No, I’m not sure how this relates to the post. But it does strike me as one of those cool “only in Houston” sights and since I haven’t found an occasion to use it yet, I’m using it now.
With this post we’ve reached a milestone on Health, Wealth, Power. By my count, this is post number 50. So far, readership has been going up steadily and that has been very exciting. To those of you who have been coming here for a while, I’m glad to have you along on this journey. To anyone who has started reading more recently, welcome. Today I want to highlight both some of my most viewed posts and some of my favorites that haven’t been seen as much – in many cases because I posted them before many people were reading the blog at all. Thank you to everyone for reading and here’s to the next 50 posts (and many more) to come!
A window into my raw thought process on a recent night when
I got some seemingly devastating news about my career. I wrote this almost
immediately when I got home so I would have a good record of my immediate
reaction to look back at later. I’m still in the midst of dealing with this
situation but I have a very exciting recent development that I’ll be sharing
soon.
A discussion of how even though I am more financially
fortunate than 99% of the world, I still haven’t been able to completely adopt
that mindset over that of my much more difficult financial past
This is one of my personal favorite posts so far. It is a
nostalgic look at the way the most difficult event of my life so far has
spawned so many wonderful changes. While I and my life will never be quite the
same as before it happened again, that is mostly a good thing.
Health and fitness is a topic that’s near and dear to my
heart. Medical science is keeping people alive longer and longer today. But
what is it worth? My argument is that we’ve long since passed the point where
quality is much more important (and elusive in many cases) than quantity. This
post is my attempt to lay out the basics for anyone who feels similarly and
wants to do something about it.
I’ve written a number of posts on this theme now – the value
of finding the positives in situations that don’t seem very positive at face
value. But this was one of the first. As someone who has put a ton of work into
thinking more positively and seen firsthand how dramatically that mentality
shift can change life in often unexpected ways, it is very important to me to
share my experiences in this area.
I wrote this post for people who struggle with depression or
have in the past. It’s not comprehensive and I’m no mental health professional,
but it’s a discussion of some tactics and information that have helped me in
the past when the weight of the world seemed to be crushing me with no sign of
relief. If it helps one person, it was worth far more than the time it took to
write it.
I’m trying to be less of a bastard in life. But I do tend to
temporarily suspend that effort when it comes to fighting back against what I
view as unethical tactics. In this post, I illustrate how I’ve been mostly
successful at keeping the shenanigans of those damn ISPs from succeeding in
robbing me blind.
Simply put, the methods I described in this post have saved
me five figures by this point in my life. One of the many benefits of living in
the richest country in the history of the world, particularly at a time when
technological advancement has been unprecedented as well, is that extremely
marginal compromises can result in enormous savings. There is an almost constant
chorus in the media about the retirement crisis in the United States. That
means that for most of us, there is no excuse for not taking advantage of
opportunities like this to get so much in return for so little.
For starters, probably don’t buy this one… – Image courtesy of Jean-Marc Buytaert
If you had asked me to write this post ten years ago, I would have refused to do it since advising anyone to buy a new car would have been a huge disservice. Why buy new when that same car will cost a quarter less in a year and about half in four or five? However, since then, prices have skyrocketed (but so have incentives), people have largely caught on to both that trend and how generally undervalued used cars had been, and depreciation has slowed considerably as a result to the point that today, buying a new car makes sense in some, but still not all cases. But under no circumstances does it make sense to go in uninformed and let some car salesman hit a home run off of you. So let’s see what we can do about that. This is only one of many perspectives on the matter but it should at least give you a good start. The dealership model, much like that of credit cards, is set up to screw customers en masse. However, just as with credit cards, the rules of that exact same game can be turned around and exploited by a savvy customer as well. Let’s get you on your way to being one!
Much like in any sport, preparation is a huge part of
winning. Don’t ever go to a dealership without having done your homework. How
do you know if you’re ready? Before you ever step foot in a dealership, you
should know all of the following things: which make and model you want, the
differences between different model years if there are multiple new model years
available (for example, today you could buy a 2020, a 2019, or a 2018 in
certain cases) which options you want and don’t want, which packages you need
to buy or avoid in order to accomplish that, what those packages cost, the
average pricing (what people are actually paying) of any car you want, what
your current car is worth, and what the terms of your financing approval are.
Yes, that is a lot. It usually takes me a month or so, chipping away an hour or
two at a time.
There are tons of research sites available now. Edmunds.com
and KBB.com are two of the best and most venerable but countless competitors
have popped up in recent years. Most of the information you need is widely
available so the important thing isn’t so much where you choose to get yours as
that you get it somewhere and verify it somewhere else. I recommend working
through the process on multiple sites until you basically have everything
memorized. But don’t be afraid to make yourself a cheat sheet of key figures to
take with you. Your mind can do funny things in the heat of the moment.
Whatever you do, do not rely on a salesman to educate you about cars, pricing,
or especially finance. Why not? First, there is a very low barrier to entry in
the job and many of them are awful at it and incapable of doing so. By
educating yourself, you will ensure that weakness on the part of a salesman can
only get you a better deal and will cost you nothing. Second, information is
power, plain and simple. If the salesman knows more than you do about any of
the items I listed above, he has an advantage that he can capitalize on from
the word go all the way through the signing of a deal – and that’s going to
cost you thousands of dollars.
You also need to know about your end of the transaction
going in. KBB.com will give you a pretty good idea what your current car is
worth, especially if you cross reference craigslist, autotrader, etc to see
what cars like yours are actually being listed for. Pay attention to the type
of valuation you’re getting. Private party (if you sell the car yourself) is
almost certainly going to be higher than trade in. But know the difference
between these numbers because it will be important. Keep in mind that in most
states, you’re not going to pay sales tax on the trade in portion of the deal.
So weigh things out. For example, if your state charges 5% sales tax and your
car is worth $5k private party and $3800 as a trade, you would be better off by
$1010 if you sold it yourself ($3800 + 190 less tax liability = 3990, 5000 –
3990 = 1010). However, if the dealer ultimately ups his offer to $4800, and you
are confident in the $5000 figure, you are now better off trading ($4800 + 240
= 5040, 5000 – 5040 = -40). However, watch out for over allowance here. This is
when a dealer offers more than your trade is worth but then juices the hell out
of the sale price of the new car to more than make up for it. Remember, “there
is no free lunch.” And also keep in mind that selling a car usually involves
investing your time into dealing with at least some “interesting” people so you
have to decide what that is worth to you as well and factor it in.
Finally, there’s financing. Some hardliners will say you should
never finance a vehicle because it’s a depreciating asset. I would say that
technically they’re right in most cases, but that the declining pace of
depreciation and still nearly historically low interest rates have made things
a lot less definitive than they used to be. For example, I took a car loan in
2014 at a rate of 2.9%. Cash wasn’t worth that much at the time but investments
were worth a hell of a lot more. So since I was confident I would be able to
cashflow the loan for the life of the term, I feel I was making a pretty good
choice. I still recommend sticking to a 36 month term or shorter, just like I
would never advise anyone to take out a mortgage with a term over 15 years.
