Grannie’s Bystander Problem

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I played a central role in managing my grandmother’s care over the last two years. Here are some thoughts that might help you and your siblings.

It’s better for everyone to have ‘the conversation’ before it is required. Most families lack plans, or skills, to deal with their elders’ passing.

A – each elderly person needs a champion. By champion, I mean a leader, not an owner, of a situation.

B – the champion’s role is to co-ordinate care by the family, and outsiders. In our family, reflecting different skills, we split the financial/admin support from the emotional/medical support. This split works very well.

C – be careful not to ‘own’ an elder. Use caution with commitments that might impair your ability to meet the needs of your spouse and kids. Don’t become a casualty, emotionally or financially.

The highest achieving, or most emotionally giving, can be tempted to move the elder into their house. This can be great, or a disaster, we’ve seen both outcomes in our family. Often from the same situation, but different perspectives (grand kids vs spouse).

D – be open with what needs to be done and ask everyone to contribute a little bit.

E – geographical spread costs time and money. My family lives all over the world, there is a large, mostly hidden, potential liability due to our spread.

Because the problems of the elderly (health, loneliness, death) are difficult to resolve, many people don’t bother to try. That’s a shame because you’ll never regret a small kindness but you might regret not making any effort at all.

A friend shared with me that, in death, she didn’t have anything to offer her parent. The earlier relationship had been unhealthy and she’d decided to end the cycle of pain in her family. She was getting push back from her family to engage but couldn’t bring herself to do something that lacked authenticity.

It reminded me that sometimes our role might be to take the blame as others deal with their grief. Being a father gives me many opportunities to chose what I think is best, rather than expedient.

As a parent, I hope to teach my kids to improve a little bit on the legacy I pass to them.

With powerful emotions, write down how you’re feeling. Time will reshape your memory and you may want a record of why you made your decisions, especially if you have a habit of regret.

The following were central lessons:

As the end nears, small kindnesses have large impacts.

Everyone contributes based on their own capacity.

Don’t keep score.

Your community likely has resources to help you manage. Ask for help.

Our actions train our families to manage our own decline.

Preserve dignity as long as possible.

When You’ve Made Your Money

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By the time I was 32 years old, I had created a life where I had the option of working parttime. For the most part, I got that opportunity “right” and enjoyed my freedom.

My errors came from from the thought (perhaps the lie) that spending yields happiness. That belief, shared by most my peers, pulled me back into fulltime employment twice over the last decade.

The first time I was pulled back, it was to help a friend start a business. There was huge equity upside and I loved the work. It was a good decision but I ended up over-extended financially. Thankfully, I started selling down in 2005 and, in the Great Recession of 2008, “only” lost 2/3rds of my net worth.

The scale of the losses was equal to what wiped out my grandfather’s generation. In the four generations of my family tree (that end with me), we’ve lost enough money for the entire family to never have to work a day in their lives. The bulk of my current job description (father, teacher, administrator, spouse, brother, uncle, trustee) is trying to reduce the frequency, and consequences, of these bad decisions.

When I took my big financial hit, my cost of living (2008) was 5x higher than what I spent in my first year of “freedom” post-college (2001).

Due to the bankruptcy of the business I’d been advising, I was under a tremendous amount of stress. Reflexively, I chose to cut expenses and replace income. My family’s 2009 expenditure was half of 2008, but remained 2.5x higher than what I spent in 2001. I focused on my back-up career of coaching (always have Plan B!) and managed to cover 50% of what I was spending.

At that point, 2010, I didn’t know what to do. Inside my personal business plan, I have a heuristic “if in doubt then wait.” So I repeated the year, with a couple exceptions, Axel (2011) and Bella (2012).

Gradually, across 2011 and 2012, I realized that preserving the status quo (large house, dad working to pay bills that don’t make him happy) was insane. Despite being complete insanity, I was following a path that had universal support in my peer group. As my kids popped up, I noticed that I was getting less and less fun to be around AND I was actively working to create a life outside my house.

