{"id":2841,"date":"2013-06-24T14:31:02","date_gmt":"2013-06-24T14:31:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tommorkes.com\/?p=2841"},"modified":"2018-12-06T08:30:21","modified_gmt":"2018-12-06T15:30:21","slug":"talents-and-time-decay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tommorkes.com\/talents-and-time-decay\/","title":{"rendered":"Talents and Time Decay"},"content":{"rendered":"

What do you do when presented with an uncertain path?<\/p>\n

Do you stick to what\u2019s comfortable, to what\u2019s safe?<\/em><\/p>\n

If there\u2019s something on the line (and there always is), this would seem the prudent choice.<\/p>\n

After all, with uncertainty comes risk, and risk means danger - the reasonable choice would be to stick to what you know.<\/p>\n

But what if sticking to the seemingly safest option \u2013 the certain path \u2013 isn\u2019t so safe?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sometimes (most times), committing to comfortable, staying on the tried and true path, and purposefully avoiding risks is the most dangerous thing we can do\u2026<\/p>\n

Burying Talent<\/h1>\n

You\u2019ve probably heard the parable of the talents, but I think it\u2019s worth revisiting.<\/p>\n

It all starts with an estate owner and 3 trusted servants....<\/p>\n

One day, the owner of a large estate sets out abroad, leaving his property and gold in the care of three servants.<\/p>\n

The owner divides up his gold (aka talents) - 5 talents to the first servant, 2 talents to the second, and 1 talent to the third \u2013\u00a0each in proportion to his ability.<\/i>\u00a0 When the man leaves, the first two servants put their talents to work, trading, bartering and gaining more talents.\u00a0\u00a0The third servant, uncertain and frightened of losing the talent he was given, hides his in the ground.<\/b><\/p>\n

Months later, the man returns home.\u00a0 When he goes to settle his accounts, he finds the first two servants doubled their talents, from 5 to 10 and from 2 to 4.<\/p>\n

The man is pleased and gives these servants a share of his wealth:\u00a0\u201cWell done, good and faithful servant!\u00a0 You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things.\u00a0 Come and share your master\u2019s happiness.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

But when the man goes to settle the account of the third servant, he is met with defensive excuses:\u00a0\u201cI knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed.\u00a0 So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

The third servant brings the estate owner one talent \u2013 the original talent he had been given when the estate owner left for his travels.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The owner of the estate gets\u00a0honey-badger<\/a>\u00a0pissed.\u00a0 He calls the servant wicked and lazy and tells him how he could have at least made interest on the money by putting it into a bank.\u00a0 He doesn\u2019t stop there \u2013 he takes the third servant\u2019s single talent and gives it to the servant with ten talents.\u00a0 In a final finishing move, he throws the worthless servant outside into the darkness, banishing him from his estate.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s the paraphrased parable in a nutshell (Matthew 25:14-30 for the actual text).<\/p>\n

Pretty serious, right?<\/p>\n

Beyond Talent<\/h1>\n

The clear take-away from this parable is that we should use our talents.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a no brainer.<\/strong><\/p>\n

We\u2019re each given talents in life (in the aptitude\/gift way) \u2013 our job is to put them to work.\u00a0 Most would agree.<\/p>\n

Yet it\u2019s surprising to me how most people seem to grasp this, at least conceptually, but completely miss the other more subtle (and possibly, more important) lesson:<\/p>\n

The talent the third servant gave to the master upon his return is not the same talent he buried months earlier.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

This isn't due to something mystical or magical \u2013 the talent didn\u2019t transform or shape shift or disappear \u2013 it simply became what it must become, buried in the ground all those months\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

This is a lesson successful investors learn early in their careers that the rest of us could take a cue from in our own lives.<\/p>\n

Options<\/h1>\n

One of the most powerful ways to buy or sell investments is through the use of option contracts.<\/p>\n

When we use options, whether in the stock market or in real estate (or in some other marketplace entirely), what we\u2019re doing is purchasing the right to buy (or sell) something at a specific price on or before a certain date.<\/p>\n

