- Intentional Dollar
- Posts
- Exploring gas and brake pedals, mastery, and detoxes
Exploring gas and brake pedals, mastery, and detoxes
Logan
January 09, 2025
In partnership with
Exploring gas and brake pedals, mastery, and detoxes
Happy Thursday! Thanks for reading Intentional Dollar — where we look at old money ideas through a new perspective.
What’s inside?
One tool to experiment with
Two quotes from others
Three questions to dig deeper
Four lines of poetry for the point
Disclaimer: This is not investment advice. These weekly posts represent my simple thoughts, a few quotes, and some questions — for educational purposes only.
From Wall Street to Your Portfolio: Master Value Investing
The Applied Value Investing Certificate Program from Wharton Online and Wall Street Prep is an 8-week, online, self-paced program that teaches participants how to identify undervalued stocks with the process-driven approach used by the world’s top investors.
Program benefits also include:
Guest Speaker Series with top industry professionals
Exclusive access to networking and recruitment events
Invitation-Only LinkedIn Groups and Slack Channels
Certificate issued by Wharton Online and Wall Street Prep
Interested in money + philosophy? Check out our new daily newsletter, The Stoic Ledger. Each morning, we share money wisdom from the sages. It’s a brief newsletter connecting ancient stoic philosophy to money.
You can sign up for free at www.thestoicledger.com/subscribe.
One tool to experiment with:
Gas and Brake Pedals:
Building wealth requires a tactful combination of offense and defense: oscillating between the gas and the brake pedals.
When pressed at the right moment, the gas, like an aggressive offense, can change everything. Going on the offensive creates opportunities to strategically restructure our cash flow, turbocharge future asset values, or purchase cheap peace of mind.
What does good offense look like?
Good offense allows cars to be purchased when dealers are backed into a corner with inventory or quotas
Good offense allows investments to be scooped up when no one wants to touch them
Good offense is getting cheap term insurance when you’re young
Good offense is opportunistically parlaying experience into a better job or promotion
Good offense is building multiple income streams
Good offense is refinancing a house to lock low rates and improve cash flow
But like a great sports team, offense means nothing if you don’t have a defense.
Good defense is a mortgage payment that’s many levels lower than you can afford
Good defense is a well-funded emergency cash reserve
Good defense is an estate plan and will
Good defense is an artful tax planning strategy
Good defense is avoiding speculative asset classes and names that carry extreme volatility and embedded media exuberance
An all-star defense can make a gritty stand and leave you in phenomenal field position. So too, in the money game, offense and defense are not mutually exclusive. One directly helps the other; yin and yang.
The defensive posture of high cash balances enable an artful offensive strike when the time is right. Like when equity markets fall, or when interest rates fall, or when real estate prices fall. These moments, these crucial moments, are when you cajole your sleeping foot off the brake pedal and smash the gas with vigor.
A treasure chest of cash creates flexibility. And when compared to everyone else that is reeling in when things get bad, licking wounds and covering shorts, this chest is a stacked spring board of leverage, if used right. You’ll catapult past every single person that followed the herd.
Of course, these cash balances also inherently provide defensive protection against job loss, emergency expenses, and other black swans.
But you should know that too much cash hinders growth. This nimble, attractive asset can be a heavy liability.
Cash loses to inflation and generally won’t earn the requisite return to reach your long-term goals, so it’s important to know that it’s just one of the ingredients to a good money plan. We must look at each ingredient in the plan: investment strategy, estate planning, tax planning, retirement planning — every facet controlled by a unique offense/defense dial.
When’s the right time to go on offense or defense—how will you know?
Follow Warren’s old dictum: “be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful.”
Think about the current game you’re playing and honestly evaluate your performance on both sides, offense and defense—are you neglecting one at the expense of the other?
know how to use the gas and brake pedals with tact
Two quotes on mastery:
Mastery requires deliberate practice. Are you fumbling around, bumping into the walls, or are you running experiments, testing hypotheses, deliberately practicing?
“Excellence demands effort and planned, deliberate practice of increasing difficulty.”
“The key factor separating geniuses from the merely accomplished is not a divine spark. It's not I.Q., a generally bad predictor of success, even in realms like chess. Instead, it's deliberate practice. Top performers spend more hours (many more hours) rigorously practicing their craft.”
Three questions on detoxes:
What if I deleted social media for 10 days?
What if I didn’t go out to eat for two weeks?
What if I took 30 days off of coffee, alcohol, TV, added sugar, [insert vice]?
Which question stuck with you? Questions like these are spotlights for the mind. Reply to this email and let me know which one shined light on a previously dark cave.
Four lines of poetry for the point:
Offense and defense, needed the same
One without the other means losing the game.
Press the gas pedal down when fear cascades
But ebb defensive and brake when greed parades.
Contact Me:
Content ideas, questions? Reply to this email or reach out to me at [email protected]
Disclaimer: This is not investment advice. These weekly posts represent my simple thoughts, a few quotes, and some questions — for educational purposes only.
Fueled for Fortune
Wired's "rocket fuel of AI" label has Wall Street buzzing. Projections skyrocketing to $80 trillion, akin to 41 Amazons, signal a seismic shift. But here's the kicker: astute investors have a shot at riding the wave with a company primed for supremacy. Dive into The Motley Fool's exclusive report for your front-row seat.
Read The Daily Upside. Stay Ahead of the Markets. Invest Smarter.
Most financial news is full of noise. The Daily Upside delivers real insights—clear, concise, and free. No clickbait, no fear-mongering. Just expert analysis that helps you make smarter investing decisions.
Reply