“The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.” Henry David Thoreau. Walden (1854), “Economy”.
Say the word investor and most people picture money. Stocks, real estate, a portfolio climbing on a screen.
That’s one kind of investor. Money is one resource.
You also hold awareness, environment, attention, willpower, energy and time. Money sits at the bottom of that stack.
There’s a gap between where you are and where you want to be. You close it through trades. Each trade spends one resource to buy another.
Most people make those trades blindfolded. They say yes to a meeting and skip the question of what the hour costs. They check email ten times a day and skip the question of what they bought with the speed.
A conscious investor asks first.
- What am I spending?
- What am I buying?
- Is the return worth it?
Here’s one trade I made recently. I went from two operations days a week to one. I trade slower email replies for six days of unbroken attention.
Look at where you are. Look at where you want to be. Each step between the two is a trade.
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“What trade have you been making without calculating the return?”
