Happiness…Pursue the Moment

Brad

I last wrote in June of 2022 that my fiancée and I had recently purchased a house, and outlined what the experience was like at what might have been – but has proven not to be, at least in my area – the peak of the housing boom. 2022 was certainly a big year for us – getting engaged, buying a house, planning, and then having our wedding.

2023 will be about execution – finishing the novel that I started years ago, pursuing a path to business ownership, and growing relationships.

To get there, I plan to make it the year that I live the most deliberately. Each day, each moment – are where things happen. I also turned 30 in 2022, and while I don’t particularly believe in magic moments at certain age thresholds, I do believe in the wisdom gained from additional life experience. If there is anything that my twenties taught me, it is that time is only abundant for those that take advantage of the moment…the present. A lifetime may seem short or it might seem long – in reality, you can argue that both are true.

I wrote in 2019 about the Freedom of Time. Well, nothing has changed on that front. Time is still a diminishing asset and one should include the pursuit of this freedom as a rationale for wealth accumulation. But why not also live for today? I don’t mean this as a pitch for a YOLO mentality, I simply mean…write that book. Start that business. Work on your relationships – make a concerted effort to see your family and friends. Give back to your community. Be outdoors. Whatever it is that you know deep down are the things that are important to you, spend time in those places and with those people. The happiest moments of my life thus far were when I was spending time with friends and family, living in an entirely new city and soaking it all in, and periods where I found that I was learning and growing. Most of which has occurred when I had absolutely no money.

Pursue the moment. And as my father would say…it’s not the destination, it’s the journey.

Buying a House? Good Luck…

Brad

My fiancée and I recently purchased a house. Here’s the story…

On the first Sunday in February, I called up an old friend from high school who works as a mortgage broker to get pre-approved. That evening, we met with an acquaintance to discuss her becoming our realtor.

I kicked this process off just 3 months into our lease agreement because I could see mortgage rates were starting to tick up and I projected that to get worse. As it turns out, not only was that true, they skyrocketed in just a couple of months.

After 11 ½ weeks and 6 unsuccessful offers, we were finally under contract on a house. I had been scouring Realtor.com and Zillow every day. I had too. If you weren’t able to see a newly listed house a day or two after it was posted, you weren’t getting the house (you probably weren’t going to win the bid anyway).

The craziness of this housing market – and mine in particular (Tampa, widely reported as the hottest in the country) – is a hot topic in the news. The discussion over whether we are in a bubble or not rages on.

What I am pondering

  • Knowing that we are observing (and some of us participating in) a real-time economics case study of demand outstripping housing supply, at what point do higher mortgage rates cool this market off? House prices in my area have shown little moderation of increases despite 6% mortgages.
  • How financially healthy are U.S. consumers? Some experts believe that the consumer is still solid financially and that there are perhaps several more months of runway left on their spending capacity.
  • With the Fed behind the curve on taming inflation (some of it within their control, much of it outside), will we see a recession following the rate hikes? If we do experience a recession, will we see a so-called “soft landing” with little to no job losses? Would it be a fairly short downturn?
  • Every financial market is getting hammered. Stocks, bonds, crypto, you name it. How long will that persist?

These are certainly difficult times with more questions than answers.

Buckle up and fortify your finances!

A Bloodbath in the Markets

Brad

To state that the stock market got off to a bumpy start for 2022 would be like saying Hurricane Katrina caused some minor damage…it’s a gross understatement.

Unexpected, though? Not really.

With the Fed backing away from the easy money era and the prospect of multiple rate hikes just around the corner, a slaughter in the technology space was almost guaranteed.

Unfortunately for me, I changed jobs in 2021 and had rollover money that needed investing. So, I invested it…at the end of last summer. Many of those investments look, well, not very rosy. Fortunately, I take a very long-term approach to investing. I buy a mix of stocks, ETFs, and fixed income (very small percentage due to my distance to retirement). When I select individual names, I choose mostly well-known, strong businesses and only speculate in areas that I understand.

What does 2022 have in store?

