Welcome to Week 3 of I’m the Product, where I cover what I’m reading, learning, and thinking.

What I’m Reading

Multidisciplinary thinking is underrated. The world is more connected than not and you can see the world’s smartest and most successful people are interested in a wider of topics and studies than the average person.

I’ve always believed the easiest cheat code in life is to do what rich people do.

This also reminds me of David Epstein’s Range which is a more thorough and great read.

Last week I also went down the rabbit hole of some of my all time favorite reads. This isn’t a comprehensive list of all my favorites, but here are some.

The Real Heros Are Dead - a 9/11 hero story.

The Tail End by Wait but Why - I read this once a year.

Stay in the Game - good things happen to good people. Just stay in the game.

What I’m Learning

This week I’m kicking off Visualize Value’s Compound Content course.

I’ll update next week with my thoughts!

What I’m Thinking

Last week’s failure of SVB seems like a reminder that some risks have an unacceptable downside and survival is the most important factor.

One of my favorite examples is that a 6% average return outperforms a 10% annual return if the 10% return has a risk of bankrupting you. In reality, you can’t average 10% and have bankruptcy. It’s a risk you can’t afford.

This week we’re going to see a lot of hard questions being asked by businesses and employees being impacted by SVB:

• Where am I financially exposed? Do I have multiple bank accounts open with reasonable operating funds in both?

• Where are my clients, suppliers, users, etc. financially exposed?

• What risks are acceptable for my business and what risks aren’t?

• Do I have platform risk using software that may not operate if their funds are frozen?

Even if you aren’t impacted by SVB, this is a great time to take personal and professional stock of your risks and determine what’s acceptable and what isn’t.

In my personal life, I’ve taken significant steps to make sure I’m resilient:

• I have multiple bank accounts with balances I could survive on.

• I’m location independent with minimal fixed spending. If I had to, I could live off $1-2k per month indefinitely.

• My investments are spread across asset classes: equities, debt, VC, and real estate

• My business has resiliency across clients, team members, bank accounts, and even contract durations

Staying in the game is more important than trying to win at any single point in time.

Source: The Psychology of Money

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About Erik

Erik’s the founder of Flywheel Studio, a software development agency. He’s also the founder of Thyme Real Estate, a partner in a real estate investment firm, and an angel investor.