The library runs on a small set of habits. They're not secret. They're just rarely written down. This is my notebook, left open.
A dollar sitting in a good income asset earns roughly 12% a year without you thinking about it. So every new idea starts with a blunt question: can you beat that? The second hurdle, 30% a year, is the "is this worth getting excited about?" line. Most ideas fail both hurdles. That's normal. Hurdles are supposed to be hard; easy ones produce easy losses.
Every dollar you invest is hired for one of two jobs. Never both, never neither.
The exciting job: turn into much more money over the years. This is where the library's top stack lives: ideas aiming to clear the high hurdle.
The boring job: send steady money back, year after year, without drama. It funds real life, and it funds the patience needed for the Grow job.
Knowing which job a dollar has keeps you from asking it to do the wrong one, like demanding excitement from the money that pays the bills.
Nobody knows the future, so we don't pretend to. Every note carries three stories: bear (what if we're wrong), base (the middle path), bull (what if we're right). Each one gets translated into a yearly return and held against the hurdle. The verdict always comes from the base case, never the dream. Dreams don't clear hurdles; middle paths do.
The stacks are a portfolio of attention, not money. A company only moves up when the facts move. And the fastest way to lose money is to promote a story before the facts arrive. Bet the most attention where the hurdle is cleared by the most, with the most confidence. Everything else waits its turn.
Most of the time, for most names, the answer is not now: too pricey, too early, too uncertain. Saying it out loud, in writing, is the discipline. A watchlist isn't a pile of maybes; it's a list of names that haven't earned anything yet.
When new cash arrives, it doesn't get to choose where it goes. It flows down a waterfall. Each bucket fills before the next gets a drop:
Keep the lights on. This bucket fills first and never drops below its floor. It's what lets you stay calm when everything else is red.
Steady payers that clear the 12% growth bar. Boring on purpose. This is the money that funds real life.
Only ideas that clear the 30% growth bar. The hardest hurdle, the shortest list. This is where the library's top stack earns its keep.
Earns nothing until a name clears the hurdle. Waiting is the job. A dollar never skips ahead.
That's the whole discipline: a dollar never skips ahead. Excitement doesn't get funded until the boring buckets are full.
Harvests and trims follow the same discipline as new cash, in reverse. Sold money doesn't get to choose either. It cools down through the same order before it earns its way back to work:
Owed money gets paid first. Proceeds clear any borrowing before they do anything else.
A slice of every harvest belongs to the tax bill. Move it to its own account immediately, before the win starts feeling like spending money.
Top the reserves back to their target. Selling into strength means nothing if the safety net stays thin.
Strengthen the part that pays you. Harvests are how the boring buckets get bigger.
Whatever is left becomes dry powder for the next buy. It does not automatically go back into risk. Selling and rebuying in the same motion is churn, not discipline.
Trim proceeds never chase what is hot. Money that just came out of risk has to re-earn its way in.
Every note carries a next earnings date. When the numbers land, the note gets rewritten and the rank can move, up or down. Headlines are noise; the calendar is the process. Opinions expire. The schedule doesn't.