Catching up to FI https://catchinguptofi.com Financial Independence for Late Starters Tue, 12 Sep 2023 18:29:36 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.3 Bill Yount Bill Yount wvyount@gmail.com Catching up to FI https://catchinguptofi.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Podcasts-Page-Logo-catchinguptofi-finalblack-3000x3000px-whitebackground.png https://catchinguptofi.com Catching up to FI Financial Independence for Late Starters false The Big Pivot https://catchinguptofi.com/the-big-pivot/ Mon, 03 Apr 2023 18:05:01 +0000 https://catchinguptofi.com/index.php/2023/04/03/the-big-pivot/

Today was a big day and this last 2 weeks were a big in Yountville! I have Paused! I have Planned! I am Pivoting!

    1. Invested with Enzo Multifamily in our first Syndication as a LP in an actively managed “low public market correlated” diversification play (with house trade harvested lazy home equity) to create private income, accelerated equity multiple, and cost-segregated negative K-1 depreciation. Thanks to Veena Jetti and her team!

    2. Initiated the process of creating my first business ventures for PivotPointsMD LLC to build my landing page into a foundation of a multifaceted website as a lifestyle side hustle and location independent business and PivotPoints Properties LLC as an asset holding company with my wife. Thanks Bone McAllester Norton PLLC and Stacey Garrett Koju!

    3. Refinanced our Health Insurance with Tennessee Farm Bureau Member Benefits and UnitedHealthcare for better coverage in a traditionally underwritten plan with minor preexisting riders at an annual premium savings of 10k.

    4. Refinanced and consolidated our P&C (Auto, Home, Umbrella) to better coverage at slightly reduced annual cost. Thanks Valerie Privett and Beacon Insurance Advisers!

    5. Bought a “rightsized” house (Close is Dec 6th) and sold as our own agent at a 2.5% buyer’s agent commission “The Big Doctor House” (close is Dec 13th). Thanks Laura Slyman of Slyman Real Estate and Janette Burgin of Regions Bank and their support teams!

    6. Working with Gavin Baker of www.bakerlabs.co on the development of my landing page into a website to debut in Q1/2 2020.

    7. Working with Chris Hill of www.humblepod.com to develop PivotPoints Podcast with a wonder woman co-hostess with the mostess. Coming Q1/2 2020.

    Lately, I seem to literally or figuratively just keep “jumping out of planes”! A busy balanced life and portfolio in the largest and broadest sense of the word is just more fun. Right Dawn Baker and BC Krygowski!

    I have met so many people that have contributed generously to this launch into my “third chapter”. You know who you are and there are too many to thank individually, but off the top of my head:

    My brain is tired.

    I am grateful.

    Peace,
    Bill Yount

    ]]>         If YOU Play with fire, don’t get burned (OUT)! https://catchinguptofi.com/if-you-play-with-fire-dont-get-burned-out/ Mon, 03 Apr 2023 18:05:01 +0000 https://catchinguptofi.com/index.php/2023/04/03/if-you-play-with-fire-dont-get-burned-out/

    I discovered FIRE sometime around 2014 at age 48 when I first stumbled across books by William Bernstein (The Intelligent Asset Allocator) and Jim Dahle (The White Coat Investor). I wanted to take over my paper asset portfolio from a private bank that we had allowed to manage it with savings that we allocated annually, “last” (not in a “pay or save yourself first” mentality), or as an after thought around tax time. We believed we were doing the right thing to let others manage our money as we were “too busy” post residency with new jobs, new house, and new twins to manage it ourselves. We had no plan for giving each dollar of our paychecks a job as we suddenly roughly 5x’d our salaries. Neither my wife nor I had had even a rudimentary financial education from our parents or from our industrial aged schooling and higher education. How were we to know that the easiest way to manage our money and investments wan’t the “right way”? Mistake 1.

    One day during residency, a friendly neighborhood “financial advisor” showed up to give us our one lecture on financial planning. You guessed it, he was really a representative or salesman from “Young Know Who” Company. Before we could say “Shazam” we were weighed, had blood drawn, and filled out a risk questionnaire, before we were sold a whole life policy like many of our peers. About 7 years later sold our Whole Life Policies because we wanted the equity to “finish” our “Big Doctor House” and again bought Yearly Renewable Term Life Policies from the same agent. A paint job on our first home turned into a passionate “Forever Home” rehab in 2007. You remember what happened then no doubt. We were under water for a few years and then “escaped” our charming, but “expensive-and-more-than-we-needed” house and the high cost of living area for a low cost of living area in geographic arbitrage. But, because we couldn’t find the right nest, we of course built another “Big Doctor House” in the suburbs. Finally we have come to our senses and recently pivoted and downsized to a Goldilocks Home that we love. Mistakes 2-4.

    The there were the Cars. I “needed” the fully financed new truck after years of deprivation in a rust bucket during med school and residency. Soon thereafter my wife “needed” a series of leased vehicles as needs changed from sedan to minivan to SUV as the children grew. It was a “Payment to Payment” Mindset. At least I eventually paid off my truck and have only had three cars in my life. It took us many years, however, to drive paid off vehicles and buy with cash. Mistake 5.

    We still love Food. Back in the day, eating out, take out, delivery, and expensive restaurants were the norm. We shopped at Whole Foods and Fresh Market and Krogers. Food was an essential “need” and as per usual we had no Budget and just cash flowed it like most everything else. Money in money out. Years later we have discovered stores like Aldi (a shout out to BC Krygowski!) and our grocery bill has dropped by 40-50% as we now eat at home the majority of the time. Mistakes 6-7.

    The rest is, as they say is History. We made almost all the big and small mistakes one can make financially until 2014 and we are still here! We took our heads out of the sand, woke up Rip van Winkle style, and began to take over our financial lives instead of letting other people and our money manage them. It is never too late to start and the best day to start your FIjourney is today!

