The cherry on top was spending $75 a week to retire from driving my kids.
Driving, itself, wasn’t the issue.
I noticed my worst moments were happening in my car.
Change the environment, change the result.
I stopped hanging out in my car, I felt better.
Over 20 years, I’ve redirected my environment => one choice at a time.
Mount Crested Butte – this ski season saw a simple game. Try to hit ten resorts.
Simple project, visible feedback
I have a habit of rejecting the part of my personality that craves external feedback. I pretend I am above external approval, I’m not.
I brought back external feedback by way of my return to Twitter.
Playing a low-stakes game where you get random, positive feedback => surprisingly useful.
I am going to repeat that… if you have the blahs then you should try…
A low-stakes game
That pays out randomly
With positive emotional feedback
I shouldn’t be surprised! Before I left Private Equity in 2000, I had a message board (pre-Facebook) where we used to shoot the breeze just like Twitter. Loved it, met some great people.
My Twitter Game => seek to help a stranger daily.
Huge leverage, near-infinite niche opportunities.
Previous simple games: improve aerobic run performance, and log daily training minutes. These two games kept me engaged for over a decade!
Simple games work because they offer a focus different from my negative fixations. They are most powerful when attached to a system of daily rewards.
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
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.
Yesterday, Monarch Mountain, Colorado. My capacity to spend a random weekday with someone I love… an essential wealth metric.
Sometimes, we need to look at information that make us feel uncomfortable. As a leader, I acknowledge “bad” news, as well as my capacity to receive it.
I like simple metrics, especially those that don’t require purchasing hardware or subscriptions!
The first one… can I spend a random weekday with someone I love? Shared experience is a form of wealth.
Another… last year, how often did “yesterday” screw up “this morning“? => hangovers, days without exercising, days without writing, days waking up late… depends on your goals.
Keep it simple.
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High-Performance Tracking
The amount of data coming from wearables has exploded over the last few years.
Like the early years of power meters, the data is best used to make our mistakes visible.
With health, the big ones might turn out to be: alcohol, intensity, salt, carbohydrate timing, inactivity, anaerobic load… time will tell.
In my life, the valuable information is in the mistakes. Most of us know what we ought to be doing. What’s helpful is clearly seeing my errors.
Soon, we will be able to be constantly connected to our physiology (blood lactate, HVR, HR, glucose, breathing rate, blood pressure). If we want then data will be constantly scrolling across our phones.
A lesson of Taleb’s Fooled By Randomness… the less often you check the data, the better the quality of the signal you receive. Nassim was writing about portfolio returns, the lesson applies widely.
++
Consider the one thing you are seeking to achieve in 2022, and write it down. The One Thing is the thing, if I happened, that would create a positive cascade in your life.
One things from the last 20 years…
Get a loss-making business to profitability (reduce cash burn)
Launch a new product (make money, while saving time)
Launch a new company (create options for financial wealth creation)
Cash flow breakeven (increase self-directed time)
Write a book (establish expert credentials)
Improve my relationship with my daughter (become a world-class father)
Take care of a dying relative (learn about death)
Become an expert skier (mastery)
Win an Ironman (mastery)
Find love (connection)
Increase the kindness I show my wife (2022 goal)
Before you move forward, look back…
Where did I sleep last year?
How many nights did I spend away from my One Thing?
Where I am… a revealed preference.
Rather than banning video games and strictly limiting electronics… I got my son hooked on Duolingo, a piano teaching app and Word Cookies. It’s easier to work within human nature than seek to overcome it.
Needles District, Canyonlands NP. If you get to Moab then do yourself a favor and spend a night under the stars (with the moon down). This pic was taken hiking back from the Confluence Overlook, 10-year bucket list destination for me. A sustainable way to enjoy longer workouts is to slow down => 10 miles in 4 hours.
I had a post queued up for Monday but it was about trust law and a bit dry!
I’ll re-work it and release it at the end of the year. A low traffic period of time.
