You can follow me on Twitter. Likes, RTs and questions help guide my writing.
Getting A Better Body
Starting from scratchWith strength (12 min a day, 2-3x per week, 10 wks)With plyometrics (5 min per day, 2-3 per week, 8 wks)With nutrition – lingo summaryMy winter week structureWhat “easy endurance” feels likeMy strength coach’s library of exercises
Generating Family Wealth
Three Truths About Taxes – meet my 20-something selfHow Wealth Endures – m
Tacos del Gnar in Ridgeway, COOn the way to Telluride, worth the stop
Last week, I was in Telluride with my buddy, Mark. He asked me a question, very much on point…
Aren’t you afraid you’ll gain weight?Why yes, I am terrified!
The context was my current “far less than I used to” training program. Sure, I was scared, and that’s why I kept the volume rolling for so many years.
However, like so many fear-based quirks in my life, my fears proved
Tacos del Gnar in Ridgeway, CO On the way to Telluride, worth the stop
Last week, I was in Telluride with my buddy, Mark. He asked me a question, very much on point…
Aren’t you afraid you’ll gain weight?
Why yes, I am terrified!
The context was my current “far less than I used to” training program. Sure, I was scared, and that’s why I kept the volume rolling for so many years.
However, like so many fear-based quirks in my life, my fears proved groundless.
Further, creating a lifestyle catered to misplaced fear crowds out a lot of useful work!
Telluride
Get Off the Wheel of Sugar
AC has been crushing with a series of threads encouraging athletes to improve their stamina and fat burning. The lessons run much, much deeper. Creativity, cognition, and metabolic health – all benefit from working on the low-end of our fitness.
Many of us use training protocol as a way to justify our food choices. With the best intentions, we remove a food group, and end up replacing it with sugar.
OR
Starting to train, we shift our nutrition towards “sports nutrition.”
My buddy, Jonas Colting, calls this getting caught in Gel Hell.
Not a win.
Removing the friction towards better choices
Two tips work here:
Aim to eat more veggies than my vegetarian pals.
Stay below my sugar threshold.
#1 requires a bit of effort, but not too much. My main gig is salads and stir-frys.
#2 can be scary – it implies less total duration, less intensity.
Both these changes nudge us towards sustainable choices and, as we age, reduce the risk of ruin from following a Chronic Endurance lifestyle.
More Telluride
Get Strong
Back in the day, folks used to debate the utility of strength training for endurance athletes. Do y’all still do that?
I’m not into debating, I’d rather use something that works.
Strength Training Works.
There is a conscious, and unconscious, attraction to people who move powerfully – moving well, is attractive.
You want to be more attractive, trust me (see below).
Being attractive improves our self-image, which sets up a virtuous circle in our larger lives.
Door #1 was fast, but I’ll go out on a limb and predict my wife would prefer Door #3
Remove One
Trying to change everything at once leaves me feeling scattered and distracted.
It doesn’t work.
Again, here’s what works:
One person, one habit, one pattern, one choice…
Each of us has a habit, relationship or pattern that we can eliminate, for gains.
2 beers before bed
A basket of bread with lunch and dinner
Cheese
Bread + cheese = pizza
French fries
Soft drinks
A friend who’s a feeder
Don’t try to do everything.
Don’t think you need to change “forever”.
Simply take a break for 30 days and pay attention.
With all this stuff, letting go of my fears seems daunting.
No way, I’ll be able to pull that off.
You don’t have to.
Try it out for 30 days and pay attention.
Iterate towards better.
Where do you go that makes you feel at peace? For me, it’s the mountains.
I am going to show you how to connect spending, time and wealth.
Let’s bring back my 20-something self. He was living in London, working in finance and renting a room to keep his overheads down.
Coming out of college, having more cash flow than he needed, he felt rich.
But was he?
He earned $75,000 and was spending $32,000. How wealthy was he?
Remember from last week, his net worth was $20,000.
Net Worth “divided by” Spending = WEALTH IN TIME
H
I am going to show you how to connect spending, time and wealth.
Let’s bring back my 20-something self. He was living in London, working in finance and renting a room to keep his overheads down.
Coming out of college, having more cash flow than he needed, he felt rich.
But was he?
He earned $75,000 and was spending $32,000. How wealthy was he?