    As the CFO of our family, I read and read and read FinLit Blogs and Books of all types and listened and listened and listened to a variety FinLit Podcasts. I even went to the amazing #FinCon19! Along this path, I have made and met many new amazing friends (random shout out to Ryan Inman). I moved our paper assets to Vanguard and set an asset allocation and locations that suited us according to our Investor Policy Statement and have stuck to them while tax loss harvesting and rebalancing (forward with new capital, time fixed, and bands) according to plan as well. We have invested in a Multifamily Real Estate Syndication of a trusted general parter and friend (shout out to Veena Jetti). I plan on developing this blog (PivotPointsMD), Facebook Group (Financial Literacy Project) and a podcast (?PivotPoints Podcast:)) under the PivotPoints banner. Who knows maybe one day in the future, I may even syndicate a deal or two one day. The important thing is that we all need to develop a balanced portfolio stool with 3 or 4 legs including the employment (self and spouse), paper asset, real estate asset, and small business asset classes to avoid unstable concentration risk in our lives with a single legged stool.



    So why have I almost been “Burned (Out)” by, among other thing, a rabid pursuit of FIRE? Easy, after a deep dive gestation period of information consumption, I went too fast down the action Rabbit Hole. Unilaterally focusing on a singular FIRE goal to almost the exclusion of all else, without leading a slow and steady deliberately balanced life (shout out to Dawn Baker), and trying to do everything virtually “all at once” almost destroyed my life. It led to a manic downsize in one month from house sale to house purchase and move. It led to an unexpected, but necessary job transition. It led to physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual exhaustion. In fact, “drinking from firehoses” (see prior post:)) almost killed me.

     

     

     

    FIRE was a stressor that exponentially compounded a multitude of stressors in my life, externally and internally imposed. I am thankfully through to the other side now, but I would not wish large parts of the last 6-9 months of my life on anyone. My wife, kids, and friends are and have always been my rocks. When my pursuits to overcome the demon of fear in my life led to recently jumping out of a plane (with a parachute!, see prior post) they were the ones that brought me safely to Earth. I am only now able to “come out” and publicly reveal my travails, in part due to the voracious pursuit of FIRE after a late arrival “to the party”. It is what it is. It will be what it will be. It is my job to have a plan based, not on a number, but a FIRE range (shout out to Lynn Frair) and an enJOYable balanced journey and process. It is time to give first, listen to my mindful and body, be grateful for all that is and will come to be, learn and let go of the past, be present in the present with a watchful eye on the horizon of the future, financially or otherwise

     

     

    FIRE is a beast that must be tamed and trained to be your tool and not the other way around. Don’t let yourself get burned by the flames of consumptive FIRE. I am licking my wounds and pivoting as I move ever forward.

     

     

    Peace,

     

     

    PivotPointsMD

    ]]>         Learning to FI is like learning to FLY (First Love Yourself) https://catchinguptofi.com/learning-to-fi-is-like-learning-to-fly-first-love-yourself/ Mon, 20 Jan 2020 19:05:01 +0000 https://catchinguptofi.com/index.php/2023/04/03/learning-to-fi-is-like-learning-to-fly-first-love-yourself/

    One way to fly

    The desire to fly knocked around in my brain for 37 years. The idea first popped into my young and immortal head as a 17 year old freshman in college. My best friend and I were a little frustrated with our lack of relationships, so we decided to write about our failed fledgling attempts at female engagement. In typical cave man hormonal freshman fashion, we inscribed the epitaph to our failed ovetures “if you can’t get sex, you might as well jump out of a plane” on his dorm room wall. I guess we ultimately found companions, because we never pursued our unrequited dream of flight.

    The desire to fly lay dormant in my developing brain until residency. This time a group of us intern adrenalin junkies whimsically picked a random rare day off to drive out to the cornfields of Illinois to a small airport in the middle of nowhere. I do not think this was fueled by a night of drunken bravado fueled inertia, but I am not sure. We “trained”, dressed the part, and waited expectantly in our jumpsuits and harnesses for the “go for launch” signal that never came. Late afternoon summer thunderclouds rolled in and the mission was scrubbed. Strike two.

    Again the desire to fly went back into status quo hibernation in my limbic system after I met my future wife in the middle of a night shift. Eventually we made a life together and raised fraternal twin boys to launch to college over 19 years. Flying did not seem to be a reasonable risk in this chapter. But last fall, once again, as I readied to turn 54 years old, that nagging desire to fly surfaced to my consciousness. Why not now? I had “Rip Van Winkeled” my dream for one reason or another and by pure chance and circumstance for more than half my lifetime. My wife fully supported my desire after she checked that the life insurance was paid up. She even offered to join me on my quest and bravely watch me jump from below at the landing zone. On the prescupice of our empty nest weekend with our Aussie Doodles to my diligently vetted skydiving outfit in Chattanooga, TN, an unexpected trip to Houston stole my wife’s morally supportive presence from my now prepaid commitment to jump.

    I was left alone with the dogs and the decision to honor my celebratory birthday decision to finally fly. Engaging with your fears and your brain is a daunting task at times. I knew the What, Why, When, and How. The only thing left was to pack up the car and drive through my fears to the consummation of those nagging dreams of a young immortal that had developed into a conscious mortal middle aged man. Before leaving the house, I decide to make sure all the bills were paid. I hesitated, but also wrote my family a note saying something to the effect that I loved them and that I “was off on another adventure” and that I “would see them very soon”. I took the tact of optimistic abundance instead of fearful scarcity that best laid plans could end in my demise.