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Last week, I finished a book called Wanting. An easy read, filled with short anecdotes, about desire.
Having spent my life in the business of money, I know about conventional desire. My time in athletics exposed me to another aspect, Victory & Vanity.
Greed comes in many shapes and forms. As I age, one form I contend with is wanting to get back to the past – a past remembered as better, stronger, more vigorous… this longing doesn’t serve me well.
For example, a longing for vigor can cause me to do too much exercise, thereby assuring exhaustion (ie a lack of vigor)!
The Wanting book was a guided personal review => considering the source of, and the likely results of, my desires.
++
A Simple Case Study – the source of desires
A decade ago, shortly after visiting Aspen, I found myself wanting to buy a Range Rover. This desire appeared to “come out of nowhere”, but it didn’t really.
I’d been in Aspen for a training camp with three guys in my age group. Let’s call them the Three Amigos. I had visited their houses, been driven around in their cars (Range Rovers) and elevated my heart rate with some very competitive swim/bike/run.
The Three Amigos were people in whom I was able to see different aspects of myself. In many dimensions they were more than myself. With my heart rate up, this is a very powerful modeling situation – both consciously and unconsciously.
The Range Rover desire was the first thing I noticed. There was more.
Here’s the tip: I tend to notice my material desires before the deeper stuff.
When I notice that I’m wanting to buy the same socks as a buddy (Doc J you have a pair of very nice purple socks BTW)… pause and consider.
When I notice the mimetic transfer of a material desire (socks, car) then I pause and consider what else I might be sucking up from this person. Because I know it’s happening strongly in my unconscious.
++
Thinking about an earlier draft of this post. I realized that the influence of my friends runs far deeper… watch, skis, bike, entree selection, career nudging for my children… my desires are influenced, to a point of external unconscious control, by my mentors (nears and peers).
Choose (very) wisely!
++
The day after Canyonlands was a ride in the Colorado National Monument. ~30 miles, 2,500 of climbing. Real training, not in my basement!
Risk of Ruin in Close Peers
Here’s a tip about ruin => in a group of peers, the group will tend towards the risk-seeking level of its most risk-seeking member.
We drift upwards, until something goes wrong, then we blame the situation.
Smart systems avoid catastrophe – here’s a simple one, teams of three, most conservative opinion binds the group. I use this in the mountains, and on my investment committee.
Life is a game over time.
++
Anti-Desires
The power of desire works in reverse => consider people (and their specific choices) who repulse you.
The book asks the reader to consider, “Who are you not rooting for?”
It helps to be brutally honest. Owning my greed is easier than acknowledging secret envy!
It took a couple weeks (and 48 hours off my screens in Utah) to dig into my hidden desires. Part of the Wanting discussion centers around “thick” and “thin” desires.
Let’s start with a “thick” desire => do right by my kids. Where’s that going to lead us? A series of strong downstream families that endure beyond my life.
When I see someone crushing the family-side of their life, I’m happy for them => alignment with my thick values.
Compare to “thin” desires => the Range Rover, a fancy ski jacket, etc… Thin, material desires are relatively easy to spot.
Envy is less easy to spot. Disgust, however, is easy to feel => there’s the feeling again… let me consider it.
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A story.
My kids are doing great in all domains – school, sport and social. Notwithstanding this reality, I often hear a voice in my head saying…
You could be so much more…
Funny though, the voice predates my child! It’s a voice that’s been following me around for many years.
But what does this voice want?
Fame, likes, the approval of strangers!
If you repulse me then you likely have these things, all of which I secretly want… 😮
Thin, hollow desire that, most importantly, can NEVER be satisfied.
When I started publishing, I had a desire to help 1,000 people. I wrote it down as part of The Artist’s Way, bought in July 2000. Having far exceeded my goal, you’d think the desire would wane.
My desire for recognition, when fed, only grows stronger!
I see hidden desire through my anti-desires, my envy of others. What am I thinking about when I feel disgust? How might I deal with those feelings of envy?
