INVESTING ISN'T ABOUT MONEY

At first glance, an investment is an economic exchange.

Per its dictionary definition:

to expend money with the expectation of achieving a profit or material result by putting it into financial plans, shares, or property, or by using it to develop a commercial venture

But so often, the first layer of understanding of an idea - a word’s literal definition - misses the full depth of its essence. There are so often hidden corners, deep crevices, and delicate textures to words and ideas that clue us in to a more rich and nuanced truth.

We simply have to look.

Through his poetry, David Whyte has revealed to me what’s possible when we do look. He’s opened my eyes to the extent of the territories, at first glance unseen, that can be discovered in a word.

He commits to exploring these territories of single words in one of his collections of poetry, Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words, where each poem explores a single word, inviting curiosity and wonder about what these “everyday words” can teach us. (Some of my favorite pieces from the collection have titles like Courage, Genius, Ground, Maturity, Pain, and Rest.)

I find that the deeper he guides me into the complexities of a word, the more I feel the idea or experience in my own body.

I imagine David reading the subtitle of his book with a bit of a smirk - like he knows that there’s so much more to our language, and therefore our experience of the world, that we haven’t yet fathomed. Like he knows that he’s going to take us there, and widen our worldview.

What does this have to do with investing?

I think investing is one of these concepts with depths that often go unexplored.

So often, especially in the professional world of finance that I come from, investments are considered logical, rational, and intellectual decisions. They’re an exchange of desire for profit on one side with a desire for resources on the other. A shrewd, profit-seeking endeavor.

Through the most ungracious, cynical lens, we might see images of a Scrooge McDuck-type, backstroking through a vault of gold.

But at its best, what investing offers is a relationship.

Investing in something or someone is to commit to and deepen a relationship with them. Not an exchange, a tit-for-tat, but a cultivation of connection, partnership, and shared experience.

When we think of investing in this way, it becomes an endeavor rooted in generosity. It becomes human, not just the facts and figures of the exchange - a dry, brittle encapsulation of the deal - but a dynamic, complex, robust interplay between people equally committed to a partnership.

Investing is to pour into a relationship, in return for the same.

There’s no buyer and seller, no hierarchy, just co-authors of a shared story, with a shared mission.

Thought of this way, so much of our life is an investment.

Not just the ones we make or receive with financial capital, but in fact any that we make with our human capital - any that we pour our soul and life energy into.

We have relationships with inanimate things, too

The human kind of investment and relationship is easy to conceptualize - we partner with another on a shared mission.

But there’s also a silent, sometimes more personal kind of relationship that exists with inanimate things.

With a vision of a world, product, or company we seek to build.

Or a mission to make a difference in a battle against a certain challenge that ails the world.

Or perhaps with a particular tree, or hill, or corner of a room that somehow means more to us than just any other tree, or hill, or corner of a room.

I wrote the other week about how inanimate objects get their soul. I think that viewing our life and experiences with the meaningful inanimate participants in our life as a relationship is one way that happens.

If you ask me, the proof that non-living things have a soul is that, though they aren’t alive, can’t breathe, and can’t speak, inanimate things can in fact change us.

I believe that it is these things that we should think about as investments that pay us back with depth and meaning. The ones that we should be more intentional about cultivating our relationship with, and pouring into the parts of the story of our lives that they help us write.

Those that I admire, in both personal and more traditional work contexts, understand this. Whether they think of this idea of investing as relationship in these terms or not, they live it out.

They are relational, not transactional.

They walk with integrity, engaging with the world from a base of values and respect.

They seek shared truth and clarity, not obfuscation to win some game they choose to play.

They’re on a mission, seeking to build a world that matters to them, and live authentically in a way that they believe in.

By doing so, they send out a signal to those that seek what they seek, and believe what they believe.

Sometimes, people respond to the invitation. They find their people, and get the chance to do life together.

This is investing.

This is relationship.

Until next time,
Devin