Picture Perfect Career Path
(Maybe)
Welcome
Hello from the beautiful Asbury Park, NJ, and welcome to the 22 new subscribers who have joined us since last month. Join 999 others who receive monthly insights on optimizing your physical, mental, social, vocational, and financial health.
The most difficult (and rewarding) part of this newsletter is reflecting on the past month; highlighting achievements, places I’ve gone, and things I’ve done. Here’s how that reflection process typically works…
Scanning Google Calendar: Where did I go? What did I do?
Browsing Google Photos: Where did I go? What did I do? Who was I with?
Scanning Bank Statements: Did I make any big purchases? Did I eat at any great restaurants? How much income did I generate this month?
The main issue with this process is that I obviously don’t log everything I do in Google Calendar. But I also suck at taking pictures. I always forget, and then it makes my life difficult when writing this!
My goal this next month is to take more photos.
May has been quite the month:
Earned $5,900 from my side business
Lost 10% of my net worth (more on this in a later post)
Finished 3rd and 5th in two beach volleyball tournaments
Finished The Murph in 34:15 (didn’t wear a vest)
Celebrated my brother graduating from Rutgers Business School (Go Knights!)
Nonetheless, I have a ton of great stuff to share with you all.
TL;DR
Here’s what we got in store for this month…
Dangerously High Cholesterol
WFH Ruins Your Mental Health
The New Way of Meeting People
My Life’s Work (maybe)
The Secret to Building Wealth
Let’s dive in.
Physical Health
Last week I was on my morning walk with my 11-month-old golden retriever, Roo, when I got a call from my doctor. He was calling about my blood test results.
“You have high cholesterol.”
My heart stopped. “I have what?” I was in disbelief.
“Your cholesterol levels are high. It’s nothing to be worried about right now, but we will have to monitor it. For now, cut back on eating processed foods, bread, and pasta.”
“First of all, how the fuck do I have high cholesterol if I workout 6 times a week and rarely ever eat processed foods, bread, or any kinds of pasta? Second of all, how dare you 1) assume that I eat that processed crap and 2) recommend I cut back on it when you know the kind of shape I am in?!”
Okay, I didn’t say that. I’ll get off my high horse… But boy was I thinking it. I don’t get angry often, but this really pissed me off.
I’ve always taken care of my body. I was the kid who played 14 different sports growing up, was made fun of for how healthy my lunch was, and never asked for a birthday cake because I never ate dessert!
I was angry about my doctor not knowing me as a patient.
I was angry about his recommendation to stop eating processed foods.
I was angry about the whole medical system.
Now this all might seem like an over-exaggeration to you, and it very much might be, but this high-cholesterol thing really shook me up. I’m still digging into it a bit more and will report back.
For now, if anyone has any literature to read about super fit people with high cholesterol, please send it my way!
Mental Health
As an extrovert, working from home takes a toll on my mental health. I’m not going to lie, I love the benefits of working from home, but man, some days I just get super down! Being around people energizes me in a way that I can’t get through a screen.
Two things that have helped me overcome the loneliness and anxiety associated with working from home are:
Midday walks: Now that the weather is getting nicer in New Jersey, I’ve been going on a lot more walks. The best thing? I live right by the boardwalk so there’re a bunch of opportunities to meet new people! The most notable interaction was with this homeless dude who was so excited because he found a bike on the curb during bulk pickup day. But there was a problem… The bike was pink, and he couldn’t be seen “Riding through the hood with a pink bike!” He told me that he spent the day spray painting his bike black so he’d avoid getting made fun of. There’s nothing like chatting it up with a homeless guy on your lunch break.
Midday ROMWOD: I may be able to deadlift 555lbs and squat 425lbs, but my flexibility sucks. Like really sucks. Recently I started doing ROMWOD and let me tell you, I’m feeling flexy. My biggest issue with mobility is finding a routine I like. In the past, I was reluctant to pay for ROMWOD because theoretically, I could save the $14 / month by following a mobility program on YouTube, but now that I have been using ROMWOD almost every day for the past two months, I can confidently say that the ROMWOD is the best $14 / month I’ve ever spent. If you’re interested in trying ROMWOD, use the link below to start your FREE 7-day trial.
