Afleveringen
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Iâve drifted in and out of the meritocracy trap over the years, but mostly, Iâve stayed stuck in its sticky web. I quickly learned the value of good grades and securing better jobs. Once I landed a good job and the race to secure it was over, I descended into despair at the thought of doing it for the next forty years. Fast-forward a decade, and financial independence allowed me to sidestep the meritocracy trap. However, this too felt like another shiny merit badge. When I reached that point, I looked around and realized, like a bus rider stepping off at the wrong stop: damn itâthis isnât it.
Who would have thought you couldn't find happiness by looking for it?
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My wife and I stood at the edge of the worldâor at least what felt like itâsquinting through the murk and sea spray to snap photos of a decommissioned lighthouse. Less like some beacon of hope, its white tower loomed like a ghost, haunting the craggy cliffs of coastal Victoria and my vacation prospects. Weâd arrived at the sleepy Victorian coastal town of Port Fairy expecting sunshine, a pleasant breezeâand if not asking too muchâmaybe a kangaroo or two bounding in silhouette against the sunset. Instead, a spectrum of misery lay before us: wind that could strip the paint from a car and rain in erratic, bipolar bursts.
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Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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Australians, it seems, are utterly smitten with coffee. The beverage of choice appears to be the flat white, a silky yet buttoned-down cousin to the latte or cappuccino. We landed in Sydney at dawn, dragging two hefty bags from baggage claim. Our first order of business was to snag a flat white before leaving the terminal. Ever the minimalist, I settled for an espresso, watching the crowd in a bleary-eyed daze, squinting at the sun as if it were a new concept. My wife, meanwhile, sat busy photographing her artfully swirled toothpick masterpiece. Soon enough, we embraced the day and ventured out into the land of sculpted asses in Bondi Beach.
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They say that grief comes on like a tsunami, a wave of incredible power and uncontrollable force that washes over us. The metaphors are manyâtrains and dump trucks, roller coasters and riversâand they all check out. Grief comes on hard and renders us powerless in its wake. But Iâve been consumed less by a powerful force and more by the emptiness of where something used to be. Because grief is, after all, an empty hole. And it hurts because I allowed myself to love so deeply and unexpectedly. After all, loving never came easy until I met this dog.
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Retirement is often an ideal detached from reality. When overwhelmed by daily routines, itâs easy to imagine retirement as a stress-free life with a blank calendar and complete freedom. However, retirement often brings unexpected psychological challenges, including a lack of purpose, boredom, relationship strain, and a troubling sense of isolation.
Todayâs guest, David Champion, retired from his software development career at 53. Nearly five years later, a line from one of his blog posts for Can I Retire Yet? titled Confessions of an Early Retiree jumped off the page. He wrote: âI am a proponent of retiring as early as possible.â While he had no regrets about retiring early, he later admitted to experiencing significant psychological challenges. In our conversation, David reconciles his âno regretsâ view of early retirement with the difficulties of adapting to life without traditional work. Throughout, David highlights the need for self-awareness and embracing oneâs true identity to find fulfillment in retirement (and climbing).
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Perhaps no one has quit their job like my guest today, Cory Richards. Richards, still a world-renowned photographer, abruptly ended his career as an elite mountaineer in April 2021 at the foot of the worldâs seventh-highest peak. Over several days, Richards experienced what he later described as a mixed bipolar episode.
With one hundred thousand dollars spent and a film in the works, Richards announced to his team at Dhaulagiriâs cold and windblown base camp that he was quittingânot just the expedition, but climbing altogether. He told his livid teammates he planned to move to Los Angeles to pursue filmmaking and writing. The pressure cooker of personal history, fame, high achievement, and perhaps the exhaustion of living someone elseâs life boiled over.
In 2011, Richards became the first and only American to climb one of the worldâs 8000-meter peaks in winter. On the descent, the team narrowly escaped death in an avalanche. In the aftermath, Richards snapped the iconic frozen selfie that adorned the cover of National Geographicâs 125th-anniversary issue. He was the 2012 National Geographic Adventurer of the Year and a 2014 National Geographic Photographer Fellow. He summited Everest without oxygen, garnering over two billion media impressions with his partner Adrian Ballinger as they Snapchatted their way up the mountain in 2016.