Don’t water the seeds of envy. Simple, not easy.
Let’s get into tactics I’ve been experimenting with…
#1 – get myself to play a different game by competing in a different environment. This started in 2000. To get myself to step outside my innate monetary greed, I had to leave my daily exposure to high finance. To think clearly, I need to power down my phone and lock it in my car for a couple days.
Reduce my drive for material consumption and constant external approval… Axing Facebook/Instagram was a huge win for me. Not easy. Like stopping drinking, what am I supposed to do with all this extra time?
Not racing => the removal of a constant incentive for “more” in my physical life. Signing up for a race is a step towards fatigue. Fatigue that works against my thick desires.
On the screen you are reading this post on… who is on my screen most often? who’s like me, but more? who’s triggering my disgust?
++
Write it down
Several times in my life, I’ve had a moment of clarity. A moment where I realized my thin desires were carrying me towards an outcome I didn’t want.
The moments are fleeting, so I write them down: the change and why I need to make it. Often, I try the change for 30-days and pay attention to how I feel.
The path forward is not always clear. I know people, who have a deep feeling “this isn’t it” and want to make a change. Other internal voices might be, “you gotta get out of here” or “this isn’t me.”
Write down what your hear.
Or maybe you wake up and realize your choices are destroying your health. In the early 1990s, I got kind of fat and didn’t like it. When I’m tempted to deviate from my system of healthy eating/exercise, I remind myself just how much I didn’t enjoy being chubby!
If you’re anything like me then your thin desires will persist and keep trying to lead you astray. The stronger they get, the more I need to slow down, reduce stress and consider where I want my choices to take me.
Strong downstream families enduring beyond my lifetime.
The 50m pool at Coronado – not a hardship posting! First person who took me here was Coach KP, 20-ish years ago. The Big Dog is always with me. Love you, buddy.
I flew out to San Diego to have a chat with a friend.
I had a hunch he’d come up with something and he delivered via a well-timed question.
What would that look like?
At the time, I was stuck talking about everything other than what I was going to do about my life.
Put another way, I was talking about what life was doing to me… rather than what I was going to do with my life.
Scheduling time for our three “weeklies.” Six hours a week plus a 20-minute planning meeting => huge return on time invested.
This has been great and I have noticed a useful change in my thinking. After a month of rolling our weeklies, my thinking shifted towards my actions to improve my life.
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With better thinking I noticed…
Time => this year I added 800 annual hours of driving to my life, without noticing!
Two schools across town, birthday parties, swim meets, swim workouts, jiujitsu, climbing… throw in dishwashing, laundry and picking up clutter… 2021 is up over 1,000 annual hours of s*** work.
Why would anyone learn to take care of themselves when they are offered catering, limo rides and daily maid service at their beck and call?
Have you ever quantified the dead miles from your commute? We are making 450 trips per school year. At 7.2 miles per round trip it is 3,240 miles. Tack on after school activities and we’re over 5,000 miles.
But wait, there’s more… cut cleaning AND driving => downsize into a place that is walking distance from where my kids will be going to school for the next TEN years.
Having lived through the challenges of running a 6,000 sf house, then a 5,000 sf house… I’d like to pull 2,500 sf out of our footprint, while reclaiming 5,000 hours over the next decade.
1//. I wasn’t able to see until I settled my mind to the point where I noticed how my time was being spent.
2//. When I am too busy, I get caught blaming the situation, rather than guiding the situation to a better outcome.
To notice, consider then act appropriately… I need empty space in my life.
Side note for my real estate pals — I’m all set, no need to drop me a line. 😉
Opening Day, Vail 2021
Something else I realized about time…
I have no more than 1,500 days left to directly impact my kids.
Somewhere beyond 2025, they are going to stop listening to me as they transition to adulthood.
So I’m going to make time for 1-on-1 trips, my best forum.
Also last week. Time well spent
Another story, this time about spending.
