In this episode, we discuss why you should diversify in things you can’t control and double down on the things you can control.
Full Transcript
Hi Everyone, welcome to the You’re Daily Cup of Joe Podcast, with your host Joe Bautista. In this podcast, my goal is to give you quick lessons on how to grow yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually so you can have better careers, better relationships, and better personal finances.
I’m also the author of the book “More You Know, More You Grow: How to Get Better Every Day”. In this book, I wrote down over 30 tips to help you grow in those four cornerstones. I’m also the founder of Grow With Joe, where I combine self-development coaching and financial planning for Latino Professionals.
In today’s episode, we’re are going to talk about the need to diversify in things you can’t control. In investing, diversification is important because you don’t want to put all your eggs in one basket because if that basket drops, then all the eggs could break. This is especially true when you’re not the one holding the basket. If can’t control something, then you should be diversifying in that area. The randomness of life doesn’t discriminate against anyone and if you’re putting all your hope into this one thing, then life might give you something else than what you were expecting.
If you can control the thing, that you don’t really need to diversify in that area. For me, I get all my income from my Grow With Joe Business, but within my business, I’m diversified. I don’t get all my income from one client. So if one client leaves, I still have other sources of income to rely on. I can control how much effort I put into my business and the more work I put in my business, the more benefit I can get. It is unpredictable in how much I will get for my efforts, but the more hours I put in, the more I’m exposing myself to the luck that will give me what I want.
With things I can’t control, are people and natural events. I can’t control what the government, businesses, and the people I interact with, so I need to make sure I’m not totally dependent on that entity. If you rely on the system, there might come a day when the system doesn’t need you anymore as Jeff Goins once wrote. This is the reason why I reach out to people on a daily basis to keep in touch and I’m not loyal to any businesses for the most part.
Having control over my life is one reason why I don’t want to own a house and prefer to rent. If something happens then I want to make sure that my house is not holding me back. For me personally, I find having a big house exhausting because you have to clean and maintain it and you have to fill it up with stuff, which are things that limit my freedom in my mind.
So I think I’m going to have a small space that doesn’t require me to have a lot of stuff and my rent will be cheaper. If I have to leave, I want to make sure I’m not having a lot of stuff holding me back. I’m making sure all my income isn’t going into something like a house where down the line it can cause me trouble.
With my income I want to make sure some are going towards my financial plan, some to my personal development with books, courses, and the gym, food, and other living expenses. I don’t want to put all my money on housing and a car. What you do with your money is up to you, but you should just know the deal before you accept the deal as I’ve said in the past.
If you’re working in a job, don’t place all of your faith into that job and I would do stuff like networking with other businesses so you can have more options because if your job doesn’t work out, at least you have options now instead of nothing.
If your the best at your job, you can control your skills with how much effort you put into them and this is something you should not diversify in if it makes sense. To be the best underwater basket weaver might not be the best path. Whatever you’re good at and can control, you should double down on. If you’re a great writer, then double down as a writer. Whatever the skill is, focus on getting towards the top 90% percentile and then focus on something else because the effort is something you can control.
You can get lucky if you don’t diversify but you’re just accepting a lot of risks and how lucky can you be in the longer term? Most likely you’ll just fade away. The reason why the human race has been so successful is through diversification of ideas, values, and skills. So embrace diversity because it can take you to the next level.
We can’t do everything on our own and we need to make sure that were benefiting from other people’s success and we pass down our own success to other people. This is why I read so much and listen to a lot of podcasts because I want different ideas to help me out in my life and it really has propelled my life forward. If I just doubled down on what I already knew, I would of been stuck in the 90s and we don’t live in the 90s anymore. I love mixing ideas because it helps you take advantage of unrealized opportunities. When you added taxis to the internet and made Lyft and Uber, transportation has really be revolutionized. This has happened in other areas of our life as well and if embrace diversity and don’t rely too much on what we already know, then it can really help us advance as a person and as a society.
That’s it for today’s episode, to summarize it, you want to diversify in areas that you can’t control and you want to double on things that you can control. Diversification will give you that downside protection when things don’t work out and allow you to get out of those plateaus. Don’t accept too much risk and how different options will just help you out in the future. No one can predict the future so have a diverse set of ideas, assets, and finances, will just help you better prepared for the unknown.
To get a free copy of my book “More You Know, More You Grow: How to get better every day” just go to my website growwithjoe.me/book and just pay for shipping and handling.
I have a quiz on my website that grades your inner circle, so if you want to find out if your inner circle is an A, B, C, D, or F, you can take that quiz at growwithjoe.me/quiz
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Thanks for joining me today and remember if you go with Joe, you can grow with Joe, cause Joe knows Dough.
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