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.

I googled up average debt at graduation and average graduation age.

$40,000 and 23 yo.

So let’s make three simple scenarios:

1. Debt free early graduation (21 yo) => McGill 1990 finance grad
2. Debt free at 25 yo
3. 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.

1. You burned the capital
2. 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.

What do we want to have happen?

1. conserve family capital
2. use debt sparingly
3. build a habit of saving

Everyone pays their own way.

High Performance & Productivity

• My take inside Andy’s thread about pushing kids
• Counter depletion stress by eating like a Hobbit
• My take on Justin’s weekly review
• How you can write a book
• Willpower isn’t my key constraint
• Build a Twitter FAQ with a master thread
• Current Twitter weekly flow

Athletic Performance

• Using the bike for metabolic fitness w/ Brady
• Coaching pilots, firefighters and docs with call
• Lower leg, eccentric rehab and Shin Splints w/ Pratik
• Swim economy: my experience & AC’s take
• Fly helps open water, more next week
• AC’s take on my observation about easy pace breathing
• Tuesday swims from Coach Monsy
• Case study with my zones
• Gaps & Caps in zones
• Bike Sets: Triple 3s and BG Twists

Wealth

• The hidden cost of debt for school
• Strength, like fitness, is a form of wealth

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.

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.

• Act as if personal finance is a game where you only get ten tickets to play.
• Invest as if you are holding a checkbook with only a dozen checks inside.
• Speak as if you’re holding a six-shooter, is it worth one of your bullets to make the point that’s on your mind.

I’ve been hearing versions of the above my entire life. It’s been great advice and encouraged me to:

• Slow down
• Resist the urge to interrupt compounding
• Keep it simple
• Focus on the big decisions
• Treat small movements like noise

So, we started your kids with the allowance game.

Then, we moved onto discussing the family’s allocation of capital towards education.

With that, we considered the impact, across generations, of borrowing.

What next?

Teach your kids their financial lives will be about no more than a dozen choices.

Here are mine:

• Study finance (class of 1990)
• Save 50% of my take home (1990-2007)
• Partners investment scheme (late 90s, all in then, equivalent of 1 yr spending now)
• Work to build a startup (2000)
• Sell into the frenzy (2005-2007)
• Move into a low-cost Vanguard portfolio (2008 onwards)
• Boulder real estate (2010 & 2012))
• Downsize (2012-2013)
• Borrow long at 3.25% (2013)
• Debt free (2007 & 2020)
• Have kids with a kind woman from a humble background (on going)

Every other choice turned out to be noise. What to do?

Focus on actions, not outcome.

What does that really mean?

Do what moves you forward and have faith. Sport, marriage, money, all things… daily action is the fundamental force moving you towards “better.”

Education matters => I was given a chance in Private Equity because I had high marks in a useful field. Between my high school graduation (1986) and my youngest’s (2031) the nature of “useful” will have changed. However, the need for skilled people to “do” will endure.

The most useful part of my degree wasn’t finance! It was financial accounting, programming and mathematics => I learned fundamental knowledge in college. I learned my profession on-the-job. You learn the valuable part by doing work, for the best people you can find.

This keeps popping up over and over again (professors, partners, coaches, mentors, twitter follows). At 53, I’m learning from people less than half my age! Do work to learn.

Avoid Ruin => studying, then working in, financial accounting helps you learn when a situation doesn’t feel right. Embezzlement is an old game and it’s useful to learn the patterns. Financial fraud happens, and will continue to happen. Take steps to reduce your family’s exposure to ruin.

With the accounting, I learned the most with 9 credits spread across three courses. Financial Accounting 1, 2 and 3. Small investment, huge return. Do it when you’re young. Being forced to rely on others to do your financial math is a disadvantage that will cost you.