Good question. If I had to guess, it will likely be a bumpy ride. That seems to be the broader consensus. Economic and business momentum aside, runups in 2020 and 2021 equities developed almost a “too good to be true” situation.

From an economic perspective, I am particularly curious about the inflation picture. Will supply constraints ease, allowing businesses to meet robust demand? Raising interest rates doesn’t correct a supply chain crisis. The Fed knows this because they would have raised rates by now if they didn’t.

How about unemployment in the service sector? The government still can’t quite figure out why folks aren’t returning to work.

Housing – ohhhh, housing. As a prospective buyer in my home state of Florida this year, I am convinced that prices will remain elevated, albeit with a lesser rate of increase – perhaps even a leveling out. How about in other less popular destinations? Will higher mortgage rates quell interest for homes? And how might this effect other areas of the economy?

Viewing everything in the aggregate, and observing how one factor might influence another, is what makes economic forecasting so difficult.

I say this as someone who is not an economist…best of luck to them.

*I am not a financial advisor and none of this constitutes investing advice.

Burnout: What is it?

Brad

I was asked recently to speak to a small gathering of students at my alma mater. My presentation was one of three segments, each of which delivered by a different alumnus on a different topic.

My topic was “burnout”.

Now, I didn’t select the topic and I would have preferred to share personal finance wisdom or my favorite research on personal development. Regardless, I eagerly accepted the invitation and dove headfirst into the assignment.

Upon reflection, I realized, I actually had quite a bit of experience and examples to leverage. Crafting a message might not be that difficult after all.

I started with the statistics as a hook. I needed the audience to buy in and I certainly didn’t want to bore them with an uninteresting lecture after their day full of classes.

According to recent studies…

  • “75% of workers have experienced burnout, with 40% saying they’ve experienced burnout specifically during the pandemic.
  • Prior to the pandemic, just 5% of employed workers and 7% of unemployed workers said their mental health was poor or very poor. Now, 18% of employed and 27% of unemployed workers say they are struggling with mental health issues. (that’s a 3-4x increase!)
  • More than three-quarters (76%) of respondents agree that workplace stress affects their mental health and burned-out employees are 23% more likely to visit the emergency room.
  • Only 60% of workers can strongly agree that they know what is expected of them at work.”

Talk about a rosy picture…

I then defined burnout, and it was more or less what one would expect it to be – a period of extreme fatigue, the development of apathy, and a resulting decline in various aspects life.

For college students, it might be brought on by any combination of the following:

-Overwhelming work demands and long periods of intense stress (most common)

-Having the wrong friends

-The wrong level of support

-The wrong major

-The wrong goals

Notably, because any one of these can lead to burnout, other functioning may actually remain adequate.

My research unearthed some interesting gems when I discovered the different types of burnout.

Types of Burnout

  1. Overload Burnout (traditional, what you might think of when you hear “burnout”)

“This happens when you work harder and harder, becoming frantic in your pursuit of success. If you experience this, you may be willing to risk your health and personal life to feel successful in your job.” 

  1. Under-Challenged Burnout

“This happens when you feel underappreciated and bored in your job. Maybe your job doesn’t provide learning opportunities or have room for professional growth. If you feel under-challenged, you may distance yourself from your job, become cynical, and avoid responsibilities.”

  1. Neglect Burnout

“This happens when you feel helpless at work. If things aren’t going right, you may believe you’re incompetent or unable to keep up with your responsibilities. Such burnout can be closely connected to imposter syndrome, a psychological pattern in which you doubt your skills, talents, or accomplishments.”

My eyes got wide when I got to “under-challenged burnout.” I told the students that this was likely less of an issue in college as it is in the workplace but acknowledged this as the category I most identified with. It never crossed my mind that this was a form of burnout.

For the type-A’s out there, this may ring a bell. The feeling of not being in the right place to fulfill your potential. A dearth of challenge and productive struggle. I believe strongly that one must focus on what they can control and to seize any and every opportunity you can. Beyond that, you must seek out growth. It doesn’t always fall into your lap.

In closing, I discussed preventative measures.

Prevention

What is right for me may not be right for everyone. Count on it.