Why? The term becomes a limiting mechanism against both paying excessive interest
and buying more than you can afford. As long as you can cashflow the payments
at 36 months or less, you are pretty unlikely to get hurt. Are you dooming
yourself with a 60 month term on a car loan? No, but you are stretching
yourself thinner than I would prefer if you genuinely need a term that long to
afford the payments.
Whatever you do with the financing, do not make it into yet
another profit item for the dealership. Get your best approval option directly
from a lender prior to ever looking at any cars. Credit unions usually offer
the best rates. This part will involve a little more legwork but there are two
big payoffs. One, the dealership finance manager isn’t going to mark your
quoted rate up by a point (or three). And yes, if you don’t find the financing
for yourself, that is exactly what will happen. The exception would be when the
dealer or manufacturer gives you a subsidized rate. However, keep in mind that
in those cases, you can usually have either the subsidized rate or the
incentives on the car but not both and you are usually much better off taking
the incentives, which have ballooned more and more along with the pricing in
general. So you are always better off knowing what the best available
non-subsidized deal is at a minimum. Two, you will spend a lot less time in a
room with that same finance manager – and make no mistake, he is the smartest and
most ruthless guy on the payroll or they wouldn’t force almost every customer
to go through him before leaving with a new car. He is probably going to try to
push extended warranties and other bullshit whether you finance through him or
not, but if you take the financing out of his hands, you’ve taken away his best
weapon. He loves to say things like “we can give you all this additional
coverage and it will only cost you x per month” because it puts thousands of
dollars in his pocket without some people even realizing what he’s doing.
Before you walk into that office, remind yourself that the only way to walk out
without losing money is to say no repeatedly until the finance manager accepts
that you’re not a rube and gives up.
That brings me to another key point. Any time anyone tries
to talk about monthly payments, stop them in their tracks by telling them
you’ll be basing any and all decisions on the total sale price only. As a
finance guy, I can tell you that from your perspective as a customer, nothing
good can come from conversing in the language of monthly payments. If you are a
lion in an epic struggle for survival with a crocodile, this would be the part
of the program where the crocodile tries to pull you off of the river bank and
into the water, where you go from having a fighting chance to virtually none.
Don’t let it happen. Fight the enemy on your terms only. Negotiate on total
sale price only!
Now let’s get to that most fun part! What? Negotiating isn’t
fun for you? I get it. You’re a normal person and you don’t like awkward, high
pressure situations. But unless you want to donate at least a few thousand
dollars to some “no haggle” (in other words, “take the easy road and just pay
us a lot more”) dealership, this is a necessary evil. First off, shop at the
right time. There is no one best part of the year although there are several
good ones. Late summer is good because business tends to be slow and
dealerships are hungry. Different parts of fall and winter are good for a
variety of reasons. But by far the most important timing related factor is to
shop when it’s good for you. This means you have a functioning vehicle and are
under zero pressure to buy anything now. This is crucial because indifference
is your best weapon.
Only visit a
dealership if you are 100% ready and willing to drive away in the same vehicle
that got you there. I can’t stress this point enough. The heart of the
negotiation process is the power struggle. If a salesman (and by extension, the
finance manager, who you are actually negotiating with through the conduit of
the salesman) has any reason to believe you are not going to leave without
buying something, you are going to get soaked. This is not to say you can’t let
him think you’re serious about buying a car. But make sure he has no illusions
about you being unable or unwilling to walk away. Bottom line, if he gets you
to the point where you have to have his car, he wins. If you get him to the
point where he is ready to let you walk away, you win. And that is exactly the
metric I use to determine if I’ve pushed the deal to the limit.
The battle is usually going to rage for hours. Go in
mentally prepared. Like it or not, you’re in the game and if you want to win,
you have to want it more than your opponent. The salesman will use whatever his
favorite tactics are, often just lowbrow emotional manipulation, but the
structure is usually about the same; he first tries to build up the value of
the car and your desire for it. Ideally, he will succeed in making you feel
that this is not a negotiable situation and he’ll have you paying premium
prices for both the car and every bullshit add on that has ever been dreamed
up. But of course you don’t let that happen and say you want a lower price so
it goes into the negotiation phase. He goes to visit his manager, who coaches
him on his performance, talks to him about a sports team they both like, ogles
that hot new receptionist, whatever. This is a game, after all. But you can
play too. If the salesman is gone too long, you can smile as say something to
the effect of “if you’re gone that long again, I think I’ll go see what kind of
deal the guys across the street are offering while I’m waiting.” Bonus points
for a sarcastic wink at the end of it. The manager visits will usually yield a
few hundred dollars or so each on the total sale price – assuming you’ve been
smart enough to force the conversation to stay focused on it. Keep in mind that
they want to toss in other things – undercoating, extended warranties at
reduced prices, various subscription packages to all the tech bullshit the cars
are loaded with now, and anything else that costs them a fraction of what yet
another of those expensive price reductions will. Think of it like you’re
trying to dig a hole and every manager visit is another time pulling the shovel
up and dumping it. You want that shovel to be full of dirt every time or it’s
going to take you forever to get the job done.
The forever part is the dealership’s goal. The longer it
takes you to get them down on the total price, the more likely you are to just
give up and settle. Have fun with the process. Engage in whatever mental
warfare amuses you. The key is to send the message that you’re here for the
long haul and that doesn’t bother you in the slightest. If you do it right,
they may just give up and make a big cut in the hopes of convincing you it’s
their bottom line. But remember, my metric is whether the salesman will allow
me to leave. If he says something is the best he can do, thank him for the information,
tell him you will compare his numbers to some other dealerships you’re going to
be visiting (it helps if you know which competitors are nearby so you can
mention a name and make the threat more real), and act as though you’re
preparing to leave. Gauge the reaction. He may say “this offer is only good if
you sign now.” That’s bullshit. You can easily come back and renegotiate it
anytime you want – maybe even a better deal. Keep moving. He may say “let me go
talk to my manager and see if there is anything else I can do.” You’ve just
caught him lying since he already said it was the best he could do. The
negotiation phase isn’t over and you would have left money on the table if you
had believed what he said just moments ago. Or maybe, just maybe, he’ll have
nothing to say for the first time all day. If that’s the case, it means he
actually has done all he can do.
Now this doesn’t mean you immediately change your mind and
take the deal. Remember all that research you did? As part of that, you will
undoubtedly know what the average person is paying for this particular car.
Some sites even give you a range from low to high. So all this time, you will
have that in your back pocket and be well aware of whether or not what’s in
front of you is actually a good deal. So when the salesman bows his head in
apparent defeat, it’s time for you to make a decision. Are you at or near the
bottom of the range? Or below it? You should probably have a change of heart
about leaving and sign the deal. If you aren’t where you want to be, it’s
possible that this dealership is just particularly greedy and you’d get a
better deal elsewhere. You’d certainly be more effective at the negotiation
process with this one just recently under your belt.