Remember from last week, his net worth was $20,000.
Net Worth “divided by” Spending = WEALTH IN TIME
His WIT was 7 ½ months.
Roll forward to my early 30s. I’m a young Private Equity partner and hit $1 million net worth.
I was spending $250k a year, felt flush, but was I wealthy? Let’s find out.
$1,000,000 / $250,000 = 4 Years
Not wealthy, especially when you consider my life expectancy (>50 years).
++
At 31, I realized my spending was buying me NOTHING. What I liked to do was swim, bike and run. I had fantasies of leaving the corporate world. I took action.
I applied to emigrate to New Zealand. Arriving in Christchurch, I was able to buy a five-bedroom house for US$110,000. My cost of living plunged to $25,000 (NZ$60,000).
My WIT jumped to 40 years.
I didn’t return from my leave of absence. Most of my family thought I was nuts.
Getting A Better Body
My WordPress article about Gel Hell and staying leanA thread about Big Guys getting fitPhase Two of Strength Training: Push Pull Press
Breaking Free From 9-5
My WordPress article about Wealth in TimeMy take on @dvassallo’s thread about self-employment
Athletic Performance
Monsy Swims of the WeekJeff asked me how I’m applying HRV in my own lifeMore on me and HRVHamstring (P)rehab – break the cycle of injury & eccentric loadingStraight-le
In the Steep Gullies of A-Basin, teaching my son how to lead men
In your 50s and 60s, you’re going to have the money to do neat stuff.
Are you going to have the body?
I propose three goals to guide your training:
Burn fatAdd muscle massMaintain sexual function
If you’re still into race performance then bookmark me and come back in a few years.
Why?
Because you might be screwing up all three by leaving sustained tempo in your program.
The abili
In the Steep Gullies of A-Basin, teaching my son how to lead men
In your 50s and 60s, you’re going to have the money to do neat stuff.
Are you going to have the body?
I propose three goals to guide your training:
Burn fat
Add muscle mass
Maintain sexual function
If you’re still into race performance then bookmark me and come back in a few years.
Why?
Because you might be screwing up all three by leaving sustained tempo in your program.
The ability to do fun stuff with those I love. A form of wealth.
Now, you’re probably thinking that it’s impossible for an older person to add muscle mass.
You might have even resigned yourself to a long, slow decline in personal function.
That’s certainly the way aging was taught to me (by members of your profession).
Are you sure?
An elder surgeon confided in me that “half the stuff I learned in med school, turned out to be false.”
Perhaps a shift in approach could get you a better outcome?
Besides, there is little downside from shifting your program, away from endurance fatigue, towards doing what it takes to add functional strength.
My son’s definition of heaven. Bit of a survival ski for me.
So how might we do that?
During the pandemic, I learned this protocol by accident.
I was locked in my house, with three high-energy kids, and I needed a way to chill out before endless days of Home School.
I turned to weights, a lot of them.
I worked my way through Rob Shaul’s SF45 program. The full program was eight modules and took me 60 weeks to complete.
Total body transformation.
Not only did it transform my body, my wife started having fire fighter fantasies.
I became much better at moving through the mountains.
Rob’s redone the modules and now splits them by age (40, 50, 55 and 60). You can find them under General Fitness Plan Packets on his website.
I’ve taken what I’ve learned from Rob and interpreted into my life as a coach to kids, adults and elders. I use pieces of Rob’s protocols to address specific concerns (balance, fall risk, muscle activation, injury prevention and rehab). I tweet about these on Wednesdays.
I use Rob’s stuff for creating a valuable form of stress on my 53 yo body.
Gaining functional strength
To do neat stuff
Outside
With the people I love
For as long as possible
My training schedule is built around placing my key days (my strength-focused days).
I never skip a strength day but… I do delay it when I know it would be counter-productive to stress myself further.
Can you spot the gully entry above my son? Me neither. We had to billy-goat a bit.
So how to place those key days?
That was my central problem across 2021.
I kept getting run down, I felt old, my mood was crap, I was worried that I was “done” as an athlete.
To be sick of sickness is the only cure
– The Tao Te Ching
Eventually, I committed to do whatever it took to get my recovery on track. If that meant “getting old” then I’d just have to deal with the consequences.
