Critical Chance

Category: Small Habits

  • The Power of Consistency

    The Power of Consistency

    Warren Buffet has an interesting principal he follows. 

    At the end of each year, a company gets to decide what to do with their earnings. Some companies issue a portion of the money to their shareholders; this is called a dividend. Most investors love it, in fact some design their portfolios to exclusively invest in companies that provide annual dividends. Warren on the other hand? He HATES investing in these companies.

    Why? When you receive a dividend, you realize gains, which means you have to pay taxes each year.

    Warren would rather the money was reinvested into the business to help it grow.

    First off, this allows him to avoid taxes for as long as he can.  But if we remember the rules of compounding, it allows his money to stay in the system and work even harder. Warren wants to be taxed only once, at the very end when the journey is over, not throughout.

    Buffett principal #2: Never take your money out

    The Aggregation of Gains

    The first rule of compounding is to start as early as you can. 

    But once your money is in, we want to optimize towards growth – this means paying as little as possible. 

    “The objective is to buy a non-dividend-paying stock that compounds for 30 years at 15% a year and pay only a single tax at the end of the period. After taxes this works out to a 13.4% annual rate of return.

    Charlie Munger, 1998

    If you invested $10,000 with Warren Buffett, at his annual rate of return of 23%, the following chart shows you the amount you’d have in 30 years, based off if you paid taxes each year versus allowed the money to keep compounding. 


    Assumes 23% compounding annual rate, blue line allows money to compound, red line removes taxes at 35% rate each year
    It’s worth noting that these are extremely high rates of return, and the average investor can expect to get closer to 8% ARR

    Breaks vs BRAKES

    Breaks are healthy – they allow us to recover and admire our results.

    Trouble comes when we allow a short break to turn into hitting the brakes (that is, stopping completely). 

    Here’s what what I mean:

    • Health – When we feel physically in shape, we decide to stop exercising – a few days becomes a few weeks
    • Learning – When we believe we’ve mastered enough, we decide to stop learning – binge reading becomes binge television
    • Relationships – When we sense our connections are strong, we decide to stop building them – personal texting becomes singular social media posting 

    Warren’s principal reminds us of the power of pausing too often or for too long.

    Once you stop showing up, you stop gaining. 

    Keep It Going

    You’ve decided to start (that’s great!), but don’t underestimate the importance of continued hustle. The laws of compounding don’t care if you’ve had a bad day, or it’s a busy week.

    When we decide to follow through, we continue to gain, period.

    So wherever you are, keep it up, and just like Warren you too will enjoy the aggregation, not of a single year, but an exponential 30 years. 

    Getting up when others won’t is what makes all the difference. 

    And who knows, that determination might be worth an extra $2.8M dollars, in whichever domain you’re compounding.

    Post inspired by:

    Buffettology: Unexplained Techniques That Have Made Warren Buffett by Mary Buffett

  • Relationships: A Simple Way to Stand Out

    Written by David Tillem on May 17th, 2018

10 minute read

    Relationships: A Simple Way to Stand Out

     

    We are in a period of time where people all over the world PERCEIVE that they are the most connected they have ever been.

     

    This is only partially true.  

     

    Facebook lets you see that your old roommate from college just had a baby, but did you write them a letter to congratulate them? Did you even send a text? Social media gives us the feeling that we are connected but, when it’s not backed by actions, it’s really just smoke and mirrors.  Dating apps are another great example, they can give us the same feeling.  Maybe you are going out on lots of dates, but are you really making connections?

     

     

    Social Media gives us an excuse to not reach out. You saw it on Instagram and double tapped it for the heart. So while we may be staying up to date on important moments, we’re not deepening our relationships.

     

     

    Relationships ebb and flow. I get it. But if you’re like me, you have friends, acquaintances, colleagues, sports team mates, relatives, etc. in your life that you have at one point been close with but eventually drifted apart.

     

    Why is that?

     

    You moved to different cities, you graduated, you changed teams, you got in a fight… whatever the reason, they moved on and you moved on. Were those people important to you? Valuable to your network? Did they make you laugh? Give you confidence? Push you to be better? How did you let these relationships slip away you ask yourself?

