Why vacations are worth it

       One of my former law school classmates works as in-house counsel for a company in Austria. Before talking to her about her work-life balance I already knew that Americans get less vacation days than their European counterparts on average. However,  I didn't realize the actual disparity until she revealed that she gets 6 weeks off every year and her company encourages her to take 100% of it. Her situation is not unusual for Austria, since the minimum mandatory number of vacations days by law is 5 weeks. After double checking, it appears that all the European Union countries have a range of 4-5 weeks of mandatory vacation. South Africa even requires that the vacation be 21 consecutive days. Wouldn't that be nice? My former classmate said that her employer was super accommodating about shifting her workload during her 5 week trip she was planning. It's the law after all.

        In contrast to countries that have legislated vacation, the U.S.  has zero mandatory vacation days. One of my sisters doesn't get paid for vacations or holidays even though she works full-time, which is the case with about a quarter of American workers. We are truly the no vacation nation as shown on the chart below:

        Americans get fewer vacation days than nearly all developed countries and even then we don't use them all on average! There may be some angst about job security, but you have to take your vacation days no matter how few they are!  After leaving my last job where I started at 2 weeks paid vacation, I had to negotiate to get a 3rd week at my new job. I use every last day every year, since I'd lose them if I didn't.

        I should provide the caveat that I just returned from vacation about 2 weeks ago. My vacation allowed me to gather my thoughts on topics I rarely have time to consider without the distraction of work, allowed me to break the monotony of my routine, and to travel to places I haven't been. My first week back to the office was hectic especially with some additional domestic travel mixed in, but my mind was refreshed and my burnout gone. I also appreciate the United States even more every time I leave the country.

       What do the studies say? You'll be at less risk of heart attacks, stress levels will be lower, you'll be less likely to be depressed, and you'll be happier. Even if you don't travel, taking time off of work can provide these benefits. A 2006 study by Ernst & Young found that each 10 hours of vacation taken leads to 8 percent of increased productivity. In 2007 Business Week reported that the lack of vacation time leads to increased errors at work and workplace resentment.

       The point of all this is that if you have vacation time, use it! At a minimum, you'll get some of this:

        

        

The paradox of credit cards

        I don't recall all the prohibitions of being a little kid placed on me by the adult world, but I'm quite sure that I heard from time to time that I shouldn't play with matches, run with scissors, or play with knives. Those are all now common sense principles, but to an inexperienced kid it wasn't quite clear the reasoning behind the prohibitions. As I became a young adult and moved far away from my family, the every day decisions I faced were less likely to inflict physical harm to me. Nonetheless, there were still some poor life management skills that could have a major negative impact on my future. One of those undeveloped skills was learning how to handle credit cards.
       There was something about being perpetually broke that made the first mailing I received from a credit card company stating that I was "pre-approved" very enticing. I'll be the first to admit I knew nothing about credit history, credit scores, or how compound interest was calculated when I received my first credit card. The only thing I knew was they were going to give me access to $500 that I could spend now even with no realistic plan on how to pay it back later. You give a broke college student access to immediate cash at a 25% APR, it's the equivalent of giving a little kid matches, sharp objects, or anything that the consequences are easily foreseeable.

       Since I was completely ignorant on how credit worked, I made the minimum payments when it was convenient. I'd take a couple months off when I was too broke to make the payment in a particular month with the plan to make 3 minimum payments all at once later. I didn't really notice that I was getting a $25 late penalty tacked on each month mainly because I moved away and forgot to tell the credit card company my new address. Eventually, the company called my number and explained to me that I needed to make a payment every month. That was news to me, but I promised them I would. Since then, I don't think I've ever missed a payment when I had a balance.
        Living within my means and avoiding debt should have been intuitive, considering my parents avoided credit card debt growing up. As legend has it, one year we took a road trip from Minnesota to Florida with the intention of going to Disney World.  If you can imagine 6 kids piled into a full-size van and arriving at the parking lot of the park only to find out that the entrance fees were way higher than expected. My parents did a quick back of the napkin calculation and realized that if we went into the park that we'd likely run out of money prior to making it back home to Minnesota. Therefore, we left the parking lot and found an alternate and much cheaper water park to visit. The Disney World entrance was not the happiest celebration on Earth at least for our family that day a long time ago.

The Paradox

         It's nearly impossible to not have at least one credit card as an adult in today's world. There are some companies that don't accept anything but credit cards as a form of payment. Try paying for a rental car with cash sometime to test my theory. Almost everybody I know has at least one credit card to their name.

