Author: swartstraws

I am committed to changing my life for the better every day. This post will be the story of my progress. Thanks for stopping by.

Day 1 – June 1st 2021:

I am done living small. I’ve been dreaming big but seeing slow improvements.

My problem is that I want to change, but I haven’t worked to change how I think. Instead I’ve been trying to change how I act.

It’s like I want my car to drive faster, but my engine needs repair. Working on action is just pushing harder on the gas pedal. Working on how I think is fixing the engine.

I am committing to change my mind today.

I am implementing a simple system for the next 100 days:

1. I will make one change at a time. I will track my thoughts about the change every day.
2. If I am able to consistently implement the change for 5 days in a row I will add another change.
3. Every day I will post about my progress right here.

I don’t know if this is the “best” plan but done is better than perfect. This plan will be done.

1st change: Morning mindset

The first thing I will do every morning is work myself into a euphoric state of gratitude.

From that higher baseline I will experience tremendous improvement throughout my whole day. I’m excited to see what happens.

This is the first step on becoming who I’ve always wanted to be. I’m excited to the core of my being. Thanks for sharing the journey with me.

I’ll see you tomorrow!

Day 2 – June 2nd 2021:

Well I did it! I worked myself into a euphoric state of gratitude.

It was tricky at first, my tired brain didn’t want to kick into gear right away. I persisted and kept trying different things. First I tried being grateful for my family and friends, which felt great and got things going, but didn’t get me where I knew I could be.

I know that physical actions can prompt the corresponding feelings so I started smiling. That was a huge jump, it enhanced my thoughts of gratitude about my family, but I knew I could go further.

So then I just started mouthing “Thank you” over and over. Each time ratcheted up the feelings of joy until I reached a plateau. I was buzzing with excitement at this point, and then I got an inspiration.

Let it all go. So I did.

I gave away all my thoughts and let my mind become clear. That’s when the tidal wave of euphoria washed over me. It felt amazing and was exactly what I was looking for.

The feeling coalesced into a ball of warm positive energy in my chest that colored everything I did, saw and experienced. I was more alert and happy at work and I got way more done as a result.

I would say the first day was a success! I’m looking forward to how it develops day to day.

Thanks for being on the journey with me, see you tomorrow!

Daily unrelated photo:

Day 3 – June 3rd 2021:

Bit of a speed bump today. I was working on what I had tried yesterday but kept getting distracted. Eventually Lizzie woke up and we started our day without me completing the morning ritual.

This is instructive though. I can feel the tremendous difference in my motivation at work. I feel tired and lazy. This practice is clearly valuable and worth turning into a habit.

Instead of chalking this one up as a failure, I’m going to go through the same meditative process that worked yesterday right now. Then I’ll come back and let you know how it went.

(Side Note: I’m really glad I’m holding myself to one new habit, usually I try and shift a ton of stuff at once, then it ends up a mess. This way is much better)

I’m back! Doing this practice when I’m fully awake and sitting up proved much easier than when I was in bed. The waves of euphoria came much more quickly. However they didn’t stay with me as much as they had yesterday.

Now as I play around with relaxing and giving away my thoughts I see that the euphoria is like a stream that I can open and shut the valve to.

However the valve seems to be a moving target. I don’t know if thinking the same things are going to produce the same results each day. More experimentation is necessary.

Thanks for stopping by! I’ll see you tomorrow!

Daily unrelated photo:

PS: I’m inspired to take short breaks throughout today to revisit the euphoric feeling. I’ll update you on how that goes tomorrow!

June 4th 2021:

Well revisiting the euphoric feeling throughout the day was nice, but the quick visits weren’t really enough to sustain the high level that I started at.

That’s ok though, I feel as though I’m continuously raising my baseline of how I feel. It’s steady progress and I love watching it develop.

This morning I had the same issue as yesterday, I stayed up to late and slept in to long. But I followed the same path and did my gratitude meditation at work.

One thing I’m realizing is that visualizations are now becoming much more effective than just thoughts or physical actions.

