Wealth In Relationships
“Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.”
- Henry David Thoreau
As someone who trades in this volatile crypto market, I am, like everyone else, looking to generate returns. In my opinion, the returns and impact will be much, much more substantial than those in the traditional market.
If capital is adequately deployed, volatility is where you make extreme returns and go down in the history books as a genius or lucky. Early investors in Amazon, Apple, and now Bitcoin look like men amongst boys. The enormous amount of wealth some of these people accumulate creates a sense of jealousy in any person.
Any ambitious person will seek to create this wealth of their own. I know I am. I want to be a great investor and amass the wealth of these giants. However, we must always remind ourselves that wealth in commas is not true wealth.
As one of my true friends once told me, “I measure wealth by the people in my life.”
If we don’t have the right mindset about wealth and investing, we will never become the best investors. We will never get both sides of that wealth. We will diminish our relationships and self-worth by thinking wealth is defined by commas. Life is worth far more.
Let me tell you a story to back this up.
At my college, I met a great mentor and teacher. However, this person was not just a teacher but someone crushing it in the real world. They only ‘taught’ to give back. I am so grateful for that.
We learned all about investing, finance, and cash flow! Cash is king. I will never forget the term ‘cash flow.’ Yet, the biggest thing that person taught me and the other students was humility and love. They were masters at comparing investing to tangible, real-world knowledge.
One of their stories stood out among the rest.
One day, he interrupts his lecture and talks about one of his really good friends…This friend was diagnosed with cancer, and it didn’t look good. Anyway, they had worked together on a high-value options trade. For beginners, options are a way to bet if you think the market will go down or up. If you are right, you can make a lot of money. If you are wrong, you can lose a shit ton of money. There is terminology involving ‘puts’ and ‘calls,’ but I won’t go into that. It doesn’t matter now.
These two men bet and they bet very wrong. They both lost thousands of dollars. I don’t remember the specific dollar amount, but I think it was around the six-figure range.
These two were sitting on a bench together, talking through the trade. They realized how badly they had fucked up and how much money was now gone. They were both figuring out what in the hell they were going to say to their wives! Eventually, they both start dying laughing.
Two grown men on a bench who had just lost thousands of dollars, laughing.
As he tells this story to a handful of us, he starts tearing up. He is crying so much that he has to stop telling the story…
He gathers himself and says, “He died shortly after that moment.”
I will never forget that story.
That story taught me that no matter your investment thesis and no matter how much money you make, only relationships matter. Our experiences and the people around us are true wealth.
“The real measure of your wealth is how much you’d be worth if you lost all your money.”
- Unknown
My teacher was happy to tell us that story. It was a happy moment for him, as they lost so much money, and he considered that a happy moment. Two friends simply enjoying each other’s company.
My intuition suggests that to become great investors, we must measure our wealth in relationships and not in commas. Only then can we be truly free to invest the right way, with a long-term view and a healthy perspective.
-Molesy