Autonomy & The Psychology of Money
Hey Friends!
I'm excited to finally be starting this newsletter. I've been putting off creating content [newsletters, articles, and videos] for the longest time as I never felt "qualified" always finding a way to justify putting it off.
Whilst that fear certainly hasn't gone away the discomfort of not creating has started to outweigh that fear. So expect to be seeing a lot more from me over the coming months and years.
Quick Overview
- The Sunday Filter is a weekly newsletter aiming to filter through the noise and deliver the best ideas and information to your inbox every week.
- On the blog I will be writting in depth essays and guides on a range of topics from Indie Entrepreneurship to Self Education and Productivity. And over on the Youtube channel [coming soon] I will be exploring similar things but in video form.
Now the introductions are out the way let's get into the Filter.
This week I've been working on transitioning my freelance business over to a "Real Business". Initially, I will be offering similar services [Webflow design + development] but soon I will transition this into a more product-based business [but there's still a lot of small details to be worked out here].
No new posts, videos or book notes this week as the current focus is on getting my bases setup but there will be more content coming soon.... onto the main Filter.
On the Psychology of Money
I finished up Morgan Housel's book The Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness this week and It was one of the best books I've read in a long time.
Morgan takes a very different approach to most finance books and instead talks about how money is really more to do with our psychology than math.
"The premise of this book is that doing well with money has a little to do with how smart you are and a lot to do with how you behave. And behavior is hard to teach, even to really smart people."
The book is comprised of 20 shortish stories about money and offers a great look into how building wealth is a mental game rather than a mathematical one.
"Your personal experiences with money make up maybe 0.00000001% of what’s happened in the world, but maybe 80% of how you think the world works."
I will be writing up and sharing my book notes soon [and there's a lot of them].
On Freedom
Lately I've started to notice that all my decisions up until this point have really been in pursuit of freedom [or autonomy].
I recently read two great articles "The Definition of Success is Autonomy" by Ryan Holiday and "What to work on" by Julian Shapiro.
These two posts lead me to re-assess what it was I was working on and completely change the path I was on. After reading them I spent some time writing out what I actually wanted and realised that it didn't really align with the work I was doing.
Since that moment I have completely started to re-shape my work focusing much more on writing + creating, gaining autonomy through building a business, and making a larger impact.
" Because without freedom, what good is success? As Seneca said, “Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.”
Don’t just nod your head at that. Think about it for a minute. Or for the rest of the day. Was this morning your own? Or were you rushed through it, to go somewhere, to do something, for someone you don’t actually like?
Are you sure that “getting everything you want” is what you actually want? Will it mean the ability to dictate what you do today? Will it give you control of your life—insofar as that is possible as a puny human being?
Because if it doesn’t… well, what’s the point?
Today, I don’t define success the way that I did when I was younger. I don’t measure it in copies sold or dollars earned. I measure it in what my days look like and the quality of my creative expression:
Do I have time to write? Can I say what I think? Do I direct my schedule or does my schedule direct me? Is my life enjoyable or is it a chore?
In a word: autonomy. Do I have autonomy over what I do and think? Am I free? "
Tweet of the Week
Quote of the Week
"There’s a big difference between being self-employed and being a business owner. Being self-employed feels like freedom until you realize that if you take time off, your business crumbles. To be a true business owner, make it so that you could leave for a year, and when you came back, your business would be doing better than when you left." - Derek Sivers
Final Notes
If you enjoyed the first edition of the Sunday Filter then I'd love it if you share it with a few friends. You can send them over here to sign up.
Have a great Sunday,
Stephen
P.S I'm crying