But there are some of what I will call “foundational” components that are universal.

-Sufficient sleep

-Quality nutrition

-Exercise

Beyond this, I am a huge fan of journaling. The genesis of my journaling was not to mitigate stress or burnout, but I have found it to be the best way of unloading what is on my mind.

I have persuaded some close friends to give it a try and it does wonders. They rave about it.

Even something as simple as conversing with a close confidant can be highly effective.

Ultimately, I told them to “find their thing”. Whatever that may be.

The Intelligent Investor: A Review

Brad

I recently completed all 500+ pages of The Intelligent Investor (2003 edition with Jason Zweig). It turned out to be everything that I expected it to be: a collection of sound advice that was well-researched, with all of the main points supported by clear examples and strong logic.

The Jason Zweig commentary following each chapter was welcomed support to what might otherwise be a harder to follow book from a much older generation.

There are no good stocks, only good prices

This was my big takeaway…the key message from the book and one that I needed to hear, when I needed to hear it. It sounds so simple – only buy something when the price is right. As Benjamin Graham rightly points out, Mr. Market is not rational. This could not be anymore evident than it is today as the stock market has been on an absolute tear since it reached bottom in March of 2020. Many of the drivers of investor enthusiasm are well placed making the market’s run-up easy to digest. Now, will it continue to make sense should it continue to blow through the roof?

That’s worth a discussion over beers. At the end of the day, you can’t predict the market.

Hot, hot, hot

I recently changed companies and as part of that transition, I rolled my old 401k, profit sharing, and employee stock ownership plans into a rollover IRA. Thus, I had to exit an incredibly hot market, forcing me to contemplate how best to get back in. I found it quite enticing to start gobbling up the names of some of my favorite companies and brands that I regularly patronize…an urge I knew I must resist.

While it’s a good place to start, due diligence would be required if I were to pick up the new habit of selecting individual names rather than sticking completely with index-based ETFs.

This brings me to my next point.

Speculation

The darlings of today on Reddit’s WallStreetBets will quickly be discarded tomorrow, a vicious cycle of speculation that would likely make Graham sick. His distinction between the speculator and the investor is timeless and ubiquitous. What I was surprised to discover was that he left room for the individual to be both…within reason.

Proportion is the key and knowing which state you’re acting in is critical to ensuring you don’t gamble away your retirement.

In this moment of personal financial transition, I regularly stop and think, what would Mr. Graham do?

A Return to the Office…Kind of

Brad

Exactly 18 months ago on March 16, 2020, I left the office around Noon with a 24” HP Monitor, a docking station, and a collection of cords in my car. The Friday before, word was beginning to circulate that we might be sent home for an undefined period of time and by halfway through Monday, we were instructed to collect whatever items we needed to complete our work and to head home.

Never did I anticipate that working from my living room would be anything but a dayslong adventure. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Fast forward to 2021, and there was still no return to the office in sight.

At the end of July, I took an opportunity at a new firm where employees were a couple of weeks into splitting time between being back in the office and working from home. Despite my new preference of no commute and midday exercise breaks, it seemed only right that I would want to meet folks and get a sense for the new culture. After all, I had seen how new hires in my previous role fared when it came to learning the job, meeting colleagues, and establishing themselves. Some started and quit in the span of less than a year!

What I’ve experienced in the last month and a half working every other day in the office is, well, not what I expected…

My new boss works out of Ohio, his boss works in the United Kingdom, her boss works in N.Y.C., and her boss works in Washington, D.C. Stated plainly, no one in my chain of command works in my location. My colleagues are also spread out which means that there aren’t many people to interact with!

Now, this is unsurprising given that it is one of the largest companies in the world. My point in stating all of this is not to complain (the company is great), but rather, to offer a lens into some of the potential issues and headwinds facing corporations.

Leadership Lessons

  1. A return-to-the-office plan is most effective when management and staff are centrally located (only really an issue for big multinationals).
  2. When teams do return, the cadence of any split time should be based on geography, not by business unit. For example, if one team reports to the office every other day while the rest of the teams in the location are one week on and one week off, there won’t be very many people to see in person.
  3. Build Zoom rooms (again, large company problems) where employees can go when they need to join a meeting with others from a different location. It’s highly distracting to be in a meeting on Zoom where you hear that person over the Zoom call and in the cube next to you in real life.