         The paradox is that credit card companies' business models are ethically objectionable. They prey on the weak and the struggling. Their best case scenario is that you carry high balances at staggeringly high interest rates where you make the minimum payment month after month. If you had favorable terms in the beginning to entice you to sign up, they are waiting for signs of struggle to kick you while you are down. They do this by consistently monitoring your credit score to decrease your favorable terms at a moment's notice. I have first hand experience with this while clawing my way through several years of graduate school.

 

         Here's a scenario that could easily play out for someone with 2 credit cards with a $2K limit each. I made up this scenario, but it is based on a real life situation I had to deal with: 

          You start doing well by using each card and paying them off each month without paying interest. Then one month, you have unexpected car repairs and run up a $1,500 bill on one of the cards that will take you 5-6 months to pay off. The other credit card company (hereinafter credit card company #2) notices that your debt utilization ratio is up and your credit score has declined.
          Credit card company #2 sends you a notice that you'll be charged an annual fee of $99 and will increase your interest rate from 12.99% to 24.99% and lower your credit limit to $1K. Keep in mind that you haven't touched this credit card, but they are just sitting back and monitoring your credit to see that you are possibly in over your head. Of course, you get upset at the changes and close the account prior to the changes taking effect. (that is if you happen to notice the term changes that come to you in the mail and read through them). All of a sudden, your credit utilization goes from 37% to 75% and your credit score drops even further. You scramble to apply for another credit card, but find that you get declined based on a too high of utilization score. Your current card company smelling blood sends similar change of terms notices to make you pay an annual fee and an increased interest rate. The end result is that you pay back your $1,500 at very unfavorable terms unless you want to be without a credit card.

         The moral of the story is that dealing with credit card companies is like a chess game. They are bound by the terms of the agreement, which is unfortunately heavily skewed in their favor. Even when you think you might be taking advantage of a great offer, there are always loopholes for them to kick you while you are down. Even though they will never be able to take your first born child, they will find a way to make you pay in their best case scenario (minimum payments, high balance, high interest) if you are struggling.

        What could you have done differently in the above scenario? My advice is to have at least 3-4 cards on hand and to keep the debt utilization score below 20% on each of them. As a rule of thumb, balances should stay below a 20% level before creditors treat it as a warning sign. You should be well versed in what these companies are looking for and be detail oriented regarding the terms. If you meet the expectations of credit card companies and don't set off any warning bells of struggle, you might just get along with your creditors.

The Flip Side

         When you are on cruise control financially, credit card companies are going to great lengths to win your business especially in 2013. A person with a great credit score should be collecting the rewards of merely signing up for cards. The rewards can be miles, points, or even no interest for multiple years to carry a balance. Signing up for one card can net you a free round trip ticket to Europe without any effort by way of example.
         If you are signing up for one card, you may want to consider doing multiple applications on the same day. The credit card companies will catch on to the strategy and will decline an application on that basis, but it usually takes them a while to see what's happening. Therefore, you can get approved for multiple cards at the same time and collect all the rewards. Just don't cancel right after collecting the signup bonus as it will have a negative impact on your score. I'd wait a year to close each account that you don't have further use for.
         Your credit score is hardly affected by multiple inquiries unless your score is right on the borderline of acceptance criteria or you have a very short credit history. Inquiries over the previous 12 month period are tracked, so you get a fresh start annually. Of course, credit card companies might get antsy if they see too many inquiries wondering what you're up to. I personally wouldn't be tepid about doing 6-7 inquiries on the same day. Let them tell me that my inquiries are too many. Just because I have too many inquiries according to one company doesn't mean that all companies will respond the same way. Every company has their own acceptance criteria and warning signs to decline. If you are declined by one company, that doesn't mean another 3-4 companies might still be happy to get your business. The bottom line is that you can be fearless if you have a great credit score. You have nothing to lose unless you happen to be buying a house/car in the near future where you absolutely need a loan.  The Points Guy writes about this all the time on his blog. Even if you see the following letter, it doesn't really matter if you don't absolutely need the new credit card and were merely motivated by the signup bonus:

Conclusion

       Credit card companies only care about the terms of their agreement with you and are cold-hearted about extenuating circumstances about you not meeting your obligations. They'd like nothing more than for you than to become their average profile of making minimum payments on high interest debt. Compound interest particularly at high levels can run amok over your future plans. Be very careful about running up balances without a game plan to pay it back quickly. 

        On the other hand, there are great advantages to those who have no need for credit cards, but have them anyway. You can collect their rewards and maximize their special offers with no fear that you'll be stuck getting run over by compound interest. Turn about is fair play, so getting all the upside and none of the downside of having credit cards can be a refreshing position to be in.

