Tag Archives: Self-improvement

The Wealth Chef – Ann Wilson

“Each and every day wasted on not investing will cost you dearly. Not only will it cost you in terms of the lost impact of compounding, but you’ll also lose the most important thing of all: the opportunity to learn from experience…The sooner you start gaining your 10,000 hours of investor experience, the sooner you’ll have this investing business figured out.”

Financial literacy is hugely important in the modern world, but unless you grew up in a family that talked about money, it can feel overwhelming. I frequently speak to friends who are interested in money and want to get out of debt/invest/save, but simply have no idea where to start. It’s an interesting challenge.

Ann Wilson introduces money through an extended conceit: cooking. There are four wealth flavours (assets, liabilities, income, expenditures) which you need to develop your palate to distinguish, two spices (time and interest rates), and a number of useful kitchen implements (your motivation as a a wealth obsession magnet, income statement as scales). Yeast, of course, is compound interest. The goal is to be a Wealth Chef, not just a cook!

Some first steps: use your last 3 months of bank statements to estimate your expenses, then write up a balance sheet listing all your income generating assets (sadly, your home would not count, and if you’re hoping to retire your job might not either). You are financially free when your generated income is enough to cover all your expenses.

It’s a fun way of introducing financial concepts, and judging by her own successful wealth-counselling business, an effective one. Her markets particularly to housewives and other women, which is reasonable – as she points out, at least historically men were frequently the one who managed the money, but in a world of increased equality and divorce, this is nonsense.

I have a few complaints at the margin: Wealth Chef uses 8-10% as a conservative interest rate on savings, for example, which is reflective of the historical return on the stock market but not of most people’s portfolios, which are a balance between equity and bonds. Italso emphasizes the credit score more than I would, though I agree that for people working their way out of debt, it is a useful way of tracking progress. For my tastes, the book also has a few too many exclamation marks, but it adds to the non-confrontational style.

Overall, definitely recommended if you’re intimidated by money and like cooking. If you’re an investment banker, probably not: consider reading guides on how baking cupcakes is like investing instead.

Disclosure: I read it as an advance reader copy. You can read more reviews of The Wealth Chef on Amazon.

How to Live: A Life of Montaigne – Sarah Bakewell

“The Essays is thus much more than a book. It is a centuries-long conversation between Montaigneand all those who have got to know him: a conversation which changes through history, while starting out afresh almost every time with that cry of ‘How did he know all that about me?’”

Regular readers know I think Montaigne is excellent, and highly recommend him. For some variety, though, I thought I’d try a biography of him. Our writing is shaped by our lives, after all, and so placing an author in the context of his or her life is often useful. For a man like Montaigne, who was fascinated by the world around him, it becomes even more important.

Following Gustave Flaubert’s advice on Montaigne (“Don’t read him as children do, for amusement, nor as the ambitious do, to be instructed. No, read him in order to live.”), Bakewell tries to extract lessons for how to live from both Montaigne’s writings and his life. He lived in a tumultuous time, with frequent civil wars between Catholics and Protestants in France, and Bakewell does well to provide background information that helps deepen and extend Montaigne.

That said, I think the book faces an almost insurmountable challenge: since Montaigne already seeks to explain how to live, the book can often feel like a lesser shadow of the original text. Montaigne’s prose is generally clear and careful already, and so interpretation can feel superfluous. How to Life is well written and interesting, but is unavoidably inferior to the Essays themselves. For a lover of Montaigne, and interesting read, but probably best to read it after, not before, you’ve read Montaigne himself.

Carrot and Sticks – Ian Ayres

“This book is centrally about how to craft commitments that will work best for you”

StickK.com is a website designed to help you achieve your goals. You pick a goal or activity you want to do, pick a referee to check to make sure you did it, and then put up a stake you’ll sacrifice if you don’t follow through: the money can go to a charity or, for the truly motivated, an anti-charity, such as the Bush Presidential Library if you’re left wing, or the Obamacare support fund (not a real thing) if you’re right wing.

