Investing, Like Yoga, Takes Practice

Creating the perfect investing environment

When I feel overwhelmed, organizing has always been my saving grace. Organize my stuff, and my mind feels equally less cluttered.
 
One cold Saturday morning at home, as my picture-window sunrise view was being filled up by blue sky, I sat in my big chair and started to think about logistics. Where and when would I practice investing? In my yoga practice, I had my yoga mat to ground me—as long as I got on my yoga mat, even if only for five minutes, I considered my practice for that day done. For runners, lacing up running shoes and leaving the house is often enough to get going. What was the equivalent of my yoga mat or my running shoes for investing?
 

Investing was something I was doing on time borrowed from other items on my to-do list. If I didn’t have an inviting environment that would spark the desire to spend time on my Investing Practice, I would probably let it peter out as the other items on my to-do list inevitably became more pressing.
 
Indeed, I had no investing environment whatsoever. I didn’t have a home office, nor did I even have room for one in my tiny apartment.
 
Marie Kondo, the expert on tidying up, says to visualize in concrete terms the ideal space. I snuggled into my big chair and stared out the window at the stately university campus across town, as I often did, and thought about what would spark the fire of my practice. It would have some reminders of why I was investing, it would have some useful investing props, and it would have space for me to pile up papers and other investing debris. I set about creating my investing space.

Every corner in my tiny box of an apartment was spoken for. Marie Kondo was right, though: visualizing did put what was most important to me into my mind. I always gravitate toward working in the dining room or kitchen—where there’s some energy, and some room to spread out, and some snacks. Snacks are very important to completing good work.
 
I decided my actual Investing Practice was going to have to be done at my dining room table. However, that meant my investing stuff would have to be cleared off and tucked away, often, so I would fill a box with investing paraphernalia to serve as a kind of mobile office. Where my investing box was, my investing office was.

I put a few talismans in a box to remind me which way to point my intentions and my brain, along with a few practical items any office needs. First, my talisman to remind me to be thankful for my problems—Maro. I had heart problems years ago that were difficult to diagnose, and my doctor gave me a heart-shaped stone after it was all over to remind me that things do get better.
 
Second, something to remind me why I was doing this when I got tired and didn’t feel like focusing on investing anymore. My North Stars, so to speak, to remind me of the tradition of value investors from whom I was learning. My dad’s presence was already everywhere when I sat down to do Investing Practice—on the phone, in my e-mail, in my head. Plus, on the bookshelf next to my dining table, I already displayed in the place of honor first editions of his two books with his handwritten inscriptions to me. Dad was there.

Books were a good idea, though. I piled up other books to serve as a laptop stand: additional copies of Rule #1, Payback Time, and Education of a Value Investor; Yvon Chouinard’s Let My People Go Surfing; Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project; and Atul Gawande’s Complications. I put The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up on the stack of books to remind me to be tidy and efficiently ruthless in the organization of my finances, and The Big Short, to remind me that I had to look deeper than surface level and think about macro-economic forces in the market, and that things can go very wrong when they look like they’re going very right.
 
Not that they necessarily need me, but being able to take care of my mom and my sister is a big part of how I envision financial freedom, so I picked a photo of us off the shelf and put it next to my computer. It was okay, but not quite right. I already had photos of my family all over my tiny house. I propped up a photo of myself, Kamala, and two other close friends from a night out in New York, and being inspired by them felt right. I also grabbed a photo that a friend took of me hiking in some amazing mountain scenery and gave to me as a gift, because it made me feel expansive and reminded me that my idea of financial freedom meant having days available to go to the mountains . . . or to the ocean . . . or to a city . . . or to do whatever I chose.

What else . . . I thought of something to entice me to open that box and create an inviting atmosphere. I put a scented travel candle in the box for some good smells when I sat down to practice. And a lighter so I wouldn’t have to search for one each time.
 
Finally, and I wasn’t sure why, but I grabbed a small prayer wheel that I bought at some touristy stall in Kathmandu a few years before. It was slightly off kilter and nothing fancy, but I felt things about this prayer wheel. In Tibetan Buddhism, turning a prayer wheel while praying sends the energy of your prayer into the universe. I put it on the shelf next to my dad’s signed books and turned the wheel. It sent my wishes, my prayers, my hopes for my Investing Practice into the universe. It also reminded me, by its presence, that wishing for something won’t make it happen on its own. I have to turn the wheel. I have to practice investing.
 
Doing something to set up my space, even these small things, made me feel more in control. I felt like I was running headlong into that dense fog swirling around, but for goodness’s sake, at least my stuff would be organized.
 

Author Bio

A corporate startup attorney, Danielle Town earned her law degree from New York University, and holds degrees from Wellesley, Oxford, and University of Colorado. She co-hosts the InvestED podcast with her father, Phil Town.  She is co-author of the book Invested: How Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger Taught Me to Master My Mind, My Emotions, and My Money (with a Little Help from My Dad).  Connect Danielle Town