People talk about individual risk profiles. About a personal appetite for risk. About quantifying risk.

There’s a few issues though:

We’re all terrible at estimating risk, so matching a personal level of comfort with a perceived level of risk is likely to bare little connection with reality.
Even if an expert is able to accurately define the risk for us (eliminating our estimation issue), we’re not great at understanding what the real impacts will be.
The biggest risk is often then you don’t see coming.

In decision-making, the biggest risk is that your assumptions are wrong. And the most devious assumption to get a handle on are the one that make up the untested aspects of your particular worldview, the aspects that have been handed to you or shaped by your environment.

When deciding which house to buy, what are you assuming?

That house prices will always increase?
That overcapitalising is a bad idea?
That the decile rating of the local school is important?
That the view of anyone else matters?
That you can afford it?

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I believe that place matters.

Our connection to whatever little corner of the planet we find ourselves in, or choose to place ourselves on, matters.

I'm relentlessly curious and continually learning.

My interests are scattered across topics including property, strategy, acoustics, psychology, theology, systems theory, quantum physics and leadership. I read, listen, watch, and learn about whatever grabs my attention in the moment.

This is a learning experiment.

I come here to try to make sense of something I’ve come across, by writing about it.

I’m immersing myself in a new language.

I’m learning to speak Te Reo Māori, the language of the indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand and one of our official languages. After spending 2020 studying, I’m figuring out how to keep the journey going outside the classroom.

You’re welcome to follow along.