One visualization specifically has continuously worked. It feels like my mind is a valve on a pipe, and I push the valve open and a stream of water flows forward. But the water is euphoric feelings. It’s like I’m pushing a flow of feeling great through my face into the world.

It’s a similar feeling I get when I push my thoughts away, when I push them forward into the world this amazing feeling flows behind them.

Another interesting visualization is where I imagine poking holes in the fabric of reality and feeling streams of joy flowing into me through the holes. When I poke enough holes it’s like the whole veil crashes down and a wave of euphoria washes over me.

I can even play with that further and voluntarily crush and recreate an imaginary barrier between myself and the joy I’m seeking. Very fun to experiment with.

I’m really realizing why this idea was a great one to start with. When I feel tired or neutral it’s hard to motivate myself to create anything. It’s much easier to just consume content.

With this skill I can go from just wanting to consume content to wanting to create. Both at work and in my personal life. Whenever I start feeling down I’m going to take time to feel great again.

There’s no real point in doing anything when I feel bad or even just ok. When I feel great I’m at my best.

This is day three of my new habit! We’re almost to the 5 day mark, I’m not sure what the next new habit will be, but I’m excited to find out.

Thanks for stopping by again! See you tomorrow!

Daily unrelated photo:

Day 5 – June 5th 2021:

Similar issue struck again, we were so busy I didn’t complete the practice in the morning. Since it’s Saturday I didn’t have the opportunity to sit alone at my office like during the week.

That presented an interesting challenge, so I started injecting the feelings of gratitude into my conversations with Lizzie. Which worked great, I was able to work myself into the same joyful state.

I think it’s becoming easier, but I’m also realizing that different strategies work to produce the feeling.

For example I’ve held onto a belief that I can’t serve an audience because I don’t know who they are or what they want, and what could I offer anyway? I decided to just release that conviction, and trust that I can do all those things.

The immediate feeling I get from releasing that hold was relief and gradually building joy. More importantly though, the results I wanted actually came through. A few hours later I was hit with the simple thought that people will buy something when they see an opportunity to make a change in their lives that they desire.

What’s significant about this thought is that previously I was so concerned with “figuring out what people want”. I was separating myself from others and making their thoughts and feelings alien.

Now I recognize that everyone has the same inherent desire when spending money, they think the purchase will improve their life. There are many ways, but the point is I can actually relate to this line of thought.

Dropping misconceptions and limiting beliefs is not as difficult as I once thought. I think it may become a new fun hobby.

A pattern emerges: I start by dreaming of a big goal, then doubts and worries creep in. I choose to actively dismiss those doubts and worries and trust myself. A little while later the answers I need to take the next step towards the goal come to me in a flash of inspiration.

I knew the gratitude meditations would be powerful, but I didn’t realize how life changing they would be so soon. I’m blown away.

Thanks again for stopping by! Day 5 of 100 in the books, excited to see where I’m at by my 100th entry.

See you tomorrow!

Daily unrelated photo:

Day 6 – June 6th 2021:

Today was a big day, I completed my 5th gratitude meditation on a walk with the pups in the morning. It was really easy while walking, I think the movement triggers things better than just laying or sitting.

On that same walk a big idea came back to me. Yesterday I released the idea that I don’t know who my target audience is. Today I realize who they were. They are people like me.

Making products for people like me is brilliant for several reasons. I can immediately know if I have a good product by seeing if I would buy it. When I put it out in the marketplace it will attract people like me, who I will enjoy building a business for.

It also enables me to capitalize on everything I’ve made for myself. Investment spreadsheets are the first thing I thought of, but there is more.

In addition if I’m developing products that I want, then worst case scenario I’m the only one that uses it. It still solves my problem, so there’s not really a downside.

Wait there’s more! As I test and refine this type of business model, I’ll be able to systemize and share it. This model could be replicated by anyone who wants to start out on their own. It could create freedom for many people.

I share all this to chronicle my entire life transformation, this realization will impact much of what’s to come.

Coming back to our 100 day challenge, since I completed my 5 days of my first change I can now add on a second. The first will stay the same and continue indefinitely, but now more value can be added.

