuance and recognizing complexity.

Real solutions rarely come in the form of sound bites. Real solutions take digging in, uncovering the complexity, and taking it on.

But also, simpler is better.

Simpler means easily understood, easy to use, and easy to see the benefits. Simpler means you’ll find yourself thinking, “Oh yeah, that makes sense.”

Simpler doesn’t have to mean hyperbolic or black and white. Simpler doesn’t have to mean dumber. Simpler doesn’t have to mean everyone agrees. Simpler doesn’t have to mean easy to implement (although bonus points if it is).

So, how do we fix systems?

First, we must agree on what “fixed” means because often, one person’s idea of a fix is another’s idea of a break. There’s hard work required to agree on the desired outcome.

Second, we must recognize the variables over which we have influence. Rarely is the problem domain a blank sheet of paper. There is always a box. There’s hard work required to understand the size and boundaries of the box.

Third, we must understand the emotional risk required to change. Status. Blame. Win. Lose. Scarcity. Predictability. Known unknowns. Unknown unknowns. Inertia. There’s hard work required to understand the emotional risk required to change.

Fourth, we must be willing to work.

Simpler usually requires more work, not less.