The family readings that I shared, and my family history, show that it’s almost certain that we will wipe ourselves out (perhaps more than once) in the next seventy-five years.

What should you know about your money?

  • Most of any financial legacy will be gone a couple decades after my death, or spent by people I never knew
  • The greatest pressure I experience is preserving wealth that I’m unlikely to spend
  • I know I can live in peace on a fraction of my current spending

What do I truly need? Easy to answer day-to-day: exercise, love, service and health.

For the long-term, I like to have a mission. Why not make the people I live with part of my mission? Then I’m surrounded by meaning, and success. If that’s the case then what does my family truly need?

Empathy – it’s easy to find people to do stuff. It’s a lot tougher to find people to listen and care.

Learn To Teach Ourselves – my writing is about sharing how I teach myself. Tools that I want to pass to my kids: write down insights and blindspots, make errors visible, replace habits that hold us back and share stories of what you’d like to become.

Cope With Loss – More by accident than design, I’ve been on a self-guided education of the major faith traditions, neuroscience and behavioral psychology. This has led me to believe that loss is an opportunity to learn by experience. Until life deals us a major setback, we will not understand impermanence and the nature of existence. Create a daily practice that let lets you process, release and recharge from the challenges we all face. Deal with loss by continuing the good that you’ve learned.

My kids weren’t around for for the first 40 years of my life. Common sense means I won’t be here for the last 40 years of their lives.

What’s your legacy?

Good memories and a skill set that let’s the student surpass the teacher.

Mentors and Peers

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How can I stack the deck in favor of being a good guy?

First, I try as much as possible to get positive influences to visit me.

Second, I’m willing to travel to hang out with people that are what I’d like to become. Back when I was an elite athlete, this drove my travel schedule. These days I travel less but it remains a big chunk of my year.

My family allocates 14 weeks per annum for my travel.

  • 4 weeks of that is my wife and me
  • 2 weeks is used for continuing education
  • 8 weeks is for my own uses – these days split between non-Boulder family visits and personal trips, mainly to ride.

My daughter joins me for two weeks of the above and we do another two weeks worth of in-state travel together.

Pulling it together, I have a job description that gives me 16 weeks per annum of variation from my normal routine.

Before my daughter was 2 years old, this allocation would roll between 30 and 40 weeks per annum. As I’ve simplified my life, and released my expectations for triathlon greatness, I feel more free with less travel.

In considering a trip, I ask myself three questions…

  1. Are the people that I will see infused with goodness?
  2. How do the people make me feel?
  3. If I turned out like these folks, would I be ok with it?

There are plenty of people, and companies, who pass the test. Make a note when you meet these people and keep them in your life. 

While its tempting to vacation in, say, Vegas, we are more likely to generate success by keeping the goodness in our lives. For the key relationships (bosses, mentors, clients, peers) visiting on their home ground will broaden your understanding, and keep you humble with your capacity to predict. The on-the-ground situation is nearly always different than I imagine.

The focus on “the good” is an ethical litmus test. I’ve caught myself valuing winning over kindness, an occupational hazard if you’ve spent time in a field (sport) that values relative performance. I’m also prone to errors of judgement due to wealth and beauty.

Choose Wisely.

Difficult Conversations

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Over the last year, I have been travelling to learn about my friends’ lives. The trips are short, and we have the opportunity to talk a lot. By keeping the trip short, and going to my pals, the quality of the conversation is high and the inconvenience to my family is small. The trips have a large payoff for me:

  • Gratitude for the life I have
  • Learn what’s good about their lives – try to figure out the payoff from living like them
  • Make sure I see friends that I want to keep in my life
  • Learn about an aspect of their lives where they have different knowledge than me (teenagers, aging, the transition to adulthood, healthcare, performance psychology, grief & loss).
  • Do something random to generate new opportunities.

