Exploring irrevocable pages, systems thinking, and thin margins

Exploring irrevocable pages, systems thinking, and thin margins

Happy Thursday! Thanks for reading Intentional Dollar — where we look at old money ideas through a new perspective.

What’s inside?

  • One idea 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.

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One idea to experiment with:

Irrevocable Pages:

Life is like one giant book. But unlike any old book, you can’t pick this one up, start over, or thumb through past pages. Once they’re flipped, they’re gone. 

The pages are the days we have here. Unknown in number, tethered together with a strange plot we make up as we go. 

Even though the plot is unknown, it has some familiar waypoints. Promotions, mortgage payoffs, seven-figure account values. Newborns finally sleeping through the night, vacations to recharge the soul, or some other distant delight. 

When trudging through the drudgery, it’s awfully easy to touch that fast forward button, skipping to the good stuff. The one where we put our heads down and grind it out, breezing through the boring for the better days ahead. 

The good things are coming but good things are here now, too.

So while you don’t yet have that promotion, the time in the current chair is part of your story. Savor it. Enjoy it. Know that the gap between what you have and what you want is time. And once it’s gone, there’s no revisiting past pages. 

It’s also true that in any good story, it takes time for the plot to develop. Without this slow build, the bits of gold that make the story full are faceless facts that don’t mean a thing. 

Meaning comes from the progression of the pages. 

once the pages are flipped, they’re locked with no key

Two quotes on systems thinking:

Linear thinking would have us see 1 + 1 as 2. Systems thinking would say 1 + 1 is something far different than the linear result. There are interconnections between the elements that make up the system, and these connections may unleash more than the straight line answer. 

“Remember, always, that everything you know, and everything everyone knows, is only a model. Get your model out there where it can be viewed. Invite others to challenge your assumptions and add their own.”

Donella Meadows

“Listening to both sides of a story will convince you that there is more to a story than both sides.”

Frank Tyger

Three questions on thin margins:

  1. Where are my money or life margins too thin right now?

  2. What if I redirected resources to the thin margins that are causing a heavy amount of my mental friction?

  3. What proactive steps, investments, or actions am I currently blocked from because my margins are too thin?

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:

The pages are our days

Piled in an irrevocable stack

So don’t turn them too quickly

There’s no turning back

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.

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