Hello and welcome back to Mortgage Advisor on FIRE. This week I discuss job interviews and recruitment in general. Also, a dive into Quantum Immortality. Finally, thoughts on motivation with FI.
Weekly Update
Another full week of work, which left me exhausted. I’m finding this new job, and the training, difficult but in a good way. I feel like I’m being challenged after many years of coasting. I’m not quite yet at full mental fitness but I’m getting there. One thing that has helped is Poppy coming and staying with me whilst I’m working. She’ll come into the home office and reach up with her front paws to my leg. She’ll do a little meow and that’s my signal to sit back so she can jump up into my lap. Then, she climbs up my chest and rests on my shoulder. Once she’s comfortable she’ll start purring until the purrs give way to little snores. It’s such a nice feeling.
As much as I’m finding success with my new employer, several good friends are having no end of trouble with their searches for new employment. The whole system of recruitment and interviewing feels backwards. It’s a similar issue to exams in school, where the aim is not to educate for the adult world but simply to train you to pass the exam. With jobs, the emphasis is on passing the company’s mystery criteria for being offered an interview, followed by the artificial nature of an interview.
Tell me about a time when…
One of the things that sold me on my new employer was their approach to interviewing. It was a conversation; a two-way dialogue, which was professional, curious in nature, and left us all with a much better idea of what we all brought to the table. This allowed me to be completely honest in my thoughts, opinions, and behaviours. The business followed through on every promise and claim made, which was also a major point of difference.
In my experience, and the experience of those around me, some employers like to play stupid games when it comes to recruitment. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve asked about an interview a friend had, only to hear that the interview revealed nothing about the job, the pay, the hours, or anything else of substance.
Job interviews are not just about you selling yourself to an employer. It’s also about the employer selling themselves to you. You would think that an employer would want to discover how qualified you are for the job, rather than finding out how good you are at passing an interview. The two things are not the same.
Why Competency Based Interviews Suck
Competency-based interviews (CBIs) can be frustrating for several reasons, especially if you’re someone with strong experience who prefers a more natural conversation. Here are some of my thoughts on why they often suck:
Rigid Format
CBIs force candidates to use the STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) method, which can feel robotic and unnatural. It doesn’t allow for real, flowing discussions about your skills and experience. It’s less a conversation, and more like a riddle where you have to break down a real life event to fit the STAR format. It’s bullshit and from what I hear from other people, examples are rarely based on their own history.
Doesn’t Always Reflect Real-World Performance
Just because someone can structure an answer well doesn’t mean they’ll be good at the job. On the flip side, someone great at their role might struggle to recall a neatly packaged example from years ago. Sometimes, people are great at a particular type of job without being able to explain why; it’s just something that comes naturally to them. Think of a work-based skill you are really good at, and try to break down the specific components that come together to explain your ability. It’s often more difficult to explain properly than you might think.
Encourages Overthinking & Rehearsed Responses
Candidates often spend more time worrying about structuring their answers than actually demonstrating their capabilities. It rewards those who memorise stories rather than those who think on their feet. Anyone can learn these examples like they’re reading a script. It doesn’t mean you understand what you’re saying. Hand me a script in Italian and I can rehearse it over and over. I won’t understand the concepts behind what I’m saying, but I’ll have a decent crack at reciting the words. These types of interviews focus on your ability to pass an interview, not your ability to do the job.
Fails to Assess Potential
Many roles require adaptability, quick learning, and problem-solving, but CBIs focus on what you’ve done before, not what you could do in a new role with new management and/or autonomy. These interviews, despite focusing on what you’ve done previously, pay little attention to the restrictions you may have been working under.
Bias Towards Certain Personality Types
Extroverts or those with strong storytelling skills often perform better in CBIs, even if they’re not the most qualified. Meanwhile, highly capable but introverted candidates might struggle to articulate their examples convincingly.
There are many jobs now that don’t even require that much verbal communication. Many home working jobs, for example, may rely more on email or live chat. Someone could be anxious when talking to someone face-to-face, but be a calm and clear communicator via email or chat.
Can Feel Like a Memory Test
If you’re asked, “Tell me about a time when…”, it can feel like a quiz rather than an evaluation of your actual skills. If you forget a specific example under pressure, it can unfairly impact your chances.
Some Questions are Just Stupid
Questions like, “Tell me about a time you had a conflict with a colleague,” assume everyone has experienced these situations. If you’re naturally diplomatic or haven’t faced major issues, it’s hard to answer without sounding fake.
That said, CBIs are popular because they try to standardise interviews and reduce bias. But in reality, they often favor those who are good at interviews rather than those who are best for the job.
Quantum Immortality
Is death the end? This is the question at the heart of an excellent YouTube video from one of my favourite channels, Cool Worlds. The idea discussed is Quantum Immortality, which is a thought experiment that comes from the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.
The Many-Worlds Interpretation: A Brief Overview
To understand quantum immortality, we first need to grasp the many-worlds interpretation (MWI) of quantum mechanics. Proposed by physicist Hugh Everett in 1957, MWI suggests that every quantum event with multiple possible outcomes results in a branching of reality. Each possible outcome plays out in a different, parallel universe.
