Investing (Traditionally done by women)

• Low-risk tolerance
• Low time
• smart decisions
• low attention

Starting a Business (Traditionally done by men)

• High-risk taking tolerance
• long hours (high time)
• the consistent workload that can later be leveraged
• High attention

Now, I am definitely not saying one sex should do the other. I’m simply contrasting what traditional households used to do and actually what my parents also lived by when I was a child.

I’m also mentioning this as I used to be in the ‘Investing’ category and my whole finances have shifted to ‘business’. Ask anyone from my previous workplace and I used to talk to you about the wonders of compound interest; save money and give it to the market. However, now I preach/guide (if I’m allowed to talk about it) about the wonders of business and how you should invest in yourself.

The most important thing I want to talk about is that traditionally there was a separation of responsibilities between men and women. I think there is an importance in the separation of this investment strategy. Most people I speak to get confused or switch between the two. Both will get you rich. However, do both without sufficient capital or spending the right energy in the right places and you are doomed to fail IN MY OPINION.

NB: Rich here is defined as a million pounds one day.

For Investing, you want to make smart decisions from your circle of competence and make a bet in the right place and wait. The hardest part is to wait so if you are fidgety and want to keep taking money out or in. You’ll be suffocated by fees and thus the house will take your winnings. You are leveraging time to be your ally so wait. In the analogy of a money tree. You survey every tree that is currently in the market. Check to see if its roots are good, the soil is good and the tree has generated lots of fruit in the past. But then the weather gets gloomy and thunderstormy so this season it might be a bad harvest. But its roots are strong so you decide to wait it out and hope the next season will bear more fruit. The advantage is that its very passive.

For business, it’s about people who are impatient/active. As a business can grow independently to time. However, the trade-off is that you need to grow the seedlings and protect them from the elements such as wind and rainfall in the case for the UK! You spend money, time, and energy in investing in a greenhouse so that no matter the market your seedlings grow to their potential. One day, by giving it resources of time, money, and energy we hope that seedlings become a money-making tree that bears fruit and hopefully you can reap the rewards yourself. But you need to make sure your seedlings survives and thrive!

What game do you want to play if you can only choose one?

I played the ‘surveying of trees’ for 3 years and loved it. I learned so much but there was a lot of financial jargon that was simply built to confuse people. People will say this apple is better because it’s ‘organic’ or this is better because it’s ‘free range’. So provided I understand the financial jargon that people made up I can navigate this space however I didn’t have enough roots/mental models to understand the world.

So I decided to grow a sapling on my own and divert all my time, energy, and money into a sapling. What happens if your sapling dies? Obviously, I don’t want my first sapling to die but it can happen. For me, I learned more by growing the sapling and digging the dirt myself than I did for 3 years watching other people do their magic. My next sapling will be even better or at the very least I’ll have a better financial understanding if I want to go back to investing. 

I learn by doing. Some people learn by books. Some people learn by hearing. DO WHAT WORKS FOR YOU just understand you are doing two different things. Assessing a tree and growing a tree is different. Do what resonates with you. I prefer growing at the moment.