Writing

We work longer, sleep less, produce more and differently, understand concepts typically unbeknownst to us, while sometimes questionings its true value.

This is being called the new Standard of Success. And if it’s happening at the individual level, it will obviously happen at the company level. Or maybe the companies are driving our own individual adoption.

Some companies will use this crutch to race to the bottom = let’s cut all humans and widen our margins as much as possible.

Some companies will use this advantage to race to the top = let’s have our humans do more of what they like and are good at.

Many junior employees are worried about this dynamic as their jobs are always in the headlines due to the oncoming “job-apocalypse”. Experts say that these media headlines are used to boost valuations of the AI companies that can press the button at any point and delete all our professions. By the way, juniors and seniors alike are impacted by the dominance of AI in companies… If you are not willing to upskill yourself, your age is not the differentiator, maybe it’s your mentality and approach to work.

A recent study by PwC of over 1 billion job posts across 6 continents hints that the job-apocalypse may be overblown, BUT that important changes are coming:

Entry level jobs didn’t disappear; UNTRAINED entry level jobs have

Required skills for a junior to enter a company have changed: motivational leadership, team building, people management, even mentorship

Entry level roles that listed those skills grew by 35%, while those that did not fell by 10%, indicating that skills deemed as purely entry level are now easily automatable

So-What: the job market now demands at entry the exact skills that are developed while ON THE JOB, sometimes called apprenticeship. Leadership, process management, team management are not taught from a textbook, you gotta practice them. But where do you practice them if you are supposed to arrive at the company having already learned them?

It’s true that some companies are just getting lazy with it, posting that we need 10+ years of Claude Code as a basic qualification. Maybe some AI slop there..

More on this later.

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Last week, I finished delivering a course on Business Applications of AI at IE New York College with 37 master's-level professionals. On their way out, I asked them four questions about what they'll actually use AI for, what they still didn't understand, what worried them, and what they were now sure of.

1. They're not worried about losing their jobs.

Twenty of them said they were worried about losing the 3 years of development that happen when you first join a company. Research, first drafts, summarizing, screening... All the tedious work that taught us how to catch errors... Struggle through work.. Think critically.

Funnily enough, 12 of those 20 answered a different question by saying that they will be automating the exact things that they were afraid of losing. Two of them noticed the contradiction in their post and the others didn't.

They're not wrong by the way. Economists call this a collective action problem where, if everybody holds back, it's nice for the greater good but why would you do it if you're the only one sitting on the sidelines?

2. 25 of the 37 found it difficult to determine the right answer from a plausible one.

Why did one prompt work a certain way and another prompt give you a completely different answer? Where is this phenomenon leading us?

The ease of creation awarded to us by automation and AI is shifting bottlenecks to the review of the work and not the development of it. But how are you gonna review the work when all you've done to create it is click a few buttons?

My theory: What employers want now are ready-made products (people) and they are outsourcing all the important training and scaffolding to other institutions. More on that next week.

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Big topic to touch on a Friday in August.

Yesterday, I listened to “Like I Love You” by Justin Timberlake, and a lyric struck me.

The lyric went:

You know, you think about itSometimes people are just destinedDestined to do, what they doAnd that's what it isNow everybody dance

This tricked my mind, because, of course, JT is destined to do what he does. You're listening to his song twenty years after it came out. The song is confirming your love for such icons, but what about “regular people”? What are we destined for?

Many of us are on the journey to figure that destiny out. Few of us were pop stars at 14 or any equivalent, like JT was.

The problem here is not the lyric or even the underlying message of such artists. What I've begun to spot is my own mind's reaction to everyday things, because my immediate biased-brain screamed, “Sh**, what am I destined to do?”

But then I had a moment of truth: it's perfectly normal to find your path on the fly, or even build it after finally falling in love with something. Seldom do we know what we will do for the rest of our lives at 14 like JT when he joined NSYNC.

Same thing happens in business: Did every unicorn founder do it at 19 years of age, or did we get tricked into believing this by the media memes and Harvard case studies?

Our mind is dealing with something called survivorship bias here. We look at the winners because the rest are nowhere to be found. Measuring ourselves against the visible top of a distribution whose bottom is invisible is the best way to drive ourselves crazy with social comparison and FOMO.

When was the last time you caught yourself in a moment of truth?

Friday thoughts - have a great weekend!

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It was always my dream to pursue an MBA, live in Europe, and learn Spanish. I was lucky enough to be able to do so in one of the most wonderful places I've ever been to: Madrid.

Surrounded by tradition, culture, diversity (and lots of sun). I made some of the best friends in Madrid, people that I call family. They've changed my life by adding a new dimension in me that did not exist before. I traveled over 120 times in six years (work and fun) and learned so much about people, communication, relationships, and difference.

It wasn't always easy. Big life changes tend to have their ups and downs. I had some of the toughest times of my life in Madrid:

Getting laid off when a startup didn't raise funding

Getting hit with fines and big tax bills because I didn't understand the legal code in Spanish

Working with some really challenging people, in tough environments

Becoming an entrepreneur because there was no other option

These immigrant stories are privileged stories. Might be strange to say but I'm lucky to have had them. They taught me so much and, most importantly, surrounded me with my people, those who have your back next time you make a big leap.

The next big leap is another lifelong dream of mine: New York City. And I couldn't be more ready for it. The last two months have been a hurricane: conferences, clients, trips, closing a life in Madrid and opening one in New York City. Thankfully I'm not doing it alone this time. Alejandra Dito and I have just completed two weeks in a city that feels right for us, like a hand in a glove. Ambition, drive, toughness, fun. Let's see where this journey takes us.

I continue building fun products and programs, consulting, directing, and teaching. I have already begun the famous coffee route to get to know people here in New York City as I pinch myself to realize that I'm no longer dreaming.

If you are in New York and have experienced a similar move, let's connect and get to know each other. If you're not in New York and are planning to visit, you always have a place to stay.

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This was a discussion I had this weekend in Austin, Texas with participants who were looking to find a unique and prevalent problem to build their business around. I repeatedly mentioned that we need to spend most our time identifying, validating, and iterating the problem statement ahead of moving to solutions.

Now, when you talk problems, you can’t assume that each archetype has the same problem. That’s where stakeholders and client profiles come in

Riders: Car shortages leaving you stranded when it matters most

Those who can't drive: No license leaving you without independence

Walkers & cyclists: Getting hit by drivers who don't see them

Communities: Drunk and reckless driving putting everyone at risk

Drivers: Impaired drivers causing accidents on the road

One insight from the workshop is that we all carry our own biases and therefore may miss critical design elements that make a truly brilliant solution: One female participant stated that Waymos provide a safer ride because being 1:1 in a car with a stranger at night was not the most comfortable feeling in the world. The constant need for mobility solutions brought daily fears to her life, which Waymo directly solved. Wow – I didn’t consider that!

This brought me back to a TedTalk I saw about the design of bathrooms – if a female is involved in the design process of a building, the structure of female bathrooms is adapted to the needs of a female, and not identical to those of males.

Group diversity and deeper root cause thinking matter more than ever in today's accelerated AI world.

Now, innovative solutions don’t come without their own challenges. My Waymo ride to the workshop encountered some problems. The Waymo got confused about where it was taking me and it went the wrong way down a drive thru of El Tacorrido and insisted to drop me off there. I was nearly late to my meeting because I had to walk the rest of the way, but I laughed hysterically in the moment. In fairness, I love tacos, so maybe the algorithm is getting so good that it knew what I wanted before I did…

What problems are YOU solving???

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Finally got to visit the famous IE New York College in SoHo! Was especially impressed by the emphasis on academic rigor and value proposition of opening the US job market to foreign students. New global challenges need innovative solutions - I saw the leadership team skating towards where the puck will be, not where it is currently.. Which is more important than ever.

I was lucky enough to visit during the incredible run by the New York Knicks, the World Cup, plus numerous concerts and parades.. What an infectious energy that everybody should experience at some point. No words to explain it.

