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The Ghost of Christmas Future
By the way... if you get to Aspen then two things to check out... Independence Pass and Maroon Bells. You can drive, or bike, to both locations are they are really neat! Our photo this week is "Ultra G" after a long run spent chasing Mrs. Byrn uphill at 10,000 feet. I'll tell you more about the socks in a future article. Ten years ago, I had a major change in my life. Over the course of 18 months, I resigned my job, ended my marriage, sold as many of my possessions as possible and left the country where I had lived for seven years. Thirty is a bit young to have a mid-life crisis but, I suppose, that's the best description of what happened. The changes I made were triggered from an evening spent alone, in a beautiful house, surrounded by all the comforts available to a self-assured finance guy. When Monica reads that sentence she might never leave me alone again... That night, I realized that I'd be sitting on that EXACT couch ten years later and the only thing that would have changed would be the size of my bank account. When I left Hong Kong in 2000, nobody would buy the couch (!) so I've carted it around the world with me. Since my decision to leave ten years ago... I have: remarried, become a Dad, lived in five countries, started nine businesses, exited most my deals successfully, and watched a couple deals die. If you'd asked me in my late 20s what I was working towards, I probably would have said residences in Phuket, London and San Francisco. I was very asset focused and liked the concept of being able to travel the world with a toothbrush. It wasn't until I travelled the world that I discovered that the reality of travel is quite different. By the time I was 30, my vision of an unchanging future spooked me and I handled back my future earning potential. At the time, I knew that it was self-sabotage for my chances to lead an international life of luxury. Everyone around me thought that I was mad. Why wouldn't they? Our peer group tends to mirror our beliefs. My late-20s could be a little hazy, but my late-30s are crystal clear (owing to years of written personal plans). The timeframe is 2007 and, once again, I was working towards an international life of luxury, split between Boulder, Paris, Edinburgh, Noosa and Santa Barbara. This time the global property markets were toppy and, thankfully, I was not fatally exposed. In 2008, market forces dropped a "change of situation" on me. Similar to my divorce a decade earlier, an external shock radically changed the direction of my life. In some ways, these changes are a little embarrassing. There was a lot of waste and inefficiency in how I lived and, I suspect, this carries over to how I live today. What about the ghost? Well, I saw him walking down the Mill Street Pedestrian Mall last Sunday night. He was tanned, mid-50s, wearing a pink shirt and a touch heavy (he wore it well). For the duration of my trip to Aspen, when I saw a Range Rover, or a beautiful empty house, I thought of him... ...and me. If you've been to many of the locations that I've mentioned so far then you'll know that there are a lot of Range Rovers as well as beautiful houses. So I was getting a pretty constant reminder of my new friend in the pink shirt! My ghost was haunting me... but it wasn't him, it was my own psychology and I was reminded of a few truths of human nature. Relative prosperity - it's a poor idea to spend all our time with people that are "more" than us, the power of relative happiness is real. It takes a lot of Zen to counteract this very human emotion. Far more effective is to surround ourselves with people that have traits that we want to emulate (rather than results). Envy - why the heck do I want to own a Range Rover? Somehow I developed a fixation on its shiny black nature and I'd like to have one parked at my beach house, that I never visit. It's insane but it is there inside me! I had this in my 20s with a desire to own an Alfa Romeo Spider - sold that for a loss when I left Hong Kong! The Aspen environment stirred envy inside me. Loss - my net worth is higher now, than it was a decade ago. Yet, the pain of the crunch of 2008 still lives inside of me. Financial movements have uneven emotional payoffs - for time scale, amounts, and direction. ++ But it wasn't all pain and suffering in the jet-set capital of Colorado! I noticed a few positive outcomes across my weekend away... Monica - the more time that Monica and I spend together, the more we love each other. Very good news to rediscover this in your wife! Work - Monica made the observation that if I had my way I would train all day, every day. There's an element of truth in that. I'd be quite content with an outdoor life. However, I also enjoy multi-year execution of long-term plans. So the challenge of creating "training windows" in my life is a game that I like to play. Each time I go on "vacation" I rediscover that I prefer working to not working. My preferred routine is very similar regardless of location. So why move? Good question! Following summer gives me more daylight and that seems to have a profound impact on my well-being. ++ Nothing Fails Like Success Athletes trim everything from their lives that isn't training -- the wealthy trim everything from their lives that isn't pleasure. Now that's an exaggeration but, at its core, lies a truth about a focus on success, rather than excellence. Success being a destination, excellence being a quest. By the way, I am not talking about you... I am observing tendencies within myself and my own thought patterns. To be successful, in any field, requires the ability to maintain one's focus as well as saying "no" to non-core activities. However, one side effect is a tendency towards sloth and thinking that certain jobs are a waste of my time. I have pals that have become so successful that they can't do anything. When the simple tasks of life cease to be fun... I might be a little too busy and over-estimating my importance in the world. ++ What's Your Number? Think about that... many of us spend 10-20 years "not living" to get to the point where we can "live". I've been on both sides of that equation. Make sure that you fit some living (and loving) in there along the way. Also, take decent care of your body so you're not totally blown out when you do start living! One thing that surprised me was how wrecked elite athletes are at the end of their careers - I didn't expect that when I started sport. I certainly saw that in finance. If you are considering retirement (at any age) here's what I found: ***You'll likely be bored out of your mind if you stop working. More accurately, its very demotivating to lack a productive outlet in our lives. So give thought to alternative, flexible types of work. Flexible work is highly valuable. I think this is why we see a lot of "successful" people shift to alternate avenues (golf, triathlon, youth activities) then go absolutely crazy with their passion. It takes a lot of recreation to replace the satisfaction of doing great work. ***Write your assumptions down. I have some friends that may have waited a bit too long before they started living. As we age, our physical world shrinks. While we can have a large influence on the speed of our decline, none of us will avoid it. ++ So... the trip was a success more for helping me understand why I like chipping away at my desk as well as the joy of "yard work Sundays". g
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This past week I was re-visited by the Ghost of Christmas Future. I thought that I had shaken him years ago but he returned during a three-day visit to Aspen, Colorado.