Sure, it was modeled after President Obama 100-Day in office. Two reasons I chose 99, first as I have always been fascinated with the number '9' (try this, take a calculator and punch in any random number, it could be 3 digits or 8 digits; it really doesn't matter. Thing is, subtract the last digit of that random number and you would always end up with the number '9') and second, because I believe we should always reflect on our actions as with each reflection, it will allow us to assess and review if and how our goals were achieved (or not) and how we can do better in the future.
Of course reflections can be superficial if one choose to just scratch the surface of it. Or it could become a "blame-game", where we start blaming everything and anything for why we failed to achieve a goal. We believe that when reflecting, we should go deeper within ourselves and examine issues using the acronym TEAM.
TEAM stands for targets, efforts, architecture, and mindset. For instance, if we set a target like, to have $1 million by the end of 2008, and we did not achieve it, the natural next step is to examine our efforts. Did we draw up a plan to acquire the $1 million? Did we adhere to the plan? What exactly did we do but yet didn't help us achieve that goal?
Certainly, we should not stop at this and say, well, I am just going to try harder and work faster using the same methods. Einstein said insanity is to do the same thing over and over and expect different results. Hence, we may need to draw up a new plan. Or should we? I mean, its fine to redraw your plans the next time round, but if you're going to keep drawing up new plans and yet it didn't work, how long more can you draw up new plans before you give up?
I know, Edison tried more than 10,000 times till he found the way to make the light bulb. But then, how many of us might have given up on the 9,999 time? Or maybe some of us might even give up at the 3rd attempt?
The difference between people who succeed and people who don't is this. They look beyond their efforts to search for the ways to achieve their goals. Back to our example of the $1 million, perhaps we need also to look at the architecture to see if these structures, platforms, or systems that we were leveraging on; were they suitable for us to achieve our goals? Maybe the structures that we depended upon were sweepstakes or stock prices of companies; those that we have little or no influence over.
If that was the case, its as good as leaving it to chance! And what are the chances of winning the sweepstake? Odds were, we are more likely to be struck by lightning then winning the sweepstake. Or apart from attending the shareholders meeting of the company whose shares we've bought and demanding an answer for a soured investment made by the company, we have little recourse when things turned out badly.
Of course, then it is to look at architectures that we have influence over. Note, we say influence and not control because there is only one thing you have complete control over and that's your own self. Even then, some people will say, "but he made me angry!", or "she caused me to be upset". No one can do that, only ourselves. (This is in fact, still a constant struggle for me.)
So what are the architecture we have influence over? It could be our own business, our little project, or even our decision to leverage on the property market. Whatever the case is, the reason why we chose these platforms, structures, or systems is because we believed that these architecture are the ones we can depend on or we have influence over or it could be due to the certain assumptions that we have.
This lead us to the mindset. If our mindset in the past was, let's leverage on some trustworthy companies, like Lehman Brothers, our assumptions could be that a bank with that kind of history will stand the test of time. Those that have invested in the minibond series will tell you otherwise now. Hence, if we question the assumptions, we may rule our investing in companies as an option.
As a trained Economist, we have been working with models (not the type with long legs though, unfortunately) and the assumptions that come with it. For instance, one of the most studied model was that of "perfect competition". As students, we usually laugh at this model for its lack of reality. Some of the assumptions are; for every seller there is a buyer, everyone knows the best price for the product hence there are no super normal profits to be made, the market is always in equilibrium. Laughable model isn't it? Or is it really?
Isn't the stock market a close resemblance of the perfect competition model? Didn't the Internet make some of these assumptions possible?
Then, as we progress from 101 to slightly more intermediate economic theory, we learn of the "imperfect competition" to the "monopoly" and the "monopsony" models. With the introduction of each model, more sophisticated than the last, we learn to relax some assumptions of the previous models. And then, re-examine the ways in which buyer(s) and seller(s) will interact so as to understand how the real world works.
Of course during our course of study, not many of us could see the correlation between these models and the real world, if not for our professors (thank you Dr Ashish Lall). But now, we need to be our own professors and ask ourselves; what were some of these assumptions that we've had when we decided on the platforms that we were going to expend our efforts so as to achieve our targets?
Hence, we need to ask if we were foolish to have assumptions like those of the "perfect competition", where those rules didn't apply to our current situation. Or did we have too strict an assumption, like that of an "oligopoly" and use it in an "imperfect competition" situation?
Or, even more radical, were any of these assumptions even valid at all?
In these times, especially when conventional wisdom is now folly. Where having a black leading the US of A was once unthinkable, we need to seriously ask ourselves, what assumptions did we use that help (or hinder) our efforts towards achieving our goals?
Once we have critically examined those assumptions, we can now start relaxing some of these assumptions or even bring in new ones so that our "models" or mindset could more accurately reflect the world in which we live in. And the more accurate our "models" or mindsets are, the more likely are we in achieving our goals.
Remember, the definition of assume is, "it could make an 'ass' out of 'u' and 'me'!"
Respectfully yours,
Melvyn Tan
(Sent from Blackberry Bold)
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