The power in simple

"I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times." - Bruce Lee

We over-complicate life in general. What I’ve realised lately is that success in any endeavour is best achieved by finding the key practise involved and repeating it over and over and over again.

Why do we complicate things? Essentially it boils down to impatience. We start on some project, whether that’s learning a new skill or improving some aspect of our lives, and since we are not seeing results we think we need to change our strategy or do something different. What we don’t realise is that we’re doing exactly what we need to do, it’s just that we’ve only taken the first 1,000 steps to climb a mountain that requires 100,000 steps.

Usually achieving any goal takes a lot longer than we initially think. So what do we do? We go back to the base of the mountain, change our gear, look for a new route and then start climbing again. After the next 1,000 steps we come back down to base camp and change course again! What we really need to do is keep going and going, beyond what we ever imagined. Keep going and persevering and yes enjoy the journey. But remember that you don’t need to do anything different, or special. You just need to keep putting one foot in front of the other, simple as that.

There is one caveat though, you need to make sure you’ve taken the right path initially. How do you do that? You need to have the right teacher. The right teacher is someone who has been to the top of the particular mountain that you’re trying to climb. So your real task, and where you can indeed go wrong, is finding the right teacher. In most cases you do need a teacher, most of the greats had a teacher. Are you so special that you don’t need one? You might be.

So once that teacher tells you to take a certain path, just do it! Wax on wax off! And don’t stop.

You might be expecting a magical and complex formula. Sure there may be some complexity, but for the most part it is as simple as wax on wax off (reference to the The Karate Kid - 1984 if you haven’t see it). If a teacher gives you a complex formula, run, that’s probably a snake oil salesman.

Let me give you some examples of a mountain top and the simple method for getting there:

Let’s say that you want to improve your writing skills, simple: read well-written books and write a page every day.

The rest is fluff, and most things are like that.

Here is another thing, when you wake up in the morning before you do anything else thank the universe (God, the universe or whatever you want to call it, even if you’re an atheist this still works, just aim it towards whatever you believe is greater than yourself) that you have another day alive. You woke up, many didn’t. Count your blessings and think of a couple of things you’re grateful for. Simple isn’t it? Try it and see. Simple things like that can change your life if you do them every day.

My point is we are drawn to complexity. Somehow we equate complexity to efficacy. In fact the best solutions are the simple ones. But they have to be continued indefinitely as a daily habit. And here is the other crucial point, we never know when they will bear fruit. To go back to that mountain, we don’t know whether it’s a 5,000, 25,000 or 250,000 step climb. Nobody can really tell you how long it will take. That is where you need to have discipline and trust in the process.

Many stop somewhere along the way and never make it. Don’t be one of those. So many have quit at the final hurdle, with only a few steps to go. In good times and in dark times, take that next step.

As I write this I’m in Malaysia, a fine country, although I have to admit I have to be particularly careful with the food and water. I’ve made a couple of rookie mistakes already which my stomach let me know about. Speaking of simple things, clean drinking water has to be the one of the most fundamental things any country can provide.

Aside from that I’m impressed with the pace at which Kuala Lumpur is coming along. Since I was last here in 2019 the population has grown by 1.2 million people! Some of the malls and buildings look space age. The economy is growing at 5%. There is still poverty here and some people struggle, but on the whole I see forward movement in the place. They are wisely seeking closer ties with Singapore. IT companies are building data centres in Johor, and Penang is a base for semiconductor manufacturing.

As a society it is an interesting setup, predominantly ethnic Malay, with a substantial Chinese minority and smaller still Indian minority. Although in cities like KL the Chinese presence is much stronger and they make up about 43% of the population. These ethnic groups live together, but due to religious and cultural reasons they don’t tend to mix in terms of marriage.

I’m certainly not the first to recognise the potential here. As I mentioned foreign companies have been investing heavily for years, and private Chinese investors (from China) are investing in the property market. Interestingly you can own freehold land here as a foreigner. If I was so inclined (towards property investment) I’d be interested too. But somehow I missed that particular Greek gene and love investing in stocks more than anything. Sure they are more volatile, but I like that it is an intellectual exercise, you make your decision and invest. No dealing with builders, government approval and all the rest of what comes with property investment. I suppose that’s fun for some people.

I still think Japan is the crown jewel of all countries in Asia. I know in some ways it’s not good to compare, but I can’t help myself. I got bitten by the Japan bug from a young age after doing Karate. Every place has its pro and cons. But there is something about Japan, I strangely feel at home there, even though it is so different from my own culture. I can’t explain that.

Anyway, I’ll do my best to stay in the present and enjoy Malaysia. I find the weather quite comfortable here. Somehow it feels much cooler than Thailand, 3-4 degrees makes a big difference. There is more greenery in KL and it’s less built up, perhaps that also makes it a little cooler. People speak English which is great. GDP per capital is roughly double that of Thailand, that makes for a noticable difference. It feels much more international here too. Bangkok is international in terms of the tourists and people living there. KL is international in the sense that people have an outward and global perspective from what I can see. There are big deals being done here. Again, as an investor, my spider sense is getting set off in this place.

I feel fortunate that I can experience spending time in different places like this. There’s nothing like a change of scenery to give you a fresh perspective.

I hope you are well, whatever you’re working on, keeping going with it. It’s the simple daily practices that are the most important.