I'm excited to announce I'll be teaching a course on Business Applications of AI at the college this August. Want to thank Dmitri Shuster for the opportunity.

Neuroscience is my most recent fascination - learning about the brain can tell us so much about our day-to-day. But this obsession began way earlier: when I got my first job in finance at 22 y/o, working with corporates and families on building solid financial habits... I did not realize it at that point, but those 6 years unlocked a genuine curiosity in human behavior as it pertained to money, technology, education, wellbeing. I write about this in my first (hopefully of many!) IE Insights article. It's only scratching the surface of the world surrounding us. Believe me that 2,000 words were not sufficient to discuss all I wanted! Hope it can provide a fresh look into what we are all experiencing daily.

Grateful to those that 1) listen to my crazy ideas 2) are willing to publish them.

First time in Greece, discussing a future with AI at Panathēnea! Besides the tasty food and incredibly kind people, I left with a notebook full of insights...

Here are ten takeaways on decision making in AI, Finance, Education

Intuition: Trust your gut, because it's likely that you've thought about your [idea] more than somebody who's giving you advice, so don't miss opportunities just because others said no. Intuition is not a mystical word, it's science-backed decision-making.

Dopamine: As your [idea] matures, you may get comfortable. Be careful of the fact that more comfort often means less adrenaline and hunger.

Read between the lines: Many finance companies want to sell you the best way to spend quickly (new card, new subscription, etc.). Yet wealth grows slowly over time, and that doesn't sell well in commercials.

Democratic decision making: Create formal internal processes for crazy ideas to emerge and assume that no one knows better than another.

Different cultures at work: Motivation/drive should be shared across the board. Everything else can differ and therefore offers diversity.

Tech dividend: Due to AI, somebody in a village can now learn as much as somebody in the private school of a city. What can we do with that ability?

Educational frameworks: Most educators around the world do not have a proper framework for collaboration with AI. When it's missing, they often go back to old habits.

Productive struggle: Nearly everybody talked about the fact that friction in the learning process is what drives us to be great. Yet AI can eliminate it.

Incremental innovation: Tweaks in the classroom will not be enough as many start to question the ROI. We must collectively revamp current models.

So What: Incentive structures are going to determine our uses of new technologies. If our work requires us to be more productive, efficient, etc. then we (as well as students) will use every method to get there. More emphasis must be put on the creative process that gets you to a result rather than just evaluating the result itself. At the end of the day, we all grow as we build our way to a goal, not just at the moment we've reached it. The option to cut the creative process short is going to birth a huge divide between those who genuinely engage with the real world and those who have automated it to the highest degree.

Grateful to everyone in Athens who pushed these conversations forward. The best ideas came from people willing to disagree in the room....

Huge thanks to Stella Bompotsiari Tania (Tetiana) Revun Chara Gravani Sofia Zacharaki Despoina Trivela The Greek Online School Ada Leivada Anastasia Misirli, PhD for arranging such a necessary event.

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Last week, I had the pleasure to discuss AI in Finance at a Bloomberg breakfast for leaders in Madrid. Great breakfast, fun group of people!

Few quick highlights of what we covered in just 90 mins

The real AI bottleneck is data quality, not model sophistication

Human trust and personalized advisory still differentiate in a digital world

Metadata is becoming critical for AI to find and use information

There is a global talent shortage in AI-ready financial professionals

Behavioral biases on the receiving end of AI output may be the last unsolved bottleneck

2 points to highlight and build on as they pertain to decision-making

Leaders said that they were not laying off people in their organizations for the benefit of AI. They saw the technology as a boost (augmentation) of current talent, and not a cost-cutting mechanism like often portrayed to us by media or big tech layoffs. The term Jevons Paradox comes to mind as it explains that efficiency gain in economies does not necessarily decrease the use of the product (or operator), like when fuel became more efficient, we used more of it, not less. My students may sleep better after this..

Point number 2 builds on the first one and comes from the science of decision-making. Decisions made quickly by few people (or one) are not always optimal - they are only in some cases, where a decision is inconsequential and reversible (referencing the Amazon DM Matrix). When AI is seen as a way to reduce headcount, you are leaving more decision power in the hands of a few, using AI systems which are not yet powerful enough to make agentic decisions 100% trustworthy at scale. So what happens when the AI hallucinates, which it often does, and you've outsourced your big decision to its probabilistic logic? Governance frameworks do not yet allow proper responsibility to be assigned to a wrong decision made by AI - hence the term human-in-the-loop.

The question is: as monetization of agentic AI becomes more demanded, what will happen to the accountability of good/bad decisions in organizations? Who is responsible when firms outperform the market via AI? What if things go wrong?

Thank you for the opportunity to join. It was fun to learn how you're navigating the space.

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Has anybody seen the graduation speeches where students boo the speakers when discussing the future of their careers?! What a strange event to watch! Google's ex-CEO's, Eric Schmidt, was straight up awkward! These are signals we have to listen to, though.

AI is going to impact all of us, not just those that are graduating. But I'm optimistic about its impacts, I think that the jobapocalypse is overblown!

We can look at societal challenges in 2 ways

Doomsday 🛑

An opportunity to get better 🟢

At IE University, we are cognizant of the fact that the educational industry will be one of the first to get disrupted - it already has! But we're taking this challenge head on and avoiding band-aid solutions because they're simply not going to cut it!

I'll be speaking about this stuff and more next week at “Classroom Futures” as part of Panathēnea 2026 in Athens, a global festival bringing together technology, innovation, startups, and culture. Come join us!

Impact Hub Athens

May 29

Link to register in the comments

See you at the Panathēnea Festival next week! 🚀

Panathēnea The Greek Online School Stella Bompotsiari Tania (Tetiana) Revun Chara Gravani Ada Leivada Spyros Doufas Panagiotis Chartokollis

Over 3 weeks, I’m guiding a group of sharp Italian leaders on decision making systems. They seem to think humans are rational and systematic when making decisions.

One concept from neuroscience argues the opposite: Illusory Truth Effect (ITE).

Simply put, our brains take a shortcut by believing what’s repeated and therefore familiar. Even when something is false or contradicts our prior knowledge. Much like the beloved AI hallucinations! Although AI does not believe anything, it guesses based on probabilities.

Propaganda, ads, fake news, conspiracy theories thrive on this, triggering our negativity bias. Just 2 instances can increase perception of validity in our brains.

We can hack the brain by simply being aware of this, making sure we look for accurate sources and pre-bunk any false info before it reaches us. Sounds easier said than done.

On the flip side, repeated positive self-talk coupled with supporting actions build new patterns in our brain to make messages more familiar and automatic, habitual you might say.

Let’s say you can’t seem to make exercise a habit – making athletics your identity by saying “I’m a person who exercises” and then going out for a run builds positive reinforcement in your brain by using illusory truth effect (among others) and virtually tricking the brain into believing and acting on those beliefs.

What repeated messages do you send to yourself, your partner, your team?

Last week, I had the chance to present the course of Decision-Making and Problem Solving to a group of brilliant executives in Saudi Arabia. Along many factors that contribute to our daily fight against info overload, work stress, and demands for productivity, we discussed Justified Distraction: that urge to check Instagram for news, Slack for a message from your boss, or WhatsApp because the house may be on fire. These digital excuses lead to a disruption of attention and derail deep work. So, although there's corporate pressure to perform better than ever, your brain's reaction to its modern environment is crushing those chances.

What happens internally based on neuroscience is fascinating

When you justify checking Slack or Instagram in the middle of deep work, your brain isn't being weak. It's just running an old survival program in a world it wasn't built for. An ancient alert and reward system is scanning the environment for threats or rewards, and the thought let me just check, in case is how that system explains itself.

