“I will create an insane portfolio to generate 30% returns each year from now,” I thought to myself at 27 years old

I deeply understood finance, all it needed was optimisation. In this spurt of life upgradation, I also decided to optimise my health and food. I began to optimise my calories, tracking them vigorously. I started intensely tracking sleep. I vigorously logged all the exercises. Within a month, I was sure I would explode into another orbit.

Except, I imploded on all fronts

Optimizing money didn’t generate close to the returns I expected. Optimizing exercise didn’t result in the muscle gains I thought. Optimizing calories made me ill. Optimizing sleep made me anxious about tracking it properly. Logging, tracking, and strategizing was an unmitigated disaster. I was lost and distraught. I thought I was a super smart optimizer doing the hard stuff. I soon realised that I was looking at it all wrong.

Optimizing was easy, the simple-looking “basics” were the hard stuff

If I saved/earned 20% more, I would outperform any additional returns I was seeking. If I exercised every day, I would outdo any additional gains over a few days. If I just slept at the same time, I would outdo any deep sleep tracking with a varied schedule. If I simply stopped eating sugar and packaged food, I would outdo any calorie optimization.

Most importantly, the basics had to be done not just over a month but years

The optimizer in me was actually a lazy short-term thinker who felt like he was “doing big stuff.” I shifted my mindset from an optimizer wanting big results quickly with “smart” thinking to a compounder patiently building on small results with basic thinking. For the first few months, I simply had a hard time doing the basics. But after a year, the machinery had started taking shape.

Compounding began to show

I earned and saved far more by getting better at work, and not being greedy. I gained lean muscle sustainably by hitting the gym daily. I felt energized and healthy throughout the day with my meals. I slept by 1030 PM and woke up by 630 AM almost automatically. Systems compound, and my life had become a system. Optimization is obviously good to have, but only well after your compounding systems are in place.

I now have a nice portfolio that gives me good returns every year, and I couldn’t be happier