It came to me tonight, actually inspired by Chris Do:

Change 2: Schedule Discipline

This will be a bigger change than my last one, but we’re all about challenge here! I start by reviewing my schedule in the morning and knowing what’s expected throughout the day.

As things come up I add them to the future calendar, but I stick to the schedule created for the day I’m in. Future days can be edited, but today is final.

That rule is to make my daily schedule very intentional by knowing I will always complete it. If I can’t improvise I need to be sure about what I’m assigning myself.

The last thing I do before bed is plan out my schedule for tomorrow. I look at the to do’s I’ve saved and add them on, and review my broader goals to see how I will move towards them tomorrow.

The idea is to start running my life like a business, so I maximize the returns I want (not just money) while minimizing the costs of time and money.

Today will be the first day of collecting items to add to the schedule and tonight will be the first proactive scheduling session. Tomorrow I will stick to what I create no matter what.

I feel excellent about this goal, I’m excited to see what it creates for me.

Until next time!

June 7th 2021

Well I wasn’t able to complete my planning before I went to sleep. I don’t think the structure I proposed will work how I want it to.

Sometimes I’m just too tired before bed, so I don’t want to risk not planning the next day by anchoring it to the evening. Instead perhaps the evening can be for reflecting and posting here!

What’s making more sense to me is to have scheduling in the morning when I wake up. Right now I’ve been getting up at 6 am, but I’ll unfortunately play on my phone for too long before I get down to actual work.

I need a new system, here’s my first try:

1. 6:00 – Wake up, move to state of joy and gratitude
2. 6:05 – Get up, go to the bathroom and get dressed. (Keep focusing on joy)
3. 6:15 – Sit at my desk and open my goals sheet. Write down the one thing you will do today to get closer to that goal.
4. 6:25 – Organize my calendar for the day
5. 6:45 – Coursera class
6. 7:30 – Pack up and go to work

This seems like a really good start. I’m starting later today than I wanted to but I’ll still follow through.

Another big change in adding is a great new goal! I want to make $52,000 by 12/22/21 by selling products online. This will be my main goal for now, when I would do multiple goals in the past they would never get done.

That’s it for today! Thanks for stopping by, see you tomorrow.

June 8th 2021:

Well I got up! It was just later than I wanted (6:35) but I wrote out the kind of schedule I would like to have in the morning. Here that is:

So my goal is to follow that more closely day by day.

I set my schedule up for the first time! Unfortunately it got a bit derailed because I planned during my workday before I got there. I scheduled myself to write down some ideas for my $52,000 goal, but ended up too busy at the time I picked.

If I want to work on goals during the work day I cannot add them to my main schedule. They’ll just get ignored. What I will do instead is know what my goal will be, and add it to my daily work planning schedule.

Besides that today was a success, my schedule discipline at work was excellent. I completed most of the tasks I had set for myself and captured the rest into my to do list.

Tomorrow will be a catch up day, there were many tasks added to my plate, and I have some important tasks aging on my list.

One useful system I may put in place is scheduling my projects more clearly. For example I’ll only work on tasks that will affect storage this week. Or I’m focusing on optimizing my office system.

I did set a weekly work goal of taking control of my work system. That ideally reflects itself in each decision I make, away from chaos and towards a system. Any job will contain chaos, it’s about containing and funneling it into a system that will handle it.

Creating that system and funnel is crucial and my main focus. I really want it to be one simple result day after day: Know that I am completing more tasks than I was assigned today.

Basically I’m using the law of compounding: by reducing my tasks more than I add I will move in the direction of control. Im excited about the progress I’m seeing.

My gratitude meditations are still going great by the way! More than anything it’s helped me reconnect to joy throughout the day. Especially if I got off a hard phone call or dropped a responsibility. It breaks the spiral of beating myself up over the mistake.

I can do no one any good by wallowing, I just have to get back in the game and try to fix the issue. Reconnecting to joy throughout the day flips me back to productivity quickly.