Let’s pull it together for you…

Starting your working life (in a useful field, with your financial accounting courses done)…

You are at least a decade away from making the shift to lifestyle sustainable, so you focus on:

1. Learning by doing with the best people who will hire you
2. Saving – get that first $100K banked, you will be grateful when you’re older
3. Waiting for the fat pitch – once in a lifetime investment opportunities happen once a decade
4. Turning yourself into the sort of person you’d like to marry, the friend you’d like to have, the parent you aspire to be => meaningful connection is true wealth

Your mind will try to trick you into thinking it’s the investment choices that matter.

It is not.

It is the four habits I outlined above, and avoiding substance abuse.

Productivity

• How I do email (2022) in Dickie’s thread & my 2015 article
• One page to make my point
• Justin’s thread on interruptions & my take
• Help others find your best stuff
• Q1 Top Threads

Family Wealth

• A 25-year protocol from Kindergarten to Adulthood
• Desire and Deception
• A word on behalf of your Future Self – persist & stay

High Performance Habits

• Arousal Control
• I’m not sure it was bad luck
• Using a desire for difficulty in AC’s thread
• High-performance parenting HERE & BEFORE
• A bounty on my bad habits in Luca’s thread
• Paul G is a guy that doesn’t need to teach us, respect
• We don’t see poor choices crowded out by benign obsessions
• Leadership starts with one person making a choice with Luke
• Work capacity training is worth a look
• Justin’s NO and my YES
• Steve on mentors and how I met Joe Friel

Sports Science

• The brand new thing is probably BS, but BS can be useful
• Training Zones Chart & Simple Explanation & Again w/ article
• Nutrition is a workout HERE & HERE
• Progressive Benchmark Sets – RUN and BIKE inspired by Andy
• Run Walk Protocol and how to run faster
• HR measures stress & using lactate with AC
• Testing is a skill
• VO2s are NOT created equal – submax fat ox is what you want
• Same point with tempo – are you reinforcing hunger?
• Not sure VO2 is the key link to longevity with Howard
• Easy training counts – includes how to allocate load
• With Steve, as we age, shift your Mastery quest away from Physical
• Hal’s thread: consider using a weight floor, it worked for me
• Discover the tired athlete before you nuke them in Andrew’s thread
• Don’t swim like a chicken and Monsy Swims
• Using HRV with altitude

I’m going to explain how I qualified for World Champs, won Ultraman Hawaii, found my wife and improved my parenting game.

Big wins – different domains.

Here’s my template…

1. Create one new habit at a time
2. Set the bar low (!)
3. Hit that bar daily (30, 100, 500, 1000)
4. Remove what causes me to miss the minimum
5. Sort the specifics after the habit is on autopilot
6. Access experienced mentors
7. Surge effort when conditions are favorable

What would happen if you made a choice to…

• Do a little bit of cardio
• Do a little bit of strength
• Help one stranger
• Share a simple lesson you know well
• Make one connection
• Eat a salad at 3pm
• Eat 2 apples at 11am
• Write 100 words

…every single day for the next 1,000 days?

Build one small habit.

Repeat.

My 8:29 Ironman performance started when a fat finance guy (me) decided it might make sense to walk to the pub rather than drive.

I can remember that one choice.

I can remember a later choice to do something-every-day.

I’ve done my “1,000 days” many times => writing, investing, wife, kids, sport, connection, strength training

Knowing the power of compounding, I still underestimate the speed of improvement.

What are your deep wants and desires?

What one thing, if it happened, would change everything?

Why not move a little forward each day?

Why wait to be great

What does the title of this piece bring to mind?

• Jet?
• Multiple properties?
• Luxury yacht charters?
• Seven-figure burn rate?
• Handing out favors to friends and strangers?
• Being hailed and feted?

One of the best parts of my coaching journey was getting to know “the well adjusted rich.”

I’m going to spend a few Thursdays running through the lessons I learned from watching people who have a different set of limits.

The Best Teachers You Can Find

My journey started ten years before I got the job.

First, I was a student…

Meeting Joe Friel: Joe is the founder of triathlon coaching in the United States. I had the chance to spend a weekend with him in the Spring of 2000.

