One Job Isn't Enough

economics entrepreneur Jun 13, 2022

📣Mayday, mayday it’s Friday the 13th! While it’s another ‘Day in May’, more appropriately it feels like the international distress signal. Whether it’s the frantic rush to stock up on goods or knowing where to store your cash, inflation continues to burn from both ends of the stick.🧨 It’s clear to me that one job isn’t going to cut it.

Founder’s Corner

I recently finished the widely anticipated second book by Dr Saifedean Ammous called the Fiat Standard. While there were tricky parts to stomach and points I contested, it is a recommended read for a different perspective of how the fiat economy has failed. One particular point that has stuck in my mind has been playing on repeat like a Hamilton song you wished would just stop. Paraphrasing Dr Ammous, he states to do well in the current economic system, we all need to have at least two jobs- one on the market where we’re paid for our productivity and the other where we need to learn how not to lose that money in our bank accounts.

Ouch!🤕 That hurts to read again. I don’t recall that being part of our basic education, do you?

As a CEO, the need to understand business finances, marketplace places, and the venture capital world has led me a far way in growing our business, but learning the global macroeconomics systems is another beast.🐻

*Fun Fact* I worked for an Angel Investor while starting my own company. Learning the two perspectives at once expedited my learning curve. 📈

This is an important reality as we navigate these times, as with all markets ‘what goes up must come down.’ While this doesn’t mean people won’t be harmed in the process (as in most economic downturns or god-forbid, another recession), there are a lot of longer-term horizon opportunities. While reading more of the stoic philosophers can help you ride these emotional waves of the marketplace, there’s no better way than a re-education in ‘How the economy machine works’ (another tip of the hat to Mr Ray Dalio 🎩).

Must Watch

I’ve swapped the limited entertainment watching to nearly exclusively educational, as this is a key moment in time to be paying attention.👀 While I circle through a number of incredible, world-renowned economists, investors and financial literacy educators, if I had to pick my favourites, I’d recommend:

Real Vision Finance, especially episodes with their Co-Founder Raoul Paul
Andrei Jikh, magic and learning about finances can work
Lyn Alden, securities, equities, bonds, crypto and more (how does she actually do it all!?)

Comment below if you want more recommendations👇🏽, I have ample playlists!

The Future Of Investing

As usual, the people who are less advantaged overall tend to be the ones most harmed by the power of the few who control these systems. As a younger adult entering the job market in the 2008/2009 recession, this was not a nice trip.

As the Nobel Prize Economist, Paul Krugman, puts it, when the younger generation enters the labour force in a recession overall as a cohort they can never recover those losses over time.

Ouch!🤕

This is also why I want to share my own journey, as a novice investor and the steps I take to learn, feel more empowered and confident about the opportunities ahead. In newsletters to come, I’ll also be profiling the less-typical investors, economists and crypto Founders to learn how they started out. Humanising our mistakes, challenges and fears while learning something new is what courage is all about, especially in challenging times. My hope for you and me is this becomes one of the best decisions we make on this journey together.

That’s it from me for now.

Bye bye 👋🏻👋🏻

Jillian❤️