Tag Archives: family governance

Sunday Summary 20 November 2022

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My YouTube Channel – https://www.youtube.com/@feelthebyrn

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  1. Using sheet metal screws for a frozen XC course, worked well
  2. Accelerating Your Fitness
  3. Aerobic Threshold Resources
  4. Does Your Endurance Training Stabilize
  5. My Aging Athlete Hypothesis

Endurance Training Tips

High-Performance Habits

True Wealth – Building A Family System

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I gave my crypto post a retweet yesterday

The post isn’t about crypto.

The post is about deciding where not to focus.

The post contains a filter:

1/. Will “this” make a difference?

2/. Will “not-this” make a difference?

“Family” is a 20+ year project that made a difference.

Like any big project – it is daunting at the beginning.

Many people fail to take the first step because they lack confidence in their ability to complete the task.

The first step was “me”

One of my favorite filters has to do with selecting a home base.

Live Where You Don’t Need To Leave

Applies to more than our hometowns

It applies to our careers, our home lives, our relationships

Let’s go even deeper

Be someone I’m not trying to escape.

  • the way I act
  • what I say
  • what I write
  • what I think
  • how I want to be in the world

I started with with “say” and “write”.

  • Write about the person I want to be.
  • Stop talking about the things I didn’t want to be.

I was seeking to change patterns in my life

Patterns that led to my divorce – patterns that led to my current situation.

I wanted to be more like the person I wanted to attract into my life

  • Athletic
  • Kind
  • Calm

Maybe, your list is different.

Write it down.

Know where you’re trying to go.

From my Rich Roll podcast

I knew if I didn’t marry this woman then it would be greatest mistake of my life.

Getting married is the easy part.

We’re planting a seed, attending a party, everybody likes to get married.

Building a marriage, however, requires effort over time.

Effort at overcoming ourselves, our pasts and, sometimes, unhelpful family habits.

++

One of the first lessons I learned in Private Equity, concession for concession.

Makes one an effective negotiator, screws up a family system.

Why?

Two main reasons

  1. Leaders do more than their share. To properly direct a team, we need to earn it.
  2. We never see all the work done by our teammates. If I think the work split is “fair” then, odds are, I’m not doing enough.

Fundamentally, I see marriage as an agreement to face the world, together.

It’s going to require both parties to put “together” first.

It can take a while to get used to this new way of thinking.

You have plenty of time.

Hopefully, a very long time.

++

Embracing an “attitude of no escape” will help you make the changes required for success.

Create a family where you don’t need to leave.

Lean into your difficulties.

My biggest problems led to my most meaningful solutions.

Linked Articles

Sunday Summary 30 October 2022

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Rich Roll Podcast Dropped

My best advice on parenting, and a life well lived, starts at 1:33

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Six Mantras to Cut Drama in Half

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Every day, we make a choice : Drama or Peace

Because the mantras are different than how many of us were raised, they take a little getting used to.

  1. It Is OK to Say No
  2. All Family is Optional
  3. We Can Handle The Truth
  4. Talk Like Everyone Is In The Room
  5. We’ve Already Won
  6. Everyone Speaks, or not

Think about them in the context of the last unforced error you made.

What the mantras have in common is they lower the temperature.

  • By removing a feeling of obligation, we reduce resentment.
  • By acknowledging truth can be uncomfortable, we remove the burden of hidden lives and carrying secrets.
  • By constraining our words to what we’d say to someone’s face, we are more careful and considerate.
  • By acknowledging the benefits of our current position, we stay focused on living well.
  • By allowing everyone to contribute, we slow decision making and reduce the capacity of a single person, or a single moment, to derail us.

Pay attention to the one you think is the most difficult.

Choose Peace

Sunday Summary 23 October 2022

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14 Years Old

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I was looking through my phone to find pictures for our daughter’s birthday card.

In 2022, I noticed we’d hadn’t done much together, other than train and drive in my car!

13 proved to be a turning point.

When I pointed this out to her, and said I’d like her to join various family trips we have planned…

I could tell she had her own priorities and goals.

Not sure how much I’m going to see of her.

The plan, all along, has been to equip her with the skills for a self-directed life.

++

I’m finishing up a great book called Happy, by Derren Brown

One of my favorite insights is his observation… parents can’t help but pass their unrealized ambitions to their children.

I looked around:

  • An oldest daughter who swims (with an eye on the highest levels)
  • A son who wants to be a doctor

It’s a useful insight.

You can see it everywhere – my doctor pals have sons who want to be athletes!

++

Darren’s book goes further and talks about anti-ambition.

What we NEVER want to be.

I’m sure I’ve given them some of those!

The path to resist against.

++

My next realization…

She’s done with me in 1,000 days.