Coming out of corporate America’s COVID hibernation was never going to be easy, and it’s especially unique for the millions of Americans changing jobs right now. My advice to you all…continue to expect the unexpected!

Share some of your experiences by commenting below or on social media.

What do you want to do with the rest of your life?

Brad

When someone asks you – or formerly asked you depending on how far along you are in adulthood – what you want to do with the rest of your life, it is entirely normal not to know.

I dislike the question for several reasons, but my top two would be: (1) it suggests there is one particular thing that you can or should be doing with your existence and (2) it is often carries the connotation that, in the event you don’t know what that one career or job is, that you are somehow “behind”.

It’s rather presumptuous, particularly when you consider that by some measures fewer than half of the American population is satisfied with their job.

Now, the real question is, if you don’t know what you want to do for work, how do you figure it out? Where should you start?

First, realize that you are not alone…not by a long shot. Many, many people are in the exact same boat.

Personally, I have explored a number of avenues myself. I also recognize that it is unlikely that I will be doing one job, or even remain in one industry forever. Below, I share with you some of the techniques and strategies I have found useful.

Strategies for Career Discover

1) I recognize that my career and my vocation may not be one and the same. In other words, my personal calling may not be fulfilled through my career, and I may not even want it to be. It is quite possible that this may be the case for you as well.

Do you love to write but you don’t want a role that requires you to write constantly because you actually find that you start to resent it? Perhaps you love volunteer work and find that this brings fulfillment. Great! You may be sitting right on top of your own answer and you just hadn’t listened to yourself yet. In that situation, it may look something like the following:

Work/Career ($) + Vocation (Volunteering) = Contentment

The job in this instance is just the venue by which you derive compensation to live and play.

2) Ignore the “follow your passion mantra”. That’s right, I said it.

The best literature I have seen that talked about passion, was in the Harvard Business Review. There were three big takeaways:

i. “Passion is not something one finds, but rather, it is to be developed.”

ii. “It is challenging to pursue your passion, especially as it wanes over time.”

 and

iii. “Passion can lead us astray, and it is therefore important to recognize its limits.”

3) As Simon Sinek says, “Start with Why”. How do you define success? Notice I didn’t mention anything about how society or your perception of how society defines success.

Similarly, what would you consider your currency in life? Is it money? Time? Special moments with loved ones?

Recognizing that this is quite a bit to chew on, I will summarize by suggesting some self-introspection. Spend some time looking inward. That high paying job (doing something you don’t actually want to do) in a city that takes you an hour each way to reach (forcing you to miss your son’s baseball game), may not be what you really want.

4) Last but certainly not least, try and try again. If you initially set out on a path and find that you need to make a detour, do it. Make that detour. Or, if you set your career ladder up on the wrong wall, move the ladder to a new wall. It really is that simple sometimes. In the end, we are human and being human means, we have the tendency to overcomplicate!

You already have the answer, you just need to unearth it.

Streams of Income

Brad

It’s been growing for many years with no signs of slowing. And no, I don’t mean your grandparents’ stockpile of useless stuff in the house.

The gig economy has grown considerably over the past 10 years. CNBC reports that “the share of gig workers at U.S. businesses swelled 15% since 2010”, a figure that only includes “1099-MISC contractors and short-term W-2 employees”. Uber drivers aren’t counted due to their classification as a different form of contractor.

Now, the term gig economy is rather large and undefined, which the article acknowledges. Personally, I like to think of it as anyone with a secondary (or more) form of income in addition to their waged or salaried job, or anyone who lives solely off of an income that is not tied to employment by someone (a boss) or something (a company).

Defining the term is less important. What is important, is the underlying concept: the primary and additional sources of income.

There are many reasons to seek additional sources of income, and I’ve written before about freedom of time. For those seeking new income streams, the reason may be to pay down debt, get ahead financially while working toward financial freedom, or the desire to simply work for oneself and ditch the W2.