     

    They may be gone for now, but not gone for good. In modern terms, these relationships are just a few clicks away from being rekindled.

     

    Yes, the answer is that simple.

     

    What are we waiting for?

     

    Making a phone call isn’t hard. Clearly, it’s something else that is stopping us from reaching out to that old friend. This is where the perception pivot comes into play (to read more about perception pivots click here).

     

    Our mind immediately goes to the worst case scenario. Essentially, the same reason you don’t walk up to the pretty girl at the bar is a different version of the same reason you don’t just call a friend you haven’t spoken to in 5 years out of the blue. Rejection.

     

    But, the truth is, people are ALWAYS happy to hear from you. Always. What’s more flattering than getting a call from someone you haven’t heard from in a while? Who doesn’t love to be called and asked for career advice? Or catch up about old college memories?

     

    Imagine the scenario where your old co worker from your last firm calls you and you chat for 30 minutes and catch up. You go home, tell your significant other about it. Do you say, “ugh, you’ll never believe it, some guy that I worked with years ago called and talked my ear off, couldn’t get him off the phone. What a waste of time.”

     

    OR do you think it goes more like, “Honey, I had a guy that I used to work with reach out. Really great to catch up with him. Turns out he’s working at a competitor of one of my clients. So awesome to hear from him – might even get some business out of it!”

     

    Likely the conversation would be somewhere in between those two scenarios, but you get the point.

     

    Beyond the benefits of networking and generally being “in the know”, why should you put yourself intentionally in seemingly tough and awkward positions?

     

    Robert Waldinger,  a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School recently concluded one of the world’s longest studies of adult life. A key conclusion gleans why relationships are so critical.

     

    Those who kept warm relationships lived longer and happier, and the loners often died earlier. Loneliness kills and on long time horizons, it’s as powerful as smoking or alcoholism.” **

     

     

    We can’t all live in the same place, stay at the same job, have the same interests forever but, if you care about a relationship, don’t let too much time go between interactions. Friendships don’t take a long time to start fizzling out.

     

    I know I am over simplifying it. If it was that easy, everyone would do it, right? Take some baby steps.

     

    Make note of birthdays on your list of people you want to catch up with and, on that day, shoot them a text or give them a call. Talk about an easy in.

     

    Keep up with someone’s LinkedIn updates. A congratulatory call when an old friend gets a promotion is a normal and positive reason to call someone… but NO ONE EVER DOES IT. You will stand out amongst your peers, if you do these things.

    A Simple Framework

     

    1. Make a list

    • People you haven’t spoken to in a while that you that you care about

    2. Tackle the list one by one

    • Go down the list and just start calling people (texting counts, but use it as a tool to set something up)
    • ie: Text someone to organize a time to talk or meet for a coffee

    Download our simple spreadsheet here.

     

    So you might ask yourself, why don’t people do it? I think there are a couple of reasons.

     

    Number one, inertia/laziness/selfishness.

     

    Get over it. Just reach out. Once you do it the first time, and you realize how fulfilling it is, you will want to do it over and over again. Not only will it feel good, but it helps ensure the network you worked so hard at creating remain healthy and strong.

     

    You can feed your selfish side by remembering that staying in touch with smart and successful people will likely help you down the road. Not only that, people will start to look to you as the person that knows what everyone is up to.

     

    It starts out hard with that first awkward conversation but quickly becomes easier and more natural.

     

    It’s an upward spiral effect, and it’s all driven by you taking action.

     

     

    Why else do people not do it?

     

    Fear.

     

    What would I say? We haven’t spoke in so long… again, this is a bogus excuse.  You will likely be the only person calling them out of the blue to catch up and they will be excited that you called.

     

    The usual, “How’s work?”, “How are things?”, “Girlfriend?”, “Boyfriend?”, “Where are you living?” Those types of questions are OK. Remember, you haven’t spoken in a while. Even if the conversation never gets past those surface level topics, it was still worth having. If this is someone you care to maintain a relationship with, it IS worth doing. The next call will be easier.

     

    When I ask people why they don’t keep in touch with their high school friends, their college friends, their old co workers, the answer is almost always, “I don’t know… but I really should“.  

     

    Let’s change that.

