Either experience, Life change, Career switch? What's one thing you did in the last year that you are glad that you did?
I think the thing I am most glad about is the fact that I have started to reconnect with some old friends that I had lost in the shuffle since graduation.
In 2021, I read more than 15 books, and they literally changed my life.
From my perspective to my physical appearance, they helped me to find and understand what's right and wrong. It was the best decision I've ever made in my life. Those books will be the biggest contributors to my success.
I would recommend everyone to do the same thing. Make 2022 the year where you read at least 10-15 books. Don't wait till your retirement to read many books, because then it will be too late for those books to have a use in your life.
You want to drop some of those titles?
Some of them are controversial books, but here you go
- 1984, George Orwell
- Animal Farm, George Orwell
- Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
- Meditations, Marcus Aurelius
- How to Think Like a Roman Emperor, Donald Robertson
- Ego Is the Enemy, Ryan Holiday
- The Way of the Superior Man, David Deida
- Man's Search For Meaning, Viktor Frankl
- The 48 Laws of Power, Robert Greene
- The Black Swan, Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- Digital Minimalism, Cal Newport
- COVID-19: The Great Reset + The Fourth Industrial Revolution, Klaus Schwab
- The Art of War, Sun Tzu
- Anatomy of the State, Murray N. Rothbard
My man went full sigma male
Why isn’t my book on there? JK
I’m impressed. I’ve been reading similar books and found them paramount to my own understanding of who and why I am.
Not trying to shit on you. This is great and you've done a lot more than most, but something to consider is that literally every one of these books is written by a man. Challenge you to read some more women perspective writings this year.
very prestiguous list
That's awesome...would you say the life changing experience was due to the particular content in these books or more the act of reading a lot of high quality literature? I'm trying to motivate to read more books in my free time. Whenever I sit down and get into the flow I never regret it but I always have trouble getting started. Helpful to hear someone like you elucidate the benefits you experienced if you don't mind.
Jenny
Lmao congrats
started going to therapy again and stuck with it and i finally got got on adderall and lexapro.
Prioritizing my personal life. Finally in a role which allows me to do so, but being able to plan social stuff with friends and family on weekends or weeknights was huge. I don't mind grindy hours but I do mind not having the ability to have pre-planned social engagements where I can uphold my commitments. Having come from M&A IB and MF PE, all of that was foreign to me until after and honestly it changed my outlook on work. I've always enjoyed my work to a degree but there always was a feeling of resentment when I couldn't plan stuff like trips or even dinners.
What did you switch to if you don't mind me asking?
hard to pick one thing
got fluent in spanish and began studying another language
record year in the business
reconnected with a friend I'd not spoken to for over 20 years (not bc of issues, just distance)
and ditto to Aristotle. read several books that helped me. the one that stands out the most is die with zero by bill perkins
On die with zero - that's somewhat surprising, I may have wrongly dismissed him as a rich trader/Instagram/philosopher wannabe. Definite bias given he was all over Bilzerian's Instagram.
I don't agree with all of his lifestyle decisions for sure, but his ideas on retirement spending backed by solid research really made me question how I'm managing my finances and how I advise clients.
plenty of good ideas can come from people who have other objectionable qualities
MLK and allegedly Gandhi - womanizers
seneca - bureaucrat from a rich family
Marcus Aurelius - persecuted christians
Sócrates - impractical and smelled bad
nassim Taleb - misrepresents linguistic abilities (only has videos of speaking French, Arabic, and English, though many claim he knows 10) and gets involved in Twitter fights
jordan peterson - make your bed but also get addicted to fad diets, benzos, and have a messy office
to be clear, I love all of the above peoples work, I just also think that you must separate the idea from the person
Reconnected with some HS friends I had not spoken to in a few years. Read some great books. Decided to be more consistent in what I do. I guess a simple example would be reading every day, trying to read at least 30 pages a day (depends on the book but this is an average) over the course of the year it really adds up. Wish I realized this sooner because it helped in other areas of life as well.
Went hunting
Milf Hunter?
Haha might do that this year
Hired a personal trainer. Not cheap, but you get what you pay for. You think you’re lifting, but really you’re looking in the mirror. You’ll see great gains when you get someone who can safely push/pull you beyond your self imposed limits.
