As I continue writing for this blog, I am continually nailing down precisely what the theme of my writing is and the purpose of my philosophy of Boredom. I recently found greater clarity in what it's all about.
I used to tell people it was a combination of minimalizing your life while focusing on productivity, mixed in with some leadership insights. That's a mouthful and is saying everything without being anything. After mentally replaying this mouthful multiple times, I realized the philosophy of Boredom is about minimalism for high performers. Short and simple.
Before creating the blog, I remember talking to a coworker about how overloaded we were with projects and that my focus in life was to be Bored so that I could do more. He laughed, saying that's not how being bored works. My response was, "it is for me." I couldn't vocalize what I meant, but after exploring this blog, I understand what I was saying is that for high performers, that's precisely how it works.
A lot of people might be frequently bored. When they get this way, they might end up doing nothing, thus increasing their boredom. Or worse, they get into trouble or focus on time-wasters. Idle hands are the devil's playground. However, that's not what happens when high performers get bored.
When bored, we go out seeking a new project to do, which is why we get ourselves into burnout trouble so quickly. We're always eager to say yes to a new project. Which is why aiming for Boredom works. It helps us say no to some of these less ideal projects because seeking Boredom is more important than saying yes to one more random project.
But a philosophy of Boredom isn't enough. Once we free up our time from distractions, we must assert project discipline. That's where the Personal Control Book comes into play. The PCB helps channel our focus into what will make the most significant impact on our lives. It's the guard rails that ensure we don't get back into the trap of randomly accepting new projects with no rhyme or reason.
Boredom is my Goal is the philosophy to apply minimalism for high performers. The Personal Control Book is then the system that funnels this newly created available energy into the best possible applications.
(Written 2019.12.07)
12.26.2019
12.19.2019
#36 | FU Income
Life had become crazy busy for a while, but it's starting to calm down again. As things calm down, I've been able to evaluate the past few months. One of the insights I've discovered is a deeper understanding of FU Money.
JL Collins didn't coin the term, but he's where I first heard it. Just like his article, linked above, I hadn't known what FU Money was, but once he described it, it made perfect sense. It was something I was aiming for too. Or at least I thought I was.
The more I think about it though, the more I think FU Money itself is kind of bulls--t. Although I thought FU Money was my goal, I've never been able to incorporate it into my financial strategy appropriately. The first issue I have is that retirements accounts have typically been my first avenue of investing. But as the balance of my retirement accounts increased, I never felt like that would be considered part of my FU Money bucket.
If I wanted to say FU to my job and go on a self-funded sabbatical adventure to discover myself, what I want to live off of my would my retirement accounts? Not really. I wouldn't want to cash them out and take the penalty hit for withdrawing from them before retirement. Instead of funding retirement accounts, let's say I funded a non-retirement brokerage account. Would that make a difference? Doubtful. I wouldn't want to sell my wealth-generating assets to cover my monthly expenses. I wouldn't be comfortable missing out on the opportunity cost of not benefiting from compounding interest or returns. The milestone I would have to reach to feel secure is the 4% rule threshold.
But if I waited until I reached the 4% rule threshold, then I would call that retirement money, not FU Money. I imagine FU Money is when you have enough in assets and cash that for any reason, you can quit your job without worrying about the scramble of immediately finding a new income stream. Retirement could be a side effect of this short-notice quitting, but retirement is an all-or-nothing scenario. When you retire, you retire for good. If you come back out of retirement, then that means you drained your investment accounts before you were ready to retire.
Plus, retiring early is extremely hard. There are quite a few people in the FIRE community who have retired early, but to retire in your 20s or 30s usually seems to be a direct result of penny-pinching to the point of depression. Or at least a significantly decreased life satisfaction.
What's the answer then if FU Money seems like a reasonable goal but doesn't' actually fit my model? Figuring that out has inadvertently become my current focus.
