I went for my desert trail run a few days ago—like I do every week—and it was great.  I started a little earlier than normal, about 7:30am.  It was still cool out, probably in the upper 70s.  I didn’t have a lot of energy so I was careful to make sure I lifted my feet over the rocky trail to avoid a toe crunch/forward drive into the rocks and cacti.

As the run progressed, I completed the halfway long incline successfully and looped back towards home.  I was running on the left side of the road as normal—facing oncoming mountain bike traffic—just after the 4-mile point (2/3rds of the way) along the old narrow dirt service “road.” 

Plodding along on a nice flat quarter-mile section I suddenly hear a freaky loud static-type sound.  Somehow in the middle of one stride, I look down five feet ahead to my LEFT—11 o’clock position, and in mid-stride (is that even possible?) I lurch my body four feet to the RIGHT.

It’s in this new location far to the right of where my feet were headed was a half-coiled rattler telling me to give him space, or else. 

I have to say, he was VERY polite, giving me ample notice in distance, and rattle volume (that rattle speed must have been why it sounded like static to me).  He could feel me coming and let me know he was there, no real (big) surprises for either of us.

I stopped and watched him (and took a few pictures) as he moved off the road and headed down the little slope. 

He didn’t want any trouble with me.  No trouble to or from me.  He was just going about his day and prey. 

History:

I’ve run this trail every week—sometimes multiple times per week—for over 20 years.  That’s probably around 1000 runs, 6000+ miles (3.1m out, 3.1m back).  I’ve seen coyotes, javelinas, one gila monster, and 3 rattlesnakes. 

Now that I think about it,

the gila monster and all three snakes were in the same 10^th of a mile stretch. 

The first snake was 30 feet down from the trail towards the wash. 

The second snake scared the shit out of me but it was my fault, three people were taking pictures of the side of the trail (duh), so I gave them space and ran within 4 feet of a snake coiled up on the hill about knee-high.  I did a magical lurch movement there too, but I just kept running along with my newly added adrenaline (performance enhanced) 

This was the third snake and he was rattling and probably would have bit my foot if I kept on my track if my foot strike just happened to fall next to him.

My wife and I did see one other snake, it was in Sedona on the great Bell Rock trail.  She was on her mountain bike ahead of my running and she passed it and yelled back to me as a warning.  I didn’t hear here and did a long jumping stride over him laid out 5 feet long across the trail.  Something like that, it was kind of a scary blur.

The little guy I just encountered was about 2 ½ feet long. 

Lessons:

I know you’ve all had these types of stories—or worse—so this isn’t that interesting, but to me, I learned a few things.

1. I learned that even when plodding along you may need to take an abrupt and immediate action to avoid a bad situation.  Stay nimble.
2. That bad situation may not be out to get you.  It may just be a warning to alert you to change for your own good/safety.
3.  I once went to the rattlesnake “museum” in Albuquerque and they had over a dozen snakes in a room (a small bedroom-sized room) with a bunch of large fish tanks rattling like crazy and I was literally paralyzed and couldn’t pass one of the snakes/tanks to get to the exit door.  It took me probably 15 minutes of very, very, very rational thinking to walk past him.  They told us he was just “rescued” the other day from someone’s home.  – The point, is I wasn’t too freaked out by the little guy on the side of the trail.  That may be some significant progress on my part…for now.
4. I was wearing my newish Aftershokz/shokz bone-conducting headphones while listening to a podcast.  If I had earbuds IN my ears with music, I may not have heard him.  Aftershocks are SAFER.
5. Earlier in my run at mile 1.5 where I run by bushes I thought about snakes.  But since that location is right next to an active parking lot with lots of people the snakes might stay away.  Yet half a mile away is where I ran (“into one”)—ran by one.  When your guard is up, don’t let it go down totally.  Always be aware of the danger and plan accordingly if possible.

Additional Lessons:

I also had other thoughts from this “running” experience.

