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Fear and Panic

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Yesterday, my local CostCo sold out of Charmin in 15 minutes.

My cognitive capacity is so lit up I can’t remember my daily calendar.

Stress makes us stupid.

So…

#1 – execute my strategy, made before the current crisis

One of the nice things about following a rebalancing strategy is you are very likely to have sold (a little) at the peak. My pre-crisis rebalancing happened January 4th and I sold enough to cushion the psychological impact of recent declines.

I rebalanced on Monday and again today.

Limit down opens => phew!

#2 – lean into fear

Since 2014, my portfolio assets have been 60/40 in equities/bonds. For the last six years, I’ve expected bonds to get hammered by rising rates. It didn’t happen. Been wrong the entire time but it didn’t hurt me.

For my long-term capital, I’d rather use a 90/10 strategy (90% in equities). The trouble is getting there. I have zero confidence in my ability to pick the right time to shift. So I created a re-weighting strategy based on VTSAX/SP500.

A simple rule: as the market moves from 20% down to 50% down, I will rebalance equities upwards from 60% to 90% of portfolio holdings.

Today’s rebalance moved me to 63/37. The 63 is held 42/21 VTSAX/VTIAX.

Simple to execute => each time, I rebalance I check the %age off the peak, if we’ve set a new low then adjust the equity weighting upwards. Otherwise, steady as she goes.

This simple strategy is not easy to do => either I want to rush more money in (FOMO) or hold money back (plain old fear).

#3 – real estate

When your neighbors are stocking up on TP in preparation for the end times… it’s generally not a good time to be selling real estate.

What about buying? Real estate prices respond much more slowly to feelings/sentiment. At the last downturn, local real estate didn’t “get cheap” until 18-24 months after the crisis.

I suspect we’re going to see the residential market stop dead for a few months.

After that? I have no idea.

#4 – family

My family has been watching me stock the house for three weeks. They were amused but now we are ready.

I’ve been reassuring the kids they are going to be OK. There’s a lot of fear around.

At school, our youngest heard that “old people” were dying. She took me to one side and asked if I was going to be ok => Yes, Sweetie, I’m going to make it.

That said, a finance background is useful for understanding the impact of compounding. Our state saw a 33% increase in positive tests today. Keep that going through the end Spring Break and we will have 4,200 positives in 16 days (from 44 at Noon today).

Notwithstanding an absence of positive tests in Boulder County, I’m going to start home schooling on Monday. A significant burden on myself but a small price to slow the spread.

#5 – community

Will Colorado’s experience follow Italy, Hong Kong or Taiwan? I don’t know.

What we know for certain is there will be a large, sudden burden on the lower end of our communities. Consider giving a sizable donation to your local food bank.

We also know we will save lives by staying away from each other.

#6 – immunity

Something simple, but not easy, for readers of this blog => cut your training in half.

Take your program, cut it in half and watch what happens with the infection rate in your state.

If your state is on a log-scale infection rate then it will become apparent far more quickly than any fitness loss.

Your immunity will get a boost from this change and you’ll preserve all the health benefits from exercise.

#7 – cash, debt and leverage

If you have an emergency fund then this would be a good time to make sure it is liquid. I have three-months expenses sitting in my checking account.

Not willing to lean into the market downturn? Consider using surplus cash to pay down debt.

If the downturn persists then do you know what can ruin you? There are many types of leverage => I’ve written about this a lot.

 

 

 

 

Habits and Happiness

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vail

Two recent reads: Atomic Habits and Willpower Doesn’t Work.

What I got from them…

Drive all knowledge inwards. This is a very old lesson. For best results, apply teachings on yourself first => do this for a very, very long time.

Many of the changes I have made (in the last five years) are in anticipation of being surrounded by high-energy teenagers and the conversations we are going to be having years from now.

When you are making positive changes, expect the people around you to get uncomfortable and test you. Don’t be surprised if the people closest to you start to bring up the errors of your past. When that happens I smile to myself, “They clearly have nothing recent to use. I’m making progress!”

Pay attention to the “why.” Many of us desire improved habits to cram more into our lives. More money, more beauty, more external success… chances are you have enough already.

Whenever I want to make a significant change in my life, I must create space, and mental bandwidth, to step outside my existing habits.

