Make Your Fate

Gordon Livingston writes, "only bad things happen quickly". Even with "bad" things, such as a rising uneployment, it takes many months to see the true impact of shocks to the system. The best analogy for large, complex systems is of a gigantic supertanker... it takes a long time to change course but, when it does, expect it to keep moving in that direction for a while.

This week I am going to write about "good" things that have been happening in my life. As I write this, there are a few bright spots in the economy but, unfortunately, I expect the economy to continue to deteriorate. Even when good policy decisions are made, the huge amount of leverage is going to take a long time to work through the system. Having lived through a few economic shocks, I'll share some ideas on the adjustment process in an future article.

An economic depression need not imply disaster on a personal level -- many good things have happened in my life during 2009.

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On Monday, Noon Denver Time, Monica is joining me for a free webinar on Nutrition and Fit Pregnancy. contact me for a slot. We have spaces available.

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For what it's worth, six months is the MINIMUM time horizon that I believe makes sense to track change that has the potential to make a positive impact on your life -- be it financial- or health-related. You can fool yourself for 12-weeks but once you keep something going for six months it is very close to being a habit.

In the back half of 2008, I watched my net worth drop by about 65%, my prospective income fall by 95% and had no viable sources of earned income for 2009. With two of my business lines, one was non-viable and the other had a forecast loss of ~$50,000. More concerning than a lack of income, I had huge expenses that were going to cause me to burn capital for the first time in my adult life.

I spent my 40th birthday sitting at my desk signing Statements of Concurrence connected to the de-facto bankruptcy of my previous employer.

Seven days later, I launched a new business.

I am an extremely lucky guy and can handle the challenges, I probably magnify them to create a sense of urgency in my life. I wrote about expense management a few weeks ago. This article will explore techniques for creating new opportunities in our lives. These techniques run deeper than mere money - this is how you can magnify your luck.

Note that I didn't change until I had to. I am not a visionary -- like most of us, I find change uncomfortable and tend to stay on a given course. To be honest, I didn't need to change. I could have accepted my "fate" and burned capital hoping for things to get better. That said, the Ostrich Solution doesn't appeal. I decided to remake my fate.

I tend to adjust early in a crisis -- we can often wait until rock bottom (personal bankruptcy, heart attack, full-blown addiction, orthopedic surgery). Somewhere along the line, I learned the benefit of change before I wrecked myself. I credit my early divorce for teaching me this lesson.

Before I was able to change the direction of my life, I had to create space. As an athlete, the easiest way for me to do this was drop training stress. I'm rolling along at about 20% of my previous training load. The paradox of elite athletics is that 20% of the training stress buys me MORE of the health benefits. As well, my creativity has sky-rocketed.

We are unable to see the cost of extreme stress (work, exercise, service) until we step outside of it -- a break gives us a chance to take stock and see if we are getting anywhere.

The athletic equivalent is to ask yourself if you are making yourself faster, or simply tired!

Here's how I step outside:

• Weekly -- my "long day" in nature
• Monthly -- some sort of "trip" where I go exploring for a day, or two
• Quarterly -- a week-long camp/retreat where I unplug
• Annual -- a low intensity month where I take stock of my life and read lots (need to figure out how this fits with EC!)

A large part of my enjoyment from working at my desk probably comes from the day each week that I spend in nature. Just like the hard/easy training approach. My work productivity is raised by the rejuvenation time that I spend in nature.

For the working athlete, this is a big part of the benefit you receive from exercise -- a virtuous circle of creative recovery and productive work. If your training is always "work" then you'd better have an alternative rejuvenation strategy because most of us don't top up our batteries at the office!

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Once the space is created, open channels for people to help you out.

My goal has been to develop new client relationships where I add value. I think that is important -- look for opportunities to work and deliver value. It's where young people (myself included) often go wrong -- we look for situations where we can "take", rather than areas where we can add value and earn a fair return.

Don't seek the easy way -- seek the opportunity to really blow someone away with good value. If you do that they they will build your brand for you. Whether we like it or not, we're all in marketing.

This website has been going for 15 weeks. If you asked me what I would have "gotten done" in the first 15 weeks, I would have probably said, "not much". I certainly wouldn't have been comfortable committing to any firm milestones.

Here's what we have achieved:

• A weekly column over at XTri -- 12 articles published, one great relationship started directly as a result of my piece on swimming (all the payment I need for a YEAR of writing)
• Launched an adventure travel guiding service -- two custom Utah trips coming up
• Two summer camps in Boulder -- July and August
• Launched our website and built a team of 50 athletes -- a viable business line in 15 weeks
• Completed our Tucson Camp -- I was able to train alongside each client, challenged myself on a few workouts, and kept the web business running

The impact of the above items, taken together, is a large amount of value creation. The early days of fitness, and business, are exciting with day-to-day changes having a real impact.

Four months after my 40th, I have enhanced my quality of life while cutting my cost of living. In these times, this is a fundamental message to remember. You need not reduce your life satisfaction to get back to balanced living.

I had considered raising money to help cover our start up costs but was advised by a VC buddy that the cost of doing so would be high (and I couldn't see an exit other than selling back to me). As a result, I didn't raise capital and am more disciplined with spending -- truth is, additional spend would likely have been wasted.

Success is a function of consistent work done well -- in sport... train well, not hard.

The purpose of trimming my life is to enable me to do more things well. By doing a great job at a series of individual actions... over time I am able to achieve something material.

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With Endurance Corner, I am playing a game where the goal is to cover my family's expenses -- I only make a distribution if there is enough in the company to cover an entire month's worth of expenses. In April, we covered our first month.

For motivation, it helps to break life into small enough pieces so you experience little victories as you work towards challenging goals. It's a lot more fun to win (outright) every fourth month than lose by 75% every single month. I know the math is the same but the effect is different!

Back on the scoreboard,
gordo