Thank God Life (and Investing) Isn’t Like the Olympics

Originally in ForbesImagine that your entire life revolves around a single performance lasting less than 14 seconds. You’ve sacrificed your youth, close friendships and any semblance of a career in pursuit of validating your Herculean effort on the world’s largest stage. The hopes of your country on your shoulders. Tens of millions of gawkers eager to praise perfection — and condemn anything less.

And then.

You dork it.

Jeffrey Julmis

That’s precisely what happened to Haitian hurdler Jeffrey Julmis in the Olympic 110-meter semifinal heat when he crashed into the very first hurdle, tumbling violently into the second.

Wow. I love the Olympics, the pinnacle of athletic competition. I even see past all the corporate corruption and commercial sensationalism, drinking in every vignette, simply in awe of all that the human body, mind and spirit can accomplish in peak performance. But thank God life isn’t like the Olympics (even for Olympians).

We aren’t subject to the imperial thumbs up or down based on a single momentary contest (or even a handful of them). But we’re certainly capable of treating life that way, often to our detriment. Don’t believe me? When was the last time you said (or thought):

“This is the most important thing I’ve ever done.”

“It’s all leading up to this.”

We’re trained to think this way because that narrative is more likely to keep you from switching the channel, more likely to motivate you to buy that car (or house or hair product), all of it promising to be that singular moment or lead you to it.

This script is especially common in the world of financial products. If you surveyed the marketing collateral for a host of investment products, you’d think the product being sold was a sailboat, new golf clubs, a winery or beach house — a life without care. But success in investing is actually achieved through the tedium of saving and the application of a simple, long-term investment plan — not the sexy new investment product or strategy that pledges to deliver your hopes and dreams.

Thankfully, this is also true in life (and athletics). “Success” is cultivated in the millions of unseen moments, the application of simple disciplines employed in pursuit of goals that don’t expire the minute we’re out of the spotlight. And even at the moment of our most abominable failures, the humbled Haitian hurdler provided us with the only example we need:

He got up and finished the race.

How To Avoid Grass-Is-Greener Failures

The Virtual Test Drive

Originally in ForbesA friend of mine had a lifelong dream of opening up a coffee shop and was willing to put a highly successful career on the line to pursue it. Fortunately, he was presented with an amazing opportunity to test-drive his grass-is-greener ideal, and the results might surprise you and offer guidance that you can apply to your next big decision.

Dave had it all planned out, even down to the lighting and indie musicians that would be playing on Thursday nights in his vision of the perfect coffeehouse.

Then he got an opportunity that most of us don’t have before we make the plunge: He got to learn the ropes working at the best café in Chicago. He immersed himself in coffee culture for a week of training that was nothing short of blissful. Then, he got a chance to put it to work for another few weeks.

His findings? In an average eight-hour day, he got to interact with customers and craft their coffee concoctions for approximately 20 minutes. The remaining seven hours and 40 minutes were spent with dirty dishes. Lots of dirty dishes.

What Is Your Fool’s Gold?

Originally in ForbesMy son gave me a present. To be fair, I don’t think it was until after he realized the gift was monetarily worthless, but I appreciated it nonetheless. It’s a big hunk of the mineral pyrite, also known as fool’s gold. My son’s gift has value to me far beyond its function as an excellent paperweight. And, ironically, its worth to me is continually rising. It’s become a constant reminder to orient my life away from that which only appears valuable and towards that which truly is.

We all have our own versions of fool’s gold. It’s generally the stuff that, while largely worthless, receives an undue amount of our time, attention and investment. What’s yours?

Here are three ways to spot it:

1)   Fool’s gold consumes time you’ve dedicated to other things. Not more than one paragraph into writing this post (on this topic, no less!) I found myself entering this Google search—“what is the best banjo ukulele”—and then navigating to this page, then this one.

In 2014, Accomplish More By Doing Less

DO LESS-01Instead of bullying yourself into adopting new practices that are designed to overhaul your life for the better in 2014, consider finding the path to success by simply doing less.

The arctic blast of our fledgling 2014 offers a chilling reminder that the kindred warmth of the holiday season is over.

That’s enough being. It’s time to get back to doing.

“So, how’s it going?”

“Good. Busy. Super busy.”

“Me too. Never been so busy.”

It’s as if there is a self-worth contest sure to be won by the contender most frazzled.

But busyness is no virtue. If anything, it makes us—me included—distracted, forgetful and often late. It diminishes our capacity and saps our creativity.

That’s why we can actually accomplish more by doing less.

