SD#27: Choice, financial freedom and compound returns
July 17, 2022
Hi friends,
Welcome to another edition of Seven Dawns, your weekly newsletter on marketing, productivity, psychology and more.
Our seven ideas this week:
1. (Marketing) Consumers don’t want choice, but to be more confident in the choices presented The average American adult makes 35,000 decisions every day — from what they wear to what size coffee they order. Each decision puts some degree of strain on our mental capacity. As the day goes on, we get tired and stop wanting to make decisions. It’s called decision fatigue.Rookie marketers make the mistake of thinking choice is a good thing. Choice is a tax on your time and attention. Consumers don’t want more choice, but more confidence in the choices presented. Customers want someone else to do the research and curate the options for them. You could try to merchandise a better itinerary on a boat through Southeast Asia (hotels, meals, activities, planes, trains, cars), or you could let someone else figure it out for you. Scott Galloway |
2. (Investing) Financial freedom consists of things you do outside of your portfolio and career as well. During a turbulent time like right now, the best things to do might sit outside of investing With all this market turmoil, you might be wondering: what should you do with your portfolio? While this is a decent question to ask, it might not be the best question to ask. Why? Because the evidence suggests that any big changes to your portfolio are unlikely to pay off. […] The most sensible portfolio action to take is no action at all. Stay the course. So, instead of asking, “What should I do in my portfolio?” Ask, “What should I do outside of my portfolio?” Because, in the grand scheme of things, your investment portfolio is just one part of your financial picture. There are many other levers that you can pull if you want to improve your finances. However, those levers will be dependent on where you currently are in your financial journey. Of Dollars and Data |
3. (Productivity) Seek compound returns in your weekly activities for exponential growth Last week we discussed how living a good life in modern times of abundance is about seeking slow-reward goods. A parallel thought is seeking compound growth in your activities. Jeremy Enns expressed how podcast creation is an activity of compound returns: Podcasting–and all content marketing for that matter–is similarly built on the concept of compound returns. Your audience grows slowly at first and it’s hard to justify the time that could be spent elsewhere, but the more time and content you consistently invest, the more the returns start to accrue. The reason most people don’t start investing earlier is that we as humans have difficulty thinking in the long term. We’re programmed to prioritize short-term benefits over long-term gains. On top of that, we have an inherent difficulty truly understanding the concept of exponential growth. Combined, these blind spots lead us to avoid investing small amounts of time, money, or effort consistently over some time, even when we’re told that it will be worth it in the long run. Simply being aware of these tendencies, and the fact that podcasts are not supposed to grow overnight can go a long way in building a productive mindset around producing and growing your show. |
4. (Psychology) Allow yourself and others to fail I had the privilege to hear Kevin Pieterson, former England international cricket player, speak recently. I’ll be honest, I know very little about cricket. But apparently, he was pretty good at it. One thing that struck me from his talk was how he framed leadership. It’s about ‘allowing yourself and others to fail’. We all fail as human beings. It’s inevitable. We’ll go through ups and downs and we have to be prepared to face both of those situations. All we can do is train ourselves to be ready for whatever outcome is waiting and then embrace the result. |
5. (Marketing) Your competition is usually not who you think it is When you’re sizing up your brand’s competition, where do you typically look? Sometimes, we look at the category through the lens of product features. For example, ice cream competitors can be divided into different formats (tubs, bars, cones, etc.). Still, in this case, you could also look at the competition in terms of the audience segment (health-conscious, millennials, moms, etc.). However, identifying your competitors through product features or audience segmentation can prevent you from seeing how broadly your brand competes. The reality is that consumers do not exclusively buy a product format (i.e. ice cream bars) or a product designed for their audience segment (i.e. organic). Instead, most consumers are occasional buyers who will buy ice cream bars on one occasion and opt for an ice latte the next time. To understand the true buying behaviour of a product, Byron Sharp recommends using “duplication of purchase” analysis to see the overlap of buyers in a category. Medium |
6. (Psychology) You are perfect just as you are… but you can always be better There is an inherent tension between self-acceptance and self-improvement. This tension is within each of us. On the one hand, we want to feel at peace with ourselves, to understand that we are good, valuable, worthy human beings and we deserve love and respect and occasional backrubs. On the other hand, unless you’re comatose, it’s abundantly clear that we have no fucking clue what we’re doing most of the time. We mess up all the damn time. There are so many ways we could be better—that we could learn more, achieve more, grow more, etc. Self-acceptance doesn’t work without self-improvement. Self-improvement doesn’t work without self-acceptance. You are perfect just as you are… but you can always be better. Mark Manson’s 3 principles for a better life |
7. (Psychology) The average human attention span shrunk by nearly a quarter between the year 2000 and 2015 Do you ever feel like our attention spans are getting shorter? It’s not just your imagination; research has revealed that human beings are, indeed, flakier than ever before! The average human attention span shrunk by nearly a quarter between the year 2000 and 2015, and we’re now lagging behind the humble goldfish in terms of being able to focus on a task or object. Wyzowl |
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Thanks for reading! If you have any learnings you’d like to share with me, or disagree with any of the ones above then do drop me a message.
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Speak soon,
Tom