2. Spring 2024

Rhythm, Reinforcement & Raising Early

“Love is space and time measured by the heart.” - Marcel Proust

I tend to ‘feel’ March more than other months. Our toddler’s birthday happens in March. I felt a physical stress and joy around that. I felt the weather changing in the Bay Area. I felt my manager activities at work. I’ve read a number of books over the last three years on how the body stores experiences. I learned that the body functions similar to an unsupervised machine learning model. Things happen to you and your body organizes them for you without too much labeling or processing. When new experiences happen the AI that is your pattern recognition knows where to send them. I experienced this recently when I was solo-parenting with my wife away for a few days on a work trip. Our dog escaped from our backyard because the gate is down while we construct a play structure for the kids. I had to leave both kids alone while I found the dog with a neighbor. My body processed that as danger even when everyone was fine. Sometimes learning models get it wrong and more training is needed.

I also realized something else when I I was talking with someone in my advisory network recently. That physical quality around time is also what people mean when they say you have good timing. This was in the context of investing in sectors early because you feel a change in momentum before others do. As a bassist who has played in a number of bands (link to album), I know that feeling well. We’re about to speed up the bridge. Someone is dragging through a tough solo. Timing as a bass player is about feeling when you or others are going to fast or too slow. Back to the backyard, the cement truck arrived yesterday to pour concrete foundation. Our boys stood at the window and watched in awe as it spun. My toddler asked me why the cement mixer was moving so fast and I told him so it doesn’t dry. When the spinning slowed down he was worried but understood. As they poured the cement around the reinforcing metal it dried and the metal became invisible.