Nightmare flight story!

            As I get ready to jump on my longest flight yet (12 hours 55 minutes) later this week, I was asked by a colleague whether I've ever had a particularly nightmarish experience on any of my past international flights. The reason I am sharing this story is that it may allow some of you to tolerate a little better some of the minor annoyances of flights in the future. You can thank your lucky stars that you weren't on my flight back in 2011 where the standards of this particular airline for treating its passengers were far below that of any U.S. based airline.  

           I was traveling with my youngest brother on Asiana Airlines flight 767 from Seoul to New Delhi. Our flight was expected to arrive at 11:45 PM in New Delhi and we fully expected to do so based on the flight crew preparing us for landing around 11:00 PM per the usual drill of making sure all the seats were upright, collecting all the headsets, shutting down the electronic devices and the entertainment tvs. We were prepared to land!  

           Instead of landing, we circled the airport in such bumpy weather that several of the passengers we observed got motion sickness inducing vomiting. I should note that I've only gotten motion sickness twice in my life and this was the only time that I have ever vomited. It was not a big surprise when our plane was finally delayed and diverted due to inclement weather. The plane ended up landing in Ahmedabad around 2:00 AM.

           Thinking that we’d be back in the air within a couple hours, my brother and I just chalked up the delay to bad luck. Little did we know that we’d be delayed and held captive in that plane for more than 12 hours with very limited communication and no amenities that were clearly available if the airline had even a speck of thoughtfulness toward its passengers!

             An announcement was made shortly after landing in Ahmedabad that the airline was deciding what to do. Apparently, the previous 90 minutes since they announced where we’d be landing wasn’t close to enough time to make a decision. So we waited and waited until about 3.5 hours since the diversion was announced that the pilot was sent to a hotel to rest, because his workday was over.  The official announced reason why the pilot was able to deplane while everybody else was held captive: a law (not clear if it’s a Korean law, Indian law, or an airline policy) required him to rest after a certain number of hours worked. Concurrently, all passengers were prohibited from leaving the aircraft. Since the crew had limited English speaking skills, no further explanation could be attained.

           During this entire time period, no food, drink or entertainment was provided to any of the passengers that we observed. The temperatures outside soared above 104 degrees Fahrenheit on a crowded plane where tempers were flaring among the passengers. Furthermore, the headphones were not redistributed and the entertainment systems shut down. It is as if Asiana Airlines had never faced a similar situation before.

            In sum, the Asiana Airlines held all of its passengers captive with no food, water or entertainment on a hot and crowded plane and no explanation as to why we couldn’t stay in the airport. Finally at around 8 AM (6 hours after having landed and 9.5 hours since our last snack) a meager snack was provided with about 6 ounces of drinks. It was finally announced at around 10 AM that the pilot was almost back and that we’d be taking off for New Delhi shortly. We arrived back in New Delhi with a total delay of more than 12 hours. I lost a few hundred dollars in prepaid fees to change my plans from the delays and Asiana never provided one penny in compensation even after respectfully requesting a nominal reimbursement. 

           The positive to all of this is that this was far and away my worst experience in all my flights over the years. Airlines still do stupid things, but I can always think back and thank my lucky stars that it isn't quite as bad as flight 767.

What is Grit?

           My favorite Olympic race of all-time, which also happens to be widely considered the biggest upset in Olympic history embodies grit to the extreme. Billy Mills, a Lakota Indian from South Dakota, would never have won the 10,000 meters if he had listened to others who doubted him. Nobody thought he had a chance to get a gold medal other than him. Let's start by looking at a video of the actual race:

            What's so amazing about this race other than the dramatic finish is that Mills ran 46 seconds faster than his best ever time that day and was, therefore, not considered a threat to win. Although he was a very good runner in both high school and college at the University of Kansas, he had never won any significant races in his career prior to the 1964 Olympics. Mills was a complete unknown, so that's why the announcer was so exuberant at the end!

            What's even more amazing about Mills is his background. He came from one of the poorest Indian tribes in the country and was orphaned at age 12. The probability of becoming the best in the world at anything from that tribe was minuscule. Most men from his tribe were going nowhere with their lives and with an unfortunate high rate of suicide. All of this took a toll on Billy along with some heavy discrimination he faced at KU that lead him to consider committing suicide. He also quit the KU track team his senior year. In parting, the coach told him that he'd never amount to anything.   

            It was right after he almost committed suicide that he wrote down the goal of winning the gold medal at 10,000 meters. The goal was impossible to reach at that stage! He would need to decrease his PR by 3 minutes to have a chance. He was in the deepest valley of his life and somehow managed to find hope by attempting to climb the highest mountain. 

