growth without Goals

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

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

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

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,

I think “accomplishments” are traps. Accomplishments, by their very definition, exist only in the past or future—which are not even real things.

It is in these woods that I’ve begun to teach my son (and will soon teach my daughter) this lesson: explore for the sake of exploration, without expectation. Discover essence in your surroundings and in yourself, free from external conditioning (stories) and expectations. Build from the inside out and bottom up. Great habits and practices make a g