Your attention opens brief windows for anything that might be more important, and modern notifications exploit that ancient survival mechanism. Dopamine spikes not when you get a message but when you might, making checking feel urgent. Your brain then rationalizes the impulse as something reasonable, masking a pull from boredom, anxiety, or FOMO. AI tools add a new layer to this, since let me just ask ChatGPT feels productive in a way Instagram never did, which makes the interruption even harder to refuse.

Some daily relief can be taken from the science of flow, a state of intense, energized focus where skills perfectly match the challenging task at hand. This leads to higher productivity and enjoyment of work.

To combat Justified Distraction, flow principles state we should

-> Not use screens during first and last hour of being awake

-> Turn off phone entirely or use Do Not Disturb during your working hours

-> Put phone out of sight while working, your willpower is weaker than you think

-> 1 day per week: tech fast

-> Read and respond to emails 2x per day. Designate those times in your calendar.

-> The famous Pomodoro Method (25 mins on, 5 min break; or 50 mins on, 10 mins break)

-> Workspace is crucial here, design your workspace to have limited distractions and designate each space for something.

You're pre-programming your future decisions while in a rational state. Pre-planned decisions are easier to execute than when you give your brain the opportunity to roam freely without boundaries.

In the end, what we are practicing with this is identifying moments of truth in your day where you are operating on autopilot. You feel out of control but if you build a system, you can quickly regain it.

This resonate with anyone?

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It's the ability to connect with students on a level where you feel useful, where you feel that you can help them avoid stumbling the way you have but without overprotecting them too much because the hardships of life make them much stronger than a life where todo está bien.

Every once in a while you stumble upon a student that makes you want to continue working, keep contributing, and gives you some validation that you truly are having an impact. I hope that's the case anyway.

Pablo Anchia is somebody that respects the process, not afraid to ask questions, prioritizes relationships, and humble enough to ask for help when he's lost. If you can put together a general recipe for success, I don't know a better one than that.

He understands that there are no bandaid solutions in life although we are sold them on a continuous basis by society. Getting good grades in university IS important, but it's not more important than the work ethic you develop, the lifelong friends you make, and the global perspective that you acquire. More than anything, he understood that being great at grade-getting was not the only thing he would strive for, developing a love for the learning process, staying adaptable and relentless.

Pablo and I have had sessions about investing, careers, life. He's asked me questions that have made me reflect on my own life, teaching me many lessons in return. This guy has got a bright future ahead of him as he prepares for a global career that may start in NYC. If you are looking for an excellent contributor to your team, somebody to help build your company, that will ask the right questions and take care of your clients, you've got a fantastic candidate here.

Best of luck ahead, my friend. You always have my number. Enjoy your summer.

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A simple AI workflow may have just saved me months of work in the wrong direction.

Is anybody using Perplexity Computer? Because for me it's the latest hidden treasure.

I'm going to simplify AI education into a few steps

Staying up to date with the latest trends (easier said than done).

Experimenting with the particular clicks that take advantage of the strengths of the tools (takes time).

Practicing your ability to speak to them in a way that gives you the best output (takes trial and error).

That's it. But most of us have day jobs..

In preparation for a mentorship meeting where I'm helping a team with an innovation project, I stumbled upon a pretty useful workflow that has the potential to save months of work and protect against developing a project with the wrong thesis. Nothing is done yet, but I’m hopeful.

1 -> What I did was start out in Claude Projects because Claude understands me best and load into there all the information necessary for this particular project so that I can generate the first meeting agenda.

2 -> As I was building the agenda, I realized that I didn't know anything about the destination that the innovation project would take place in. In preparing the agenda, I asked Claude to give me a deep research prompt for Perplexity so that I could find out as much as possible about the location.

3 -> I took that prompt. I went to Perplexity and I clicked into Deep Research and I pasted the prompt so that I could generate a detailed and source-backed report about the particular destination.

4 -> Generating huge reports via these research AI workflows is fantastic but the challenge is that presenting them in a meeting is impossible. I decided to test out Perplexity Computer and its functionality of creating interactive digital assets that would allow me to present this report in the meeting and unlock insights for a plan of action.

The team I mentor did not know about some of the crucial details of this report and were planning to build out a thorough project that had already been developed in this location.

What's most important, and we're recognizing this in the field of AI education, is that you have to understand the parameters of what you need in order to achieve automation and augmentation of your work. You might call this metacognition. That takes tacit knowledge that takes time to acquire; but with your experimentation with these tools and a bit of field expertise, you're able to develop seemingly magical work. It takes trial and error with a mix of patience.

As a summary what I did was

I used Claude Projects to house all the important information about the meeting that I was about to have.

I used Perplexity Deep Research to find all the important information about the location that I was going to be discussing.

I used Perplexity Computer to visualize that information after I received the deep research report.

That's it. This worflow took me 30 mins to complete. You can see the video attached.

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What do you want to be when you grow up?

A banker. I don't know if anybody ever said that. A doctor, maybe. One of my best friends is a lawyer because he used to watch Law and Order with his grandma. But a banker... kids don't think of money. They think of tanks, cars, shoes.

I wanted to be a professional basketball player, but those who have seen me in person will understand why I didn't.

Yet when it came time to choosing my undergrad major, I blindly chose finance because, and I quote, I feel that this is a skill that will be necessary and most will be afraid of it.

That came out sort of correct.

But what are today's kids aspiring to be and settling for? What world is waiting for them on the other side of university (if they go)?

Inevitably we advise from our own point of view, so I tell my students to be curious, learn a plethora of skills, be able to present clearly, build their own businesses and digital profiles.

Not because I think everyone should be an entrepreneur. But because the world they're walking into demands what entrepreneurs have always needed: adaptability, the ability to spot opportunity, and the willingness to execute and not give up. Complaining as little as possible in the process, as life will knock you down repeatedly.

What are you advising your kids and students to pursue? What world awaits them in two, five, ten years?

When I was 22, I had to tell a 60-year-old they couldn't retire.

This was my day to day. Consulting people on how to step away from work. But one situation never left me.

I was sitting with somebody who believed they were retiring in two years. We did some back-of-the-napkin math together, and I realized they needed another 10 to 15 years just to provide for their family.

I was 22. I had never planned for retirement myself. And I had to be the one to tell them.

The same way that interest compounds, avoidance compounds in the opposite direction.

Every year we don't look, we have less time to make up the difference. And the conversation we eventually have to have gets harder.

Talking about money is taboo. And once it feels stressful, the brain takes the path of least resistance: Don't look. Don't ask. Don't engage.

That instinct used to protect us. But with money, it works against us. Not just in our accounts, but in our confidence. The longer it goes, the easier it becomes to believe this just isn't for someone like us.

That client eventually started over. But it wasn't with a formula or an investment. It was with the honest conversation they'd been avoiding for 30 years.

With how busy our lives are, when was the last time you checked in financially?

The brain running our investment decisions was not built for investing.

It was built for survival. For 200,000 years, the rule was simple: if something looks dangerous, act immediately. That instinct kept our ancestors alive. Today, it makes us sell when prices drop and follow the crowd when fear spreads.

Right now, oil prices have jumped 60% in a single month after conflict erupted around the Strait of Hormuz, the channel that moves 20% of the world's oil. And people are moving money to cash as fast as they can.

With recent volatility in the markets, I keep catching myself wanting to do the same thing.

Psychologists call this loss aversion. Losing $1,000 feels twice as painful as gaining $1,000 feels good. So when a portfolio drops, the brain screams emergency, even when nothing about our actual lives has changed.

We fear the danger we can see. We ignore the one we can't.

Inflation quietly erodes cash savings every single month. No alarm goes off. No red number flashes. But watch a portfolio drop 8% and every instinct says: do something. Anything.

Salience bias. Panic for visible losses, silence for invisible ones. It costs us real money, quietly, for years.

Then the crowd makes it worse.

When everyone around us is selling, the brain reads that as confirmation that selling is correct. Behavioral economists call this herd behavior, the same instinct that once told our ancestors if everyone is running, run. In March 2020, the ones who noticed this in themselves and stayed put didn't just recover. They tripled their money by March 2026. Not because they had better information. Because they caught the reaction before it became a decision.

