On Style: "Elevate" - Part 4 of ...

No chaos or killings, my style is so brilliant

-Spider-Man Enter the Spider Verse, “Elevate”

This week I had the opportunity to visit and be an exhibitor in the Dubai air show. The first time I ever heard of Dubai I was taking my first international trip in 2004, and I had a layover in the Heathrow airport. There was a sign there advertising for “The World,” a group of man-made islands made in the shape of… the world, off of one of Dubai's beaches. I thought to myself - what a weird advertisement for a sci-fi movie, and then later doing some googling and finding - holy sh*t - that's going to be a real place. Clicking through, I also found it somewhat amusing that at the time, the bought islands mirrored the order of colonial occupation. Man-made Europe was full-up, America was getting crowded, South America was growing, and Africa… well, still developing. Regardless, I had found out about a place that was inventing itself from the riches if oil and hoping to position itself as the transportation center of the world.

15 years later, I'm getting to see it for myself, even more fortunate to have work pay for the trip. This post is about style and design because as a modern city with unique history, Dubai was the blank canvas a city could hope for. Unlike rapid expansion in the US, which builds horizontal, sprawling communities, Dubai knew from the beginning that to get on the map, it had to go vertical (although it has its share of sprawl).

High skyscrapers surrounded by barren dessert creates a striking contrast of opulence for opulence's sake.

To me, style is what remains when you take everything else that is unneeded away. If the unneeded vastly outweighed the substance, what you are left with is flourish and embellishment, not style. That’s why, I’ll argue that designing a spacesuit could be a great analogy to what makes something stylish. A few thoughts on writing style which also applies to things outside of writing, from a literary classic:

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.

-Strunk & White, The Elements of Style

I’m sure there are fashion essays that describes this perspective more clearly, but I’ll approach it as an analyst. To me - discussion of design incorporates three things: Style, Fashion, and Trends. I see Style being anything that directly relates to the function being performed. Its why the pieces of clothing that sem to be the most timeless are those that are used for a specific purpose - think uniforms - military, police, maybe clergy. I’d argue that there aren’t many typical women’s garments in that category because they have historically been more toward the fashion side. Where fashion is more closely aligned with ornamentation - decisions made that are on top of the purpose of the clothing. If women had had the opportunity to be the designers of their own clothing earlier, I think there would be more timeless styles to point to. And lastly, there are trends -things that are tied to a time period, such as materials available, predominant climate, the way of displaying the clothes.

Design can be only stylish - completely made for function, but that is almost impossible to do without being pulled by trends or fashion influences. Similarly, something can purposefully be solely fashionable to evoke a certain feeling or idea without needing to worry about what the clothing is supposed to “do” as much (think New York fashion show).

My impressions of Dubai are very surface level. I was there for five days, but saw very little of the city. I did, however see how people interacted, and the attractions to which the city aspires - the tallest building, and planning for a global Expo 2020, which is basically a re-invention of World’s Fairs of the past. Perhaps the reason Dubai seems cool to visit but less tempting to want to live is that the designs move purely toward the trendy side. If someone has done it, Dubai will follow, but move it to the over-the-top category. I liken it to a distant family member who has recently come into some money. It’s impressive to visit with them, but in the back of your mind, you’re left wondering - what’s the point of all of this?

The three components of design choices: Style, fashion and trends

So all that preamble to say that a spacesuit is a really interesting design problem that gets back to the purest expression of style. Invent something that has to keep high-paying toursts extremely comfortable while being conscious that it needs to contribute to these people’s ability to stay alive in a harsh atmosphere, not weigh a lot, provide options for carrying many different things - notebooks, personal mission statement, and still photograph well to preserve the memory and visuals from the experience.

To the point above on there not being many timeless women’s style expressions, women’s and men’s suits look the same, because there isn’t room for much ornamentation. However, a spacesuit can’t be purely stylish (read completely built for function), because there are limits on cost, sponsors to please, and some trends that are just implicit in our approach to clothes at this point in history.