    I made it to The Moxy Hotel in Chattanooga, a familiar haunt for my wife and I and the dogs. I settled in at the bar for my “last meal” and a few beers with Lily and Rudy at my side. As usual, they attracted much attention due to their adorable fuzzy looks and good barroom behavior. I chatted with many locals and people in town for a national crew regatta. A few had gone skydiving and regaled me with tales of their bravery and how much of a fun rush it was. Some had done the deed more than once or planned to go for it again. I got pleasantly buzzed and filled my belly with delicious wood fired pizza. I collapsed into bed with anticipation that I have felt the night before my one and only marathon.

    Having a beer with my Doodles

    In a matter of fact fashion, I awoke to my alarm and set about my day as if it were any other day. Bundling the dogs and our things into the car, I set of for the final leg of my multi year journey. I forgot that on the other side of the city, I crossed into the central time zone, so I I was the first person to arrive at the jump zone. That gave me an extra hour to digest my decision and fears. The airport was nestled in the middle of a blue collar Tennessee community and looked a little scruffy to say the least, which did not exactly inspire confidence in me. I had ample time to disapate my nervous energy and walk around and contemplate my life and mortality. I chatted with my wife and kids about what they were up too and told them I loved them. I got to check out the hanger and was impressed with the plane and the professional gear and staff. I of course had to sign a million waivers exonerating the outfit from any liability of my choice. I had thought there would be a “training session”. I was wrong.

    I was in the first jump group had my survival assigned to Edvardo. He was a jovial portly short statured male with a should patch on his lower lip. He was originally from Brazil and had been a paratrooper in the US Army for 9 years. I wondered how big our shared parachute was going to be! His record for jumps in one day was 21 “up and downs”. I asked him how old he was and he asked me if I wanted his age in chronological years or years since his first jump as many jumpers count. He strapped me up and, as I had paid for the premium package, the pictures and videos began. He asked me “why would I jump out of a perfectly good plane.” I had seen videos on the website of screaming unhappy jumpers with faces twisted in fear and I had decided that that was not going to me the way “I went out”! I told Edvardo that I was jumping to “learn to fly and embrace life” and silently to myself to face the fears that were holding me back from what I believed to be my greater potential. I was here to jump start a new chapter in my burgeoning entrepreneurial Life of FI (Financial Independence). I had declared S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely) W.A.R. (Wealth Accumulation Rate) on FI by 59.5 and this was the opening volley.

    Having a beer with my Doodles

    In a matter of fact fashion, I awoke to my alarm and set about my day as if it were any other day. Bundling the dogs and our things into the car, I set of for the final leg of my multi year journey. I forgot that on the other side of the city, I crossed into the central time zone, so I I was the first person to arrive at the jump zone. That gave me an extra hour to digest my decision and fears. The airport was nestled in the middle of a blue collar Tennessee community and looked a little scruffy to say the least, which did not exactly inspire confidence in me. I had ample time to disapate my nervous energy and walk around and contemplate my life and mortality. I chatted with my wife and kids about what they were up too and told them I loved them. I got to check out the hanger and was impressed with the plane and the professional gear and staff. I of course had to sign a million waivers exonerating the outfit from any liability of my choice. I had thought there would be a “training session”. I was wrong.

    I was in the first jump group had my survival assigned to Edvardo. He was a jovial portly short statured male with a should patch on his lower lip. He was originally from Brazil and had been a paratrooper in the US Army for 9 years. I wondered how big our shared parachute was going to be! His record for jumps in one day was 21 “up and downs”. I asked him how old he was and he asked me if I wanted his age in chronological years or years since his first jump as many jumpers count. He strapped me up and, as I had paid for the premium package, the pictures and videos began. He asked me “why would I jump out of a perfectly good plane.” I had seen videos on the website of screaming unhappy jumpers with faces twisted in fear and I had decided that that was not going to me the way “I went out”! I told Edvardo that I was jumping to “learn to fly and embrace life” and silently to myself to face the fears that were holding me back from what I believed to be my greater potential. I was here to jump start a new chapter in my burgeoning entrepreneurial Life of FI (Financial Independence). I had declared S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely) W.A.R. (Wealth Accumulation Rate) on FI by 59.5 and this was the opening volley.

    Fearless duckling

    The weather was perfect. It was a crisp sunny fall day with not a cloud in the sky. Before long, 14 of us piled into a specially outfitted jump plane. It took a mere 15 minutes to get to 14,000 feet. Jump masters chatted with their charges and we enjoyed a beautiful view of fall colors in the Smokies. No seat belts on this plane. No safety instructions. No helmets for us. Oddly the instructors all wore helmets with facemarks so that we could not see their smiling eyes and probably so we did not knock out their teeth with the back of our heads. We buckled up to the belly of our instructors who wore the chutes. The pilot waggled his wings. We had reached the drop zone. It came more quickly than I might have imagined. It was all routine and business as usual for the non novices packed into the plane, Suddenly photographers and tandem jumpers disappeared out of the garage door that opened at the back of the plane. Edvardo and I were the first ones on which therefore meant that we were to be the last ones off.

    Just stepping out for a breath of fresh air

    We scooted back to the open door. My heart started pounding and my head ached in the unpressurized altitude. After too many years of this “crazy” idea bouncing around in my imagination, it very quickly became a stark reality. I had not had to physically train for this moment like I had for 20 weeks before my marathon. There was no physical pain, sweat, and tears to get me here. This journey had really just been (children close your G-rated eyes) one big “Mind Fuck”! Had I done all that I set out to do with my life? Was it worth risking what biologic time I had left for a moderately expensive thrill? I think it cost roughly $300 bucks to embrace free fall and find out if the parachute would really open. All of a sudden that did not seem like very much. It didn’t matter that my jump master had done it more times than he could remember. This was my first, and possibly my last jump. I was putting all my chips on the table and possibly leaving them all on the ground.