Over the past three months, I've been focusing on several different side projects. The first was a commercial real estate project that I had been watching for years, but the time had finally come to execute. This particular project will kick off a healthy but not retirement-worthy monthly cashflow. The second project was starting a side business doing online selling with my wife. This project doesn't produce passive income, yet, but creates an alternative revenue stream. And the goal is to grow the revenue stream enough that we can hire employees and helpers and start working on converting it to either a leveraged income or a completely passive income. The last project(s) was a few individuals in my technology network who reached out to me for freelancing. Freelancing is something that I've always done since college graduation, but I had a year-long drought in projects. The income generated from these projects tends to be very short-lived but usually significant in size than other side-gigs. At this point in my career, I also manage other resources with these gigs and charge a markup for my resources time instead of direct billing for my time. So I consider this leveraged income.
For the past year or so, my focus was on adding to my investment account balances. However, for these projects, the entire focus has been on created alternative income streams. Income streams that pull the monthly burden away from the 9-5 income stream. These income streams started making me think about FU Income. They didn't increase my investment account balances one bit; there has been no impact on my net worth. But yet I still feel more secure now than I did just a few months ago.
So I dug deeper. My net worth is already large enough that I feel like I have preliminary FU Money. But even with that net worth, I'm not interested in cashing out any of my existing portfolios to cover my monthly expenses. So it's FU Money that is untouchable if I want to say FU.
I was trying to sort out all of this, and it finally hit me. I had discovered FU Income. Between these three new income streams, I can cover the majority of our monthly expenses. That means if I quit my job overnight, to be entirely income-to-expense neutral, I could get a minimum wage job and still maintain my current lifestyle without decreasing my assets.
Another angle I started thinking about was the golden egg-laying goose. The moral of that story was to have patience in receiving a golden egg every day. The protagonist loses patience and kills the goose hoping to extract all of the golden eggs hiding inside, only to discover there are no golden eggs inside, thus destroying their future golden egg income. In my opinion, prematurely tapping into your FU Money is equivalent to killing your goose. Except instead of impatience being the motivation, needing to eat the goose for daily sustenance is the motivation. Although it's not a selfish motivation, the outcome is the same. With the purpose of FU Income instead of FU Money, I equate that to pursuing more geese instead of pursuing more golden eggs.
So now, I know what my focus moving forward should be. I have surpassed having FU Money. I must now focus on creating FU Income so that I can genuinely gain the financial independence that I seek.
(Written 2019.12.07)
JL Collins didn't coin the term, but he's where I first heard it. Just like his article, linked above, I hadn't known what FU Money was, but once he described it, it made perfect sense. It was something I was aiming for too. Or at least I thought I was.
The more I think about it though, the more I think FU Money itself is kind of bulls--t. Although I thought FU Money was my goal, I've never been able to incorporate it into my financial strategy appropriately. The first issue I have is that retirements accounts have typically been my first avenue of investing. But as the balance of my retirement accounts increased, I never felt like that would be considered part of my FU Money bucket.
If I wanted to say FU to my job and go on a self-funded sabbatical adventure to discover myself, what I want to live off of my would my retirement accounts? Not really. I wouldn't want to cash them out and take the penalty hit for withdrawing from them before retirement. Instead of funding retirement accounts, let's say I funded a non-retirement brokerage account. Would that make a difference? Doubtful. I wouldn't want to sell my wealth-generating assets to cover my monthly expenses. I wouldn't be comfortable missing out on the opportunity cost of not benefiting from compounding interest or returns. The milestone I would have to reach to feel secure is the 4% rule threshold.
But if I waited until I reached the 4% rule threshold, then I would call that retirement money, not FU Money. I imagine FU Money is when you have enough in assets and cash that for any reason, you can quit your job without worrying about the scramble of immediately finding a new income stream. Retirement could be a side effect of this short-notice quitting, but retirement is an all-or-nothing scenario. When you retire, you retire for good. If you come back out of retirement, then that means you drained your investment accounts before you were ready to retire.
Plus, retiring early is extremely hard. There are quite a few people in the FIRE community who have retired early, but to retire in your 20s or 30s usually seems to be a direct result of penny-pinching to the point of depression. Or at least a significantly decreased life satisfaction.