     

    I challenge you to go out and make one phone call a week to a friend, old colleague, aunt or uncle that you haven’t kept up with and see how he or she is doing. Make a physical list of people, and keep it wherever you may be most inclined to make these calls.

     

    For me, when I lived in NYC, I wouldn’t take the bus or train to and from work. I walked the thirty minutes, and every day on my way home, I called SOMEBODY.  My mom, old college friends, friends from my hometown etc. Sure, I find value in listening to podcasts and music when walking or driving around, but I have never gotten more out of listening to music than I have strengthening a relationship.

     

    This is the 21st century. We no longer need to write a letter and wait weeks for a response. There is really no good excuse for good relationships to shrivel up and disappear.

     

    Connections matter. A lot. Let’s treat them with the amount of importance they deserve. Make the call.

     

    *Special thanks to David Tillem for this guest post!

  • Ninety-Percent of life is about showing up… on time

     

    Written on March 1st, 2018

8 minute read

    Ninety-Percent of life is about showing up… on time

     

    Compounding interest is perhaps one of the most important and powerful discoveries of our time.

    “Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it … he who doesn’t … pays it.”  

    – Albert Einstein

     

    Einstein wasn’t just referencing money when he said those wise words; in nearly every domain of life, compounding can either make or break you. If for example, you only get 1% better everyday for a year, versus 1% worse, you’ll be over 1000% better by end of year.

     

     

    When you break it down, success is actually played at the margins; it’s about getting slightly better each day over a long period time, instead of dramatically better in one fell swoop. [James Clear on Marginal Gains]

    The classic example is saving for retirement. When you start early and stay consistent, accumulating a large nest egg becomes much easier. With an Employer Match, a 20 year old could invest as little as $5 each day to retire a millionaire by 67 (The Impact of a Starbucks Latte).

    If you imagine compounding as a Dr. Seuss-like machine, there are two ingredients going in to create varying levels of “Success” that come out the other side: TIME (when you start) and INVESTMENT (deliberate practice).

     

    Here’s the best part about it, you control both inputs. Given the first example (1% better), you can see that, if time is on your side, you actually don’t need to invest nearly as much. However, the longer you wait, the more you’ll need to catch up. If you contribute $1,000 each year into an investment account, which compounds at 7% each year, below is the final balance you’d have by age 67, based off what age you START:

    If you start at age 5, you’ll be a millionaire. Say you wait until half way through this chart (31 years old) to begin, you’d end up with a mere 17% of the total opportunity.

    Perhaps the more powerful input you control is how early you start, not how much you invest.

    Intellectual Compounding told by greats

     

    “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.”

    -Benjamin Franklin

     

    Most people know about financial compounding, but few recognize intellectual compounding. That is, the same exponential curve can apply to your growth as a thinker, an entrepreneur, or any related skill. If we were to plot how much you push yourself to learn, we see the same 1% better trend lines. By learning everyday, you become better at learning new things and adapting to your environment; it’s not a linear relationship, but instead an exponential lift.

    “Read 500 pages every day. That’s how knowledge works. It builds up like compound interest.”

    -Warren Buffett

     

    The prolific speaker, Tony Robbins, has also acknowledged this phenomenon. When Tony started his career, he wasn’t nearly the presenter he is today. In fact, Tony says one of his co-workers was much better than him, which made Tony wonder why. What was difference between them? Did his co-worker have a gift that Tony was incapable of? Not even close. Tony realized he was only giving 1 presentation a week, whereas his co-worker was giving about 3 a week. So to be better, Tony quit his job and started giving 3 presentations a day. In about 2 months time, Tony gave the equivalent number of presentations that the other guy would give for the rest of the year.

    Tony massively elevated his deliberate practice, but he also started early. While his fame emerged after his first book release at age 28, his first job as a motivational speaker was at age 17 – a full 11 years earlier.*

    “The most important thing to do is start investing now so you can unlock the power of compounding.”

    -Tony Robbins

     

    We typically over-praise the individual versus their positive habits, environment, or commitment to growth. Whether you’re starting a business, a new job, or working towards an ambitious goal, compounding is the secret sauce that gets less attention. When we think of becoming great in any domain, we usually think about working harder and longer than the proverbial other guy. Instead, we should be thinking about starting one day earlier than ‘the other guy’.