But how do we decide which activities absolutely must stay and which might have to go?

Five Minutes to a Leaner You

This quick and simple exercise should give you several top candidates for the chopping block. You need only one piece of paper with a line down the middle (or click HERE for a printable form). On the left side, write LIFE-TAKING, and on the right side, write LIFE-GIVING.

life-taking-life-giving---blank-2Fill the Life-Taking column with the roles (or tasks within roles) that drain you. They’re onerous chores, not labors of love.

On the Life-Giving side, list the opposite—those practices you can pursue for extended periods of time, wondering where the time has gone. You might be tired after a long day of life-giving activities, but you’re not weary.

I should be clear that this exercise is not a license to shed roles to which you’ve pledged yourself—like being a good parent or spouse—or common duties that appear on no one’s life-giving list—like changing diapers or cleaning dishes. Heck, the president of my company, Drew Tignanelli, washes whatever dishes he finds in the company kitchen sink.

But if the majority of your roles and the duties you’ve accepted are life-taking, I encourage you to consider making some difficult decisions in an effort to improve that ratio. That may mean saying yes to something, but it almost certainly means saying no.

Two caveats:

1)   Following through on this exercise may be simple, but it’s not easy. Stakeholders are likely to be disappointed, whether you’re giving up a board seat, book club, church committee or poker night. Your income may also be reduced if you sacrifice an activity that creates income, change jobs or invest in furthering your education.

2)   Many activities are not wholly life-taking or life-giving. For example, last year I decided that maintaining a presence on Facebook took more life than it gave. I certainly derived some benefits from being on Facebook, connecting with friends and family, but the net effect was life-taking. (By the way, I dumped FB six months ago and don’t miss it at all.)

Addition by Subtraction

You can cause a monumental shift for the good in your life and work by simply removing life-taking activities. Your performance in life-giving roles has room to flourish, increasing your productivity and satisfaction. Even more surprising, some activities will move from life-taking to neutral—or even life-giving—after your overall burden is lightened.

Hitting the delete button on even one or two life-taking commitments can make you a better partner or parent, boss or employee, friend or family member. And especially for those whose vocations fall under the creative heading, creating more blank space on the canvas is essential to maintaining and improving your art.

Special thanks to Josh Itzoe, a colleague and good friend, for encouraging me to undertake this exercise several years ago.

If you enjoyed this post, please let me know on Twitter at @TimMaurer, and if you’d like to receive my weekly post via email, click HERE.

20 Lessons We Can Learn From 20-Year-Olds

20 YO Graphic-01It’s become enormously popular to publicly lecture 20-somethings.  I’m not a 20-something, but my regular interaction with the Millennial generation as a college instructor leads me to conclude that we may have more to learn from 20-somethings than we have to teach them.

Here are 20 lessons in LIFE, WORK and MONEY inspired by the Millennial generation:

In LIFE…

Nobody responds well to being lectured.   Despite the ineffectiveness of self-righteous bombast, it seems never to be in short supply.  Insisting that someone else sees how wrong they are may guarantee that we will feel more right—but it doesn’t necessarily make it so.  Even if you have good intentions, the best time to teach someone something is after they’ve asked for input.

Life needn’t be so strictly compartmentalized.  Work, family, leisure, service, worship and artistic expression are elements of life that remain segregated for most.  But this schizophrenia of roles leads to inauthentic living in one or more of these venues (and drives us crazy).

We should give ourselves permission to be more of who we are and less of who people want us to be.  There’s an externally successful business owner who shows up at my gym for his morning workout dressed to the nines in a suit and tie.  He didn’t come from a meeting—he just thinks it’s important to send a message everywhere he goes that he is successful (and he’s happy to announce it).  The Millennials’ refusal to engage in such posturing is often mistaken for aloofness or apathy, but it’s really more about a healthy yearning for authenticity.

Being miserably busy is not a good measure of self-worth.  Busyness is no virtue.  It leads to forgetfulness, distraction and tardiness.  And it’s exhausting.

We are human beings, not human doings.  We tend to explain who we are by listing what we do for work and what we have accomplished professionally.  Millennials are more comfortable in their own skin and more capable of enjoying time that can’t be measured in terms of productive output.

 “American” is not actually a language.  Millennials are the first generation in decades who don’t take American pre-eminence for granted.  They’re expanding their personal and professional horizons with international travel and picking up a second or third language.

Traditional education is overvalued.  While Millennials are known for having overpaid for higher education, their dissatisfaction with what they got in return—fueled by their angst over the loans that now burden them—are serving to ensure that they and their children will spearhead the biggest education overhaul in a couple centuries.