What's the answer then if FU Money seems like a reasonable goal but doesn't' actually fit my model? Figuring that out has inadvertently become my current focus.
Over the past three months, I've been focusing on several different side projects. The first was a commercial real estate project that I had been watching for years, but the time had finally come to execute. This particular project will kick off a healthy but not retirement-worthy monthly cashflow. The second project was starting a side business doing online selling with my wife. This project doesn't produce passive income, yet, but creates an alternative revenue stream. And the goal is to grow the revenue stream enough that we can hire employees and helpers and start working on converting it to either a leveraged income or a completely passive income. The last project(s) was a few individuals in my technology network who reached out to me for freelancing. Freelancing is something that I've always done since college graduation, but I had a year-long drought in projects. The income generated from these projects tends to be very short-lived but usually significant in size than other side-gigs. At this point in my career, I also manage other resources with these gigs and charge a markup for my resources time instead of direct billing for my time. So I consider this leveraged income.
For the past year or so, my focus was on adding to my investment account balances. However, for these projects, the entire focus has been on created alternative income streams. Income streams that pull the monthly burden away from the 9-5 income stream. These income streams started making me think about FU Income. They didn't increase my investment account balances one bit; there has been no impact on my net worth. But yet I still feel more secure now than I did just a few months ago.
So I dug deeper. My net worth is already large enough that I feel like I have preliminary FU Money. But even with that net worth, I'm not interested in cashing out any of my existing portfolios to cover my monthly expenses. So it's FU Money that is untouchable if I want to say FU.
I was trying to sort out all of this, and it finally hit me. I had discovered FU Income. Between these three new income streams, I can cover the majority of our monthly expenses. That means if I quit my job overnight, to be entirely income-to-expense neutral, I could get a minimum wage job and still maintain my current lifestyle without decreasing my assets.
Another angle I started thinking about was the golden egg-laying goose. The moral of that story was to have patience in receiving a golden egg every day. The protagonist loses patience and kills the goose hoping to extract all of the golden eggs hiding inside, only to discover there are no golden eggs inside, thus destroying their future golden egg income. In my opinion, prematurely tapping into your FU Money is equivalent to killing your goose. Except instead of impatience being the motivation, needing to eat the goose for daily sustenance is the motivation. Although it's not a selfish motivation, the outcome is the same. With the purpose of FU Income instead of FU Money, I equate that to pursuing more geese instead of pursuing more golden eggs.
So now, I know what my focus moving forward should be. I have surpassed having FU Money. I must now focus on creating FU Income so that I can genuinely gain the financial independence that I seek.
(Written 2019.12.07)
12.12.2019
#35 | Heroes & Soldiers
Recently I was talking to someone at work, and we started discussing the topic of heroes and soldiers in regards to performance reviews and who gets recognized. I hadn't heard this metaphor before, but it made perfect sense. I wanted to explore the concept a bit more.
The breakdown is that at work, you have heroes, and you have soldiers. Your heroes are the ones who come in to save the day. If your production system is down, they figure out how to bring it back up. If a customer is angry and demands immediate attention and resolution, the hero calms them down and satisfy their expectations. Whenever things are in trouble, the hero enters. The problem is solved, congratulations emails are sent out, and praise showers start. The celebrations begin.
Soldiers, on the other hand, are the ones in the trenches every day. They keep the world going round. They handle hundreds of customers without letting things escalate to the point of needing a hero. They create feature after feature, with constant in-depth analysis, and deliver every time. Frequently, these folks might not enjoy the spotlight of being a hero. They might even crumble when the spotlight finds them. But they don't need the spotlight to become essential members of the team.
Which then gets around to our conversation topic. How to recognize and reward everyone appropriately? Before my work conversation, I would frequently think about people in terms of being top performers, medium performers, and the occasional short-lived bottom performer. Everybody fit comfortably into these three buckets. But over time, I've noticed that some top performers struggle to get proper rewards. Their stats and KPIs would be consistently at the top of the charts. They always worked on essential tasks and were goto people for their areas. They had all of the indicators that should make them easy to reward, but the best rewards always seem to bypass them.