Most of us were handed financial tools without ever being shown the operating system running underneath. Once we see it, the decisions change. Not because we stop feeling the fear. Because we finally understand what it is.

We have 1% swings up and down each day. What's your brain telling you to do — and do you trust it?

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There's a famous phrase: put your money where your mouth is. But what if most of us are putting our money where our emotions are?

I'm testing some interesting dynamics in my Capital Markets class. I ask my students on a daily basis why they made certain trades in our Investopedia simulation. Some have interesting rationale for why they sold Stock X or bought Crypto Y, but for the most part it's based on TikTok trends, Twitter posts, or the latest update of the Yahoo Finance page. I like using Yahoo Finance as a barometer because it visually displays information that triggers our emotional state. So when you open it and see event XYZ, inevitably it draws fear, happiness, anxiety, confidence. Then we discuss to calm the emotions..

We like to believe the stock market runs on complex math and cold logic, but a fascinating new study (in comments below) proves it is actually driven by contagious emotion of internet memes. It turns out that the viral GIFs investors share online bypass our rational brains and act as an accidental crystal ball, accurately predicting sudden market spikes (+27.3 bps) and then subsequent crashes (-126.5 bps) weeks away from the post. There's enough data collected to consider this a leading market indicator.

The question is... if you are investing based on pure logic, predetermined rules, and deep financial analysis, do you have the upper hand when so much of a market can be shifted by a sudden tweet, worrisome message from your neighbor, or even a GIF?

After a full day of work, Claude Code told ME to stop working.

For now, you're done. You've done a lot.

Close Notion. You're done. Tomorrow when you have your first meeting, open the calendar event, click the notes button, and the system works. That's all that matters today.

It's the first time this happens to me! The machines are really taking over - ha! 😱

Have a great weekend!

A recent study found that fear of missing out inflates what we pay for risk in the markets. In simple terms: when we see others making money, we chase the same investments at higher prices and worse timing.

I've experienced this myself: I bought Bitcoin not because I understood it, but because everyone around me was in it. Fundamentally-speaking, I still don't understand it, but I felt that having skin in the game would be a good reason to learn about the emerging asset class. But jumping in blindly because of herd behavior cost me more than patience would have.

Psychology says that we cannot estimate absolute value well, for that reason we live in a comparison culture. We don't just fear missing returns, we fear being the only one not participating. And that fear is now measurable! Wow.

I broke down the study in the slides below. The link to the full research is in the comments.

Have you ever invested in something just because everyone else was?

I've started several marketing courses over the years that I ended up clicking out of after a day or two. However, when you commit your time and money to building an idea of your own, you're much more invested. You can use the tools in front of us (Claude, as an example) to learn the steps it takes to launch a marketing campaign. With that process you learn more in 5 days than in any course you take online.

When you understand marketing, you understand human behavior: why people click, where they click, what they like, what they don't like. That is something pretty special, but access to this subject-matter expertise has been kept to those that studied it. Now with AI, that moat is no longer so big. At least for entry-level knowledge.

For me, this experimentation unlocked a skill I had struggled with for years because I did not know where to start. The process of building a landing page, connecting it to trackers, then to Mailchimp felt like too many steps I did not know how to navigate. Building my own product forced me to figure it out, and AI made the learning curve manageable.

This is an invitation to experiment. Take an idea you've always wanted to launch into the market. Maybe it's a cooking channel, maybe it's something with travel, maybe it's about art. Go to Claude (or any tool you like) and start a conversation about how to reach an audience. Build step by step, you'll surprise yourself.

In fact, you can take this very post, paste its text into Claude, and ask how you can do the same. With my case it was marketing, but for you it may be another skill entirely.

The step we miss sometimes because we are drowning in new information: experimentation.

What are YOU going to learn by doing?

Have a great Sunday!

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Overwhelmed by information overload? How often does that actually stop you from making a decision?

Countless students have come up to me asking Where do I begin? Could be about a career in finance, opening an investment account, finding accurate information. This although our class is accompanied by a 754-page textbook.

How many of the 120 students bought the book? Zero.

Not to spite me, I suppose. But likely because 754 pages of conceptual frameworks and complex equations were not going to help them wrap their minds around the world we live in today. A world that ultimately touches our education, careers, wallet, and self-worth.

The book has great intentions. But it's not teaching them how to start earning and saving in an AI-abundant era, or what to do with their investments while we're living through global conflict. Let alone the mental habits that actually build financial muscle and self-confidence for the next step of life.

The students are not alone. I've worked with hundreds of professionals in the same boat: Where do I begin with finance? It's just not for me. I'm convinced that they are not broken, but the process is.

So I'm testing a short financial diagnostic. 10 questions about your relationship with money. Takes 2 minutes. We have made information a commodity, so it's not about needing more of it, it's about finding the right information for me.

Link for diagnostic is in the comments. Share your results when done!

Ever had somebody strongly oppose you on a decision you were pretty confident about?

Don't take that job. Don't move to that country. Don't make that investment. Don't take on that debt.

I've come to realize that when you hear those words, you've likely struck gold.

It's a contrarian view, but if you reflect deeply, people mostly give advice from their point of view. They've not considered what it's like to be in your shoes and to be making what could be the decision of your life.

When I decided to do my MBA in Spain in 2020, people asked me why I was leaving the US. The assumption was that staying was safer, smarter, more logical. It turned out to be one of the best decisions I ever made. But it took time to realize the gains of that investment, and that's something we need to sit with and be patient about. And by the way, if it doesn't work out as you wanted, you learn, adapt, and keep moving.

I see the same pattern with my students, and I see it with how people approach money. Not to say that those around you are bad. But if we don't learn to think for ourselves when it comes to choosing partners, places to live, or investments, we end up following someone else's playbook without realizing it.

The trouble is that when we are fed doubt, we often find it difficult to take the first step. Or the next one.

What's the worst advice you've been given?

I asked my students what they want to do after university. Most of them had no idea.

One said: I'm doing a business degree because I don't know what else to do.

I understand them by the way - I was in their same place at one point. But here's what I've noticed after years of teaching: when you put people together in the same program, the same campus, the same career fairs, osmosis kicks in. We stop thinking as individuals and end up floating down the same river. Same internships, same industries of interest, same LinkedIn headlines. Not because that's what we want, but because that's what everyone around us is doing.

And it kills authenticity, the same way that schools kill creativity, as Ken Robinson famously argued.

And when we're bombarded with options, we freeze. We compare ourselves to the people next to us, and we don't act. And not acting makes us feel worse, which makes us less likely to act - ha!

The people that break out of this vicious cycle are the ones who reflect and break the chain by just getting started. Most of us think there's a perfect formula for getting this right, and I always tell my students that it's simpler than they think: take the first step, go to that event, find a mentor, start journaling.

When did you realize you were following someone else's path instead of your own?

Daniel Kahneman taught us that we have two systems of thinking. System 1 is fast, emotional, instinctive. System 2 is slow, rational, deliberate. Both show up every time we make a decision about money.

I asked my students to rate their level of risk tolerance from 1-10

I gave them fake money ($10,000) and asked them to invest it

One student rated herself a 5.3 out of 10. Fairly aggressive.

When she went to invest the FAKE money, her risk score came back 2.4. Rather conservative. She put almost all her money in the safest options available without realizing it. Her habits took over before her brain caught up. But she was one of many to do so in class.

What would happen with REAL money?

I can tell you, because I've seen it. As a financial consultant at Baird, clients would tell us go aggressive, I can handle the risk. Three months later the market drops 10%, and they're calling us in a panic. We build the rational plan, but our emotions are the ones panic selling or FOMO buying.

As you learn about the markets, you simultaneously learn about yourself. But most people never get that far, because nobody told them where to start.

Be honest: when it comes to money, do you lead with your head or your gut?

