Tag Archives: family values

Vibe Check

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Savage Kitty and her rainbow skis

At the end of the last year, I marked my calendar for a vibe check on February 14th.

As we rolled into Feb, the mess of The Other Guy’s administration was still playing out. So I pushed things to March 1st.

How you doing?

I’m really proud of my family. Lots of personal growth for us.

Current best guess is I’ll get my first shot of the vaccine before Easter. Our governor shuffled the eligibility and, as a 50+, I’m going to get green lighted before they declare open season to the entire population.

That’s one year after we battened down the hatches. We’ve scheduled a COVID birthday party for March 13th. Cake will be served.

American life-science tech is absolutely amazing. Getting back to a somewhat normal life this summer will be a payoff for relocating myself to the USA.

Take time to notice good judgement.

Who were the least reliable sources of information over the last year?

I’m always fine-dining my filters. Now would be a good time to dial some folks down, and others up.

Our bad sources of information are obvious. Let them go.

What generates feelings of gratitude?

This surprised me.

I get more benefit from good science fiction than the legacy media.

Over the pandemic I read Dune (1-8), Three-Body Problem (1-3) and Foundation (1-7). Science fiction generates feeling of gratitude in me – gratitude for my routine life, gratitude for my wonderful marriage and gratitude for the opportunity to educate my kids.

An unexpected bonus, from venturing outside my typical reading genres.

What areas of your life uncovered blindspots?

I do a little public service work in our local community.

It can be frustrating because I’m not very good at interacting with groups of live people! Zoom was a blessing – especially as my default is submitting written comments, in the chat.

I stick with it because people respect tell me I’m helpful, despite my limitations.

Get involved.

If you don’t step up then someone else will, and they might be clueless.

You can see this effect in the major US cities where a large chunk of the smartest parents have opted out of the public school system, and their school boards appear to be losing their minds.

Second, and third, order effects.

What’s on your must-keep list?

I’m reading No Rules Rules about Netflix’s corporate culture. I’m reinterpreting for ideas about leading multigenerational families.

One of their rules for employees is you need to be on the must-keep list to stick around. Good enough is not good enough.

  • What habits are holding me back from excellence? Still anger management.
  • What’s on my pandemic must-keep list? Pick one thing. I’ll go with “challenging strength training 2x per week.” It’s the one thing, where its absence, will make a big difference when I’m 60.
  • What are you doing when you feel serene? Spending time with my wife – she has a heavenly vibe that calms my soul.

1,000 days from now, the pandemic will have faded from collective memory.

If you feel like you lost a year then be sure to keep the lessons.

Enjoy 2021.

Groundhog Day

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Arapahoe Basin, Gully #4. “Dude, I’ve been dropping steeps since I was nine…”

I love asking questions. Here’s one from last week…

What’s wrong with being a househusband?

This question started a conversation about how great a job I was doing. The recognition was appreciated, but wasn’t the point.

That’s interesting, because when I said something similar, that you were having a great pandemic, you sniffed and said, “you mean I’m a better housewife.”

Well, actually, yes… 🙂

What was more interesting was my wife didn’t have ANY memory of the instant reaction she had. Her non-memory got me wondering how often my biases, and values, bubble up and leave no trace.

You might have a hidden bias against what’s required to run a good house. Call it the Virginia Slims effect, heavily reinforced by our collective culture and 50+ years of media/advertising.

If you think the internal dialogue is tough as a woman, try it as a guy.

Same gully, different aspect. Plenty of room between those rocks!

So the real point of the conversation wasn’t to congratulate ourselves for being domestic Gods and Goddesses…

The point was to create an opening to share ideas about coping with the grind of meals, laundry, dishes and cleaning that makes up family living.

You Gotta Do Something => I’ve had all kinds of jobs from “important” to “menial.”

COVID took my menial though the roof.

  • All jobs have admin/low value moments associated with them.
  • All jobs are better than having nothing to do.

Our minds might tell us that buying a white Porsche and focusing on our nails & hair will make us happy. More pleasurable than cleaning toilets, certainly, but I’m not sure leisure is “the answer”.

Meaningful work, not too much, well rested while I do it.

So, what are you going to do? And… What does winning look like to you?

You gotta do something.

