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_{Exploring the enemy within, concentration, and specificity}

Happy Sunday! 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:}

The Enemy Within:

It’s a new year. Fresh starts, resolutions; new habits, opportunities; old temptations, frustrations; false starts, reversions. We launch the year from an eve of excitement, the kind you feel buzzing inside. The genesis. The hope. The catalyst. All is possible on the eve. Rebirth. Renewal. Regeneration. Return. Recommitment. We are ready, we are eager, we are motivated.

Drawn to the light of a new life. A life that’s real, not too far, it’s right over there.

We march, but we stumble. Something always seems to snap us back, trip us up, and make our tangible vision feel like a mirage. So we fall back to the paved path. “That’s not obtainable.” “That’s not for me.” “I don’t have enough time.” “I don’t have enough money or the right resources.”

These are some of the lies we tell ourselves. Self-deception—the enemy within—weakens our resolve and opens the gate, letting the good slip away and the bad slip in. It’s not an external problem. And it’s why Richard Feynman said, “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool.”

Our brains make up stories to explain the gap between our wants and our realities. They make up stories to smooth over bumpy failures and inadequacies. The mind protects us, and in doing so, hurts us. These lies might not be as overt as you’d expect. “I need more time” doesn’t seem like a lie on the surface, but it’s the premise, “I don’t have enough time” that is the lie. The enemy within.

It’s these innocuous, unchecked premises that roam around invisible and destructive. We never question them; we accept them as is. To find your direction this year, to get on a sustainable path, to avoid falling off and rewearing the labels “undisciplined,” “inconsistent,” “faulty,” you’re going to have to have a Socratic, premise-searching dialogue with yourself.

It’s much easier to stick with a resolution when your convictions are strong, and it’s easier to have strong convictions if you spend time testing them. The goal of this dialogue is to pressure-test each embedded assumption—the premises from which our lies are fabricated.

• I need more money
  ⇒ I don’t have enough money
  ⇒ I can’t afford X
  ⇒ X is required to begin
  ⇒ Without X, I can’t become who I want to be

• I don’t have enough time
  ⇒ My schedule is fixed
  ⇒ Everything on it is equally necessary
  ⇒ Change requires large, uninterrupted blocks
  ⇒ Small, imperfect action doesn’t count

• I’m not disciplined
  ⇒ Discipline is a personality trait
  ⇒ Other people have it; I don’t
  ⇒ Failure is evidence of identity
  ⇒ Trying again is pointless

_{Two quotes on concentration:}

Where are you directing focus this year? Are you willing to concentrate on a single thing?

_{Three questions on specificity:}

1. How many of my new year’s resolutions are vague?

2. What if I added more specificity to the resolutions, leaving no doubt to the action steps needed?

3. What time? What location? What action(s) do I need to perform daily — how else can I add more specificity?

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:}

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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