Just before the pandemic, my identity was stolen. It was stolen to the point where someone was able to call up my bank and get the bank to believe they were talking to me.
Huge pain in the rear. Not because I lost any money. More because I had to change every single thing I could to lock the buggers out — that took time.
Things have settled down but my security protocol means that my watch buzzes every time a nickel leaves my life. This has gradually made me miserable!
Recently, my watch died and the buzzes stopped.
It was wonderful.
I’m going to shift all notifications off my body.
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Back to those 1,500 days with the kids. Why are we doing this?
I want my kids to be equipped with the skills to self-direct their lives.
Why?
Because if you lack these skills then you run a much greater lifetime risk of being abused – literally, figuratively and financially.
A key value of knowing the why, is being able to discard the noise that surrounds us… politics, markets, crypto, workplace drama, status anxiety…
Also, consider the noise that surrounds parenthood… popularity, college admissions, athletic performance, academic performance, status anxiety, unresolved childhood trauma (being addressed via proxy)…
If the goal is to enable a child to self-direct their life then much of the above can be jettisoned. This enables the family to focus on things that could prove useful…
Getting along with difficult people
Knowing when not to engage
Letting others be wrong
Building marketable skills
Modeling the capacity to live within one’s means
Daily movement in nature
Understanding, then avoiding, ruin
Absence of addiction, abuse, disease, ill-health
So the filter I am using with regard to my kids is… is this a reasonable constraint on my time to up-skill them?
My driving and housework are beyond reasonable, which means I’m not doing my best work with the useful.
In life, and the bouldering gym, I struggle with balance moves.
To fully answer my friend’s question, “how would that look?” I need to get specific with regard to myself. I need to own the actions required to improve.
Say “yes” more often => people who are good at building capital (and fitness) receive an uncommon pleasure from deferring joy. Improving my yes-no balance requires a mental adjustment.
To create the space for better thinking, I’m going to spend 3-5 days exploring, in nature, tech-lite, each month in 2022. I failed to pull this off in 2021.
Something I learned 30 years ago, “there’s always a good reason to postpone the vacation.” In 2020 & 2021, there were many good reasons to say no to myself. Keeping myself far away from the urge to dismantle my family life is a good reason to say yes to creating some space.
Keep iterating towards better.
My plan for last Friday afternoon didn’t have “spend the afternoon doing autobelays with your kid” in it. I said “yes” to him and had a great time. One Positive Step.
I view my negative emotions as feedback and, when they persist, I change my approach.
My summer had some unpleasant moments. Moments which spurred the resolve to reach for better.
The first thing I noticed…
If I am going to do something mean then it’s going to happen at home, after spending the day alone.
I can’t remember a single unforced error happening after a day outside. The errors I do remember start with a slow boil starting at my desk!
So…
I have stickers facing me while I type away on my screens…
Whatever I truly need… it’s not to be found in a chair, looking at screens.
Another lesson I’ve learned, this time about marriage.
Schedule time to enjoy each other.
I don’t know if we’d gotten “too busy”, or complacent.
Either way, when I’m getting jealous of swim meets then it’s a sign we need to increase our us-time.
Tuesday – train together (outside), then lunch
Thursday – starting after Christmas break, ski together
Saturday – date night (and our oldest can handle the sitting)
Three opportunities for “together” each week.
Have fun together and avoid forming a habit of preparing a list of grievances for each encounter, yes I have done this.
The Thursday means we need to help. When I first raised the idea, it was…
I want you to get childcare so I can take an entire day off. Every. Single. Week.
My wife had no idea what, or why, this was important.
Nothing happened, for months.
When I explained the downstream idea (ski together each week), help was found within 12 hours.
Good ideas do better with effective communication.
These ideas were put together with an understanding of enduring drivers of satisfaction in my life…
Exploring, together
Being outside, together
The three “weeklies” put me in my best environment, so my wife isn’t interacting with me in my worst environment (the house after a day alone).
