Do NOT Take That New Opportunity Until You Calculate This...

Earners,

Wanted to quickly share a concept I thought of that basically explains how I think about my career and make decisions around opportunities.

My goal in life is to maximize BS-adjusted earnings. It’s a concept that sort of emerged the other day when I was explaining to a friend how I think about money and earnings.

In finance, there’s this idea called risk-adjusted returns — essentially, it measures how much return you’re earning for each unit of risk you take. It’s not just about avoiding risk, it’s about making sure you’re being fairly rewarded for taking it. You want to maximize your risk-adjusted returns so that you’re earning efficiently — because not all risks lead to better outcomes.

Some risks just aren’t worth it. Take putting all your money into one stock as an example. Sure, it could pay off, but on a risk-adjusted basis, you’re exposing yourself to way more downside than if you were diversified — and your expected return usually isn’t better enough to make that tradeoff worth it. These kinds of bets introduce unnecessary, uncompensated risk — which makes your portfolio less efficient, not more.

That’s how I think about making money too. How can I earn the most while taking on the least amount of BS? If something has the potential to make a lot of money but requires dealing with an insane amount of drama, stress, micromanagement, or politics, it might not be worth it. Just like with investing, there’s always going to be some BS — that’s just the nature of things — but the goal is to minimize it and maximize the return. You want to make the tradeoff as efficient as possible.

So when you’re considering a new job, a new business, or any opportunity, don’t just look at the money. Ask yourself: what are the BS-adjusted earnings here? That mindset has helped me make way clearer and more grounded decisions about where to spend my time and energy.

Earn More,

Nate