With three kids, some of the most valuable time in my life feels a lot like “empty” space, or even “wasted” space. I see the folly of this thinking by inverting and asking, “What does stress feel like?” => rushed, crowded, busy

What choices, am I repeating that, create stress? Social media, high-conflict people, cable news, an inability to say “no”…

What choice might create space?

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

Happiness is the gap between cravings. This gem is inside Atomic Habits. If you write a lot then sometimes you’ll spit out a deep truth.

Self-help doesn’t work because it teaches techniques we use to reinforce our cravings.

  1. How well do I know my cravings?
  2. Where are they likely to take me?
  3. What are the choices that reduce my cravings?

Using the techniques in the books to guide, or replace, cravings… very useful.

Understanding what’s driving my attraction to technology, social media… great stuff.

One example from my own life => connection and approval => I can get this, at a much deeper level, from a child than from Facebook.

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Widen the space between cravings => improved feelings of wellbeing

Use the books to cram more into my life => probably a reduction in space and reinforcement of cravings => no improvement in wellbeing

+++

Pay attention to what works.

  1. One win early
  2. Forests
  3. Routine
  4. Being slightly under-scheduled

Radical change might not be required.

A Gentle Reminder

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2020-02-29 12.19.17

A month ago, I was sitting at the dinner table and started chuckling to myself.

My son asked what was so funny and I replied, “I just realized how hooped you people are without me.”

2020-02-28 14.38.41

My kids have two main negotiating tactics: repetition and whining.

Our oldest (11), has a wider range of tactics and I encourage her to deploy them against me. It’s good practice for the real world. Unfortunately, she also has a habit of subjecting her siblings to random dominance displays.

So the song of disorder has three notes:

  1. Repetition
  2. Whining
  3. Dominance

The reason I was laughing at dinner was I finally figured out my kids had a really, really, really crappy negotiating position.

Further, this crappy position is going to stay bad for at least five more years.

Five years is beyond forever.

2020-02-29 12.19.43

That evening, I had been working on family taxes, while trying to schedule house cleaning, grocery shopping and some time for myself.

Combining everything, I decided it was time to gently remind my kids that the entire structure of their lives falls apart if they decide to take me on.

My opener had three notes:

  1. Endorphins – no electronics while driving
  2. Status – no visiting our ski club restaurant
  3. Fear – reduction in number of days skiing

I gave them the following message, individually:

  1. Your teachers and coaches tell me you are outstanding. I need you to bring your outside behavior into our house.
  2. If you want the best life in Colorado then I’m going to need you to make one change.

The change being “no blocking” for our oldest and “no yelling inside” for the other two.

One change to get your iPad back in the car.

One change to get my house more live-able for the next decade.

2020-02-28 12.20.20

We skipped our family ski day the last two weeks, drove home and the kids helped me clean the house top-to-bottom.

Cleaning was “totally separate from the noise in the house issue…”

My son is a bit of a “bro-cleaner.”

Bro-anything is when you do such a crappy job that you hope to get fired and don’t have to do it again.

Ladies beware, you’ve likely been “bro’d” before => childcare, meal prep, shopping and cleaning. Bro-zone!

Anyhow, we discovered we each have a niche we enjoy doing (spray bottles, vacuuming with music, floors, toilets).

Effectively saves me $75 per hour while training my kids to live on their own.

A bonus you might not have considered… in the currency of personal freedom, cleaning generates the single largest return on investment within my marriage.

Your ability to deploy this strategy is inversely related to the square footage you own. Another hidden cost of assets we think will make us happy.

What’s the job you can not do?

Your Life

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2020-02-22 07.55.12

Last May, I challenged myself to publish 50 blogs.

The process was triggered by an article encouraging me to embrace small failures. There is a little bit of risk associated with publishing, and risk makes me feel good.

I have a policy whereby I only publish if I’m ok with the article being the last thing on my site. This is a good email policy as well. I only publish/send something if I’m OK with it being my last interaction with you.

The final two goals were to leave a record of this period for my kids and find out if we (reader/writer) have overlap in our areas of interest.

The goals were useful, especially the practice with risk-taking.

2020-02-17 09.12.42

Two things were even more helpful.

#1 – document the key strategic decisions in my life. Do not trust your memory, or your ability to remember over time. Our memories are selective and self-serving.

#2 – talent, hard work, luck => their impact is real. However, the largest impact in your life is knowing what you want to achieve. Most people never compare their daily choices to their goals. Writing helps me get straight in my head.