We had a bit of an issue with restaurant selection so we rotate choice, by week, with a no-veto policy.
Kid #2 completed their reading challenge!
John Hellemans notes there are three plans in any athlete-coach relationship. I goes something like this…
The plan the coach believes the athlete is given
The plan the athlete actually does
The plan the coach believes the athlete did
It’s a reminder to be cautious with assumptions, and pay attention to clues that point to reality being different than expected.
A version of this extends to all things in life…
What you think you need
What you actually do
What you think you did
Consider money…
What I think I need to spend to make myself happy [A]
What the family is actually spending [B]
What I think my family wants me to spend [C]
The punchline here is TIME.
When you are enjoying each other, your family will enjoy inexpensive hobbies.
INVERT => no amount of spending can overcome a lack of meaningful connection
What’s been bothering me, quite a bit as it turns out, was the ratio of B to A. The $5 of family spending that follows each $1 I find useful in my own life.
I dug deeper.
What I’ve arrived at is equity. Equity of contributions and benefits. We’re working on it. A simple change, that is difficult to implement…
I will not burden myself with the task of removing the consequences of another’s choices.
Basically, if someone calls an audible, repeats a bad habit, makes a poor choice… then I’ll limit myself to polite emotional support, while calmly showing the connection between their choice and the consequence.
Then I’ll move on.
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Getting What I Want
With the money I think my family wants me to spend… I just smile at myself.
First, because my wants are driven by my peers, my values and the advertising industry => my family is the solution, not the issue.
A bit of effort with my media filter dials down my greed, and dials up useful traits. A simple change… unsubscribe reduces useless spending.
Second, my “wants” are transitory. They come and go, just like moods. I don’t need to take them seriously, they change all the time.
A better question:
What’s it going to take to raise my kids, the way I want, and set myself up for the next stage of my life?
The trip to the Canyon marked the end of my summer season. On the bus ride back to our car, my wife asked “what’s next?” I’ll share the answers to that question and add some ideas that might be helpful.
One of my challenges with parenthood is being haunted by the thought… “I’m going to be old by the time I escape this grind.” In my 20s, that thought (and a divorce) helped me jettison myself from desk work.
Our youngest isn’t going to graduate high school until 2032, so there’s some truth in these feelings. However:
(1) my age isn’t necessary a problem, or a barrier, for a life with meaning;
(2) I had similar thoughts ~20 years ago and things turned out fine; and
(3) fearis a distraction from doing what solves the problem.
Anyhow, I wanted to acknowledge those thoughts as I’m certain many of us feel similarly, at times.
We’ll see how long he can continue to flash his age. He’s currently 5.11 at our local.
The Mental Benefit of Getting Better At Something
One of my coaching mentors, John Hellemans, has a wonderful presentation about triathlon. One of his lessons is “try something new, each year.” He backs this advice with a series of slides showing all the whacky equipment he tried out over the years. He must get a kick out of novelty.
Coming out of COVID (it seems we’ve been leaving the pandemic for all of 2021!), I was gym-strong. As a result, I’ve been able to get back, rather quickly, to a level of indoor climbing I’d last achieved in 1996.
Gains & novelty are fun.
What will you try this winter?
My areas for improvement: metabolic fitness via endurance cycling, skills & novelty via indoor climbing, eccentric leg strength via dryland ski training and agility via downhill skiing.
She’s always been a great runner, just didn’t like it! 🙂 Swimming helped her get used to how racing feels. PS: something I tell her, “by turning up at a race, regardless of outcome, you make everyone better.” She’s been shaking up the hierarchy at various squads around town. Be grateful for your competition, and remember that winning is fleeting.
Knowing What I Don’t Want
Do you know the conditions likely to to bring out your worst?
I sure do: tired, in traffic, the whole family in close proximity, after a day spent answering questions and listening to low-grade bickering between my kids.
Not going to spend time, and money, to put myself in that situation!
My personal planner, through to the end of March 2022, doesn’t have a single peak-period family drive (and the kids had to demonstrate a material improvement in behavior to get me to agree to fly with them).