On the other hand, other top performers seemed to walk into their rewards. Their managers would make little effort and bam -- instant-reward. There always seemed like a disparity in contributions and ease of awards.
That's where the heroes versus soldiers metaphor clicked for me. Being a top performer helped to secure a promotion, but it wasn't the primary factor. The more critical trait is to be a visible hero. Even if you were a hero/soldier shining in the spotlight while digging into the daily trenches, the hero aspect of your output is what justifies the promotion.
Then I started thinking back at my previous jobs and evaluating myself. At my first job out of college, I was a complete soldier. I was the guy who sat in my office toiling away, avoiding any visible spotlight while carrying the burden of workload for the team. Everyone who knew the intricacies of the group realized I was a top performer for the team. No one outside of the group knew what contributions I was making. Because of that, I gained a lot of valuable experience, and it launched me as a professional engineer, but my career growth was very stagnant.
In comparison, I've now come to embrace the spotlight. I still bear down and toil away in the trenches when needed, but I'm also known to be the person who steps into the foreground to save the day when a crisis occurs. I've learned how to play both roles. I'm confident that the hero part of my deliverables has made the difference from my first job. My career growth has reflected this difference in approach.
I find it somewhat discouraging. If I would have known at my first job, maybe I could have done things differently. Even now, as a manager, I might be reaping the benefits, but that's not enough. I tend to hold my team to high expectations leading a lot of them to be top performers, but some are heroes, and some are soldiers, but all, in my opinion, are deserving of recognition.
But at least I've made this realization. With realization comes the ability to plan a countermeasure to this anti-pattern. Once I figure out that countermeasure, I'll be able to be an even better leader and make sure I keep all top performers engaged and happy so that everyone can keep us marching forward towards victory.
Project success isn't won by only the heroes performing great feats of strength, but also by the soldiers putting in the grind and showing up strong every day.
(Written 2019.12.06)
The breakdown is that at work, you have heroes, and you have soldiers. Your heroes are the ones who come in to save the day. If your production system is down, they figure out how to bring it back up. If a customer is angry and demands immediate attention and resolution, the hero calms them down and satisfy their expectations. Whenever things are in trouble, the hero enters. The problem is solved, congratulations emails are sent out, and praise showers start. The celebrations begin.
Soldiers, on the other hand, are the ones in the trenches every day. They keep the world going round. They handle hundreds of customers without letting things escalate to the point of needing a hero. They create feature after feature, with constant in-depth analysis, and deliver every time. Frequently, these folks might not enjoy the spotlight of being a hero. They might even crumble when the spotlight finds them. But they don't need the spotlight to become essential members of the team.
Which then gets around to our conversation topic. How to recognize and reward everyone appropriately? Before my work conversation, I would frequently think about people in terms of being top performers, medium performers, and the occasional short-lived bottom performer. Everybody fit comfortably into these three buckets. But over time, I've noticed that some top performers struggle to get proper rewards. Their stats and KPIs would be consistently at the top of the charts. They always worked on essential tasks and were goto people for their areas. They had all of the indicators that should make them easy to reward, but the best rewards always seem to bypass them.
On the other hand, other top performers seemed to walk into their rewards. Their managers would make little effort and bam -- instant-reward. There always seemed like a disparity in contributions and ease of awards.
That's where the heroes versus soldiers metaphor clicked for me. Being a top performer helped to secure a promotion, but it wasn't the primary factor. The more critical trait is to be a visible hero. Even if you were a hero/soldier shining in the spotlight while digging into the daily trenches, the hero aspect of your output is what justifies the promotion.
Then I started thinking back at my previous jobs and evaluating myself. At my first job out of college, I was a complete soldier. I was the guy who sat in my office toiling away, avoiding any visible spotlight while carrying the burden of workload for the team. Everyone who knew the intricacies of the group realized I was a top performer for the team. No one outside of the group knew what contributions I was making. Because of that, I gained a lot of valuable experience, and it launched me as a professional engineer, but my career growth was very stagnant.
