But wait... there's less!

In 2020 two of my friends each published their first story. That's actually a bigger thing than I first thought. Eighty-one percent of people want to be an author. So how many actually do it? In any given year it's not even close to 1 percent. So what happens to the other 80 percent? Sometimes it's the confidence to go for it. Sometimes the right inspiration hasn't hit. Sometimes people need advice on story-writing or editing - or don't have the technical know-how. One way or another they find a reason not to do it. One huge reason is "I just can't find the time" - and it's fairly valid. Writing a book is actually quite a lot of work. Where to find the time? Sure, if you're super-driven you could do it in your after-work time. But it takes severe dedication to punch out a novel after working a 40-hour week. Staying up late, or getting up early, or giving up weekends. My two friends who published novels this year both took some time out of the...

Ever felt your life-satisfaction dip as middle-age approaches? It's not just you. It's quite normal. Here's how it works and what we can do about it. The title and the cover of the book give away the main point. As humans we tend to be less happy in the middle part of adulthood. Even if we're successful we can still get dissatisfied. Of course this is an average. It is "possible to be satisfied in middle age" - but it is harder. While genetics, circumstances and voluntary actions are crucial to explaining life satisfaction, there seems to be an aging component also. It's all relative This graph from the book shows average happiness (darker points) compared to expected happiness (measured five years earlier). For instance, the average 22-year-old's happiness is just above 7. But when asked for a prediction as 17-year olds, their average answer was 7.7. Clearly our expectations are high. Experts call this "optimism bias" and it appears to dec...

Compound Interest. Described by Albert Einstein as the 8th wonder of the world. Many people don't fully grasp its power and miss out on the magic. Here's a quick example For 30 days, would you rather (A) get $100 per day, or (B) get 1 cent doubled every day (ie. 2 cents on day two, 4 cents on day three, 8 cents on day four). Quickly. What's your immediate answer? On intuition, lots of people go for Option A. Why? Because $100 sounds so much more than 1 cent. How do they compare? Do the maths, and Option B wins by miles. By Day 15, the 1 cent per day has grown to $163.84 per day. Over the first 18 days, Option B accumulates $2621.43 (compared to $1800 for Option A). It just snowballs from there. By the final days, Option B is getting millions per day and ends up with a total of $10.7 million. Meanwhile the total for Option A is just $3,000 ($100 x 30 days). (Sidenote: Even if Option A was $100,000 per day, option B would still win.) Life in slow motion Investing can be much ...