Do it the Hard Way

Editor’s note: I might not find time to finish up this week’s post because I am trying to write an R package for RARCH (Multivariate Rotated ARCH) models. You can read about them here. They are lesser known MGARCH models that first transform the returns via a rotation before fitting a BEKK. Presently you can only estimate them using matlab’s MFE toolkit but its parameter estimation is not satisfactory, and there is some additional functionality I need. Doing it the hard way is what inspired me to write this.

When I was a kid, I always took shortcuts whenever I could. Nothing tickled me than finding a shortcut, loophole, trick, et cetera. And I learnt them all. The first time I saw a moonwalk, it looked like magic. I had to learn it. Same for the first time I saw someone breakdance. It was a classmate called ‘Zeddie’ and his robot dance was out of this world. There was just something extra about how he did it. No matter how much I tried I never did it as well as he did. Still, I learnt the trick.

Most of these shortcuts, loopholes and tricks were just cheap shots at getting something I wanted, even if that thing was to get home faster in time to watch music videos before my parents got home. I just wasn’t the sweet innocent kid children are supposed to be. I was the kind to try to trick the shopkeeper into giving me extra sweets; the kind to tell a fib if I thought I could get away with it. I was one of those ‘clever’ kids who secretly freak you out a little because I seemed ‘worldly’. But I was still a kid, and believe or not all of this is pretty normal for a lot of kids. Even kleptomania, which was my hobby for a while.

Thing is, I wanted things fast and easy, and that’s just how most people are, even as adults. I think it’s our default setting. In my freelancing gigs, I’ve always told clients: fast, cheap or good; pick two. They’d always pick two and try to sneak in the other. And I’m not one to point fingers: whenever I have something I need done, I ask ChatGPT or Claude, I look for people who’ve done it before—the hard way is usually my last resort.

I don’t necessarily see anything wrong with this; I’ve done enough things the hard way to know that you should catch a break if you can get one. Find some code on stackoverflow that is exactly what you are looking for? Go ahead and copy-paste it shamelessly. There will be plenty of other times when you will need to put your brains to work. This is an example of the good kind of shortcut in life.

There are shortcuts in life you shouldn’t take, even if they are presented to you. Not for any moral reasons but because foregoing the shortcut and doing things the hard way is necessary for your development, growth and future success. You gain more edge in life by doing things the hard way.

And trust me, anything gained the hard way is so much sweeter. There is an intrinsic satisfaction you get that is beyond any external rewards.

To this day, the most inspiring person I know is Michael Jordan. He did it the hard way. He fought for every championship—hard. I don’t know much about how MJ trained, but I bet he pushed himself to the limit. I remember watching “Last Dance” on Netflix, and someone said this about him (paraphrasing): “Most people turn it on and off again, but not Michael. He turned it on once and has never turned it off”. MJ went harder than anybody else, and it was visible in how he played. I’ve played basketball with two different guys who had a similar aura to MJ. Each had their own unique style and thinking, each was un-guardable and terrifying to play against, each trained obsessively. The hard way.

In contrast to how I was as a kid, nowadays I like to do things the hard way. A lot changed along the way. For starters, I started reading a lot as a kid, and most children’s books are about people getting in trouble for not doing things ‘right’. Funny thing is, my grandfather, who bought me most of the books, always asked me to tell him what I had learnt from the stories each time I finished a book; and I always gave him the wrong answer. After reading the classic Tortoise and Hare story, I told him the lesson was ‘don’t sleep until the job is done’—that whole tosh about patience made no sense to me.

The books changed me. I started seeing further ahead in my life, and noticing the ways I could fuck things up for myself by taking a shortcut or trying to use a certain trick. More importantly, books taught me how to get stuff done! The thing about shortcuts and tricks is you are always hoping they work, but it’s never guaranteed. And if you fail, there are no side-benefits along the way. Doing things the hard way means you will most likely succeed, and if you don’t, you stand to gain something, even if just internally. Aim at the sun, and land on the moon, so they say.

Another thing that changed is that I started accomplishing things from scratch (in C lol), and I found that process to be one of the best experiences in life. I love going from not-knowing to knowing, or from not-being-able-to-do to being good at it. I am, presently, learning to play the guitar. I’ve always wanted to learn but never had the chance. I’m sure I will love playing songs on it once I learn, but right now I enjoy the small increments in my skill level every few practice sessions. I don’t care how bad I sound now, and I can’t find enough time to practice, and I’m not using much help; it will steal from the overall experience.

Between childhood and now, I learnt many things like drawing, coding in several languages, mathematics, music production, and basketball. Each thing took years of sucking at it, years of small increments; and each thing became sweeter the better I got. I’ve added mathematics to that list because for the final two years of college, I absolutely loved it, and studied it for the sake, day and night. Nowadays I find it a bit tedious but I think that’s because I don’t have enough time to did into the different theories, proofs and algeraic pursuits for an answer.

Still, even after all this, I hadn’t come to appreciate the beauty of doing things the hard way until very recently. I noticed something about my life: any time I though I’d found a hack, or a shortcut, or some-such, it always ended up costing me more than just doing it the hard way. Either more time, money, or some other loss. For example, say I’m working on a thing, and I do some googling and find out that someone did something similar before. If I tried to copy-paste, or just follow what they did, I ended up losing time, and having to start over from scratch. And it’s not just work stuff, but basically anything where I though I’d found a hack. In 2022 I started lifting weights and I bought protein shakes. I bulked up pretty fast, until I realized that all even though my muscles looked big, they weren’t as strong and I wasn’t as fit. I had to stop and do it the hard way by prepping meals, eating real protein, and taking longer to recover.

Right now, I’m in the process of building out this quant (h)edge thing. At the end, there will be a website and/or desktop and mobile app with live models that give traders and investors extra info, but for now, it’s just a newsletter I enjoy writing. It's going to take years probably, but I’m going to do it the hard way. I appreciate every small step along the way. Every new direction of research, every post, every new subscription, every feedback, and every lesson. Initially, I wanted this substack to grow fast and have a lot of ‘success’, but I don’t want that anymore. I want it to be what I know it can be, and it will take a lot more hard work to get there.

That’s all I’ve got.

Brian