Monthly Archives: March 2010

Winning Personal Finance 1

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Everyone is hocking financial advice so how does one decide whose to follow? For example, why on earth should anyone pay any attention to the personal financial advice I offer below? What makes one advisor more credible than another, credentials, their popularity, their marketing savvy, something else? Credentials are nice in that they create a floor with respect to technical knowledge, but they don’t tell you much about the person’s ethics, integrity, or track record. Ultimately all credentials tell you is they succeeded in passing exams.

If I was looking for a financial advisor I’d look for someone that managed their own money well and emphasized saving, investing simply, and had other values that jived with my own. But how do you know if someone manages their own money well when we’re loathe to talk about our personal finances?

Tip one. Ask anyone wanting to manage your money to prove that they’ve managed theirs well. That will probably reduce the pool from which to choose in at least half. Take me for example, I have managed my family’s money well, but for privacy reasons, I won’t provide details except to say that for every ten financial decisions I make, I tend to make seven or eight good ones. Were I in the biz, I would completely understand if that lack of specificity caused potential clients to walk away.

Tip two. Ask any potential financial advisor about some of the mistakes he or she has made and what they learned from them. Last year I made a $9,000 mistake. I repeat, last year I made a $9,000 mistake. It was a brutal, self-inflicted wound that took time to shake. My goal is not to be perfect, but to consistently make more good decisions than bad. Look for a humble advisor who acknowledges complexity and doesn’t over promise. That will probably reduce the pool of potential advisors by at least another half.

Tip three. Even if you find a financial advisor that meets all of those criteria, don’t decide to work with him/her without first looking at yourself in a mirror and repeating several times, “No one will ever care about my financial well-being as much as me.”

Tip four. Never accept any financial advice passively. Instead educate yourself and recognize that no one will ever care about your personal financial well-being as much as you. More specifically, become your own financial advisor. That’s the best financial advice I’ll ever offer. Become your own financial advisor.

Well, the best advice until Part Two.

Choosing When to Die

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I suppose it’s human nature to avoid thinking about death. I strive not to take my health, my loved ones, and all of the numerous things I enjoy for granted, but if I’m honest with myself, I have to admit to slipping in and out of “life is fragile, don’t take it for granted, make the most of the present” consciousness. I turned 48 a few weeks ago which means I’m almost certainly on the back nine.

Tuesday’s Frontline Film was titled “The Suicide Tourist“. I found it engaging and provocative. This paragraph is from an interview with Mary Ewert, the wife of Craig Ewert who has A.L.S. and in the film travels from Chicago to Switzerland to end his life. Mr. Minelli is the founder of Digitas, the Swiss organization that has helped 1,000 people end their life.

“Mr. Minelli and Craig take a matter-of-fact view of death — we all will die some day. They are able to reflect on how people, including themselves, die. In contrast, our society places an inordinate emphasis on the emotional aspect of dying, urging patients to fight death, to be brave warriors in the face of death. The decision to quietly, gracefully accept and welcome death is at odds with the emotional battle against death. Both are ways of dealing with death, one is not better than the other. However, both approaches should be respected. I fear that acceptance of death is still viewed as somehow bizarre and frightening, something to be forbidden.”

I went into the film without having given much thought to the website’s follow up discussion question: Is Craig Ewert’s decision to end his life a choice that everyone should have? Having watched the film, I’m inclined to answer in the affirmative. Now I think I’ll skim the online discussion and see what others think. How about you?

February 2010 Fitness Notes

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Wasn’t the symmetry of February 2010 off the hook? Every month should start on a Monday, have four weeks, and end on a Sunday. Miss it already. Positive Momentum readers are like the children of Lake Wobegone, so someone draw up a new calendar with a leap week or something.

Swam 26,700 meters. Did not re-up for the second Masters session of the year so volume ebbed. Last Masters practice was a time trial and I set three personal records since I had never swam the “events”. 25 free, 13.1; 25 fly, 15.2; 25 breast, 18.1. 100 free was slow, 1:05 something and 200 free was so slow I can’t seem to recall it. 100 IM was slow too, something like 1:21. I’ve written nine workouts, three with a sprint focus, three middle-distance, and three distance. I rotate through in a sprint, middle distance, distance rhythm. Nine, the third distance workout, is a time trial. A “circuit” will take a month now that I’m only swimming 2x/week. Eliminates the “wonder what I should do today” pre swim meditation. Let me know if you’re interested in seeing the workouts. I didn’t see the kind of improvement in early February that I thought I would from the January increase in volume. I thought I would be able to hold 1:19’s for ten 100’s (short course yards, I convert totals to meters) on 1:30, but I was doing 1:21-1:25 on 1:35. My guess is I need to incorporate resistance training or what we once called weight lifting. There are a few problems with that though. One, even though I lift very light weights and concentrate on form, I somehow usually tweak my lower back. Two, if my Squeeze finds me any more alluring, I won’t get anything done. I think I’ll risk both and see if that’s the missing link.

