Applying Objectivism

Mar 312012

In my earlier life philosophy wasn’t a highly referenced topic of conversation. Consequently, I was never really introduced to the idea of Objectivism until I played BioShock; where many of the ideas behind Objectivism formed the basis for the creation of Andrew Ryan’s under water world of Rapture.  Who says video games can’t be awesome and still educational.

Recently, I’ve taken a closer look at Objectivism as the result of reading Ayn Rand’s  most well known manifesto on the topic Atlas Shrugged. The ideas interested me enough to watch the documentary Ayan Rand: In Her Own Words and do more than a little follow up internet research. It got me questioning a lot of my previous beliefs and I have to say  I’m astounded by just how much I agreed with Objectivism, in fact, if you omit Rand’s non-spiritual beliefs I could say I agree with everything.

So what is Objectivism and why should you care about a philosophy? Well here’s a few points one can draw from this philosophy.

Don’t Sacrifice your Happiness

The number one take away to me is the concept that it’s not noble or okay to sacrifice your own happiness in favour of others. We are given a tremendous gift with this life and self sacrifice is basically pissing on that gift. It’s okay to focus and gain happiness from achieving your own wants and desires and it’s sad that much of society views that as being self-centred or selfish.

 

Being Happy Doesn’t Equal Being a Douchebag

Many will conclude that if someone if focused on their own happiness they immediately have to become a hoarding greedy narcissist. Being happy doesn’t equate to living in excess it means having what you need to live in the manor that brings you enjoyment. For some that may require millions or billions but for myself and most of us that means:

  • A comfortable home
  • Enough to Eat
  • People we love and get enjoyment from in our life
  • Future Security (retirement savings)
  • Cash flow for some desired vacations and toys

 

Government Interference doesn’t Level the  Playing Field

This is a new concept and I’m going to admit its different than what I’ve thought in the past. However, I think if one looks at the results government interference  it tends to skew the playing field instead of levelling it.

Government regulation needs to be limited to protecting and not  manipulating. For example, I’m okay with regulations designed to protect investors from crooked deals and miss-information. However, setting hiring/contract policies and throwing money at targeted industry with the intention of manipulating business and people to behave in a manor that the government deems appropriate is wrong. The results is activities like awarding jobs and contracts to those deemed in the most need and not those who are most qualified. That doesn’t build a strong economy and society it introduces weak links.

 

Objectivism in Practice

I see a lot of parallels between Objectivism and my views and to summarize here they are:

  • Live your life with the purpose of being happy
  • Give because you can and want to not because you feel guilty
  • Love out of a mutual enjoyed partnership not out of a need for dependency and support
  • Make your decisions around the best choice for your goals

 

 

 

Resolution Series: Debt Free for 2013

Jan 112012

I’ve been marketing, selling, and busting my hump to get another consulting contract secured which of course has meant I haven’t had time to do a lot of posting. That’s hopefully changing.

If one read my posts back in November they might recall that I was getting excited about an opportunity that significantly increased my revenue and would position me to execute on some growth plans. Well after a 2 month  proposal process I secured that contract yesterday; assuming nothing goes wrong while preparing the final paperwork. Consequently, I can make the resolution to  be debt free, aside from the Mortgage, by the end of 2012.

I’ve been crunching numbers and when factoring in the later start our household emergency fund may not be fully funded until early 2013 and my business slush fund target will likely go down to $30K instead of the $40K.  However, the important factor is that our household will no longer have a Student Loan and two Vehicle Loans weighing it down after 2012. This frees up a lot of cash flow for retirement investment, knocking off the mortgage,  and enjoying life (maybe I should say while enjoying life) in 2013.

Most importantly this gives me the solid monetary foundation I’ve sought for the last 10 years. After being completely stupid in my 20s and then getting slammed further down by all the financial destruction that follows a divorce. I thought it would take a miracle or lottery win to recover and have any hope of retirement. However, instead it took a lot of hard work, some sacrifice, some risk, some prayer, good friends, family support, and a focus on managing my business and personal finances and not letting them manage me.

Image: graur razvan ionut / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

If it Looks like Crossfit and Smells Like Crossfit is it?

Dec 292011

First post in quite a while: between wrapping up my last work contract, the stomach flu, and Christmas activities updating the blog was sadly not on in the cards. However, other than being taken out by the stomach flu for a while, I have been keeping up on going to the YMCA for my workouts and experiencing some nasty new levels of “stiff and sore”.