By the way, this is how you might get a mentor interested in you…

• I went to him
• I showed him how he’d helped me
• I listened to his advice
• I went away and did it

Something he said stuck with me, “I’d never met someone who understood my teaching as well as you.” I didn’t just study his philosophy, I tried to embody it.

Joe started me as a coach, helped me win races and wrote a book with me.

Great deal for both of us.

The strategy worked once, so I repeated…

John Hellemans, Scott Molina, Dave Scott, Mark Allen => I was able to learn from the best.

I shared what I learned, for free, widely.

Eventually, I was a teacher…

A decade later, I turn up in Oceanside, on a road bike, in March, and crush most everyone over 40 in a 70.3 race.

Two guys, I’d never heard of, reach out for a call and I accept. I didn’t know they were friends and checking me out, separately.

I get hired and have the chance to look under the hood of the well-adjusted rich.

Turns out my client was a successful finance-guy, who stayed in the game.

His life was, and remains, the best-case scenario of a life I decided not to lead.

Becoming world-class, publicly, creates unexpected opportunities.

Let’s call this Chapter One.

If you’ve been watching me on Twitter – you can see I’m following a similar playbook in 2022.

Not towards any specific goal => simply to connect, be engaged and create unexpected opportunities.

The Body You Want

• Understanding fatmax will change your life
• Protocol does not matter
• Start by creating a daily habit of easy movement
• “Out the door with no floor” by AC
• A stable equilibrium beats endless cost:benefit analysis

Fit Kids & Parenting

• Getting kids interested in sport in Hal’s trinkets tweet
• Kids will follow your emotional lead with Steve

Wealth

• How to meet Tony Stark – Student to Teacher
• Wealth Podcast with Brad – thread of extra info

High Performance Habits

• Debunkers wear me out – DO something worth sharing
• Case Study for your early career & where to work
• New Habit Creation – remember why you started
• A Weekly Summary to find your best stuff
• Leaders Frame Opportunity
• Pain is NOT the Process

Strength & Conditioning

• Case Study building Max’s Run/Bike Zones
• More hamstring – open the hip flexors
• Squat stuff includes Hip Opening
• My Swims & Monsy’s
• Fatigue Markers – jumpy heart rate is useful
• Track your vDot scores

When I’m tempted to call someone out, I put that energy into self-improvement (and housework).

One of my most effective techniques is turn my kids into Bounty Hunters.

I get them to hunt down my Bad Habits and call me out.

Two examples, and two price points

Misdemeanors

• Spitting toothbrush foam into the kitchen sink
• You catch me, or I catch you… $1 cash!

Felony Violations

• Yelling
• Anybody catches me… $100 cash!

So far the score is 1-1 for misdemeanors

No Felony Payouts, so far

…but I could have charged the kids more than once!

What’s this really about?

It’s a fun way to teach my kids that…

Effective leadership models a willingness to accept bad news

and

Speak up when you notice a Say-Do gap.

Last week, I wrote about my introduction to the well-adjusted rich.

Roll forward, I’m on the “special projects” team.

I have a look around.

• World-class skier
• World-class ultramarathoner
• World-class mountaineer
• Younger version of, said, WC Mountaineer
• Biz partner: former D1 athlete

Every person a mix of kind and competitive.

A limited number of close relationships, the collective sum being who the boss wanted to become.

This insight does not require assets.

It requires:

• enough space in your life to think strategically (control your schedule)
• the knowledge of where you want to go (choose wisely)
• access to the people you want to become (last week)

What wasn’t there.

I saw: spouse, kids, PA, pilot and the rest of the team.

No Posse.

The world has an incentive to tell us what we want to hear, if you’re rich then even more so.

Close relationships, who share truth.

How was the team used?

Short trips, shared experiences, having fun together.

Doing fun things with world class people.

Assets are no barrier to this life.

Go get it.