Cycled 226 miles, 73 outdoors. Our winter has been the opposite of the eastern U.S. and Western Europe, unusually mild. It’s so nice to see a light at the end of the indoor cycling tunnel. Two weeks from Daylight Savings Time when the outdoor cycling season officially begins for wusses like me. I like where I am for late February/early March. On a scale of 1 to 10, I’m an indoor 6 and an outdoor 4.  Thoroughly enjoyed a brilliant 40 miler with Dano and Lance on Sunday.

Ran 112 miles. Frontloaded the month a bit, weekly totals were 32, 32, 22, 26. Can’t wait for more daylight. The team is running well, holding 7:30’s while discussing the difference between triple lutzes and axles. Well, most of the team. Principal entered the Witness Protection Program probably for some malfeasance at his place of employment. Health Care Analyst somehow forgot that you run a cold into submission. Trooper continues to recycle the “hammy” excuse to avoid Saturday long runs. In contrast, Architect manned up (pun intended) and ran in shorts on a 27 degree morning, Highway Chieftain took a dive for the team on a darkened trail, and Hair Care Sales Manager was nails as usual. I seemed to have picked up a new nickname while in Spokane, Adolph, I’m guessing because I impressed the team with my knowledge of World War II Germany.

And in related news . . .

• My brothers co-authored a book about my steriod use, but I filed a cease and desist order and kept it from seeing the light of day.

• Last indoor cycling session, 250w avg, 75 minutes, 20.4m, 1,104c.

• Luckily for Armstrong, I was not selected to ride in the Leadville 100 in Leadville, Colorado in August.

• There’s building momentum for a repeat Olympia Half Marathon in mid-May. Nothing else on the calendar.

• I’m undecided on what Olympic event to begin training for, the summer 400IM or winter 50K cross country. Seventeen suggested figure skating. Not sure how I didn’t think of that myself. I will see if my sister is up for training with me for a run at Ice Dance gold in Sochi.

The Measure Teaching Effectiveness Consensus

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An underreported and potentially important sea change is underway in K-12 public schooling. It’s the somewhat natural culmination of a two decade-long emphasis on increased teacher accountability for student learning.

Rather than improving compensation and making entry into the profession more challenging, rather than empowering proven teacher leaders to improve schools, rather than increasing parent and family accountability for student learning, the highest ranking and most influential policy makers are in agreement that our ability to compete in the global economy depends upon better schooling, better schooling depends upon increased teacher accountability for student learning, increased teacher accountability requires measuring teaching effectiveness. There are parallel pushes to measure school leadership and teacher education program effectiveness.

Like the vast majority of K-12 teachers, I’m not opposed to the concept of teacher and administrator accountability, but it seems as if more time, energy, and resources have been put into planning the negative consequences of teaching and administrative ineffectiveness than into incentives for teaching and administrative excellence. The primary negative consequence of teaching and administrative ineffectiveness will be closing schools and reassigning (if the unions still hold any sway) or dismissing altogether (if they don’t) the administrators and faculty at the worst performing schools.

This “measure teaching effectiveness consensus” raises many questions that Arne’s Army seemingly has little patience for. Among them. . .

• How does one best measure teaching effectiveness?

• More specifically, if the Information Revolution is making knowledge transmission and recall less salient, how does one quantify increasingly important student skills and sensibilities like writing, problem solving, cross cultural understanding, teamwork, empathy, and resilience?

• How does one control for independent variables like differing degrees of outside of school support?

• Will an emphasis on individual teacher’s relative effectiveness contribute to even greater professional isolation to the detriment of student learning?

• What might the effects of steadily increasing accountability be on talented young people considering teaching as a career independent of improved compensation?

• Why, when top-down experts with little to no teaching experience are in the process of reshaping their profession based upon business model precepts, aren’t more teachers asking these types of questions?