    I hung suspended from my instructor, dangling like a sack of potatoes 14,000 feet from mother earth. The view was spectacular. The wind was chilly. I was glad that I had layered and wore gloves. My life hung briefly in the balance attached to a jovial Brazilian seated on the edge of our plane that I had just met 15 minutes ago. Height really had no meaning without your feet on the ground. He pulled my head back, told me to arch, and suddenly we were falling weightless towards terminal velocity. Gravity is a bitch. We homo erectus are doomed to fight is every day. Free fall is weightless freedom. I laughed. I smiled. The aging loose skin on my face was plastered like plastic man back towards my ears. My cheeks flapped in the roaring wing. I did not expect my ears to compress so fast and painfully. I know this because the entire 5 minute wild ride was captured in vivid video and stills by puffs of air through straws attached to the camera shutter releases on our flight photographer’s and instructor’s heads.

    I felt pure joy. I embraced the the presence of the moment. I was so alive. This five minute jump was an unbelievable 37 year journey in the making. Why did I wait so long? This one minute of adrenalin pumping free fall seemed to last an hour. Miraculously the chute opened. I remember being glad that I did not have to be the one to remember to pull it. I was acutely aware again of the power of gravity as the harness painfully cinched snugly around my decelerating thighs grabbing my full weight. I felt so heavy in the light air. I saw the others below in our jump group floating to the ground. The technicolor chutes were beautiful. Edvardo let me fly the chute after taking us for a few dizzying centripetal spins.

    Wow! Just like that, I had learned to fly. I saw an above ground pool near our landing strip and wondered if we might end up going for a cold swim. We came in hard and fast, all 450 pounds of us under a chute I later found out was certified up to 500 pounds! Edvardo said “lift up your legs”, so I did. We butt slid to a pinpoint landing. I was alive and uninjured. I wondered what the big deal really was after all. Why had it taken me so many years to embrace my dreams with goals and plans?

    Wind in my “hair”

    High fives and hugs all around! Our jump group was pumped and couldn’t stop talking about our shared experiences. We were all there for individual and common reasons. We had all travelled physically and mentally to the same place on different paths. Where would we go from here? Lily and Rudy were excitedly waiting for me in the car. What if I had not returned? I had forgotten about that issue, but maybe knowing that they would be there waiting with wagging tails for me gave me the peace to proceed unflinchingly. I saw my raw video and could not believe that that was what I had just done. I called my family to share the experience with them. The kids thought I was cool again for a brief moment. Maybe my wife would have rather cashed in on the term life. I sat in my car for a while soaking in my sun-drenched feelings, before returning to Chattanooga for a victory lunch and driving back to reality. It was all just part of another day of the 10,000 or so actuarial days I am told by The Social Security Administration that I have left, but what a thrilling day it was.

    Learning to Fly is not much different from learning to FI. It is largely a EQ journey to a mindset that requires a little IQ mathematical skillsets and toolsets to pull off a reverse engineered life of financial sustainability and creative freedom that many inappropriately refer to as retirement. My first flight in this case may have been my last, unless my sons invite their dad on a camaraderie flight if they are bitten by the same bug.

    I am still learning to FI. I managed to Rip Van Winkel that journey as well for far too long. “I wish I had…” echoed softly in my mind, but I have learned the hard way that regrets are only ballast on our present and futures. Without a plan as I exited one funnel for another in a paycheck to paycheck life of scarcity and survival until I woke on the hedonic treadmill at 48 years old only to realize that there was a much better way to live with intention. The rat race has no winners. I have been down the rabbit hole of FI. I have read countless books and blogs and listened to just as many podcasts as I exercised my physical portfolio while running the neighborhood and hiking with the dogs in the woods.

    I Paused. I Planned. And in the last few years I have Pivoted like crazy in my “S.M.A.R.T. W.A.R. on Fi by 59.5″. I am taking back my life by design instead falling forever into the inertia of a mindless indebted single digit saving life of indebted servitude to the economy by default. For better and worse, I DIY our finances, but I own the outcomes. I manage our paper assets in a globally diversified cap weighted market portfolio of passive index funds with evidence based tilts. I also manage our new adventure into syndicated multifamily real estate investments. I am working on developing a location independent lifestyle laptop small business that begins with this blog and evolves into a fully fleshed out website at PivotPoints.co, a podcast that is likely to be named ‘The Goldilocks Project”, and a non-profit organization in “The Financial Literacy Project”. We have simplified, automated, and diversified our life-planned portfolio and our lives. We have down and rightsized our home and put languishing home equity back to work for us. I am writing this sputtering, sporadic blog while contractors paint, chisel, and bang their way into our new lifestyle. Change is inevitable. Risk is manageable. The real question is how you rationally embrace change and risk and learn to live a life of optimistic abundance and courage. I lept to my first Flight. I am still leaping to FI. The juice is in the journey and the process and is ultimately one of one of finding simple contentment, relationships, and gratitude in a mindful present with an eye on your future self.

    Peace,
    PivotPointsMD

    ]]>         If We Don’t “Playing With FIRE”, We Will Get Burned https://catchinguptofi.com/if-we-dont-playing-with-fire-we-will-get-burned/ Fri, 20 Sep 2019 18:05:01 +0000 https://catchinguptofi.com/index.php/2023/04/03/if-we-dont-playing-with-fire-we-will-get-burned/

    Tonight I consummated a long distance virtual love affair with “Playing With FIRE: The Documentary”.  When Coach Carson and his wife Kari invited me to join them for this indie screening in Greenville, SC, after meeting them recently at #FinCon19, I leapt at the chance to see my new renaissance money nerd friends again and appease my burning curiosity.

    After the 4 hour drive from Knoxville, TN with my thoughts and podcasts, I was moved when I walked in to a packed theater of people of remarkably diverse demographics and stories considering the millennial counter cultural messaging I expected to see.  After a short intro by the screening’s hosts from the local ChooseFI Group, the lights dimmed.  It quickly got uncomfortably dark and very, very real.  