About two weeks before this run the temperatures started rising into the high 90s.  I thought about hiking and running a different cool route but I didn’t because I know the snakes must be out and they’re hungry and grouchy.  Now I just try to avoid the trail sections with large rocks (underneath shade spots for snakes, etc).

Another noticeable thought is that there were very few people on Friday morning at 8am.  This mattered in two ways, 1) fewer people so existing snakes would try to avoid the trail activity, and 2) fewer people available to help someone in danger.

I was thinking about how timing is everything in life.  If I were running 30 seconds to one minute earlier (faster) the snakester would have been in the middle of the road.  Maybe in a more dangerous position.  Then again, a minute later/slower, or two minutes earlier he could have been farther away from his right-on-the-side of the trail location

In past summers when I full-timed in Phoenix, I often had to do my desert trail runs at lunchtime because of work.  I always found it interesting and later cautionary that I may only see one of two people out on the trail (at 105+) when I was running.  I had the trail all to myself, but I had only myself to count on in case of emergency.  There are now signs posted not to use the trail during the summer daytime.  Tourists are frequently overheating on hikes starting in March.  I worked my way up from the 70s, to 80s, to 90s, to 100s each month as I ran so I was very acclimatized and quite safe.  I had a bail-out point at mile 1.5/4.5.

So in the post, and on this run, I had one of my (almost) worst life encounters and it was fine.  One stride before horribleness.  You’re working towards something good (health) and BAM, something bad can happen.

I continuously realize that amazing things can happen in life, it’s how to perceive them and how you use those events to make you better.

*** Nothing in this article is to be construed as financial advice.  I am not a financial planner, nor do I pretend to be.  You should always consult your own professional when seeking advice. This post is not a piece of literary mastery, just a random thought I had.

I have an observation today that is far from my normal thoughts—it’s even geographically distant.

I was able to take a long “schetchled” trip driving the west coast from San Francisco to Portland.  I’ll write more about that next time.  Today’s thought came about before I even arrived in San Francisco.

Being a tech guy—apparently, as I just heard 2 minutes ago on a podcast: a “tech bro.”  Yes, I literally just heard that and now feel degraded for my education and skills that I developed over decades.  But never the less, I love technology (apparently it has loved me, figuratively).   Because of this lifelong passion, I’ve wanted to visit Silicon Valley.  I didn’t have any plans or know what exactly I wanted to see, but I just wanted to get the feel of the area where so many bits and bytes changed the world.

I can report that in my observations so many of the areas of Cupertino, Sunnyvale, Mountain View, and Palo Alto are VERY nice as one would expect.  I also was happy to discover that Burlingame is a great town as well!

It is clear that the Palo Alto area is quite advanced and is surely led by Stanford University’s high standards.  I can see how this area challenges its residents and why it leads the world in technology.  There was so much activity going on, yet it was nicely laid-back and the people were friendly. 

I spent a couple of hours walking around some of these downtown shopping/eating (I’m not a “dining,” guy) districts to see what was going on, get a feel for those also milling around, and well, eat.

I was able to use some of the maps, and QR codes listed in the area (technologies) to help with my visit.  I read menus, signed up for an online  20% discount on my first lunch order, found a bakery to get some amazing whole wheat bread for my journey ahead, etc.

Here’s the capstone to this post that told me I was in the center of the technology universe, as best I could tell.

The homeless guy in Palo Alto, at the intersection of University Ave and Emerson St, had the normal container set up for currency/coin donations.  But lest we not forget this is the tech Mecca.  In this case, the homeless guy also had a cardboard sign with his VENMO ACCOUNT INFO ready for donations…! Tech Bro?

*** Nothing in this article is to be construed as financial advice.  I am not a financial planner, nor do I pretend to be.  You should always consult your own professional when seeking advice. This post is not a piece of literary mastery, just a random thought I had.

