RetiredSyd's "Most Enjoyed in 2010" List

When I read Sydney's blog, Retirement – A Full Time job, it often feels as if I am reading my own thinking. In her clear manner, she explores the same topics that I am intrigued by. She was recently interviewed by NPR, and has a blog in US News called On Retirement.

Here is her response to my post request – her list of the things she has most enjoyed in 2010.

Sydney's Most Enjoyed in 2010 List:

1) Baby Luca (after my friend suffered several heartbreaking miscarriages, her dreams finally came true),
2) A month in Manhattan on a home swap (and in particular, learning to love baseball with my husband at Yankee's Stadium),
3) And just in time to watch our own SF Giants win the World Series!
4) Enjoying three trips to Las Vegas with incredible friends (and icing on the cake, coming out a few hundred dollars ahead)
5) Knowing that 30 million uninsured Americans will be able to get health coverage,
6) The chance to meet wonderful new readers through an opportunity to blog for U.S. News,
7) Enjoying a little part-time work for fun people that I admire,
8) Ram's link to HBR's "How Will You Measure Your Life?" That article made a huge impact on me.

Sydney

If any of you do create your own list, do send me a copy and I will be happy to post it here.

Related Post:
Requesting your "Best of 2010" List

How Irreversible is the decision really?

When discussing early retirement with friends and acquaintances, I sense that in their minds this decision feels irreversible. As in, if you choose to give up your work and take up early retirement and it doesn't work out for whatever reason, you are completely done for.

I know this feeling well. This feeling of going down a one-way street. But this thinking is not fully correct. Sure, there are certain aspects to quitting a regular job that have long term consequences. But that is not the full story.

Let's tackle the biggest fear that comes up in any discussion first. What if one runs short of money? The fact that you won't be earning a salary, but might need some money (for unforeseen circumstances) can be scary. Fortunately, this can be mitigated with some planning and foresight.

People who have only worked full-time don't seem to fully appreciate the range of options that are available. Options like taking up part-time work or consulting or freelancing. It will initially take some time, but these can be a real possibility if you keep your skills fairly current (always with an eye on staying employable).

There are, however, certain things that are difficult to get back, if you do quit mid-career. Irreversible is too strong a word. What I really mean is "difficult to reverse." For example: If you were progressing rapidly on a career-path, it might be difficult to regain that if you take a long break. Or, say you are part of a great team that is doing excellent and engaging work. If you quit that, you may not easily find that sense of camaraderie and purpose again. Also, if you are currently very well compensated, it won't be easy to attain comparable compensation after a 2-3 year break doing something else. (Individual cases vary, of course)

So there are both aspects to the decision of quitting a full-time job. What feels scary is not really the irreversible part. But the difficult-to-revert aspects do have to be considered before any decision regarding early retirement can be made.

Requesting Your Personal "Best of 2010" List

This post is a request. This is a request for you to send me your Personal "Best of 2010" list, so that it can be shared with others. Reading your list might inspire someone, remind them of something they too enjoyed.

Now that it is December, we can expect to start seeing lots of "Best of 2010" lists in the media. For over 10 years now, I have been creating my own personal "Things I most enjoyed this year" lists. I have also been encouraging my friends to do the same. Those who do take the few minutes it takes invariably say that they are very glad that they did. (And it is always a pleasure to review these 'most enjoyed' lists I created a few years back.)

This year, I thought I will ask here and see if any blog readers want to participate. Just open your notebook (or open a new file) and jot down things that come to your mind about what you enjoyed in 2010. If you keep adding to your list, you'll be surprised at how many things you can think of in just 2-3 days.

The Rules are quite simple:
1. Just create a list of whatever it was that you most enjoyed this year. Some sample categories could be Movies, Events, Books, Concerts, Places, Travel, Sports, Hobbies, People, TV shows, Blog articles, Websites, Courses… pretty much anything you enjoyed in 2010.
2. Feel free to create your own categories.
3. These have to be things you enjoyed, so for this exercise leave out any negative experiences.

Simply type up your list in a Word document or as an email and send them to me at retirement.experiment@gmail.com. Include your name (or make up a pseudonym) which I can use when posting your response. (If you don't want your name publicized, then indicate that in your email and I'll post the list without your name.)