    I found myself shifting in my seat, on a shared hedonic treadmill, and in a rat race to the bottom.  As we neared the end of the movie, and before the lights came up, tears streamed freely down my face.  A fellow audience member consoled me with a gentle pat on the back.  Like the FIRE movement, the movie was really an interactive experience for and by the people and a shared journey on the screen and in the audience.

    Scott and Taylor’s story and travels from Coronado, CA to Bend, OR may have been financially or math motivated, but it played out in gut wrenchingly physical and emotional detail with their daughter Jovi, a blissfully and fiercely independent toddler, in tow.  They shed the physical and emotional baggage of a high cost of living life including a million dollar home on the beach and luxury cars.  

    Having seemingly lost their financial way, they return to reconnect with their frugal midwestern roots during home stays with their parents.  Along the unmarked road, they meet and sought counsel from several well-known virtual rebels, mentors, and influencers in the Financial Independence tribe and space.  Notably, none of The 10 Items that made up Taylor’s weekly Happy List were not tied to location, or their past life.  They were conveniently all portable on their journey to meet their future selves.

    In this moving movie of intentional lifestyle deflation to a reliable path in pursuit of financial independence and freedom I unsurprisingly found many details of my own family’s story.  You won’t have to look hard to find pieces of your story too or certainly those of someone you know or are certain to meet.  It is not a story that a voracious economy feeding on the time value of your life in cycles of unconscious overconsumption wants you to hear.  

    It is one, however, that must be told, seen, and experienced again and again until we finally get it.  We must digest FIRE’s messages of intentionality, sustainability, and renewability in our personal financial lives until they have permeated humanity with their superpowers to change our present culture and save our future world.

    We must stand up, join hands, and break the generational chains and inertia that compel us to model and, in so doing, hand down a legacy of financial illiteracy and indebted servitude to our children.  Instead of sticking our overwhelmed heads in the sand and allowing our money to be our master, we must master our money as the powerful currency of asset acquisition, compound growth, wealth, and financial freedom that is meant to be.  It is time to close the chronological and financial developmental age gap.  We must “Playing with FIRE” again and again in order not to get burned.

    Please consider joining us in the Financial Literacy Project sandbox and come to play.

    ]]>         Burnin’ through Burnout https://catchinguptofi.com/burnin-through-burnout/ Sat, 14 Sep 2019 18:05:01 +0000 https://catchinguptofi.com/index.php/2023/04/03/burnin-through-burnout/

    The Spectrum of Moral Injury (MI) to Compassion Fatigue to Burnout (BO) is as complex and dynamic as it comes across the life-work balance spectrum. It is not black and white, but very very grey. MI is extrinsic and systems based dehumanization and corporatization; healthcare now suffers greatly from this insidious and viral disease like never before. The end-station of a journey from short term to midterm to longterm BO is penultimately depression and tragically, increasingly suicide.

    The Burnout Spectrum

    Most of us live in the messy middle between the bi-poles of BO and MI. Our math and emotion batteries get continually depleted. They need recharging internally and externally as we set aside financial and emotional reserves to ultimately set us free from the rat-race. We can and should ultimately master our money and time and control if and when we choose to battle through our daily minefields. Eventually we must actively “retire” to creative peace and intentionally leave the world a better place than we found it.

    Practice Balance

    We do not strive to merely survive, but to thrive. We cannot do this alone in our silos, our cubicles. We need help and we need to help. We must give and we must receive. We must be vulnerable and relinquish control at the same time that we must make sense and out of and find manageable patterns in our personal and shared chaos. We must be intimately human and recognize the power of building a healthy tribe. We must stay the course, burn through the “burnout” pain into the messy middle. We must grow and remain resilient and relevant in the conversation of life.

    Strawberry Fields Forever

    Peace, contentment, and enough are our elusive goals. Let us achieve them together…

    ]]>         I Wasn’t “Born This Way”: Risk Adversity and The Hedonic Treadmill https://catchinguptofi.com/i-wasnt-born-this-way-risk-adversity-and-the-hedonic-treadmill/ Fri, 13 Sep 2019 18:05:00 +0000 https://catchinguptofi.com/index.php/2023/04/03/i-wasnt-born-this-way-risk-adversity-and-the-hedonic-treadmill/

    Embrace Risk

    Even though I was born in 1965 New York City, I sure wasn’t born risk adverse or on the hedonic treadmill. I also sure wasn’t born into indebted servitude and Golden Handcuffs to the almighty Economy. Still, with blinders on and head in sand with scarcity mindset and fiscal overwhelm, I sure-footedly almost followed many lemmings in my “lost generational” cultural herd over these very treacherous cliffs. Like many many “Jonses”, I somehow ended up fearful of much risk including Mr. Market and on the Highway to Hedonic Hell. It is time to break these generational legacy chains for me, my wife, and our children.

    We are all born financially illiterate, fearlessly naive, dependent, and broke. In my humble opinion my risk adversity and hedonic maladaptations were largely nurtured, not natured. I was born the eldest son of a archetypal “7to7to75” doctor dad and a traditional stay-at-home nurse mom. Not surprisingly in retrospect, my upbringing and technically excellent formal brick and mortar industrial complex education never really practically addressed my financial illiteracy. My parents dysfunctional marriage and eventual legal and financial divorce sealed the deal. I was launched from a luke warm nest up a cold, fast paced, financial creek without a paddle.

    Life continually happened and I reactively reeled from rapid to funnel and whip-sawed back again. Focus on college and medical education gave way to focus on marriage and family. Failing to “meet and care for my future self” at a young age and DIY and reverse engineer my life was engineering to fail. Having no automated partitioning plan for my paychecks, especially when they got suddenly bigger, trapped me in all too common paycheck to paycheck scarcity. I was a “rich” doctor with a “poor” money mindset. Life-styling, I Rip Van Winkeled precious market time away and as my chronologic age advanced, it insidiously dislocated and inversely correlated with my arrested financial development.

