The lesson learned at Mount Whitney

         As some of my friends know, I was able to hike Mount Whitney a few weeks ago. Mount Whitney is the highest mountain in the lower 48 states culminating at 14,496 feet. Although the trail sounds intimidating, in reality it's less than 1/2 the size of Mount Everest. Nevertheless, based on the length of the hike (22 miles roundtrip) and duration (18 hours at a slow pace) it beat me like a drum. I'm sure I looked something like this guy at the top:

        Since I like a good challenge, I planned the trip by driving from the bay area 7 hours to the trail head arriving in the 2 AM hour. We prepared and started the hike at around 3 AM. Since I drove the whole way, I was now beginning the hike without sleep! Needless to say, I was a little concerned that I would need a long nap somewhere along the trail.
         The trail head was well over 8,000 feet elevation and the trail ascended more than 6,100 feet. It was definitely a climb! My heart rate raced over 150 beats per minute for much of the hike. During the first few hours after the sun rose, I got to a point that my body really was signaling for me to turn around. I was ready to get some sleep and just rest in general. The hike is difficult to replicate at sea level, so I was really far out of my comfort zone.
         As I sat on a rock by myself, I considered the effort I had exerted thus far, the goal of the hike to make it to the peak, and the respect I had for my fellow hikers. We had made a pact before the hike that we would not hike alone no matter what, so my turning around meant that one of the hikers would not make it to the top.

          Although I just read this yesterday, these words of wisdom from Sterling Sill would have been very relevant in that moment. "You will reach your objectives only when you keep them constantly in mind, and want, and have faith in yourself. This is the miracle of personality. The greatest fault in human beings is that we underestimate ourselves. It’s hard for us to have faith in ourselves... Greatness is not due primarily to heredity, environment, or aptitude. Greatness has come to some men merely because they had great want to succeed."
         I didn't have those inspirational words in mind at the time and my rational thinking skills were going downhill fast due to my exhaustion. Nonetheless, I decided to keep going just at a little slower pace. I would take one step at a time and if I felt altitude sickness on top of my exhaustion I would turn around with no regrets. Fortunately, I was able to persevere and make it to the top with the encouragement of a well respected fellow hiker.
         With Mount Whitney now in the rear view mirror and with no desire to hike it again, I agree with Sterling Sill wholeheartedly that we do underestimate ourselves and that we can be very "average" in most subjective ways and still find a lot of success merely by exerting effort and trying things with an objective in mind. I am often surprised what I can do if I push myself beyond my comfort zone. Here's another favorite quote from Heber J. Grant:

I believe unless we have ambition to accomplish things and to do things that we amount to but very little in the battle of life. I know of nothing at the present time that seems to me sadder than to find the number of our people who are losing the spirit of integrity and devotion and ambition to do things. It seems to me all wrong. Every individual should have a desire to grow and increase in capacity and in ability to do things. Certainly by mere exertion of the will, by mere desire, we accomplish nothing. We must put with that desire the labor to accomplish the things we desire. I am sure that a young man who is perfectly satisfied with what he is doing, although he may be doing very little, and has no ambition to do more, will stand still. But I am convinced that every individual can improve from day to day, from year to year, and have greater capacity to do things as the years come and the years go. I believe in that with all my heart.

         I've always liked this quote, because it places an emphasis on things that each of us can control aka effort and labor. We don't need to be the most talented or the brightest. We just need to have the desire to make the effort and then follow through. Even though hiking Mount Whitney is probably pretty easy for many people, to me it was a big effort where I pushed myself out of my comfort zone making it a psychological "win" for me.

17 Tips for Maximizing your Thirties

         This blog post is dedicated to the thirty somethings. At least for me, my thirties are basically my twenties with means, life experience, and wisdom. You will need to adjust your lifestyle to some extent to adapt to a slowing metabolism and a body that breaks down more often. Personal finance, health, family, and career are most people’s priorities in this decade. None of my list is going to happen to you right on your 30^th birthday. It’s just very likely that in the next ten years, you’ll have to consider a lot of these issues.