I’ve learned a lot in my life and I love that I keep learning.  Over the past few years, I’ve realized my learning has often shifted from tactical/functional learning to more often being thought-provoking and even possibly philosophical (scary!) learning.

One thing that has always been clear to me is that setting a goal and working towards it always, always requires detailed determination.  There are so many other things you could do, so many other choices you could make—but to meet a goal, you must have enough fortitude to stick to your progress.

I read—and get to talk with people—about savings and setting themselves up for a better life.  Often this topics’ foundation is growing net worth.  That’s excellent.  Other than health, there’s no better way to ease life’s stress than having a financial cushion of some sort.  So I love the net worth topic.

However, speaking of health, many people have weight (loss) management goals.  Losing weight—and keeping it off—is a major process.  I’ve read that only a small fraction of people can achieve their weight loss and maintain the new lower weight for a few years.  In the super technical book: The Proof Is In The Plants, Simon Hill found data showing 50% regain their lost weight in 2 years, and 80% regain it in 5 years. 

In my experience, losing weight is much harder than growing net worth in at least two ways. 

1) you constantly have to eat and make good decisions every time you put something into your mouth, even on “treat” days.  This is decision-based actions vs. stopping or going cold turkey on a life change.  Therefore, it’s very hard to consistently make good decisions.

2) weight loss is not cumulative.  You cannot let weight loss compound all by itself. Those who lost weight and it came back in 2 or 5 years had great success for a significant period of time, but not for the long term.  Weight loss does not compound over time as one’s early savings may.

Saving small increments of money over time by adding good behaviors that become good habits (Atomic Habits if you want) will add up.  That will give you money, but it also gives you some control for the future.

Retirement (or an emergency fund) is the result of delayed gratification.  The entire point of this post (I could have been more concise) is that having money set aside in retirement is the same deferred gratification (of spending) as eating better and having better health/fitness/etc.

There’s a reason The Retirement & IRA show planners tell their clients, “your retirement savings are actually ‘deferred spending.’”  They encourage the hard-core savers to SPEND some of that money to live a great life.  Jim said that (in general) over 90% of their clients spend below their ability in retirement and have more money leftover than they need/want or planned for.  He may have even said “way underspend” in many cases. However, that saving mindset becomes ingrained in our habits over decades. Maybe there’s some “set it and forget it.”

Even Ramit Sethi has correlated weight management is like money management a few times.   One of the examples at 39 minutes.  

Learning to delay a “reward” of some type for yourself can in many ways make the future better for you.  Unless, it’s a pie-cake… [joke about weight management]

*** Nothing in this article is to be construed as financial advice.  I am not a financial planner, nor do I pretend to be.  You should always consult your own professional when seeking advice. This post is not a piece of literary mastery, just a random thought I had.

I was thinking about the wise people that say it’s a great idea to spend time with people who are 20-years older than you, as well as 20-years younger than you—or something to that effect.

Think about that for a few minutes.  You most likely spend time with people that are very close to your age.  This is true all throughout your life.  When you’re younger it could have been with people 1-3 years in age difference.  When you move into your 40s it could be people around 5 years of age difference.  In your early 60s it may even be 6-10 years of age difference.  These peers you’re hanging out with often are close to the same stage in life, have been through similar worldly events, and may be in similar career stages.  It just makes sense that you have so many similarities.

Olders

I’ve had the great opportunity over the past decade to spend significant amounts of time with people who are retired, or at retirement age.  This started when I was in my late 30s and into my 40s, when spent time with people in their late 50s to 70s.  These interactions occurred in a number of locations and situations. 

1) I was able to visit then buy a summer mountain home in an “age qualified” community where nearly everyone was 55+. 

2)  I was able to volunteer (technology presentations and classes) and hang out with members at my mom’s retirement community activity center (also 55+).  We have talked about Tech, Insurance, protections, travel, goals, the future, etc.  I seem to just naturally get along with so many of these older people.  I guess I’ve always been old(er) for my age.