You don’t have to enjoy it => My wife looked at me with in horror when I spoke the truth…

Honey, I absolutely hate dealing with the endless BS. However, I’ve decided, I’m going to continue regardless of how I feel.

It’s taken me decades to notice… that quote applies to every_single_thing I work on!

When there is a feeling that follows me everywhere… changing my situation might not be the answer.

It’s Temporary => Ten years of babies & preschoolers left no trace in my memory. I have to scroll back in my photos to see what actually happened.

Whatever you’re dealing with, do what needs to be done and schedule little sessions that perk you up.

In my case, it’s worth overcoming inertia to get my morning training, time with my wife and a chance to teach in nature.

Make time for meaning, while you manage the menial.

In each of the important jobs I held, I was replaceable.

Husband, Father, Leader => Give extra effort to the areas where you are hardest to replace.

Knowing “this is my job to do” makes it easier to endure.

Finally, something from watching my kids. There’s a part of me that wants my family to enjoy doing menial tasks. It stems from my desire for constant pleasure from every task life throws at me.

This is a completely unreasonable expectation, but it’s there. Seeing it, let’s me smile and shake my head when I catch myself in the pattern.

Meaningful work, can feel meaningless at times.

You are not alone in your feelings.

Best pandemic ever.

Teaching others in nature – always perks me up. Across my year of COVID, I’ve done a good job of scheduling events to look forward to. Find the win!

Make It Fridge Worthy

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There’s a lot in this section of my fridge. Bora Bora, Valentine’s Day and leading out the swim at Ironman Hawaii.

Over the last six years, our discretionary budget has been simplified to vehicles, skiing and vacations.

Let’s start with vacations.

Most families with kids, place their vacations before considering Childcare and the size of their mortgage/rent payment. I recommend you reconsider your priorities. Earlier I explained why, I sold assets so the grown ups could maintain their health and relationship.

When I was living with a 4, 2 and 1 year old – my favorite kind of discretionary spending wasn’t a vacation, it was “more childcare”.

Always, more childcare.

Why?

End of the Napali Coast Trail – worth the hike!

To be a good investor, you need to know your opportunity cost.

Same deal for being a good spouse!

The Bora Bora vacation (above, still on my fridge) is the equivalent of 150 date nights.

When I was working through a decade of bedtime dramas… I priced my life in date nights (time with my wife, time without a kid melting down).

Date nights where someone else can put the little ones to sleep, and you can alternate the following morning with your spouse.

Alternate the routine so each spouse gets a slot where they are “off” from 5pm to 10am.

“Sweetie, I just need two nights a week where nobody is yelling at me.“

I was willing to do whatever it took to achieve a nervous system reset 2x per week.

Hanalei Bay, Kauai

Still want to head out of town? These were my rules for luxury spending:

  • make it “fridge-worthy” (re-live the vibe over-and-over)
  • book it way in advance (create anticipation)
  • take a lot of pictures

The trips were a good bang for the buck, we spread them out, got stuff done and had something to look forward to.

We found shorter trips were better – if we left for more than a few days, our Alpha Pup would try to take over the household!

We left the kids at home, in their normal routine – never risk the sleep schedule!

Take a look at your budget, are you making time to enjoy each other?

You Have A Choice

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The picture above explains my athletic journey better than all my writings combined.

When I was in the middle, personal excellence was beyond my comprehension.

If you can sustain transformation in ANY area of your life, you have the skills to take yourself most anywhere you’d like to go.

My favorite lesson about marriage comes from a close friend.

What does it take to have a great marriage?

A willingness to do whatever it takes to have a great marriage.

This lesson applies across every domain in my life.

Whatcha doing?

I thought I might cook, clean and do laundry while the kids stare at screens…

…every day for the next decade.

Back in 2019, I decided to change the way our house was run.

First step was to burn our ships. I cut loose all our staff. COVID arrived five months later and there was no going back!

Second step was to figure out how to do it myself. It took me 20 hours to clean the house the first time I tried. Days!

Roll forward 15 months, and we have the place looking great by 8am each Sunday.

How’d we do it? I used a little psychology.

It’s not going to make sense for me to spend 20 hours a week (1,000 annual hours) cleaning. I think a lot of folks probably tap out at this point. I certainly wanted to quit.