One other fairly new phenomenon is the internet price. There
are sites where you can choose exactly the car you want down to the particular
trim, options, and even color. Use an email address you’re ok with getting
spammed at, of course, because the next step is that area dealers will spam you
with quotes. It will keep coming, and coming, and coming. But last time I tried
this, I noticed something interesting. Some of the dealers’ offers improved over
time. When I got one that looked almost too good to pass up, I went in. Of
course, I’m a crazy person, so I worked the whole negotiation process without
telling anyone I had the internet offer in my back pocket. When I got pretty
close to it and the salesman seemed unwilling to move any further, I pulled the
offer up on my phone and told him it had made me think it might be worth coming
in since it was “in the ballpark.” The salesman was pissed. But after one last
conference with his manager, he came back with a slightly better offer than the
internet one and an assurance that he would go no further. My leaving ploy
confirmed it and so did various websites.
So the internet price was pretty dynamite in that case as I
was only able to get a little bit lower through negotiating. And my final price
was almost off the chart in terms of the range of prices being paid on the
websites. But I never would have known that if I hadn’t verified it by working
to arrive at it another way. And just because that one internet price was good,
it’s no guarantee that any others are. Dealerships aren’t suddenly going to
stop wanting to make as much money as possible because the internet is here.
I’m sure they will continue to innovate.
I see by the word count that this has been a longer journey
than I had planned on. But I believe everything I’ve said has been necessary
and probably still didn’t cover absolutely everything. A successful car
negotiation often takes several hours (although I did have a very quick one
once) and although it may seem very straightforward at times, there is actually
a lot going on. I will leave you with two more general tips to keep in mind.
One, the salesman is only going to present options that benefit him. Don’t
assume they are the only ones that exist. Two, you are not in this to make
friends. The salesman and finance manager will most likely get very frustrated
if you are well prepared to get an extremely good deal and it may very well
come out in some sort of emotional response. In this narrow context, being
their friends means paying them thousands of dollars more than you have to. I
don’t know about you, but those are the kind of friends I can do without.
I was working on a very different post for today but that
one is going to have to wait since something else has grabbed hold of my
attention. This is going to get into the “way too personal” category but since
this blog has turned into a sort of journal for me, since I’ve intentionally
maintained a high degree of anonymity so I can post things of this nature if I
want to, and since I hope that this post might be valuable to someone out there,
I’m going to write it. I am writing this in real time; I found out the news I’m
about to share with you less than four hours ago. So I’m writing it without the
benefit of “sleeping on it” and I decided to do it because I want to preserve
the moment as authentically as possible.
It would appear my employer is heading into troubled waters.
I certainly am, in any case. My boss visits everyone in the field periodically
and this week was my turn. But while it is usually a fun and enjoyable
experience, this time he had to do something that I’m sure was very difficult
for him. Tonight he told me I’m effectively on notice and that barring a
dramatic performance improvement over the next few months that is unlikely if
not impossible, I’m going to have to find something else to do with my time. Furthermore,
this same message is being delivered to most of us, save the top handful of
performers. So either he was trying to cushion the blow with that last part (I’ll
find out soon enough) or this is a lot bigger than just me. I believe he is a
man of integrity and I have no reason to doubt him but it really doesn’t make a
lot of difference either way.
My performance has actually been very good for quite a while
in some ways and I’m very proud of the way I have grown, both as a salesman and
as a person, and how I have succeeded many times against very difficult odds. I
have shortcomings and limitations like anyone else, however, and the bar is
being moved above what I believe is possible when all circumstances are
factored in. I have no ill will towards anyone. My boss didn’t make this
decision and delivering the news couldn’t have been easy, especially if he
knows he has to do it several more times over the coming weeks. He has always
been a decent man in my experience and that is far more important than anything
else in my book. His boss probably didn’t make this decision either and even if
he did, I have nothing but respect for him and appreciation for everything he
has done for me over the years. His boss probably did make the decision. But
while I have only met him very briefly, I’m sure something like that wouldn’t
be easy for him either and even if it was, he did it because he has a boss to
answer to as well – in his case, the investors who collectively own the
company. At the end of the day, almost everything in business boils down to
economics and it appears either revenue needs to increase or expenses need to
decrease. We salesmen live and die by that reality. And regardless of growth,
positive aspects of my performance, or any other factors, I have not done
enough to remain viable under current conditions. Many, many people who work in
sales will face this day and today is my turn.
I have struggled with negative thinking all my life but I
want to promise myself and the world, here and now, that I’m going to ace this
test that has been put in front of me. And I don’t make promises I have any
reason to doubt I can and will keep. My first thoughts after I got the news
gave me that confidence. I’m overwhelmed with gratitude – for the incredibly
lucrative run I’ve had with this company, for the personal and career growth
the opportunity has resulted in, for the many good people and the handful of truly
amazing people I’ve met that I hope to keep as beloved friends, for the fact
that I run my finances ultra-conservatively and thus am in an excellent
position to withstand any loss of income, for having a solid resume with a
great school and solid experience on it, for being given notice and a fairly
specific timeline, and on and on. My response to my boss was along these same
lines. Of course I’m going to do my best to raise my performance to the new
standard. But he and I both know the odds of me (or several other people)
getting there are remote. The reality is that his job may not last much longer
than mine and in fact, that could even be true of everyone in the organization
on a relatively short timeline. At least I’ve been given some sort of chance to
both try to change the situation and prepare for it in the event that my
efforts to do so come up short.
My subsequent thoughts were also all really good ones. I
remembered the proverb about the Chinese farmer, which is one of my favorite
concepts of all time. If I were a tattoo man (I’m not), and there were some single
artistic concept that could remind me of the parable, that is probably the
tattoo I would get. I don’t know the source but I believe its origins date back
plenty far enough to put it in the public domain so I will put it at the bottom
of this post for anyone who hasn’t read it. It has gotten me through some
difficult days and inspired me on some good ones. I thought about all the
things I can go out and do to try to shoot the moon or at least keep my job as
long as possible. I thought about some of the many well-connected people I can
reach out to in an effort to find a new job. I thought about how lucky I am in
so many ways: no dependents, enough cash on hand to live with no income for
well over a year, enough overall wealth to do so for close to a decade, having
been born in the richest country on earth at the most prosperous time in its history
to date, and on and on. I thought about how I took a very hard hit (a fairly
sudden divorce from a woman I loved with all my heart) in 2016 and how three
years later, my life is better in many ways than it was before that happened. I
thought about how thankful I am to have my closest confidant; then I called her
and told her the news and thanked her in as many ways as I could think of for
the wonderful impact she has had, and continues to have in my life. I thought
of what an unlikely closest confidant she is and how I met her near the depths
of despair. You just never know when something awful might turn into something
amazing.
This is just another opportunity dressed in ugly clothes. It’s an opportunity to prove I’m the man I aspire to be against the backdrop of difficult circumstances. It’s an opportunity to use those same circumstances to grow stronger than I am now. Nothing does it like adversity. I truly believe that. Hell, this is an opportunity to upgrade. In a few months or a year, I could look back on this as a day that forced me to turn away from something good and towards something even better.