One of my favorite discussion topics is managing difficult conversations. For example, a challenging situation for doctors is telling the mirror image of themselves about the arrival of their greatest medical fear – cancer or terminal illness.

I ask questions about.. How to cope? How to be effective? What is best practice?

These skills are useful at work and are essential to create an exceptional family web. I’ll share what I’ve learned so far.

Before a difficult conversation, pause and remember:

  • This situation is not about me
  • I am part of the solution
  • Be cautious
  • Understand that I will make incorrect assumptions about everything around me

The points above get me in a relaxed frame of mind, especially when combined with my Big Meeting Protocol. The mental preparation works best when combined with an on-going process of self-reflection (that I like to do while cycling). You’ll be surprised that you can mute your emotional triggers by awareness that they exist.

Understand your hot bottons – examples might be: not caring, not doing enough, letting someone down, past mistakes where I’ve yet to ask for forgiveness, or not addressing areas in my own life where I need to make change.

Know your desired outcome – examples might be: clear communication, exit a relationship, create consensus, make better decisions.

Follow up in writing – if the conversation triggers fear, or anger, in the other person they are unlikely to remember the conversation. Even if you’re hearing each other, everyone hears a different conversation. Certainly, everyone remembers a different conversation.

Focus on helping the other person – I’m more likely to get my desired outcome if I help the other person achieve their own goals. A doctor might ask a terminally ill patient, “is there an up-coming event that we can focus on getting you to attend?” Alternatively, a family member might have concerns about public perception, confidentiality or independence.

Remembering my tendency to make incorrect assumptions – I like to gather information from the other party so I can better serve their needs. Often, a person’s needs are as straightforward as being listened to, respected and valued.

Finally, I remember that my mission isn’t to change others…

  • …because I don’t know best
  • …because I have my hands full with myself
  • …because my life is my source

28-days away from elite sport

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Today is the four-week anniversary of my pause from focusing on elite sport.

For moral support, my wife’s been taking a 28-day break from Facebook . I think her break has been tougher because Facebook started an email campaign against her. I had a similar thing happen to me in 2010 and forewarned her that the spam-bots were crafty!

I’ve been Facebook free since the start of 2012 – it can be done.

My break has been 100% positive – I can’t find a single drawback to my life from pausing from professional sport.

Training – with less web usage (particularly twitter), I suddenly had time to train in the morning before my kids get up. While it was “only” one extra run per week, I felt great that entire day from the early session. It’s worth noting that 1 extra session per week, boosted 14% of my waking hours. Early training is high-return exercise.

Reading – I’ve been talking about reading at home for more than a year. I do most of my reading on airplanes and, subtly “blame” my kids for not being able to read at home. In the last month, I’ve managed to read three books at home, which is more than the previous twelve months! The books were: The Gift of Therapy; Living a Jewish Life; and Life’s Greatest Lessons. Turns out I was the issue, not my kids (who remain full of energy and a source of self-knowledge).

Patience – It could be the normal ebb and flow of parenting relationships but, as I reduce my time online, I’ve had more tolerance with my kids. Less in-bound noise seems to result in better relationships around me.

As for the outside world, Life Goes On…

My media filter isn’t complete and I heard all the major stories (and a few that haven’t hit the press yet). The difference is they filtered through gradually, rather than having to ferret them out. While I might be less informed on athletic gossip, I know enough to meet the needs of my friends, family and team. “Fresh news” is nearly always incorrect – I’m better off without it (links to my blog on improved thinking).

Turns out I was fooling myself about my need for constant input on, and criticism of, the choices of others. Not the first time.

Another debt of gratitude to my wife (links to my gratitude list).

The cost of the status quo is always hidden. I’m glad I was willing to try a change.

What’s Your Gifting Strategy

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I love riding my bike with friends. To create more opportunities for that to happen, I give away a lot of cycling gear each year. When my friends wear the gear, I hope they think of me – even if they don’t think of me, it makes me happy to give gear away.

