What Is A Macro Belief? (Guest Article By WDWP #1 & #4)

Today we have a collaboration between two Wolf Den Wolf Pup (WDWP) members #1 “Doc” and #4 “Matty Dubs”. They will go over their opinion on what a macro belief is, how it’s helpful, and some possible scenarios that can be seen in the world of crypto.

What Is A Macro Belief?

If we want to first define the two words:

1. Macro– large scale; overall.
2. Belief– trust, faith, or confidence in someone or something.

Then integrating the two we can reason out this statement:

What do you have an overall trust or confidence in?

If we apply this statement to your life.

What is the type of capital you want more of in the future that you have a strong confidence in?

Somebody with a macro belief ideally should align their actions with acquiring that type of capital.

One thing to note, maybe your macro belief isn’t in a “something” but maybe someone. You can have a belief that everything Elon Musk touches turns to gold and so whatever he is involved in you would follow.

Let’s take a pause.

Write down what your macro belief is, before going on.

When you’re ready…

Let’s take it a step further.

What is the type of capital you want more of in the future that will help you get what you want out of life?

Understanding your Solvable Problem™ and your macro belief can help you make decisions more easily.

If you are considering taking an action that gets you further from your Solvable Problem™, or violates your macro belief…it is easy to NOT take that action.

On the flip side, if you are considering taking an action that is likely to get you closer to your Solvable Problem™, or is in alignment with your macro belief…it is easier to take that action without second guessing.

If we went into the Solvable Problem™ in this article you’d end up reading a novel, so if you’d like to learn more about this concept there are numerous articles within The Guardian Academy (TGA) that will help you to understand more about your unique Solvable Problem™. We will link you at the bottom.

Is A Macro Belief Only Money?

So back to macro beliefs as capital.

When most people think about capital, they think about MONEY. 

But there are many types of capital.

Money

Assets

Reputation

Energy

Time

Money can be traded for most other types of capital, which is why we’d venture to guess that many people reading this have a macro belief in the US dollar.

Simply because every single day, the way you think about purchasing goods and services is in US dollars (or whatever currency is local to you).

But there are other people who have different macro beliefs.

Usually these beliefs are formed by zooming out to a longer timeline, and considering what the future might look like.

Time As A Macro Belief

Before we dive into financial capital macro beliefs, let’s go over an example of an alternative type of capital.

One of Matty Dubs business consulting clients was nearing retirement. They sagely expressed to him that time is their macro belief. But in order for them to feel fulfilled in retirement they’d still want to work on something for 10-20 hours per week.

The client made the decision to trade some time before retiring to build their business systems and onboard new team members. They traded 80 hours of time, and in return they will receive 20 hours back per week for the rest of their life.

So even though they traded away their macro belief (time) they did it to free up more time in the longer time frame.

Let’s put this in something more relatable for our crypto folks. Trading away time now to build systems that return you more time would be like a Bitcoin (BTC) maximalist (‘maxi’) opting in to a presale with the hopes that it will do a significant 10-100x. Then, they invest the return to get more BTC (their macro belief).

A Couple Of Financial Macro Belief Examples

BTC maxis have a belief that BTC will be the most valuable asset in the future, so their actions typically align with acquiring (and keeping) as much BTC as possible.

Many maxis believe this because they project that the US treasury will continue to devalue the dollar by increasing its supply (money printers go brrrrr) and so they want BTC as a hedge against this inflation.

So they are quick to get rid of their disgusting inflationary dollar that loses value every day in order to acquire more of their provably scarce Satoshis which, according to their macro belief, will appreciate against the US dollar (USD) in the future.

A true BTC maxi would not measure their wealth in the USD value of their BTC holdings.

They would, instead, measure their wealth in terms of how much BTC they own.

If they happened to buy Ethereum (ETH) as part of a short-term trade, they would look at the BTC to ETH chart instead of the BTC to USD chart. 

That way they can measure how much more BTC they have acquired by holding ETH for a short period of time with the end result of flipping it into BTC.

Here’s an example- Matty Dubs has 1 BTC at 60k versus Doc has 2 BTC 1 year later at 20k. Who has more?

The answer of course would be it depends on their macro belief.

Gut check- In relation to assets/money, have you looked at the charts of your macro belief? What happens if you see your macro belief asset go down in USD value like a blaze of red fiery goodness, and not rising from the ashes like a phoenix? Does that make you feel good or does it sicken you?

If you have a true macro belief, you feel good and see this as an opportunity to acquire more at lower prices.

If you are experiencing the latter, chances are your macro belief is actually the U.S. Dollar. Nothing wrong with having a macro belief in the USD. The problem lies in the dissonance that occurs when you continue to tell yourself you have a belief in something when really you don’t. This makes it hard for you to make appropriate decisions when it comes to your Solvable Problem™.

