Its always about allocation

Where does "alpha" come from? In financial markets,  in business,  in life,  in just about anything?

There are 3 broad ways to generate alpha

1. Do things a little better and keep doing them day after day after day

2. Do a few things  really better (  and make a big enough bet on your ability to do those things better)

3.  Get some moonshot wins ( and in quick time)- super duper successes even if your bet on it is small

3 is pure luck or a gamble, you really can't plan for it. 

That leaves us with either 1 or 2. 

And here is the thing, in both cases you are sizing your bets, you are "allocating" something big on your bets. 

In the second scenario,  its more obvious what that allocation is

But in the first scenario,  its not so much your choice on what you do better that brings your alpha ( the " selection") but again your "allocation" of the most scarce commodity on earth- Time

You are betting on allocating a long enough time , and on that allocation/ bet to generate your alpha. Like with any other allocation,  it can go both wrong or right,  there are no ex ante ways to know

This is true with just about every facet of your life,  not just financial markets. Say the career you choose, the company you work in etc. Or anything else really.   The size of the bet is in the amount of time you put in it. 

Like with everything else and perhaps more than anything esle, the bet on time is also an evaluation of tradeoffs. You allocate this much time on X means that much less allocation on Y .

Its always about getting the allocations right with the resources have you.  And no resource is scarcer than time 

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