Tag Archives: questions

Atomic Habits: What I Learned from James Clear’s Book

business, Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

We all know habits are important – whether for our personal fitness or our finances. Yet nearly all of us acknowledge the fact that we don’t have the best habits for our personal development.

This book, which I read and reflected on the last two weeks, revealed just how important habits are. I took away many points – some of which I already knew and some of which were completely foreign.

In summary, I learned that habits are crucial for success. They form by a cue and often are formed in large part by our environment. Controlling your environment is a huge part of success. Making your habits Obvious, Attractive, Easy and Satisfying is what the book was really about.

One thing that really stood out to me was the fact that many of the most successful people got to where they are because of environment and habits. Good habits can come from accountability partners, from creating a good environment or simply working to create the obvious, attractive, easy and satisfying habits the author talks about.

I would highly recommend the book for anyone interested in habits or personal development.

Getting on the Grid: The Importance of Communication

business, Communication, Success, Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

We all like to think, especially here in the U.S., that we’re capable of doing nearly all of the things we set or minds to– and doing them well.

While it’s certainly true that almost anything we set our minds to can be done well, the reality is that we have to pick a few things to become great at. Everything else has to either be left in a mediocre/neutral/average state, delegated or abandoned.

While this might sound like a negative, pessimistic view, it’s actually the truth. There is only so much energy, time and resources in our limited life to do everything we set out to do.

With that in mind, we can understand that facilitating our strengths and weaknesses will ultimately determine our success in life. A big part of this is delegation and communication.

Communication, at it’s simplest level, is just transferring knowledge or feelings from one party to another. And the main way this happens is through connection–through authentic mutual understanding.

Your ability to connect, and therefore communicate, plays a massive role of where you’ll be in 20 years. Take time to focus on it, focus on your strengths, and focus on others.

Are Markets Efficient?

business, inflation, Uncategorized, writing, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

When investing your money you’ll hear many different forms of opinion. Experts like Dave Ramsey will tell you to invest in growth stock mutual funds, others will say that index funds are the way to go. Then there is a group of investors that says you can beat the market by buying “undervalued” stocks.

The question that arises is, is there such a thing as an undervalued stock, and if so, is there a reliable way to take advantage of this “market inefficiency”.

Your investment philosophy in stocks is largely dependent on your opinion on what’s called the Efficient Market Theory (EMT). This theory states that markets are fully efficient. In other words any given price in the markets reflects the cumulative “wisdom” of all investors actings logically on fundamental data regarding value.

Essentially the market, according to this theory, is always acting completely logically based on the current information. So at any given point the market isn’t overvalued or undervalued – it’s priced at the fair equilibrium price given the current information available.

Some practitioners and theorists have brought up concerns with the theory stating that it doesn’t accurately reflect the actual results we see in the real world. For example, in the tech “bubble” of 2000, were investors acting completely logically on the market’s information or was there inefficiency?

Ultimately you’ll have to make your own determination. At the moment there isn’t unanimous agreement by the community.

Maximizing Your Tax- Advantaged Money: How Much You Need to Make The Most of Tax-Free Money

Uncategorized, writing, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Some of the best tax-advantages are provided by the government for retirement. For example just the 401K alone lets you put aside $19K per year into your employer-sponsored retirement plan. In addition you are allowed to contribute $6K (as of 2019) into an IRA. You can also open these accounts as a Roth account.

A Roth account, whether 401K or IRA allows your contributions to grow tax-free after you pay taxes upfront. This is in contrast to the traditional 401K and IRA which each are contributed to pre-tax but only grow tax-differed. Meaning, you aren’t taxed until you decide to take your money out.

But in addition to these two massive tax-advantaged accounts, you are also able to set aside an additional $3.5K into an HSA(Health Savings Account) account. The account is for the purposes of health expenses. However if you decide, say, when you’re 65 that your HSA is large enough and that you won’t need all of it, you can take out as much as you’d like for non-health purposes. The only catch is that the withdrawal is taxed.

So in essence your HSA can become a glorified IRA if you decide you don’t need it for medical expenses!

Each of these three options together amount to $28,500 a year. In order to take advantage of the full benefit you will need to earn about $85K to $95K in most states so that you can still pay your living expenses.

The bottom line: there are many options for tax-advanced money. It just comes down to making enough and budgeting wisely. So what do you think, is it possible for the average personal to maximize their contributions?

What I learned from Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers

business, Success, Uncategorized, writing, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Have you ever wondered why nearly all the top hockey players were born in January, February or March? Ever wonder why the smartest people in the world aren’t the most successful? Malcolm Gladwell’s book contains these exact answers and more.

I found his book extremely revealing. I came into the book thinking that success was almost completely determined by intelligence, hard work and intentionality. While these traits are significant parts of making the most with what you have, Gladwell illustrates that much of what determines success is due to completely unpredictable and random factors.

While much of our success is determined by luck – where we were born, who are parents are and their respective network and culture – a lot of these advantages can be recognized and limited. But we can’t just assume luck isn’t impacting these things – it always is.

Recently I’ve been reflecting on my current reads and taking notes to summarize what I’ve been getting out of the books. I did this for Outliers and took away a few key points. Here they are below:

  1. If you see a pattern, don’t assume it’s random, examine the history behind it
  2. Understand your own history and the apparent consequences/indications of what that means for you

I hope these two points are helpful. A key takeaway was to look at the contributing factors and history behind success. This, of course, is consistent with the title of the book!

