The effect of your appreciation of life on your peers

When I was studying in university, money was tight. I wasn’t getting any allowance from the parents, I had to work a job that pays $200 per month just to tide me through university.

Naturally, you start evaluating what you should have and what you shouldn’t have. When it comes to food, the more you eat, the more it removes hunger for now and perhaps for the next meal.

I had good friends then. When they couldn’t finish their food, I would make a request and they would obliged to pass it to me. Its a natural and rational thing to do back then.

Looking back, I received this sharing on a mailing list on the experience of Adam Braun, who wrote “The promise of a pencil: How an ordinary person can create extraordinary change”.

Adam was at a nice restaurant in NYC eating a fancy steak dinner. After backpacking, on a shoe string budget, all over the world, I could only imagine how great that steak must have tasted.

He was invited to this dinner because he had interviewed for a prestigious consulting company and they were going to offer him a job. The company took everyone out to celebrate with steak and champagne.

He finished his steak and watched as the waiter began clearing plates. That’s when he noticed another, perfectly cooked, UNTOUCHED steak on a plate being taken from the youngest female partner at this consulting company. All she ate was the vegetables and left the juicy steak behind.

Imagine what must have been going through Adam’s mind – what would have been going through YOUR mind if you were in his position. He was thinking, “I want that steak.”

So he did what most of us would never have the cojones to do: he SNATCHED that steak off the woman’s plate.OMG. Reading this story in his book, I got embarrassed FOR him. Because really, who does that?

You can hear the full interview in this podcast here. To let that sink in, he basically took the youngest partner, in one of the most prestigious consulting firm in the world, which essentially means to others, whatever he wants he takes it.

Eventually that worked out for him. Sine then, he has been known for the person who does the bold moves and it worked out really well for him.

My lesson from this is different. As you understand and structured your wealth building & management philosophy, you will realize that what you live by is totally different from how other people do it. There will be a lot of things that, because you don’t look at yourself from a third person perspective, you have no idea what are people’s narrative of you.

Is it a good narrative? or a bad one.

Do you care that they form that kind of narrative? Do they feel you are above them or beneath them?

Let me know if you got a good story on this.

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Kyith

Kyith is the Owner and Sole Writer behind Investment Moats. Readers tune in to Investment Moats to learn and build stronger, firmer wealth foundations, how to have a Passive investment strategy, know more about investing in REITs and the nuts and bolts of Active Investing.

Readers also follow Kyith to learn how to plan well for Financial Security and Financial Independence.

Kyith worked as an IT operations engineer from 2004 to 2019. Currently, he works as a Senior Solutions Specialist in Insurance Start-up Havend. All opinions on Investment Moats are his own and does not represent the views of Providend.

You can view Kyith's current portfolio here, which uses his Free Google Stock Portfolio Tracker.

His investment broker of choice is Interactive Brokers, which allows him to invest in securities from different exchanges all over the world, at very low commission rates, without custodian fees, near spot currency rates.

You can read more about Kyith here.

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