Tag Archives: option value

Five Questions Every Coach Needs To Ask Themselves

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Let’s cast our minds back to my 30-something self.

He’s bought a house in Christchurch, covered his taxes/utilities by giving a room to his property manager and has the ability to live free by renting out additional rooms.

Create a base of operations where you can live for free

Tick

Next up, he needs to figure out what sort of work to do and how to cover his cost of living.

A dozen triathlon coaching relationships (US$250) per month was what it took to cover basics. Those relationships were worth more than money. The relationships made his lifestyle sustainable.

Tick

Basic client filtering over time.

Which relationships to strengthen and retain? Green light client rating – immediate response, has all personal contact details. Travel to them.

Invert, which relationships are a source of distraction and drain energy? Red light client rating – still high service level, hand-off to a better fit at a natural breakpoint (end of season, end of project).

Move on to…

Next level client selection because => there is a limited number of close relationships we can sustain

What do I want to learn about?

  • Pro cycling
  • Lifestyles of the rich and famous
  • Olympic level triathlon
  • Sports medicine, orthopedics, biomechanics, kidney function, cardiology
  • Exercise physiology, metabolic health, blood markers
  • Financial planning
  • Military aviation
  • Theology and ministry
  • Addiction, Al-Anon, AA, recovery
  • Trust, estate and family law

These are areas I was able to study, from world-class experts, while covering my core cost of living.

Put another way, there are millions of interesting people out there. A consultant needs 5-12 relationships for a viable business. Craft those relationships with intent because your time is worth more than someone’s ability to pay.

Wise client selection is a game of getting paid to learn.

…but you gotta be lifestyle sustainable. So get that first!

Where do I want to visit?

Back in 2000, Christchurch NZ was cheap for a reason. It was far off the beaten path!

A material slice of my cost of living was international travel (airfares & hotels). I really enjoyed this aspect of my life.

I’m not alone. A key form of marketing is the ability to offer clients/investors the ability to travel to nice places. Most large companies have advisory boards, with a membership consisting of their key relationships. The advisory board has the perks of being a director, with none of the fiduciary risk.

I’ve had gigs in: Aspen, Hong Kong, Bermuda, Scotland, LA, Italy, London, Dubai, Paris, Cannes, Hawaii…

So, where do YOU want to go? Find that client, help them achieve their goals and undercharge them.

Rich folks love random acts of financial kindness. They’re always expected to pick up the tab, so paying for coffee/breakfast is a high-return investment.

A long term value added relationship with someone in a place you enjoy visiting – it’s worth more than whatever your financial deal is.

Invert (again) => don’t take work from a location you don’t want to visit. At any price.

One of my gigs came with an around-the-world ticket every six months. With a bit of planning, that covered an entire year’s worth of air travel. Another slice of my budget, covered.

What demographic am I curious about?

Tim’s blog on fame shares the Bill Murray quote, “trying being rich first.”

Actually, being rich is tough. It takes a lot of time and striving. Living rich is even worse, not for me.

Before you try to “be something” => get to know it. See what it’s like when nobody’s watching.

Coaching the rich, the fast, the famous, the savage, the beautiful… and paying attention, helped me look under-the-hood with regard to my values.

Be careful, desire is contagious.

Valuable Options

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Record prices, driven by easy credit, in a time of impaired fundamentals. I see this phenomenon happening all around us.

In times of uncertainty, I like to focus on maintaining:

  • The ability to change my mind
  • The ability to cut my cost of living
  • The ability to reallocate my capital

Holding onto these options requires careful, continual effort. For example, it’s easy to join a “tribe” with fixed views, or publish blogs (!), thereby making it much more difficult to change my mind later.

I try to be careful with what I write, say and think. An interesting tip I came across this year about knowledge…

Be wary of using current knowledge as a belief system.

I first heard this advice via the son of a surgeon. When the son finished his surgical training, the father shared that half of what he learned in med-school proved to be incorrect over the years that followed.

With capital allocation…

When I buy, I lose the option to “buy later” and create switching costs if I want to change my mind.

  • The ability to decide later
  • The size of my switching costs
  • The liquidity of my position
  • The impact on my debt capacity

The future value of the above is difficult to estimate, therefore, our minds tend to latch on to the perceived value of an immediate purchase.

We always underestimate the value of options.

Caution with your allocations at cyclical highs…

At the end of last year, I wrote about real estate in Vanity Markets, the key thing I liked about renting was the ability to change my mind later. The option to change direction became much more valuable during COVID.

A real-world example, we’re going to change the way we approach ski season.

  • We are not changing because I think I know what will happen.
  • We are changing to remove (some of) COVID’s ability to screw up our lives.

I wrote off a lot of money this year due to the virus. More importantly, COVID has been a continual drain on my time and emotion.

Money, time, emotion => you can earn the money back.

The time and emotion are gone for good.

So… we made a decision to ski local.

The savings are material: ski club, driving, ski passes, lockers and seasonal rental => my budget is 5% of last season’s actuals.

Besides saving money “now”, I get the psychic benefit of looking forward to adding back a “better experience” once COVID settles down. I’ve been watching myself for many years and looking forward to an experience is a key part of my enjoyment.

