Opportunist

Hi friends,

I hope you all are in good health. This pandemic is really making me anxious as I think about what's going to happen to the world moving forth.

I recently watched Contagion where it tells a story about a pandemic and I have two key take aways from the film.

First, they destroyed Gwyneth Paltrow for me. I hate her character in the movie.

Secondly, I feel like the caharater Jude Law is playing in the movie is the perfect embodiment of the idea of an opportunist. Hence, the inspiration of this post for today.

Growing up, I've always believed that I can be a billionaire one day. All throughout my teen life, I would do whatever I can to work towards being a billionaire. Back then, I would save more than half of my allowances and I rarely splurge on myself. In fact, my goal was so ambitious, I didn't just want to be the richest person on Earth, I want to be so rich that it extends the denomination of trillionaire. Quadrillionaire or quinitllionaire maybe? 

However, as I grew up, I wanted to make a concrete plan on making the right step towards becoming a billionaire. As I chart my plan, first by breaking it up to making a million, then breaking the sums down to the amount it takes to garner that million within five years time, and then I break it down further into the monthly income that I need to achieve in order to meet the goal, I realized that the idea of becoming a billionaire is absurd. It's so farfetched to me and I can never be one. 

This realization hit me quite hard. My thought went paralyze as I kept dwelling into the fact that there is no way I can reach my dream that I've been chasing after ever since my teenage days. Took me some time to finally accept this fact and keep moving forward with my life, searching for something more realistic as a goal. 

As I dig deeper into the ways that I could still be rich, I slowly learned that what's important is the journey. Every simple decision in life, every routines, the frame of mind in approaching the goal, those are the most essential trait to have. Because life is not just about the destination, I would argue that the progress, the journey, the adventure would be more meaningful at times. That's what makes the destination even more special.

I understood that the process towards being wealthy starts with a shift in the frame of mind that accepts that there is no shortcut. To be wealthy, most often that not, it involves proper planning and consistency. In general, that is the key. However, on a rare occasion in a lifetime, opportunity knocks on your door and you have to act quick to get them.

The the character that Jude Law plays in the movie grabs the opportunity infront of him and milk them right to the core. Earning him plenty of wealth in the process. It is acknowledged that some of his method questions one's moral compass, but if you look further into the idea of how he thinks on the repercussions of the current cataclysmic event, it proves that you can do some preparations now in order to get ahead especially in times of economic turmoil. 

If there's any takeaways that I want to emphasize in this post is this, if you can think of the causes and effects of a certain situation, and link that train of thoughts to other sector/segments of the general economy or a broader idea, you could almost identify the opportunity slots for you to slide in and benefit from it. I think that's my current interest for now. It's about learning to invest from the viewpoint of macroeconomy where one have to combine the fundamental and technical analysis skills, understanding the cyclical/seasonal cycle, identifying the business stages, predicting behavioral finance/economics and etc. I believe that the progress towards wealth will be more meaningful to me if I can manage to connect the dots, solve the puzzle and be wealthy from it.

A very simple example from the movie is snatching the healthcare and food&beverage stocks before a pandemic is declared.

I'm currently in love with this idea.

Anyway, that is all for today. Stay safe, my friends. Don't forget to take care of your hygiene and practice social distancing.

Thank you.