Yes, it takes a bit of social courage to share our personal list, but I feel that it is important to share them anyway. Even if you don't wish to share your lists, please consider creating one for yourself, and sharing it with your close friends and family.

I look forward to getting at least a few "Personal Best of 2010" lists this year. If I receive any, I will post them here. I will also post my own list here as well.

Related Post: Creating A Year in Review Document

The "Currency" of my Life

"I live to climb rocks," I overheard a guy in Moab, UT say not too long ago. He said that he scheduled everything else in his life around his climbing time. I had been thinking about trade-offs, and that rock climber gave me a good way to frame my own question: "What do I live for?"

I think of it as a "currency" of life. My current thinking about work, retirement and sabbaticals seems to boil down to this one question: "What do I value as currency in my life?"

In contrast to when I had a corporate job with a fixed daily schedule and a steady salary, I seem to be making a lot more trade-offs nowadays. Should I opt to hold on to my free time over earning some extra income (freelance)? Should I choose to do something by myself (spending effort) versus spending money?

I made one rule to the currency question. It can't be a specific goal. It is not something that we achieve. So things like getting a particular promotion or title, passing an exam, or reaching a certain net-worth number don't count as life currency. (All of these are enablers.) It should be things that we want to do over and over again, taking joy in it each time.

That rock climber clearly knows his currency – it is rock climbing. Similarly there are a number of hobbyists who are essentially biding time until they can get back to their hobbies.

Unlike him, I don't seem to have one overarching activity, but the answer is some combination of things I never tire of. (I am leaving out universal things like spending quality time with friends and family.)

In my case, it is having the freedom (time autonomy) to choose pleasurable activities. I live to read books, to watch movies, to watch non-fiction DVDs, to listen to slide presentations and to attend lectures by smart thinkers. Also, I live to watch Ted talks.

I used to live to visit new places but that ardor has dimmed for some reason. So I guess the currency of our lives can evolve over time.

So, what's your currency? I was curious if readers have their own way of thinking about these all-important trade-offs decisions.

My Volunteering Do's and Don'ts

[Thanksgiving Day]

Certain volunteering experiences leave me feeling high and totally buzzed, while others end up being frustrating at many levels. As a reminder to myself for the future, here are my do's and don'ts as they relate to volunteering efforts.

1. For any volunteering effort, the potential scope of impact is important. The bigger the scope, the more engaged I become. And if things are in the inception stage or just starting-up, then I feel more involved, as opposed to being "a cog in professionally run charity events." (This is a personal preference)

2. Make a distinction between a one evening or one day effort, and a bigger commitment. If it a one-time deal with small time commitments, I should definitely take it up. These usually lead to more doors getting opened (and the people typically present me with opportunities that are a better fit).

3. If it is a longer term commitment, I should think it through. Longer term volunteering only worked for me if it was something that really wanted to do anyway.
a. If it feels really easy, then that's a good sign that I will like it
b. If it is a cause that I feel is worth spending my time on, I have almost never regretted my time and efforts. (A good portion of voluntary activities involve mundane and non-skilled administrative tasks.)

4. I should remember to do a Time-Benefit analysis - preferably on paper, but at least in my mind. I have been a part of several 'charitable fund-raising' causes where the total number of corporate and personal hours spent were hugely disproportional to the money raised. I do understand the argument around awareness, team-building and "social engagement" but still these huge efforts leave me feeling somewhat deflated about the whole task. I end up feeling that as a group we are deluding ourselves in the name of doing good.

5. If the volunteering task demands a skill that I am reasonably qualified for it (and strangely, if it is very similar to the profession "work" that I am trained for) I have almost always come off with a positive experience.

The above are just a few notes for me to keep in mind before I sign up for anything.

But here's the most important lesson. When I find the right volunteering opportunity I will know it. It feels like being hit on the head with a 2 by 4. It is okay to wait until then.

A Fistful of Rice - Vikram Akula and microfinance

"Doing well by Doing Good"

Why do some people succeed wildly while others, who seem equally capable, flounder?

When I first read about Vikram Akula in WSJ's front page back in 2006, I remember thinking about this question. I was only generally interested in the idea of microfinance.

Back in 2006, to satisfy myself, I reached for the easy answers – attributing others' success to some combination of luck and talent.