I told myself that I only had to do it for 6 months. I gave myself the freedom to quit later, just not this week.

Note: I was tempted to quit before I’d learned the basics.

Coach Molina once told me to “give it three years” before I made any decisions about whether I was making progress!

While I was “not quitting” I reduced my cleaning time to 7 hours a week. Skills.

I noticed I made a lot less mess. Incentives.

I also noticed the rest of the family made less mess. Social Pressure.

Skills, incentives & social pressure.

Part of the reason my first few times took so long is our cleaners didn’t have the same incentives as we do. I was paying money to live in a house that wasn’t very clean.

Nobody has the same incentive to sort your life, your health, your finances… than you.

The struggle is real… I’d just asked her to put some dishes away.

Next, I asked each kid to “take one job” => specific, personal responsibility.

15 months later => I’m at 4 weekly-hours => a HUGE reduction from my baseline, my kids are learning how to take care of themselves and we save ~$10K per annum.

A superior outcome for a “problem” I was going to solve by hiring a House Manager.

  • $50,000 annual swing
  • A decade until our youngest graduates high school
  • Avoided by 4 hours a week
  • Compounding at 5% is $625,000

My goal is not to get my life to the point where I stare at a screen all day and have others take care of me => enabling my kids to live that life would be a disservice to them and, strangely, no better for me.

The goal is to live as I’d wish for my kids, and you.

Next time, we talk money => specifically, how I went from the lowest paid person in the building (1990/1991) to owning a house, that paid for itself (2001).

If last week’s financial discussion seemed impossible => I’ll break it down for you.

My New Year’s Resolution

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…was made ten years ago.

Last week. my wife and I were chatting about her needs.

They were modest => a daily swim and an outdoor walk with a friend.

It brought me way back, and made me smile.

Byrn Family 2010. Pearls, Lace and Savagery!

The last time we’d spoken about her needs was a decade earlier.

We had a two-year old in the house and my wife was pregnant with our son.

Actually, we didn’t really talk much.

I broached the topic of changing how we were living. It went something like…

I have neeeeeeeeds.

One of the better things I’ve EVER done was not engage.

Non-engagement was a general policy during pregnancy and, fortunately, my wife was pregnant enough that the habit stuck with me!

Upper left hand corner could be my son’s first photo

Back to “needs” circa 2010.

I looked around:

  • 2,000 sq ft per person
  • 3:1 adult-to-kid ratio
  • weekly cleaners
  • professional kitchen

I did not say a word but I made a mental note.

The situation around us, I had created. All our needs were created by me.

It was time to own the outcome.

Roll forward a decade, add a global pandemic, and we’re down to a walk and a swim.

50% of our baseline cost of living => gone.

I even got rid of cable (took me five years).

Stay focused on where you want to go.

Own the outcome.

We kept the mixer.

Break Free

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$1 well spent at Super Target

My kids have started asking me “what’s next” in terms of high school and college.

I told them to save those questions for a few years – what’s important right now is learning the basics and enjoying themselves.

They did, however, get me thinking.

This starts out as a letter to our youngest.

I’ve spent the last 20 years with ~2,000 hours (per annum) of self-directed time. When I reach “normal retirement age”, I will have had an extra ~70,000 hours versus what I was told to expect.

Consistently making choices as if time is more important than money has been a defining characteristic of my life after 30. Those choices, much more than my personal results, have been what gave me a 1-in-10,000 life, so far.

By the time you get to my age, you will have a series of stories you tell yourself about why you can’t do certain things. You’re also going to have the habit energy of 30+ years of choices.

The good news is many of our choices matter much less than we think, I got past a lot of bad choices.

Avoid ruin, build good habits, persist and you can achieve a very useful form of freedom.

My adult life, that you didn’t see, splits into three parts:

  • High school (to 18 yrs old)
  • Early adulthood (18 to 25 yrs old)
  • Adulthood (25 to 40 yrs old)

Along the way, people will be giving you never ending advice — to seek your attention, to get your money, to convince you to serve their ends…

Most of this advice is going to be tactical, short-term, single-action oriented // not particularly useful and a distraction. To blow through this (largely useless) advice I hope you to make a habit of asking yourself three questions:

  • Who is this person?
  • How do they know?
  • What are they selling me?