Marriage => athletic wife, who is kind to me

Home Life => kids who respect my desire for harmony

Financial Life => simple, low cost, long term gain oriented, enables me to spend most of my life exercising in nature

Physical Life => able to do fun things with my wife and kids, separately

Each of these implies a certain “what to do.”

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I am bombarded daily by ideas about how to pack more into my life => my need is not more. I have plenty to do!

The “what to do” helps me prioritize => for example

  • an athletic wife implies supporting the athletic aspect of her life
  • harmony at home implies routine and adequate sleep for the kids (and using incentives for them to change disruptive behaviors)
  • financial life goals are a filter for eliminating ideas that will take time away from my real priority (of exploring the Rockies)
  • physical life goals get me lifting weights early in the morning – start every day with a win

The best filter I have is my early wake up. It encourages me to say “no” to a lot of attractive stuff.

Another “not to do” is overlaying “my” goals across my spouse. It is endlessly tempting to help her improve her life (by being more like me).

Finally, watch that your journalling doesn’t become a never-ending list for Santa, or your ego.

Your life only has to make sense to yourself.

Choose wisely.

An Enduring Source of Happiness

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2020-01-28 09.37.55

Clayton Christensen died last week and he left us this article, which was written ten years before his death. His questions…

First, how can I be sure that I’ll be happy in my career? Second, how can I be sure that my relationships with my spouse and my family become an enduring source of happiness? Third, how can I be sure I’ll stay out of jail?

Articles, like Clay’s, encourage us to take positive actions to guide our life path. However, particularly when I was young, I had no idea about my future self.

Frankly, it was tough for me to understand myself in the present => ruled by passions and an energy I could neither understand nor control.

I had radically changed my life when I came across Clay’s article. These changes were heavily influenced by another HBR article, Managing Oneself, which I read annually. Combining the articles will give you more than applying them separately.

For me, it remains a whole lot easier to see “what not to do.” To see where I don’t belong and to consider where my repeated mistakes are likely to take me.

Every mistake, not addressed, will repeat and strengthen.

Via Negativa – defining a life with meaning by knowing what it is not => from 15 to 30 years old… my life was a case study of what not to do.

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Clay makes the point that you need to get going with creating your ethical anchor because, otherwise, you’ll get too “busy” to address the stuff that’s likely to wreck your life!

Career, family and self => here is a question I asked myself for 1,000 days around my 30th birthday…

If this behavior continues then where is it likely to take my career, my life and myself?

Initially, I was focused on other people’s shortcomings. What they were doing to me, and around me. Eventually, I started to look inward, at my own role.

2020-01-28 11.50.00

I was very fortunate to start my career in finance, a field where you can build capital in a relatively short time => 3-7 years learning the ropes => 3-7 years saving money, keeping my personal burn rate down and building the courage to leave.

In finance, winning is defined by making money and, looking back, the people that stand out were the ones unwilling to bend their ethics to make money. My first team was led by these sorts of people and I loved it.

What wasn’t working for me at the time was my personal life, which was filled with periodic alcohol abuse and consistent overeating.

I lacked a central anchor around which to make myself a better person => sport, religion, family, ethical work… there are many ways to “solve” this core need.

My firm, and friends, tolerated my personal shortcomings and tried to nudge me towards better behavior.

I smile remembering their nudges.

If you’ve tried to reason with a belligerent, and aggressive, person then you’ve probably discovered that polite nudging is ineffective.

What works better is time, and the inevitable smackdowns that life delivers to us all.

You might get fired, you might get really sick or injured, your firm might go bust, a close friend might die…

These painful episodes can provide an opportunity to reflect and ask, “Where are my choices likely to take me?”

By 31, the path ahead was becoming clear and it was likely to be filled with regret.

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In my early-30s I decided to spend a lot of time in places filled with people living in a way I wanted for myself => an outdoor life with friends.

I also found a central anchor, endurance sport, which provided a framework to address (some of) my personal shortcomings => binges were pushed into my offseason…

Turns out my “career” after finance wasn’t going to be elite sport. Two problems there. First, I wasn’t able to make much money! Second, another values misalignment with the concept of winning => we excuse awful behavior in our athletic champions.

My central pillar was going to become family, but not because it is fun. Rather because it is extremely difficult in a way that provides meaning and satisfaction.

My problems are an ideal fit for molding me into the person I want to be, forcing me to connect with others and providing me with an enduring source of satisfaction.