    (more…)]]>         Where were you today? https://catchinguptofi.com/where-were-you-today/ Wed, 11 Sep 2019 18:05:01 +0000 https://catchinguptofi.com/index.php/2023/04/03/where-were-you-today/
    The human spirit is uniquely resilient! Today we honor this profoundly human tragedy and its pervasive short and long term, local and global consequences, financial and otherwise, with our uniquely human ability to heal and grow. Please take a moment to Pause, Plan, and Pivot. Help yourself and others find our ways together to a brighter, sustainable, personal financial future and maybe George Kinder’s Golden Civilization will appear as the cultural change we wish to see in the world.

    It was a beautiful sunrise. I was driving home from a long nightshift in bumper to bumper Chicago traffic. I heard 9/11 unfold on my favorite morning radio show Eric & Kathy on 101.9 The MIX. I remember their confusion evolve into horror, anger, and sadness. It transmitted to me over the airwaves through their quivering voices and burned graphic images on my brain. I arrived home and woke my wife to tell her the “world had changed”. We turned on the TV and watched the aftermath and reruns with tears in our eyes, shock in our minds, pain in our hearts, and gut wrenching fear for the future in our bellies. The Darkness is not forgotten, but it has given way to The Light.

    NeverForget

    Where were you at this moment on 9/11/01?

    • The Darkness

    ]]>         How to Sip Water From a FIREhose, Throw a Party for 200+ strangers, & Make 2500 New Friends in 4 days! https://catchinguptofi.com/how-to-sip-water-from-a-firehose-throw-a-party-for-200-strangers-make-2500-new-friends-in-4-days/ Mon, 09 Sep 2019 18:05:01 +0000 https://catchinguptofi.com/index.php/2023/04/03/how-to-sip-water-from-a-firehose-throw-a-party-for-200-strangers-make-2500-new-friends-in-4-days/

     Hey Folks! Just got back from #FinCon19. My first FinCon is in the books. For about a nanosecond, I wondered if I was the oldest chronologic FinNewbie there and quickly realized that it “just didn’t matter”! Last year’s attendance was reported at 1500. 

    This year there were 1000 First Year FinConners for a total attendance of 2500 or so. In 2011 in Chicago about 100 early adopters and amazing integrators heeded PT Money‘s call to collaborate and discuss the intersection of Money and Media. For 20 veteran influencers or so that were there, it was their 9th consecutive #FinCon. 
    They were all surprised and honored on stage with a free ticket to next year’s event #FinCon20 in Long Beach, CA. A few lucky attendees also found tickets under their chairs after the closing keynote. I will be attending as well. I have “no choice”. I have drunk the Koolaid and the Craft Beer and am an instant FInAddict! I want as many of you in our community as can make it next year and join me and watch us change the Culture of Money to one of a sustainable equilibrium simplicity of “Enough”, one person at a time.
     
    I wanted to share a few lasting thoughts and impressions:
     

    1. I am simultaneously absolutely exhausted and FIRE’d UP. My feet hurt, my eyes hurt, I have no voice, and there is smoke coming out of my ears. Thank goodness for Jillian Johnsrud‘s granola bars and Certs. I will heed the call to bring throat lozenges next year.

       

    2. I made friendships and connections with 2500 people in 4 days. The Virtual network otherwise know by my wife as my “Invisible Friends” that I networked with in and outside of this community became very, very Real. My goal was to connect with everyone that I had met online. The great part was, we shared the same goal. This conference was the complete inverse of all the professional conferences I had gone to for my day job. It was about the people. The people are the content! It felt like being in the eye of a hurricane. My phone never really left my pocket except to take pictures for the memories that I will cherish for the rest of my life. Oddly enough, I felt like I was in digital detox in the middle of a “Revenge of The Money Nerds” Reality Drama. I even got to enjoy an unhurried chill chat with surfless Doug Nordman in our Hawaiian Shirts. I vow to take him up on his offer of a surf lesson not only next year in Long Beach, but on our next slow travel HawaiiFI Style.

       

    3. I chose my first year get involved in throwing a little party, why not! When they were running into a roadblock, I lept to help Doc Green and Paul Thompson of The What’s Up Next Podcast throw a TeamUp2MeetUp Party for anywhere from 3 to 60 community members. We were quite overwhelmed with the turnout (peaked at crowded frat party level), estimated by a few at over 200, but then again we were drinking craft beer in a dive bar so who really knows! A shout out goes to The Big Hunt for rolling with our flow and helping us celebrate what was to be a Triumphant Plutus Win for Best New Personal Finance Podcast the very next night. Moral of the story is you may have a “small market”, but high value content in a new panel format attempting to answer a diverse array of the most challenging questions in the Personal Finance and Investing Space can still climax! Also, always throw your victory party for your super fan man crushes the night before the awards!

       

    4. I am absolutely blown away by what I have experienced & learned and the universal sincere generosity of the people that find their way to #FinCon. I hung out at the Podcasting Booth and in the Podcasting Didactic Chanel. I recorded a few promos for new friends like One Million Apples and a riff with my friend Ryan Inman on why a intentional and frugal Registered Life Planner would buy a New Truck! Stay tuned for that one on his podcast Financial Residency! Whenever I got lost, Nick True was there with a map and a compass to show me the way.