         He eventually graduated from college and joined the military where he went from running 40 miles per week to 100, which helped him get much faster. A movie was eventually made about his life called the Running Brave. Here's another video of interest well worth your time:

            

           One of the lessons we learn from Billy Mills is that we don't have to be perfect in our resolution to reach our goals. He almost gave up and there will be times that we will too. Nonetheless, if we keep our eyes on the big picture with passion and determination it will lead us to things that even we might not have thought was possible at the beginning of our own journeys.

         The Billy Mills story reminded me of an excellent TED talk by Angela Duckworth, although her observations were more in the realm of academics than athletics. What she found in her experience as a 7th grade teacher is that there isn't a direct correlation between intelligence and which students ended up getting the best grades. Some of the most intelligent students had poor grades, whereas a few of the less intelligent students were at the top of the class. What she concluded to be the determining factor in academic success was that the top students all had a high amount of 'grit'. 

   

 

        Grit is having the perseverance and passion for a long-term goal and entails working strenuously toward challenges, maintaining effort and interest over years, despite failure, adversity, plateaus in progress, and negative feedback. The talent of someone with grit is that they persevere through circumstances where the majority would have given up. The gritty individual approaches achievement as a marathon; his or her advantage is stamina. Billy Mills had all those things.

          It's not always easy to stick with things when we give it a shot and don't show natural aptitude right away. My parents put me in violin lessons as a kid at 5 or 6 years old. I wasn't naturally inclined based on the first lesson and as it turns out my instructor quit in frustration. From that one experience, I always assumed that music wasn't my thing and never tried again.  

           How often do we write ourselves off based on a nominal effort and initial negative feedback? This is a huge mistake in most cases. We really can't know how good we could be without becoming fully invested in trying to reach our potential. You often don't improve until becoming fully immersed. It's easier to label ourselves as deficient and quit trying. 

         I learned German fluently at age 19, but I didn't turn the corner until I was living in Germany for 6 months after having taken 5 years of classes beforehand. It would have been easy for me to conclude that I didn't have the aptitude to learn a language before ever reaching Germany. After all, I was below average for someone who spent 5 years learning German in a classroom. After finishing my two years in Germany, I can definitely conclude that my initial assessment of learning a new language was way off!    

           How often do we give up because we value the opinion of one person over our own? My high school counselor didn't think I was college material. She was right that I needed to work on my study habits, but she was wrong in assessing my capacity and determination. It's a good thing I didn't listen to her or anybody else in my life who was skeptical of my ability to reach my goals.

         This is very good advice by Steve Jobs:

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition ... Stay hungry, Stay foolish.

         That's probably a good place to end this week's post. We all are driven to succeed in various realms in life. Forget what everybody else is saying about your probability of success and roll up your sleeves and go to work. It's the day by day and year after year progression that eventually gets us to the peak of the mountaintop. 

In Defense of Singles

 

           Earlier this week, I read a very well written blog post outlining the challenges of being single beyond our ideal time frames. She noted that the wait can be especially exasperating when you belong to a religious organization that places such a heavy emphasis on marriage and family. Since I belong to the same religion as that blogger, I will add my thoughts to hers. 

           I agree with the blogger that our religion is very family oriented. Much of the discussion and lessons at church revolve around improving your marriage and raising your children. The default assumption is that the congregation is made up entirely of families or those who aspire to raise a family someday. As such, we are encouraged to get married and have children with quotes like this:

Honorable, happy, and successful marriage is surely the principal goal of every normal person. Marriage is perhaps the most vital of all the decisions and has the most far-reaching effects, for it has to do not only with immediate happiness, but also with eternal joys...Marriage can be more an exultant ecstasy than the human mind can conceive. This is within the reach of every couple, every person. (Spencer W. Kimball)

         That quote touches on what is often emphasized in the church, which is that: 1) getting married should be a top priority, 2) it is the biggest decision we can make, and 3) that we won't reach the same level of happiness without it. From these principles, many young single adults feel significant pressure to marry as soon as possible AND to make the right decision. I should note that the church doesn't have an official stance about the timing of marriage, as its a matter of personal discretion. However, there is a long standing tradition of marrying young compared to the rest of the country (2 years younger on average) and there is a significant amount of social pressure to make it happen. You can see by the disposition of the previously mentioned blogger at the age of 26 that she is taking the matter very seriously. 