It was set up by Ian Ayres, a contract lawyer and behavioural economist, and he’s now written a book to explain the ideas behind it. The idea is pretty simple, and so the book focuses largely on a multitude of great examples, from drugs that make you throw up when you drink alcohol or ingest too much fat, to signs in US National Parks that said that so many guests were stealing petrified wood they were running out, which actually increased total theft. In Israel, so-called ‘kosher phones’ were even set up by the Rabbinic council in Israel to block numbers for escort services and charge more than $2/minute for calls on the Sabbath!

The book got a little wearing for me in the middle: it felt a bit like a long list of examples. The end picked up again, though, first with a chapter on diets (if you want to keep weight off, weigh yourself regularly: it correlates highly with persistence in weight loss. Equally, if you’re on a strict diet, careful you don’t substitute to other activities: 20-30% of bariatric surgery patients pick up another vice, such as gambling, smoking, or drinking), and then a chapter on public policy helping people commit to desirable activities, such as reduce energy use. Overall, very worth the read! Interesting, entertaining, and if a little slow in the middle, still informative.

David & Goliath – Malcolm Gladwell

“David and Goliath is a book about what happens when ordinary people confront giants…from armies and mighty warriors to disability, misfortune, and oppression.”

The story of David and Goliath is well known, of course: a huge giant challenges any man of the Israeli army to single combat, all soldiers refuse in fear, young shepherd boy accepts and defeats giant with only a sling. The classic underdog story. Gladwell takes another perspective: the biblical tale matches the symptoms of acromegaly, a condition which leads to enormous growth, but also impairs vision. That explains why Goliath needed an attendant to lead him to battle, and why he did not respond to David having a sling: he couldn’t see! What gave the giant his great size, Gladwell argues, was also his greatest weakness.

The point, Gladwell argues, is a general one. We tend to assume that great strength will always win out, but in truth, underdogs can gain considerable strength from their underdog status, while giants can be severely disadvantaged by their size. The battle is much less one-sided than we might believe.

Gladwell applies this idea to issues ranging from dyslexia to class sizes and university choice. As usual, his examples are interesting and fun, which is what makes the book work. It’s less clear to me, though, what his thesis means. One concern is that perhaps adverse conditions just destroy the weak: though the idea of hardship as crucible is popular (and I find it personally appealing), it’s hard to disentangle that theory from the idea that hardship just destroys the weak and identifies the already strong as survivors.

Perhaps more significantly, however, he’s also vague on the concept of hardship. At one point, for example, he suggests that students would be better off going to a worse university, so they can be a big fish in a small pond: after all, the same number of students drop out of science at Harvard as at much lower ranked universities (which, by the way, if fascinating), but the worst students at Harvard are potentially stronger than the best at a weaker university. If one chooses a small pond, however, or equally chooses to hardship when it could have been avoided, is that still the same? It seems to me it is not: knowingly choosing to make things difficult for yourself, though potentially valuable, is likely not the same as being forced to undergo adversity. If adversity strengthens, too, one wonders what choosing a little pond does to your future potential.

All that said, I liked the book more that Outliers, and find his thesis appealing. We probably are too fixed in our conceptions of what is weak and what is strong, and we should realize that there is strength in overcoming and adapting to weakness, not just avoiding it.

Outliers – Malcolm Gladwell

First things first: I trust you are all following the landing of Philae with bated breath. Now, on to book review.

“Success is not a random act. It arises out of a predictable and powerful set of circumstances and opportunities.”

I’m generally a little hesitant about Malcolm Gladwell. He presents a tasting menu of ideas: not enough to satisfy or in many cases even know what you really think, but enough to arouse curiosity or provoke thought. That can be a good thing, of course, but his reliance on stories and anecdotes – though entertaining – makes me nervous. Because I can’t tell if there is any factual basis to what he’s saying, I end up walking away from a book with some interesting stories, but no real insights to draw on because I can’t tell whether his stories generalize to anything larger. What I read from him I must look up elsewhere.

That said, two of his books that I hadn’t read happened to be in the library, so I thought I’d give them a try. The first, Outliers, focuses on the idea of success. Gladwell argues that we tend to see genius as a unique trait, something that sets the elite apart. That misses the point: success is not achieved in isolation, but rather requires opportunities. No matter how smart or how talented, without opportunities genius cannot bloom.