3) I’ve been a member of the Rock Retirement Club where people leading up to, and through retirement get together to talk about money, life, planning, and Rocking Retirement as a whole.  It’s an amazing group of very intelligent people from so many different life situations.

Youngers

In the past five years, I’ve had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with people decades younger than me.  This first started happening at ChooseFI local meetups.  It was great.  People would get together and talk about being money smart, life planning, life-living, early retirement, financial power/control, etc.

My interactions expanded to CampFI weekends all around the country for the past four years.  I have written about CampFI over and over and over.

My takeaway from youngers is that while they have spent less time on the planet, with fewer experiences, they often have a unique perspective of situations that—if I listen and think about it—I can use as additional data points to re-evaluate my perspective.  This is something I’ve learned to value as extremely important to attempt to grow my wisdom.

To be clear, I usually do not share my perspective or even my newly adjusted thoughts in any way.  I’ve found most of the (even wise) youngers believe they are 110% correct (as they say “100% percent” all the time) and they don’t seem to be flexible when others share different perspectives.  Not at all.  So I just listen, learn and think.  It’s good enough for me.

Thoughts

So, it’s my thinking that everyone should spend time with those 20/20 and learn from them all.

*** Nothing in this article is to be construed as financial advice.  I am not a financial planner, nor do I pretend to be.  You should always consult your own professional when seeking advice. This post is not a piece of literary mastery, just a random thought I had.

So it turns out money nerds like hanging out with other money nerds.  It’s like the cool club, but only if you know about it.  I’ve only been to the small-scale gatherings and medium-scale gatherings of this type.  I’ve never been to the granddaddy of FI gatherings.

SMALL GATHERINGS are what I consider local meetups.  They are usually a few hours of your time, possibly up to an hour’s drive away and a load of information.

I’ve been to both ChooseFI local meetups as well as Boglehead local meetups.  (Note: I’ve also been to a sleazy “financial planning education” employment meetings). 

• ChooseFI local meetups are great.  You get to meet people who live in your area—or are visiting your area—and talk about money topics from the beginning of a financial journey through much later stages of one’s financial journey.  There are people of all ages, places on the financial timeline, different net worths, and different interests.  To me, it seems to always be a very open discussion, and even quite personal at times with people who are very new friendlys.
• Boglehead local meetings tend to be different.  The meetings I’ve attended are on Monday afternoons and seem to be attended by people who are farther along the personal finance path (i.e. older or retired).  The discussions are quite different in that they tend to be more towards safely/wisely spending your accumulated resources, rather than accumulating resources.

LARGE SCALE GATHERINGS seem more like EconoME or the Financial Freedom Summit idea.  I have not attended either of these yet.  Timing and Topics of interest seem a little different than my current position on the financial journey.  However, I know there are all types of sessions and even more types of people attending that these gatherings would be very interesting.

These are large conference-like settings that aim for 1000+ attendees over the course of a weekend.  There seems to be a presentation-driven structure quite similar to FinCon for the” content creator” folks.

The BIG TIME GATHERING to me is Chautauqua, an entire week set aside for nerds to gather in far off, far-flung locations.  It’s a small group of a few dozen people who have the opportunity to talk deeply about their lives and how being financially sound makes dreams come true.  Well, that’s how I imagine financial intention/success.  I know several  people who’ve been to Chautauqua and every one of them loved it.

Well, what if an entire week on another continent is not possible?  Wouldn’t it be cool if there was a similar version that’s closer, shorter, and with varying levels of FI?  CampFI is like a Minitauqua (I assume)…

MEDIUM GATHERINGS are what I consider to be CampFI weekends.  These are the regional gatherings where people may travel across the country, or even from other countries, to hang out with other money nerds for 4 days over a long weekend.  These are often based around holiday weekends.

Instead of re-hashing my CampFi thoughts, I’ve linked some posts about my amazing experiences at a couple of the CampFI’s I’ve attended.