It wasn’t all that complicated. My Garmin watch had be collecting resting heart rate data for years. Data that I had been ignoring because I was scared to recover properly!
To my resting HR data, I added heart rate variability from an Oura Ring. Recently, I added HRV4Training to better see the differences between my acute and chronic movements.
I don’t use the Readiness Scores because I don’t need precision (and have doubts that any of us can predict outcome on a complex system, like the human body).
All I am seeking is a signal from the raw data.
Red – you’d better dial it down
Yellow – no surges, just aerobic maintenance (ie fat burning)
Green – Go For It, Bro!
Feb 20 (red) – chronic (shaded) and acute are low Feb 11 (yellow) – chronic is in normal range, acute a bit below Feb 8th (green) – chronic and acute both high – I went big at altitude, we see the impact on Feb 9thSimilar info in the resting HR data, which seems to be more sensitive to the elevation where I’m sleeping. During the upward trend in HR, I was sleeping at ~8,500 ft.
So when I’m at home, it’s a simple choice each morning.
Strength or Cardio
Strength is whatever plan I’m using from Rob.
Cardio is a bike workout, usually with a 130 bpm cap.
If I’m not “green” for a strength day, then I dial it down, or delay.
If I’m “red” then I spin easy on the bike (HR < 120) and schedule a neighborhood walk for the afternoon.
ZERO anaerobic load on a “red” day.
By waiting for a green signal, I avoid putting myself into a hole, that takes days to clear.
I’d been running this system (morning strength or cardio) for most of the pandemic (2020 & 2021) but was not paying attention to my HR, and didn’t have the HRV data.
With the HRV data, and guidance from Dr Jeff Shilt, I am able to better place the days that make me tired. Doc J shared his traffic light system, which let me create this article I’m offering you.
This season saw me hand over the title of lead-skier to my son. With recognition comes responsibility.
As we age, how best to define “getting better”?
My proposal…
We will work towards improving the self-confidence that you’ll be able to continue to share outdoor activities with those you love.
We will use a training approach that builds a large physical reserve against the fears we hear from our elders.
Confidence that, while absolute performance is declining, we continue to enjoy the physical side of life.
Confidence that, while we’re all going to “get old” eventually, we will be able to live independently for as long as possible.
This is going to require a shift in focus from “athletic performance” to maintaining “functional performance.”
The very good news is this approach is time efficient.
Yes, the strength days will kick your butt BUT, when they are placed wisely, you will bounce back and end up with more energy across your week.
I was taught that all my (financial) problems would be solved if I made enough money.
Money, absent saving, doesn’t work.
Spending, absent reflection, creates golden handcuffs.
Living a big-city lifestyle had my younger self trapped. His large spending created a hurdle that would have taken him years to overcome.
Valuable years!
Put another way, the weight of my spending was preventing me from launching towards my true self => meeting a wonderful wife and creating
I was taught that all my (financial) problems would be solved if I made enough money.
Money, absent saving, doesn’t work.
Spending, absent reflection, creates golden handcuffs.
Living a big-city lifestyle had my younger self trapped. His large spending created a hurdle that would have taken him years to overcome.
Valuable years!
Put another way, the weight of my spending was preventing me from launching towards my true self => meeting a wonderful wife and creating my current life in Colorado.
My solution was simple
Save half my take home pay
Get myself to a low-cost environment
Create independent income streams to cover my cost of living
Surround myself with people who lived my values
All well and good, and my 30-something self got some things right.
What he wasn’t able to see was the Window of Time. It didn’t matter to him because he was rich in time, and knew it. Having his basics covered, he risked time on changing direction.
For the prudent, the march of time will eventually require a change in approach.
Each of us is free to change our approach at any time.
At some point, all of us are going to realize that our wealth in time is approaching the point where we have more wealth than time.
This is most likely to occur in what we call the “peak earning years.”
It’s really hard to change direction when you’re coining it.
I know, I did.
Cutting spending, leaning into saving, buying an extra couple years before I’m old…
…all trades you should consider.
Even if you don’t change your path, knowing that you could will strengthen your ability to act with integrity.