         A side effect of the emphasis on the importance of the decision is that it can create some trepidation about taking the "leap of faith" to the altar. I know of at least a few singles who hold firm to the philosophy of awaiting a "slam dunk" person to come along to make the marriage decision easier. When only imperfect candidates step up to the plate, these high standard singles just turn them away one by one hoping that someone better comes along. This may be a flawed approach, but it is their right to hold out.  
        I should point out that both the decision on the timing of getting married and the person you marry are deeply personal and subject only to your own stewardship. Nobody can get inspiration on your behalf about who to marry and nobody else will live with 100% of the consequences of your decision. That's why it's always a good idea to take advice received from others with a grain of salt. We are all on individual journeys in this lifetime and are entitled to make our own decisions.

          Marriage is also not a unilateral endeavor. Despite our best efforts to market ourselves, date regularly and make a solid presentation of our desirable attributes, we must find a person who we want to marry and who wants to marry us. We don't live in an era that allows us to hit our chosen mate over the head and drag them to the marital altar as shown in the cartoon below. That might have been acceptable in the Fred Flintstone era, but not today.

           This is an important point for both men and women. Men can propose to as many women as they want, but without an affirmative answer they will not get married. Likewise, women will not get married without a proposal from a guy they would not object to. We are at the mercy of someone else's agency.

           The point of mentioning this isn't to conclude that all singles are completely blameless for their marital status, because in many cases they deserve some of the blame. Nevertheless, at least a portion of the marriage decision is completely out of a single's control. Singles can obviously maximize whatever is in their control to increase their odds of marriage opportunities coming their way, but it isn't our job or within our stewardship to judge what a single is or isn't doing to help his or her own cause.

The Negative Cultural Stigma

        What the aforementioned blogger mentioned in her post is that there seems to be a negative cultural stigma towards singles who remain single into their late twenties and beyond. I agree with her on this point. There is an obvious disconnect between some married individuals and the older singles. The issue seems to be that some married individuals can't seem to fathom why singles are staying single beyond ideal time frames and feel the need to get to the bottom of why someone is still single. I've overheard conversations to that effect and have even been cornered at church to further their investigation.
        I have several issues with this. The most important issue is that it isn't any of their business and there's zero value in painting the walls with speculation all day long to get to the bottom of it. Secondly, it always involves limited information leading to bad assumptions. The worst assumption is usually that there is something inherently wrong with the single to be passed over time and time again. Finally, the conclusions drawn almost always are inaccurate and need to be thrown out for lack of support.
       Everybody has a unique journey including me. My journey has consisted of moving over 40 times across eight different states and another country since age 18. I'm not implying that this is the primary reason why I have remained single, but that is a contributing factor among several others. Of course, my default answer is that I blame my status on Cotton Eye Joe;)
        It can't be assumed that every person has been marketed to a hilt throughout their dating careers with no takers. It must be acknowledged that there is wide disparity in the levels of opportunities each person has AND there is wide stratification of innate characteristics that makes them harder or easier to market. For example, a 5'4" guy will have different opportunities than a 6'4" guy. There are a myriad of factors that impact our journey. The bottom line is that there isn't a level playing field making it impossible to make assumptions. 

What’s the difference between a married person and a single person?    

           The answer may surprise you that being married or being single is merely a status. How that status came to be is usually complicated and may or may not relay a larger story about a specific individual. In fact, I can’t draw a single stereotype that would encompass either all married couples or all single people. As such, I refuse to make blanket statements about an entire group of people linked together merely by having the same status.
         There are a few people I've come across who have opined that married people are generally better looking, more socially skilled, have more life satisfaction, have less major life issues, and are less neurotic than their single counterparts. I'm sure that this opinion is held by a minority, but it should be emphasized as the previous blogger mentioned that God doesn't judge us merely based on our marital status. These generalizations can't even be proven accurate in reality. According to at least one study singles are the same across the board on average in physical attractiveness, social skills, life satisfaction, neuroticism, and in other areas to their married peers. It's going to be a challenge to paint any group with a broad brush and expect to be accurate. 
          Marital status really doesn't allow me to draw any conclusions about the caliber of person someone is. Getting married is easy if you lower the bar far enough or sell yourself based on false pretenses, so just being married means very little to me. My viewpoint is that there is a mix of good, average and bad prospects among both the married and single demographics. Both groups are pretty diverse, so you’ll find people with a variety of different issues.