G – Literally Just listened to your catalyst podcast – excellent!!!!  Wow, truly good – thank you for putting that out there.  I took 8 pages of notes and I have already read your writing for decades

Family Wealth

• What’s the implied land value of the house next door?
• Mega Thread recommending Just Keep Buying (book)
• Part 2: Observations from the well-adjusted rich
• Strong HIRE signal
• Don’t wait too long – when to spend
• Giving my family an incentive to tell the truth
• How to assess your physical health
• How long to see progress?
• Parents: what’s your exit strategy?

High Performance Case Studies

• Pictures & Protocols of what/why I eat
• Intensity Domains (w/ video link) added to Zone thread
• Kiwi Training Secrets (Heavy Domain muscle group transition training)
• Race nutrition and Hydration for/from ultra champions
• Testing Your 1st Threshold
• Choose, Change and Sustain – foundations of movement
• Introducing Core Pace as a concept
• Doc Hellemans continues to redefine aging
• Mega thread: Getting Strong at 53
• Intro to Metabolic Flexibility (read the article)
• Gerry on Hierarchy of Sports Performance
• Coaching Manual I Wrote in 2004
• My bike lactate and Rx
• Link not required
  • Your ability to not-eat doesn’t limit performance
  • Eliminate binge triggers
  • Heart rate indicates stress & lacks a metabolic component
  • There is value in every sustainable protocol

Workouts

• Bike: Big Gear Training
• Swim: Elite from Monz and PC 1000s for all
• Run:Walk for Humans and Elites

Last month, my daughter was asked:

Do you have a Dad?

In Boulder, that’s a loaded question.

She smiled and said, “Yes, I have a Dad.”

The question has come up before.

I stay invisible around my kids’ sports.

I do this with intention.

I want them…

• to be INTERNALLY motivated
• to keep our RELATIONSHIP separate from their athletic success, or otherwise
• to INTERACT with them – I’m a player, not a spectator

Living in a town that places excessive glory on sport, my actions:

1. Support Internal Motivation
2. Lower Athletic Stakes
3. Focus on Shared Experiences

My daughter put me in a bind when she asked me to coach her.

Remember my advice to place the RELATIONSHIP ahead of performance

In January, we started a simple program – 20 minutes, done every Sunday, I’m not in the room

For the summer, I asked myself…

What do we want to achieve?

• For next season => get off the wall FAST
• Over the next 1,000 days => set up capacity to go heavy at 16 yo

I came up with three 20-minute sessions per week:

1. Continue the dryland program
2. Street sprints
3. Gym skill development & personal limiter mobility work

Let’s look at each

DRYLAND => keep what’s working, an all-around program she enjoys => good enough

SPRINTS => to get her off the wall FAST => choose an activity with close to max lower body recruitment

Uphill, street sprints – with casual walk downs

This tweet from Gerry explains more – it was a reminder of techniques we used in New Zealand.

Review & consider Gerry’s graphics – Hierarchy of Sports Performance and Motor Unit Recruitment

To set up the street sprints, she’s doing intramural track right now.

SKILLS => with ~8 swims a week, street sprints and dryland… plenty of load.

A 1:1 session gives me a chance to assess her fatigue while teaching:

• Squat Variations
• Cleans (I have a 20# “kid” bar)
• Sandbag Variations (I have a 15# “kid” bag)
• Hip flexor openings
• Eccentric rehab techniques

Let’s pull together the key points:

• KEEP what works
  • maintain the sport-specific schedule from last summer
  • her load is increasing naturally by getting faster
  • she’s enjoying the 20-minute dryland from YouTube
• Train general SKILLS – often missed at the sport-specific level
• PICK ONE thing that would make a difference
• RAMP LOAD GRADUALLY

Be patient – three summers until she’s 16.

As AC/DC remind us, it is a long way to the top (if you wanna to rock ‘n’ roll).

This series has been about learning from those without financial limits:

• Who do they share their best moments with?
• What are those moments?
• Are we missing out?

Once I’m on the inside of the team, I notice that my risk preference is the lowest in the group. Frankly, not surprising when you are rolling alongside extreme skiers and mountaineers.

