Recipe for success: making a decision on a specific issue for a specific problem with a specific timeframe.
Recipe for failure: trying to make a decision for a mixed issue whilst trying to guess the timeframe.
Recipe for success: whilst you’re in the staff room, you check out the butt on the hot new guy who’s just started with your company, say a perfunctory, non-engaging hello, make your mug of tea and leave it at that.
Recipe for failure: whilst you’re in the staff room, you check out the butt on the hot new girl, say hello, give her a cheesy wink, make a nuisance of yourself by telling her a dumb story about what happened at the footy and forget you have a wife and a newborn.
Recipe for success: you make an investment decision based purely on the net return you will gain in the chosen timeframe with a best and worst case estimate.
Recipe for failure: you make an investment decision, at the same time thinking that it could have multiple purposes, could give it to the kids and you could possibly also stick your parents-in-law in there when they come down from the UK. (get this kind of nonsense all the time)
Recipe for success: Kahlua and milk
Recipe for failure: whiskey and milk
You get my drift.
You’re buying a home: This is an emotional decision based on primarily qualitative, subjective reasoning and rationale. i.e. religion, metaphysics, and most people’s attitude to nutrition.
You’re looking for a return: This is a mathematical decision based on one thing and one thing only: the expected net return in the timeframe allocated for it to come to fruition. i.e. science, data analysis, quantum physics.
You cannot move ahead with an intelligent decision until you’ve figured out what, specifically, the problem is you’re looking to solve.
What the question is, specifically, you’re trying to fit the answer to.
Like, don’t try to mix things up which don’t go together.
Buddha said: “where there is doubt there can be no progress”.
Mixing shit up creates doubt. No progress means you don’t get the thing done, which means you don’t progress to the next thing. You get an “F”.
Think about the areas in your life where you’ve been circling at altitude looking for a landing strip and you will find a mix of non-complementary objectives and goals.
You may have put the answer before the question.
I’m still speaking to people now about the same problem they had in 2017. Why? They’ve got ingredients for apple pie and steak tartare in the same mixing bowl.
If you’re stuck trying to work out the question to the answer (get it?), request a quick 10-minute call with me to discuss it. Maybe an independent opinion from someone who doesn’t mind what you think of him could help.
Cheers,
Brodie Brown
BH Brown Mortgage Brokers