Here’s what I’ve learned about gifting…

It is an essential and effective way to influence behavior.

At some level, most of us feel that we deserve gifts. I need to be cautious about reinforcing entitlement in recipients.

The best gifts are items we can use while doing a favorite activity. An athlete-buddy of mine gave me a set of nordic ski underwear and gloves. I think she wanted me to learn to ski! I use her gift weekly and think about what a considerate person she is. The shirt makes me so happy (it’s my favorite color) that I wear it as casual wear. It’s not surprising that my pal scored a homerun with her gift, she’s a psychiatrist.

Gift frequency is better than size – for example 4 gifts of $250 generates more happiness than one gift of $1000. However, see habituation below.

Random is better than scheduled – I like random gifts. If I see something somebody will like, I get it and send it over to them.

Value is highest at point of award, not receipt – important to remember this for children, employees, heirs and other important people that you gift towards.

Consider my piece last week about Class Dojo, earning the ten points my daughter needs for a treat gives her more pleasure than the treat itself.

An example from the corporate world… At the private equity firm where I worked, the partners would award annual profit sharing points – there were 10,000 points available for each investment fund and we’d earn our share of 1,000 points annually. This system spread the allocation across many years, rather than having it back-end loaded when the investments were sold.

Things that people will use often, and associate with you are excellent – think about my friend’s gift of a shirt and gloves. To give me the same amount of pleasure she would have had to send me $5,000! A well-selected gift is worth far more than its monetary value.

Gifting to people’s children, ie via education, is deeply appreciated – parents have a sense of obligation towards their kids.

People (employees, spouses, kids, yourself) adapt very quickly to changes in standard of living, and forget how they got there. I avoid gifts that eliminate the self-esteem that comes from taking care of one’s self.

Be wary of reinforcing feelings of entitlement – for example, beautiful people and skilled athletes are trained that the world will take care of them. As they age, they experience pain when their gifts of chance (beauty and athletic prowess) fade.

+++

Some people gift publicly for reasons of family, or corporate, strategy. Others prefer to gift anonymously. Considerations:

  • Be wary of the motivation of recognition.
  • If you ask your pals to support your causes then you will feel an overwhelming need to reciprocate (and you might not feel the same desire to support their causes). Of course, remember that it is OK to say “no.”
  • Most of us have small budgets for gifting – pay particular attention to situations where a little time and money can have a big impact.

If you need more of something then have a strategy to gift some of what you need.

A Tale of Two Brothers

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A story that’s true across cultures and time.

Consider two brothers…

If, under pain of death, you were given a week to get a task done then you’d be wise to call the older brother.

However, if you were told that you only had a week to live, irrespective of what you did, then you’d be wise to call the younger brother.

Two brothers, two different sets of skills.

It’s important to learn from all aspects of our families and respect our differences. There’s much to learn from people that are different from ourselves.

Love you bro.

Antifragile Thinking – Nothing and Waiting

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How can I use volatility to improve my investment decisions?

When I read Taleb, I’m tempted to go for the big bet using options with skewed payoffs. I think the real lesson is more straightforward than using out-of-the-money options, which is good because I’m not trained in derivatives pricing!

I have a favorite game that I play with any purchase. Determine value before I find out price. In the context of real estate (or buying companies), value the asset before you find out the asking price.

In 2009, I saw a “for sale” sign come up in my neighborhood. I played my game and priced the property in my head. Unfortunately, the property was listed at 25% over my valuation. So nothing happened, I waited, watched the property and the sign came down.

In 2010, the sign came back up and I checked the price. It was listed at a 40% reduction. Yay! I immediately put in an offer slightly below listing price. The owner countered my offer and we agreed a deal that everyone was happy with.