Recommendations

        What singles actually need from parents and peers is moral support rather than persuasion that marriage is a better life trajectory. Most singles I know want to get married, but are not particularly interested in getting married merely for the sake of getting married. For that reason, giving them the "marriage is so much more blissful than being single" talk isn't particularly effective. There is a measure of happiness to being single that trumps being in a bad marriage every day of the week, so the smart singles are going to be patient and wait for "a" right person to come along.
      Similarly, putting time pressure to marry is usually short-sighted. Time constraints will probably lead to a bad outcome, so the biggest encouragement needed from peers and family is to just keep trying. Being an older single is tough when you have a history of broken relationships leaving you with emotional and psychological baggage all acquired through dating. Furthermore, the outlook gets bleaker as the years pass. Of course, singles know deep down that those that continue to try are much more likely to reach the altar eventually.

Conclusion
         Even if singles and marrieds are on very different life paths that makes it hard to relate to each other, we should keep in mind that life is hard no matter what path you are on. We should be working collaboratively towards our common objectives and trying to lift each other up instead of identifying each other's flaws. All of us are imperfect and in need of a support system regardless of our marital status.  

Triumphing over the Valleys of Life

          One of the things that makes life interesting is that we can't see the end from the beginning. In our youth, many of us fantasize about winning the lottery and living a blissful life of comfort and ease. While it would seem that a life devoid of work and toil would be in our best interest looking forward, many elderly people I've met are grateful for the adversity they faced and the work they accomplished in their lives because it ultimately became the catalyst for gaining character and maturity. 

          Let's check in with the unlikeliest of sources, former President Richard Nixon, to get his take:

“Greatness comes not when things go always good for you. But the greatness comes when you're really tested, when you take some knocks, some disappointments, when sadness comes. Because only if you've been in the deepest valley can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain.”

           Who knew that Nixon had such wisdom? Let's face it, life is hard. We are forced to work and do things that we would rather avoid, but making sacrifices and putting our wants on the back burner is ultimately good for us. Similarly, dealing with adversity usually helps us in the long run more than it hurts us. In fact, no pain that we suffer and no trial that we experience is wasted. It builds up our character and makes us more charitable and assists in the development of empathy towards others who are suffering. Said another way, we can more easily relate to adversity and pain felt by others thereby making it more likely that we will be motivated to help them in their darkest hours of need. 

          Think of the story of Shelley Mann. At the age of six she was diagnosed with Polio, which was a horrific disease in the early and mid 20th century often ravaging the body leading to paralysis and even death of its victims. As the years went by, polio took a significant toll on Shelley both physically and psychologically. She gradually lost the power to move her fingers and toes, her arms and her legs. Her parents were getting desperate to try and fight the effects of the awful disease as she continued on a downhill slide towards paralysis. At age 10, they brought her to a hospital pool to try a different kind of therapy. At first, she could not even hold up her arms. In fact, she was three months behind every other polio victim trying the same therapy. When she finally lifted her arm out of the water with her own power, she cried for joy. Then her goal was to swim the width of the pool, then the length, then several lengths. She kept on trying, swimming, enduring, day after day after day, year after year until she became one of the greatest swimmers in history and ended up winning the gold medal for the butterfly stroke—one of the most difficult of all swimming strokes. Here's a picture of her on the medal stand in the center:

            In Shelley's case, it's unlikely that she would have had the passion for swimming without having contracted polio. I don't know how her life would have evolved without the adversity, but it definitely would not have been the same. Her accomplishments are that much more impressive considering the adversity she overcame to get there. It was no wonder that she cried on the medal stand after receiving her gold medal taking into account her journey from the deepest valley of being almost paralyzed to the highest mountaintop of becoming the world's best. Her experience of making it to top of the mountain was much more meaningful than the other athletes who never experienced the same valley of life that she experienced.

            In reality, every person on the planet will experience low points i.e. valleys of life. I should point out that some adversity we will face is entirely our fault, some adversity appears to be completely random, and some adversity is a combination of both. Even if you are 100% to blame for creating the adverse life conditions, there is no value in beating yourself up for it. You have to be forward looking to get back onto higher ground and overcome the adversity.  You will, of course, want to learn from your actions that lead to the adverse conditions, but it is better analyzed in the light of the rear view mirror. 

          I take the position that all the choices I make and their consequences are essential to my journey in life. I don't have time to wallow and feel bad about things that I can't change about the past. Aisha Tyson summed up the perfect mindset like this: “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.” 