       

    5. I got to meet may of the leaders who have been my virtual mentors on my path to getting FinLit and FI in my sub tribe of FinPhysicians that Rock! I shared Real Estate with Peter Kim aka Passive Income MD. I PracticeBalance with Dawn Baker and wore her new brand to Choosefi and Afford Anything International Foundation Fundraiser. I spoke German with BC Krygowski. I drank beer with Leif Dahleen aka Physician on FIRE. I pretended to keep up with Letizia Alto and Kenji Asakura who for being Semi-Retired MD sure do move fast – thanks Tony Robins! Cory Fawcett taught me “How to Camino”! Eliza Minimalmd killed me with kindness and minimal sunscreen. Bonnie Koo aka Wealthy Mom MD and I Afforded Everything to fan-“girl” and fan-“boy” the PodOprah in our midst Paula Pant! Doc McFrugal and I solved the universal passive asset allocation puzzle over gelato. B.L. Guinto and I followed each other tying to out selfie each other.

       

    6. I got to speak with legends in Finance and Investing like Bogleheads.org Rick Ferri and Todd R. Tresidder of FinancialMentor.Com. Rick and I chatted about critical things like how to get your wife to travel the country in a trailer for two years with your dogs. It turn out the secret is all in letting her convince you that “have Queen Bed and Big Bathroom” and will travel. Todd and I tried to talk our way onto the roof of The Guggenheim Redux Museum at the opening night party in the rain but could not negotiate a win-win outcome.

    7. One of the best, if not the best thing about #FinCon19 was my wife Caryn lept at the chance to attend a Money Nerd Convention with me (yes I hugged Whitney Hansen for official Money Nerd status). I was worried that The Content would crush or bore her. This was my jam, not hers, or so I thought. What I found out was that she found the people fascinating. This has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that she is a Psychiatrist! Hey, Lone Wolf Legal Eagle Lawyer and Moderator in Financial Literacy Project Frank Vasquez entertained my wife with wine and song (Flinstones rendition of Happy Anniversary) while I chatted with Rocky Lalvani and his cracker jack genius daughter late into the wee hours of our 21st wedding anniversary during #FinCon19. I know it doesn’t rank with delivering a baby during #FinCon, which I heard almost happened!
     
    I know I have forgotten to backlink so many people, but it is getting late and I do have to go to my day job in the morning. I will “publish and tweak”, or Pause, Plan, & Pivot as it may please me. As many have said before, #FinCon has forever changed my life for the better. I have paid my Blog Debt and as Amy Farrell so aptly said on Direct Spending Questioning by Ramit Sethi, “It is time to take a Nap!” So hilarious was this statement that Steve Smith never missed a beat in generating a T-Shirt Fundraiser on the fly so that Amy could take a nap!  “FULL STOP” for my new Stop the Pop Now Hero Sharon Epperson!:)
     
    Peace Out,
    PivotPointsMD
    ]]>         Fear, Skydiving & The Search for Freedom and The Golden Mean https://catchinguptofi.com/fear-skydiving-the-search-for-freedom-and-the-golden-mean/ Tue, 03 Sep 2019 18:05:01 +0000 https://catchinguptofi.com/index.php/2023/04/03/fear-skydiving-the-search-for-freedom-and-the-golden-mean/
    It is Tuesday September 3rd, 2019 and Welcome to the Birthday of PivotPointsMD!
    It feels like I have been staring at this blank page all my adult life waiting to embrace and overcome my fears, insecurities, and perfectly imperfect perfectionism to start this blog and launch this and other entrepreneurial and creative ideas like it.  My biggest enemy to progress and change has always been my own brain and a blank page.  Time to invert this thinking and turn my brain on its head and against itself.
    I literally thought I would have to go jump out of a perfectly good plane to “get on my ass” and do this. As is too often the case for us humans in finance and in life, I lost to my Neanderthal brain by “strategically” procrastinating and, for my Neo-Cortex, jumping out of a perfectly good plane clipped to someone else eventually seemed like just a little too much time, money, work, and risk just for a first blog post. Not necessarily for a second one though! I really still do want to experience 45 seconds of terrifying physical free fall before I cancel my life insurance. Does anyone care to join me? Like the more recent additions of blogging & podcasting, sky diving has been on my running life list of dreams, goals, and fears to overcome. It has remained there unrequited since residency when the late afternoon summer thunderclouds rolled in as my friends and I eagerly stood flight-suited up on the edge of an Illinois crop duster’s corn field. On that day our immortal and impulsive journey to skydive was scrubbed to some future date. Does this “dream deferred” sound oddly familiar?

    Fast-forward 20 years. My sky diveless story sounds uncannily like my “Journey From Financial Illiteracy.” I may now be a highly trained, skilled, experienced, and reasonably competent Emergency Physician in my own mind and in those of a few others. Unfortunately, when you see me at work it is generally one of the worst days of your life, or it should be; we are The EMERGENCY Room! I may specialize in saving lives, saving deaths, and everything in between, but believe it when I say that, just a few short years ago, I literally couldn’t financially save, invest, or plan my way out of a recycled paper bag. No, not every Physician and human being can be William Bernstein, MD, The White Coat Investor, a Physician on FIRE, a Passive Income MD, or The Physician Philosopher – good folks I am proud to have met and count as friends and mentors. For most all of the rest of us, “life happens” a little more, and it can be really, really messy. The good news is we can choose to WAKE UP from our own status quo and inertia! We can all Pause, Plan, & Pivot. We can all get a Second Chance @ Finance. We are #never2late2FI or #never2far2freedom!

    • Pause.  I have read every book and blog and listened to every podcast and watched every vlog I can get my hands on related to the Mindset and Mechanics (Skills & Tools) of Personal Finance and Investing. 
    • Plan. I have mind mapped out our Financial and Life Plan with my wife Caryn and written it down.
    • Pivot. I have taken back and continue to restructure our entire financial life after abdicating it long ago in Financial Overwhelm to The Industrial Financial Services Sales Complex (IFSSC). I manage our risk as we travel towards our dreams with goals and plans.