I asked a room of 20-year-olds what comes to mind when they hear the word finance.

The most common answer wasn't money, investing, or Wall Street. What I heard instead was silence. One student eventually spoke up: A world that isn't really meant for me.

That sentence has stayed with me. I've heard versions of it from professionals in their 30s, from MBAs, from couples earning six figures who still feel like outsiders when the conversation turns to money.

I've taught Capital Markets since I started my career at 21, when I was teaching 65-year-olds how to retire - ha! I've sat across from hundreds of students and professionals. The ones who struggle most aren't the ones who lack ability. They're the ones who decided, somewhere along the way, that they don't belong in the conversation. What's holding them back is that they've never given themselves the permission to participate.

I've been thinking about this for a long time. Enough to build something around it.

What's the one money question you've been too embarrassed to ask?

Ever thought about starting a business but didn't know where to start? Or maybe you've already started one but feel like you're missing key principles to reach your version of success ?

My dear friend, mentor, and overall amazing human Alberto Levy has written a fantastic book that can guide you.

It's full of personal stories (where you get to learn more about the innovation guru, which is really my favorite part), easy-to-use frameworks, and most importantly, advice on the mentality and attitude required to take a big leap toward real ownership of your own project.

I'm personally revisiting some best practices by taking a page out of the Failure, Uncertainty, and Learning chapter to launch a marketing campaign for a product I'm building. When somebody explains to you that the journey will be tough, but the most important step is the next one, you realize that entrepreneurship is simply the expression of the creativity inside of you. And we ALL possess it.

I've already gifted this book to 4 brilliant students in the Master in Digital Business at IE University after they won a pitching competition for their unique approach to museum/art experiences. Link to purchase in the comments.

What's holding you back from taking the next step on YOUR project?

What do you look for in an educational experience? Expertise? Brand? A community that surrounds you? Maybe some humor from the professor?

I've been an applicant, student, alum, professor, program manager, and academic director at IE University. Going out to show potential students how we teach was way more fun than I expected.

Dallas, Houston, Austin. Sessions at The Awty International School, St. Mark's School of Texas, and open enrollment masterclasses. The workshop focused on finding problems that overlap with a passion, then using GenAI to build and pitch startup solutions.

Parent-kid startup pitches were the highlight. One mother-daughter team tackled family travel logistics. Think of never missing a flight again when coordinating a family of 4+. When parents and kids collaborated as equals, something clicked. It was awesome to see, and some ideas were genuinely promising. We laughed a lot...

None of this happens without Timothy Howe. His organization and leadership made every session work. His love for education showed in every room. And a huge thank you to Joe Haslam for the recommendation.

If you attended one of these sessions, thank you for showing up.

We live in a world where

Google's Agent Payments Protocol enables AI systems to initiate and transact payments across platforms

OpenAI's Agent Commerce Protocol allows shopping and checkout directly through ChatGPT

London Stock Exchange Group connects to Microsoft via Model Context Protocol, giving customers AI agent access to its data

Microsoft Copilot makes calculation mistakes like the one in the image below

In today's faculty meeting for the AI in Finance program (Nov 24-26 at IE University), we discussed AI hallucinations, the high failure rate of AI pilots in companies, yet also how this technology is going to revolutionize the way we handle money in the future.

If you're eager to learn about how AI is reshaping finance, join us for a free info session next Wednesday, October 22nd at 17:00 Madrid time. Link in the comments.

Are we in an AI Bubble ? Is this over-exuberance a financial bubble ready to pop, or an industrial shift that will leave lasting infrastructure even after a market correction?

Here's what I know: I've been transforming how I work with AI over the past couple of years, and the productivity gains are undeniable. Finance is a numbers, data, and language game, which means it's a perfect target for AI disruption. The question isn't if it will impact your function, but how you can leverage it to unlock new possibilities (responsibly).

Bank of America (AskGPS), BlackRock (Aladdin Wealth), Snowflake (Cortex AI), and many more are experimenting, implementing (some failing), and iterating fast to keep up with the learning curve. But you don't have to work at one of the huge companies to feel the AI impacts in the financial industry. There's real opportunity here for leaders willing to explore AI with an open mind.

On October 22 at 17:00 Madrid time, I'm hosting a free online info session on our 3-day AI in Finance program at IE University (part of AI Week happening on November 24-26). We'll cover the mindset shift needed, critical thinking frameworks, tools, real use cases, and practical AI implementation for finance leaders.

Registration link in the comments below. Limited spots available.

I'm lucky to be working with an incredible group of faculty

Never heard that one, right?

Many wise proverbs mention 80%, though

Hara Hachi Bu: Eat until 80% and let your body recover

Woody Allen: 80% of success in life is showing up

Pareto Principle: 80% of results come from 20% of inputs

So if working backwards, what is the 20% that makes 80% of the results in our life, while still keeping us healthy?

What is that 20% in YOUR field of study or passion?

In a world dominated by subject-matter experts and self-help gurus, detaching yourself from the identity of always being right is one of the most beautiful feelings ever.

When your boss says, You are right, I was wrong, it can transform your entire work experience. This same power applies to all relationships - romantic partners, family members, friends, students, team members, clients. Being vulnerable and saying I did not know that then, and I was wrong builds extraordinary trust.

In a recent podcast, Malcolm Gladwell shared that he's writing a new book to acknowledge where he was wrong about concepts in his previous work, finding it freeing to read your own book and recognize you were wrong. He claims that when he wrote the book, the concepts were right, but now, they are outdated as his beliefs have changed (paraphrasing). How great is that?

Hold your values closely, but your beliefs loosely. If we do not change our beliefs over time, we are too deeply rooted in our identities and run the risk of not thinking critically as our world becomes increasingly nuanced and complex.

When was the last time you said I am wrong, and I apologize ? It's not easy, but it becomes liberating with practice.

Image repost from Steven Bartlett

Compounding interest impacts each one of us, whether you invest or not.

Compounding the interest on your investment account gives you more money. Conversely, the interest on your loan account makes you pay more money later.

But how does this concept impact our health and experiences?

It's likely that compounding good health habits won't prevent natural aging, as our bodies begin declining after age 20. But bad health habits can compound into a downward spiral, affecting your future experiences.

A couple of years ago, I hurt my back and didn't heal it properly. The result? No sports, limited workouts, and suffering through long trips. But I'm only 31! What will this mean at 40? 50? 60?

Financial concepts translate to daily habits, and those habits impact your wallet. So why not study them?

Which habits in YOUR life are compounding that, if fixed, could compound for the better rather than worse?

In the US, target retirement age is ± 65, so you work until then, then enjoy.

But what if our formula for WEALTH is outdated?

Here are ideas I'm exploring as I study our financial decisions

We optimize for money over memories, forgetting that at age 30, $1 buys you one unit of enjoyment, but at 60, you'll need $2 for the same return. The depreciation nobody talks about.

We confuse career progression with life progression. The steady 3% annual raise might be costing you 50% of your life's most valuable experiences. The math doesn't add up.

We save our best years for retirement, not realizing that time—unlike money—doesn't have interest rates or refunds.

Here's an alternative calculation: Take your age. Subtract it from your target retirement age. Multiply by 52 weekends. How many are left?

The best investment you can make is an investment in yourself. The more you learn, the more you'll earn.

It may be cliché to quote Warren Buffett on here, but has this quote ever been more true?! With the speed at which technology is changing our lives, I can think of no better piece of advice. Access to education has never been more available than it is now

Daily insights from the world's best minds

You can even write to the president of your country via Twitter, and they may read and reply - when has that ever been possible before???

Most importantly, you can surround yourself with amazing people (5 monkeys experiment) and become the product of their environment, learn, and grow with them.

Are advanced degrees NECESSARY to progress? Don't know. Maybe for building strong values and structures for the rest of your life - that's true! But you learn so much outside of school that is it necessary to pay 100,000s of $$$ to advance?

