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A Simpler Way to Look at Life
Every week here I discuss families in business or families of wealth, especially regarding the challenges they face when planning for their next intergenerational transition.
Oftentimes, I’ll veer into related areas, including my own challenges as I interact with such families as an outside professional, who typically approaches their challenges from an angle that’s different from the one most of their other advisors take.
Interspersed with these stories, I typically share nuggets that pull back the curtain on some of the ways I personally view the world and my place in it.
This week, we’re going for “D: All of the Above”. Let’s get started.
A Muddle Through Market and Economy
During a previous chapter of my life, my main day-to-day work involved overseeing our family’s investment portfolio, following the liquidity event that occurred in the early 1990’s, when my Dad sold the operations of the business he founded three decades earlier.
As my expected career morphed from taking over an operating business to managing our small family office, my main focus moved to the stock market.
In addition to having CNBC on my TV all the time, I also read a lot of different newsletters to stay on top of things.
In the early 2000’s, John Mauldin, who I then read weekly, came up with the expression, “The Muddle Through Economy”, and I recall that it aptly described what he expected to be pretty “Ho-Hum” economic growth in the aftermath of the internet bubble bursting.
So this week we’re looking at how “muddling through” can be viewed from a different, more positive lens.
As Long as There’s Progress
We can feel like we’ve made a lot of progress in many areas of life, even if we haven’t come as far as we hoped.
In my view, as long as we’re moving in the right direction, getting closer to where it is we’re heading, that’s the main thing.
See: Direction Comes Before Destination for Families
There’s a related expression I use often, “Progress, Not Perfection” that also gets to the heart of this.
And of course there’s also “Don’t let great be the enemy of good”, which Google just informed me dates back to Voltaire.
If you think about muddling through, the key might be to focus on the progress implied by the “through”, rather than lamenting the “muddling” aspect.
Getting the General Direction Right
As I’ve recently entered a new decade of my life, I’m allowing myself to flex my accumulated wisdom more, and that includes the part about not being able to control as many aspects of our lives as we hoped.
As I wrote a few years back in My Role, Goal, Control Life Hack, when we think about what we can and do actually control, it’s almost never as much as we hope or think we can.
As long as we can keep putting one foot in front of the other and head in the right general direction, muddling through at least gets us closer to where we want to be.
Combining progress and direction also results in evolution, which is another of my favourite concepts, especially as it relates to how families I work with consider how they want to work together.
They often take small steps, and then readjust, as all family members learn how they want to be together.
Working Through Conflict
In my line of work, conflict is never very far away, because that’s often what drives people to seek my help.
There’s a maxim that the only way out of conflict is through it, and I think that also applies nicely to this “muddle through” idea.
Working through conflict is rarely quick and straightforward.
It involves sharing thoughts and viewpoints with each other, and then readjusting expectations based on what you’ve learned.
When done well and productively, a resolution emerges, hopefully co-created by the parties, and that takes time and effort.
I hope you can see that muddling through can be an apt expression to describe this process.
Equanimity at an All-Time High
On a personal note, my big six-0 birthday sees my equanimity at an all-time high.
My daily meditation habit continues to be a big part of that, along with general maturity that comes with graying hair.
I continue to make progress and move in interesting directions, and I’m not in a hurry to get anywhere in particular.
I’m making muddling through work for me.