Social Health
It’s crazy to be saying this, but I’d say many of my closest friends I’ve met online. I don’t know if this is a product of the pandemic, or because I’ve been writing more online, but it’s kind of astonishing!
The irony in that is that I love in-person interaction. Last month, I wrote about how happy I was to work in person for a week, but here I am this month writing about how most of my closest friends are people I’ve never physically met!
In the future, I’d like to meet these people. There’s something about in-person interaction that can’t be replicated through Zoom.
Vocational Health
I think I finally know what I want to do with my life.
A couple of weeks ago, I had a two-hour conversation with my friend Jack Raines.
Jack writes a blog called Young Money (yes, like Lil Wayne’s Record Label). Disclaimer: his newsletter has nothing to do with Lil Wayne and everything to do with finance.
I initially reached out to Jack because I read that he was planning on getting his MBA, and as someone who has gone back and forth about getting their MBA 40,000 times, I was curious about how he justified his decision. Well, our conversation started with talking about MBAs and drifted into a full-blown career conversation. I’m glad it did.
Graduating college with a business degree, the homerun, picture-perfect career path is to get a job in consulting or finance, get your MBA, and climb the corporate ladder.
The thing is, I don’t see myself doing that. I don’t really know what I want to do with my life, but a few things are certain.
I’m pretty good at writing
People will pay me to write
I enjoy learning things and writing about them
Writing has exposed me to lifechanging opportunities
Knowing these certainties gives me confidence that maybe I was meant to be a writer? Maybe I could make a living as a writer?
The idea sounds a little crazy to me, but when I reflect on the people I look up to and whose careers I admire most, it’s not the partner at the private equity firm or the startup founder, it’s the writer.
It’s the James Clear’s, Ryan Holiday’s, and Tim Ferris’s of the world. It’s the people out there with the courage to share their ideas, day in and day out. I think this says something…
I get most of my fulfillment and happiness when I am learning, writing, and sharing my ideas. This might be a sign that I should lean into it my writing a bit more.
What do you think?
Financial Health
Ever since reading Skin In the Game by Nasim Taleb, I’ve been obsessed with this concept of "having skin in the game.” Having skin in the game is being invested in an organization or venture, and therefore having an interest in its success. This concept applies to many things:
Work: Are you working for a company where you are personally invested in the business and therefore you’re interested in its success?
Buying new things: Is the person who is selling you something being compensated for the sale? Is the fact that they are getting paid a commission going to impact how they sell you and what they sell you on?
Investing in companies: Do the CEOs / leaders of the companies you are investing in own a large equity stake in the business they are operating? This is something Brian Feroldi includes in his investing checklist. It totally makes sense. Would you rather invest in a company where the CEO owns 1% of the company or a company where the CEO owns a 7% stake in the company? Sure it depends on the size of the company, however, the point I am trying to make is that wouldn’t it feel better to invest in a company where the CEO is personally more invested in the company than not?
Anyways, having skin in the game is a concept that applies to many things. The other day I was scrolling through Twitter and saw this tweet by Moses Kagan:
To build wealth efficiently:
Structure your professional life to convert “work” into “equity value”, without passing through “income” (where taxes crush you).
I read this and was like…
If you want to build wealth, you need to build equity in something. Naval Ravikant once said:
If you don't own equity in a business, your odds of making proper money are slim.
If your goal is to build wealth, you need to build equity. If you aren’t optimizing your professional life to building equity in a business, it’s going to be very very very difficult for you to build wealth over time.
This is partially why I spend so much time writing online. The more I write and publish, the more digital equity I own, and who knows… Maybe one day I’ll be writing something greater than a monthly newsletter.
$5,900?! Hell yeah bro. You are a writer sir. Go full-time and shit will go crazy...!