A lack of understanding in today's world comes down to two things: a lack of curiosity and not having the right role models to unlock new pathways for you.

But the million-dollar questions are

WHAT do you want to learn about?

And HOW are you going to apply the learning?

Content today is not scarce, but implementation is!

Agree? Disagree? Share your thoughts below 👇

Ever feel like you're running on autopilot?

Overwhelm, an abundance of choice, addiction to instant gratification, and lack of inspiration can cause us to live on autopilot. In 'Die with Zero,' Bill Perkins talks about making deliberate choices not only with money but in all aspects of our lives.

When bringing up the topic of financial education, I sometimes get brushed off, as if it's too difficult a topic to discuss with the general public. But why is that?

Are you more rational or emotional when making decisions?

In Die with Zero, Bill Perkins suggests that just looking at the Return on Equity when making a decision means avoiding a big part of the equation: the experience your decision will lead to.

Buying real estate: Does only the projected return matter? Or might the lifetime of experiences influence your purchase?

Selecting a job: Is it only about the salary, or the relationships you can make?

Finding a partner: Is wealth the only thing that matters, or is there more?

I had a friend recently tell me that he was buying a house because he found an arbitrage opportunity in the interest rates from one month to another. I asked, But do you even want the house? Later, I found out he was planning to have a family, and the house would serve as their first starter home together - that makes much more sense!

How do you evaluate these big decisions in your life?

How do you make big decisions? Do you consult experts? Look at data? Go with your gut? Maybe a combination of the three?

Research shows that big decisions are usually made in groups. Think of marriage - many people have to approve of your partner. Or buying a house - you don't decide without getting others' opinions. Even when selecting a president, the decision involves discussions with family, friends, and considering various perspectives.

Time is also crucial in decision-making. While timing can kill startups, most major life decisions don't happen in one go. Whether it's making a big investment or choosing a career change, you need repetition and sometimes rejection before feeling comfortable with your choice.

One helpful tool is the pre-mortem - imagining how you'll feel once the decision is made. This helps avoid bad decisions and sets the right expectations. If the worst happens, at least you're prepared. The key is developing a mindset where you're comfortable sitting with uncertainty - accepting that you won't have all the answers right away, and that's okay.

What's the next big decision in your life? What might impact the quality of that decision?

What is your net worth? Is it a calculation of Assets - Liabilities? Or is there more nuance than that?

Die with Zero explores the concept of Memory Dividends—suggesting that life is a sum of experiences. The question becomes: do you need more money or more experiences? Research suggests that experiential spending tends to bring greater joy than material purchases. While buying a fancy car out of passion makes sense, purchasing it for status raises questions: If you lose the car, do you lose your worth? More importantly, does anyone truly care what you drive?

My net worth extends beyond the A-L equation to encompass relationships and shared memories. Among my most valuable assets are 45,000 photos and videos documenting years of experiences, each paying continuous dividends through amazing (and sometimes painful) memories.

A recent Harvard article suggests that our instant-gratification world—marked by tech dependence, rapid deliveries, and social media addiction—may be hampering our ability to form long-term memories. This deficit could impair creativity and critical thinking. As we train our brains for 30-second distractions, we might be losing our capacity to retain meaningful memories. The question is: on autopilot, do we even notice this transformation?

What comprises YOUR true net worth?

During my MBA in 2020, one of our professors taught an intriguing class on shareholder value, highlighting the existential dangers in our economic system. He showed how extracting maximum profits to benefit owners often ignores broader societal costs—evident when companies announce strong earnings while laying off thousands of employees, declaring We demand even higher profits.

As someone coming from investment management, where generating risk-efficient returns was our mission, I initially found this amusing. Years later, I've grown to appreciate his perspective. Simon Sinek, one of my favorite thought leaders, explores this same concept when discussing capitalism's growing economic disparities.

The problem is that many people don't understand shareholder value, perpetuating cycles of economic inequality. How can we address this knowledge gap to help people make informed decisions about careers, compensation, and financial commitments?

Today, I started an audiobook on Spotify called Die with Zero by Bill Perkins that explores the pursuit of a more fulfilling and deliberate life. In the first chapter, Bill asks, What is wealth without health? alluding to the fact that everybody who is saving all their money for retirement is sacrificing today's potential for (a not-so-promised) tomorrow.

I'm deeply curious about the psychology behind financial behaviors and have noticed a pattern of surrendering to the norms of the 9-5 to work in careers we don't like for people we don't respect. This makes us lose purpose and wonder, But what's out there for me? What am I doing all this for? I've heard this repeatedly from those around me and have had similar thoughts myself.

Over the next few weeks, I'll give some highlights from this book, as I imagine it's going to help answer some of the questions that are on many of our minds. Let's see if it's interesting to any of you!

Note: AI will only be used for correcting my grammar or researching statistics 😁

Just wrapped up two incredible weeks of entrepreneurship teaching with the new SABAH.academy cohort, and I’m blown away by the students' practical thinking.

One team is tackling the housing crunch in Baku's city center with smart urban planning.

Another is focused on expanding tourism beyond Baku, highlighting Azerbaijan’s diverse landscapes and culture.

We’ve always got innovators rethinking education.

And of course, a crowd favorite: a team passionate about solving Baku’s traffic issues.

These talks with students from Baku Higher Oil School, Baku Engineering University, Baku State University, Azerbaijan Technical University, Azerbaijan State University of Oil and Industry, and Azerbaijan State University of Economics • UNEC remind me why we do this. They're not just dreaming big; they're thinking objectively about real issues affecting their communities.

Curious about these ideas or want to get involved? Reach out to SABAH.HUB.

Farhad Pashayev | Amina Melikova | Gular Nursu Zeynalli | Bashir Gasimov | Jeyran Badalzada | Lala Abbasova |

What an event! Just about 20 months ago, we started this project, having no idea where it would end up. Would we be able to empower entrepreneurs to grow their startups? Would global investors be interested in investing in those startups? Would the youth be interested in pursuing an “alternative” career that embodies a ton of risk? We had no idea.

As of last week’s Investment Day event, I could answer “Yes” to all those questions. The number of solid pitches that got up on that stage, the number of people (investors, clients, partners, team members) that expressed serious interest in working with those startups, and finally, the number of young people that came up to me during the event and just started pitching their new creative startup idea – these instances lead me to believe that SABAH.HUB is breaking through on the global scene of the entrepreneurship.

If I were to type out all the amazing people who helped make this event come true, LinkedIn would cut me off before I even started, but there are a few specific people I cannot miss. Paris de l'Etraz, PhD for giving me the opportunity to work on this exciting project. Rahim Bayramli for being the changemaker in the community to lead such an initiative. Orkhan Abbasov for being the bulldog that he is and pushing every one of us to be better day in and day out. Talifa Isgandar for her ability to organize an enormous group of people without any problem. And Farhad Pashayev for his unrelenting energy and passion for educational empowerment in Azerbaijan.

The future is so exciting! If you have not been to Azerbaijan yet, or heard of the SABAH.HUB project, please take a look or you’ll miss out.

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People often ask me who flow partners is on a mission to help: individuals or companies?

To me, the answer is simple: both. As I described to my new friend Marta Morillo, people are people and whether we are running the finances of a company or the finances of our lives, we need help. Understanding personal finance is the foundation for grasping corporate or startup finance. By empowering individuals with financial knowledge and support, we enable them to make confident decisions in their personal lives and within their organizations.

Post 4 of this series explains 5 easy steps to take by utilizing the resources in front of us to improve our financial behaviors. The previous 3 posts are below

I hope you enjoyed the journey you took us on this past month, Markus Esfeld! I'm really looking forward to solving more of these interesting puzzles.

Now, I’d love to hear from you! What are your current concerns or interests in terms of personal or business finance? Share your thoughts in the comments below. And Happy Friday!

Have you ever had a mentor/mentee become a friend? What a gratifying process that is.

Today, I wanted to highlight a person that is very special to me. A person that has overcome a lot and continues to impress the hell out of me, every single day.