So the two landmines I hope you avoid are:
Peer-driven spending that leads you away from what fills your heart
Creating capital for future family members, when they’d rather spend time with you now
Training Protocols
Monday’s post on Optimizing Training for Middle Aged Doctors went big, for meFour Hidden Hazards for Aging Athletes was the tweet for Archive SaturdayHigh Performance vs Active LifestylesStress from Fueling RequirementsHeart HealthChronic InjuryOn Twitter, a possible example of selection bias when comparing different training protocolsWorkout Wednesday was my favorite balance move and how I use plyometricsI took the time to help someone understand run lactate testing
If you want your kids to be good at racing then seek positive race experiences from a very young age => link the sensations of racing with “fun” in their young minds
Growing up, I had a buddy.
James Brown, his real name!
James was a lot of fun, and very patient with my younger self.
James used to joke that his boat had two speeds: full and repair.
As a young man, much of my life was lived this way.
ON or OFF
The greatest achievement of my married life was finding another gear => SUSTAIN
EVERYONE knows what’s required to gain weight.
Where we struggle is sustaining weight.
The ability to sustain is the key that unloc
James was a lot of fun, and very patient with my younger self.
James used to joke that his boat had two speeds: full and repair.
As a young man, much of my life was lived this way.
ON or OFF
The greatest achievement of my married life was finding another gear => SUSTAIN
EVERYONE knows what’s required to gain weight.
Where we struggle is sustaining weight.
The ability to sustain is the key that unlocks the ability to choose.
The capacity is choose is a foundational skill for success.
I’ve got two things that are going to help.
Let’s start with the most important.
What’s the trigger for eating more than 1,000 calories after 10pm?
For me, it was ALWAYS one of the following…
Didn’t eat enough during the day
Drinking
By the way, combine the two and I was going BIG.
So if you’re going to “go binary” on something… you get a much better bang for your buck by not getting wasted.
Slamming 700 calories, of anything, at 2pm is a winning strategy => break the habit of late-night binging. You don’t have the option of being binary with food – you gotta eat.
Anybody that tells you otherwise has already lost the weight and forgotten what’s going on.
Not eating, and thinking about eating all day… losing strategy, not sustainable.
Next tip
Do something before breakfast.
It doesn’t need to be a workout!
Do one positive thing that moves you towards where you want to take your life.
Let’s cast our minds back to my 30-something self.
He’s bought a house in Christchurch, covered his taxes/utilities by giving a room to his property manager and has the ability to live free by renting out additional rooms.
Create a base of operations where you can live for free
Tick
Next up, he needs to figure out what sort of work to do and how to cover his cost of living.
A dozen triathlon coaching relationships (US$250) per month was what it took to cover basi
Let’s cast our minds back to my 30-something self.
He’s bought a house in Christchurch, covered his taxes/utilities by giving a room to his property manager and has the ability to live free by renting out additional rooms.
Create a base of operations where you can live for free
Tick
Next up, he needs to figure out what sort of work to do and how to cover his cost of living.
A dozen triathlon coaching relationships (US$250) per month was what it took to cover basics. Those relationships were worth more than money. The relationships made his lifestyle sustainable.
Tick
Basic client filtering over time.
Which relationships to strengthen and retain? Green light client rating – immediate response, has all personal contact details. Travel to them.
Invert, which relationships are a source of distraction and drain energy? Red light client rating – still high service level, hand-off to a better fit at a natural breakpoint (end of season, end of project).
Move on to…
Next level client selection because => there is a limited number of close relationships we can sustain
These are areas I was able to study, from world-class experts, while covering my core cost of living.
Put another way, there are millions of interesting people out there. A consultant needs 5-12 relationships for a viable business. Craft those relationships with intent because your time is worth more than someone’s ability to pay.
Wise client selection is a game of getting paid to learn.
…but you gotta be lifestyle sustainable. So get that first!
Where do I want to visit?
Back in 2000, Christchurch NZ was cheap for a reason. It was far off the beaten path!
A material slice of my cost of living was international travel (airfares & hotels). I really enjoyed this aspect of my life.
I’m not alone. A key form of marketing is the ability to offer clients/investors the ability to travel to nice places. Most large companies have advisory boards, with a membership consisting of their key relationships. The advisory board has the perks of being a director, with none of the fiduciary risk.