Here’s something about risk. Group risk rises to the level of the MOST risk tolerant member.

It’s why my investment committee has the rule “most conservative carries the decision.”

Anyhow, with two young kids and a pregnant wife, I had learned what I could and wanted to put more time into my young family.

So I opted out.

My boss…

>You firing me?

>>No, most definitely not. There is no way I will be able to repay you for what you taught me.

…and off I went for a decade.

Once again on the road less travelled.

Not over, yet – most of them took up Skimo.

Let’s recap:

Best Days are defined by shared outdoor experiences with a small number of close friends – building memories that last

Peers & Teachers have a mix of kindness and competitiveness => notice this combination when you see it. These are people who tell us the truth, push us to do better and keep us grounded.

There’s nowhere to get to => I realized that between my wife, and my kids, I could create my own inner circle. A circle where we share Best Days and reduce our collective risk of ruin.

I remain grateful for the opportunity for a look behind the curtain.

High-Performance Protocols

• Neat section on competition inside The Courage to be Disliked
• When my kids were born, I wrote down my lessons from 20-40
• Risk preference in groups and life lessons from the well-adjusted rich
• Population level facts don’t always hold at individual level

Health & Fit Kids

• Teaching kids about mental health with Steve
• Howard teaching about ApoB
• Added elite teen ideas to my nutrition thread
• Summer Program for a fit teen

Case Studies

• AC, Elias and me on decoupling & early season base
• Where the heck is Zone 2 / Steady?
• How to create a steady zone you can work with
• Getting started with fly & Monica’s Elite Swims
• Applying Max’s bike test to his basic week
• Steve’s benchmarks & mine
• Using the bike to train metabolic fitness with Hal
• Guru is a fun follow for fast vets
• Big thread about VO2 at 400w
• Favorite patterns to build endurance
• Three FATox curves, three endurance protocols

I’ve been having fun reading NVDP’s training approach (link is to his site).

I felt deep satisfaction seeing an athlete improve on a protocol that was taught to me. Fun to be part of a lineage that extends backwards, and forwards, in time.

A personal confession, there is a twinge of sadness when I read the document. Sadness because I had the passion to do the work, but lacked the courage to recover.

I will teach this to my children, and offer it to you.

Recovery is what truly scares the highly motivated.

Where does it all begin?

Skeletal muscle mass – do you have enough muscle to generate the aerobic power for your goals?

Let’s be clear what I’m really talking about => self-starvation risks your ability to be an exceptional athlete.

I lift weights to have aerobic capacity for many tomorrows.

The foundation of wherever you want to take yourself is skeletal muscle mass – very important to get this message through to girls & boys.

Youngsters – ride the natural build up

Oldsters – preserve, and hopefully, build upon your current position

The value of a long slow day

I’m extremely consistent with my aerobic training.

My consistency has resulted in great health, but it has not translated to superior metabolic fitness.

Consistent, moderate aerobic exercise doesn’t translate to superior metabolic fitness.

I do wish it was otherwise!

My lack of metabolic fitness doesn’t impact my body composition, or my life. See my article on training middle aged docs.

Looking forward, metabolics might be a limiter.

Here’s the progression:

1. At first, moving around all day is tough enough
2. Next, noodling around, at any speed, for 4-6 hours, is tough enough
3. Then, maybe we add some jogging, or combine with some cycling
4. Then, we try to keep easy, constant pressure on our long session

The first time I did 1 to 4… it took me ~5 years

Slow ramp of load.

Know where you are trying to go.

• NVDP was seeking to break the world record for a 10K skate.
• I’d like the option to do expeditions with my 15-18 yo son.

The concept of 5s pops up in NVDP’s plan.

• 5 Days On, 2 Days Off
• 5x >5,000 kj on the bike
• 5 days of mind-blowing threshold sessions

The toughest expedition I can imagine can be structured as:

(5x) One Day On, One Day Off => ~5 big days in a two-week block

Thankfully, I don’t need to string 5 days together, like a world champion.