1) Attack your bucket list items that require youth – Read through your bucket list and determine which items are much easier to do when you are young such as hiking Mount Kilimanjaro or doing the Everest Base Camp Trail. Make these the priority for this decade. Assuming that you have sufficient means, you’ll be happy that you saved the physically easier ones for later in life and the more challenging ones for your thirties.

 

2) Have kids if you are married and want them – The consensus among parents is that raising kids require a lot of energy particularly when they are very young. You may want to get started when you have the greatest chances of healthy child births and when you can keep up with them. There is nothing worse than needing to take timeouts more often than your kids.  

3) Keep trying to date if you are single – Plenty of people will give you the opposite advice to quit trying as you get older, since it just happens naturally once you quit trying. While I agree that trying too hard is off putting, it’s unlikely that sitting at home giving no effort will lead to dating opportunities. You must put yourself in a position to find dating opportunities and then have an easy come-easy go attitude as the opportunities either fail or move forward. Just because you feel like your opportunities are slipping, be patient instead of marrying for the sake of marrying.  

4) Counteract a slowing metabolism with more exercise and a better diet – There is a gradual physiological decline in your thirties wherein you’ll have a greater susceptibility to diabetes and heart disease. You won’t see any overnight changes, but your body’s metabolism will slow down. This means that the days of eating anything you want are over. You can have the same caloric intake of your twenties, but it won’t burn off nearly as quickly as you get older. You will need to counteract your metabolism with physical exercise and eating healthier, unless you don’t mind gaining weight. If you are already at your ideal weight, you should have no problem maintaining it by adapting to the changes of your body. This can’t be stressed enough that exercise is HUGE in your thirties!

5) Pick a fight with Father Time – As noted in the previous tip, you’ll face a gradual physiological decline in this decade. This could mean that you get grey hair, lose hair and/or grow hair in places that you never have before. It will take longer to recover from workouts. You will be more injury prone. You can accept these changes or pick a fight with Father Time! There are a lot of things you can do to look and feel younger. Use sunscreen, dye your hair, avoid injuries by avoiding risks, etc. If you let Father Time run amok over your body, you’ll actually look older than your age.  

 

6) Ease up on fast food and eat healthier – In my mid-twenties at my first career job, I would use my lunch hour to find a fast food restaurant with the best dollar menu, so that I only needed to spend ~$2 to finance my lunch. Since my budget was tight and my metabolism fast, it worked out OK. Now that I’m in my thirties and I’m at mid-level career job, I can afford to spend more than $2 on lunch. This is a good thing, since I want to eat healthier. I’ve even shopped around for an enjoyable salad. For the record, my favorite salad is the California Pizza Kitchen chopped BBQ chicken salad. Times have changed regarding our food choices both at restaurants and at the grocery store. We used to have limited variety and mostly unhealthy eating options. Now there are a lot of healthy eating options, although most of those foods are at a price premium. It’s worth it to try and eat healthy.

7) Dig into the details of your retirement plan – Getting to a comfortable amount to retire off of doesn’t happen by chance. You need to plan decades in advance how much you will need, your investment vehicle, what you will invest in, and how long it will take you based on your career trajectory. Since there are always detours along the way during periods of unemployment, financial hardship, and unpredictable inflation periods the process will need to be reevaluated time and time again. There is a great advantage to knowing the intimate details of your plan and getting a financial advisor to help you maximize the return on your investments. If you wait until your 40s to get started on your retirement plan, it may mean working years longer than you anticipated. Contributing to certain retirement accounts allow you to postpone paying taxes on that proportion of income, which helps you now and in the future.