The beauty of option contracts is that they allow us to buy or sell, but they don\u2019t\u00a0obligate<\/i>\u00a0us to.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Want to know how people make a killing in the stock market or in real estate?\u00a0 They learn to use\u00a0options<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Options are powerful because they give us leverage and flexibility.<\/p>\n

But like with every financial instrument on this planet, even options have a weakness: Time.<\/p>\n

You see, every stock option has a time limit.\u00a0 Once it hits that time limit, it expires.<\/p>\n

If I don\u2019t execute the trade or sell the contract itself before the agreed upon date, I could lose everything.<\/p>\n

Simply put:\u00a0as time goes by, an option contract loses value.<\/b><\/p>\n

This is referred to as Time Decay.<\/em><\/p>\n

And Time Decay affects everything in this world \u2013 including those talents buried in the ground.<\/p>\n

Putting Talents to Work<\/h1>\n

Putting our talents to work is scary.<\/p>\n

It means we can lose even the little bit we start with.\u00a0 It means we can crash and burn.\u00a0 It means we can fail.<\/p>\n

The natural inclination to mitigate this risk is to protect our talents.\u00a0 To shield them from uncertainty.\u00a0\u00a0To bury them.<\/b><\/p>\n

And while burying your talents outwardly protects them from theft or loss, there\u2019s a catch; the talents are worth much less now than they were when we started.<\/i><\/p>\n

This is time decay and it affects natural aptitude (our gifts\/talents\/aptitude) as much as money.<\/p>\n

When we don\u2019t use our talents, they waste away.<\/b><\/p>\n

It\u2019s as simple as that.<\/p>\n

Are you a gifted singer?\u00a0<\/em> Refrain from singing for 40 years and you might still be talented, but that talent is worth much less.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because you have less time now to develop it into something worthwhile.\u00a0 Not to mention those 40 years you spent NOT singing could have been spent creating high-impact albums, the kind of stuff that inspires us to be bolder, braver, and live better.<\/p>\n

Because you waited, the world is short 40 years of life changing music.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

That\u2019s a shame.<\/p>\n

Are you a gifted writer?<\/em> \u00a0Get a real job, work for 30 years, and then, when you\u2019ve saved enough money for retirement, then start writing.\u00a0 Are you still a gifted writer?\u00a0 Sure, you might be, but your talent is worth much less, because you don\u2019t have as much time to write all the great books you could have written had you started 30 years ago.<\/p>\n

This world is short possibly dozens of books now because you waited to write.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Are you gifted at anything (even in the smallest, most marginal way right now)?\u00a0<\/em> Sports, marketing, military strategy, project management, design, leadership?\u00a0 Wait until retirement before you dig into your hobby and, sure, you might still have talent\u2026well, you get the point...<\/p>\n

Execute Your Option<\/b><\/h1>\n

We are each given talents.<\/p>\n

You and I know this.<\/p>\n

What we don\u2019t recognize is that each one of these talents is an option contract \u2013 it has a time limit.<\/em>\u00a0 It suffers from time decay.<\/p>\n

Every day you wait to start, your talent loses value.<\/b><\/p>\n

And months and years from now, that talent, if you bury it in the ground \u2013 if you wait to use it - will become a shriveled, bedraggled, weaker version of its once former glory \u2013 a mere shadow of its former self (its true self).<\/p>\n

But if you put it to use, if you have the courage to take the uncertain path, to step into the unknown with boldness and purpose\u2026<\/p>\n

Well you already know what is possible, don\u2019t you?<\/em><\/p>\n

Don\u2019t wait for tomorrow.<\/p>\n

Execute your talent option today (instigate before it's too late<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What do you do when presented with an uncertain path? Do you stick to what\u2019s comfortable, to what\u2019s safe? If there\u2019s something on the line (and there always is), this would seem the prudent choice. After all, with uncertainty comes risk, and risk means danger - the reasonable choice would be to stick to what […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","filesize_raw":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[234],"tags":[301,304,341],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tommorkes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2841"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tommorkes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tommorkes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tommorkes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tommorkes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tommorkes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2841\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tommorkes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tommorkes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tommorkes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}