You’ll have to figure out your own purpose in life. Here’s what my choices say about what I did from 18-40 years old…

Free to choose…

…how, where and when…

…I allocate my time.

What I’m going to share is a strategy for getting yourself time.

What’s the role of high school?

Create options for further study. Science, mathematics, engineering, finance, accounting, technology… choose your courses so you can take any of the challenging majors in college. In 1986, I could have gone any direction at any major university in Canada.

If you can’t pull that off then learn a valuable trade, or skill, where you have a shot at becoming world-class.

The above is your “to do” list. There’s a wide range of successful outcomes possible, if you avoid early setbacks.

  • Pregnancy – avoid it in yourself and your friends – free contraception saves lives
  • Early habits of addiction and substance abuse – hook yourself on exercise
  • Suicide – keep an eye on your friends, and yourself – get help when you need it – everyone needs help

Pregnancy and addiction can be overcome. With regard to suicide, stay in the game – your future self will thank you.

Early Adulthood

Every year you take off before 25 is an extra seven years you will work later in your life.

You must have faith about the impact of long-term compounding – it’s why I started saving your allowance in Kindergarten. Our brains are not set up to comprehend exponents.

What’s the goal here?

The best technical education you can acquire without borrowing money.

But what if I could join the professional class?

If you can figure out how to do it debt-lite then fine. Otherwise, be wary of the time you’ll give away to get there — and — the habits you create from living a debt-funded aspirational lifestyle.

The professional class are just as enslaved by the system as most other people — they have nicer cars, bigger homes and beautiful wardrobes — they still lack time and cope with status-anxiety.

There are, however, certain professions that are ideal fits for a life with meaning.

For example, my friends who are docs/surgeons get a ton of satisfaction from helping their fellow citizens. They traded a lot of time to achieve their positions – a good trade, as they are valuable members of their local communities.

At 25, I was a well-trained financial technician. Globally, there are tens of thousands of people with similar training. What made the difference?

  • I was young – option value of youth!
  • I trained myself to live on half my income – I didn’t, and don’t, miss the spending
  • I was debt-free with four-years living expense saved – four years living expenses saved at 25

What mattered…

  • Valuable skills
  • Living below my means
  • Time for my net worth to compound
  • Time to follow my healthy passions (athletics, coaching, relationships)

Compare that to my smartest peers at 25 — better educated, negative net worths (due to college borrowing) and a higher baseline cost of living.

Like a lot of things, there’s no visible difference until you hit mid-life.

Adulthood

A favorite question of mine for friends who are over 60 – name something your grandparents could have done that would have positively impacted your life today.

It’s a tough question – we are talking 50-100 year timelines.

Many families settle on… core real estate holdings that enable shared experiences across generations and time — the mythical cabin on a lake, and similar (not always ideal) investments.

What might be required to achieve that vision…

  • Proximity – the family needs to live close to each other, but not too close
  • Time – the subject of this essay
  • Enjoyment – do we enjoy spending time with each other? What if we don’t? How much are we willing to compromise to get along with each other?
  • Realistic expectations – from 25 to 40 many folks will be busy seeking to free themselves from wage-slavery

When it comes to wealth, be focused on time, not money.

Together

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Quick note so I remember this moment – optimism with vaccine news balanced with concern as our hospitals fill up – schools closed again, and tempers strained due to grief and many days of kid bickering, which is normal but exhausting. As we see the light at the end of the tunnel, now is the time to recommit to modeling better behavior.

One other quick note: one of my wife’s friends sent us three picture frames. The idea is each kid gets to put a favorite Andy memory into their frame. Wonderful gift idea that I wanted to pass along. Our oldest added a note at the bottom of her frame, “Thank you Andy for being a great uncle.” Gratitude in the face of grief.

OK, now an idea about relationships for you.

When death, divorce or another life changing event takes place, we might have a feeling that we need to rebuild. Rebuilding, after everything fell apart.

Alternatively, we might get caught in a victim mentality. The shock of the event leaving us feeling angry, hurt or disoriented – feeling like the world, or a specific person, did us wrong.

We’ve been done wrong!

Two things I shared with my oldest daughter.