In the course of my adventures at the YMCA I have noticed that they offer some interesting classes: TR-X, Kettlebells, and this thing called PowerCross. They also charge an extra $96 dollars to take those classes which seems pretty pricey so I shall pass. However, upon reading the description of PowerCross I found that it was an advanced class mixing gymnastics, powerlifting, intense intervals, and sprinting …  that sounds familiar.

I find this a little depressing because the huge attraction of Crossfit for me 5-6 years ago was that it was on edge and a rebel in the fitness world. Today Crossfit is everywhere and if it’s not Crossfit it’s inspired by Crossfit. That’s probably not a bad thing: exposing people to different fitness philosophy is a good thing and Crossfit has tonnes of strengths despite it’s weaknesses.

Yet I miss the days when I felt like a fitness rebel walking into the local Crossfit box.

Image: Louisa Stokes / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The Resolution Series: Fitness Goals

Dec 082011

With December here and year end coming I start thinking about News Years Resolutions. The New Years Resolution is scoufed at by many but I think it’s a great tradition. Who cares if you fail shortly out of the gate:  at least you tried to make a positive change unlike the dumpy go no where putz who rolled their eyes at you when you talked about making some New Years Resolutions. However, I feel myself digressing into a negative rant so I’ll stop this chain a thought and switch back to the positive.

At year end I stop and take a focused review of my performance, call it a self administered Performance Review. I think this is key in my growth as a person and helps guide me to a fuller and richer life. Today I’m going to focus my self-criticism on Health and Fitness.

I started 2011 off strong fully embracing the Primal life-style prescriped on Mark Sisson’s blog.  By the summer I was down 20 pounds and into size 32 waist pants, which is a good size for a 6’1″ endomorph male. Sadly last month I had to dig out my size 34 pants and I can’t help but notice the pot belly is coming back. Apparently,  things slowly detoured off the Primal path as the year progressed. I suspect I’m just noticing it now because while I was walking to work the negative affects where somewhat kept at bay. However, winter has come and with our winter temperatures I can’t stomache the walk. As a result, I’m not looking or feeling very sexy.

I’ve been pondering how I let things slip and realized it was the lack of measurable goals. The world is full of convenient instant crap food that is tasty, quick, and easy but not primal and not healthy. Life can be busy and stressful and after a long day of dealing with issues at work, one just wants to veg out and put off repeating it all over again by staying up too late. I need to have  personal fitness goals , targets, and accountability to resist the crap food and too motivate myself off the easy chair.  Right now I’m barely meeting my mininum fitness goals and possibly would struggle with a few of them.

So here’s some goals for 2012:

  1. I will fit comfortable in my size 32 pants again
  2. I will get the next level in Krav Maga, Level 2
  3. I will run a Half Marathon again and beat my past time of 1 hour 56 minutes.

For number one the first step is to eat Primal at least 80% of the time and once I get my kitchen back (doing house renos) that should be a lot easier. I also picked up a month YMCA pass via Group On so I’m going to see if physically going somewhere 4-5 times a week improves my workouts. This means the weekly workouts I’ve been posting are going on a hiatus and I’m going to follow this Compound Exercise Program to build strength and try a few YMCA fitness classes.

Number two depends on the Krav Maga Regina schedule. I have a MBA night class going on Jan-Apr and anticipate that will eat up some evenings; meaning I likely can’t commit to the Krav training until after April. It’s expensive so I’m not paying for it to then find I can’t show up. It’s to bad because it would definitely ensure goal one happened fast. Summer would actually be a perfect time to go for this as I think the Krav training would replace the Crossfit training I did last time I trained for a Half Marathon.

I don’t believe chronic cardio is particuarily healthy but a goal of running one half marathon in the year can be healthy and inspires one to get out and enjoy the summer weather. Last time I did a Half-Marathon all I did for training was Crossfit 3 times a week and one long run a week. That’s not your typical endurance event training plan but I did better on that run than I did on my first Half Marathon where I used the standard chronic cardio training plan. These days I tend to avoid Crossfit as my competitive nature quickly turns it into a OCD activity but I will do something similar when training for September 2012 Queen City Half Marathon.