I’ve had gigs in: Aspen, Hong Kong, Bermuda, Scotland, LA, Italy, London, Dubai, Paris, Cannes, Hawaii…
So, where do YOU want to go? Find that client, help them achieve their goals and undercharge them.
Rich folks love random acts of financial kindness. They’re always expected to pick up the tab, so paying for coffee/breakfast is a high-return investment.
A long term value added relationship with someone in a place you enjoy visiting – it’s worth more than whatever your financial deal is.
Invert (again) => don’t take work from a location you don’t want to visit. At any price.
One of my gigs came with an around-the-world ticket every six months. With a bit of planning, that covered an entire year’s worth of air travel. Another slice of my budget, covered.
What demographic am I curious about?
Tim’s blog on fame shares the Bill Murray quote, “trying being rich first.”
Actually, being rich is tough. It takes a lot of time and striving. Living rich is even worse, not for me.
Before you try to “be something” => get to know it. See what it’s like when nobody’s watching.
Coaching the rich, the fast, the famous, the savage, the beautiful… and paying attention, helped me look under-the-hood with regard to my values.
High-Performance Strategies
This thread contains Howard’s excellent article about treatment bias. Treat the self-identity as well as the injury! Also HEREWhen it comes to ultra endurance, AC reminds us that there is no fate but what you makeA thread on visualization – this worked for calming my internal experience of open water
Getting The Body You Want
I contributed to Brady’s thread about eating on easy daysMore information isn’t the answer for Big Guys Losing
More information isn’t the answer for Big Guys Losing Weight => thread and article link. Think in terms of 1,000 day pacing and remember “not eating” is a losing strategy.
Jumps & Plyos are prehab for life – don’t accept the common experience as your personal baseline!
Family Money
Personal Real Estate can be a high-hassle asset but it has benefits, some hidden
I contributed to another thread on lactate testing – don’t “step” past your physiological markers
I pulled together my getting started strength tips into a Single Page for you – MAKE A COPY if you want to edit. View rights are open, edit rights are closed in the Google Doc.
Every night, my son likes me to have a stuffy to keep me company. The love of children is a special gift.
For medical-grade depression, best to see your doc.
My condition, for most of 2021, is better described as “the blahs.” I was fully functional, grinding away, often angry and rarely engaged.
I wrote about what we were going to do in our marriage HERE. 20 weeks later, it worked far better than I expected – schedule time with those you love.
I have proven j
The cherry on top was spending $75 a week to retire from driving my kids.
Driving, itself, wasn’t the issue.
I noticed my worst moments were happening in my car.
Change the environment, change the result.
I stopped hanging out in my car, I felt better.
Over 20 years, I’ve redirected my environment => one choice at a time.
Mount Crested Butte – this ski season saw a simple game. Try to hit ten resorts.
Simple project, visible feedback
I have a habit of rejecting the part of my personality that craves external feedback. I pretend I am above external approval, I’m not.
I brought back external feedback by way of my return to Twitter.
Playing a low-stakes game where you get random, positive feedback => surprisingly useful.
I am going to repeat that… if you have the blahs then you should try…
A low-stakes game
That pays out randomly
With positive emotional feedback
I shouldn’t be surprised! Before I left Private Equity in 2000, I had a message board (pre-Facebook) where we used to shoot the breeze just like Twitter. Loved it, met some great people.
My Twitter Game => seek to help a stranger daily.
Huge leverage, near-infinite niche opportunities.
Previous simple games: improve aerobic run performance, and log daily training minutes. These two games kept me engaged for over a decade!
Simple games work because they offer a focus different from my negative fixations. They are most powerful when attached to a system of daily rewards.
One of my favorite things is skiing with my wife. I’ve made a decision to keep living. Reality is going to catch up with me at some point, I know.
When stressed, you are going to be tempted to shuffle your asset allocation.
Churning your portfolio isn’t the answer.
Geography, Citizenship & Right of Abode
I’m parked in the middle of the American Empire => by choice.
I naturalized to the US and don’t need anyone’s permission to stay he
Mood Management
Monday’s Blog was three simple actions taken to improve my lifeWondering if constantly talking about our fears, makes them more likely
Athletic Performance
Vets at altitudeMental & Physical health for high functioning athletesAC’s tips for coaches starting out (bit from me)Weekly Monsy swimsThis thread is how I turned up at 30 and was beating most everyone five years laterAC’s thread on Zone 2 (bit from me) – tip: hold Zn 2 for 2 hours &
We’ve been having this debate for years, it simply took me a while to notice
First clean athlete – remember that person in the Euro Peloton?