    Timing needs a higher priority

    Working hard is the easier part; it’s not difficult to wake up an extra hour earlier or stay at the office after hours if it’s something that you find deep purpose and potential in. Figuring out when to start though, that’s hard.

    “Bookstores have an entire ‘how to’ section but not a ‘when to’ section… [Yet] timing… can be everything.”     

    -Eric Barker (This is the Time)

     

    Perhaps we can simplify this though; start now. There are probably millions of great ideas waiting to be unlocked, but we’re too afraid or too slow to start. When you understand compounding, you give timing the attention that it deserves. Successful people understand this and it’s why, when they get asked about their biggest regret, many of them answer that they wish they had started sooner.

    One of my favorite high school teachers used to say, “Ninety-Percent of life is showing up on time.” He would go on long tangents about the value of time, whenever someone arrived late to class. Ironically, we’d end up spending anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes of class time listening to him dissect the topic. To him, it was imperative to show up, but the more important point was to be on time.

    Reflecting more than a decade later, I believe he understood something much deeper about timing. If you want to be the next Mozart, you can’t wait 30 years to begin learning piano, you need to show up when the opportunity first strikes. When you’re late to start, you miss much more than just the opening credits of a movie; you miss the character development, the plot, in fact, you never reach the conclusion. Using compounding interest, a late entry could reduce your returns by 100x; that’s the chance to learn, grow, or become your best self.

    To take advantage of our total potential, we need to be on time.

     

  • Forward vs. backward looking goals

     

    Written on February 22nd, 2018

8 minute read

    Forward vs. Backward Looking Goals

     

    We tend to confuse the two and that’s a big mistake.

    If you’re like myself, when you set your most ambitious personal goals, they tend to sound something like this:

    • Appear on the Forbes, ‘[insert age] Under [insert age] List’
    • Get promoted at work
    • Increase my net worth to $XX

    What do they all have in common? These are all backward looking indicators. In other words, they are signals that you’re doing well, but in the past. While achieving these accolades does correlate with success, they aren’t predictive of future success. Rather, they are proof that success has already happened, in the past.

    Your goals should really sound more like this:

    • Learn a new (seemingly unrelated) discipline
    • Embrace a new positive habit backed by science
    • Reach out to non-local friends more regularly

    The difference? These are all forward looking indicators; they don’t show off as accomplishments in the typical way we view “success.” Yet, if you do any of these things, it’s easier to predict your performance in the future. Following through on these goals won’t get you a celebrated medal, but they are the positive tactics that actually get you there.

    Learning from successful people 

     

    What do Warren Buffett, Mark Cuban, and Bill Gates have in common? They are vivacious learners. They dedicate many hours each day to reading about new subjects, because it challenges their mindset and allows them to connect independent ideas. That’s a forward indicator – agile mental models produce novel ideas but will never receive an accolade for habit itself.

    What do they also have in common? They are all Billionaires. Their net worth continues to climb and is a testament to their consistent ability to keep growing as individuals, entrepreneurs, and thought-leaders. That’s a backwards indicator – it reflects back on their total economic output to date, in the past.

    That’s the formula.

    The most powerful forward indicator is happiness

     

    Compared to their neutral or stressed counterparts:

    • Doctors are 19% more accurate at diagnosing their patients
    • Sales people are 37% better at closing
    • Operationally, we can be up to 31% more productive

    That’s just the beginning; there are studies that show we are more creative, better at problem solving, and more resilient and innovative when we are happy versus neutral or stressed. *

    When we increase wellbeing in the present, all of our our future outputs rise. We are a product of our environments. So, elevating these inputs also helps those around you; your family, friends, and co-workers. Start with happiness and finish with more success.

    We should be challenging our employees and organizations to set forward looking predictors

     

    • How are you going to push yourself to self-learn this year?
    • What’s the one positive habit you will commit to practicing this quarter?
    • When will you find time to connect with your network this week?

    Ignore the accolades, because they come later.