The ability to painlessly change my mind arose because I didn’t buy previously. I stayed variable in my discretionary cost of living. I followed this rule of thumb… Never capitalize luxury spending.

Longer version of the same advice… until your retirement is fully funded, focus on income producing assets (not ramping up current consumption).

There are other benefits.

  • By “going local” I give myself an incentive to teach my kids to uphill ski and camp on snow.
  • Knowing that I am saving (a lot of) money in one part of my life, reduces financial stress across all other areas of my life.
  • I also have a way to fill weekday afternoons, which have been challenging during online school: Morning school, Dad ski, Evening school, Bed. Do that Tuesday/Thursday and I give myself a mental respite from trying to fill the Noon-4pm slot.

A quick update on online school. My zip code contains several thousand CU Students, and all the frats!

Our positives are trending up, again. From Saturday’s paper…

and they aren’t testing students who live off-campus

I’m living in the hottest “COVID zip code” in Colorado right now. That said, if you were going to infect a bunch of Coloradans… we’re a healthy cohort! 😉

Because we were cautious “opening up” our bubble, there isn’t much change for us. The main challenge is we are in Week 26 of Home School.

It can be tempting to toss money (and other people’s time) at my “problems.”

During the pandemic, tossing my kids into the private education channel could reduce my short-term pain – if the angel of COVID flies past their new school without creating an outbreak.

However, one thing I’ve learned from six months of home school – the academic demands are easily managed by a policy of a-little-bit-a-day. The real challenge lies in the emotional demands of being around kids all day!

Similar to the ski example, I frame home school as paying myself to figure it out. I did private school math a few years ago. It would cost me significant time, and emotion, to earn the money for the private channel.

I’ll end today with the two best things I have learned about problems:

#1 => My “problems” will NEVER disappear => my mind simply focuses on something else. It’s my focus, not my problems.

#2 => I had better accept that I’m going to be chipping away at stuff daily, for the duration. While I’m chipping away, keep in mind the true goal is “better problems.”

Figuring out how to enjoy spending time with my kids is a great problem to have.

48-hour storm rolled through the state. Good news for our firefighters.

Cash Holdings in Context

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2019-06-09 07.03.52The Algebra of Happiness is a great read. Professor Galloway has a hit on his hands.

In the book (page 83), Professor G says “I’m 80% in cash.”

I am used to hearing about wealthy guys’ portfolio allocations, I didn’t give it much thought.

However, his statement caught my wife’s attention (Big Time) and I spent a while explaining why I’d give the Professor an “incomplete” on this short section (of an excellent book).

Here’s what I said…

Start by laying out your sources of income:

  • Social security
  • Day job
  • Consulting gigs
  • University professorships
  • Unearned portfolio income
  • Rental property income
  • Tech fund consulting
  • Royalties from bestsellers
  • Spouse’s income

The segments, and the total, are useful to review.

These are figures you should know, roughly, off the top of your head.

Now, consider the information against your core cost of living.

I guess Professor G’s core cost of living is well covered by his sources of income. I’d further guess that his balance sheet has his family’s living expenses covered for the next hundred years. He is unlikely to be hurt by any investment strategy he selects.

The spread of your income sources will show concentration and diversification. Concentration can ruin life as you know it. You are likely to have skin in this game.

Addressing concentration can save you from ruin. Tweaking asset allocation, less so.

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Next, consider the areas of your life that hold option value:

  • Youth
  • Education
  • Ownership (bi-coastal real estate, start-ups, portfolio investments)
  • Wealthy relatives
  • Carried interest in tech firm general partnerships
  • Fame
  • Bestsellers
  • The ability to spend less
  • Equity stakes people toss you for being an entertaining non-executive director
  • World-class skills in well paying, niche specialties

When successful people talk about holding a lot of cash, they rarely mention the MASSIVE option value in the rest of their lives.

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What is cash?

As I write this I have six weeks’ living expenses in cash.

Seems really low!

  1. What if I add my US government bond portfolio?
  2. What if I net my unearned income sources from my core cost of living?
  3. What if I take a part-time job in one of my niche specialities?
  4. What if I downsize my house by moving?

In that case, my six weeks of cash should see me through to my 75th birthday.

Incidentally, I did all of the above 2009-2012 after my professional life was crushed.

Thankfully, I had a large cash holding at the time! 😉

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What should you hold in cash?

When allocating capital, most people want to receive a forecast of the unknowable.

Avoid pundits, forecasters and the predictions of others. They are worse than useless.

Each time I make an important decision, I write a file note to myself. Sometimes I publish these notes! Do this for 30 years and you’ll have a written record of your strengths and blindspots.

I use my limited attention to consider the implications of being wrong.

Overweight in cash and I am right:

  • Rich already => no implication, if you’re not satisfied with what you have today then you will not be satisfied with more tomorrow
  • Rest of us => Need to decide when to invest
  • Rest of us => Need to decide what to invest

The track record of “rest of us” is clear. We do an awful job at market timing and dynamic asset allocation.

Overweight in cash and I am wrong:

  • Rich already => no implication, my unborn grandchildren inherit less unearned capital
  • Rest of us => my widowed wife runs out of money in her 80s
  • Rest of us => I become a financial burden on my adult children

Some games you don’t want to play.