Here’s another example.

Let’s say you have a macro belief in the real estate market, and perhaps have a Solvable Problem™ that involves acquiring real estate portfolio in Arizona consisting of 50 units that have cash flows of $20k per month.

Because you believe that Arizona real estate will continue to appreciate against all other assets, and provide you with the cash flow in USD to also live your dream life. You would align your actions with acquiring more Arizona real estate.

You would not necessarily measure your wealth in terms of the USD value of your real estate portfolio. It would also not make any sense to look at the day to day price of what your portfolio is because the end goal is to own 50 units of real estate in Arizona.

The Guardian Academy (TGA) Macro Belief

TGA has a macro belief in Guardian ($GUARD) token, and uses Wolf Pups ($WOLFIES) as the currency in the ecosystem.

TGA does not measure their treasury in terms of the USD value of their $GUARD holdings, instead their treasury is set up to acquire more $GUARD over time. By using $WOLFIES as its currency, the tax built into the $WOLFIES contract buys back $GUARD, contributing to an increase in $GUARD’s value over time. This of course is dependent on the value that people see in the TGA. The value of which is the content that the members of TGA produce or the ability to gain proximity to the members of TGA who are helping to do good in the world.

The reason TGA believes in $GUARD token is because of the decentralized ecosystem that exists which has adopted $GUARD as its chosen currency or treasury asset.

The more value that this decentralized ecosystem provides to the world, the more demand there will be for the $GUARD token.

The more people who adopt a macro belief in $GUARD, or the more useful $GUARD is as an asset (ie. to mint NFTs, play games, etc.) the less likely people are to part with their $GUARD tokens just because the USD value goes up.

With only 50 million total supply, without the ability to generate more supply (like the USD) this supply can deplete rather quickly.

How Do You Establish What Your Macro Belief Is?

These two wolves believe that it’s best to start with your Solvable Problem™.

What do you want more of in the future? How can you then reverse engineer that situation with what you have now?

You might just want security and to know that your living expenses are covered by your investments so work is optional.

If that is the case, you may have some asymmetric information that gives you an advantage in certain investments.

For example, you might have amazing connections in the real estate market in Arizona and deals come across your desk that could easily help you fund that security.

So, perhaps Arizona real estate becomes your macro belief.

If you don’t have any asymmetric information advantage, and you’re what might be called a “retail investor” you might seek security by putting your investments somewhere else. This would be where you would have to define what your investment criteria is and figure out how much risk you would need to take on. (TGA will cover more on this in their structured curriculum)

If you trust the US government to make good on its debt obligations, maybe you put your money into treasury bonds.

Or maybe you think the US government and fiat currency is a sinking ship, so you put your investments into cryptos and then lend them out to earn cash flow.

On the flip side there is also the distinct chance that your macro belief is cash. (Cash is king? Maybe for you).

Can My Macro Belief Change?

Your macro belief can absolutely change. 

The famous economist John Maynard Keynes, is credited with saying,

And this is a great way to operate.

But the key word to focus on is facts.

If your macro belief in BTC is based on the idea that BTC is an inflation hedge, and you believe that the US government will inflate the supply of USD then you should be monitoring for whether the facts support your belief.

If inflation were to go up, and BTC price were to go down, then this would invalidate your belief in BTC.

So you might reconsider, “if I believed in BTC because I wanted an inflation hedge, then what asset(s) have proved to be an inflation hedge? Or, which organizations have proven that they can thrive in an inflationary environment?”

This might help you uncover a new macro belief.

The reason facts is the keyword here is that we are all human.

So if our emotions about a macro belief change, that is not a reason to act.

For example, consider the same person with a macro belief in BTC.

They see everyone on crypto Twitter is bearish on BTC and expect the USD value to drop.

And now the person with a macro belief in BTC starts to fear “what if my BTC drops in USD value and never recovers?!”

It’s fine and human to feel that fear.

But it is potentially ruinous to make financial decisions based on volatile emotional swings, and can create a “buy the tip, sell the dip” pattern of wealth destruction.

So go forth, and put a little bit of thought into your macro belief. 

It will make decision making easier, free up bandwidth, and hopefully reduce your anxiety around investments.

Hope this was helpful and you’d like to see more posts like this leave us your take aways or your 6WUs (for bonus points) @DocTheW0lf @MattyDubsHair, @TheGuardianAcad

WDWP #1 Doc, WDWP #4, Matty Dubs

References

1. TGA Structured Curriculum- https://portal.techtree.education/#/TheGuardianAcademy
2. Guardian ($GUARD)- https://guardfdn.com/
3. Solvable Problem™- https://medium.com/guardianacademy/wolf-pup-series-1-2-811b5ce80f2b