Prove or Improve

Be Right or Make Money

May 2025

And that sense of "I'd rather make money than be right" is another core tenet of it where there are people who seem to me to be in the game in order to experience the satisfaction of being right. And that's the primary goal. And that works some high percentage of the time. But then it can be disastrous, of course, because your ego and your portfolio can get caught up with that goal instead of just making money. - Graham Duncan

Sometimes the simplest concepts resonate at such a deep level they become a bit of a mind virus or an intellectual/psychological itch that needs to be scratched. After listening to an overall very interesting interview with Graham Duncan on the ILTB podcast the concept of “wanting to be right vs wanting to make money” was etched in my brain.
This is an attempt to reflect on it as I believe it is quite an important perspective and wish I had reflected on it many years before.

Validation versus Achievement

Who struggles with this?

This is probably most challenging for Enneagram 8s (inc me) and Enneagram 1s.
Technical people, engineers and scientists (inc me)
People who grew up nerdy and truth seeking (im) and in a, let’s call it, debate heavy environment.

Habits:

draft notes:

• One of the sayings that is often repeated but is annoying to me is: “chips on shoulders put chips in pockets” the idea that founders who have something to prove end up making (and making their investors) a lot of money.

• Winning graciously