For years, people lived vicariously through him. He garnered over a million Instagram followers. Everyone told him he had the dream job. He traveled nine months each year across the globe to distant and stunningly beautiful lands to climb and take pictures. But in his own words, he âhated it.â He was an addict, fueling a burning fire with alcohol, sex, and tremendous pressure to do more and go bigger in increasingly deadly circumstances. Then it all fell apart.
His memoir, The Color of Everything, is set to release on July 9. Itâs a gripping and shockingly frank account of Coryâs life struggles. From his adolescent mental health diagnosis to a life of addiction and denial, heâs found the slow path toward acceptance. This is a story of personal growth, societal pressures, and the complex interplay between vulnerability, achievement, and emotional resilience.
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Recently, Iâve been increasingly conflicted by several dueling experiences and sensations:
Reduced Stress: Since departing from the Standard Corporate Office Environment (SCOE), Iâve enjoyed decreased stress and anxiety levels. While stress has its upsides, reducing chronic stress is foundational to living a good life.Mounting pressure to be part of society. Iâve been working on this project for six years, but being a home-based blogger and podcaster isnât fully satisfying some of the key pillars of a meaningful life.Decreased Motivation: Iâm finding it hard to engage tasks not entirely aligned with my vision of a good life. Paradoxically, a good life involves doing hard things.Here's the good news on how to maintain a strong financial base and do work you love.
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Imagine being faced with the daunting task of predicting the future with nothing but incomplete information and a handful of hunches. Perhaps you're considering new experiences, like travel or moving to a different town. When I imagined quitting my job, I envisioned a happier world, free from the perceived burden of corporate work. In the following months, however, my expectations were shattered upon realizing that I still largely felt the same despite my newfound freedom. In recent years, this recognition has remained vivid, sparking my curiosity about why predicting outcomes in the face of uncertainty is so difficult.
Whether anticipating a geopolitical event, forecasting stock market trends, or simply contemplating lifeâs next move, accurate prediction is an ever-present challenge. As I began to journal in earnest some years ago, I uncovered a fascinating trend hidden between the mundane details: my predictions were fraught with overblown concern and startling inaccuracy. Delving into the complexities of prediction and expertise, it becomes clear that many factorsâfrom biases and cognitive distortions to the whims of randomnessâshape our perceptions of certainty and accuracy. Despite these hurdles, new research offers a glimmer of hope.
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In 1949, a college junior named Barbara Beattie wrote a letter for a school journalism assignment. We can only speculate on Beattieâs youthful expectations: Was she so naive to expect a response, or were these different times? Sheâd written playwright Arthur Miller at a time when the Broadway run of his most famous work, The Death of a Salesman, was in full swing. He had every reason to ignore a college studentâs inquiries into the âformal genesisâ of his now-legendary work. What Beattie receivedâa sprawling and deeply thoughtful essay on manâs common and timeless tragediesâmust have impacted her greatly. After all, sheâs kept it for seventy-five years. Beattieâs daughter found the letter when helping her mother, now 94, move out of her home.
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In normal times, rent prices, like most everything else, slowly yet surely increase at about 2-3% per year. This is inflation. But in terms of the housing market, these arenât normal times. In the pandemic era, as demand surged in supply-restricted markets, both sale and rent prices soared, with year-over-year inflation rates at 30% or more in some markets. To speak generally of the world of pricing, what goes up might come down. So, when I approached our landlord a few weeks back about lowering the price of our rent, she wasnât so surprised.
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According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, chronic painâpain lasting at or beyond three monthsâaffected over 20% of U.S. adults, or 51.6 million people, in 2021. Symptoms were severe enough to substantially restrict daily activity for 6.9% of Americans that same year. And with chronic pain comes soaring medical costs, pharmaceutical over-reliance, and addiction.
Mounting multidisciplinary research suggests that most chronic pain is not of structural origin. In other words, most chronic pain can not be directly attributed to injury or physical abnormality. Neuroplastic pain results from the brain misinterpreting signals from the body as if they were dangerous. We habituate to pain, creating behaviors that either avoid pain or alleviate symptoms.