The current situation tends to continue as long as we tolerate it.
Write out your “not to do” list.
New sheriff in town. Howdy partner!
The Value of Being Able to Change Course
The last year was another reminder how life surprises me.
In August 2020, our daughter started year round swim team. Team implies ~12 meets a year, 6 of those requiring travel. That’s a lot of time out of my “with my wife” allocation. It was a major adjustment for me, which we are still figuring out.
That wasn’t the surprising part, fatherhood can feel like a gradual drift down the priority list until the kids move out. Just the way it is, and why I make a priority of having fun with my wife.
I was surprised by the cost. Swimming is expensive for a “cheap” sport. Our cost is greatly increased by my desire for childcare => so I don’t lose my mind, being left home alone with the other kids.
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Over the years we have considered properties in various vacation markets. I feel fortunate that I didn’t pull the trigger on anything. Because we didn’t lock ourselves into a secondary market, it was painless to cut the winter activity budget in half and cover the cost of swimming.
So no winter ski place rental, which eliminates Sunday drives home (in snow storms, tired, with all three kids).
Of Interest Here: I am being compensated by less of what I don’t like. Very tough to price the benefit of via negativa.
What would I pay to cut my worst days in half? No idea, but I do pause to notice the benefits of less.
The lesson isn’t my specific situation. The lesson is life changes every five years or so. Choices, and investments, that make sense today can be costly to unwind tomorrow => even when you get out at a profit.
We’ve owned a BoCo rental property since 2010 and I’m often tempted to swap it for a vacation place. By not buying in a secondary market:
I continued to hold a rental property in my home market.
I didn’t pay capital gains taxes.
The rental income more than covered my vacation rentals.
I benefited from 75% capital appreciation.
My net cost on the site is zero, a few years back I subdivided and sold part of the land.
In 2016, I didn’t know how I would be surprised, but I could see the ability to cover vacation expenses with rental income. Also, it was also easy to calculate the taxes and agents fees deferred by not selling => make the cost of change visible.
I have a persistent feeling that owning is better. In secondary markets, the facts tell me otherwise.
Looking forward to 2032, I know we will be empty nesters. What that means for our life is unknowable today.
Stay variable.
Take Advantage of Childhood Opportunities
There is a limited window of time where my kids will think I am brilliant. I care about the value of my family’s human capital so I remember…
It is much easier to indoctrinate a child in “risk management by example” than to achieve anything by heckling a teen.
As a coach, my job was to teach my team what I would advise, without needing to say it.
Being the brand was excellent preparation for parenthood. Kids have a keen nose for inconsistency!
Prepared is better than protected.
Repeating good habits from a young age will do more for my family than any amount of lecturing. (1) Do it right, every single time. (2) Be open to learning from everyone, even your siblings!
It’s possible to spend one’s entire life getting stuff done and making no true progress.
What do I mean by this?
I took a week off at the start of August and looked deeply at my life. Here’s what I noticed.
Problems: when folks are seeking to help us, they often remind us to count our blessings with a stock phrase such as…
Many people would love to have your problems.
This is both true, and false. True because I have an excellent set of problems. False because my problems are more accurately described as my “to do” list. They are simply things that need to get done.
…and that’s where a habit of grinding away, can get us nowhere.
Before we can fix something, we need to identify just what we need to address.
I spent the start of August alone, wandering around the mountains. It was a unique opportunity to get outside my life.
When was the last time you unplugged and got outside of the box?
By the way, I’m writing this from my box – my home, my home office, staring at screens. Too much of that in COVID!
The first thing I noticed was my point above, what I call my “problems” is merely a to-do list. They aren’t problems in a structure sense – time will wipe them out.
The key issue of the last 12-months is a periodic, penetrating sadness. Ticking off items on my to-do list doesn’t have much of an impact on it. My cost of living – no impact on it. Portfolio returns – no impact.