At the extreme, the thesis is somewhat trivial; if you get hit by a bus, genius won’t mean much. Gladwell has a point, though: we tend to neglect this fact in everyday conversation, ascribing enormous weight to individual action. I wonder, however, if this is just a question of definitions rather than the profound point Gladwell seeks to make. True genius may lie in making the most of the opportunities you are given, and so consist not just of IQ but also hard work, self-discipline, and other virtues – whether that’s saying anything revolutionary, I’m less sure. To take the Stoic line, we cannot control the opportunities we are presented with by the outside world: all we can control is how we respond to them, and that is where genius – and virtue – lies.

The Sense of Style – Steven Pinker

“The starting point for becoming a good writer is to be a good reader. Writers acquire their technique by spotting, savoring, and reverse-engineering examples of good prose.” – Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker “writes like an angel.” – The Economist

Cotton clothing is made from is grown in Egypt. Did that sentence make sense to you? Probably not. It’s what’s called a garden path: a sentence that lures the reader into interpreting a phrase in one sense (in this case, cotton clothing), when in truth it is meant in another, a fact that is made clear only at the end of the sentence. They are, unsurprisingly, a good thing to avoid in good writing.

The Sense of Style is not really a prescriptive, ‘this is how to rite good,’ sort of guide, though some sections do give concrete guidelines. Instead, it is a study of what it is to write well; an effort to understand the basic principles that can illuminate and expose ideas in text.

What makes us bad writers? Several factors. First is a reluctance to take responsibility for our opinions – academics in particular hedge their sentences so much to avoid being wrong that they lose all coherence and meaning. Many of us also fall into the trap of writing about abstractions: good writers, Pinker argues, write with nouns and verbs, not adverbs and adjectives, so that the reader can visualize what is going on. Worst of all, however, is the Curse of Knowledge. We do not realize that readers don’t know what we know, and as a result, writers fail to explain jargon, explain logic, or provide detail, making their writing obtuse and obscure.

All is not lost. The answer, Pinker argues, is to write in classic style; to write as if you were in conversation with the reader, directing their gaze to something in the world. Good writers ensure their readers don’t have to keep a lot of information in their memory as they read, share their drafts with others and read aloud while editing, and above all attempt to write clearly and coherently, presenting ideas in an order designed to make them clear to the reader, not in which they occurred to the author.

The book is good reading for anyone who spends their time writing, whether in academia, journalism, business, or anywhere else. Since I finished, I’ve found myself rereading many of my own sentences over with Steven Pinker’s principles in mind, and if my writing isn’t quite up to his standard yet, it’s improving.

A final comment: writing well is in many ways about thinking well, and in his parting comments Pinker gives advice that applies to both. Good writers, he suggests, look things up; make sure arguments are sound; don’t confuse a personal experience with the state of the world; avoid false dichotomies; and base arguments on reasons, not people. If you never write another word in your life, it’s still good advice.

The Ten Golden Rules of Leadership: Classical Wisdom for Modern Leaders – M.A. Soupios and Panos Mourdoukoutas

“With very few exceptions, we are all continuously bombarded with portraits of “successful” types who allegedly merit emulation…The difficulty lies in the fact that these dubious paradigms tend to glamorize lives that are as superficial and inane as they are unreflective.”

Leadership is always a bit of a fraught topic to write about: almost everyone has an opinion, and most comments come across as superficial at best. It’s also often treated as the silver bullet that could solve everything: if we only we had better leaders, we moan, healthcare/foreign policy/the environment/our favourite issue could be resolved in a heartbeat.

The reality, of course, is not so simple. Identifying exactly what makes a good leader, or what skills we would prize in one, is hard. I don’t personally see consultants or even most managers as models (no offense to them) – they’re more like drivers instead of leaders, to take Warren Bennis’ phrase. Charisma and charm are often necessary to be popular, but they’re not the same as leadership.