Yes, your uncle dying is the worst thing that has happened to you. However, it’s unlikely that this moment is going to be the worst thing that happens in your life. [I avoided the temptation for us to brainstorm future tragedies.]

No, we are not being singled out. Death is a natural and universal human experience. Everyone you meet will have their own story about death.

In terms of tough moments, I have a buddy who started 2020 with his spouse dying after a long journey with cancer. I followed them for many years. They packed a lot of living into those final years.

Roll forward into COVID, into grief and he shared an observation about a person he’d met.

We have an opportunity to build a life together.

Opportunity, Build, Together

I wanted to pass those words to you because they are very different from the way I saw relationships as a young man.

My ideas of the past, at best, were to find someone to share MY experience with ME.

Or perhaps, someone to follow MY instructions and serve ME.

Far more useful to be thankful for the opportunity to have loved, to have had the opportunity to raise kids and then focus on what’s next. Life after children, life after his spouse has died.

When I place myself in my friend’s mindset, certain things become clear.

Don’t seek to nudge others towards my view – share experiences and change together.

Know that shared experiences, particularly struggles, are what it’s all about. Embrace the opportunity to face life together, as those will be the moments that bring us together.

If my time allocation reflected my values, then what would it tell me?

Be grateful for an opportunity to build better together.

Looking Forward

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When I wrote Regime Change four years ago, I completed missed how The Trump Administration would tempt me to give into my worst impulses.

I nailed the “rich will feel richer” part but whiffed on the vibe.

Trump’s policies remain popular. I think he blew his re-election. Of course, I thought he blew it in 2016. Life is full of surprises.

Anyhow, time to move on to something more useful.

Everywhere I have lived has a slice of the population that is Permanently P’d Off (PPO).

The slice of the PPO in the US seems to be greater than other places I have lived (Canada, NZ, HK, UK).

If you are a political party, or media outlet, then enraging the PPO is a useful strategy. Useful to meet your goals of raising money, maintaining attention and inspiring action.

I think we can all agree that Trump is, and will remain, world class in this regard => money, attention, action. The man has skills.

Explaining US Federal Politics to my kids

When I come across a member of the PPO, I don’t engage them.

I remember, this is a person who has invested deeply in their belief system (attention, friends, money, tribe, habit, neurochemistry).

I have to be most cautious with the angry. Anger is contagious.

Justified anger is my worst trait – it clouds my judgement, muddies my thinking and hurts my health.

Anger repels the nicest people in my life and poisons my relationship with my kids.

Rather than sing along with the PPO, I go quiet and feel thankful that I can avoid distracting myself from what I need to do => keep on keeping on with my family.

If someone won’t relent then a good phrase is,

If I have to pick one issue then, I guess, I’m most in favor of tax simplification.

I’ve yet to meet anyone who wants to engage me on tax simplification.

🙂

I’m grateful that my job does not require me to encourage conflict.

As a parent, where some conflict is inevitable, I tell my kids… “I love you too much to argue.”

With a view towards high school, college majors and, ultimately, careers… I think to myself, which fields avoid the need to constantly feed conflict?

Education, especially working with kids. Constant deescalation is required, or you’ll burnout very quickly.

Healthcare, I like the vibe from my friends who work in the healing arts.

Mission Focused, fields where getting stuff done is more important than triggering an emotional response.

If you invert then you can rule out a lot of stuff (advertising, media, politics, academics). There’s probably a lot more. I’m a few years away from needing to give it much thought.

For now, I’ve advised my kids…

Try to find out if you’re really good at something difficult.

Let’s refocus on something useful.

PS – paper ballots, mailed to every registered voter, run by the counties, with lots of places to drop. Works great in Colorado. The more you centralize (anything) the easier it is to cheat and the more fragile the system becomes. Just like in finance, when someone seeks complexity, it’s usually to fool you.

Marriage Money

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The progression: Magna Tiles, Legos then Erector Set. So far, Magna Tiles were the best money spent. The kids love them after many years. I’m told Meccano is a new level of complexity. He’s loving the challenge. I bought the Meccano as a consistency prize for daily Spanish Duolingo.

It’s tempting to think that more money will result in less financial conflicts. However, I haven’t found that to be the case.

The habits that lead to conflict follow us up, and down, the socioeconomic ladder.

Similarly, if I can make a habit of de-escalation in one area of my life then my approach will follow me into other areas.