All I need to do is build the capacity to do One Big Slow Day, Rest then repeat.

This was the key lesson of my 20s: the capacity to do one big slow day changed my life.

What is your goal?

Share the journey with people you love.

I sold a large real estate asset this week, a residential rental.

There’s an argument that the buyer got the building for free (Twitter thread on backing out land value).

At the closing, my agent (50-ish) shared that the only recession he’d really experienced was 2008/2009. So the next chart is his personal experience with asset pricing.

The above chart is ~20-years of mortgage rate history. If you’re 40-something this is what you lived.

Mostly a one-way bet => falling long rates inflate financial assets.

Back to my sale.

I sold for a three reasons:

1. At 53, my life is changing. The window of what I need to finance is less and less. I have begun a strategic shift towards creating the life I want to live in my 60s.
2. Real Estate is lumpy, we don’t have the ability to incrementally rebalance. I wanted to reduce exposure before making any additional purchases.
3. The sale was valued at 43 years gross rental income (2.3%). Cash proceeds, after tax, were 64 years net rental income (1.6%).

The real estate market is like a super tanker, it takes a long time for momentum to shift. After the 2008/2009 recession, non-foreclosure prices didn’t adjust until the middle of 2010.

• Prices move at the margin => the marginal buyer had a strong tailwind through the pandemic, that has changed in 2022.
• There will be an impact of the near-vertical move in rates this year => initially, we will see this in markets that require loans to complete.
• The scale of “the impact” is unknowable and complicated by supply shortages of re-sale houses and for new build.
• Prices are being supported by rapidly rising cost-to-build and cost to renovate/remodel.

Lots going on – I can make a case for +25% and -25%.

At 53, taking 64 years-equivalent cash-flow off the table, in a rising rate environment, is a decision I’ll be able to live with regardless of future outcome.

Workouts & Working Out

• One Big Slow Day article – extra bits in the Twit-thread
• AC on metabolic fitness – everybody decent trains lots, that’s not what’s different
• FIRST, build the capacity to recover while moving
• Monsy Elite Swims & my Endurance Ladder swims
• Max endurance & big gear
• Long thread on using cadence in Early Base
• Using HRV in Early Base
• Hidden endurance limiters
• Started a thread on training nutrition
• Combination workouts – new doc
• My Swedish Approach to Early Base
• Basic backcountry set up
• Cycling for ultra runners
• Big thread on endurance pace without a lab
• Who is slowing down hard for?

True Wealth

• Risk assets & market timing
• Distance is like money – you need to choose what’s enough
• Coaching my kids to succeed everywhere
• Kriti asked about creating stillness
• Life Skills reading with Brad
• Age is not just a number – role of older mentors
• Choose where you live with intent
• Step One was selling a large asset
• Your lifestyle needs to be built to sustain a 65% drawdown

Productivity

• I fixed email a decade ago
• And used the time for Twitter
• How to hire, with Pat

Last Monday, I gave you three things to consider:

• Face your fear of recovery
• Consider if you have the muscle mass to achieve your goals
• Build your capacity for One Big Slow Day

Another way to think about recovery is to invert – give yourself a protocol that you will enjoy regardless of outcome – lack of enjoyment is a sign your approach is unsustainable.

Injury and illness are socially-acceptable ways to manifest a lack of enjoyment.

Work, school, sport… bad luck is less random than it appears.

The best thing I learned about protocol was taught to me by a doctor friend:

Gordo, we don’t heal people. People heal themselves.

The magic isn’t in the protocol, supplement or dogma…

The magic ingredient is YOU!

Step back from all the noise about protocols.

How might we create a lifetime of winning?

• Consistency
• Enjoyment

Focus there.

What do we see in every successful person?

1. Practice often
2. Devote time
3. Learn skills

Focus there.

I’ve been reading the literature around SuperElite performance. It gets me fired-up to “practice often, devote time & learn skills”

However… it strikes me as a lot of narrative wrapped around the complex system of human performance.