Relating this back to Spider-man, we all love the flashy superhero costume - the primary colors of Superman, the contrasting red and blue of Spider-Man, the flashy green of The Riddler… OK, nevermind. The point is that these colors make the superheros easy to identify, especially when they were introduced subject to being printed in grainy newspapers and black and white TV. But fast forward to now, and the Black Panther’s spacesuit-esque costume in Avengers makes a whole lot more sense and will age a lot better than whatever it is Wolverine wears.

So in your next design project - website, essay, artwork, get back to the very core expression of what you are doing. And then make conscious decisions to add ornamentation or trendy things. They will stand out that much more.

On Investing: "Elevate" - Part 3 of ...

The song Elevate for sure wasn't talking about investing, but bear with me here. It is talking about choosing a side, and in terms of investing, you are picking the companies who you think will win. With investing, though, you have to remember that you can bet on everyone at once, and while sometimes you will lose the battle if an economic cycle, you can still win the overall investment war. Most of my opinions here are based off of The Simple Path to Wealth. (If you disagree, take it up with Mr. Collins or check out a podcast).

You gotta choose a side, you gotta choose a side
You gotta pick
You gotta do what's right or you gonna lose the fight (I gotta elevate)

…

My boy, you better choose a side
I may have lost the battle but I will not lose the war
I can promise you I will not lose this time

On Monday, a stock I held went up 15% in a single day. The next day, it went up another 30%. Killer right?

Unfortunately, the previous Sunday night I had decided to cut my losses with that stock and dump it, putting the selling wheels into motion I probably caught some if the rise of Monday's activity but overall I missed that almost 40% upswing. Whoops.

My point here is that I was choosing a stock that I wanted to be a winner. The stock I'm talking about is the electric vehicle manufacturer NIO. I don't want to get into the details of the company here (this video does a better job of that), but when I bought a few shares, it was more like placing a bet than making an investment. Maybe the bet would hit, maybe it wouldn't. This is not an investment strategy.

NIO stock performance since IPO

If we treated investments like Spider-man chooses being good and fighting evil, we would lose both the battle and the war (eventually).

A better approach is to invest in the fact that there will always be companies battling to be better. In practice, this looks like buying an index fund like:

• Total stock market exchange traded fund - VTI or IWV

• Total market index mutual fund - VTSAX or FSKAX (minimum balance needed)

• Real estate index funds - VGSIX or VNQ or FSNRX

There are also managed funds that I'd say are equivalent to investing on Marvel vs. DC comics. You know the characters (companies) who are involved in each universe, you know the style of the fund managers, but you also pay a premium to have someone else do the thinking for you instead of assembling your own group of companies. Of course there's no guarantee here that either managed fund (Marvel or DC), has any better idea of what they're doing than investing in the whole game itself, but you never know. You could get an Avengers portfolio that lasts for 20 years and makes billions are the fifth reboot of Superman that somehow never takes off.

One of the funds I like in this space, is ARKK. It is a tech-heavy managed fund run by a woman and betting on disruptive Innovation. I like the founder, I like their analysis and I'm willing to sacrifice some investment returns on paying for their time. Overall, though it's still only a small fraction of my investment savings.

ARKK stock performance since IPO

So, if you're new to investing, here we're doing the opposite of what Spider-man has to do. You don't have to pick a side, and the best way not to lose is to bet on the game itself (index fund) rather than choosing a particular company.

In terms of practical steps, i'd do something like this just to get started learning more:

1. Open a Roth IRA if you don't have one already

2. In that IRA, buy shares of an index fund - this should be like 95% if the money you're setting aside assuming you're already contributing to a retirement account

3. Open a brokerage account (account that holds stocks), choose one company you like in an industry you're familiar with. You could use Robinhood or Acorns to be trendy.

4. Periodically follow the financial news about that company. Odds are it will put into context everything that's happening to your bigger index fund holdings, and you will learn more and retain more about investing.