Im loving how I feel connected to the goals I’ve made over a week ago now, this hasn’t happened to me before. These posts are connecting me to what I did before and keep my story going.

I really think I’m going to accomplish my 100 days of improvement and my $52,000 goal. This is an incredible time in my life, thanks for sharing it with me.

June 9th 2021:

My morning schedule has been getting better, today I got out of bed at 6:10!

I am implementing a new system where I write down how close my actual day reflects my perfect schedule. I’ll just track which tasks I get done between 6-9 and 5-8.

Taking control of that 8 hour segment will allow me to progress towards my goals much faster.

I’m growing as I go through this process, and I’m not letting mistakes or failures slow me down.

For example I didn’t complete my daily goal yesterday. Previously I would have thrown everything out and started over with a mistake like that. With the momentum from all my gratitude work I don’t feel the same pull to stop.

If anyone else follows in my footsteps I highly recommend starting with a similar meditation. Mediating should not just be a blank mind, it should make you feel amazing.

Admittedly I’ve had much more practice before I started this week. If you want intro courses I would check out the guided mediations and teachings of Bentinho Massaro. He’s where I learned all my spiritual skills.

Getting back to scheduling. So far I have not been able to stick to a schedule I set. I get too tired or distracted.

In writing that out I realize I need to increase my feelings of commitment. No one is going to make me do anything, I will have to decide what I do day to day and live with the consequences of my choices. If I want these big goals I have to make the choices to get there.

It was like on my run last night, no one was forcing me to push myself, but I realized that it’s the whole point I’m out there. Why go running if I’m not going to push myself? I’ve had a mentality of stopping when I get too tired. I had the freedom to do that because I don’t have a coach telling me to keep going.

Now I’m evolving, I think it’s the continuous joy I’m pulling into my life through meditations. That added to the active reflections on everything I’m learning about business and marketing is showing me a new way. I can be disciplined, I can choose to do the things that push me towards my goals instead of waste time.

I want to continue to evolve, this has been an incredible process.

One final note I got from running. I was running up a hill the second time and starting to feel tired and wanting to rest. Instead of that I started moving my body to the rhythm of the music I was listen to. I wasn’t dancing exactly, but running along with the music. Doing that not only helped me run to the top of the hill, but made me want to continue running once I reached the top. It seemed to reduce my perceived tiredness.

I want to try the same technique when I’m working today. Complete tasks in rhythm and I believe I’ll be more motivated and get more done.

Thanks all! See you tomorrow!

June 10th 2021:

I’m going to be honest, I think I made a mistake. My first change was simple, infusing joy into my life in the mornings. My second change was unfocused, action oriented, and too complex.

I’ve been continuing my first change day to day, and it’s been amazing. My second change has just brought me stress because I keep missing my little task goals.

Schedule discipline is important, but I want to try a different change that I think will have better impact. That means I’m starting over from day 1 with this specific change, but we’re still on day 9 of 100 of transforming my life!

Change 2 (do over): Focus on one outcome

When I’ve eliminated complexity and forced myself to focus on one option I’ve been rewarded. That’s exactly what worked so well with my first change. I was tempted to try different things or add in more changes early, but I didn’t.

I focused completely on bringing more joy into my life through meditation and let the rest of my life continue like it has. That caused way more impact then if I had kept trying to add in more or created a complex schedule for my meditations.

So in that vein, I will be focusing on the one goal I set myself for the rest of the year. I will do other things and complete other tasks, but when I’m not sure what to do, this is the thing I will work on.

What is that thing? It’s the $52,000 I will earn from selling a product. I have never sold or seriously developed a product before. I’ve had ideas, but never followed through. Likely because I was distracted and changing my mind all the time.

This change will cut that out. Anything I learn will be oriented towards that result. When I think I have enough info I won’t be able to hide by researching another idea, I just have to get out there are start testing it.

I’ll be detailing my thought process on a new post, but I will continue to update this one with my thoughts and reflections.

I will continue my joy meditations to keep me in the right mind space. Yesterday I realized I slipped and didn’t do the meditation until much later in the day. It was eye opening how much impact it had on how awake I felt and how much I accomplished.