Undoubtedly, there are tough days ahead. There will be
rejections – just like every other day, except that I myself will also be
getting rejected as I pursue other opportunities. There will be moments of
weakness and I will have to fight through my nemesis, depression, for hours,
days, or longer. Anxiety will probably be in the mix as well. I could even
experience one of my greatest fears – being fired and having no employment
income for some period of time (even that is something to be thankful for; how
many people on earth face realities infinitely worse than that every day?). But
I can’t afford to let any of it beat me. This is a crucial time and I need to
be at my absolute best. I’m going into a storm, like it or not. I can either
cower in fear and drown, or I can embrace the challenge and fight. Fear is ok
and in fact, it is only natural. Failure is neither. Who we are is determined
by what we do every single day. But some days are a little more important than
others. I’m going to go get that sleep now. After all, tomorrow is a big day.
The Parable of the Chinese Farmer
A wise man once told me that back in the day, there was a Chinese
farmer who lived with his son. He was very poor and only had one horse that he
used to plough the fields. The Farmer was elderly and relied on his son and the
horse to do all the work on his farm.
One day his son left the gate to the horse’s pen open and the
horse escaped. The Farmer kept sending his son out to find the horse but it was
nowhere to be found.
When the Farmer’s friends and neighbors found out they came round
to commiserate with him and told him how unlucky he was. The Farmer replied
“Maybe”.
After many days of searching, the Farmer’s son found the horse. It
was grazing with a group of other horses. When the Farmer’s son returned with
the horse, its new friends followed. And when he closed the gate, there were
seven horses in the pen.
The Farmer’s friends were delighted and all visited to celebrate,
telling the Farmer how lucky he was. The Farmer replied “Maybe”.
The son set about breaking in the horses so they could be sold at
market as tame rather than wild. When he was working with the last animal, he
fell off and broke his leg. Again the Farmer’s friends and neighbors visited to
commiserate and told him how unlucky he was. The Farmer replied “Maybe”.
The very next day, the Chinese army passed nearby. They were on
the way to a huge battle with the Mongols and arrived at the Farmer’s house
saying they had heard there was a young man there and he must come with them to
fight. The Farmer showed them in so they could see that the son had a broken
leg. They left without him.
Again the Farmer’s friends and neighbors arrived delighted and told the Farmer how lucky he was. The Farmer replied “Maybe…”
If that doesn’t beat the hell out of my zoomed cell phone pictures of gators I’ve seen! – Brazos Bend State Park – Image courtesy of Jean-Marc Buytaert
Spoiler warning: If you haven’t seen this documentary yet and want to, you may not want to read this until after you have.
This is going to be a different post from any I’ve written
before. I’m not exactly sure what it is. It’s not quite a review, although the
documentary named above inspired it and is addressed. It’s also not quite a
psychological evaluation as I’ve had no formal training in psychology beyond a
handful of college classes, a lot of private reading, and some personal
experiences that seem instructive in this case. But whatever it is, I hope you
enjoy reading it as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it.
As a guy who is fascinated by the true crime genre, finance,
dark triad personality disorders, and the uncanny tendency of all three to
intersect with one another, the Elizabeth Holmes/Theranos story is a boatload
of intrigue that I’ve been keeping a morbidly fascinated eye on for quite a
while now. When I found out the best producer of movies that currently exists
(even though the company technically produces tv shows) had done a documentary
on the topic, I had to check it out. And it did not disappoint. I think this story
is very important because it highlights a major problem I see in the collective
psyche of much of our society today in a way that perhaps nothing else has yet.
Specifically, people seem to care far more about recognition than about whether
or not it is actually deserved. I’m not so naïve as to think this is a new
phenomenon. But I do think the advent of social media has amounted to not just
pouring gas on the fire of this human weakness, but throwing a stick of
dynamite or two in for good measure.
For those unfamiliar with the story, Theranos was a company
created by Stanford dropout Elizabeth Holmes for the purpose of making her
famous in exactly the way Steve Jobs was, except with the added bonus of the
halo that comes with being in the medical field. Note the way I worded that. It
appears the end is the only thing that mattered to Holmes. The means were
always negotiable. She was convinced she had solved the fairly minor problem of
the pain people feel when blood is taken from them for testing purposes.
Supposedly, her idea, which eventually took the form of Theranos’ Edison
machine, could accomplish many medical tests using a tiny amount of blood
relative to existing methods. Many people, including both one of her professors
at Stanford and a renowned scientist she and her management team employed and
subsequently helped drive to suicide via overdose of psychological abuse, told
her in no uncertain terms that her concept was impossible; and at least as of
today, they were correct. This minor detail failed to stop her, however, and
she went on to use it to both bilk investors out of hundreds of millions and
subject innocent people to medical tests she was well aware would not produce
reliable results.
For me, there are two primary questions in this story. One,
while Holmes certainly appears to score extremely high in traits of all three
dark triad disorders, is she so out of touch with reality that she genuinely
believes she and her company did nothing wrong? Second, how on earth did she
dupe so many highly sophisticated people into investing huge amounts of money
into, and staking their reputations on, an idea so unsound based on current
science, without showing any sort of evidence that it could even possibly work?
We’re not just talking about multiple past presidents, a respected general, and
other extremely successful people here; we’re talking about the leadership of
two massive corporations and the majority ownership of a third. This wasn’t
some Nigerian royalty email scam targeting people who barely know who they are
anymore, much less how the internet works.
As for me, I believe Holmes is absolutely culpable of her
actions and was wholly aware of the reality of what she and her company were
doing. I was so close to being prepared to admit she probably didn’t know her
actions had been morally wrong because she was most likely incapable of
discerning right from wrong at all. But one key pattern of behavior convinced
me otherwise. For me, the smoking gun was the way she responded when the shit
began to hit the fan. After the Wall Street Journal article came out and the
whole world was talking about the fraud that was Theranos, she went into damage
control mode. In particular, she denied having been aware that the Edison
machine had been used in any commercial blood tests.
There is almost infinite evidence that she had been aware of
that, but that’s not what seals the deal for me. Instead, I’m focused on the
psychological subtext. If someone absolutely believes she is innocent, then she
is almost certain to double down on her position in the face of any accusations
to the contrary – no matter how many or how damning. But Holmes did the opposite;
in attempting to disavow personal knowledge of certain activities her company
was being accused of, she implicitly admitted the validity of the accusations
that those activities had been morally wrong. Thus, at least on some level, she
did have a moral compass and at a minimum, it did tell her she was in an
indefensible position. Instead of fighting back as she had for virtually her entire
life, usually by denying reality and convincing people that hers was better,
her self-preservation instinct kicked in and her greatest delusion – that fame
was absolutely the only thing on earth that mattered and that it was a bargain
at any price – seemed to vanish. Could the sudden change have been the result
of fervent advice on the part of an attorney? More than likely. But had she
been totally, 100% insane, no advice could have pierced her perception of her moral
invincibility.