CampFI Southwest 2018 – CampFI…Mind Blown

CampFI Mid-Atlantic 2019 – Power Center CampFI

CampFI Southwest 2019 – Your Friends…Your Future

CampFI Southwest 2021 – It just keeps getting better

I’ve been to other CampFI’s but I must not have written about them or my search is lacking. I started going in my late 40’s and continued into my 50’s. It’s an amazing weekend that continues to make me better.

Note: I’ve signed up for CampFI MidWest Minn 2022 Labor Day weekend so I can spend time with my intelligent, like-minded, and fun cohorts.

*** Nothing in this article is to be construed as financial advice.  I am not a financial planner, nor do I pretend to be.  You should always consult your own professional when seeking advice. This post is not a piece of literary mastery, just a random thought I had.

I’m still thinking about life.   I’m thinking about chunks of time.  I think decades seem to be a logical chunk of life-time even though planning 3, 5, 7-year chunks seems easier to plan for. 

So here I go with more random thoughts:

At 25, maybe you were working a good job.  Your life was rolling along.  You had things figured out. 

15

Think back 10 years earlier when you were 15.  You knew a lot about life at 15.  You were well into high school.  You had friends who were or were almost 18, practically adults, maybe even 18, and full-on official adults.  You were able to talk with them intelligently, geez you were almost a legal adult yourself, almost.  You knew things!

25

Now back at 25, you have lived thousands more days since 15.  You’ve had so many more experiences and lessons since you were 15.  You are truly an adult—living an adulting life—being a productive member of society…you really do have things figured out, now.

35

Now think about being 35.  Whoa, there’s so much more you’ve experienced than by the time you were 25.  This is really the adult phase of life.  You’re in the middle, the mist of “30 something.”  It’s almost unbelievable how long ago school was.  How long ago it has been since you knew so much at 15, or even 25.

55, 65, 75, 85, ??

While it’s great to be smart and aware of the things around you at each age— giving you a great perspective on life—do not for one second of your thousands of days in the past and believe you have more figured out than an older person.

While I’m not sure if the knowledge growth rate/curve is so steep into 45, 55, or 65, there is no doubt the experience(s) add(s) up.  The experiences of adult life will differ from youthful experiences.  It’s possible some of the adult experiences may duplicate those of your past but you handle the issue in a different way.  It may be possible that you handle a similar issue in the same way and realize it was incorrect decision/action BOTH times.  That’s life.  We make mistakes, we learn from mistakes, and it may take a few tries at the same mistake to get it right/better.  “Be better”

Spock

It’s not easy to learn from all our mistakes, and extremely hard to learn from other’s mistakes unless we’re very thoughtful and logical in our processing, but remember, Spock was an alien from Vulcan and most of us do not have the DNA (he has DNA right?) to be “only logical” in all decision making.

People

I always find much to learn from people, as long as I’m paying attention.  The learning is often from people older than me or more experienced in areas, but it can also be a younger person with more experience, or insight, in an area, or many areas.   [I’m thinking of a future post idea now, brilliant]

Before you think “OK Boomer,” it may be wiser to think “hmmm, Boomer may have experiences I don’t.”  I guess it’s also the same that older people have not experienced life/adolescence the way a young person has.  There’s plenty to learn with another decade of experiences.

*** Nothing in this article is to be construed as financial advice.  I am not a financial planner, nor do I pretend to be.  You should always consult your own professional when seeking advice. This post is not a piece of literary mastery, just a random thought I had.

Sometimes my head just starts thinking.  This thinking can head down many paths, and frequently calculations are involved.  I don’t know why, they just are. 

In one recent brainwave activity pattern, I realized that one day you’re 25 years old, and then the next week you are 45.  That is almost how the decades happened— without thinking about it too much at the time, but looking back, it is definitely a “whoa” moment.

It seems life gets in a routine, or more specifically a groove, and the time passing by turns into larger and larger chunks, almost instantly.

