What I’ve learned this week (week 13 of 2020)

As of today, I’m starting a weekly series in which I go over all the lessons that I’ve learned this week.

I collect my personal and business lessons on a daily basis when I write in my evening journal just before going to bed. I have this theory that writing these lessons down before going to sleep will engrave my unconscious with these newly absorbed lessons while sleeping.

But anywho, let’s start

Sunday, March 21

Lesson One:
About Buying physical Gold

I wrote down that when you own physical gold it’s never about the amount of the value in dollars of this physical gold, but you should look at it in its weight form. So not how much is the gold you own worth in dollars but you should look at it in how much oz’s do you own. I got this insight from Robert Kiyosaki when he spoke about where he learnt this lesson on a podcast, which he, in turn, got from the legendary doomsday economist, James Richards.

Why a lesson about gold you might ask? Well, I’ve been buying real physical gold for the past weeks at the Goud Wissel Kantoor in Amsterdam. I’m doing this because I recently started to believe in the intrinsic value of metals in rough times. So looking at our current times with the Corona Virus I decided to diversify my portfolio. From now on a portion of my portfolio will always be measured in ounces of physical gold, stored away in the vault of the Amsterdam Goud Wissel Kantoor.

Lesson two:
About Buying physical Gold

I wrote down that gold will feel like a useless thing to own when there is nothing wrong in the world and all things are well. But you’ll see it as gods currency when you do need it. Nothing can beat the value of physical gold when times are tough. And when that moment comes when you really need your gold, you’ll know the true value of gold asap. That is what I believe.

Quote:
About the value of a currency

“God only gave us two true currencies: metals and all that is of use that comes from the soils and the land on which man can build. All the rest is based on what we believe it’s worth.”

M0nday, March 22

Lesson One:
About Sales & Marketing

Before you do any long term sales or marketing activities. You need to test the effectiveness of a method or tactic before you truly commit to a tactic. I learned this from my Dad who was a marketer at Procter & Gamble when he was my age. He learned a lot about coming up with effective marketing tests and practises to understand how a large group would react to a message by testing it on a significantly smaller group.

For me, it’s fun to see that the tactics they used in the 80s are still being used today. Nothing has really changed. Humans still fall for the same tricks and us humans are still as predictable in our behaviour as we were 40+ years ago.

Tuesday, March 23

Lesson One:
About Parenting and psychology

In a conversation with Nathalie, we both came up with an interesting insight based on our own personal upbringings and experiences. When you have kids you can only give them true freedom of action if you have completed your own journey and feel good about that journey. If you are unhappy with your own path and choices and if you are still constantly chasing that new thing, you will instil this within your own children. We both have this from our parents. All four of them were chasers and they instilled that anxiety in us. We will do it differently when raising our own kids. That is the mission.

Lesson Two:
About Parenting and psychology

This was more a question we asked ourselves in the same conversation. Can you still be successful in the chase for a bigger paycheck or career when you’re happy with your current situation?

I have always said to myself that I needed the feeling of non-contentedness because this pushes me to reach bigger goals. But is this truly the case and is this the message I want to give my kids. Peter (my colleague) always tells me that kids literally copy everything from their parents. So which evil should you choose for them? The road of contentedness and peace or the road of extreme productivity but at a cost of contentment? That is the question. (Or can you have both?)

Wednesday, March 24

Lesson One:
About Negotiating

This was a financial lesson based on a transaction I did where I bought my first batch of physical gold. Gold dealers and dealers in anything, in general, want to make as much money as they can. And I don’t blame them. It’s just logical. So when you walk into a shop while showing the dealer that you know nothing about the thing you want to buy, you will get ripped off in one way or another. Prepare before you go headfirst into a thing like buying gold.

During my first gold buying deal, I got ripped off because I wasn’t paying attention. I did not ask the dealer: Is this your best price? A salesman will always have the option to give you a discount especially when it’s a larger transaction. So do not get in love with the shiny things in front of you, try to always negotiate for objects of value. It will payout in the long run.

Thursday, March 25

Lesson One:
About hobbies and habits

In a wild brainfart, I thought about the concept of habit building and picking up new hobbies.

I looked at my own path and I realised that I did not like most of the habits I utilize right these days to be more effective. To be honest, I hated them for the first periods when I had to pick those new habits up.

So what insight did this give me you ask? Well, it showed me that you do not learn now hobbies or habits, you need to enforce new habits on yourself. For me, that is the only way.

Friday, March 26

Lesson One:
On startups

I got this lesson from a successful dutch angel investor who has a stake in our company Parkeagle. He told me some stories about the companies he had funded in the past. He gave some examples of companies that once they attracted the big bucks because the suddenly had so much of it, they started to see the money as funny money or even worse as monopoly money.

He explained the mental effects on a person when you see six zeros on the bank account of your company. It will feel like you need to spend it to feel productive. But this is not the case. Always spend your funding money wisely. Try to always keep a keen eye on costs and the effectiveness of your spending and measure the ROI of every dollar spent. And finally, set a budget in place with your investors so that spending will be kept in control

Lesson two:
On negotiating

You will not win a negotiation when you have no other options.
This fear of needing the deal will just radiate from your body and from your eyes. Always have a plan B in place and even better a plan C when you’re trying to get funding for your company. Plan B for us is always a smaller round with current investors, so you should always keep them in the loop and plan C should be others ways of getting the finances, like bank loans, whatever it takes.

That is the startup journey: always doing whatever it takes.

You will not win at this if you’re not doing whatever it takes. It’s as simple as that.

Have a great weekend and I will see you all in the next week!