The more I ponder on wealth building strategies, the more I realize that multiple income sources is less of a farce, in the sense that as much as technology has opened unprecedented opportunities, economic volatility demands diversification.
Also, against the background of these two forces, it's crystal clear that traditional career paths no longer guarantee stability.
I think for modern people, it's easier for us to get ahead of ourselves. To live more in the future than in the present, however unrealistic things may look like, we still move through a realistic timeframe.
It could be a universal principle that what comes easy, goes easy. The easier it is to make a million dollars, the easier it gets to lose a million dollars.
This paradox is particularly relevant in today's accelerated economy, fortunes can be built and lost at unprecedented speeds that make you think on how fragile modern wealth really is. I'm quite sure that crypto millionaires of 2021 who didn't take profit learned this lesson painfully in 2022.
Is it a smart thing to frontrun into high-risk investments, crypto markets, startups or the booming tech industry in general, as in what should've taken five years, is achieved in three years, with the risk of losing what has been achieved in three years in just a year or less?
Relatively Smart
Given the nature of technological acceleration, I would definitely say it's a smart thing, but only from the perspective that early adoption always leads to outsized returns and in such environments our window of opportunity may be uniquely time-limited.
When it comes to discernment or having some clarity with regards to such environments, I think understanding the difference between acceleration and shortcuts can do the job.
Acceleration means compressing learning curves through better tools and systems, shortcuts imply skipping crucial foundation-building steps.
Interestingly, the latter is not easier to spot in an environment that's experiencing the former.
For example, in the crypto space, ponzi-nomics refers to systems designed to collapse once the inflow of new capital slows, often disguised as 'innovative tokenomics'.
I recently discovered another meaning of the term, which is a process that looks like a ponzi but it isn't a ponzi(at least, in a traditional sense) because it's quite new or hasn't been battle tested before.
But I think the ability to pivot quickly depending on the shifting head/tail winds, while staying grounded in fundamentals is the main rule of thumb here.
Weathering The Storm
The mindset of avoiding rapid growth opportunities could be flipped into building shock absorbers that preserve capital and momentum during volatile market conditions.
This could well be the solution against the exposed risk of losing almost everything one has gained during cycles where market speculation outpaces real value creation.
In practice, maintaining multiple revenue streams even when one is performing exceptionally well is arguably a core aspect of financial independence for modern individuals.
Applying it into an investment pov, keep liquid reserves proportional to the potential downside risks in your portfolio, for instance.
This modern wealth-building landscape rewards those who can sprint, but only if they've trained for the marathon.
Meaning, the former is valuable as a tactical advantage, not a complete strategy in itself.
I think we have to learn how we can match the speed of opportunity with the wisdom of experience, even if that experience is compressed into shorter timeframes than ever before.
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