My Saturday morning workout with him results in a 3 hour nap after.
Were you strong and good at lifting prior to getting a personal trainer?
I thought so. I'm in good health from a bmi perspective. I lift, run, play a club sport, and I even finished the NYC marathon a year before the pandemic hit.The new trainer at the gym gave free training session consultations. I've done those in the past and recall a cookie cutter workout with a hard sell. Heck, the gym even hires blonde cardio bunny trainers to do the hard sell and they train via printout from some master workout database.Not this guy. He's a former D1 football player, got out of college on an athletic scholarship, and became a part time trainer at this fitness center. His day job is in corrections. So I took him up on his offer and could tell he was the real deal. I'm lifting cleaner with better form. He's also getting 1 and 2 more sets out of me. I'll be thinking that's it, and he'll flip the script and say yea, one more. It really is amazing how the mind gives in faster than the body. One's body is much more capable than you think, and you need someone to push you outside of your self imposed safeguard.It's hard to find trainers like this and his schedule locked up in a hurry. But when you find one, he's worth every penny. I personally gave him a year end bonus after seeing the gains I've made both in my fitness, but also my mindset. I'll think I'm tapped out at work, but I now push myself to do more faster and find the self fulfilling prophecy play out.
Love this comment, +1 SB. I have been lifting like a madman lately and blowing past all my PRs, but still know I would be miles ahead of where I am if I just shelled out the money for a good personal trainer. I am sure you know this but diet and sleep are everything, followed closely by alcohol intake. Are you focusing primarily on the big three lifts or do you have some sort of other routine?
I always thought that alcohol intake had a fairly minimal impact on lifting.
I will DM. I found personal trainers to be a bad joke. Useless. But if you found a good one, maybe you can share what you learned.
Hope my answer helps. No secret really, just a mindset of pushing for more.
Never Happened
Awesome question. Two things really stick out for me personally:
1. Went to Hawaii with two of my best friends and our SOs. Highly recommend this to anyone who can take off 5 days straight. I went to Hawaii (as in the big island) and stayed on the west side. This is the non-touristy side and feels like you're living in a rain forest. 10/10 experience and for anyone serious about it PM me for a fire Air BnB.
2. Finally got out of Consulting and got into Corp Dev. I was trying to get out of Consulting since I left UG, and always wanted to get into Corp Dev. Its a much harder transition coming from Consulting than it is from IBD, so I was kind of hyped about it. Unlike IB --> PE, Consulting --> Corp Dev allows for a tremendous lifestyle change. Not to rub it in to all the IBD folks getting worked to death right now, but I have been able to reconnect with all my friends, pursue my hobbies, and spend more time with my SO. Yes I took a pay cut, but I hit a point where I just really wasnt happy in consulting and desperately needed to exit. I faced all of the same problems many IB Analysts are currently facing, and even though my hours werent as bad, they were still awful for consulting.
Started making music
Listened to Tame Impala's Currents all the way through and can confirm it is a masterpiece.
Quit nicotine.
Started reading modern philosophy more studiously.
Bought a kettlebell and do all my workouts with it.
Discovered new hobbies to express my creativity.
I need to buy a kettle bell so badly.
Get at least 2 with a step-up between them. You want a lighter one for single hand exercises (thrusters, single hand swings), and a much heavier one for two handed lifts (dead lift, kb swings). So like a 20kg and a 32kg together work well. Or other similar step-ups. If you only get a single kb you'll end up doing 2 handed exercises with a light weight, which has little value. You can buy kb.s pretty cheaply, so why not? Worse case scenario get one used. Just as good. Kb.s don't wear out.
+1 for kettlebells. I got them originally to save time pre-COVID, for early morning workouts when there's no time to go to the gym. COVID hit and shut down the gyms, and the kettlebell became my best friend.
Took a few trips with my dad before starting full time in IB.
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reneged a signed t1 banking + group offer to do tech — best decision i ever made
Delete
Stopped focusing on material possessions and more on experiences.
Incorporating more endurance training into my training schedule has improved both my mental and physical wellbeing.
Meditating for 10 minutes (or more) in the AM and PM.
Journaling.
You training for anything?
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