Time Arbitrage- The Hidden Advantage

By: Exclusivia Team

The ability to think, plan, and execute for the long term is one of the hardest skills to master but if you can it’s one of the largest advantages a person can have.

Today’s world is increasing complex and based upon instant gratification. Technology has made it so we never have to wait anymore. We have instant access to the entire world through our smart phones and devices. Instant news, instant email access, instant food delivery, instant updates, and instant communication all leads to short term dopamine rushes. It’s created a world that is constantly rushing and full of short-term incentives, short term thinkers, and a lot of short-term activity.
Here’s the secret to it. If the vast majority of the world is competing with the short-term goals in mind, you will be competing with essentially everyone. Those are nearly impossible odds to overcome. However, if you can recognize this, you can play a different game than everyone else and dramatically improve your chances of success.

Some examples:
1. Business- Companies that are pressured and incentivized to think quarterly or even yearly are not going to be able to make the long, term strategic decisions that position their company to be stronger and more healthy 10, 20, 30 years from today.

2. Investing- almost all hedge funds, mutual funds, private equity investors are paid to deploy capital whether the right opportunity exists of not. They are also tracked on a quarterly or yearly basis for results. This incentive system encourages short term, speculative thinking and gives the patient investor with patient capital a huge advantage.

3. Health- Committing to sleeping, exercising, and eating will give you more years to live and function at high level allowing to continuously improve the other areas of your life. The short term temptation is to neglect this when you’re tired or busy.

4. Family- giving energy and time to your family continuously, greatly improves the chances that your family relationships will be deeper and more meaningful.

Long-term thinking and execution require rejecting what is normal in today’s society and approaching your life with an emotional discipline that most people do not possess nor are they willing to do. Many may talk about the long term. But when they’re under stress or they’re ideas are not working out, most people will cave and embrace the short-term fix.

One of the most important tips on how to play the long game is you to set up your environment to do so. If you’re relying on your own discipline, will power, and emotions to play the long game you’re most likely going to fail. But if you structure your life so that everything encourages long term behavior you’ll be able to calmly make difficult decisions that will give you an advantage.