    Remember, when our team commits and crushes the small stuff, we need to celebrate too. Our brains are wired for short-term feedback loops, which makes forward predictors hard to set and follow through on. It’s easy to choose a well-known award to gauge success, but it’s the abstract and consistent daily habits that really produce it.

    By adjusting our measuring stick of success, we can elevate everyone around us. Eventually producing more backward predictors that we know and love.

  • The Impact of a Starbucks Latte

    Written on February 15th, 2018

10 minute read

    The Impact of a Starbucks Latte

    Every morning around the country coffee-fanatics line up in droves, waiting for that favorite cup of Joe. Not only can the wait be long, but it can be more than $5 a cup! Which should beg the question… how much does your morning cup really cost?

    On one side, we have people who get the occasional coffee every month. On the other side, we have the group that can’t go a day without their orange mocha frappuccino (you know who you are)… let’s look at the daily coffee camp.

    To start, if you’re buying a $5 cup each day of the week, you are spending $1,825 each year. If that doesn’t sound expensive enough, consider the income you need to earn to sustain this morning ritual. Using a 15% marginal tax rate, you must earn $2,098 each year. To someone who makes $50,000 a year ($24 / hour) that’s 87 hours or two weeks of working each year!

    Kicking the habit or making it yourself would put $1,825/year in your pocket – sounds simple, minus the potential coffee withdrawals. But what if we took this to the next level?

    Investing the savings into retirement accounts

     

    If you dumped that $1,825 into retirement on January 1st of each year, here’s what your estimated balance would look like over time:

    Assumptions: 7% annual rate of return, lump sum invested on Jan 1 of each year, return calculated without fees

    That’s the power of compounding.

     

    But since we’re talking about retirement, it’s only fair we discuss the employer match. Here, an employer may match the dollars you contribute towards your 401k. There are limitations to the amount they might match (check with your HR department), but let’s assume they’ll match the $1,825 dollar-for-dollar.  

    Now your investment becomes $3,650 each January 1st, and the results are staggering.

    Assumptions: 7% annual rate of return, lump sum invested on Jan 1 of each year, return calculated without fees. Employer matches $1,825, investment becomes $3,650 each year

    If a 22 year old beginning their career made this one change in their daily routine, they would have roughly $744K by age 62, and they’d break $1M by their 67th birthday.

    Saving the equivalent of a daily Starbucks latte could allow working Americans to retire on schedule. 

     

    Even if you don’t have or aren’t taking advantage of an employer-sponsored 401K or match, looking to cut a small habit is worth considering. Redirecting even a handful of dollars a day can go a long way.  It’s worth noting, the retirement problem in America is very complex. There are, of course, other factors contributing to the broader issue; but this is for the individual to consider.

    When small, everyday habits compound, they create extraordinary gains. 

     

    Habits are at the center of everything we do. Everyone has experienced this situation; you’d like to workout more often, but things come up and you never end up at the gym. Perhaps you find there isn’t enough time to get to the things you care about and love. Why? You may feel as though your decisions and routines are repetitive; like you’re driving your car on autopilot. We fail to recognize that we control the habits that we form and, thus, the direction of the car.

     

    “We first make our habits, then our habits make us” -John Dryden

     

    While not everything is within your control, existing habits can stop you from reaching your goals. Be an informed driver and decide the route you want to drive based on the conditions; not on the routine.

     

    “It’s the daily practice of all the monotonous, little, boring things like brushing your teeth that matter the most. There’s no single event. There’s no one thing I can tell you you have to do. It’s an accumulation of lots and lots of little things, which any one by themselves [are] useless, yet together add up.”  -Simon Sinek

     

    When it comes to money, turning a small expense into a small savings could make you a millionaire. The same exponential return is seen across other areas of your life.

    Want to become more insightful?

    • Read about a new subject for 15 minutes each day

    Want to raise your EQ?

    • Meditate for 5 minutes each day

    Want to become a more empathetic leader?

    • Put down your smartphone before stepping into meetings; give your reports 20 minutes of undivided attention each day

     

    Similar to retirement investing, small habit changes will be subtle at first, but  they add up and compound over time. It’s with patience and commitment to betterment, that we can achieve slow, yet incredible gains.

    What’s your Starbucks latte?

    Whichever area it falls into, it may just make you a millionaire.