In WORK…

Being a slave to work is no badge of honor.  Being the first in and last to leave may send a message to the types of people who value an ascetic work regimen, but it will also send a message to your family and close friends that your work is more important than they are.  Which message do you want to send?

We’re not all productive in the same ways and at the same times.  Sure, there are advantages to being an early bird, but the best employees will figure out where, when and how they work most effectively, and the best bosses will encourage them to do so (to a mutually beneficial end).

Work and life aren’t something to be balanced, but instead something to be integrated.  That we must balance work and life implies that they are seemingly opposed forces incapable of being effectively blended, but the most effective leaders and satisfied employees find ways to bring work to life by inviting more life to work.

Success is overrated.  Boomers have made an art form of becoming successful, or at least appearing so.  Success certainly isn’t a bad thing, but when the visible representation of success (more impressive titles, bigger houses, nicer cars, granite everything) takes precedence over those for whom we supposedly became successful to serve, we have a problem.  This isn’t even a generational thing.  It’s never really been true that reaching the pinnacle of success is what ultimately makes our lives fulfilling—it’s really significance and meaning for which we hunger.  Millennials seem to have a better handle on that.

In MONEY…

You don’t have to “get settled down” right away.  Financial planner, Roger Whitney, told me “[Millennials] are getting married later in life [than Baby Boomers] which gives them time to mature and be more financially secure when entering marriage.”

Money shouldn’t be a taboo topic of discussion.  30-something personal finance writer, Arielle O’Shea, finds Millennials to be more open about money.  Even if it’s because they’re more cynical about financial security, having seen a couple bubbles burst and many of their parents split over financial issues, Millennials seem to be more open to discussing their personal finances (to good effect) with each other and in public.

We don’t have to own everything—sharing is ok too.  Having to own everything we touch in this lifetime may be good for auto and home improvement companies, but it’s certainly not the most efficient or inexpensive way to do things.  Airbnb allows users to swap living spaces, Lyft offers a network of drivers when you need a ride, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg in the growing sharing economy.  Millennials are making and saving money with services like these, according to Forbes writer, Maggie McGrath.

The acquisition of real estate is overrated.  Creating stability, building equity and getting tax deductions are all good things—but losing money and depriving yourself of the freedom and flexibility to be mobile are not.  Millennials haven’t abandoned home ownership, but we all need reminding that it does have its drawbacks and shouldn’t be a foregone conclusion for everyone all the time.

We can and should embrace the role of technology in our financial lives.  The financial services industry is known more for hindering progress and clinging to antiquated, high-margin practices and procedures.  Millennials, however, are creating and “using websites such as Mint, You Need a Budget or Manilla, which not only help to track spending, but serve as accountability partners with e-mail alerts when spending limits are exceeded,” according to Mary Beth Storjohann, founder of Workable Wealth.

Youth isn’t a license to embrace reckless investing.  Carmen Wong Ulrich, host of Marketplace Money on APM says “[Millennials are] less likely to want to risk investing their money in the markets, but that also means they’re more likely to stay away from the financial products (and marketing) that burned their parents.”  Indeed, losing money isn’t a good strategy, regardless of your age.

Experiences are more valuable than things.  David Burstein, Millennial author of Fast Future: How the Millennial Generation Is Shaping Our World, acknowledges that 20-somethings are spending more than any past generation on travel and eating out, but it’s because they place a higher value in deepening interpersonal relationships and creating lasting memories.

The “traditional” notion of retirement isn’t necessarily an ideal.  Millennials tell me that they expect to be working a long, long time.  They don’t expect pensions and don’t trust Social Security, leaving them with little choice, but they also don’t idolize the notion of full-time feet-in-the-sand retirement.  They plan to work longer and enjoy themselves more along the way, many of them hunting more for a calling than a job.

You can do well and do good at the same time.  Profit or charity—take your pick?  The Millennials have invited us to consider that we don’t have to choose between Robber Barron or do-gooder.  In addition to Google’s unofficial motto—“Don’t do evil”—companies like Toms and Warby Parker give one pair of shoes and eyeglasses (respectively) for every pair sold.

Every generation finds comfort in the norms it helped establish and relishes in the norms it helped deconstruct—but the outgoing generation tends to not-so-quietly mourn when the incoming generation does the same.  Pew Research calls the Millennials confident, connected and open to change.  Yes, it’s a little scary that 20-somethings are changing the way we live, work, play, invest and worship—all without even asking our permission!  But it’s not necessarily a bad thing.