There you go nothing overly complicated but a few targets to shoot for and I’m hoping that’s enough to avoid the negative slide I hit during the last part of 2011.

Giving

Dec 062011

It’s the time of year were everywhere I turn I’m told to remember the unfortunate; those who don’t have money; those whose kids will wake up to nothing under the Christmas tree. The charities, like the retailors, go into full swing during December. Now I’m all for giving to charity and giving in general, IF, you can actually do so with cash or volunteering.

You always hear the joke that people just finish paying for last Christmas by the time the next one rolls around. Yes that’s only a joke (that’s been beaten to death) but there’s a reason why the credit card companies love the holidays. It’s ridiculous to run up a Credit Card bill you can’t pay and then say I need to find cash for those who can’t afford to enjoy the holidays. Hello, you can’t afford to enjoy the holidays! I’m a firm believer that you need to have your own financial house in order before you can really start to give. If your living pay cheque to pay cheque and your financial foundation is a cracked slippery rock surrounded by broken glass you probably need to focus on you and your own family first. 

Now if you do have the money set aside to gift out to worthy causes here’s some charities and programs I like:

1) The Alzhiemer Society of Canada: http://www.alzheimer.ca/english/index.php. My dad had Alzhiemers and I know first hand no family should have to deal with this disease.

2) Amazina Ministries: http://amazima.org/. I heard an interview with the young woman, Katie Davis, behind this one my god she broke through my hard cynical shell with her story. However, the website doesn’t do Canadian addresses which is to bad.

3) The Multiple Scierosis Society of Canada:  http://mssociety.ca/en/. Again this one touched my family taking my Brother In-Law from us. If you don’t have money this one has a Bike fund raiser, MS 150, in the summer, it was a blast (at least when the wind was at my back).

4) Plan Canada Gifts of Hope: http://plancanada.ca/giftsofhope/default.asp. I like this idea. One year I gave goats, chickens, and pigs for Christmas presents.

5) If your a gamer or know a gamer get a Humble Bundle: http://www.humblebundle.com/.

6) If your still looking for ideas this is an interesting article and moneysense that may help you find a good charity that’s more importantly well run: http://www.moneysense.ca/2011/09/15/the-2011-charity-100/

12042011 Week’s Workouts

Dec 042011

Okay these house renovations are destroying my workout schedule. However, if you find yourself doing hours of extra manual labor and your not training for a sporting event it’s probably okay to skip the scheduled workout. So with one more week of renovations left I’m going to be honest with myself and say it will be a good week if I only get one or two more laid back workouts in. If your looking for something more this week I suggest just going back and repeating any past week’s workout. As for me I intend to:

  1. Spend at least one 40 minute session on the Elliptical while watching TV (preferably 2)
  2. Because it’s not a bad workout and I find it amusing I’m going to do a Diamond Dallas Page Yoga For Regular Guys DVD workout. Feel free to do any Yoga session. When I do this my other favorite is a Tony Horton yoga DVD that’s shorter than the P90X yoga workout, Fountain of Youth Yoga.

 

 

It Takes Money to Know How to Manage Money

Dec 012011

We’ve all heard the comment “It Takes Money to Make Money”. Now I don’t fully agree with that statement but I will agree that it’s definitely easier to make money when you have investment money. Today I was freezing my ass off walking downtown to dispute a bill (not all that long ago I would have just ate the $30) I had another thought which is a slight deviation of the classic statement.

 “It Takes Money to Know How to Manage Money”

Let me expand on that thought a bit. I was thinking back to when I was in my 20s and about all the completely stupid and insane monetary decisions I made.  I was young but I wasn’t completely stupid, I got myself through University after all. So how can someone of reasonable intelligence possibly be so pathetic when it came to managing Personal Finances? Well here are my excuses.

  • I Grew Up Relatively Poor well Lower Middle Class at Best
  • I half-starved while getting through University, seriously I lived one semester on a mattress in a pantry and was known to feed myself with burger garnishing’s at the University Cafe
  • Jobs were scarce so I had very little income until I landed my first decent post University Job.

The common theme here is I never had any spare money and thus had no experience with managing money.  When I got that first $38k a year job it was like giving a starving kid a big pile of candy and expecting them to make it last the year. Those first cheques opened up a panadoras box of tempations and the discovery of spending power become my crack.  When Cash Flow fell short I went to debt because suddenly people would lend me money. The result was me with a job and still no money to manage because I had no clue how to manage my income.