How I Wrote a Book in One Summer – and How You can Too

writing, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Most of us see writing a book as a daunting project – one that could take months, if not years to complete. But it doesn’t have to be this difficult. I began my summer in 2018 with the idea of producing a manuscript that was both clear and comprehensive. And that’s what I was able to do.

I didn’t complete this task out of sheer discipline. In fact I put very little upfront effort into completing the first draft. How?

I all begins with habits. I made a point to start the summer with a new routine. Each morning I would produced about a 500 word chunk that could be added to one of my chapters. As time progressed throughout the summer I began to enjoy the process of writing each morning.

As writing became a daily habit my confidence began to grow. I went from a 10,000 word manuscript to a 25,000 word manuscript to a 40,000 word manuscript. And before I knew it I had completed the first draft of my book.

To be frank I didn’t finish editing the book until the end of the year. What I really did last summer, which I find to be the most difficult part of writing a book, is complete a first draft on little disciplinary effort.

My book, which just came out this January, proves to anyone, including those who hate writing, that book creation doesn’t have to be as tedious as we once thought. The key to success is to start and make writing part of your daily routine.

Getting from Guam to Indonesia – Why Investment Philosophy Matters

business, Uncategorized, writing, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

There is clearly no one investment strategy that works for everyone. Some buy index funds, others pick their own stocks. Still others buy investment property and a few buy bitcoin. There are many ways to get from point A to point B in the investment world.

Recently I’ve been exploring with the idea of creating an investment model that can predict for stock market bear markets. This investment model would tell me when to buy stocks and when to sell them.

Creating a portfolio model seems daunting. There are many factors that go into developing your thoughts, strategies and relationships between variables. Without properly grounding yourself one might begin to think that there are simple or easy ways to create a model that beats the market while reducing volatility and drawdown.

Believe me, if this were the case I would be reaping the benefits of the hundreds of hours I put into my own model over the last couple months. Even now I’m beginning to realize that it might not be that easy. For those who have experienced success like Ray Dalio, I’ve always wondered what kind of indicators, and inputs they use in their models.

What are your thoughts? Is creating an investment model too difficult or should I give it a try?

Acquiring a Domicile: How to Rent an Apartment

Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Most people have or will rent at some point in their life. What often comes up is concern about rising prices or lack of adequate amenities. These issues will always be a concern. However the following steps will help prepare you for a move into someone else’s rental.

1. Determine your Renting Criteria

As soon as you decide that you want to rent, you need to determine what you’re after. What kind of budget are you looking at? What square footage? What types of Amenities do you want? What are your needs verse what are your wants? In which location specifically does this rental need to be?

Answering these questions will give clarity, allowing you to start the next step…

2. Narrow Search to 10 Rentals

As soon as you’ve determined your renting criteria you will be ready to begin screening. Similar to how a landlord screens potential tenants, you will be screen potential landlords. Find ten places that most closely meet your criteria.

Some places you can find rentals include:

Pad Mapper, HotPads, Lovely, Trulia and Walkscore

3. Visit Your List and Come Prepared

With your list in mind you can begin visiting each one. To come prepared, bring a checkbook, wallet, or some means of payment in case they want to charge you for an application fee. Also bring proof of income such as a pay stub or other documentation. Lastly, you’re going to want a photo ID.

At this point you should be well on your way to both knowing which locations fit your needs, and entering yourself into the landlords application process. Assuming you meet the rental criteria, you will probably get one of your applications responded to within a week or to.

You’re on your way! I hope this helps you on your rental journey.

Dollar-Cost Average or Lump Sum into the Market?

business, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Dollar-Cost Averaging is the process of purchasing securities over an extended period of time with the same dollar amount each time. Lump Sum investing on the other hand, involves just putting all your money into the market at once.

For example if you’re wanting to invest $100,000 should you put it all in the market all at once or over a few months? Many people might suggest putting it in over a period of time. However my suggestion is that for most cases, the opposite is actually the wisest move. Let me explain.

If you were to run with the $100,000 example, a simple dollar cost average might look like putting $5,000 in the market for 20 months. The other scenario is just putting the $100,000 in right now.

In most cases putting everything in is a better move because on average, the market goes up most of the time. So if you dollar cost average, you’d, on average, be missing out on the growth by keeping your money out of the market.

In the smaller percentage of times that the market goes down directly following investment, then dollar-cost averaging can make sense. For example if the market has been Bullish for many years with PE ratios climbing, looking at dollar-cost averaging can make sense.

Before I finish, please click here to take a look at a blog page that covers many investment topics. He has a post from early this year that covers this topic concisely: Exploring Dollar Cost Averaging Verses Other Strategies

Thanks, hope you have a great day.

The Stock Market is Falling: What Should I Do?

business, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The last few weeks started as a few percent decline in the market. As gurus and commentators covered it, they viewed the decline as a temporary, week-long or even a few day-long event. However a few weeks later here we are, still waiting and wondering when the market will rebound.

As a long-term investor this is exciting for me. Not only have stock declined roughly –% from their high, they continue to fall to increasingly discounted prices. Everything might not be a bargain at this point, but after falling about 9% the market is a lot closer to reasonable pricing than it was a month or two ago.

So when prices drop like this, what should an investor do?  They should do what the best investors do – find good companies and buy them at favorable prices. This might mean waiting and watching for a good company to drop below your perceived value it.

But for index and active mutual fund investors slowing dollar-cost-averaging into the market may make the most sense. Understand that the market will come back. It’s just a matter of how quickly it does.