I believe I’ve seen the question about how she sold her idea
answered more than once in my personal experiences and numerous times in books
and other educational contexts. Over the course of my life so far, I believe I’ve
encountered two very strong dark triad personalities. By the by, those who know
me will be aware that no, my ex-wife is not one of them. Anyway, my experience
with each of these two individuals could be summarized the same way. While I
found their actions deplorable and had almost no doubt about that, I couldn’t
help but feel so deeply drawn to these people that I ignored the blaring alarms
going off in my head and made decisions that seem impossibly stupid in
hindsight. Other people’s experiences with these two individuals appeared
almost universally similar to mine. This is an important point to note. If you
think you’ve met a Nelson Mandela or a Mother Theresa, take a good, long,
objective look at how you arrived at that conclusion. The odds are at least
equally good that you’ve met something closer to the opposite and are currently
in significant danger. Remember, if Hitler hadn’t been able to charm a ton of
people, we wouldn’t use his name as a superlatively pejorative term because
almost no one would have ever heard it in the first place.
Going back to Elizabeth Holmes, much has been made of the
fact that most of her “suckers” were old, white men. The implication, of
course, is that a pretty blonde girl did what pretty blond girls are well known
to do and used the men’s small heads to render their large ones useless. But
there’s a problem. If any of these men were unusually susceptible to that brand
of chicanery, they would either have failed to attain such levels of wealth and
power or at least had both consistently chipped away at while developing certain
reputations as a result. Aside from Bill Clinton, I’m not aware of any of these
men possessing such reputations. And all of them are, in fact, rich and
powerful, or Holmes would never have been talking to them in the first place, much
less soliciting their investments or help in other forms.
Plus, as a man who often feels terrifyingly vulnerable to
such female manipulation, I don’t see that capability in Holmes. She is just so
thoroughly asexual. Aside from photo shoots, and even often then, she almost
never appeared well put together and even if she did have a good body, no one
would have ever known since she wore her Steve Jobs costume every single day.
Then you have to factor in the fake man voice. Plus, she has a case of crazy
eyes so severe I think the term would have been invented for her had it not
already existed and I believe I would find that to be very de-arousing even if
every other part of her were an LA 10 and she even had the kind of personality
an LA 10 almost couldn’t by definition. Throw in an extremely self-righteous
brand of absolutist thought pattern and that’s a hard no from me on the
loneliest, most desperate night – and for plenty of reasons besides that I’m
old enough to know to “never stick my dick in crazy” (again…). And bear in mind
that while I’m doing pretty all right for myself in life, I don’t have anywhere
near the number or quality of options that a Bill Clinton does.
What I do see in her is someone who hypnotized people into
thinking she was something truly special. And again, this is coming from
someone who has been taken by this type of messianic figure – twice – and has
performed every bit of the obsessive post analysis one might expect out of
someone who isn’t accustomed to being anyone’s fool. In only one of the two cases
was I after sex and even then, sex was only a minor part of the equation. What
I felt made even that most powerful of desires seem almost secondary. It was an
irrepressible, unexplainable impulse to be involved with this person in any way
I could – and against literally all logic. Based on every description of Holmes
I’ve read, whatever “that” is, she has it. And it is a very common feature of a
dark triad personality.
So going back to the documentary where this all started, do
I think it’s worth watching? Unequivocally yes. It does a fantastic job of
framing the story in context, bringing viewpoints both diverse and valuable
(Dan Ariely’s brilliance is heavily featured, for example) into the discussion,
and avoiding taking the easy road of outright indictment. It could have simply
turned into a laundry list of charges and a mountain of damning evidence. But while
even the most unbiased retelling of this story is going to have plenty of both
in it, this documentary did the heavy lifting and as a result, it had more than
just that. To the extent that people have positive things to say about
Elizabeth Holmes and had the balls to do so on camera, they were allowed to.
And some of the most viscerally shocking evidence was left out altogether. For
example, the fake voice was entirely ignored and neither the constant canine
sidekick, which was treated better than almost any human (another very loud
dark triad alarm), nor daddy’s less than illustrious, and not entirely
irrelevant resume, was even mentioned. I don’t believe those omissions, or any
others, were due to a lack of thoroughness. Instead, I believe the people who
made the documentary prioritized piquing the interest of the viewers so they
would do their own research and come to their own conclusions above hitting
every bullet point. I believe that was the most valuable approach and my personal
conclusion is that as usual, HBO has done it again.
Tasty, reasonably nutritious, and nearly effortless
Not my favorite tortilla soup of all time but a very vegetable based and more than edible extension of my original $5
Happy Friday! There is no denying it; we’re living in an incredibly prosperous time. Just over a century ago, nearly 50% of a typical household budget, and I’ll wager a huge amount of its labor as well, was spent on food alone. Today, that number is just over 10% and time saving options abound. However, far too many people are still struggling financially and while it isn’t nearly the concern it was at one time, food can still be a big expense. We’ve all seen articles with lists of suggestions on the topic, which obviously all begin with some permutation of “stop paying $20 at restaurants for meals that would be $4 and nutritionally better at home,” and rightfully so. Today I want to show you an example of something I do from time to time. I’m very grateful to be able to eat whatever I want, whenever I want to, wherever I want to, and completely ignore the cost. However, I rarely take advantage of that privileged position because I’m not comfortable living that way and because I don’t have to in order to have meals I enjoy.
Today’s exercise starts with Costco’s absolute refusal to raise the price of rotisserie chickens, which it sells for a ridiculous, no way this can be profitable, $5. I can’t remember the last time I saw a rotisserie chicken (or even an unprepared one) for that price in a grocery store, but it was probably a decade ago. Every now and again if I’m in a hurry, I grab one of these gloriously underpriced chickens on my way home. In this case, I paired my delicious $5 fowl with mashed potatoes, mixed vegetables, and some crescent rolls Costco has been practically giving away (yes, I know they are garbage but at about $.80 per tube of doughy goodness, they are a very cheap treat when I’ve been working hard in the gym and have no qualms about eating some extra carbs anyway). This meal took no more than fifteen minutes to put together and most of that was just waiting for things to happen. My total cost was maybe $8. No, it wasn’t art, but it was cheap, it tasted good, it was healthier than most restaurant meals, and its preparation took less time than most restaurant meals take to order, wait for, eat, wait for the bill, etc.
I eat my favorite parts of the chicken, the breasts and the legs (yes, we’re still talking about chicken, you filthy degenerates – and yes, it takes one to know one) along with the side dishes for about three meals. But that’s when the real magic starts. While the side dishes are gone, there is still a ton of meat left on the chicken. So I put it in the slow cooker for 6-8 hours and spend about another fifteen minutes getting it all off the bones. I make that meat into soup – this time I tried the chicken tortilla from the Vitamix recipe book. I will note that this was a somewhat odd recipe but it had a ton of vegetables in it and while a little different from most tortilla soups I’ve made, and not necessarily something I’d make again, the resulting soup was more than edible.
