Hi friends,

🎄 Winter is coming… Never mind it's just Christmas 

I can't believe we are already in December and nearing the end of 2022. This year has flown by very quickly, as I write this in the Atlas Academia office.

I'm also excited to be reflecting once again on the year that was, which will be in a separate blog post, but stay tuned for that! I'm expecting this year to be the last time I will be doing an A-Z reflection on the year (see my 2021 post here). I loved the idea (inspired by George, who I am giving a special shout-out to at the bottom of this newsletter). This doesn't mean I am not doing any more year end reflections, but it will just take a different format I expect!

And as we approach Xmas, giving is something that has been on my mind (and something I wrote about in a prior newsletter here). Historically, I never had a concept of giving. For the longest time, I rarely gave physical gifts to my family and friends. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, it's just my love language is not really about giving, but about time spent with others. Of course, significant people along the way have encouraged me to think differently about it, and I think my thoughts on giving have evolved, especially over the last year as it relates to actual gifts. I'm more aware now that giving actual gifts is another way to express love towards people, than just giving my time.

At the end of the day, however, I don't expect gifts from anybody (but I of course appreciate whatever I get). And the reality is, I don't really know what I want every time we get to Xmas. Hypothetically speaking for myself, I would just love to see any gifts that involve a group of people (and not just for myself). That leans toward games, food, etc. I think a good Xmas gift is one that I can share with others... But that's just me! End rant on Xmas giving.

 

📆 Back to my monthly newsletter...

Welcome to my 11th monthly email, in this segment called “Michael’s Monthly Musings”. If you missed my earlier monthly newsletters, please refer here.

 

Remember to add my email as a legit contact! Otherwise, my email may go to your spam folder... I’m thankful for all the friends, family, and readers of this newsletter for the support and replies via email I got from my last newsletter. We’re now >125 email readers! Feel free to share this with friends who may find this interesting or may want to meet/know me.

 

📖 Filling up the schedule as much as you possibly can

There is no end to events you can fill into your schedule. I found myself reflecting a lot on this idea. It feels timely because December, being the last month of the year, is when I find myself busiest. I find my calendar starts piling up rapidly with time blocks. Work Christmas parties, weddings, family events, catch ups with friends, public holidays, church events, etc. It gets chunky very quickly.

 

⏰ Lack of time (i.e. being busy) equals a lack of priorities

More often than not, however, I find that the lack of time (i.e. being busy, or whatever you want to call it) is more often than not, a misdirecting word for a lack of priorities. The reality is, in most cases, we have a choice in how we spend our time and energy. Now, before you call me an insane workaholic, I want to clarify that my view is being busy in and of itself is not a bad thing. Sometimes I choose to be busy because a lot of things are important and I have deadlines on several things that just need to be completed because it calls for my attention.

 

🍕 Free lunches

In my line of work (i.e. money/funds management), what a lot of people don't understand is when a company reports an quarterly earnings result, we may want to make a decision about the company (e.g. to take advantage of a temporary mispricing in the market). The keyword is temporary. "Free lunches" are just that. Free.

For example, a new salad shop opened up in my local Macquarie Shopping Centre, only the first 200 salads were free. As such, that's a temporary mispricing because the salad typically costs $12 and not $0. So those who know this information (ahem my dad in this personal example) and take advantage by lining up in the queue earliest will get the free lunch, but eventually everybody (aka in this case the first 200) will have exploited it until there's no free lunch left.

With the stock market, you don't typically get extreme examples like the $12 salad for $0, but there are times when from your timely analysis you may discover a stock worth $1 is only priced at $0.50, and other times you may find a stock worth $1 priced at $2, as an example. Those of my readers familiar with investing will know I've adapted the wording from Ben Graham (Warren Buffet's famed teacher back in the 1940s). Making a decision as timely as you can is required before others recognise this. That sometimes means sacrificing things that are simply just not as important to get this example of work done. A lot of times investing in the stock market can feel like that.

My point is (and I'm sure I'm not the only industry to have work that demands "timely" action at times - I think of my medical friends in the hospital for example), having to make timely decisions for myself particularly can lead me into being busy. But I do it because I care about how important it is to be timely, at times. And something I learned whilst in my last ~4 years at City Bible Forum (which has been a good anchor for me here) is to recognise these periods of "busyness" are often just that. Temporary seasons, with an end. And that's ok.

 

🔎 Too much time (i.e. being not busy) does not equal laziness

That being said, I don’t think the "lack of busyness" necessarily equates to one being lazy. For me, I tend to follow a rule of not scheduling to socialise with friends during lunch or after work for dinners on any weekday except Fridays usually. I deliberately avoid being "busy" during those time periods.

Hang on Michael, aren’t you jsut being extremely anti-social then?! To be clear, I don't follow that rule religiously (I make time for people I care about of course, e.g. special friends or family), but by and large, those who know me well, know my brain capacity is often fixated on work during the weekdays, and I don't think I am doing a service to the people I am meeting with for lunch/dinner if I do not give them my full attention.

Making this decision consciously, in other words, is a choice to not be "busy". Yes, this would imply these less important meet ups with people like acquaintances won't be done… But frankly if they're less important, what then? This isn't being lazy. I think this is being smart about your priorities.

 

🦉 Wisely allocating for time buffers to compensate for the limited time we have

I think a lot about time (not just because I like the time stone that Dr Strange used to defeat Dormammu…). Incidentally my pastor at church recently explored the idea of “time and death” when we went through 1 Thessalonians 4-5 in the Bible. Notice time and death went together. I've been reminded of the finite nature of time, with the end state being death (at least in this life…).