Earlier this year, my wife had her eye on a very nice jacket. For some reason, I became obsessed with the cost of this jacket.

Where did my feelings come from? I have no idea but I knew my feelings were unproductive. I knew because of the filter I apply to my marriage, “Where are these choices likely to take me, and my marriage?”

I knew it would be helpful to move on but I wasn’t able to shake my opinions.

So I funded the jacket.

Actually, I funded 7x the cost of the jacket.

That jacket was a massive write-off…

😉

I placed the money into an account that is invisible to my internet banking.

I asked my wife to pay cash so I would have no ability to track her spending.

I felt better immediately.

It was one of the best deals I did pre-COVID.

I’ve been running my financials since I was 16 and managed to save 50 cents of every dollar I earned from 16 to 40 years old.

My first job out of college was in finance. My mentors made two observations about spending that stuck with me:

  • From the Managing Partner, “We could keep a better eye on the small stuff but that would make this place a lot less fun to work at and it wouldn’t make any difference to my financial life.”
  • From a Young Up-and-comer, “If you ever want to get someone then start by auditing their expenses.”

Apply these to myself

=> make sure my choices can survive an audit (by anyone, but especially my spouse)

=> being a stickler for fine detail will make the people around you miserable (especially if you have a life that can’t survive an audit)

As a leader, what does that actually mean?

In 2009, unexpected unemployment left us facing a financial crisis. I started by cutting my personal budget by 80%. I laid that out to my wife and said we needed to cut our family budget by 50%.

We made a budget, we implemented the changes and we went on with our lives.

Good enough was good enough.

Endless optimization makes everyone miserable.

Often there is a fear-based motivator that is driving our attention to fine-detail.

It can be near impossible to transcend fear-based habits!

Two things that might help:

1/ Set a “give a hoot” threshold.

Each year, I set a dollar-amount that is my “give a hoot” threshold. If something is below that threshold then I promise myself that I_will_not_give_a_hoot.

My total spend in the “give a hoot” category is ~2% of my total budget. The 2% spend cuts 90% of my external annoyances and gives me a lot of internal credibility when I say “we don’t have the money for that.”

Not getting wrapped up in the little stuff makes my internal life better and gives me the authority to direct the big stuff.

This policy is a bargain (but letting go is oh-so-tough).

2/ What about when the threshold is triggered?

When something big pops up, I like to pause and distance myself from the decision.

I’ve set my financial life up to create friction in my ability to spend money. The friction gives me time to ask…

What’s the goal? => How does this choice benefit my family, my marriage, myself…

If it won’t make a difference then wait.

Another filter => Am I willing to spend this money on someone other than myself? If not then wait, again.

Investing and spending => I do a lot of waiting and that’s OK because anticipation is often better than reality.

I spent yesterday afternoon at a car dealership and traded my car for a newer model. The new car will be “my wife’s” and I’m going to roll in the oldest car we own.

Knowing that my family is seeing me roll in the “old car” will make me at least as happy as a new car, which I can always get later.

Here’s why…

Your spouse, your kids, your unborn descendants… all will be impacted by the choices you make with regard to spending and investment.

Financial values scale across generations.

Chose wisely.

Free is Better

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A friend recommended Tribe of Mentors by Tim Ferriss.

Somehow, searching my way to that title popped up Tim’s Blog on being famous. The blog has a Bill Murray quote about fame, “try being rich first.” The blog is an interesting read, by the way.

I’ve spent a lot of time with rich folks.

“Rich is better than famous?” – that didn’t feel right to me but, heck, Bill Murray knows more about both than me.

Here’s what I’d like to teach my kids… rich is a trap.

For yourself => the never-ending treadmill of personal spending and consumption => a trap of more.

For your family => if you’re lucky enough to see your way through the hoax then you’ll have to convince everyone around you to modify the lifestyle to which you’ve trained them (COVID, or any external crisis, can help).

Pretty risky, especially as there is a much more useful target to give yourself.

Free.

The downsides Tim writes about in his fame blog are infringements on personal freedom.

The fame upsides strike me as an external forms of recognition, a universal desire.

The thing is, once you target external validation, you’re trapped.

External validation is a need to be weaned, not watered.

Free is better.