Getting yourself to the “right” set of problems can be more useful than solving everything coming across your plate. In my 20s, I was highly productive but not getting anything meaningful done!

Print the two articles out, make notes and take one positive action each day.

Where are my actions likely to take me?

 

Marriage Mindset

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Ax_Dad

I’ve found these helpful.

+++

At its core, what’s marriage?

Marriage is an agreement to never intentionally harm each other.

2020-01-19 13.25.31

I have a strange, and recurring, expectation => a desire to see my spouse happy doing things that I find difficult.

It is unreasonable to expect my spouse to be happy doing things I find difficult.

2020-01-20 10.27.15

Early in our relationship, I made a wise decision.

I gave up trying to teach my wife anything about nutrition.

I should have extended this attitude across a wider range of topics.

I didn’t marry for the opportunity to teach competency to my spouse.

I married for the opportunity to serve.

2020-01-20 13.52.58

Our children have two habits that cause problems in our house: (1) “accidentally” physically hurting each other; and (2) the use of biting “humor” to tweak each other.

Make a habit of avoiding unnecessary conflict.

Start by noticing, there is a lot of it, particularly internally.

2020-01-19 06.48.00

Winners want the ball.

To be fit for leadership, I need to figure out how to deal with this.

“This” being whatever happens to be upsetting me at the minute.

2020-01-20 13.30.57

I don’t need to “figure out” everything.

What I need to figure out is my reaction to the normal ups and downs of life!

I am absolutely certain, my future self will say I could have chilled out more.

Make a habit of yielding as much as possible.

Basic Week Parenting

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2020-01-12 09.45.34

When I was training seriously, I’d start most seasons with 13-weeks where I would “stay put and roll the week.” Having a simple, basic week is a powerful tool for getting stuff done and avoids the cost of variation.

The cost of variation is the energy required to consider alternatives, to choose and to negotiate for “space” for ourselves.

When you are at the limit of your ability, patience or capacity to recover => eliminating unnecessary variation (and associated conflicts) can be a big help. I’ve brought a similar approach to my family.

I’ll use my son’s schedule as an example, here’s what he’s doing November to April:

  • Monday – school/soccer
  • Tuesday – school/water polo
  • Wednesday – choir/school/jiujitsu
  • Thursday – school/swim lesson
  • Friday – school/go to mountains
  • Saturday – ski group/movie night
  • Sunday – family ski/back home

Every-single-morning, he’s going to read for 20 minutes before doing anything. He is usually reading by 6:31am.

Despite everyone “knowing” the schedule, we write it out and place it on the kitchen counter. This lets everyone have a look and get comfortable with the plan.

There is variety between the days, but little variation between the weeks. For example, I don’t need to worry about what we are going to do on a rainy February weekend.

+++

The bulk of my “life” fits into the time before my kids wake up, when they are at school and my “days off.” In the winter, many weeks, my wife handles the kids from end of school Thursday to Friday evening.

Bedtimes, my own included, are set so we can wake up and keep the week rolling. When we start to get run down bedtimes move earlier and earlier.

I give myself zero flexibility with my own wake-up time => “no excuses wake-up” eliminates energy spent on choice.

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Some principles we use.

Sleep, school work and healthy eating is our highest priority. Create the habits and energy to outperform.

Kids don’t know what they want. Our minds are hardwired to complain about every single change and variation => just look inside! Absent a repeating schedule, you are certain to have endless negotiations. Exhausting, when you don’t have energy to spare.

My kids want: love, to demonstrate competence and acceptance => the schedule needs to provide everyone with a chance to meet their basic human needs.

Clear ownership of responsibilities. Who is doing what? The kids are hardwired to compete for your time. Lay out the mommy/daddy times, make it equitable. With our preschoolers, showing them their “mommy days” was very important to reduce conflict and let mom see she was doing enough.

Keep it rolling at grade level. I do not care about the relative performance of my kids. I am most interested in identifying holes. If you have a future Rhodes scholar in the house then it will become apparent in its own time. However, if you miss the fact that your little one doesn’t know how to read then it will severely damage self-confidence, their attitude toward education and their capacity to teach themselves.

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My constraints are extremely useful as they keep me from over-doing-it. I have a track record of burying myself with fatigue.

My goal is to do what needs to be done, strengthen my marriage and have peace of mind => to know I am executing to the best of my ability, most days. I know what I want.