As such, time is the most valuable commodity I can think of. Not money. What is so interesting about time, is that you cannot buy nor make more of it.

With a lot of other tangible commodities (like money, food, shelter, etc), if you lose it, it is possible to acquire it at a later date. For time, however, it's impossible to replace the time that has been wasted today. I think a lot of us (myself included) unconsciously treat time as if it was an infinite resource.

In reality, I also keep my lunch and dinner times (typically) free on Monday to Thursday because often I am giving myself a time buffer. I can't keep count of how many times I've gotten an impromptu call, meeting, or task that has "eaten" (no pun intended haha) into my lunch or dinner times… And with that, it's much better to not have to cancel on a friend/family I am intending to meet up with if I never set it up in the first place. That mitigates the number of times I may have to disappoint people. That said, I think a distinction needs to be made between things that are urgent vs important (giving off Eisenhower matrix vibes…). But that'll be a newsletter for another time…  

 

👍 To conclude for now…

• We all have time to do what is important to us.

• Don’t have the time? Then drop something else to make the time.

• Or accept that it’s not important enough and move on.

• Or accept that you’ll voluntarily be busy for the next little while, and recognise it's not a burden, but a choice.

Thanks for reading my ramble if you got this far for my November 2022 thoughts. Please do hit <reply> to this email if you have anything to add / any questions. I quite enjoy replying to comments/emails as a source of procrastination. Please share this email with others if you found it value-adding.

Thanks for reading,

Michael

 

🚀 Some of my favourite memories from November 2022

• Got to attend UNSW's AATX 1st ever industry panel event for 1st year accounting students, and talk about how accounting could be useful for investing/funds management

• Visited my old high school, catching up with a few teachers and meeting with the execs of the current NSB BSOC, helping them strategise and plan goals/events for 2023. Incidentally as of the date of me writing this newsletter, I'll be speaking next Tue, 13/12/2022.

• Attending my friend's wedding (she was a big part of my life and development as a person since ~10 years ago) - she chose a Friday afternoon which I was sceptical about, but after attending, I'm much more open-minded to that idea now

• Co-hosting the UTS accounting show run by my friend, Dr Amanda White for a 2nd time now - talked about SafetyCulture and Twitter. The video is here.

• Went day trip with a high school friend to check out Wendy Whitely's Secret Garden, McMahon's Point, before taking a ferry to Pyrmont to check out the Sea Museum.

• Dinner for 1st time at Muum Maam in Barangaroo - would recommend, and felt price was ok for the Thai food. Would give it a solid 8/10.

• Got to try minigolf for the 1st time at Birdies in Top Ryde and can vouch you can have a fun time there (weren't many people on a Sunday night - so you can take your time slowly chatting and golfing)!

• Got to catch up with a close friend who returned from Singapore for a short while (haven't seen them in a few months) - been realising a lot of friends are now charting different paths, and I am learning to be ok with it (and cheering them on because that's what they want!)

• Watched Black Panther 2 with 2 high school friends (and a friend's lovely date haha...) - felt the movie was good considering the death of Chadwick Boseman. Would give it 7/10. Felt the 1st one was better.

• Got to attend UNSW Campus Bible Study's Thanksgiving event at night, and see some old familiar faces, and see my friend graduate from MTS (i.e. ministry apprenticeship) - been 4 years since I was back in an event like this and it brought back a lot of good memories

• Got to try Majors Bay Sushi in Concord for the 1st time - would recommend 9/10. Much better than I expected. Friend gave a really good rec here with this one.

• Catching up with several high school friends (some I haven't seen in a while) over boardgames, and was first time playing the different expansions with the Exploding Kittens game and loved it. Also stayed back for dinner with a different group of friends from NSBG and got to see some faces I hadn't seen in years. Enjoyed the wholesome chats!

• Tried helping out in kids church at my own church for the 1st time (as a substitute) and that was an experience... A much more positive one than I thought with the year 3-5 kids! The teachers were helpful in getting me accustomed with the kids and I actually enjoyed it. I still enjoy working on tech desk and welcoming team however...

• Fortunately got invited to friend's work family day at Luna Park which included for the Sunday afternoon, free food, drinks, and rides! Think it was my 1st time ever taking a ride at Luna Park ever... Was also my 1st time getting a proper massage which was surprisingly better than I expected!

• Had a farewell dinner for a friend who was finishing up her time at City Bible Forum. Unfortunately, Vapiano doesn't do make-to-order anymore, where you can watch the chef cook the food in front of you anymore, but I thought the chicken risotto there was alright (felt maybe it was better in the past, however).

 

📣 Special shout out for the month

To George (or "young George" as he likes to be called) from my church (and my growth group). I've been incredibly inspired by the prayer that he delivered at my church on 13 November 2022. It was one of the most beautiful prayers I had ever heard in a church service. I've gotten permission to get his prayer, and I've just inserted a small snippet. I continue to be inspired and amazed at how something as simple as a prayer can be so well thought through. He calls it "wordsmithing". And despite his age, he continues to remain very sharp in his prayers.

"Lord we prayerfully & carefully seek your wisdom and guidance in the choices and decisions we make today and everyday

You walk beside us day by day

Ever watching over us lest we stray

Helping us to find the narrow way

May the peace of God enfold us,

The love of God uphold us,

The wisdom of God control us

In the wonderful & precious name of Jesus our Lord and saviour we pray these things

Amen."