Soupios and Mourdoukoutas identify another possibility, based on classical wisdom. Leadership, they argue, comes from knowing yourself. Being reflective and thinking deeply about issues, though not idolized in modern media, is what gives you the ability to understand and empathize with subordinates. It can also give you a broader philosophy of life, one that helps guide you and provide direction. Leaders, after all, inevitably have to be in front of others, and to do that you need direction of your own.

For me, that highlights an important point. Lots of would-be leaders these days seem focused on leading for the sake of leading: they don’t mind where the crowd is going, they just want to be leading them there. I’m not sure that can work. One can drive a crowd in a direction from behind, but to lead one must be in front, and that suggests being there before the crowd. Sometimes the crowd follows and sometimes it doesn’t, but part of being a leader is not needing to look behind you every thirty seconds to see who’s there.

The book isn’t perfect: the introduction is well written and definitely worth reading, but as with many such books, several of the chapters can feel clichéd. It nevertheless raises a point well worth thinking about, and highlights a number of useful ancient texts to refer to. Better, perhaps, as a short article than a book, but still worth the read.

Disclosure: I read this book as an Advance Reader Copy. It is released November 11th. You can also read more here.

The Greatest Empire: a life of Seneca – Emily Wilson

“The greatest empire is to be emperor of oneself.” – Seneca

Depending on your perspective, Seneca is either heroically wise, a font of wisdom, or simply freakishly annoying, a hypocrite who could never live by his ideals. A Stoic philosopher who rejected the importance of the material world, from provincial origins he became one of the Roman Empire’s richest men (at one point, he ordered 500 identical tables made of citrus wood with ivory legs for his dinner parties, individually handmade), tutor then adviser to the emperor Nero, and one of the most powerful men in the world. Throughout his life, he would write books espousing noble ideals, and then be accused of failing to live up to them, by himself and by others. Seneca felt trapped and terrified by his power: unable to retire because Nero feared it would reflect badly on the legitimacy of the empire, Seneca would eventually be condemned to death. Like his life, Seneca would not even live up to his ideals of death: it would take him four attempts before he successfully committed suicide.

The Greatest Empire looks at Seneca’s philosophy in light of his life, and his life in light of his philosophy. This works well: much of Seneca’s work focuses on ideas of how to live in a world of rampant consumerism, how to achieve serenity in an uncertain world, what counted as success, and other themes epitomized by his life. As Wilson points out, one of the most charming parts of Seneca is that though he frequently fails to live up to his ideals, he is at least aware of these imperfections, and works consistently (though unsuccessfully) to overcome them. Each evening, he would reflect on his failures of the day in an effort to improve, and his reflective style would influence writers including Montaigne and Descartes.

Stoicism, Seneca’s philosophy, is interesting; based in similar precepts to Buddhism, it too argues that only virtue can lead to a happy life, and that all other things are indifferent. Unlike Buddhism, though, it argues that engagement with the world is essential. Seneca, as a flawed adherent, helps humanize it all: his struggle with how responsible he is for Nero’s appalling behaviour given that he was Nero’s tutor helps show how Stoicism can be used to moderate experience in the real world.

The Greatest Empire is not perfect. Due to the paucity of sources, it can sometimes feel like the links between Seneca’s life and his philosophy are being driven by what information is available, rather than flowing naturally. That said, it provides an accessible, interesting introduction to Seneca, to Stoicism, and to the Roman Empire under Nero. I personally find Stoicism appealing anyway, but whether you’re familiar with it already or reading it for the first time, understanding how it is exemplified – or not – by Seneca’s life is enlightening and insightful.

Disclosure: I read The Greatest Empire as an Advance Reader Copy. It is released October 21st.

Vipassana Meditation Retreat – Dhamma Dipa

I’ve just gotten back from a 10 day silent meditation retreat, and thought I’d provide some initial thoughts for those considering it. In brief, it was 10 days on the Welsh-English border learning Vipassana meditation – the organization that runs it has centers all over the world. Discipline is strict: no communication of any kind with other meditators or the outside world, no reading or writing, no killing of anything, no intoxicants, about 11 hours a day of meditation. The idea is to work as if you were in isolation.