Because I witness my internal dialogue, I am constantly reminded of my shortcomings!

Meeting a reasonable basic week gives me an anchor and avoids the temptation to increase my expectations of myself.

Simplicity and repetition.

 

Diversity of Thought – Things we can’t imagine

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2020-01-05 14.39.11-1.jpgA popular theme in the media is handwringing about the divisive nature of political discussion. Everything would be much better “if we could just get along.”

I’m not sure.

Social systems tend to overshoot, overreact, over-everything. When we have widespread agreement (think totalitarian states) humans tend to drive the bus off the road.

Can you name an area where we have wide-spread agreement across the political spectrum?

I can.

Deficits, borrowing, bonding.

Left-right, north-south, east-west, up-down, local-state-national-continental => near total agreement on the benign nature of government debt.

Because disagreement limits the size of potential errors, total agreement worries me.

A surprise in my 2019 was my state’s voters not approving a change to our taxpayer’s bill of rights. It is the only constraint, on the ambitions of government, I noticed last year.

We should not expect government (or friends & family) to “do the right thing” in advance of a crisis. Human nature isn’t designed to work that way. An increase in our collective tolerance of regulation and taxation (ie pain) doesn’t happen until after a crisis.

Our collective problems won’t be addressed until after they blow up.

My individual risks, however, can be addressed right now.

A collective belief in the benign nature of debt is self-reinforcing. While the debt cycle expands, asset values are inflated, consumption is pulled forward and economic growth is nudged upwards. Because of its ability to feed on itself, debt expansion can continue for a very long time, particularly with interest rates near zero. Ultra-low rates enable lenders to fool themselves about the credit quality of the marginal borrower.

What to do?

Life is not filled with only bad news! Am I able to take advantage of unexpected positive surprises?

It’s counterintuitive but I’m positioning myself to borrow a lot of money. My 2020 project is creating an option to borrowing 30-years fixed at an interest rate that none of us can currently imagine.

How might unexpected negative surprises wipe me out?

Consider who is getting out of hand with their current borrowings. What’s the credit quality of… your employer? your family? your largest customers? your local/state/national government?

Do you work for a high-leveraged company, in a state with massive unfunded pension liabilities, while rolling your credit card balance each month?

Hidden liabilities lie (mostly) hidden. Ponzi schemes, unfunded retirement benefits, promises for future spending, fixed price contracts… think about your life. Where do you have exposure to a single person, CEO, manager, employee, fund, investment? In an easy-money environment, it is possible to hide significant liabilities.

Things we can’t imagine are likely to be underpriced.

Kinda tough to imagine the unimaginable! What seems impossible to imagine? Inflation, interest rates at historical norms, rapid nominal growth, credit crisis in a large sovereign, large hot-war…

For me, the goal is not to predict the outcome. My main goal is to protect my lifestyle from shocks and surprises.

To make it real, I ask, “what could blow up ski season?” Health, injuries, illness => my current risks are more human, than financial. Think beyond the money.

To focus on new ideas requires us to reduce the noise in our lives. Are you engaging in a policy of constant distraction?

There is a lot we can do to manage our exposure to the errors of others. Bad companies, bad relationships, bad government… many of us have the ability to pack up and leave. I’ve lived and worked in eight different countries, on three continents. Gradually working towards a situation where the main person who can hurt me is myself!

As a young man, I spent many years exposed to the errors of a single individual (my bosses and my business partners). More common is exposure to the errors of a single corporation.

With preparation, you can benefit in times of stress, but first you must survive.

Positive Change

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IMG_8697

My inkling for change starts with a feeling that I should take a break from doing something, or seeing someone.

The “someone” breaks happen because I notice that my inner life becomes unpleasant. I don’t like my thoughts when I’m around the person. So I take a break and pay attention.

The “something” breaks happen because I ask myself the question… “where is this choice, repeated, likely to take me?” Eating habits and a couple daily beers would be examples from my life.

Anger, self pity, inaction in the face of adversity, getting really upset about external reality… other areas where “I should take a break”.

Politics, ethical lapses of others, the drama in your media feed… do you need more? So nice to dial it down.

Unfortunately, by the time I notice something is damaging me it’s already become a negative habit.

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Do It Now => If take-a-break thoughts stick around then I don’t wait for lent, don’t wait for New Years, don’t wait until later.

I make a change for a month and pay attention.

