Your life is a flatline

There’s a profound realization I've come to after years of personal and professional experiences: the journey through life does not adhere to a consistent upward trajectory. The notion that continuous hard work results in a corresponding linear progression is, I’ve found, more an exception than a rule. Life, in my experience, advances in sprints.

If we were to visualize a graph representing progress, it would look like long periods of stasis (i.e. flatline) or minimal incline followed abruptly by significant upward leaps. These jumps form the new baseline at the higher level, but they occur rarely and unpredictably. My own path, particularly regarding my career and financial status, has mirrored this exact pattern. I'm neither successful nor rich by the way, I'm simply describing the trajectory I experienced.

Let me give a few personal examples...

As a software engineer, my career began in the trenches of a relatively obscure startup. The atmosphere was comfortable, peppered with what you would call "lifers". It was a place where you could be very comfortable and secure for a long time... the company found a very small, but lucrative niche for which they've dominated.

To give an example, I sat beside someone who had been there for 10 years. He sat in the very back, where his screen was not easily visible to anyone else. He spent his day playing online poker and browsing random websites. Some may find this scenario enticing; I mean, who doesn't want a job with minimal stress and responsibilities? However, that was a clear sign I needed to GTFO of there.

Driven by a hunger for more, I immersed myself in learning, striving to excel in every task assigned and unravel the blueprint of an exemplary employee. Outside work, I would make time for expanding my horizons through engineering books and blogs. I even routinely practiced interview questions, maintaining a state of interview-readiness, despite no immediate intentions or opportunities to switch jobs.

This phase of intense personal and professional development stretched on for 2 years. Then, as if responding to my preparedness, the tech scene in the city I was in underwent an unexpected boom. Most noticeable was the major expansion of one of the FAANGs. My dedication to my development hadn’t gone unnoticed. Standing on the foundation of years of preparation, I got myself an interview, which ultimately led to my initiation into a FAANG, marking a significant leap in my career trajectory.

This pivotal progression was clearly anything but linear. It was a period characterized by apparent stasis — 2 years of relentless preparation — abruptly followed by a sharp ascent.

My financial growth followed a similar pattern. While my FAANG salary played a role, the substantial boosts to my wealth were the outcomes of a very limited set of decisions and, admittedly, fortuitous timing. Despite my primary profession in software engineering, I obtained a keen interest in personal finance and investing. I was, and still am, particularly interested in macroeconomics - I wanted to understand how money worked. Don't ask me why, I know it's boring, I just like it...

Learning about the markets and economy to make myself (somewhat) financially literate enabled me to make informed investment choices during the economic downturns - most notably the downturn caused by the COVID pandemic. I recognized the potential for asset appreciation due to extensive quantitative easing, and I acted decisively. I invested aggressively in growth companies, and it paid off.

Similar to my career trajectory, my portfolio was mostly in a state of stasis, followed by sharp rises to new baselines as a result of capitalizing on rare and unpredictable market opportunities.

It is very possible this, and the other good decisions I made were just sheer luck. After all, the scarcity of data points, and my data points are scarce, lends itself to attributions of luck rather than skill.

However, I'd like to think I would not have been able even to recognize these "bet heavy" opportunities had I had zero knowledge about how markets functioned. For example, studying what happened during the 2008 financial crisis served as an example of what quantitative easing (QE) can lead to, despite the difference in how and where the money was distributed (2008 QE was distributed mainly through bank lending, while covid QE was more "helicopter money").

Again, I could have just been very lucky; seriously. But I do believe that someone more knowledgeable should make better decisions than someone who is less knowledgeable; especially in the long run.

But who knows, the market is never a guarantee. Maybe my next few decisions will be bad (I really hope not...), and I will write another article titled "Financial knowledge is BS. Just YOLO".

It's imperative to clarify that my experiences are not universal blueprints for success (especially considering I'm not successful), nor do they advocate for a cavalier approach to career or financial decisions. Rather, they underscore a critical personal observation: Life’s most transformative opportunities tend to arrive in an unpredictable and abrupt manner. Being aptly prepared to seize these moments is crucial, as it propels us to new heights and establishes a new baseline. Apart from these pivotal instances, the trajectory of life largely remains in a state of stasis.

It should be apparent this observation does not undermine the importance of daily effort. On the contrary, it emphasizes the necessity of consistent hard work and preparedness in creating what I term a "luck surface area." Continuous effort and learning expand your sphere of potential opportunity, enhancing the likelihood that fortune will cross your path. Moreover, they ensure that when significant opportunities arise, you’re equipped with the knowledge, skills, and understanding to seize them fully.

In other words, keep griding.

SJ