8) Don’t leverage yourself to keep up with the Joneses – The temptation when you are doing well at your job is to flaunt your success by buying stuff with credit i.e. buying a mega house, boats, fancy cars, etc. to impress your peers. This mentality is risky since you can lose your job at any moment and lose the ability to pay your debts. Even if you continue to work consistently, you are slowing your momentum to retire quicker by spending money that could have otherwise been invested and compound interest accrued.

 

9) Make it a goal to be out of consumer debt by age 40 – This doesn’t mean that you can’t have student loans, a house payment, or a car payment at age 40. It’s just that you should have your consumer debt paid off, as well as your long-term debt payments consolidated at a manageable low interest level. The key is that you don’t want excessive debt hanging over your head when you should be investing your money for retirement. Debt payments could slow down your retirement goals in a dramatic way. Keep the rule of 72 in mind that your money doubles every 10 years if you average a 7.2% rate of return. This is particularly valuable to have money invested in your early career years to allow for a possibility of doubling 3 or 4 times before you need it.  

10) Finish qualifying for your career (if necessary) – If there are credentials or degrees you need to progress in your career, finish it in your 30s. Although it’s still possible to go back to school in your 40s and 50s, it’s questionable whether the investment is worth it that late in life. Employers are less likely to hire at an entry level and invest in you if you are already supposed to be in your mid or late career. Taking on the debt and being out of the work force could make sense in this decade, but definitely try and finish getting qualified by the time you’re 35. That gives you up to 30 years of time in the workforce before you reach retirement age.    

11) Work hard at your career and become irreplaceable – Starting in your career job, you’ll want to prove your worth by working hard and long hours if necessary, which will give you job security and a strong reputation for having a strong work ethic. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t have a good work-life balance, but a good attitude to do the job the right way will help you climb the ladder to success.

12) Don’t be afraid to shift career directions – It’s not at all uncommon to switch career paths in today’s market even in midcareer. Many people have done it successfully. If you are in an industry that is dying or you simply can’t bear the thought of staying put for 30 years, this is a decade where it’s not always foolish to take a few risks and try a new path. You may have to take a pay cut and lose a lot of your direct work experience, but you may find the psychological advantage of starting anew will extend your career.

 

 

13) Keep your mind active – Your formal education may be complete by now, but that doesn’t mean that you should stop getting an informal education. Challenge yourself mentally by taking on projects that require mental effort. Keep reading books, writing, and travel the world if your priorities permit. Your mind dulls without exercise, so keep it actively engaged.

14) Don’t give up on your dreams: just tweak when necessary – So you didn’t win American Idol like you planned to. The windows of opportunity may close on things you aspired to in your teens and twenties, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t build on what you’ve worked hard for even if leads down a different path than you envisioned. Also, don’t beat yourself up for making mistakes along the way. Mistakes are often learning moments that often provide you wisdom that will benefit you later in life. Aisha Tyson summed it up this way:

Your journey has molded you for your greater good, and it was exactly what it needed to be. Don’t think that you’ve lost time. It took each and every situation you have encountered to bring you to the now, and now is right on time.

15) Stand for something – Now that you are an adult, it’s time to stand up for the principles that you believe in whatever they may be. If you allow the winds of life and societal trends to shape your philosophy, you won’t recognize who you will become in the future. “If you stand for something you will have people for you and people against you. But if you stand for nothing you will have nobody for you and nobody against you.”

 

 

16) Everybody is on an individual journey that can’t be adequately judged by others – Just because you are going at a slower pace than your peers, it doesn’t make you a failure. You can go at whatever pace makes you and your family happy. No matter what anyone else thinks of your path, it is still yours to choose.

 

17) Life is a marathon so pace yourself – With the advances in medicine, it's very likely that many people will live past 80. This means that your thirties are really in the first half of life and the first third of your adult years. There are certain opportunities that are more easily accomplished in these years than in the golden years, so don't procrastinate. At the same time, life could be long so you don't need to do everything in your 30s. Pace yourself.