For instance, if you flip a coin, MWI posits that in one universe, it lands heads, while in another, it lands tails. This concept extends to every quantum interaction, meaning an infinite number of parallel realities exist where different versions of you are living out countless possibilities.
Schrödinger’s Cat and the Nature of Observation
The famous Schrödinger’s cat thought experiment illustrates quantum superposition: a cat in a box with a quantum-triggered poison is both alive and dead until observed. In MWI, there is no single “collapse” of the wave function; instead, the cat lives in one universe and dies in another. The observer is also split into different versions where one sees a living cat, the other a dead one.
Enter Quantum Immortality
Now, apply this idea to yourself. If you were in a situation where death was a possible outcome, like say, a lethal quantum experiment, then MWI suggests that there will always be at least one branch where you survive, no matter how improbable. While observers in other universes may witness your demise, your conscious experience continues in the reality where you live.
The implication? Subjectively, you might never experience death. Each time you face a life-threatening event, you find yourself in the version of reality where you miraculously survive. Others around you might see you die, but “you”, the conscious observer, will always find yourself in a branch where you’re still alive. This is quantum immortality in action.
Does This Mean We Live Forever?
At first glance, quantum immortality seems to suggest you’ll never die. However, there are problems with this idea. While quantum mechanics does allow for improbable survival scenarios, it doesn’t mean you’ll be invulnerable to aging or suffering. You may find yourself in increasingly improbable and painful situations such as growing old, deteriorating, surviving freak accidents, but never truly reaching a point where you cease to exist.
Is There Any Proof?
No experimental evidence supports quantum immortality. It remains a speculative, philosophical extension of the many-worlds interpretation. Most physicists are skeptical, as MWI itself is still just one of many competing theories in quantum mechanics.
However, some proponents argue that our continued survival in seemingly miraculous situations could be anecdotal evidence. Have you ever narrowly avoided a fatal accident? Is it luck, or did you just shift into a universe where you made it through?
The Implications of Quantum Immortality
Consciousness and Reality
If quantum immortality is true, it challenges our fundamental understanding of death and existence. What does it mean to be an individual if you exist across infinite realities?
Ethical and Psychological Effects: The idea that death is impossible for the observer could impact how people perceive risk and danger. Would it lead to reckless behavior, or existential dread as one’s future becomes an eternity of improbable survival?
The Fate of the Universe: While you may continue surviving, the universe itself is not immortal. Eventually, all matter will decay, and energy will spread out. Even if you live indefinitely, what happens when there’s nothing left?
Quantum immortality is a deeply unsettling and fascinating idea that forces us to question the nature of consciousness, death, and reality itself. While it remains purely theoretical, it offers a unique perspective on existence; one that suggests we may never truly face the void, at least from our own point of view.
Whether this thought experiment brings you comfort or dread depends on how you interpret it. Either way, it’s a reminder that reality may be far stranger than we can currently comprehend.
Religion and Afterlife
The idea of quantum immortality is not that new, and has featured in a roundabout way in some of the biggest films in the recent history. Take The Prestige; are you the man waking up in the box or on the stage?
These sorts of discussions fascinate me, and have done for decades. One point in particular has plagued my thoughts for a long, long time. It’s a bit long winded but I’ll break it down as best I can.
A reward-based afterlife, such as heaven, depends on you behaving in a certain way during life. You have to make all the right choices and when you die, you are granted a place in heaven. This depends on the idea of free will and that we are responsible for what actions we take.
With the MWI all possibilities happen. If we are confronted with many different options, and we end up taking all of them in different branching timelines, we haven’t actually made a choice. There’s no free will. So if all possible outcomes happen, it stands to reason that at the end of every branching timeline there would be a balancing of sorts, where your deeds are weighed against the criteria for getting into heaven. In some timelines you will, and in others you will not. But this isn’t fair because no choice has been made. A reward based afterlife offered by an all-powerful deity can’t be just under the MWI because no one is making a choice when all possibilities happen.
So, let’s look at another option whereby MWI is real and timelines branch off. However, the path you choose sees your soul progress along that branch, whilst the other branches have a copy of you but not your true self, i.e. not your soul.
This is a troubling possibility for another reason because after enough splits in the timeline, you could be the only real person in that timeline; just one soul surrounded by NPCs. You could even see timelines where there are no souls present. Would this result in complete waveform collapse? There is a theory that our whole universe is just one giant waveform.
I can just about grasp the idea of a multiverse through the MWI. I think if it was ever proven, it could be the single most destructive scientific discovery in the history of our species. If everything that can happen, does happen, what is the point of life? In this scenario, is life just an unintended side effect of existence?
The question of existence is crazy. Have you ever tried to imagine nothingness? It can’t be done. Most people, when they try to imagine nothing, picture a dark void. A dark void isn’t nothing though; it’s still something. When I try to imagine nothing it sends my brain into an error 404 state. It’s still a question that gnaws away at me; why is there something rather than nothing?