In our case, we do not have children—life’s natural time gauge—marking schools/school years/height charts/birthday parties, the sort of life events that mark time into chunks.  I never took Physics, so I assume there’s more applicable terminology than “natural time gauge.”

To make time flow even more seamlessly, we live in Arizona, where looking out the window every day reveals the same sunny blue sky, day after day.  I often say the only way to tell the season when looking out the window is to touch the glass and feel its temperature.  Cool, hot, or super hot.

In looking back at my lifetime, I see that everything flowed along in the groove/routine year after year.  Knowing that flow now, I realize how important it was to have a smart structure of saving, living nicely, living wisely, giving, and having a network so that as the years went by that structure remained mostly constant, or in many cases improved naturally. 

Our financial saving, and tracking of our expenses became more fine-tuned and optimized over time without too much additional effort.  There was no need for us to have that “oh man, we’re so far behind, we really need to get it together” moment.  We tried to structure for the future, which is the now, and the upcoming decades.

We lived smallish lives.  For example, we never had the too-nice-for-us cars that required thought about changing to less expensive cars.  We tended to buy at least 3-year-old cars and drive them for 10 years.  This ownership strategy gave us plenty of time to really figure out which car we wanted to purchase next. We did research and used price optimization, even avoiding sales tax buying from private parties.  All of which saved SO much money over the decades. 

Our vehicles were a large example of the delayed gratification that allowed many years of future daily employment to be eliminated.  No need for a paycheck since we already saved the funds that those work hours would have earned.

An even bigger example is our home.  It’s a “starter” home.  It’s a whopping 1026 square feet.  It’s a nice but small home.  It happens to be in an almost perfect location.  We’re 3 houses from a 10,000 acre (20×3 mile?) mountain preserve with running, mountain biking, hiking trails, and a lot of privacy.  Speaking of privacy, our home is on the uphill side of a large (100’ across?) mountain drainage wash.  Our backyard is almost totally private.  During the day (yes, we get to use our house/yard up to 168 hours per week) there’s almost nobody around, especially with regard to our backyard viewing area.  The decision to stay in our starter home decades ago helped us stay in our home these days (rather than in the office these days).

Not only is the starter home size small, but so was the purchase price and loan payments.  It’s interesting that the standard mortgage is 30 years if so many people move every 7 or so years.  (from articles I recall, I could be wrong)  Another good thing, a small home/yard is easier to maintain as the decades pass.

Heading further into our retirement I’ve been mentored by friends and cohorts who have mentioned making things easier to do, easier to manage, and easier to process.  Mark Trautmann told me “reduce the friction” of activities if you can.  He’s just brilliant.

I’ve taken this advice in bill-paying.  I know, I know-finally getting more modern than.  No longer do I have to be staged in front of a screen on/around the first of the month to give my money away.  I simply built the automation required to reduce the time-friction I had endured for decades.  Let’s be clear, my manual online bill-paying process had far less friction than the older days of driving checks to some of the local companies you owe money to (Bob do you hear me?).  That’s how my dad trained my mom to pay the bills almost 20 years ago.  Now, I get a notification telling me a payment will be made in a couple of days and the amount, then a notice when the payment is complete.  I let the bits and bytes work for me.

I’m now working more towards the “Set it and forget it” mentality.  Or maybe a “set it and just check on it” process.  Or even…improve it as you go. 

The point of my thought here is; you have structured your past to be where you are, good or bad.  You have the option to structure your activities and lifestyle now for the decades in the future.  Isn’t this a great time to try and put a nice, planned, well-tuned structure into place?  This may allow more time for you to enjoy your life, because you reduced the friction of everyday tasks.

*** Nothing in this article is to be construed as financial advice.  I am not a financial planner, nor do I pretend to be.  You should always consult your own professional when seeking advice. This post is not a piece of literary mastery, just a random thought I had.