In essence, the philosophy behind Vipassana is that unhappiness is caused by craving things. Unfortunately, that’s an unconscious reaction; when we feel something, we either want more of it or less of it depending on the sensation. The only way to break the cycle, it argues, is to use meditation to train your unconscious mind and build a habit of not responding with craving when you feel something.

The bad first.

  • It was unbelievably tough. Just brutal. I wasn’t too worried about not talking for 10 days: I’m pretty happy staying in my head. What I didn’t anticipate was how tough it would be not to hear others talking. For 10 days, I had almost no external input: no new things to see or do, no conversations, no books. Everything I thought about had to come from within me. My mind started spading over the weirdest memories – books and events from decades ago – just in search of something to think about!
  • It could feel vaguely cultish at times. In justice, I don’t think it is at all; it’s just hard to make anything that involves a bunch of people sitting quietly in a room feel totally normal, particularly with a guy chanting in the background. It’s just so far outside our normal experience.

The good: Despite how tough it was, it was definitely worth it, for several reasons.

  • My meditation practice got a lot better. Anyone who has tried meditation knows how tough it is to focus your mind for long. I’m a lot better at it, I felt like I was really progressing and learning every day, and my understanding of how it works has dramatically increased.
  • It was interesting to try the monastic lifestyle. Centuries ago it wasn’t uncommon, but today it’s rare to try such a low-stimulus environment. I think you learn a lot about yourself, and learn to appreciate more subtle things in the world around you. Only by trying very different things, really pushing the envelope, can you find what you yourself enjoy.
  • It was a chance to think about profound issues like what an enlightened person would look like and what makes us happy. There are lectures in the evening on the philosophy behind it all, and it’s a great opportunity to really reflect on the deep issues we don’t have time for in our everyday lives. The lectures are fairly Buddhist, but you can ignore that part if you want.

Bottom Line: Worth it, but not for the faint of heart! I’m not sure they have Truth, but I think there’s definitely some worthy truths in it.

Addendum: it’s a system based on Buddhism, but for what it’s worth, I’m not Buddhist, nor do I have any plans to become so. The retreat center didn’t mind at all, and actively emphasizes they don’t expect conversion or even willingness to consider conversion.

The Smartest Kids in the World – Amanda Ripley

“PISA revealed what should have been obvious but was not: that spending on education did not make kids smarter. Everything — everything — depended on what teachers, parents, and students did with those investments.”

In Korea, one big test at the end of school decides everything: an extreme meritocracy in school creates what is almost a caste system for adults with your entire future decided by how you did on the exam. In Finland, the stress is lower for students but higher for teachers, with only 8 universities giving degrees in teaching, and all of them as competitive as MIT to get into. Both countries, however, are top performers on the international PISA tests, a method of comparing educational achievement across countries, dramatically outscoring the US and others.

The Smartest Kids in the World takes the PISA test as a way of finding out which countries are doing well, and then tries to understand what has led to their success. It’s a whirlwind tour of the high school experience in Korea, Finland, and Poland, three top achievers, and the reforms that got them that way.

Ripley’s bottom line, though she doesn’t say it quite this way, is that reforming education isn’t magic or even surprising. It means agreeing on common goals for the system, training teachers well, making the subject matter rigorous and not being afraid to fail students if they don’t learn it, and above all keeping expectations for students and teachers high. Not rocket science, but it’s amazing how hard the special interest groups in the US can make it.

Lots of things go into a great educational system, but Ripley makes some profound criticisms of the American model. It’s harder to retain varsity athlete status in the US, for example, than to get into teacher’s college, and the average SAT score of teachers is lower than the national average. Somehow, she argues, America has convinced itself that teachers don’t need to be smart, comfortable with their subject, or even have studied their subject. Based on international comparisons, that isn’t true.

It’s a great book. It’s well written, it’s engaging, it strikes a nice balance between storytelling and analysis that makes it an easy read, and it says something important. It’s a little short on data or real evidence, but because tests making international comparisons possible are relatively new, and so that’s not really a surprise. For anyone wanting to think about education and how the system should work, it’s a quick and interesting read.