The literature lacks self-awareness… despite what you see in the media, you probably do not want to be a Super Elite. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

Not our situation to solve.

For the rest of us!

The mental side is what’s going limit.

While we are consistently enjoying the journey…

• do work
• take correction

Parents, allocating TIME to have fun while you MODEL these skills is one of the best gifts you can give your kids.

I doesn’t need to be you (but your kids really want you involved).

Teach your kids to be the best version of themselves.

Back in Feb, I laid out ideas for Multigenerational Capital, it included my strategy of Sell, Buy & Hold.

Last week, I completed the Sell Goal for 2022. There are two numbers I’d like to revisit:

• Gross Yield of 43 years, 2.3%
• Net Yield of 64 Years, 1.6%

I gave up ~2% yield on capital to add to my Strategic Reserve.

Snapshot from last week:

• 2Y to 30Y yield ~3%
• 30-year mortgage 5.25%
• VTSAX Dividend Yield ~1.5%

By the end of 2022, short-term margin debt is expected to cost more than index equity yields. Medium-term debt is already more expensive.

These changes mark an end to the free-money policies of the last few years. This is a big change – it is unknowable if the change will prove sticky.

So… wait and see. I did a minor rebalance this week.

The rebalance was a repeat of the “buy less” strategy I shared in Feb.

In March 2020 I increased equity allocations to 72% of my Vanguard portfolio. 

Allocating additional capital in 2022, I made a reserve for “an investment that benefits the present”…

…then rebalanced to 60% equity allocation. 

This reduced the size of the new investment and got me past decision paralysis, driven by a fear of near-term loss.

The reserve now sits at ~15 years Core Cost of Living.

We’ve been looking around for a place in the mountains.

Coming off a year of AirBnB skiing, I know our cost to rent implies a gross yield of 0.75 – 1.75%.

Alternatives to buying:

1. Stick the Strategic Reserve into VTSAX, rent through AirBnB and let dividend growth hedge rental inflation
2. Stick the Strategic Reserve into a medium term bond product (VBTLX @ 3%) and earn a margin over my cost to rent
3. Pursue either of the above, double my discretionary spending and run the capital down between now and my wife’s 85th birthday

For now, I’m taking Door #4

• Rebalance after large (down) moves
• Watch the Federal Reserve increase rates
• See what happens

A 35% market decline implies a dividend yield over 2.25%, which would let me lock in the equivalent of three-months cost of living (after tax, forever).

I tossed my idea of buying a Sprinter Van for camping. The shift towards “assets for fun” doesn’t come naturally.

Tweets of the Week (by engagement)

1. Better to REMOVE one thing than chase the latest thing
2. Our Pelotons read power -29% to +15% (nested threads)
3. There is no hurry in Early Base (or anytime, really)
4. What I did to get Ironman Marathon under 3-hrs
5. Recap of my 2nd round of Swedish 5:2

Data comes from my Public Dashboard on BlackMagic.So

Family

• There’s no rush to exit our kids from childhood
• What’s your why?
• Finding love

Workouts & Working Out

• Howard bought a sandbag, we offered tips!
• Added recovery food to my eating thread
• Monsy Muffin Recipe
• Sean’s big thread on finding breakpoints (look around)
• Elite Swims & my TTs Swim Patterns
• Favorite Run Cues
• Annual Planning tool
• Elias on time crunched training for a 300KM event!!!
• Steve on finish lines

High Performance Living

• Once a week, drop your most toxic follow
• Set Up a Lifetime of Winning
• Explaining rates/yields I track
• Steve explaining why I’m rarely at the pool
• Pat Basil is a quality follow – OK to breathe!
• AC: no amount of ANYTHING compensates for a lack of engagement
• Drawdown thread bouncing ideas with Mark
• Read this book for ideas about pain, depression and sleep meds
• Justin (& me) on financial books

A public forum a lousy place for topics that require 1:1 trust