Knowledge is Power (Mental)

Ability is Power (Physical)

Network is Power (Spiritual)

We weren't all born with a silver spoon

We can bemoan what wouldabeen/couldabeen, if only we'd been in the right frame at the right time, and if we stay in that mindset we might as well play the lotto and pay the "bad at math" tax, because you haven't changed your thoughts or your habits. Because if your number is ever drawn, and you aren't ready for it, you'll be back to ruin before you know it.

So your stack isn't big enough?

If only you'd been there earlier. But you weren't, so move on. What are you gonna do about it? A Twitter friend of mine turned me onto leverage, and how it's not gambling when seen on the proper time scale. Now let's limit that time scale to your predicted demise, use actuarial tables if you like. What can you do in that time scale to change your "destiny"?

It's not Knowledge, Ability or Network by themselves that are geometric. It's the combination (also known as wisdom) that's geometric.

Not a primer on leverage. Not an actuarial table. Not a primer on division of labor(DOL) or comparative advantage(CA). More a screed on what I see as leverage points for the individual, that should be accessible to anyone who can read on a middle school level.

S(tart) Wi(th) S(omething) S(imple)

KAN - Knowledge, Ability, Network

These are the three time investments that can be developed in the modern age, with no capital stake (or at least a zero marginal cost stake), and the reason they're important to me right now is the idea of leverage. All three of these attributes can be used as leverage, and can be developed independently or in tandem. Leverage is the key to conquering the world, scaling the wall, vaulting to new heights, or some other stupid metaphor.

Knowledge

To the point, before I forget my train of thought. Knowledge is the accumulation of facts. Knowledge gives you access to libraries of deductive and inductive reasoning. You can compound from simple certainties. You don't have to consume all of human knowledge, but rather internalize those components that are irrefutable in our current language.  Water is made of 2 hydrogen atoms and 1 oxygen atom, freezes at 0ºC and boils at 100ºC.  You can extend the lateral nature of this knowledge by connecting it to other points, such as barometric pressure. Water boils at 100ºC at sea level, or 29.92 inHg atmospheric pressure, which is why baking recipes change at higher altitudes. The granularity of knowledge, and its applicability is the knife edge of time investment versus desired outcome. You shouldn't memorize temperature/pressure charts, but understanding that they exist is enough of a knowledge point to allow you to exercise a multiplier of combining knowledge with ability.

Scientia potentia est

This is my contention. Power is defined as the rate of doing work. Archimedes was all about doing more work with the application of machines via geometric principles. I'm not a mathematician, so I'm going to try to put it in plain English.

One of the components of power is time. I talked about time earlier, and told you to scale it to your own actuarial. I care about your participation in your own actuarial calculation because of DOL and CA. Your participation, maximized, increases (if marginally) my quality of life under a good faith system (GFS). Your understanding that doing more work makes the world a better place for everyone, assuming a GFS, is the purpose of this screed. I do not profit from you spinning your wheels, because I'm dealing in the hardest of measurement (TL) and the softest of assay (QOL). (Time Lived * Quality of Life).

What more do I need to say about knowledge being power and this providing leverage? You can quibble on the granularity of a knowledge set as to the time invested in acquisition versus return on said investment, but your rate of return is a personal choice. It's all measured against time, your actuarial.

Ability

From each according to his means to each according to his abilities. A bastardization of Marx

Need is a measurement of human ordered desires in the current moment, and has ~7*10^9 different primary solutions. It's nice to put it in terms that are tangentially mathematical. There is no way to analyze the present status of goods in the world, and distribute them to meet the needs of all the participants. If we break it down to bare essentials; food, clothing, and shelter, that completely leaves out the quality/wealth of human experience, and no person I've ever met has been so basic as to accept food/clothing/shelter as an acceptable state of existence.

No human needs music, art, medicine, or justice if we all lack volition. Problem is we have volition. So, Marx fails right there. Surrender your preference for anything outside of essential material that prevents you from dying, and maybe Marxism works.

