On Timing
August 22, 2025
Quotes are always a good way to get thinking before diving into a blog post, here are a few good ones:
“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald
“Sometimes, magic is just someone spending more time on something than anyone else might reasonably expect.”
– Teller
“Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.”
– Thomas A. Edison
Goals are Obvious, Timing is Not
The importance of timing – a key variable in sports, business, relationships, and success – is often overlooked in favor of the end goal – scoring, getting hired, laid, making a million dollars.
The best athletes in most sports have impeccable timing – they understand when, where, and how to move their body and instruments to achieve great results. SGA has become one of the best players in the NBA by using unpredictable timing exhibited by a herky-jerky dribble style, filled with pump-fakes, bumps, step-throughs and fadeaways. Him leading the NBA in scoring is all anybody talks about, though.
In financial markets you are deified if you accurately time multiple large trades, especially if others refuse to acknowledge the hour is right for the trade. When bemoaning missed opportunities or profusely ‘what if-ing’, people always assume they get the timing perfectly.
‘If I bought the dip last week I would already be up 100%!‘
‘I should have sold at the top, we’re down 20% now, so I’ll wait till we at least get back to xyz‘
Both statements fall into the same trap – believing perfect timing is consistently achievable and that, as they already missed the ideal time, the current time is not good enough. Realistically, Person 1 is too scared to buy the bottom, and Person 2 is busy dreaming of retirement as the number on their screen continues to go up and up (most never sell for FOMO on bigger gains).
In some places timing is overshadowed by more visible things, and in others it is idolized but rarely studied.
Timing Our Own Success
The final area of life I will focus on is self-expectations. Most of us have goals we are striving for that are fairly well defined and thought out. We want a certain job, status, financial situation, relationship, business deal, or lifestyle because it will make us or our parents or our family happier and better off.
The measurement of success or failure for these well defined goals rarely comes with a well thought out and realistic timeframe. The most common result in my experience is an arbitrary amount of time passes without the desired outcome, and then I get discouraged and down, feeling like a failure at whatever I wanted to do.
Sometimes this leads to giving up – I guess this isn’t for me, maybe I didn’t care about it that much actually, the old me wanted this more than the current me does. Other times it leads to a renewed focus, humbling us in a way that motivates us to work harder and put more effort into the goal.
My belief is that the approach to timing is critically important to the happiness of an individual. Sometimes I believe the ideal approach is to have no expectation – pursue goals with true effort and appropriate urgency without allowing yourself to explicitly or subconsciously set a due date. An alternate and compelling view point is that without setting and truly buying into a timeframe your effort will be low, your desire won’t be as strong, and you may have already partially accepted you won’t get the thing done.
Examining successful people would suggest choosing one or the other (burn the bridge or self forgiveness) is a trap. The best expect to achieve certain things and go all out to get it, however failure is an immutable law of those who strive to achieve great things, and the ability to miss and continue to believe in yourself and keep swinging is undeniably important to winning in sports, business, and life.
So the next time you catch yourself passing over the importance of timing in the markets, relationships, sports, or anything else, stop and think. Set realistic timeframes for your goals, work hard to hit them, and do it all over again when you inevitably miss. Getting back up and continuing to try is far more important than perfection.
Quotes Worth Remembering
“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald
“Sometimes, magic is just someone spending more time on something than anyone else might reasonably expect.”
– Teller
“Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.”
– Thomas A. Edison
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