This insight was useful for me. It spurred two follow on questions:
What am I doing when I’m not-sad?
Are there triggers that set me along a downward spiral?
There’s a paradox in my life as a father. Doing the actions required to be a great parent, wipe me out. Not a big deal – I don’t mind fatigue all that much.
However, listening to my kids bicker brings on nausea. It’s my kryptonite.
Combine the two, bickering at the end of a long day, day-after-day, week-after-week, for the last 10+ years.
Across the summer, it was getting to me. I decided to opt out of anything that had all three kids involved.
Digging deeper, I realized no one can make me drive a car, take a trip, sign a lease, deal with rush hour… anything really. Parenting can leave me feeling trapped, but it’s a trap of my own creation.
I have a central role in tolerating the triggers of my sadness.
Back to the “to do” list.
It all-too-easy for couples to get bogged down arguing about their “problems”. They never get anywhere because they aren’t addressing the issue at its deepest level.
My family asked me what I wanted.
Two things:
Spend more time _alone_ with my wife => I make this clear each time the opportunity arises. Sometimes this is as simple as being able to finish our sentences to each other (without being interrupted by an addition to my to-do list, which the kids could do themselves!).
Help with the low-value tasks in my house => stepping outside my life in August made me realize how much time I spend on other people’s BS. In this regard, my sadness did me a huge favor when it nudged me to jettison Facebook (August 2020). Dealing with other people’s crap feels never-ending. In fact, it started to end the moment I decided I was done tolerating it.
In the meantime, I decided to stop:
Stop => helping anyone who is rude to me.
Stop => supporting anyone who wants to be a passenger.
All the while, modeling the the actions I want to see around me.
Which brings me to the #1 directive I gave myself, which I learned from our youngest daughter.
Be Polite.
Not just because it works.
Because the opposite of polite => rudeness, disharmony, noise, bickering, petty squabbles is a HUGE sadness trigger for me.
Winning an argument won’t solve my problem because engaging in argument is a trigger.
The opposite of sadness => call it not-sad.
It isn’t happiness.
For me, it’s enthusiasm.
My retreat enabled me to reconnect with my enthusiasm:
Above treeline with my kids on a Wednesday – most definitely, the real thing
Cam recommended a book…
A favorite currency is good ideas.
One good idea per book, per meeting, per trip…
Taking my kids to the library every Tuesday this summer => has proven to be a good idea. We look forward to the time together.
I spent decades being too busy to implement any good idea that involved slowing down.
I was only interested in ideas that helped me get more.
The good idea from the book above is “seek the real thing” => it’s similar to advice I give myself => look deeper, consider my un-met need, what are my actions saying about my values…
Approval – social media is driven by our need for approval. We get just enough to keep us coming back for more.
For me, the real thing is teaching kids. They are hardwired to think any reasonable human is an all-star, and that feels great.
Another favorite currency… a child’s hug, a deeper form of “like.”
Self-aware of goodness in action.
With the real thing, there’s no clutter, no background noise, no BS.
The author talks about sex being a motivator and it is, obviously.
…but that’s not always an option.
Consider skin-to-skin contact.
Massage, hugs…
Time, to look around
As an elite athlete, I’d rarely stop, take pictures or notice my surroundings. There was a constant feeling of being in a rush.
This feeling goes back as far as I can remember.
At child’s pace, there is plenty of time: tiny flowers, distant goats, chubby marmots, streams, snow patches shaped like dragons and bugs…
Time to notice > scrolling in air-con.
There’s a persistent illusion that I’m doing something when I’m roaming online, but I’m not.
And nature is a much more effective form of nothing.
…but I need to get past my personal inertia.
…and that’s the author’s point.
In a world of competing interests, prior commitments and personal goals… where to focus?
Focus on moving myself towards the real thing.
Each of our kids has a calming blanket – programmed into them since birth, along with skin-to-skin human contact. The blue one in this pic works well on both of us. 😉
Feel The Byrn 
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