Encouragingly, those undergoing a psychological treatment known as Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT) are showing vast improvements in pain management without pharmaceutical or other medical interventions. One major study found that two-thirds of chronic back pain patients were pain-free or nearly pain-free after four weeks of PRT interventions. In addition, patients showed visible changes in the prefrontal brain regions associated with pain after therapy. While psychological treatments are effective in managing chronic pain, this does not imply that the pain is imaginary.
My guest today, Miriam Gauci Bongiovanni, suffered needlessly until she discovered the concept of neuroplastic pain. Today, now pain-free, she works from her home in Malta as a Certified MindBody Practitioner and Trauma-Informed Coach. But beyond her skills as a wonderful teacher and educator on chronic pain, I found her story of embracing a nontraditional career fascinating. Today we dive in on everything from how our personalities and fears inform our pain cycles to living a good life.
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Topics Discussed with Miriam Gauci BongiovanniMiriamâs history with debilitating pain and the methods she used to cure itWhat is neuroplastic pain?Cycles of worry that feed neuroplastic pain: How fear contributes to body tension and muscle spasmsWhy neuroplastic pain often develops from real injuriesWhy emotional experiences are creating real physical changes in the bodyThe role of personality on neuroplastic pain and who is most likely to sufferConditioning and pain triggersKey indicators of neuroplastic painHow neuroplastic pain can imprint on structural painThe nocebo effect, expectations of painWhy continuing to see practitioners (PT, etc) can contribute to neuroplastic painWhy exercises aimed at injury prevention may not be usefulSomatic tracking and learning to explore painful sensationsThe importance of play on pain mitigationMiriamâs personality and personal journey. How frustration at work resulted in painThe importance of accountability and individual agency in pain managementThe danger of hiding our stressLiving a nontraditional life and career: challenges and rewardsSo much more! -
If you havenât noticed, the concept of achievement and even competitiveness has weighed heavily on my mind as of late. A gift of the nontraditional life is the opportunity to step back and see the world around us with a degree of unusual clarity, far from the treadmill. For years I valued athletic and professional progress in ways that werenât making my life better, but I thought they were. I searched for and implemented solutions to the wrong problems. Meanwhile, what truly matteredâmainly my relationshipsâwithered on the vine. The journey toward rectifying these tendencies continues today.
My guest today, Lincoln Stoller, is a former mountaineer who now specializes in psycho-, hypno-, and neurofeedback therapy, in tandem with numerous other counseling and coaching services. Lincoln holds a PhD in Theoretical and Mathematical Physics from UT Austin, including a post-doc assignment at UC Berkley. Lincoln eventually moved from quantum physics to create a management and automation software platform for businesses, learned to build Norwegian log homes, traveled and lived abroad in far-flung foreign lands, and is even a certified pilot. To say Lincoln lives well outside of the bounds of normalcy is probably a half-truth at best. As he says in the interview, we should âjust keep doing out-of-the-box stuff. And if people aren't calling you a little crazy or a little nutty, then you probably arenât exploring enough of the boundaries.â
Todayâs conversation revolves around the high-risk potential of hard-charging performers and achievers, whether they exist in sports, business, or other areas of life. While these individuals hold our collective attention and admiration, Lincoln outlines how their psychological roots run shallow. They often struggle to stay satisfied with themselves or those around them. Lincoln might even say he holds an anti-hard-man philosophy. I think youâll see why.