What I’m Doing
Listening: Wool by Hugh Howey.
Watching: Cool Worlds (YouTube), In Deep Geek (YouTube).
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Assets
Premium Bonds: £30,200.00.
Stocks and Shares ISA: £89,202.25.
Fuck It Fund: £6,766.54.
Pensions: £93,282.54.
Residential Property Value: £237,228.00.
Total Assets: £456,698.83.
Debts
Residential Mortgage: £184,200.23.
Total Debts: £184,200.23.
Total Wealth: £272,498.60.
Due to Trump being a complete moron and seemingly wanting to antagonise everyone else, the markets have taken some hits. The cynic in me thinks it could all be deliberate to try and drive the markets down, allowing the already wealthy to accumulate even more assets at knock-down prices. Or maybe he’s just a fucking idiot.
I won £125 on the Premium Bonds this month. Since April 2020, which is as far as I can look back, I’ve won £1,550 on them. I could probably get a better return with another type of investment, but I like the (relatively) instant access nature as well as the possibility of winning a huge sum. It’s not something I am pinning my FI hopes on, it’s just a convenient way to store funds whilst I wait for the ISA window to open again.
Haters gonna hate, doubters gonna doubt
Anyone who has ever seriously pursued financial independence knows that the doubters will come. They show up at family gatherings, in the workplace, or even in casual chats with friends. At first, their scepticism might seem harmless, with just a raised eyebrow or a dismissive laugh when you mention early retirement. But as you get deeper into your FI journey, the doubts often become louder, more pointed, and, at times, even discouraging.
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard:
– “You’ll never have enough.”
– “What if the stock market crashes?”
– “You’ll be bored within a year.”
– “Why not just work like everyone else and enjoy life?”
– “The stock market is bullshit.”
At first, I tried explaining the numbers, showing how careful planning, investing, and a frugal but fulfilling lifestyle make FI not just possible but practical. However, I quickly realised that most people aren’t actually asking for a logical breakdown. Instead, they’re projecting their own fears and doubts onto me. They’re stuck in a system that tells them to work until 67, then enjoy what’s left, and the idea of breaking free from that narrative makes them uncomfortable.
Instead of letting their scepticism shake me, I’ve learnt to use it as fuel. Every doubtful comment reminds me why I’m doing this, which is to create a life of freedom, not just for the future, but right now. The more people push back, the more determined I become to prove, not to them, but to myself, that this path is worth it.
Doubt also serves as a litmus test for my plan. If I can’t answer their concerns with confidence, maybe there’s a weak spot I need to address. Have I built enough of a buffer for market downturns? Do I have a plan for how I’ll spend my time post-FI? Their doubts don’t derail me. They sharpen my strategy. It’s almost like a middle finger to the doubters.
At the end of the day, I’m not on this journey to convince anyone else. My goal isn’t to argue or seek validation. The best response to doubt isn’t words – it’s action. It’s getting to FI on my own terms, living a life that aligns with my values, and proving, through my own freedom, that financial independence isn’t just a dream. It’s real. And it’s worth it.
One of the biggest misconceptions about FI is that it’s just about money. But the truth is, FI is a mindset shift first and a financial goal second. If you don’t rewire how you think about money, work, and freedom, you’ll never break out of the cycle that keeps most people trapped.
At first, FI feels like a numbers game of cutting expenses, maximising savings, and growing investments. But as you get deeper into it, something changes. You start to see spending differently. The idea of upgrading your car every few years or chasing status symbols stops feeling like an achievement and starts looking like a financial trap. You realise that most people aren’t working to fund a life they love. They’re working to fund a life that looks good on the surface but keeps them tied to their job forever.
The mental shift isn’t just about rejecting consumerism, though. It’s also about redefining success. Society tells us that success is climbing the career ladder, earning more, and buying bigger and better things. But on the FI path, success is measured in freedom. It’s measured in the ability to say no to things that don’t align with your values, to walk away from toxic workplaces, and to spend your time how you actually want.
Another huge shift is how you think about risk. To most people, staying in a job until retirement feels safe. But after shifting to an FI mindset, you realise that depending on a single employer for decades is actually the biggest risk of all. Market crashes, job losses, health issues; any of these can pull the rug from under you. FI isn’t about taking wild risks, rather it’s about removing risk from your life by creating options.
Once you’ve made this shift, there’s no going back. You stop seeing FI as some extreme lifestyle choice and start seeing traditional retirement as the real gamble. While others are hoping they’ll have enough at 67, you’re building a life where work is optional far sooner. And that mental freedom? That’s the real win.
That’s all for this week. I hope you have a great week ahead.
DISCLAIMER
The views and opinions in this blog are my own, and do not represent the views or opinions of my former, current, or future employers, nor should they be considered advice.
If you want personalised financial advice, seek an appropriate professional. If you are in financial difficulty, seek advice via the resources below:
Biolink
You can now find all my social media pages by checking out my Biolink:
bio.link/davidscothern.