Whatever the reason, the incredible growth in the number of those performing work to cultivate new income is unmistakable.

In the latest episode of Money Beyond Borders, Nick and I discuss salary dependence  and the desire to seek additional forms of income. In our view, it has never been more important, and it has never been a better time, to start something new for more $.

Give us a listen and let us know what you think!

What to Expect for 2021

Brad

I’ll admit, the title is a bit misleading…I don’t know what will happen in 2021. In fact, if this year has offered anything it is that it has uniquely reinforced the mantra “expect the unexpected”. Even still, that should be worth something.

What I lack in clairvoyance I make up for in pragmatism. I don’t like unrealistic or whimsical predictions and I am immediately skeptical of viewpoints that have not been fully developed or explored from all angles. I promise not to contradict these personal pet peeves.

2020 has brought with it a global pandemic, an historic economic shutdown followed by an equally historic recovery, unprecedented central bank action, a booming housing market, social unrest, and a divisive election…and this is just the short list.

2021, when we reach the end of it, will have looked something like the following…

Government continued to implement measures to combat the coronavirus and a vaccine was widely distributed; the economy, and more specifically businesses, continued to adapt to the new normal and found unique ways to operate efficiently; new business creation continued, ultimately to satisfy new needs and wants in the marketplace; and life for you and me looked a like it always has…a fairly consistent set of routines and a new set of challenges – both work and personal in nature.

Groundbreaking, right? The only big, fundamental transformation that took place in 2020 was a change in the way we do what we already did. Let me say that again a different way…we still went to work, took care of our families, and went about our lives. Life in 2020 may have looked and felt different – and it was different — but it was more a change in venue (more remote work) and a change in disposition (wearing masks, social distancing).

Now, I don’t want to glaze over the fact that millions of people lost their jobs or that many, many people have become ill or died due to complications surrounding COVID-19. Setbacks and illnesses are not unique to 2020. And that’s sort of the point. Some things are out of our control. What we can do is focus on things that are firmly within our control.

Here’s what I suggest…

Take stock of where you and your family are on a personal and professional level.

  • Am I gainfully employed, or do I need to get creative to keep food on the table?
  • Is my family taken care of, and am I taking the proper precautions to ensure their safety?

If you feel comfortable with your situation, progress to the next level of self-introspection and evaluation.

  • Have I set clear goals for this year? Have I implemented a plan of action for achieving those goals?

Some questions you might ask yourself when developing goals:

  • Am I doing enough to ensure the financial security for my family?
  • Am I doing enough to give back to the community? This could be financially, with your time etc.
  • Am I pursuing a constant state of growth, which might involve reading, working out, taking classes, listening, asking questions, working harder, building a business and so on?

To finish where we began, what you can expect in 2021 is a combination of things both inside and outside of your control. Focus on what you can control, and the likelihood that you have a successful 2021 goes up immeasurably.  

Money Beyond Borders

Brad

Personal finances are changing. The collective livelihood of the general population is changing daily, and in ways we can’t or won’t be able to understand for some time. If COVID-19 has taught us anything, it is that we must be lifelong learners. Something I knew to be true in January of 2020, may no longer be true, and reaching a goal today doesn’t guarantee that I’ll reach one tomorrow. To not only survive but to thrive requires continuous improvement. It requires a dedication to the process of learning, trying, and succeeding or failing.

For years, I have recognized that I am proficient at the learning component, and less so with the trying and succeeding/failing part. This is where the importance of strong relationships come in.

It is widely believed that we are much stronger as a unit than we are as individuals. I have reaped the benefits of this axiom for years now, and it is time to leverage one of my most prized relationships in an effort to serve not just as a catalyst for the lives that he and I individually seek to lead, but for the benefit of the community.

This is an open invitation to anyone interested in personal finance, well-being, growth and progress, to tune into our new podcast, Money Beyond Borders.

Nick and I will walk through personal experiences, trending topics, issues impacting personal finance and economics, and much more.

Join us on this journey!