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Topics Discussed with Lincoln StollerQuantum physics to therapist/coachLincolnâs history in mountaineering amongst some of the legends of the sportWhy almost all climbers are âhigh-riskââResilience is not throwing yourself at a climb until you are torn and bloody, itâs exploring your limits and working them gracefully.âWhy some people crave riskEmotions on the rock and exploration and mastering of triggersGetting past societal expectations of productivityCan satisfied people be high performers?How dissatisfaction can lead to pathology: âIf youâre not satisfied with yourself, you wonât be satisfied with anyone else, either.âIs competition healthy?Is personal growth selfish?What is productive suffering and why is it important?Taking ownership: the dysfunctional mental model that experts can solve our problemsHow high performers can assess mental health concerns that might not be apparentRelationships with parents and why these are often commonly fraughtâYou canât change people directly. You can only change people indirectly by changing yourself.âThe importance of doing out-of-the-box stuff and why itâs okay to be considered differentHigh achievement and the difficulty with love and long-term relationships -
The concept of play conjures the image of my three-year-old (and blonder) self, plastic shovel in hand, amorphous stains down the front of my pants. And certainly slobber. Lots of slobber. That three-year-old was certainly not concerned with social hierarchy or status, lacking a whiff of ambition to put the best version of himself forward. He played with a shovel in the sand because something needed to be dug and that was all that mattered.
As we age (and start to exhibit bladder control) the nature of play changes but is not altogether lost, at least not at first. Instead of digging in the sand, we might play a game of Twister, something I played as late as my college years. I challenge you to toss out that board on the floorâputting your head through someone elseâs legsâand try and stay serious and stoic. Itâs impossible. Youâll be giggling like a child. And thatâs the point. We need more play.
Source of Inspiration: Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life (Bill Burnett, Dave Evans)
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For four years Iâve watched something slowly bloom. In my old life, the âbefore timeâ you might call it, I moved from task to task. If I wasnât working, I unknowingly made a practice of turning recreational or hobbyist pursuits into something that, from an outsiderâs perspective, looked an awful lot like work. Goals and accolades were everything, and the more quantifiable, the better. But the farther Iâve separated myself from this life in space and time, the more clarity Iâve gained.
Grasping for metaphors, I was tempted to explain this budding awareness as a slowly growing flower. But for perhaps all the wrong reasons, I hesitated to describe my growth and awareness as floral, preferring to drop the metaphor. But I canât quite shake it, because I have watched something slowly grow. Itâs not me that has bloomedâagain, all the wrong imageryâbut it is the world I could not see then. I could not see the flawed logic buried in the cold and wet earth because I identified with it. It was my life, so I could not reject what protected me. And four years later Iâve watched something slowly take root.
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When we make important decisions, we are often not as rational or objective as weâd like to believe. The base rate fallacy is the tendency to misjudge the probability of a situation by not accounting for all relevant information. This cognitive bias affects everything from first impressions to voting preferences to broad market behavior.
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If you follow economic news at all, youâve taken note of the changing conditions of the American housing economy in the last few years. First, high demand, low supply, and cheap debt fueled an extraordinary (and unhealthy) price surge. In response, the Federal Reserve ratcheted up interest rates to cool an overheated economy in the wake of pandemic-related disruptions
In years prior, economic conditions supported a vast proliferation of real estate investment. Individual investors to multinational corporations scooped up properties across the country for cheap. The returns were fantastic. But in my mind, those days were decidedly over.
When my guest today, Michael Farnsworth, discussed his novel concept of real estate investment, I was all ears. Do many of the real estate investment rules-of-thumb still function in a world of 7%+ mortgage rates and all-time high prices? Is now really the time to start a real estate investment portfolio? Is this even the time to buy a personal residence? And when it comes to short-term rentals, what are the ethical considerations to local economies and community fabric? We cover all this and more in todayâs episode.
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Topics Discussed with Michael FarnsworthThe âTriangle of Death:â Michaelâs unique form of House Hacking2024 climbing goals: 100th first-try 5.12 and V10Stock market vs real estate investingMichaelâs struggle with remote work and feeling groundedThe characteristics of a real estate investorThe viability of real estate investing in a high-interest and low-supply (e.g., expensive) marketMichaelâs ongoing landlord nightmare scenarioDecision to leave his traditional career to pursue property management full-timeIntellectual stimulation without a traditional jobFinancial metrics and characteristics of the ideal rental propertyUnderstanding costs and the importance of detailed accountingWhen and how much to raise rentsNontraditional means of mortgage fundingConsiderations on property managersEthical considerations of short-term rentals (Airbnb, etc)Michaelâs ideal lifestyleSuffering from lupus and two kidney transplantsSo much more! -
Weâre back to the digital mailbag to answer your questions!