In comparison, I've now come to embrace the spotlight. I still bear down and toil away in the trenches when needed, but I'm also known to be the person who steps into the foreground to save the day when a crisis occurs. I've learned how to play both roles. I'm confident that the hero part of my deliverables has made the difference from my first job. My career growth has reflected this difference in approach.
I find it somewhat discouraging. If I would have known at my first job, maybe I could have done things differently. Even now, as a manager, I might be reaping the benefits, but that's not enough. I tend to hold my team to high expectations leading a lot of them to be top performers, but some are heroes, and some are soldiers, but all, in my opinion, are deserving of recognition.
But at least I've made this realization. With realization comes the ability to plan a countermeasure to this anti-pattern. Once I figure out that countermeasure, I'll be able to be an even better leader and make sure I keep all top performers engaged and happy so that everyone can keep us marching forward towards victory.
Project success isn't won by only the heroes performing great feats of strength, but also by the soldiers putting in the grind and showing up strong every day.
(Written 2019.12.06)
12.05.2019
#34 | Why I Side Hustle
I started talking about this in a different article but then realized that the content was diverging from the article's intended topic. So here we are, a followup post.
Ever since I graduated from college, I've been a hustler. There has never been a time when I did not have a stable and well-paying job, and I jump around companies very infrequently. I've worked at three companies over 16 years in the tech industry, which is almost unheard of these days. A lot of my tech peers jump to a new company every two to three years.
Why do I side hustle? I've had a lot of friends, coworkers, and acquaintances make comments or give me looks asking this very question. Like most things in life, there is no single response.
Probably the most significant impact my side hustles have done is to expand my skill set. At every job, there is a lane we are expected to stay in — some list of responsibilities and tasks we are supposed to perform for our given role. If someone wants a promotion, they might look at the position above theirs and start executing against that list of responsibilities and tasks. But everything is very narrow. Seldom have I seen an environment where you are encouraged to do everything and anything possible. Engineers should engineer; support should handle customer interactions; sales should sell the product, etc. Expanding it further, people working in technology don't have any reason to deal in real estate, to perform market analysis for the food industry, or any number of non-technology related situations.
When I freelance in technology, I'm able to perform every job task, wear every hat. For example, I've learned quite a few skills that now make me better than a lot of product managers, even though I've never held a product manager title. The same goes for support, customer relations, or project management. When I resell online, I'm able to branch out of my industry and start thinking about things like small scale supply chain, procurement, inventory management, distribution, popular trends, and marketing.
Instead of becoming narrowly-focused on my one role within my day job, I'm able to become a well-rounded individual.
Another benefit of the side-hustle is the network that you create. Some people go to meetups, some to conferences and conventions. Some people try to work with every outside vendor or client. Those are all fine, but to me are a bit shallow from a professional sense. When I network professionally, I want to know how well someone can perform in completing their assignment, and I want to showcase my ability to execute. What better way to do that then to have real projects working with real deadlines. Even if it's an internal project like my online reselling where I don't have a client or a contract, it's still applicable. If I meet someone who sells on the same platform as I do, I can pitch a collaboration to test their abilities and follow through. If I need some help with SEO, I can reach out to professionals for advice.
By having real projects to work on, my networking is more accurate to life and all-encompassing to any facet of a professional need.
And the last benefit is financial, which is also the least important to me. Typically side hustle income goes into one of two categories. The first category is fun-money. This category is usually the case if I earn only a few hundred dollars. That can pay for a few nice dinners or a couple of months of Starbucks. Or maybe a treat for my wife or kids. It can even be something bigger like a laptop or iPad that will dual-purpose in both professional and personal or combined to help pay for a vacation. The second category is investment money. This category comes into play when the income generated reaches thousands of dollars. I love it when I can max out my IRA contributions from side-hustle pay; it feels like my "after 5" work is going towards my long term goals. It's even more exciting if I can generate enough side-hustle money to fund a more substantial investment.