Soup can take about a half hour of actual prep time but with
the Vitamix recipe, it only took about half that. Combined with around $5 of
additional ingredients, the remains of my original $5 chicken had turned into
about five more meals. For those keeping score at home, that’s an investment of
roughly $13 and an hour of my time (I added a little for reheating) for a
return of eight meals – or about the cost of a single fairly low end restaurant
meal in both money and time.
If you’re a single guy like me, it can get a little repetitive eating all those servings. But I intersperse a few other menu items in and it works out just fine. By itself, this isn’t going to solve anyone’s food budget problems. But articles dedicated to that purpose have already been written many times over. Instead of reiterating what has already been said many times before, I wanted to give you an example of a way to enjoy good, nutritious food at an extremely low cost. Hopefully it will inspire you to come up with ideas of your own. Consequently, if you have any, I would love to hear about them in the comments below or by email (admin@healthwealthpower.com).
I don’t always do things this way but I like to every now
and again because I think it’s important to remind myself that I can. No matter
what happens in my life, no matter what my net worth or bank account balance
is, I will always be able to afford to eat this way. Maybe that’s why they call
it comfort food.
I’m going to start
this post with a disclaimer. The following is a description of a strategy I am
employing with my own assets. I accept no responsibility for any consequences,
good or bad, of whatever you do with yours. The only actual advise I’m going to
give you is to do your own research. This goes for anything posted on this blog
but especially for a post of this nature.
Be fearful when others are greedy
and greedy when others are
fearful. – Warren Buffett
After a historic bull market has made investing experts out
of novices everywhere, we are finally about to separate the wheat from the
chaff. It’s easy to make money when everything is going up. Almost everyone
does. But truly gifted investors get excited when the market is falling. They
don’t just protect themselves in the event of a down market; they look forward to
the many opportunities it will present. And finally in the last couple of weeks,
we’ve seen an exclamation point added to the long building evidence that this
is finally about to happen again. The FED gave up on its anemic effort to both
raise rates to normal levels, which only got about halfway there, and to unwind
quantitative easing by allowing the runoff of its balance sheet to move it
towards more normal levels – again, it didn’t get anywhere close. Paul Volcker,
that giant among Federal Reserve chairmen (both figuratively and literally, the
man is six and a half feet tall), must be disgusted. Almost immediately after
what is both widely and accurately being described as the FED throwing in the
towel, the so called yield curve, which had been flirting with inverting for
some time, finally did so. For those outside the finance world, the inverted
yield curve is a nearly certain signal that a recession is around the corner.
Combine those blaring recession alarms with several other
key indicators that have been more than hinting at one for literally years now,
and the historical improbability of going even as long as we already have
without one, and a recession is virtually etched in stone. Whereas the last one
originated primarily in the housing sector, I believe this one will be more
broad based. There is significant stress from diverse sources. The housing
market is overheated again, albeit somewhat less so than last time and with a
much less severe subprime problem. A large subprime auto loan bubble has
developed and the default rate has been quietly increasing for some time.
Americans young and old are weighed down by a mountain of non-dischargeable student
loan debt with a high default rate there too. Substantial structural problems
in the Chinese economy as well as several others around the world need to be
taken seriously in what is now a fully global economy. And who can forget an
unsustainably high national debt here at home? Since the FED has squandered a
decade long bull market by acquiescing to political pressure to keep the pedal
to the floor and failing to build an adequate buffer as a result, it seems this
recession will be a relatively uninhibited one. Or to put it another way, it’s
time to batten down the hatches.
As a finance man myself, I was among many of my peers in expecting
this a few years ago and preparing for it accordingly. The good news for those
who did not do so is that it turned out we finance folks were early. However, I’m
100% comfortable having missed the very peak of the mountain if it means ultimately
avoiding going off a cliff. It looked like the market was finally correcting
last December but that turned out to be only a precursor and almost everything
promptly recovered. The next time will likely be different and if it doesn’t
happen by the end of this year, I will be very surprised.
So what do I do to prepare for a recession? It’s a very simple approach. As we near what I believe is the peak, I gradually move any assets without tax consequences (401ks, IRAs, etc) out of stock exposure and into cash or in cases where there is no pure cash option, money market funds. With taxable investments, I do the same for the most part with the addition of harvesting any available long term capital losses at the same time to minimize tax liability. If I can’t do that, and it can be difficult in an “everybody wins” market like we’ve had for some time now, I will sell out anyway and take the tax hit. So for the short term, I’m giving up potentially larger returns in stocks and accepting low, but comparably stable ones in return – currently 2.45% and thereabouts. The risk I run is that as happened in this case, I will be too early and miss out on some upside. But no one can time the market and anyone who says he can is either lying or doing something that is likely to wind him up in a lot of trouble one day. And a small to moderate loss of upside is a small price to pay in my opinion when the reward is ultimately avoiding a 20% or greater collapse nearly across the board.
Of course the return on cash will decline when the FED cuts rates (what little it can in this case) and does everything else in its power to juice the market and soften the impact of the collapse. But that’s ok because the primary goal is to avoid losses; the small return on cash is just a short term bonus. Once there is blood in the streets, and that will almost certainly be the case when rates are being cut, that’s the time to shift from one end to the other in following the advice of one of the greatest investors of all time, Warren Buffett, which I opened this post with. I can’t predict exactly what will be going “on sale.” It may be everything or it may only be certain sectors/asset classes. Maybe stocks will fall so far that they’ll be too good to pass up. Maybe both real estate pricing and mortgage rates will decline so much that even this renter, who is thoroughly uninterested in homeownership, will become a landlord. Maybe I’ll look at investing more in small businesses.
I don’t know which opportunities will or won’t materialize
but as always, I’m watching everything. Whatever you do, it will take balls to
buy while everyone else is panicking and boarding up the windows. But if it
were easy, everyone would do it. The underlying principle is to capitalize on
the inefficiency created by people (and even computers, which control most
stock trading now) operating emotionally rather than logically. The window may
or may not stay open very long but it will almost certainly open. The important
thing is to keep your eyes open and be prepared to act based on what you see.
And you don’t have to get fancy either. I’ll leave you with
this as food for thought. If you had bought into the best and most basic stock
fund (Vanguard Total Stock Market Index – VTSMX or VTSAX) anywhere between
October 2008 and October 2009, your investment would be worth roughly 300%
today – an 11.6% annual return for an entire decade. If you had nailed the
bullseye and bought dead at the bottom, it would be closer to 400% – or 14.8%
annualized. That would take some luck. But the 300% outcome of the year I
mentioned would take much less. If you want to take a more conservative
approach, use dollar cost averaging as opposed to dumping everything in all at
once. You won’t get the biggest possible return, but you will be putting the
odds of a strong long term outcome in your favor. Good luck everyone! And don’t
forget to take luck out of the equation as much as possible by doing your
research.
Proximity to this beautiful lake is just one of many things I love about my new home – and no, I was not there on the frigid Sunday I describe below.