17 Tips for Maximizing your Twenties

          This blog post is dedicated to the twenty somethings. It's not easy to transition into adulthood with limited life experience and life skills. These are the things I wish I had known and the advice I’d give to the younger generation leaving home for the first time.

1) Listen to your parents...sometimes. I know that this is a major philosophical shift from your teenage years, but as you matriculate into adulthood you might remember that there is a source of information available to you that has decades of experience being an adult and who are overly anxious to help you resolve life dilemmas according to the philosophy you were raised with. The beauty about being an adult away from home is that you get to veto whatever advice doesn't resonate with you without repercussion. Nonetheless, you might find that your parents actually have wisdom and experience potentially useful to you if you heed their advice sometimes.

2) Date even if you aren't ready for marriage. It may seem counter intuitive to date for fun, but there are a lot of benefits to gaining experience as a dater. Dating allows you to develop "dating skills" that will eventually be useful to you when you want to find someone to marry. For most people, there will never be a time when the demand to be with you is greater than when you are young. It's true that you may have very little to offer a marriage particularly in your early 20s, but don't underestimate the appeal of youth and companionship in the dating market.
 

3) Recognize that turning 30 is not the end of an era. A lot of twenty somethings see age 30 as some barrier when life goals must be accomplished by. Keep in mind that turning 30 is merely psychological. There is no sudden physiological decline or any consequences for being a work in progress. In reality, you are in the prime of your life with a myriad of opportunities that you didn't have in your 20s because you probably have more means and life experience. There is life after 30.

 

4)Take care of your body. During your twenties, you'll want to shape how you want your body to look and feel the rest of your life. It's much easier to maintain your body in its ideal form than to try and get in shape after your metabolism comes to a screeching halt. Did I mention that your long-term health depends on how well you treat your body and that your dating life depends on being in shape? It only gets harder to get in shape when you get older, so get in shape now and maintain it!

5) Learn to cook. You are probably going to eat at least 3 times a day for the rest of your life. Cooking allows you to eat healthy and to save tons of money. If you want to legitimately take care of your body, nutrition is a very important element. My first year away from home I ate only what I could afford and cook, which happened to be a lot of ramen noodles. The consequence was that I was malnourished and lethargic resulting in a mild case of anemia. I burned a lot of meals, but eventually my trial and error approach paid off into healthy cooked meals because I already went through a mistake prone era of burnt foods like below. 

 

 

6) Learn the value of money and the power of compound interest. All of our lives are affected by money. You can either learn money lessons the hard way or you can get an education in personal finance. Have you ever tried paying off credit cards at over 20% interest while making $8/hour? I have. It’s not particularly cost effective and you become a slave to your debt just to keep up. Learning about the power of compound interest will help you decide to avoid excessive debt and get your investments rolling early.

  

 

7) Be prudent about where you choose to attend college. There is a ridiculous disparity in tuition rates across the country. The thing is many of the degrees with expensive tuitions lead to basically the same value of degree among employers as cheaper tuition schools.  Want an example? The $6K that University of Florida students pay per year gets you a similar education as the $40K/year in tuition at the University of Denver. This isn’t a knock on the University of Denver. It is a very good school.. The issue is that after 4 years, a student at each school will have dropped either $160K in tuition or merely $24K with no distinct advantage to having either degree. The bottom line is that there are bargain basement tuition rates at top notch schools. Unless you've got funds to burn or a scholarship, go after a bargain undergraduate education at a high quality university.
 

8) Take a semester or year off in college to travel the world. This is actually my biggest regret in college that I didn't go explore the world. Granted I did take 2 years off to serve a church mission to Germany and then a post-mission trip to a few other countries. Nonetheless, I wish that I had backpacked Europe or southeast Asia. I'll let you in on a secret that travelling doesn't have to be expensive for those that plan well. I flew to Rome at $500 roundtrip and then negotiated cheap hotel rates because it was the off-peak season. Stay in hostels, camp, or B&Bs in the suburbs. You'd be shocked at how little money you actually need if you plan well. There are countries notorious (i.e. Thailand, Vietnam, etc.) for being cheap to travel through, so there are vacations to be had for less money than you think. Even airfare can be had by taking advantage of signup bonuses on airline credit cards or study a semester abroad to allow tuition to cover your travel. A whole world is open to be explored if you get creative with ways to finance your trips.