So what to do? First if you have kids teach your kids how to manage money and let them make mistakes. It’s better to make stupid money decisions when you have a guaranteed roof over your head and food on the table. For example, I make my daughter work a weekend job refing Basketball and she has to save for her car and I’ll match what she manages to save. I’m thinking of also promoting saving by paying her 15% interest on what she manages to invest, at least until the Market pays interest again. For her investing is an ING Savings account. I’d like her to have a small pile of investment money that she helped build and manage in place before she leaves home.

If your just starting out on your own and have never had money or just have never had money take the lesson’s in the Richest Man in Babylon to heart. Build a small pile of money to manage and invest by ensuring you set aside 10% whenever money comes in the door. You need to have some money set aside if your going to learn or even have any incentive to learn.

11272011 Week’s Workouts

Nov 272011

Once a week on Saturday or Sunday I’m going to post a set of workouts to do during the following week. What days they are done on doesn’t matter and what time of the day they are done on doesn’t matter: the weekly workout plan is meant to be flexible to accommodate busy schedules. Seriously, they don’t even need to be done in order the order listed. Just don’t do all the workouts in the same day.

Note if I don’t provide a link and your confused about an exercise a quick youtube search will likely provide you with the answers you seek :) .

Suggested Warm Ups for all Workouts

 

Workout 1: 4 Rounds of the Following

  • 12 – Inclined Push-Ups
  • 6 – Chin-Ups
  • 30 – Air Squats

 

Workout 2: Tabata Running on Treadmill (can be replaced with hill repeats)

  • Set the incline to 12%
  • Turn the speed up to your normal 5km speed
  • Jump on run for 20 sec
  • Jump off rest for 10 sec
  • Repeat 8 times

 

Workout 3: do as many rounds as possible in 15 minutes

The Failure Attitude

Nov 242011

The biggest limitation I’ve had in life is the failure attitude. It’s pretty common really, it’s often seen walking down the street destroying dreams with the “It’s too good to be true” mentality. The Failure Attitude is when an opportunity presents itself and you see the path but suddenly you start to imagine booby traps hidden along path and like a pussy you give up without setting one foot on the path. I know because I’ve done this.

Alternatively, I’ve had the good fortune to know a few successful entrepreneurs in my time. One of these guys is younger than me and owns a multi-million dollar business with 4 offices in Canada and the US. What’s the secret? Well for one: these folks have big goals and dreams and truly believe those dreams are possible.  While I’m always preoccupied thinking something was overlooked;  an uncermountable obstacle that dooms my dream too failure.  Can you tell I’m frustrated with myself.

I come by it honestly my father suffered from the same affliction. My Dad lived through the Dirty 30s and survived World War II. The guy definitely saw more shit than good for a large part of his life, hell he had to watch my older brother look like an idiot wearing 70s polyester.  Anyway, I  don’t like to blame upbringing for everything so maybe my parent’s attitude has nothing to do with it but the fact remains my default attitude is the Failure Attitude. I battle this and at times manage to push past but once things aren’t a sure thing the tendency is to panic and reach for anything.

I mention this because even though my current contract is in effect until the end for the year and I have 4 months of Salary just sitting in a business ING Savings account I’m still fighting the urge to freak out, panic, and start mass sending resumes. I talked about a promising new contract last week and have some other good leads but I’m still nervous as hell. Anyway, I’ve been preoccupied and likely will be for a while so the blogs aren’t likely to be as frequent.

 

11202011 Week’s Workouts – sorry day late

Nov 212011

Once a week on Saturday or Sunday (this week Monday) I’m going to post a set of workouts to do during the following week. What days they are done on doesn’t matter and what time of the day they are done on doesn’t matter: the weekly workout plan is meant to be flexible to accommodate busy schedules. Seriously, they don’t even need to be done in order the order listed. Just don’t do all the workouts in the same day.

Note if I don’t provide a link and your confused about an exercise a quick youtube search will likely provide you with the answers you seek :) .

Suggested Warm Ups for all Workouts

 

Workout 1: Burpees

  • 50 – Burpees as fast as possible

 

Workout 2: 4 rounds of

 

Workout 3:

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