For this week:
An update on markets and our personal finance situationThe role of dividends in growth and withdrawal assumptionsExpectations vs reality on a life of financial independenceOur experience with health insurance without employer-sponsored plansReal estate investing: an update on our experiences and economics as remote landlordsHealth insurance considerations for long-term travelShort- to medium-term savings goals (like a house) versus saving for retirementLoss of purpose without a traditional jobSo much more!Support this project: Buy Me a Coffee
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Show Notes and Links at Clippingchains.com
Q1: Whatâs the latest on markets and your financial situation since you left your corporate career? (00:02:38)Q2: Expectations versus experiences on the financially independent life (00:16:33)Q3: Could you provide an update on your experiences and costs with ACA (Obamacare) insurance? (00:27:42)Q4: Iâd like to hear any details youâre willing to share on your remote landlord experience (00:39:36)Q5: My partner and I are taking a sabbatical! What should we do about insurance? (00:50:30)Q6: How do I prioritize retirement savings against saving for short- to medium-term savings goals, like buying a house? (00:56:20)Q7: Why are we so concerned about the loss of purpose when we stop working a traditional job? (01:04:31) -
When I left my corporate career in early 2020, I didnât fully understand the ways that I would, in later years, slowly become decoupled and desynchronized from a society that values hustle, status, and self-worth generated to a large degree around our career titles. Youâll read the same thing repeatedly on the internet: Ignore the haters, do your thing.
But when I actually sit down and talk with those who are living similar lives, regardless of their financial position, I find that the tidy internet talking points leave many of us dissatisfied. After all, humans are one of the most social species on the planet. We shouldnât be surprised by the difficulty in overriding instinct, to go against the grain of what the herd values most. My thinking has evolved dramatically on this subject in recent years, so letâs dig in.
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By popular demand, Iâve decided to extend a travel series centered around the topic of building community or maintaining our need for social interactions when away from home. Community building is especially complicated when abroad, where cultures and languages vary considerably from our own. My guests today, veteran travelers with considerable expat experiences, are perfectly suited to discuss this topic.
Meghan Walker, a previous guest who writes at awaytofi.com, spent many of her formative years living abroad in Kenya and New Zealand. Her husband, Callan Cooper, is an expat living in the United States from New Zealand, where they met. Meghan and Callan joined me in my home in Colorado for a rare in-person interview, where we discussed in detail the beauty and challenges of international extended travel, careers, evolving travel philosophies, and financial tactics that can have you living a similar life much sooner than you think.
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Iâm a little unsure of the best way to frame this introduction. In some ways, this is a story of embracing climbing for all the right reasons. Pursuit of technical mastery and love for the outdoors over the gamification of grades and emphasis on physical training. On the other hand, this is also the story of early adulthood in the modern era. The narrative to pursue something like climbing full-time is strong in the outdoor world. But most I encounter eventually find that climbing alone leaves us yearning for meaning and purpose. My guest today, Tyler Karow, spent nearly three years on the road pursuing climbing. Today he balances considerable climbing achievements with a secondary passion for building and a desire to be a part of the solution to Americaâs affordable housing crisis.
Karow is a 29-year-old climber known for his big wall accomplishments in Yosemite, Patagonia, and around the globe. His resume includes a ground-up free ascent of Golden Gate (5.13a) on El Cap, and Yosemiteâs Triple Crown in under 24 hours, only the eighth time this feat has been achieved. Notably, Karow climbed the Triple while working a full-time (plus) job. He holds a B.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of Southern California and is a licensed civil engineer and general contractor. With this background in engineering and construction, he envisions a career helping to build prefabricated tiny home communities. This emerging approach to construction helps to reduce the cost of new housing and more efficiently add supply to a stressed housing market.
This episode is an Oreo of sorts, with a focused discussion of Tylerâs climbing achievements and work/life balance in the beginning and end. The middle of this discussion takes a deep dive into the affordable housing crisis, the complex nature of new construction, and Tylerâs vision for the future of American affordable housing.
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