Ngoh Rodney Amah and I have been meeting for nearly 3 years to discuss life, education, work, relationships, and everything under the moon. He has shown so much resilience in tough times, has persevered to make so many fantastic projects, and most importantly, he has grown to be one heck of a young man.

Rodney is on his way to Carnegie Mellon University Africa to study for his Master of Science in Information Technology. Although this Zoom call was intended to congratulate Rodney on the next phase of his journey, I asked him to take a moment to reflect on all that he had done to get to this point. We sometimes forget to do that.

Keep pushing, young man! The world is yours!

Exercise, sleep, and nutrition are all habits that contribute to our physical health and fitness. But what if the secret to financial fitness also lies in our daily habits?

I am fascinated by the decisions we humans make, particularly in the financial realm. Recently, my dear friend Markus Esfeld and I pondered whether robots could simplify our financial decision-making process. This sparked an idea for a series of posts to explore based on my experience in the financial advising industry

The nuances of our financial behavior.

Our human capacity to make the best financial decisions.

The potential for robots to make these decisions for us.

Practical steps to take if you're feeling financially stuck.

So, I want to ask you: Are there any financial habits you've adopted that others could benefit from? This could be saving strategies, investment tips, budgeting methods, debt repayment plans, or anything else.

We often enthusiastically share advice about new exercise routines, yet we are hesitant to share insights about our financial fitness. Why is that?

My dear friend Markus Esfeld raised another fantastic question this week

Should we all ask ChatGPT for investment suggestions and then buy those things even if we don't know anything about investing?

This comes after the news that a ChatGPT-generated portfolio outperformed top UK funds

I will touch on this topic in more detail during next week's post. However, I was curious about what my mentor whose career spans over 40 years in investment advising thought about this issue. I asked him what investment advice he'd put on a billboard, and he told me that it was very simple, Buy good stuff and leave it alone .

I hope this helps, Markus Esfeld 😎 Happy Friday to all!

In my work with startups, I’ve noticed a recurring theme: when tasked with the challenge of building a financial model, teams really struggle with knowing where to begin or what questions to ask. In my work as a financial consultant, the same thing happened with families that were looking to build a financial plan.

In today’s world of simplification, canvases, and design boards, I’m wondering whether financial modeling/planning would be made easier if teams/families were given a straightforward framework to follow before building their numerical financial story.

Attached are components of a financial model for startup founders

Financial Goals: It’s not the same to bootstrap as to raise a $1M round – don’t get caught playing somebody else’s game.

Financial Assumptions: Gaining market share in your region before moving your business to the USA is always a logical choice – make good decisions.

Scenario Planning: COVID put thousands of companies out of business – making adjustments is easier if you’ve planned for them.

Revenue Streams: Nobody will buy unless you truly know what you are selling - develop your product/pricing offer over time.

Cash Flows: This one is simple – cash is king.

Cost Structure: Costs of running a SaaS business are vastly different from running a restaurant – what can you do to minimize them?

Financial Ratios: These are like the indicators in your car that tell you to change your oil – be honest with yourself and listen to them.

Capital Structure: Running out of money is one of the main reasons startups fail – but what if you planned well for those deadlines?

Company Valuation: Whether you value your company at $1 or $1 Billion, execution is the most important factor.

Would you find this financial model canvas useful? Leave comments below to let me know if you’ve had trouble with financial modeling/planning and whether the attached could help you get the process started. I have a more detailed version to help founders.

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My dear friend and colleague Claire Lee recently asked me to describe CALL and PUT OPTIONS in the simplest way. I thought about it and realized, well they’re similar concepts but with 2 different directions. And then I realized, that there are a MILLION finance terms that have this same distinction.

This brings me back to the reason flow partners was born

Finance can be a daunting topic, but what if we made it fun and relatable to something we all love - movies! In this post, I'll be sharing 10 lookalike finance terms that apply to the exciting world of movie production

Shareholder vs Stakeholder

Stock Option vs Stock Ownership

Put Option vs Call Option

Equity vs Debt

Growth vs Value Investing

Hedging vs Diversifying

Fiscal vs Monetary Policy

Leverage vs Liquidity

Realized vs Unrealized Gains

Bear vs Bull Market

Follow me for more engaging content, where I'll be breaking down complex finance terms into simple and relatable examples. Like and comment below with any finance topics you'd like me to cover in future posts. And Happy Friday!

I know the last thing people want to think about on a Friday is Finance. But what if we made it fun?

In my experience, many people struggle with difficult terminology that can be represented by simple concepts. What if we used High Level Concepts to explain all things in finance? Would that world be as “exclusive” as it is today?

That's exactly what flow partners is on a mission to do. We want to simplify finance concepts and make them accessible to everyone.

But we need your help! Which finance concepts do you struggle with that need to be simplified? Drop them in the comments and let’s get ideas flowing 😊

Have you been to Azerbaijan?

Baku is a must-see destination for anyone looking to explore a beautiful country with a rich culture and welcoming people. I recently returned from my fourth trip there and was blown away by the amazing work being done by SABAH.lab to foster a thriving community of entrepreneurs and creatives. What started as an acceleration program has now expanded to include teaching at four top universities in Baku, inspiring a new generation of professionals to pursue careers in innovation and entrepreneurship.

During my visit, I had the pleasure of meeting some incredibly talented students and young professionals who left a lasting impression on me. Their passion and creativity are a testament to the bright future of Azerbaijan.

If you're looking for a unique travel experience filled with hospitality, inspiration, and beauty, I highly recommend adding Baku, Azerbaijan to your list. It truly is a hidden gem waiting to be discovered.

I grew up listening to and reading Tim Ferriss material - it has shaped many of my views about business, people, relationships, and more..

This episode is specifically interesting because it is a live coaching session run by one of the top CEO coaches as he breaks down the behaviors and thoughts of Tim (the podcast host).

Alongside the coaching session, there are many management techniques baked inside this 2-hour episode that I found immensely useful. 2 specific insights stuck with me

Accountability always beats elaborate planning

We often hesitate and evade making a decision because we are afraid of the implementation portion of that decision (even though we know the decision is correct) - we must separate the decision we are making away from our anxiety about the implementation of that decision (tips for how to do so inside the episode)

What podcasts are you all listening to???

Amid all the drama with Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI, I decided to check out the new Microsoft - Bing product that is supposed to bypass the capabilities of Google by using advanced AI features in search.

When I downloaded the app, the Microsoft extension asked me to change my default search engine to Microsoft - Bing, to which I said ok, let's try it .

Immediately after, I received a message from Chrome asking me to change my default back to Google.

And immediately after that, Microsoft - Bing told me to not accept the request of Chrome to change my default search engine to Google.

I have never been so loved in my whole life! 😍😍😍

Amazing what we are witnessing develop in front of our eyes between these two companies! How is the madness affecting YOU?

Agustin Saenz Augusto Maroni Hendrik Cornelissen Mike Grandinetti Joshua Sta. Ana Orkhan Abbasov Alejandro J. Cantos Escolano

First day teaching at IE University as part of the IE Challenge for Bachelor students - something I’ve wanted to do for a long time! Got to meet many talented teams that are proposing their innovative ideas to global clients.

I kept emphasizing to the teams to never lose sight of the target client and their problem. We can come up with the most innovative things in the world, but if they don’t serve a purpose, then what’s the point?!

Very excited to evaluate the final presentations with Andrew PW McCarthy on December 12th to see which of the projects can come to a reality!

Thank you very much to Pablo Esteves Allison Rohe Daniel Soriano Hernández Abigail Dyson Anud Abbassi and the rest of the team for this awesome opportunity!

Everything in life has an opportunity cost, right? But we rarely think of the opportunity cost associated with goal-setting. Have you ever set a goal, achieved that goal, and then later recognized all the things you missed out on because of the tunnel vision you had toward that arbitrary figure? I sure have. But even worse, you may set a crazy goal, reach for that goal, not arrive, burn yourself out in the process, and THEN recognize that it wasn't even something that YOU YOURSELF wanted. Is success in your life measured by you or by those around you?