            Here are some examples of some common types of adversity:

           

Getting laid off or fired

Wanting to get married and being unable to do so

Desiring to have children and being unable to do so

Having a difficult time making friends

Being in a bad marriage

Going through a divorce or breaking up from a serious relationship

Losing a friend or relative to death or over a quarrel

Getting seriously injured or contracting a disease or illness

Being humiliated in front of your peer group or in front of a random audience

Having your life's work negatively critiqued
Struggling financially

Feeling immense guilty for doing something against your conscience

            That certainly isn't a comprehensive list of types of adversity, but it is a list that probably we can all relate to on some level. To get back to a mountaintop, you must climb! Climbing is replacing what you lost or letting time heal your emotional, physical, and/or psychological scars or taking affirmative steps to overcome your issue. In certain circumstances, there is no remedy except to change your attitude in dealing with it. You don't always have control over what happens to you, but you do have control over how you react to what happens to you.

           I read a story this week about a young man who had his name published in his high school yearbook with the word "freak" next to his name. That could be some devastating adversity! At that age, you are trying to fit in and that's what he'll best be known for his remaining 3 years of high school. To his credit the boy had this to say in dealing with it: "I'm just going to act like it never happened. If anyone says something to me, I'm going to ignore it." The circumstance was beyond his control, but he has decided to not let it bother him. By doing so, he showed maturity beyond his years. His story isn't over, but let's hope he is strong enough psychologically to overcome this adversity.. 

          Marvin Ashton summarized the correct mindset this way:

What we do with what happens to us is more important than what happens to us…The direction in which we are moving is more important than place or situation. We may have stumbled or been grievously hurt, but we have not fallen if we are willing to get back up.

         I don't believe in "random" adversity nor do I see adversity as a punishment from above. In contrast, it is a teaching tool to allow you to become a better person. It often isn't known until years later why the adversity was useful to you, but sometimes your biggest trials end up becoming the greatest events that could have happened to you. When you reach the next phase of life and can look back at your darkest time, you may find that it lead you to a better suited opportunity that you would not have obtained had the adversity not knocked you off the path you were on.
          For an example of not knowing that adversity is sometimes a blessing in disguise meet Stacey Kramer who explains the positives of having a brain tumor:

           Nobody on the planet wants a brain tumor. However, Stacey recognized that her adversity helped her gain a new perspective and grow an appreciation for when life is going smoothly. Although you don't know what lies ahead in your own life, you will undoubtedly have some peaks and valleys. Just remember that if you end up on in a deep and dark valley, it will make your inevitable moment on the highest mountaintop in your life that much sweeter. You will be able to look down into the valley and appreciate the beauty of the journey you just took to get there, so hold on and endure through your valley of life.

Six Keys to Working Smart

        When we transition into new endeavors in our lives, our instincts may be to dive right into the work without going through a preparatory period to become competent at the task. This headstrong approach works with some things where you can learn efficiency through trial and error, but with most things it may be prudent to first learn the "how to" before diving in. Here’s a story to illustrate this point from Stephen Covey’s book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People:

         

There’s a guy who stumbled into a lumberjack in the mountains. The man stops to observe the lumberjack, watching him feverishly sawing at this very large tree. He noticed that the lumberjack was working up a sweat, sawing and sawing, yet going nowhere. The bystander noticed that the saw the lumberjack was using was about as sharp as a butter knife. So, he says to the lumberjack, “Excuse me Mr. Lumberjack, but I couldn’t help noticing how hard you are working on that tree, but going nowhere.” The lumberjack replies with sweat dripping off of his brow, “Yes…I know. This tree seems to be giving me some trouble.” The bystander replies and says, “But Mr. Lumberjack, your saw is so dull that it couldn’t possibly cut through anything.” “I know”, says the lumberjack, “but I am too busy sawing to take time to sharpen my saw.”

        Mr. Lumberjack can exert the most effort of any lumberjack in the world, but he’ll never be great at his job unless he works smarter. In fact, his maximum effort along with a smart strategy could allow him to move up the rankings from one of the worst lumberjacks in the world to one of the best. Similarly, we may be shortchanging our ability to become great by utilizing ineffective strategies to accomplish our goals.

         When I was a senior in high school, I made it a goal to break the school record in the mile. In order to accomplish this, I decided that I was going to work harder than any other runner in our program’s history starting as soon as the cross country season concluded. Since there is more than a three month gap in between the end of the cross country season and when the track season began, the results from my chosen training program would probably determine how my senior season would go.

          I designed my training program without consulting any coaches or doing any research on the topic. I thought that my work ethic and having a training plan would be enough to make me the best in school history. Looking back at the approach, it amounted to a very poor strategy for a lot of reasons.

