The hidden structure of your financial performance
Exceptional performances are great for a reason
In 1991, Whitney Houston took the stage at the Super Bowl and delivered what is widely considered to be the best performance of the National Anthem ever recorded. If you haven’t seen it for yourself, here’s 3 minutes you won’t regret.
There are dozens of breakdowns and explanations that attempt to explain why this performance is so mesmerizing (trust me, I’ve watched at least 20), but this one from Charles Cornell is the most compelling because he shows how much more is going on beyond Whitney’s admittedly amazing voice.
Chris explains that the orchestral arrangement is what sets this rendition apart. It was composed by legendary jazz bassist and composer John Clayton, and boy did he leave his mark. In a nutshell:
The rhythm was adjusted to allow the notes more room to breathe
Unexpected jazz chords make the notes melt at just the right times
The key was chosen to complement and enhance Whitney’s range
This hidden structure is what makes this song "just sound really good." You don't need to be classically trained in music theory to recognize that it’s excellent, but once you understand how the components are working behind the scenes, you begin to understand why the performance is on a totally different level.
Cornell’s breakdown of Whitney’s performance makes one thing abundantly clear:
Exquisite, unseen structure yields next-level results.
I like to think of Whitney's arrangement when it comes to performing at a high level in the areas of my life I care about, and since I care a lot about my financial life, Clayton’s arrangement got me thinking about what an exceptional performance means in the world of personal finance.
Next level personal finance
Financial Serenity is the state of having ample savings to cover every emergency expense (even if they all hit at once), a prolonged period of unemployment, and where you have zero high-interest debt. Achieving Financial Serenity had been my dream for years.
Most of us aren’t anywhere close to this elevated state of financial being (I certainly wasn’t for most of my adult life), but if you want to get there, you’ll need to learn how to deliver a high level ‘financial performance’ month in and month out.
The trouble is that most of us don’t know where to begin.
When reviewing your budget, you may deem a month to be ‘good’ if you hit some vague general outcome like spending less than you made, or adding to your savings account. But what’s usually unclear is how likely you are to do it again.
Maybe you had a month where no one had a birthday that required buying gifts, thereby requiring you to spend less than you otherwise would. Perhaps you had a month with three paychecks instead of two, where the extra income masked a higher than usual amount of spending.
Simply using high level numbers to assess your financial performance is like knowing that a song was pleasing to your ear but being unable to explain why.
If you’re trying to achieve a dream like Financial Serenity, it’s important to understand what makes a financial performance great, and most importantly, how to make it repeatable.
Learning how to dial in next level financial performance not only drastically shortens the time it takes to achieve the dream, but also makes the journey rewarding and motivating. Building momentum and seeing yourself continually make meaningful progress becomes addictive.
Revealing the hidden structure
You need a set of tools to help you see the hidden structure of your financial life.
Concepts like your Cash Flow Profile, Savings Capacity, and making a plan to achieve Financial Serenity are those tools in the world of personal finance. They reveal the components parts of your financial performance and show you how a great month came to be that way.
Like Cornell explaining how the time signature and chord structure made for a novel and interesting composition, these tools give you a new language to explain how all the moving parts in your financial life came together to produce the high level headline result that shows in your budget app.
That standard language also helps you understand your financial trajectory, giving you a confident view of how long it’ll take to achieve your goals based on the path that you’re on. These tools also allow you to forecast how long things will take and what the journey looks like along the way.
Perfecting the sequence and structure in the background, like a composer arranges a musical piece, gives you a sense of ownership and control.
When you know what delivering a great performance actually means and how to set things up to achieve it over and over again, execution becomes a joy. Your budget becomes a true reflection of your priorities, and not just a glorified tracker.
This is how you construct the optimal path to hitting your goals and actually stick with that plan (when everyone else who tries to start a budgeting habit falls off the wagon).
Aim to be great
Understanding the hidden structures behind the important performances of your life is how you elevate yourself from meh to transcendent.
Which is how you’ll achieve Financial Serenity.
So often when we set out to achieve a dream and raise the level of our performance, we only have a vague idea of what ‘great’ actually means.
Taking the time to learn what these components are for your area of interest (whether it’s personal finance, building strong relationships, or achieving health and fitness goals) will always be worth the time and effort invested.
It won't be long before you'll be hitting those high notes just like Houston.