Monthly Archives: October 2013

What’s Your Excuse?

People think differently!

Maria Kang posted the picture above with the title “What’s your excuse?” on her facebook page. She also has a blog and eponymous website : http://www.mariakang.com/ .

I found the picture inspiring. Here was a new mom that was being her best. She was taking care of her kids and herself too (great abs after having 3 kids). I took the picture as a challenge to do your best in health and life.

But there was a (huge) segment of people who were offended and outraged. They felt that they were being shamed for being fat. Or lazy. Or unhealthy. Or ugly. Or something else. In return they began to attack Maria for spending time training. Or being a bad mother for spending time away from her kids. Or being too health conscious. Or being Asian. Or something else.

The reason people got mad at her is rooted one one fatal flaw in their thinking. They were comparing themselves to her and finding they were not measuring up. That offended them. But Maria was not challenging them to measure up to HER. She was challenging them to improve their OWN lives.

How can you improve your life? Be bold and think big.

What’s your excuse?

Nuts

There is something that I view as obvious that is not discussed much in the mass-media popular financial advice business. So I was happy to see it mentioned on Yahoo recently – although it appeared in an article entitled “5 counterintuitive finacial tips”. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/5-counterintuitive-financial-tips-194318086.html

Now, I have absolutely no idea why this would be counterintuitive. I suppose it’s because no corporation will make money from having people follow it – so it’s never promoted in the mass media. Things like buying annuities, investing in big houses, and having huge 401k balances all make corporations money. Those are the types of advice that populate the mass media financial columns.

The tip is this:

“people should focus on the expenses that can’t be changed quickly, including a mortgage or debt payments. “It shows how quickly you can adapt to a traumatic event [like a job loss],” he says. He uses the term “lifestyle cash flow” to describe the cash flow required each year to pay the bills. “

The inelastic payments that are due each month really matter in the case of an emergency.

One common reference to this amount is your “nut” (hence the picture at the top of the post). Things that have to be included in the nut are taxes, rent, utilities, barebones food, etc. It’s what you need to live. It’s also the highest utility you will ever get from money – getting food and shelter. Everything on top of that is just gravy.

By keeping your nut low, you free up any income above and beyond it for a higher purpose. You can save it, invest it, buy experiences, provide gifts, etc. Most importantly it gives the greatest freedom.

How big is your nut? Can it be shrunk? I will try to lower mine today.

The Independent Penguin already has a right-sized nut. It’s enough to provide everything he needs and is a small fraction of that iceberg which is submerged. He has a stable foundation to live on.

Don’t Worry, Be Happy

Every now and then something makes one think.

The spinning molecule in the GIF is Prozac. One of the main uses of Prozac is as a treatment for depression. It is a multi-billion dollar product for Eli Lilly. Prozac was a research product that was patented and exclusive to them until 2001. Now there are a number of generic versions also. In 2010 there were 24 million prescriptions for Fluoxetine (the chemical name of Prozac) in the US and another 6 million prescriptions in the UK. It is no exaggeration to say that there is an entire slice of the pharmaceutical industry that is devoted to the research, manufacture, and sales of this molecule. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluoxetine

This year a neat paper was published that compared the major component of the spice Tumeric to Prozac as a treatment for depression: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23832433 . It found that they were equally effective – although the side effects of suicidal ideation or psychiatric disorder associated with Prozac were missing for the spice.

Isn’t it interesting that this comparison didn’t happen until the Fluoxetine industry was permanently established as a cornerstone of the pharmaceutical complex? Imagine if the same study was done in 1974.

It makes you think.