This weekend I opted to get everything that required leaving
home done on Saturday since Sunday was going to be unacceptably cold (a high of
fifty fucking eight degrees). That is literally below Houston’s average January
high and it was March 31. Since moving here, my tolerance for temperatures
below eighty has gone from very low to nonexistent. The lifers bitch about
summer constantly while I wish it lasted all year and wonder how much further south
I would have to eventually migrate to make that a reality. So anyway, to
register my outrage with the universe, I did not leave the comfort of my
apartment on Sunday and yes, the heat was on. Utilities are incredibly cheap
here and that means temperature is not a required area of compromise. So how
did I spend my Sunday? I did the kind of office work I hate doing when the
weather is good and I also spent some time being purposefully lazy. I think it’s
important to experience that novelty every now and again.
As part of this process, I read some now vintage Mr Money Mustache posts. If you’re reading this and you aren’t familiar with Mr Money Mustache, please stop reading this, drop whatever you were planning on doing for the next three months, and go learn from the absolute best. As a guy blogging about finance in 2019, I’m benefitting from “standing on the shoulders of giants” and triple M is undisputedly the biggest and best there has ever been. If finance bloggers were musicians, he would be the first guy who started hitting sticks together in rhythm because something about the sound intrigued him, proceeded to design and build tons of instruments, and somehow also became both Mozart and Beethoven. The man is a living legend in finance blogging because he both created and perfected it. He doesn’t post as much as he used to but his past posts amount to more than enough to take anyone from zero to hero with their finances.
As I worked my way through these now classic posts, I happened upon this one. MMM has a way of cutting through the bullshit details that will trip some people up and distilling a concept down to the absolute essence necessary to get the ball rolling. And in this post, he pretty much does that with all of personal finance. As I read through it again, I thought about my own financial history. I’ve worked hard, made mostly good decisions, fought through some significant setbacks, and benefited from many examples of good fortune along the way to reaching a roughly 70% savings rate using MMM’s methodology. Barring a collapse of almost biblical proportions, I will a financially independent millionaire by 40 and consider myself incredibly blessed. But still, I couldn’t help but marvel at how much better I could have done. My biggest failure was waiting until my late twenties before I started doing things the right way. Had I reached the 70% savings rate in my early twenties, I could have already been financially independent for a while now instead of half a decade away. Had I read this epic post when I was younger, my life may have actually transpired that way.
That’s when I realized something; if you could only read one
financial blog post, this one should be the one you choose. No, it doesn’t go
into detail on how to achieve a high savings rate. But that simply requires
re-evaluating your expenses one by one, making small but key changes, and
continually working on increasing your income in the background. It’s one of
those monumental tasks that forces you to focus on one small, easy step at a
time until you suddenly look up and realize you’ve climbed a figurative
mountain. However, this post does something far more important than to show you
the steps; it lights the fire of motivation that will get you in the game, keep
you there, and keep you aware of how you’re progressing. In one very simple
metric, it sums up your entire financial life and then visualizes it on both a
graph and a chart.
So if you want to do one thing today that will have an
enormous impact on your finances, read the post I linked to above and then
spend some time thinking about it. Start working on calculating your expense
numbers. It probably won’t be as easy as in MMM’s case since just like his
posts, simplicity seems to be a high priority in his financial life. But once
you’ve done it, it will be much easier to do again. And more importantly, I can
almost guarantee you will have at least one insight in the process that will
cause you to dramatically alter what you are doing and save tons of money in
the long run. So if the weather spits in your face some day as it did on Sunday
in Houston, I recommend turning it into a huge win by checking out the best
financial blog post of all time.
These tiny sprouts will be supercharging my immune system in just a few short days!
It’s not enough to be good at something today. You have to keep evolving over time. Imagine if you were the best reader in your fifth grade class in school but never got any better from that point on. Or more relevant to today’s post, imagine how far behind you’d be if you were still operating according to the best available health knowledge from twenty years ago – or even five years ago for that matter. I’m always reevaluating what I’m doing and trying new ways to make improve myself. I’m no science expert, but I read what I can and rely on very intelligent people in that area whose opinions I respect to help point me in the right direction. That’s why I recently started my ultimately very successful experiment with time restricted eating. And that’s why I am trying two more new things now.
First, I’ve been working on growing some organic broccoli sprouts. I’ve become convinced that sulphoraphane is a substance I very much want in my body and broccoli sprouts have it in almost incomparably high levels. I understand they don’t taste great but I’m going to toss them in the Vitamix along with everything else I put in my twice daily smoothies and hope the fruit will mask the taste, just as it does with all the other green crap I want to consume but not experience in too much detail as it goes down. I’m growing my own because it is much cheaper than buying the sprouts at a grocery store, because it is supposedly an easy process (and so far I can concur on that point), and because I thought I would enjoy the novelty of a new project. I’m loosely following these instructions, which seem to be producing good results thus far.
The sprouts in the picture are roughly three and a half days old and according to my research, they will be ready to eat in one to three more days. It has been very easy to get them to this point. I bought some organic broccoli seeds, soaked some of them in filtered water overnight, spread them in the device you see in the picture, and have rinsed them (again with the filtered water) twice a day. The seeds cost me about $50 for 2.5 pounds (I’m pretty convinced this is something I’m going to adopt long term) and the sprouting device was less than $20 (actually it was just about free because of this little trick). I believe I should be good to go for well over a year with those items purchased. I’ve invested no more than a half hour total in the project so far, not counting my initial research. Once these sprouts are ready, I’ll put them in a container in the refrigerator and start adding them to my smoothies. Then I’ll wash the sprouting device, start another batch, and keep the process going indefinitely. I’m very excited to see if I notice any results – whether in the way I feel day to day or in medical assessments/testing down the line.
My second new thing is regular sauna use. I recently read
about a study that showed measurably better long term health outcomes for
people who use saunas. And the more they did it, the better their results were.
So that was already in the back of my mind. And I decided to give it a try when
I moved to a new area and discovered that the gym here has a sauna. So far, I
must say, it feels wonderful. Since I’m at the gym four or five mornings per
week, I simply go sit in the sauna for about fifteen minutes after my workout.
Aside from feeling refreshed and more energetic afterwards, I’ve been
pleasantly surprised at just how relaxing it is. When no one else is in the
sauna with me, I’ve noticed my mind clears almost automatically and it easily
becomes a meditative experience – something that is very difficult for me to
achieve under normal circumstances. I don’t know exactly what is going on there
or why it feels that way, but I like it. And as long as the research is showing
that I’m doing a great thing for my health in the process, I’m going to keep it
up.
Not only is it fun (ok, so maybe I’m a little unusual) and
mentally stimulating to stay on top of new research and use it to improve your
life, it is also crucial. Far too many people spend the last several years of
their lives suffering and reliant on others and not keeping themselves up to
date is a huge part of the reason. For example, middle aged people grew up in
an era where resistance training (weightlifting) wasn’t something normal people
did. If they haven’t since picked it up, they are virtually guaranteed an awful
aging process including rapidly atrophying muscular capabilities and very
strong odds of developing numerous age related diseases like Alzheimer’s. One
of my favorite goals in life is to have a workout I’m proud of on the morning
of my last day on this earth; in other words, I want to function at a high
level until the very end. Through experiments like these, combined with a
strong emphasis on physical and mental health in almost every element of my
daily routine, I hope to feel great both now and in the long term, thus
accomplishing my goal. I highly recommend that everyone do the same.