I am allowing myself to be flexible, make mistakes and learn from them. I will need these skills as I level up my life. I am excited by my growth already, and I can’t wait to see what comes next.

Until next time! Goodnight friends.

June 11th 2021

I’m realizing that I can’t just dream up ideas and mull over them to know if they will be marketable. I have to truly validate the ideas. Like really see if people will buy them.

I’m never going to make money by myself. All the money I’ve ever earned in my life has come from other people. I can only ever build additional income by selling to others.

I believe I have a strong concept: I build sheets to solve my problems and then share them. If people just want to use them that’s great, but I can offer a course to teach them how I put together the sheet from scratch and walk through the concepts in detail.

As I’m writing this out though, I’m reminded about the rule of 5 ones. If I focus on one type of buyer, offer them one solution, through one conversion method, and from one traffic source, for one year, I will be able to run a successful business.

The simplicity of the method is what makes it so attractive. I can focus so much better at serving the exact person I am looking to serve if I cut out all the other noise.

There is still value in the concept, but it may be more effective at engaging my audience and finding out exactly what solution I can offer. Instead of being the main business model.

What I want to keep in mind is that once I find a problem that I can solve, I will likely be solving that same problem for awhile to come. Successful businesses do one thing really well, and they do it over and over.

My point is that I don’t have to feel discouraged if it takes time to find the problem I’m solving. Once it’s found I will get a lot of mileage out of it.

I’m slipping on my gratitude meditations. I’ve been returning to them but not with the same intensity that I had previously. It really shows. When I’m soak myself in gratitude everything feels easier and more fun. It’s easy to slip back into my old way of thinking if I don’t keep it up.

That’s why I’m so glad I have these posts to keep me on track. I’ll keep posting every day. If I do that I’m confident I’ll see progress.

Thanks everyone! See you next time:

June 12th 2021

I focused on my mindset and my garden path today. It went well! I was able to lay all the stones to complete the path.

At the same time I was listening to how to productize services from Greg Hickman through The Futur YouTube channel. It’s a fascinating presentation, really makes me think.

That’s where I found the idea for the 5 ones. Now I just have to fill in the blanks and get started.

I am having a hard time deciding where to start. I think restaurant bookkeepers would be a good place, but I’m going back and forth. I think I need to sink deeper into gratitude and the answers will come to me.

I don’t have more to add today. This day feels like a low point. Only up from here.

June 13th 2021:

I went to the park and reconnected to gratitude and nature in general. It sounds cliche, but it’s the truth.

That’s when I realized I was taking everything too seriously. Life is about having fun. Accomplishments mean nothing if you don’t have fun along the way.

At the park I felt into the idea that I may never accomplish the huge goals I have for my life. And I felt ok with that. Maybe for the first time ever. I connected to a feeling that if I died tomorrow I would have lived a great life.

I am grateful for the privilege to be with my love and our dogs. I feel lucky to wake up in our house every day. I feel lucky for my job where I get to actually make a difference. Everything about my life has been incredible, even the parts that hurt.

When I connected to that again I realized I don’t need to force it. I don’t need to set goals and stick to plans. Everything I want is coming to me. I don’t know how I know, but I do.

I don’t need to hit home runs every day to win the game. I just need to stay on the path. There is so much left to do, and what is not clear will become clear with time.

It sounds foolish, but I have faith. That’s what these gratitude meditations are teaching me. Faith brings what we want.

Thanks for jointing me, this was a bit of a conceptual post, I’ll get back to the practical tomorrow.

Until then, goodnight friends.

June 14th 2021:

I heard something today that’s pushing me in a different direction than my monetary goals for creating a product. Having arbitrary money goals will make me do weird stuff to get there.

I just need to focus on helping people. That’s it.

Just keep caring, keep talking, and keep asking questions. Then opportunity to serve will present itself. When I serve one person I can turn that experience into a product. If people like that and want to buy then I’ll sell it.