When I can funnel my side-hustle money into an investment, I'm directly converting my limited time into cash, then into passive income. When the passive income is large enough, it allows me to buy back my freedom. I'm not just trading time for consumer goods or experiences but instead trading time today for freedom tomorrow. This exchange is a balancing act because tomorrow may never come, so you don't want to exchange too much time. But the entire purpose is to Financial Independence is to gain freedom, so being able to act directly against that goal is motivating.
Some people may think I'm crazy, or I juggle too many projects when I don't need to because of my day job. But I see these side hustles as a way to expand my skill set, expand my network, and to help buy my freedom.
(Written 2019.10.23)
Ever since I graduated from college, I've been a hustler. There has never been a time when I did not have a stable and well-paying job, and I jump around companies very infrequently. I've worked at three companies over 16 years in the tech industry, which is almost unheard of these days. A lot of my tech peers jump to a new company every two to three years.
Why do I side hustle? I've had a lot of friends, coworkers, and acquaintances make comments or give me looks asking this very question. Like most things in life, there is no single response.
Probably the most significant impact my side hustles have done is to expand my skill set. At every job, there is a lane we are expected to stay in — some list of responsibilities and tasks we are supposed to perform for our given role. If someone wants a promotion, they might look at the position above theirs and start executing against that list of responsibilities and tasks. But everything is very narrow. Seldom have I seen an environment where you are encouraged to do everything and anything possible. Engineers should engineer; support should handle customer interactions; sales should sell the product, etc. Expanding it further, people working in technology don't have any reason to deal in real estate, to perform market analysis for the food industry, or any number of non-technology related situations.
When I freelance in technology, I'm able to perform every job task, wear every hat. For example, I've learned quite a few skills that now make me better than a lot of product managers, even though I've never held a product manager title. The same goes for support, customer relations, or project management. When I resell online, I'm able to branch out of my industry and start thinking about things like small scale supply chain, procurement, inventory management, distribution, popular trends, and marketing.
Instead of becoming narrowly-focused on my one role within my day job, I'm able to become a well-rounded individual.
Another benefit of the side-hustle is the network that you create. Some people go to meetups, some to conferences and conventions. Some people try to work with every outside vendor or client. Those are all fine, but to me are a bit shallow from a professional sense. When I network professionally, I want to know how well someone can perform in completing their assignment, and I want to showcase my ability to execute. What better way to do that then to have real projects working with real deadlines. Even if it's an internal project like my online reselling where I don't have a client or a contract, it's still applicable. If I meet someone who sells on the same platform as I do, I can pitch a collaboration to test their abilities and follow through. If I need some help with SEO, I can reach out to professionals for advice.
By having real projects to work on, my networking is more accurate to life and all-encompassing to any facet of a professional need.
And the last benefit is financial, which is also the least important to me. Typically side hustle income goes into one of two categories. The first category is fun-money. This category is usually the case if I earn only a few hundred dollars. That can pay for a few nice dinners or a couple of months of Starbucks. Or maybe a treat for my wife or kids. It can even be something bigger like a laptop or iPad that will dual-purpose in both professional and personal or combined to help pay for a vacation. The second category is investment money. This category comes into play when the income generated reaches thousands of dollars. I love it when I can max out my IRA contributions from side-hustle pay; it feels like my "after 5" work is going towards my long term goals. It's even more exciting if I can generate enough side-hustle money to fund a more substantial investment.
When I can funnel my side-hustle money into an investment, I'm directly converting my limited time into cash, then into passive income. When the passive income is large enough, it allows me to buy back my freedom. I'm not just trading time for consumer goods or experiences but instead trading time today for freedom tomorrow. This exchange is a balancing act because tomorrow may never come, so you don't want to exchange too much time. But the entire purpose is to Financial Independence is to gain freedom, so being able to act directly against that goal is motivating.
Some people may think I'm crazy, or I juggle too many projects when I don't need to because of my day job. But I see these side hustles as a way to expand my skill set, expand my network, and to help buy my freedom.
(Written 2019.10.23)
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