If you enjoyed this post, please let me know on Twitter at @TimMaurer, and if you’d like to receive my weekly post via email, click HERE.

Success Is Overrated

Success-01I’m curious, what pictures come to mind when you read the word SUCCESS?

Time’s up.

Almost invariably, this exercise results in visuals of sports cars, attractive people, tailored suits, high-end electronics, golf clubs, jewelry, home décor and stainless kitchen appliances.  Now please look past my stereotype-ing and recognize the one thing all of these have in common—they’re all material things, designed both to consciously give us pleasure and subconsciously increase our standing in the minds of our peers.  Please don’t feel judged—I’m right there with you.  But while most of us spend the bulk of our adult lives pursuing success (that is visibly recognizable) as the penultimate goal, I posit that it’s simply not what we really want in our hearts.   But if not success, then, what is it that we really crave that leads us to a satisfying life?

This morning, I had a breakfast meeting with four men, each from the generation preceding mine.  In their respective fields, each of them has reached the point where they are publicly recognized in the community as models of success.  Actually, they each reached that point a decade or more ago.  (No, I still haven’t figured out why I was invited.)  But we were convening to discuss, among other things, the establishment of a non-profit entity to serve the weary hearts of people and businesses.  People and businesses who, most often, are already recognized as successful.  People and businesses who’ve grown weary striving for the success they thought was the goal.

So, if it’s not success that brings the satisfaction in life we crave, what then?  It’s another “S” word—SIGNIFICANCE.

In all of us, there is a desire for significance.  We want to be about something.  And that’s why I start every financial planning discussion or speaking engagement by telling folks to clear their minds of all things financial for just a moment—forget about 401ks, IRAs, taxes and insurance—and focus first on what it is that you want to be about in this world.  Franklin Covey calls them Values, Ben Franklin called them Virtues—and since each of those words has taken on a slightly different connotation since those wise men used them, I invite you to call them whatever you want—I call them Personal Principles.  These are the collective essence that you want to mark your time on this earth.

It’s true that you can reach someone’s view of success by reading any number of financial and self-help books and periodicals telling you what to do with your life and money.  The downfall is that they’re telling you what you should be doing based on their personal principles—not yours—and that means you could end up achieving these financial or life goals successfully while still feeling hollow because your path lacked significance or your personal purpose.

Is life planning with significance as a primary goal extra work?  Could it mean leaving today’s success or money or influence or comfort on the table in pursuit of significance?  Yes and yes.  It will take some time and deliberation to articulate a defined set of personal principles and may well lead to an overhaul of that which you’ve come to know as life.  But it is time, effort and money well spent, because it validates—or sometimes, even more helpfully—invalidates the steps that you’ve taken and are taking in money and life.

The Art of Amazing

by Jim Stovall

Defining success is the initial barrier most people face.  If they instantly had the opportunity to flip a switch and become successful, they haven’t determined what that illusive term “success” means to them.  Success comes in many sizes and shapes.  It is not a one-size-fits-all proposition, but instead success is a custom-made garment designed to serve you throughout your life.

Once you have defined what success means to you, you’ve got to have a plan of action for how to get there.  I have been searching for a number of years to find a simple, one-step process to help people move toward success as they have defined it.  As usually happens, great wisdom comes not in the form of an insightful answer, but instead, it appears as a penetrating question.  Once you have defined what that customized success looks like for you, and you are pursuing it as a part of your daily routine, you simply need to ask the following question as you approach each task.  “What would I do right now if I were amazing?”

This seems to cut through the clutter and clarify the critical issue faster than anything I have ever found.  The question, “What would I do if I were amazing?” doesn’t require us to be amazing or even act like we’re amazing.  It simply assumes we have the ability to act amazing when dealing with the single task before us at any given point in time.

Lifetime goals can be broken down into long-term objectives and short-term activities; but at some point, no matter what our goal, we are faced with the next single task at hand.  It may be as simple as a phone call, a meeting, or a conversation.  It may require us to meet or greet a new person.  But whatever that activity, if we can answer the question, “What would I do right now if I were amazing?” we then stand at the fork in the road and are faced with that inevitable question, “Do I do the least I can do, the minimum that is expected, or will I perform this next task as if I were amazing?”

If you perform enough tasks at that level, soon people will begin to say of you, “That person is amazing,” and they will be right.

As you go through your day today, accept the fact that you won’t always have the right answers, but from now on, you’ve always got the right question.

Today’s the day!