I am not succeeding at my second habit. I have lost focus on it. I keep coming at things like I have all the answers. I don’t. I prefer the attitude of the learner who knows nothing. I can make a much bigger impact that way.

I have continued to tap into the gratitude and euphoria day to day. I think it’s ideal when I can do it in the morning, but still good as long at I do it at some point.

Another conceptual day I suppose. But that’s how it goes. We’ll see what tomorrow brings!

June 15th 2021:

I had some inspiration when listening to Chris Do and the Futur. I can use successful aspects in the design space that are currently underutilized in the data space.

Have a designer mindset when entering data science world. Make it about making the client money. I want to always look at each job as a client-vendor relationship. starting right now in my bookkeeping job. How do I add more dollars to the bottom line? That’s how I earn more.

I should have an eventual goal of serving the biggest companies in the world. Not because I just understand data the best, but I’m the best at making them more money using data insights and system solutions.

When I’m working for the biggest companies in the world, I’ll get the best insights into how the world currently works.

This is an inspiring idea, I think taking on the mindset Chris Do teaches will be even more powerful in the data space. Only time will tell.

I want to get back to my second habit, though I think I may need to recalibrate. I’m going to sleep on it and get back to you all later.

I believe it will be a path forward, a system that will get me to my goals.

I am going to start a part 2 of this post series. This one is getting too long and WordPress keeps lagging.

Excited to see what happens, until next time!

Final unrelated pic of part 1:

Hello there! I’m working to transform my garden, this page will be the continuously updated record of my progress. Here are some images before I began, taken mid April 2021.

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April 25th, 2021:

The first big thing is to put a pathway through our flower garden and take down the cinder block bed the previous owners left. Here we go!

So I tried to do a fun patchwork path but realized that these cinderblocks don’t really accommodate that kind of design. There would be weird angles and big gaps. So I settled on a straight path that could wind through. Here are the results from day 1!

It was fun! Making sure cinderblocks line up and aren’t tippy was an interesting challenge. Glad I’m making progress and excited for the next step. I should make faster progress now I know the type of path to build.

See you tomorrow!

April 26th 2021:

Well today started a little more rough, I was getting a large bin to move dirt around and disaster struck. I spilled paint all over my shed and extension cord. When I put the cord on the lawn to clean it up I stepped right in poop. Like really stepped in it. Like on both shoes hanging off the side stepped in it.

So after some light screaming and cursing I cleaned myself up and got to work. Unfortunately I was too angry and forgot to take pics of my misfortunes, but I’m sure you can imagine.

I didn’t get as far as I wanted, but was able to make some progress.

I started turning the path to hook around that little bush in the top middle. The blocks can be challenging to work with but I’m getting more and more used to it.

It’s liberating knowing that I can fill the holes in between with dirt. It give more room for space between the blocks. Which was a major concern previously.

Another issue is what to do with all that dirt I’m pulling out. I was able to fill some holes that Barley had dug (he’s just a gem) but I needed a new solution now that those are filled.

Then it hit me, I’m going to need a ton of soil to fill my garden boxes. So why not start? Without further ado:

So that’s where we’re at for now! Steady progress day by day will get it done.

Ah but I can’t forget:

That’s it! See you tomorrow friends.

April 27th, 2021:

Today saw some great progress! Before that though…

I hauled quite a bit of dirt out of the garden today, learning the hard way that I can’t overfill my big bucket or it’s insanely heavy.

Lizzie joined me outside since it was so beautiful.

I snuck some of the blocks directly under the alyssum out, which was tricky but less destructive than I thought. Alyssum is going to make excellent ground cover.

I’m getting faster at leveling and arranging the blocks so I was able to lay quite a few more than yesterday! Drumroll please!

I’ve been digging up so many stones that I’ve started collecting them for reuse in our yard. Probably to fill up an area that tends to collect leaves and look bad. Here’s that progress:

I’ve also found stomping on the blocks is a great way to settle them into place. I’ll start doing that more which should speed up production even more. I’m about to reach the next tricky part, curving the path around the central bush. Stay tuned for that tomorrow!