5. In the meantime, keep contributing to the index fund,no matter what the market is doing, you will not have to time highs or lows or choose companies, you're just betting that everyone around you is choosing sides while you sit back and win the war.

On Decisions: "Elevate" - Part 2 of ...

The next installment of breaking down the song “Elevate” is on decisions. Spiderman has to make decisions all the time - listening to the scanner, deciding who to help, deciding who to let in on his secret crime-fighting life. But I think what enthralled me about Spiderman as a kid was his ability to be so care-free,- the way he moves through the skyscrapers of New York makes Spiderman have to trust that there will be another building, another ledge, another flagpole to swing from.

He jumps before he knows the ending, and that’s sometimes what you have to do in making a decision.

Since there's no heroes anymore
Jump out the window, then put the mask on

I feel like I have been at a perpetual crossroads since finishing business school. I have been a good student, because it is a defined path. The semester begins, mid-terms, finals, move on to the next required course. There is a beginning and an end. And before the end, the timeline forces you to make a decision.

The lesson to take from Spiderman is:

1. Jump - this is the step where you say - f*ck it, let’s do this. It could come a few different ways - through careful planning and consideration is a possibility, but to really be effective in this way, that preparation was either the result of a previous failure or the f-it moment is a direct response to a failure. Or, you could just be so inspired that you’re called to create something - a creative work, a business, whatever - you have such a clear vision, that there’s no way not to do it.

2. Put on the Mask - Putting on the mask is the step of backtracking your way through the proper steps. Presenting to yourself to those who are there to call your bluff with the language, presentations and approach they want to hear. Putting on the mask means you have a way you want the world to see you, even if you can’t see yourself that way yet.

Some reflections on decisions from Stephen Covey:

Power is the faculty or capacity to act, the strength and potency to accomplish something. It is the vital energy to make choices and decisions. It also includes the capacity to overcome deeply embedded habits and to cultivate higher, more effective ones.

Power is synonymous with the ability to make decisions, the ability to direct your life in a way that is stronger than habit and the current of everyone else’s decisions.

Not only does making a decision reflect your strength, it also has to reflect your beliefs, which will be a part of you in any situation.

A personal mission statement becomes the DNA for every other decision we make.

I haven’t yet shared my mission statement publicly:

My mission statement

Creatively discover and unlock potential

Anything which detracts from that pursuit I should steer away from. So away I go, jumping first, putting the mask of confidence on, and seeing where the tumble of opportunity brings me.

I see potential in the way people pursue transportation solutions - getting from place to place faster or more efficiently has been proven to help the economy. It does so, because you’re able to get more out of life - in a business sense, this means more productivity. However, in a personal sense, it means doing more of what makes you you. You can visit family, you can develop personal business connection, you can experience a new culture.

Similarly, fitness unlocks your ability to live life better. You can move with ease with the children around you. You can explore nature, be confident in your body’s abilities to lift, jump, run, row, swim and process the food around you without ill effects. Fitness and health are to me, synonymous with potential.

The ability to find projects that excite me and bring them to life in the areas of transportation or fitness are the current career areas where I see my mission statement coming to life. In the future, I want to extend this to my own family, creating wealth (read: potential) and also funding other projects and companies to help others realize their own potential. The creativity will be saved for another post.

So, my take on the steps necessary to make a decision you’ll be able to be confident with are:

1. Decide on your DNA, on your mission statement

2. Do the research you can do, trying to test the things which will be the most difficult - have conversations with people, read, try to sell a version of what you’re thinking about

3. Say f* it and start the thing. Publish the blog, sing the song, enter the business plan competition, sell to someone you don’t know.

4. Figure out the small print. Put on your mask, and fake it, learn, fake it, change your mask, and keep going until the mask isn’t necessary.

The ultimate hero is the one who everyone recognizes and doesn’t have to hide the sides of her life. Superman, Supergirl, Nick Fury, Captain Marvel, Captain America. They have no mask and unlimited possibilities. But first they had to jump.