Long Term Investing in People

Day trading is fun. Degen shorting^[1] some crazy crypto-nonsense is also wild. Thrilling. I’m sure it’s thrilling in the same sense as trying to pick up someone attractive at the airport on a layover, even though you both know it’s probably not going anywhere because you both are going somewhere.

But it very rarely goes anywhere. It’s not long-term thinking. It’s short term thinking. It’s putting a coin in the one-armed bandit^[2] and hoping you’ll strike it rich.

Charlie Munger^[3] said, “Warren and I don’t focus on the froth of the market. We seek out good long-term investments and stubbornly hold them for a long time.”

Stubbornly.

This is going to sound really familiar to some of my closest friends. They already describe me as stubborn in so many ways.

I am stubborn about long-term thinking in relationships. This evolved out of the whole Adult Third Culture Kid thing. Adult Third Culture kids have this tendency to skip the early stages of getting to know someone, jumping straight to sharing their risky opinions.

This can be a wonderful signaling thing if you meet someone who has also grown up across cultures and nations. However, it can be off-putting if you’re meeting someone who hasn’t had those experiences. They might misread your intent, because they’ve never had anyone be real with them in their entire life so far.

I try to be careful in the way that I signal when speaking English^[4]. I am striving to be very deliberate in the way that I interact with others when I am friendly.

I ask myself, can I see myself being friends with this person for 20, 40, 60 years? If not, we can be acquaintances, colleagues, or associates, but we are likely not friends. Friendly, yes. Friends^[5], no.

This long-term thinking also applies to romantic relationships, hopefully, the last^[6] great relationship in one’s life. A wise man once shared an interesting thought with me on this. He said that he was surprised that people got married because people’s feelings for each other don’t necessarily align in intensity or timing. With a long-term approach to one person and one relationship, you accept that you once hit a crucial threshold of affection and care that it is possible to get back there again. Your feelings fluctuate on a day-to-day basis, but you know that how you once felt is a goalpost for how you can feel again, given the right circumstances.

The most important thing my AP European History teacher taught^[7] me was this: a good marriage should not be 50/50. Instead, each person should be willing to put in 60% of the work of the relationship. If you both aim to consistently contribute 60%, you’ll always have a surplus. Sometimes you’ll have 40% days, or even 20% days. If you’re with someone who can go up to 60% even on your worst days, you’ll still be doing pretty well as partners. If you’re both in it for the long haul, cranking it up to 60% as needed is not a big deal^[8].

Whether it’s investing, forging friendships, or maintaining a romantic relationship, success lies in adopting a long-term perspective. The daily fluctuations in weather temporary, but with a long-term view there is very little that is impossible to overcome.