It's why I bastardized his statement, because need is not quantifiable, but means can be. There is an entire trade section of the population that serves those of means, because of their abilities. Plumbers can get into places that a typical human would refuse to go. This tiny corner of ability allows them to exist in a niche that provides a higher standard of living than those with the same nominal education earn. 

I said I wasn't going to talk about the geometric multiplier, but if you're following this screed so far, you see how knowledge is a component, but ability (physical) can leverage knowledge (mental), where the application increases the value of an individuals contribution, where means are transferred to ability.

If all I can do is navigate crawl spaces, I have some ability, but if I can both apply my knowledge and ability, I can command a higher price.

Some people lift heavy shit, some people squeeze into tiny spaces, some people juggle, some people endure great discomfort, some people keep track of large matrices, some people communicate, and some make music. All of these abilities can be enhanced by knowledge to exert a multiplier, to increase the power of action, but they all have innate aspects that can be honed on their own.

Network

Network is the hardest thing to point to outside of a communal/tribal understanding, but it is the leverage point that has exploded since the advent of the internet. I'll bring it back to the tribal to give an analogy. There's a book called Thou Shall Prosper, by Rabbi Lapin, that points to the success of Jewish communities in their diaspora.  Network is a set of protocols that we all agree upon at the most basic of layer that allows for communication and translate trust across time and space.

If I leave my hometown, the people who knew me and my ability don't necessarily come with me. Wherever I land, I'm going to have to start over, unless I'm interacting with people who have a shared set of protocols, then things like reputation can be carried with me. Reputation is fragile; strict adherence to protocol is the purity test that gives you access to a larger number of humans than are from your Dunbar number tribe.  Larger numbers increase coincidence of wants. Increased coincidence of wants increases opportunity to apply ability and/or knowledge for mutual benefit.

I call the network spiritual because, in a lot of ways, the calculus needed to measure it is more indefatigable than quantifying human need, and due to the nature of human relationship even less quantifiable. But a network whose protocol you strictly adhere to can be a leverage point, because you enter into relationship with all these unquantifiable human desires, and the distribution of your knowledge and ability can be more thoroughly employed along your actuarial - thus resulting in the maximization of your gainful employment.

If you're with me this far, and asking what the hell does this have to do with my stack? Then I've done my work properly. It has nothing to do with your current stack, nor your ability to stack. What it offers is the three basic components of leverage. The question I'm expecting at the moment is why does leverage matter. That's the point I set out to discuss.

Parable Truth

We all got in too late (we think to ourselves), but really, we got in exactly when we were supposed to. This is our karma. You're still early, but maybe not as early as your Lambo/6.15 self was wanting. You'll never stack like the people who were around for 50 BTC/block reward have stacked. AND THAT'S OKAY! Stacks can move, and at some point, they become so heavy that something must be done with them. The earlier you got here the more weight you can throw around, but as Uncle Ben taught us "With great power (stacks) comes great responsibility".

Which brings me to the point of this screed. In the bible Jesus tells a parable of talents (talent was also known as a mina or 100 denari (a great sum of money)) recorded in Matthew 25 and Luke 19. I'll forgo including the text, you can look it up if you want. The summary is a very wealthy man gathers three of his servants, divides up talents among them, charges them with putting them to good use while he's away.  When he comes back two of them have doubled their holdings, and the wealthy man lets them keep their newly earned wealth. The third was slothful and did nothing with it, but since he was merely a custodian, the wealthy man took his property back from the slothful man and gave it the one who had produced the most.

This is not an article about hodling, (because that's very important) this is not an article about trading (because that's a good way to get rekt). It's about leveraging your innate abilities to prosper. You should be hodling, yes, but you should also be stacking. Not just stacking sats, but also stacking those immaterial qualities that give you leverage above what you could do yesterday.

S.Wi.S.S. - K.A.N.

Start with something simple: Knowledge, Ability, Network. 

These are outside all monetary measurement, but when called upon can yield impossible results. No, your stack is not as big as you want, but there may come a day that your quality of character is called upon by someone with a bigger stack. And what you do now, day in and day out, is what builds you into a good and faithful hodler.