But before I forget:

That’s it for today, but before I go there was a beautiful sunset.

See ya tomorrow!

April 28th 2021:

No physical progress today, but I talked with my friend Brian who told me I should be thinking about drainage, so I’m going to get some sand to lay down under the path.

I spent the evening on a walk with Lizzie, making risotto and catching up with my old friend Natalie. Great night, but not much to post, so enjoy this pic of the trees that extend over our yard.

See you tomorrow!

April 29th, 2021

Not too much to report today since I haven’t gotten the sand yet, but I kept on digging! This time I had a little help:

I also moved some more dirt out of the cinder bed, slowly but surely filling up the first metal bed.

I was going to dig out the rest of the path but with the pups digging away I gotta hold off until I pick up the sand. Luckily my dad has some leftover bags he’s not going to use so I’ll snag those soon!

I realized I haven’t mapped out the rest of the path for you all. I’m thinking of curving it around the small bush and then splitting it. You can see below where the big rosemary is, that’s where I’ll split it right towards the cement bed area, and left towards the lawn.

Finally we found a few more stones for our bucket:

Barley has been getting a strange habit of chewing on rocks. I caught him dipping in the bucket. He’s feeling bashful about it though:

And that’s about it! But before you go:

It was a gorgeous night. With weather like this in April it’s gonna be a hot summer. One last shot of the sky before I go:

See you tomorrow y’all!

April 30th, 2021:

Today was a long day at work. Due to rising Covid cases my restaurant is shutting back down for at least a few weeks, so I had to process a lot of paychecks for the temporary layoffs we’re doing. Not fun, hopefully it’s the last time we have to do it.

As a result, I made no progress on the yard. Instead here’s Barley at the tulip festival! It makes me smile during these tough times. He’s such a happy boy, I’m grateful for his innocent joy.

It’s the weekend! Let’s see what I can get done to show you. See you then!

May 1st & 2nd, 2021

I probably don’t need to keep including the year huh? Ah well, it looks nice.

We have the sand!

So I had to go through the unhappy process of pulling up all the stone work I had done thus far.

It was tricky, I had to make sure the ground was the right height below the sand which caused a few redos. Then the actual laying stones on the sand was harder than expected.

When I was laying the stones on the dirt I could stomp them into place and the dirt would form to the stones shape. Sand wasn’t as forgiving, which I suppose it the reason it was suggested by Brian. It will create a permanent layer that water can drain through.

None the less I got better at smoothing the sand as I went along. So here’s the product!

The pups had a good time helping me dig:

So there you have it! There weren’t too many changes to the bed-that-shall-not-be-named so I didn’t grab a pic this time. I did find a ton of new stones though. It’s amazing how many are scattered in the soil.

That’s it! Thanks for following this far, see you tomorrow!

May 4th, 2021

This week was a bit crazy so I missed a day, but here we are again!

The stones weren’t laying flat enough so I started pulling them up individually and tamping the sand beneath them.

I also finally got my small tools involved. The claw let’s me soften the dirt and sand to retamp it down.

It’s not going to be a perfect path! But it will be a good one.

I got through about 12 blocks so there isn’t any more progress down the path. Once we get everything level I’ll continue marching forward!

I worked until dark this time! It feels good to be making solid progress after having to back track.

Well that’s what I got today! Hope you liked it, see ya tomorrow!

We have been investing for 4 years now, and have recently gone through a major paradigm shift. We haven’t fully switched to the new strategy yet, but I want to lay both out so where we’re at is clear. Then I’ll explain how we are going to proceed in the future.

I started my investment journey reading Money: Master the Game by Tony Robbins. That’s how I learned some of the most important investing lessons. Like how expensive 401k plans can be, or how actively managed mutual funds perform worse than the market most of the time and charge crazy fees (1-2% per year).

The most important thing I learned about was index funds and how powerful they are. Specifically the stock market index funds. Index funds are as important an innovation as compound interest in my opinion. It allows anyone to own the most successful companies in the country in one simple fund. They have tiny expense ratios because it’s a passive model, which is a huge part of why they’re so great.