The Equity Culture: The Story of the Global Stock Market by B Mark Smith (2003)
This book was written by the same author as the classic “Toward
Rational Exuberance,” so I expected big things going in. As advertised, the
book takes a winding path through the history of stock markets around the
world, providing an in depth look at major events in each. An observant reader
of this blog will probably notice that there has been a long gap between the
last book review I posted and this one. This is because aside from a couple of
lackluster books I decided not to review and the fact that I moved into a new
apartment a little over a week ago and spent several days getting my life put
back together afterwards, this book was very dense and took a while to get through.
While interesting at times, it was mostly pretty dry and even though I was
interested in the subject matter, reading it reminded me of having to muddle my
way through some priceless work of ancient philosophy that isn’t nearly as
readable as modern analysis had me believing it would be going in.
However, because there is tremendous value in this book, I
kept going and ultimately made it through. Cultural differences were addressed
that help to explain some of the still lingering differences between, for
example, the western and Japanese stock markets. But for me, the most valuable
part was perspective. After reading about stock market after stock market going
through similar stages of development, patterns began to emerge. Just about every
different market has experienced something that appeared to be a disaster at
the time. But almost invariably, the end result of each of these events has
been greater innovation and the continued building of wealth en masse – at least
given enough time. However, there were winners and losers in each of these
situations and that point is important to keep in mind as well.
My biggest disappointment about this book is that it only
goes through the early 2000s bursting of the “dot com bubble.” It would have
been nice to have seen the author’s analysis carried through to our most recent
recession – and possibly into at least a portion of the historic bull market of
the last decade or so as well. I see that there is a 2015 edition so maybe the
author extended it. Sadly, my local library had the 2003 one so I’ll never know.
Anyway, while the 2008 recession clearly had different underlying causes than
the one we are finally beginning to see materializing now, it would have been nice
to have had the additional insight. Overall, while this author can’t
necessarily keep you on the edge of your seat for 300 pages and change, it’s
only fair to acknowledge that isn’t really a reasonable expectation when
picking up a book on the worldwide history of stock markets. It is still
valuable, well presented information and thus, it is worth reading.
In the wild, I believe this guy would spend most of his time hungry and primed for action – not fed round the clock. Image courtesy of Jean-Marc Buytaert
It’s been about a month since I wrote about my time restricted eating experiment and maybe two months since I started so here is an update. The title really sums it up; this experiment has produced far and away the most measurable results of any of the many I’ve conducted on myself over the years. It has me rethinking a lot of what I thought I knew about my body, nutrition, and so forth. Let’s get into the details.
I’ve been pretty successful about sticking with an eight
hour eating window. I went with eight because that’s who I am; if I’m going to
do something, I’m not going to half ass it. On a typical day, I start eating
around 10:30am and stop by 6:30pm. When I know I’ll be out late – no later than
eleven for me these days and usually more like ten – I don’t start eating until a late lunch in
order to maintain the experiment (remember, any calories count and that
includes drinking anything but water). I’ve had only a few days where I slipped
and wound up around a nine hour window and one where I screwed up completely
and ended up at about twelve.
Overall, the most surprising element of this experiment has
been how easy it is. As an avid food lover, I expected to suffer miserably. But
that hasn’t transpired at all. After some modest discomfort the first week or
two, I’ve barely even had to think about what I’m doing. The habit seems to
suit me very well and it even seems to have made me noticeably more productive.
Yes, I’m consistently referred to as “very disciplined,” although my worst
critic (me) considers my discipline level to be atrocious. But nothing I’ve
experienced makes me think anyone would struggle to implement this in any
significant way. It just requires a little bit of mindfulness and a few
adjustments.
And the results have been more than worth the effort. The
most noticeable change has been weight loss and with this part, keep in mind
that my body is very ectomorphic by nature so unlike many people, keeping
weight on is my biggest challenge. Prior to embarking on my restricted eating
journey, I had already been down about twenty pounds from my normal weight due
to a dramatic reduction in both eating (intentional to account for a dramatic
reduction in calories being burned) and gym time/efficacy as a result of a
frustrating string of injuries I went through. I had a lean, muscular build
prior to that weight loss so there was a lot of good weight in that twenty
pounds and after losing it, I had very little fat left available to lose. Since
there is definitely a limit to how low a healthy person’s body fat percentage
can go, additional fat loss was not a goal for me.
However, I have lost about an additional five pounds since starting
time restricted eating and my body fat has, in fact, almost completely
disappeared. I believe there are two reasons for this. One, you only want to
eat so much in an eight hour window. Once I noticed my weight dropping even
further than it already had, I started forcing myself to eat more. I even
loosened up on eating lower quality foods a little bit to make things easier.
And still I’ve only managed to stop the bleeding. I’m stuck at the five pounds
down mark and am gradually eating more and more in an attempt to start putting
weight back on. Keep in mind that since I’m finally 100% physically healthy
again, I’m back working hard in the gym along with this. The second reason I
suspect is that I do almost zero snacking of any kind now. Since I seemingly
can’t eat enough, I rarely feel hungry at all. So snacking not only doesn’t
come naturally anymore, it would literally amount to an effort I would have to
make. Long story short, if you’re after weight loss, fat loss, or both, time
restricted eating seems very likely to help you.
There have been other very measurable changes as well – and much
more positive ones in my case. My resting heart rate, which used to hover
around an average of 60 bpm, now sits in the low to mid 50s. I suppose this
makes sense since my metabolic functions are only happening about half to two
thirds of the time they previously had been. That is a huge energy savings and
my guess is this is much more appropriate for my body from an evolutionary
perspective. But the most exciting change for me has been to my sleeping. I’ve
struggled in this area all my life and even employing every method I’ve ever
read about to an almost religious degree, I’ve never managed to average over
6.5 hours per night in a week outside of the occasional anomaly. However, since
not long after I started time restricted eating, I’m averaging over 7 hours a
night consistently. I don’t doubt for a second that this has made a huge
difference in my day to day life. I have no precise way to measure this, but I
feel more energetic and mentally sharper/more alert. I had been in the habit of
drinking coffee twice a day – morning and early afternoon. Now I usually only
do so once and sometimes not at all. Note that coffee isn’t harmful in any
known way. But not feeling compelled to drink it is still a very positive sign
in my book.
Overall, this has been a huge net positive for me and I’m
going to continue with it. Yes, my strength in the gym has declined somewhat.
But that can probably be almost exclusively attributed to the weight I had
already lost prior to starting this experiment and the way I lost it (both eating
and working out dramatically less). And given that my strength numbers are
still excellent for a man my size (which has itself changed), I’m not concerned
about this other than being motivated to gain back my good size in spite of the
additional challenge. And for most people, the weight loss would be viewed as a
positive. Other than that, everything has been a huge positive for me. My body
and mind both seem to work much better this way. This experiment has been a
huge success!