But this book, "A Fistful of Rice" by Vikram Akula shows me a lot more of why he succeeded. And why my simple answers are wrong. I have previously read a couple of books on micro-finance (including A Billion Bootstraps which I liked very much) but Akula's book is different.

Akula is a surprisingly good writer and story-teller, and I found his book very easy to read. (My wife was the one who spotted the book and brought it home, but I commandeered it and read it right away.) Ultimately, this is not at all a 'micro-finance' book, but it is a book about one idealistic guy who uses micro-finance as a backdrop to pursue his idea relentlessly, and ends up making a big difference in the world.

It is fascinating to look at India through the eyes of someone like Akula, whose parents are India-born, but who himself grew up in the US, in Schenectady, NY.

Most of the world heard about Vikram Akula (and his company SKS) when he became an "overnight sensation" in 2006. But the real story is what came before that, and all the hardships that he had to put himself through, starting in the 90's.

As an idealistic young man, right after graduating from Tufts, Vikram chose to go to India, to spend a couple years in rural Andhra Pradesh. He volunteered to hand out small loans and learned about the world of the poor. He maxed out his personal credit cards to pay for his expenses. With the best education in the world (Tufts, Yale and the Univ of Chicago) he could have had any job he wanted to, but he forsake all that to pursue what he believed in.

Entrepreneurs take risks that the rest of us shy away from. One particular example struck me as an example of why he has succeeded at such a grand scale. Even though he only devotes a page to this, I found it very telling.

After having watched the horrendously difficult account-keeping efforts of Grameen (in Bangladesh) where they struggle with notebooks and paper, Akula gets convinced about the need for automation and software to grow his operations. Even though his company, SKS has existed only for 2 years, and his total loan portfolio is only $25,000, he sets aside $250,000 for software development. Now, that is true power of conviction.

The other thing that struck me was how he had to ask his friends and family for small loans, so convinced was he about his model. He spends hours pitching to people and then they hand over $50 or $100. (An echo of exactly what Greg Mortensen went through, which he writes about his Three Cups of Tea.) Asking our friends and family for money is not something most of us want to do.

And when all the planets are aligned, good things happen. Along the way, Akula gets grant-writing advice from Michelle Obama back when she was a community volunteer in Chicago, his work is observed by Rahul Gandhi (a young leader of India's Congress party) and he gets written up in the media, which the WSJ picks up. Soon, he gets invitations from Bill and Melinda Gates, and a procession of Silicon Valley VC's come knocking.

Vikram Akula makes a very strong argument for "doing well by doing good" i.e. that it is perfectly okay to profit from lending to the poor. (The poor are not dumb, he says, nor do they want handouts. Mostly, they just need a little capital.) I happen to subscribe to this line of argument.

The book's last chapter, titled "Google Territory" is especially gratifying to read. Having built up such a vast consumer base, he is now able to do so much in terms of bringing amenities, medication, cell phone technology and education opportunities to India's rural poor.

Readers who are curious about micro-finance, about realistic attempts to make a dent in ending poverty, and most importantly about how one dedicated person can indeed make a difference should read this book. (176 pages, but you can read it easily in 2-3 sittings)

There seems to be no quick short cut to success. People succeed because they are fearless about the size of their vision, their belief in it, and are willing to put in 10-15 years of their life effort into what they believe in. They succeed because of sheer tenacity, where the rest of us easily give up.

Related post: All or Nothing Players

CNN Heroes of 2010

Every year on Thanksgiving Day, CNN broadcasts its "Heroes of the year" special program. This started in 2007, with Anderson Cooper hosting it. Ten Blue Ribbon "Heroes" (people who are helping various causes in their communities) are featured.

In order to make it more participatory leading up to the broadcast, CNN runs a web-poll, where we get to vote for our favorite heroes. There is an awards-night-style reception where all 10 candidates are brought in and their work featured. The winner is announced, and they get funds for their causes. More importantly, all of us get to learn how we might get involved in causes that interest us.

This year's contest seems to be in earnest. Starting from about a month back, I have been getting emails from friends of friends asking me to vote for this or that candidate. People have created Facebook pages and launched e-campaigns to garner votes for their favorite hero.

To me, they all seem like deserving candidates, and your vote is, of course, your private decision. But be sure to check out the pages of all 10 people. And on Thanksgiving night (Nov 25th), consider switching on CNN for 2 hours – 8E/7Central.