Go from burnt out to FIREd up.
Since returning from a three week family road trip across my home state of California, I’ve been in a state of flux, and it’s left me feeling uncertain at times, a bit down at others. For one, it would seem that Rome is burning. An entire third of our trip was altered at the last minute due to devastating fires …
Erik Erikson was a developmental psychologist and analyst who coined the term “identity crisis.” His theory of developmental stages remains influential, despite the fact that his education was more experiential than his fellow analysts, who often touted their more impressive institutional pedigrees.I was introduced to his theories as an undergraduate majoring in Human Biology, and they stuck with me. His …
Living in coastal California, one encounters significant exposed flesh on a daily basis. There are tattoos and tan lines and thongs to navigate. Despite this baseline, our family has mostly worn broad-brimmed hats and rash guards to pool and beach events. As one dad bluntly commented when our evidently out of place family arrived at a family pool party, “Here …
As a child, I walked with my head in the clouds and my eyes on the ground. I was a born scavenger. There was definite joy in finding dropped coins that others missed or pocketing unique and shiny metal contraptions that fed my daydreams (shortly after Star Wars came out, I excitedly mistook a hex shank socket driver for a …
I started this blog in September of 2016, and I’ve been dropping a post at least twice a week since that time. I’m not convinced I have all that much to say, and I’m certain that many others could express it more eloquently or memorably than I do. Yet I persist because I relish the relationship this blog permits me …
I recently wrote about one child’s wolfing down buckets of blueberries, which I consider to be a luxury fruit, and how it triggered in me a desire to have my kids experience certain financial milestones on their own path to financial literacy. Here’s where it gets complicated. Although I used the term milestones it was a poorly disguised euphemism for …
During a long family car ride, we collectively listened to an excellent interview with the Swiss-German, three Michelin star chef and owner of Eleven Madison Park, Daniel Humm. He is not the typical role model one might hold up as an example for children. He dropped out of high school at age 14 to cycle competitively. He was living with …
Almost a decade and a half ago, we had our first child. Around the same time my parents adopted a grandparenting style that echoed the ethos of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. [For the record, it was not Facebook’s popular guiding principle of Move fast and break things. Between arthritis, artificial joints and gait instability on downsloping surfaces, they only ever developed …
It’s a relaxed summer evening. I’m enjoying a swim with my daughter during a visit to the grandparents. Tonight there is a creamsicle colored dusk that seems to stretch implausibly late in a manner analogous my my daughter’s implausibly long legs extending above the water’s surface as she performs underwater handstands. I remember when the whole of her body fit …
The stock market is a no-called-strike game. You don’t have to swing at everything – you can wait for your pitch. -Warren Buffett I don’t day trade. I don’t own cryptocurrencies. I don’t directly own rental real estate. I have friends who have done incredibly well in each and every one of those areas of investment, and I enjoy learning …