Not just Europe, my wife and I been that athlete
…and had to figure out how to deal with it.
I’ve been dealing with cheats and scoundrels for 30 years.
Not just in sport.
This moment, it’s not about cheating, but look deeper.
Pay attention.
I’m not sure if banning “them” from &ld
…is not leaving
Living!
Let’s start with the best money advice I’ve seen in 2022:
Don’t build a plan that requires your death to succeed.
Yes.
Rather, create a life that supports how you want to live.
How are we going to do that?
Get some money off the table.
How much?
5x “last year’s cost of living”
This is Core Capital – it is a function of your spending as well as your savings.
Once you have Core C
That article introduced the concept of Lifestyle Sustainable => a low-cost base of operations where, ideally, you can live for free. The idea is to remove cost-of-housing from your financial concerns.
That’s the core financial asset for your portfolio. It cost me US$110,000 in 2000.
This is a great place to park your Core Capital.
Removing housing from your list of concerns gives you more than a financial return.
Alongside your key financial asset, I hope you have a loving, lifelong partner. This person is the most important decision, financial or otherwise, you’ll be making.
The highest return investments I made in my 30s & 40s, were not financial in nature. With a low-cost base of operations, & marketable skills, I was in a good place.
Many high-earners fail to see the value of what I just pointed out.
Low-cost base of operations
Marketable skills
Beyond that, most everything is lifestyle enhancement and ego.
Thankfully, I had a major setback in my early-30s (divorce) which gave me pause.
In 2000, I saw my future in front of me… lifestyle enhancement and ego… and I made a change.
A big one.
I became a world-class athlete. With (athletic) success came the realization that something was lacking.
So much success, still lacking!
If you’re good at making money…
If you’re good at playing the game of “career”…
If you are nearing the top of your field…
…then you’ll be tempted to keep doing what you are good at.
I’d encourage you to establish that low-cost base of operations, then try something really challenging…
The highest return investments I made were improving my suitability for marriage and learning how to parent. Most of my learning happened after I was married and my kids were born.
It is never too late to invest in the human capital of your family.
If you get these investments right then you might not notice the benefits. Honestly, a big driver in my life has been a fear of getting divorced again (not-divorced, winning)
Fear that drives positive action is useful.
I’ve been paid by less drama, and less problems (we don’t see all our wins).
I’ve also de-risked some of the challenges my future self will face (companionship, engagement, dementia). Study (the problems of) who you are likely to become.
You’ll notice my portfolio advice (still) doesn’t talk about asset allocation.
This is deliberate!
Asset selection is not the differentiating factor for a life well lived.
Marketable skills
Low-cost base of operations
Fixed-rate mortgage, if you like
Target date fund for your future self
Then focus on living your life and creating the friends/family with whom you’d like to share it.
Getting a much clearer idea about the topics that engage y’all.
Thank you for the likes, RTs and replies.
Athletic Performance
“Think Crank Width” => consider the “what & why”Peloton stock saddle should be swapped for menYour Endurance Zones: HERE & HERE & HERE & MINEMarco’s tweet on zones, my take and a guest appearance by Doc HMonsy swims of the weekBrady’s massive thread on weekly training – optimal is about getting
I’ve coached pilots to agegroup championships and Kona starting lines.
The #1 thing we learned was to take advantage of schedule flexibility by minimizing the cost, in fatigue, of their work schedule.
The goal is a rapid return to training.
Resist the urge to frontload fatigue => have yourself heading “up” as you start a work blockNo zeros – on the road => train easy, near dawn
Load when, and where, you are most able to recover => at home
My kids won’t fully appreciate my choices until after I’m gone.
My #1 financial goal for my kids is debt-free education in a field that enables them to get paid.
With the very best of intentions, the US Government has completely screwed up both (a) the cost of college education and (b) the financial lives of the students they were seeking to help.
Debt isn’t free.
Every market juiced with easy money gets screwed up.
Explanation below – my life
My kids won’t fully appreciate my choices until after I’m gone.