A month will not create a habit but it is enough time to see if it might be worth the long-term effort that’s going to be required to change.

The sooner I start, the sooner it will get easier to live with the change.

After 500-days, my habits roll along, mostly on autopilot. My job (on the far side of change) is to not screw up the streak, and reduce life stress when old habits start to tempt me.

+++

The Drain of Self-Justification => resist the urge to justify yourself with others. You are going to need that mojo for something useful!

Don’t say goodbye, don’t give a huge explanation, don’t burn bridges… Because…

First, and most importantly, I need all my energy to sort my own life out.

Second, I’m going to feel differently about this situation (and every situation!) later and don’t want to go on-the-record in my mind.

Finally, do what you need to do and be low-key about it.

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Peers => pretty clear that you don’t want to hang around your dealer, anger-buddies or gluttony-appreciation crew. The “not do” is a whole lot easier to see.

As a guy who enjoys periodic isolation, it can be easy to think that the answer is walling myself off. Lasting change needs to happen in a way than enables me to live in the world, to connect with others.

What do I want more of?

More of the person who makes me want to improve => I married her.

More of the people who motivate me to set a better example => my kids.

More of the wisdom to see the difficulties I experience are coming from the pain of change NOT from anything to do with other people.

It is not about what we think it is about. All of my difficulties are arising inside of me.

+++

Stress => as an elite athlete, the spring and summer would be spent with a focus on “doing.” Training stress would be high as I prepared for a race. Fall was a time for racing, then assessing. Winter was when I dropped stress down and addressed issues that had arisen during the high-stress period of the summer (or tried to put my life back together after six-months of ignoring most non-sport items).

Unfortunately, the lifecycle of a family doesn’t work on an annual basis!

As a father, I couldn’t just hold on until November…

Being newlyweds was an amazing time and I had my life dialed.

As we added, babies and financial stress => 2008-2015 => my “bad” habits started to return. Financial stress and toddlers are a potent combination if you’re prone to escapism.

I’m not sure if I realized what was happening but I noticed moments when I said to myself “I should probably take a break from this.”

In times of high-stress, keep it together as best you can. It’s going to be tough, for a while. I had a buddy advise, “just don’t get fat.” He’d gotten fat.

Once our youngest started kindergarten, I had the capacity to start making progress (back towards where I was in 2004!).

  • 500 days to make a new habit.
  • Don’t mess with a streak.
  • Pay attention to your triggers => people, places, situations.

So if you are thinking about change… choose one thing, with a low bar and do it daily for 500 days.

Difficult games can be fun to play.

+++

PS – As my friend, Doc Hellemans, says… “exercise is medicine” – picture above is from my 51st birthday lunch.

2019 Wrap Up

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2019-12-20 07.28.00Closing out 50 and wanted to jot down a couple thoughts.

The single greatest surprise of 50 was discovering I can make progress on difficult things => from my personality quirks to fatherhood to strength training.

I thought I’d be spending most my time managing my “decline.” Got that wrong.

That said, the declining energy of age is real. So I’d encourage you to climb your mountains. Don’t wait!

2019-12-18 19.10.14

For good and bad, life runs on habit energy.

Far more valuable than financial returns, our daily habits will compound across the decades of our lives.

20+ years of the following:

  • Daily movement
  • Be a better guy
  • Apply the energy from negative emotions in a positive manner => internal improvement beats external justification

For me, practicing with intent (say with parenting or marriage) requires mental effort. This effort is “expensive” and not fun. I spend a lot of time lowering the stakes and simplifying.

When you are fall short, have a look around. Consider if your goals are too complex and your environment too stressful. I can be easily overwhelmed during the holidays.

Sleep, weight, anger, cravings => we have patterns that emerge in stressful times. As a young man, I’d muddle through by giving less to my relationships. These days, I create space in my week and back off my physical output.

I miss grinding through but it’s counterproductive (and being exhausted never was all that fun).

2019-12-15 16.04.31

The next big transition will happen when my kids move out. This requires a set of skills that don’t come naturally to me.

So the 20+ years that I’m going to spend as a parent, with three kids in my house, are an opportunity to practice getting along with people.

I’m extremely fortunate to be married to a woman that finds human quirks entertaining.

2019-12-13 07.52.45

Finally, I gave this advice to a friend many years ago, when he was the age I am now.

You might die but probably not.

So it’s worth working on the things that will prove useful to your future self.

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