I was 17 when I arrived at McGill University.

Hung with myself, mostly, for the next decade!

We’ve moved into the 1,000 day countdown for pretty-much-on-her-own.

++

So, what to do.

#1 – Congratulate her on becoming a wonderful young woman. She’s far exceeded my expectations, an absolute star.

#2 – Ask her what level of time commitment she thinks she should make to the family. What’s the minimum?

#3 – Continue to support her journey through the process of becoming an independent woman.

…and help her with the process of figuring out where she wants to take her life.

Raising Fit Kids

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Towards a Self-Directed Life

They say we should teach about subjects where we don’t need notes.

Fit kids is that subject for me.

  • Our kids are 10, 11 and 14
  • We live in one of the fittest zip codes in America
  • Our kids are competitive in whatever they set their minds on
  • Most importantly, they are happy, engaged and a core part of every team they join
  • We’ve been raising them with intent, since before they were born

I threaded the outline for the video last Friday.

Winning means NOTHING if you lose the relationship.

Children carry an embedded option for the most common challenges of aging

  • something to do
  • someone to share experiences with
  • someone to love

Don’t blow it by being a bozo (at the game)

If the family has a special sport, swimming for us, then think in terms of minimum weekly frequency

None of our kids had to “be a swimmer” – all they needed to do was swim a little bit

Every. Single. Week.

Touch the water, once a week, since they could stand up

5-8 hours a week of jumping, climbing, twisting, spinning – All Summer Long

Very Consistently Undertrained

Our kids have done a lot since they were little.

What they have not done is specialize in a specific niche, or train like an adult.

I’ve also been careful to match my encouragement to the way the kid likes to train

  • Long days
  • Fast days
  • Mix of days

The kids decide what and how much – my role is to up-skill and keep it fun.

Ironman Finish – more than 11,000 days after I was born

10,000 Days

From the time a child stands up…

…to realizing their maximum adult potential

About 10,000 days

Longer in my case!

Several important realities flow from this timeline:

  • We control less than half of those days!
  • We don’t even control what we think we control – for example, effort at practice
  • It will not be the parents’ call – without a deep love of exercise, the kids are DONE as soon as they get out of the house, sometimes before!
The most important relationship in a child’s life is the quality of their parents’ marriage
Choose coaches, and mentors, based on the quality of their non-athletic lives

What Do We Control?

  • Modeling Personal Excellence
  • How our children see our marriage and other relationships
  • Sleep & Nutrition Habits
Spending my time, and giving my attention, to create a link between Fun and Work

Leave Room To Load Later

  • Middle School
  • High School
  • The Collegiate Level

None are a final destination!

Give the athlete somewhere to go when they leave you.

Being a badass breeds confidence – this impacts everything

Start With The End In Mind

Where do you want the athlete to be when they are done with their competitive career?

  • Resilient
  • Courageous
  • Persistent
  • Healthy
  • Enthusiastic

Use sport as a vehicle to teach these traits.

Start today!

Keep these traits front of mind when you’re tempted to make it about winning.

A teacher’s job is to fill the world with positive memories for the student to carry forward

Sunday Summary 11 September 2022

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  1. Building a Metabolic Edge – Eat Like A Hobbit
  2. My favorite Training Zones Resources
  3. My network on Road vs TT Frames
  4. Loading Tips from my summer talking with Johan
  5. Lessons From Last Week’s Training

Endurance Training Tips

High Performance Habits

World War Three Portfolios

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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 here.

Being born Canadian, I have the option to live in Canada. It’s a valuable option to a wonderful country (with a different political system).

I also have the right of abode in New Zealand (a third political system). I like to think of it as a smaller Canada, on the other side of the world.

My Kiwi visa doesn’t expire. Unfortunately, I can’t pass the visa to my kids. However, each of my kids has a Canadian Citizenship certificate.

Three political systems, two hemispheres, all English speaking.

Hemispheres, continents, countries and political systems.

The location to start from scratch.

Monetary Environments

Who regulates the custodian for your financial assets?

Unsure what I mean?

Who has the ability to lock your money inside a political regime?

Where can you send money, with a single instruction, that’s outside of your home regulatory environment?

The capital to start from scratch.

Income Streams

  • Do you have an alternative source of income?
  • How long might it take to develop one?
  • Are your skills marketable internationally?
  • Might you be able to develop a set of marketable skills?

The skill set to start from scratch.

Look at the above on an individual, generational and family-wide basis.

The unimaginable happens once a decade.

Why You Should Consider the Window of Time

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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:

  1. Peer-driven spending that leads you away from what fills your heart
  2. Creating capital for future family members, when they’d rather spend time with you now

Buy time gradually.

Spend time with intent.

None of us get a refund.