This conversation between Adam Grant and Emmanuel Acho gives perspective on our obsession with goals and metrics. I highly recommend you take a listen!

Do schools kill creativity?

Does academic inflation (the devaluation of our academic achievements due to an increase in demand for higher education) lead to an uneven focus on IQ and pressure on students to get things RIGHT rather than experiment and potentially get things WRONG?

According to Ken Robinson, IQ is diverse, dynamic, and distinct, and the interaction between DIFFERENT parts of your brain will encourage creativity, which he defines as original ideas that have value.

I have always considered myself as not being creative, although I attended art school and even played an instrument when I was young. But I now realize that a lot of this lack-of-creativity dynamic comes from arbitrary structures put into place by society in order to always get the CORRECT answer. According to this video, some of us have to move our bodies in order to be creative, and that creativity does not occur for us within the boundaries of a traditional classroom.

WOULD YOU CONSIDER YOURSELF AS CREATIVE? 💭💭💭

Big thank you to Alberto Levy for recommending this video!

I went to South Africa about 2 months ago (a trip I had always wanted to make) and the biggest takeaway for me was the fact that ONE MAN fought for the freedom and democracy of his people, spent 27 YEARS in prison for that fight, then came out of confinement and became the PRESIDENT of that country. This sounds like the plot of a movie – it just did not add up in my mind that something like that was humanly possible.

Although we often fantasize about the great leadership qualities of business owners, athletes, artists, and alike, I have yet to encounter a story quite as inspiring as the one of Nelson Mandela. The book, Long Walk to Freedom, exposed so many interesting approaches to inexplicably difficult situations, I couldn’t help but share them here.

One of the beauties of life is travel. You get to see new perspectives: learn about yourself while learning about others. My lifelong dream had been to travel to Africa, a continent completely different from any that I had visited before. One of the main reasons to come to IE Business School was to visit South Africa by way of Emzingo & EmzingoIU.

2 weeks ago, Juan Ignacio Politi and I finally got to go and experience a country rich in history, culture, strength, and perseverance. Although we had some idea of the context of the country, we did not truly understand it until landing on the ground.

For example, we were not aware of the thriving community of social entrepreneurship that was driving change in society. Companies like ejoobi, which connects professionals with their dream jobs; Kliptown Youth Program, which helps provide a brighter future for its youth; Local Village Foods, which produces very tasty sustainably produced foods; Hustlenomics, which builds awesome houses in townships; or Riversands I-Hub, which helps entrepreneurs and small businesses reach their dreams.

In a world where the focus is growth, growth, growth, and profits, profits, profits, it is refreshing to encounter businesses that are focusing on the growth of their people and the community. Because, after all, the people are the ones driving innovation!

I want to thank Pablo Esteves Danisha Moodley Slade Hudson and entire Emzingo & EmzingoIU team for the opportunity, and wish the current students a happy remainder of the time in South Africa!

I highly recommend The Power of Regret by Daniel Pink to anybody that is looking for something new to read.

We live in a society that tells us to always focus on the positive, that promotes building on strengths rather than developing our weaknesses, and that often punishes the mistakes we make along the way. But we live in a super difficult world where we are constantly making mistakes, where we disappoint others and they disappoint us, and where tough times sometimes outweigh the positive ones.

It's sometimes seen as a badge of honor to say that you have no regrets in life. I've been guilty of this, but have realized that regrets are actually a fantastic way of learning from your mistakes and helping build a stronger self.

This book focuses on 4 primary regret types that if analyzed in retrospect could help us move forward and be more prepared when faced with the next tough decision in life.

Foundation Regrets

Boldness Regrets

Moral Regrets

Connection Regrets

Many entrepreneurs could benefit from reading this book because we are constantly reminded that mistakes are important along the journey. You either win or you learn.

I want to emphasize the fact that, in this ever-changing world, creating jargon terms, overcomplicating concepts, or becoming “too senior” or “too expert” at something only limits the learning that can be passed on to make us better as a community, as a society. The concept of collective intelligence relies on the approach of breaking down complicated topics in a way that each and every one of us can understand. Education is no longer something only for the elite or for those that can afford crazy tuition payments – education is the foundation of what is going to help us emerge through all of the societal issues that we are facing today! The way that we prevail each and every time!

Before arriving in Madrid, I was telling everybody about this longgg 19-month journey I was about to embark on. It seemed impossible that I would finally begin the lifelong dream of achieving a higher education while living abroad in one of the best cities in the world.

Now, 19 months later, it seems impossible that it has already flown by!

As you sprint from place to place, meet a million new people, endure a pandemic, beat your head against the table at the countless assignments on your agenda, you sometimes run out of time and energy to be grateful for all that you have been granted with. And how extremely lucky you are to be in the situation you’re in.

I want to thank the friends, family, team members, clients, and mentors who prepared me for this journey. The professors, faculty, and staff who worked their hardest to make our experience great during a difficult year and a half. The classmates from the MBA, the MDBI, and the MCSBT who taught me so much about the world. And finally, the amazing friends that I’ve made who I believe will remain with me for my lifetime.

I’ve noticed that if you can come away from an experience with some learnings, great friends and mentors, and just a bit more gratitude than what you came in with, you are doing just fine.

The success of an experience like the one at IE University should not be evaluated by the job you get afterwards or the salary they decide to pay you. Instead, by the different perspectives that you gathered along the way. Those perspectives are important for our well-being and understanding of the world. But even more, they are crucial for understanding ourselves.

Thank you to all who have shared their perspective with me over the past 19 months!

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One of my most interesting reads in recent times. The Culture Map, by Erin Meyer, makes you reflect a bit about yourself, the culture(s) you come from, and the teams that you’ve been lucky enough to be a part of. Highly recommended not only for those pursuing global careers, but for anybody looking to learn a bit about cross-cultural communication and how it affects our daily lives.

This book would be immensely useful as a prerequisite for the International MBA at IE Business School, as well as any other program at IE. Jose Esteves!

Big thanks to Ana Giraldo for the recommendation! And a HUGE thank you to all of the cross-cultural teams I’ve had the chance to work with at IE University!

Last week, we started preparing for a fairly technical term of studies at IE Business School by interviewing Juan Diego Paredes, who has experience in Investment Banking, Private Equity, and Corporate Finance. The accomplishments he shared with us had some classmates in awe! We had no idea that Juan Diego helped close major acquisitions and financial deals, managed a debt portfolio worth 18 billion dollars, and made the biggest debt novation transaction in the history of Colombia, to date. He does all of this with a humble smile on his face!

During the meeting, classmates inquired about his expertise in financial modeling as part of these enormous deals. To this, Juan Diego replied

“Any one of us can learn the skills of financial modeling (even a monkey could do it), but what really adds value is being able to analyze the logic of the assumptions within the models before getting to the output. The last step is making decisions and recommendations based off that analysis.”

Juan Diego has worked for several firms, but most recently at Colombia’s most important organization: Ecopetrol. He is exploring opportunities in finance, energy, and entrepreneurship.

Thank you for a very thorough presentation, Juan Diego. Now we know who to call when needing financial advice!

We, as humans, are consistently reminded that we learn more from opportunities of failure than those of success. In our first Idea & Innovation Roundtable event, our brother Joan Samuel Mendoza Valiente said something interesting to further promote this concept, “IE Business School provides the students a controlled environment where they can fail without losing, then learn from that failure and create something special that will better the future.”

These sessions create a free-form environment for classmates to connect about current events, problems in today’s economy, and potential solutions to those problems.

Our next session will tackle the topic of food loss and waste, and will be moderated by Agustin Saenz. Agustin, among many others in our class, is an aspiring FoodTech entrepreneur. Stay tuned for more notes regarding tonight’s round-table.