My #1 financial goal for my kids is debt-free education in a field that enables them to get paid.
With the very best of intentions, the US Government has completely screwed up both (a) the cost of college education and (b) the financial lives of the students they were seeking to help.
Debt isn’t free.
Every market juiced with easy money gets screwed up.
Explanation below – my life mirrors the blue line – graduate early, debt free, start saving
I googled up average debt at graduation and average graduation age.
$40,000 and 23 yo.
So let’s make three simple scenarios:
Debt free early graduation (21 yo) => McGill 1990 finance grad
Debt free at 25 yo
Debt free at 30 yo
Let’s run it forward assuming:
Investment return of 5%, prior year close
$20,000 per annum savings
The late-start saver
who saves at the same annual rate
who earns the same return
ends up ~$1 million behind at 60 yo.
This is not the whole story, not even close!
In my demographic, families can burn ~$250,000 of capital to help a kid “get started” => 529 accounts and parental support. Even more if you roll private from Kindergarten.
What’s the 30-year cost of this choice?
$250,000 * (1.05)^30 = $1,080,000
Million bucks gone, you never see it.
You burned the capital
The kid figures life out by 30, and spends most of their 20s pissed at you (for tapering their support)
$2 million opportunity cost, spread between two generations.
You assume it was what you were supposed to do and are grateful you finally got them off the payroll.
A possible alternative…
Our default position is in-state education and I’ll buy whatever’s left of your 529, at $2 on the dollar, once you save $100,000 of your own money.
High Performance & Productivity
My take inside Andy’s thread about pushing kidsCounter depletion stress by eating like a HobbitMy take on Justin’s weekly reviewHow you can write a bookWillpower isn’t my key constraintBuild a Twitter FAQ with a master threadCurrent Twitter weekly flow
Athletic Performance
Using the bike for metabolic fitness w/ BradyCoaching pilots, firefighters and docs with callLower leg, eccentric rehab and Shin Splints w/ PratikSwim economy: my
I’ve been watching two of my teachers duke it out in public and it reminded me of something I want to teach my kids.
Fun weekend with the Fam
What do you want?
We are most easily deceived by our desires.
So start by asking, “what did I want?”
Then dig deeper.
My desires leave me open to deception.
Absent wanting, I can’t be fooled.
This knowledge is helpful to prevent the next person from using our desires against us AND so we can use se
I’ve been watching two of my teachers duke it out in public and it reminded me of something I want to teach my kids.
Fun weekend with the Fam
What do you want?
We are most easily deceived by our desires.
So start by asking, “what did I want?”
Then dig deeper.
My desires leave me open to deception.
Absent wanting, I can’t be fooled.
This knowledge is helpful to prevent the next person from using our desires against us AND so we can use self-awareness to guide effective action.
I was thinking back on races where I’d been impacted by cheating, and I remembered the fastest Half Marathon I ever ran was chasing down a guy who cut the bike course. I was so upset! That gave me a big smile, in a way, he did me a favor.
Other races, other outcomes.
When I looked deeper, I didn’t always like what I found.
Ego.
An insatiable desire to “prove” myself better than others.
Not being able to feed that desire with external victories nudged me to look for other ways to prove merit. Again, my competition may have done me a favor.
Teachers & Mentors
I have learned from teachers with different goals, lifestyles and values from me. Sometimes, our teachers become a source of energy to do better within our own lives, and with our closest relationships.
Related, the first time you really get to know one of your heroes… it can be disappointing. We’re all flawed in some way. My kids are starting to learn my flaws, and they forgive me.
After the disappointment can come liberation. Take the best ideas and execute. There never was any magic.
Still, when you notice a difference in values, be wary. It’s not about right/wrong, more about compatibility. More in Drucker’s famous article about Managing Oneself.
When seeking a mentor, your wants might fool you into seeking to emulate a person who doesn’t fit your values.
Looking deeply, again.
My values & wants… from the inside, it feels like I’m in total control. I’m not.
By crafting my closest relationships, my mentors, my attention… I guide my life.
In some cases, I am better learning from a distance.
Which brings us to the final point.
Don’t torch the joint on the way out!
History tells me that I am going feel different about things later.
Life is about living, not building a habit of argument.
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