growth without Goals

Now I just want to explore. That may mean blog posts, research papers, new investing strategies, letters, podcasts, long periods of nothing, or maybe another book. Who knows? Exploration is continuous, there is no end point. Focusing on exploration is very rewarding all the time. It may produce things that look like end points, like achievements,

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I started off by asking him whether there is a unifying theme to his seemingly diffuse life’s work, which has included old-school magazines and books, bleeding-edge technology, conservationism, photographing Asia, and teaching. “Following my interests,” he said simply.

It sounded awfully cutesy for someone so accomplished. I said that there is an id... See more

Why Work Without Goals?

For many years I was fixated on goals, but at the same time was also simplifying my work life and working on being more content. I realized two things:

1. Goals (wanting to improve) are not consistent with contentment (being happy with where you are).


2. Goals are not necessarily necessary (I thought they were for a long time, but t

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The same idea applies to investing. The continuous goal, in my case, is a portfolio that has distinct advantages versus the market along dimensions like value, momentum, capital allocation, etc. There are no price targets, no return targets, no staking my results on a given outcome for a given company. A goalless process like this is incredibly ha

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My guess is that Amazon’s success is a byproduct, a side-effect of a process driven, flexible, in-the-moment way of being. In the famous 1997 letter to shareholders, which lays out Amazon’s philosophy, Bezos says that their process is simple: a “relentless focus on customers.” This is not a goal to be strived for, worked towards, achieved, and the

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Maybe Scott Adams said it best:

To put it bluntly, goals are for losers. That’s literally true most of the time. For example, if your goal is to lose ten pounds, you will spend every moment until you reach the goal—if you reach it at all—feeling as if you were short of your goal. In other words, goal-oriented people exist in a state of nearly con

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Man lives by time. Inventing the future has been his favorite game of escape. We think that changes in ourselves can come about in time, that order in ourselves can be built up little by little, added to day by day. But time doesn’t bring order or peace, so we must stop thinking in terms of gradualness. This means that there is no tomorrow for us t... See more