    On December 17, 2018 I started Financial Literacy Project with one member…ME. Frankly, my family was tired of hearing me “lecture” about finance all the time. I really needed some place to express myself and help others by curating the best in multimedia FinLit content I found on my voracious consumption journey. Nine months later we are a diverse and inclusive tribe of over 1200. We are a place where “Everyone Else” has fun getting FinLit! My “early adopter” son is member 501. His fraternal twin brother joined us as later adopter member 1001 once the coast was clear and it was officially cool to be in Dad’s little group along with his friends.

    As of this date, I have now guested on 3 quality podcasts (What’s Up Next?, Doctors Unbound, & Financial Residency) and hosted a handful of Facebook Lives in a series on FinLitPro called “Money Stories and More” to share real people’s stories and passions of Financial Wins, Losses, and Recovery. My goal is to encourage our financial youth and other “lost generation” messy mid-lifers like me to join the journey to Financial Independence or to at least learn from and hopefully avoid the financial mistakes that I and so many others have made.

    Unbelievably, tomorrow, my wife, biggest fan, and muse and I will fly to #FinCon19, where “Money and Media Meet”& Money Nerds like us drink a lot of beer or something like that. The best part of getting out of our echo chamber and comfort zone is that we finally get to meet so many of my/our new friends. That is, once again, as long as the Mother Nature and dear old unpredictable Hurricane Dorian cooperates. Plan B, gotta have a few of those in our financial lives as well, is a llllong drive listening to…you guessed it…our favorite podcasts!

    Ah yes, deadlines will be and do what deadlines have always been and done. I guess they don’t call ‘em deadlines for nothing. I really do want to have something more for folks to digest on my shiny new website other than “Under Construction”, a heavy comment or a curated repost or share. A blank page that I have reimagined for you who have landed here due to some wild click, search, or marginal use for 1000 new business cards QR code linked to this site and to our first internet “child” born on December 17, 2018 @Financial Literacy Project. This website domain has hibernated long enough since August 1, 2018 in fact. It is time for it and me along with it to come out of the FinCloset, join the Haystack of Content Creation, and hopefully add some Signal to the Noise.

    With that long-winded preamble, here is what I really wanted to say…

    Whether or not we recognize it and engage in it now, later, or never, we are all on a common Quest! Our time is finite; available resources are limitless. Visible and invisible common friend and foe alike await us on our paths. The more insidious and tenacious villains and unexpected and robust allies may just be the ones that lurk within us on our individual paths and common journey. Alone we may travel faster, but together we will travel further and stand to reap greater rewards in patience and collaboration.

    No, this is not a game!  Gameifying the journey, however, may not only be more fun, but essential to our ultimate success.  Of what Quest do I speak?  No we are not on The Yellow Brick Road and our way is not paved with gold.  “Lions and Tigers and Bears Oh My” are not our friends or foes.  The Crusades and The Search for the Golden Fleece happened long ago. This modern version of the ancient game we seek to play may slightly resemble Chutes and Ladders, but it has much higher stakes like our Safety, Security, and Self-Determination. The Quest of which I speak is our Search for Freedom and The Golden Mean.

    What does Freedom mean to you?

    What is your Golden Mean?

    I urge you to Pause, Plan & Pivot towards actively answering these questions. Go ahead, I’ll wait…

    Take a minute. Take two.

    Take a breath.

    I now ponder my answers to these challenging and seemingly asymptotically unanswerable questions almost daily. For me, the evolving answer to these fundamental questions is critical to a successful life’s journey. The individual goal may be ultimately to “die with memories not dreams”. The collective goal may be to have left a legacy to our “NextGen” children and physical world of a wealthier, more sustainable, renewable, and peaceful version of the world in which we journeyed well.

    Freedom is elusive. In the external world, it is a little like Pornography, “I know it when I see it!” We often give it away without thinking twice about it and really don’t know what we have until it is gone. When we don’t have it we are restricted dependent captives of our fear and liabilities. But when we really have it we are free to give of our time and resources without concern for our own reasonable needs and wants. In our internal worlds, it can literally be anything we want it to be, a place no one can take it from us. Just ask Viktor Frankl if you don’t believe me!

    The Golden Mean is equally elusive. Represented by many things in mathematics, nature, history, and philosophy, Phi is one of its symbols for mathematical and emotional balance or harmony. While certainly journey-worthy, and an icon I choose to use to represent this blog and website, it too is likely unobtainable for mere mortals like me. That fact does not make its pursuit any less valuable! Life’s recursively circular Odyssey from birth to death is really one of dusty dependence to dependence. When the messy and juicy middle of growth and the complete journey to Freedom is fully embraced, predictable stages and milestones of developmental maturity, financial and otherwise will ensue. From the Innocence, Pain, Fear, and Scarcity of our Childhoods to the Knowledge, Understanding, Vigor, Vision, Joy, Calm, and Abundance of our Adulthoods we must choose to Grow and Adapt, our uniquely human superpowers. Just ask George Kinder if you don’t believe me!

    So what is the bottom line for a first real blog post? Be Grateful for where you are and Start Now! There really is no time like the present to start this journey. Chronologic and Developmental Financial Maturity can be quite dislocated from each other. I should know. I “Rip Van Winkeled” my financial life for years until I pulled my 49 year-old, mid-lifed head out of the Primordial Ooze and began “DIYing” my own Financial Health and Wealth Care Life with the help of countless virtual and very real mentors financially, emotionally, physically, and mentally. Let me close the books on this post with a heartfelt Thank You to everyone who has helped me on this Journey in more ways than you will ever likely know. In this more often virtual cart-before-the-horse world of global geographic arbitrage and possibility in relationship building, I look forward to meeting all of you. Just do not expect me to, and please forgive me if, I do not remember your name the first or the fifth time!:)

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