I’d be lying if I told you I haven’t repeatedly checked the price of bitcoin this week. It’s been volatile to say the least.

But I know that checking over and over again is a trap.

In this post, I want to share a lesson learned from a baby sleep training class that reminded me why it’s best to ignore the price of bitcoin in the short term.

Let’s start with the baby sleep training class…

Last night, I only got 3 hours of sleep. It was brutal. I’m on coffee #2 and already planning for coffee #3 too.

Overall, Jackson (2 months old, as of this writing) is an easy baby. We are lucky that he eats well. And that he’s happy. And healthy. However, the one area he struggles with is sleep. He doesn’t get enough sleep, and has trouble staying asleep when we put him down.

Before Jackson, Tiffany and I were both solid eight-hour-a-night sleepers.

So, in hopes of getting him there too, we are taking an online class called “Taking Cara Babies”.

An immediate goal of the class is for Jackson to sleep one longer stretch each night. And that’s what we are implementing right now.

(in case you are curious: the principle is that by stretching out night time feedings, by even just 10-15 minutes per day, a baby will get more comfortable to sleep longer at night without freaking out)

Here is how he has been sleeping for the past week (where 1 = terrible and 5 = great):

• Feb 18: 2
• Feb 19: 1
• Feb 20: 2
• Feb 21: 3
• Feb 22: 5
• Feb 23: 2
• Feb 24: 1

The teacher, Cara, reminds us that it’s not a straight shot path for a baby to be able to consistently sleep longer through the night. I’m glad I remembered that lesson at 3am last night.

That’s because last night, Jackson woke up way earlier than his scheduled feeding time. And that meant for 1.5 hours between 3am – 4:30am, I was holding / rocking / bouncing him, while pacing around the apartment, stalling until it was feeding time.

I was frustrated, exhausted, and questioning the entire plan from the class.

The problem is, at 3am, I zoomed in too close and only looked at what was going on in front of me (ie. being up in the middle of the night with a hungry / crying baby). I got lost in the noise of daily volatility in Jackson’s quality of sleep.

But, by zooming out, it was easy to see past the volatility and instead focus on the overall trend. And the trend is absolutely going in the right direction (ie. more and better quality sleeps). It was just the “ah ha” moment that I needed.

With bitcoin, it’s the same. Looking at price too much is a trap.

Here’s what I mean. In my last post, I wrote about bitcoin’s +200% annual returns. But it’s not steady day-to-day. Rather, there are big up and down days along the way.

A few weeks ago, bitcoin was at $38k. Two days ago, it was at $58k. That is a $20k increase!

And then, yesterday, in just one day, it dropped $10k.

Looking too closely at the volatility (whether it be the ups or down days) means you are losing sight of where bitcoin is heading. And worse, it could lead to buying high and / or selling low…the exact opposite of what you should do to build wealth.

Focusing too closely on price is like me zooming too far in on the quality of one night of sleep vs. zooming out at the overall positive trend.

Here is the bigger picture. Here is the trend for bitcoin:

• it has now crossed over $1 trillion market cap in just 12 years
• retail adoption is becoming mainstream and you can now buy bitcoin on Robinhood, CashApp, PayPal, and more
• corporate adoption has started (ie. companies like Tesla are now holding bitcoin on their balance sheets)
• state level / government level adoption is around the corner

These are incredibly powerful long term trends. And this is what will really move the price of bitcoin to $100k, $1 million, and eventually $10 million.

From time to time, I need reminders not to worry about the short term volatility. And as this bull run gets going, now is the perfect time to zoom out and see the bigger picture again.