         My plan was to run 40 miles per week at a pace between 5:30-8:00 minutes per mile. Even though my training plan required a lot of effort and would send me out into the frigid Minnesota winter on a regular basis, it was extremely flawed. The first flaw was that the school record was 4:20 and none of my training runs had me running close to that fast even at shorter distances. I essentially ran a lot of "junk" miles. If you want to run really fast you have to train your muscles, heart, and lungs to acclimate your body to that pace. By running 1:10-3:00 per mile slower than my goal time with 100% of my training, my work strategy could accurately be deemed “working dumb.”  I was nowhere near prepared to run even a 4:49 mile by the time the season started that I had run a year earlier with limited winter training.

         The other flaw in my training plan was that I would run hard as many days in a row as I possibly could. My reasoning was that it would make me the hardest worker and therefore the fastest runner. Little did I realize that my body needed time to recover from difficult workouts. In fact, muscles in general need time to repair themselves and get stronger. If you work them out before they recover, you break down the muscles more and they actually get weaker and become more susceptible to injury. Rest in between the hard workouts is nearly as important as the workout itself.

         As you could have predicted by now, my senior season started out as an epic failure. As 2/3 of the season went on, I still had not exceeded my junior year times in any event. Fortunately, I had a father who was very concerned about my regression and ended up calling a college track coach to get some tips. Sherald James, who ended up being my future coach at BYU, told him that I should run only 6X400 meter interval sessions (with 60 seconds in between to recover) the rest of the season with 48 hours of rest in between each session. I also decided to switch events to the 800 meters to increase my probability of success.

         I carefully followed Coach James’ advice. It worked even better than any of us had an envisioned. According to my high school coach, it was the greatest three week improvement he had ever witnessed. I took 12 seconds off my 800 meter time and broke into the top 20 in school history in the event. Although I didn't accomplish my initial goal, it certainly provided me a silver lining. It is still my belief that if I had not implemented the new strategy offered up by Coach James and made drastic improvement in the final 3 weeks of my HS career, I never would have tried running in college. That was a powerful lesson for me about the power of working smart.

         Bill Bowerman who is one of the greatest track coaches of all time summarized my flawed thinking as follows:  “The idea that the harder you work, the better you're going to be is just garbage. The greatest improvement is made by the man or woman who works most intelligently.”

        As most people are trying hard to improve in different areas of their lives other than running there are certain common principles to working smart. You can have the greatest intentions in the world to work harder than everybody else, but it isn’t enough in most instances. You need to combine your stellar work ethic with a strategy that maximizes output and improvement.
       This advice could apply in skill development in the business world, developing your talents, or just tinkering with your hobbies. Here are six keys to working smart:

1)      Emulate the work habits of others who are better than you  – If there is someone in your field a cut above you, seek them out for advice. If the information that separates them from everybody else in making them successful is revealed on the internet, take those insights and implement them into your strategy to improve. The very elite people in most industries have biographies or "how to" books with secrets to their success
2)      Use your peak hours – My work product is better and I am more efficient at peak times of the day. If I am trying to accomplish the same thing during the time of day I am winding down, it may take me much longer and will probably be worse overall than if I had done it during my most productive hours of the day. The author of Four Hour Work Week had this insight: “By working only when you are most effective, life is both more productive and more enjoyable. It's the perfect example of having your cake and eating it, too.”
3)      Be consistent in maintaining your skills – One of the biggest challenges of being a full time worker in your career job is that it's difficult to make other goals you are trying to accomplish a priority. Nonetheless, you need to give consistent priority efforts to stay sharp and continue to improve. As you spend enough time towards a specific goal, it takes less time to maintain what you have than to build skills that you haven't acquired yet.
4)      Keep up with innovations in your field – There are a lot of really smart people in the world that likely are trying to improve in the same field as you. Some of them may even come up with ideas that really improve your efficiency. There is no reason to revert to outdated and less effective principles if better ones are available to you. The best people in their fields are tracking innovations, so should you.

5)      Mix things up to stay fresh psychologically – If you are working on your goals regularly, try and plan ways to psychologically mix things up every day. In my college running program, I knew which days I would be doing intervals, long distance, hills, easy days, etc. All of those workouts helped me in different ways and helped me stay fresh psychologically. You will burn out if you aren't mentally stimulated by the activity, so mix it up so that you can keep doing it for years and years.
6)      Keep in mind the law of diminishing returns – If you work too long and hard on one activity, your mind and body will eventually wear out. Know when to quit and come back fresh another day when you can make more efficient use of your time.

        We sometimes learn the hard way that working smart is as important if not more important than working hard. You will benefit greatly from putting some thought into your efficiency and devising ways to increase your long-term endurance into keeping at it. As you know from my first ever post, it's just a matter of time before you surpass everybody else who have already given up.