In 2009, I followed my investment mantras:

  • I don’t need to do a deal, I need to do a good deal
  • Let volatility do its work and create a situation to buy at an attractive price
  • My work is to build core capital, educate myself and be patient

My family needs one deal like the above per decade. Putting that in context, If the family is changing strategy more than one month in a hundred then we might be taking too much action. An “active” strategy would be anything that requires strategic change more than one month in fifty.

I don’t need advisers that earn fees when I take action. I need systems that prevent me from tinkering for no gain.

So the game is: deciding what I want, educating myself and waiting. Eventually, volatility will bring a great opportunity my way – at that point, I need to be willing to commit in size.

I tell my wife that was my strategy with our marriage – I also admit that I got lucky with her being better than I imagined. Elite swimmers have hidden options (loyalty, persistence, patience, internal motivation) and being OK with long term incremental progress.

To cope with the amount of “no action” inherent in the above strategy, I work on case studies, study history and, especially in relationships, improve myself.

One deal per decade.

Antifragile Thinking – New Old Ancient Nature

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How can we use volatility to improve our thinking?

Rank the incoming information according to age – New Old Ancient Nature – if in doubt then choose the older option.

Remember that time will kill most ideas and concepts. Be willing to miss out on the latest/greatest – pay attention to concepts that are proven by time.

I coach a surgeon and his Dad was also a doctor. Now retired, the older doctor noted that “everything I learned in med school turned out to be incorrect.” Now clearly, everything wasn’t wrong! I would love to ask the doc, out of everything you learned, what was right?

We might get a list like:

  • Hygiene – do it
  • Blood pressure as leading indicator of a need for lifestyle change
  • Smoking – avoid it

Thinking back to my own education (economics and finance). What proved to be correct?

  • Track the cash
  • Interest rate trends
  • Mean reversion
  • Compounding

Another field that interests is endurance sport:

  • Consistency
  • Variable Stimuli
  • Strength and Stamina
  • Specific Preparation

Nutrition:

  • Restrict the “new” – refined, processed, modified, engineered
  • Focus on the “old”  – ingredients your great-grandmother could have eaten

In a field that interests you, what are the three concepts that have stood the test of time? Focus on those concepts.

As you discover the power of this concept, you’ll benefit from reducing the fire hose of noise that reaches you daily via the media, advertising and social networks. These sources of info are “new” and. therefore, useless at best. More likely, they are misleading and reduce the quality of our thinking.

To improve my thinking, I need less noise in my head. “Not-thought” is what makes “good thought” clear to me.

Turning this on it’s head… if I can increase the amount of “no-thought” then the depth of my insight will increase and I’ll be able to see the useful info contained in what gets through. Implications:

  • Reduce email – a favorite from Taleb’s AMA is limit to 15 messages per day
  • Restrict media and eliminate the most noisy sources – television, chat forums, Facebook, reality TV, talk radio
  • Schedule breaks to settle mind (exercise, mediation)
  • Replace mental habits that clutter thinking
    • envy replaced by being happy for others
    • over-correction replaced by finding the good
    • Tinkering replaced by letting it ride
    • anger/fear/sorrow replaced by gratitude

I find that I don’t need to be charitable for the above to work. 

“Thank God, I’m free to act differently than that person.” triggers gratitude and let’s me move on.

Class Dojo – Promoting Good Behavior

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classdojo

One of our friends is a school teacher and set Lex up on Class Dojo. She created a class “Lexi” and shared the log-in with Monica and me.

It’s a simple system of positives/negatives. Each time Lex hits “10” she gets a treat. With the same log-in ID, we can access from all our our phones.

I got a little carried away with the negatives at the beginning and had to change my scoring focus. I target nine positives for each negative.

During the main transitions that I manage (drive to school and bedtime) I run through the positives that she has earned recently. I’m trying to remind her of those behaviors. Getting dressed, seat belts, pajamas, playroom clean up, kind to brother…

I also put myself into her class so she can “beat me” with her behavior. Perhaps we need to loosen the standards for Daddy Byrn. I’ve been at one point for over a week…