The most common mistake consumers of news make is being a slave to the news cycle.
It’s true on every beat. Business, technology, entertainment, sports, and politics. You focus on what’s happening right now and you miss the longer term trend. It’s the longer term trend that will make you, that will make your career, and that will make history.
When it comes to business and finance, my current beat, the dumbest thing you can do is to obsess over the day-by-day changes in the stock market. Traders are paid big bucks to follow the daily gyrations. They will get in ahead of you on any move. They’ve got you outgunned.
But the daily moves tend to even out. What you want to find are companies that are market leaders, in trends that last for years, with bosses who understand that long term. Just accumulate them. Let time work for you. Then, sell on your schedule, when you need the money, preferably on a day when the market is rising.
Technology is the same. In 2019 I wrote three essays about the long-term trends of the 2020s. Just as it was clear in 2010 that the Cloud was going to be a huge deal, so it’s clear now that oil is going away, that the Machine Internet is going to be built, and that DNA is becoming akin to a programming language. It’s going to be a bumpy ride, but if you see the trend, you’re ahead of 90% of the punters out there.
Entertainment is a subset of business and technology. Gossip is useless. Follow the money and follow who the money is following. Follow the technology and bet on those who know how to use it.
This is even true in sport. A team wins and it’s a champion. It loses and fires the manager. Uh, no. The winners are those with financial staying power, with a long-term plan that lets them contend all the time, that don’t change the manager at every losing streak. Patience pays.
Politics seems to move at a glacial pace, but trends do reverse. When the nature of business changes, politics must change. Resources like oil were vital 20 years ago. They’re fungible now. It’s the cloud that’s going to drive politics today even if it doesn’t drive the headlines. That’s what you should be following.
Forget the weather. Watch the climate. Forget the headlines. Watch the trends. Do that and you’ll do better. Your blood pressure will be lower, too.