 

 

9) Don’t worry about finding yourself. A lot of twenty somethings experiment in the name of finding themselves. I encourage you to try new things, but not if the experiment leads to bad habits. This quote from George Bernard Shaw sums up a better approach that allows you to determine the person you become

Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself. Don’t worry about searching for who you are; focus your energies on creating the kind of person you want to be! You will discover that as you pursue that journey you will not only find yourself, but chances are you will be pleasantly surprised and proud of the person you find along the way.

10) Value your time. Over the course of a lifetime, there isn't any time period more valuable than when you are young and energetic, have complete flexibility with your time, and are shaping the life habits and philsophies that will ultimately determine how your life will evolve. If you waste all your time, you may not like the quality of your future opportunities. However, if you spend time being constructive and investing in your future, it may lead to bigger and better opportunities.

11) Develop great skills. As Meg Jay mentioned in her TED talk about not wasting your twenties, you should be investing your "identity capital" in skills that actually help you in the future. The more time you spend spinning your wheels in jobs that don't challenge you to grow, the less progress you'll make in your career. My last job in my 20s taught me how to be a professional (communication, attire, manners, etc.). Those skills helped me significantly when I landed a job that I leveraged into my current job. Plus, girls dig great skills:

12) Don't wait for the stars to align to move forward with life. I realize that the economy sucks and that you may have overburdened yourself with debt while not knowing what to do with your life, but that doesn't mean you should postpone marriage, children, or moving to Europe until the stars align. Have a little faith that things will be OK in the long run if you are diligent. Here's a quote from Timothy Ferriss:

For all of the most important things, the timing always sucks. Waiting for a good time to quit your job? The stars will never align and the traffic lights of life will never all be green at the same time. The universe doesn't conspire against you, but it doesn't go out of its way to line up the pins either. Conditions are never perfect. "Someday" is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you...

13) Believe in yourself because nobody else will. I blogged about this topic before here. As David Haight used to say "You must believe in yourself. Don’t give in when the going is rough, for you are laying the foundation of a great work, and that great work is your life.” We must believe that we have some purpose and vision in our future. We can be positioning ourselves now to accomplish big things. It doesn't matter if others don't understand what we are doing.

14) Face adversity head on. The interesting thing about being in your 20s is that we all have to pay our dues to get good at anything or to find opportunities where you are competing for a spot. You will get frustrated at times with feeling undervalued compared to what you know you are capable of, but you need to press on. Your Everybody faces adversity on some level. You may have family or health issues. We can't let adversity become an excuse for not trying and moving forward.

15) Get out of your comfort zone and take risks. The best time to take risks is in your 20s. If you lose everything you own, you have 30+ years in your career to rebuild. You can move to Europe or start a business. Most importantly, leave your parents house and learn to live on your own. If you don't challenge yourself, you will become stagnant.

 

16) Develop good habits. The general rule of thumb is that a person has their life habits mostly formed by age 25. While it's not impossible to add good habits after you turn 25, it's much easier to develop good habits in your youth. It's also equally easy to develop bad habits in your 20s and never be able to kick them in your lifetime. Avoid trying things that could lead to bad habits that will hold you back from living the life you want.

17) Don't be an idiot. This is my final very important tip. I will refer you here if you don't remember the rule that Dwight Schrute set forth. The bottom line is don't ruin your life and future based on fleeting moment of stupidity. You can have fun without risking your future.

        Remember that we are all on individual journeys. At the end of the day, it's your life and your stewardship. Enjoy your twenties and invest your time well to get dividends for the rest of your life!