Not only that but the concept of an index is self cleansing. Companies fight for market share and constantly try to beat each other. The winners rise and the losers fall. Innovations sweep across industries and change the landscape, disruptions break up dominating companies and chaos ensues. All the while the owner of the index sits above the fray and profits from all of it.

The book includes Ray Dalio’s all weather portfolio and thats what convinced me to get some money in the game. I had been scared to invest thinking that another market crash like 2008 was right around the corner. The safety of the money invested was of pramount importance. I didn’t know much about investing and I didn’t know where to begin, but I wanted to be safe. What I realize now was that I was scared because I didn’t know what I was doing, but more on that later.

What the all weather portfolio promises is a smooth ride. Not huge gains year to year, but no terrible losses either.

The concept seems very attractive and logical. Basically you balance your risk between 4 different financial conditions, high inflation, low inflation, strong economic growth and weak economic growth. The idea is that the market will be in 2 of those conditions at any given time so you have some investments that do well in all environments. The percentages break down like this:

• US Large Cap 12.5%
• US Mid Cap 5.5%
• US Small Cap 3.0%
• International 6.0%
• Emerging 3.0%
• Long Gov Bond 20.0%
• Intermediate Gov Bond 15.0%
• TIPS 20.0%
• Diversified Commodity 7.5%
• Gold 7.5%

I could go deeper into how this strategy works, but I’m going to save it for a later post. If you’re interested let me know!

So I had been investing in that strategy since 2017. My account had grown steadily over the years, not as much as the market did, but smooth and steady.

The first time I began to have some doubt was 2020. Covid hit the US hard in March and stocks fell off a cliff. By the time we reached the bottom of the bear market my portfolio had dropped by 19% while the total market dipped 28%. There’s that protection at work right?

At this point I was furloughed from work and since I was reasonably satisfied with the results of the portfolio I proceeded to put as much as I could into investments.

I was fortunate to receive unemployment early and without interruption. As our expenses were greatly reduced while quarantined my account grew at an impressive rate. That combined with the big bounce back accelerated my portfolio growth. Everything seemed great, until I started digging deeper.

It started as a thought experiment, I had met so many people who didn’t know much about investing and I wanted to help show how easy it could be. I settled on suggesting that people could just invest in an s&p 500 fund in a Roth. That simple plan would work really well. I posted the idea on social media and asked for feedback. I expected the idea to be controversial, but it wasn’t. Everyone seemed in support, and suggested other resources that advocated the same idea.

That’s when JL Collins book “A Simple Path To Wealth” was shown to me. What an amazing book. You can get the same lessons from his Stock Series here. It advocates investing primarily in the vanguard total market fund VTSAX and just toughening it out during the dips. That was in stark contrast to Tony Robbins’ book that assumed the dips would be too stressful for the average person.

As I thought about this I felt inertia from my previous way of thinking. It’s really hard to admit you’ve misjudged your strategy, especially when you’ve put so much thought and effort into it.

However JL Collins made sense. I had just proved I had the correct way of thinking during market dips, I got excited instead of scared when I saw the market falling by so much during covid. And I reaped the rewards so strongly that the lesson was ingrained deeper.

So I thought “I’ll start a small portion of my portfolio that invests in the total market index, and leave the rest in my all weather”. That’s where the idea of “Plan Z” came from. Just invest $100 per month in the total market index, never sell, and you’ll end up with over $400,000 in 40 years. It’s low risk, high reward, and anyone can do it. No matter your risk tolerance, since you’re not staking your whole future on it. It’s just a nice prize at the end of the rainbow.

So I thought the matter was settled. Then i got the app Personal Capital (which is awesome, like mint but better resources for investors). In the app it has a section called “You Index” which tracks your investing progress against other market indexes. That’s when I realized the mistake I was making.

While the total market index does bounce up and down, the fluctuations were still miles above my portfolio. I was striding the line between total stock index and total bond index. Which blew a hole in my thinking that protecting the downside would mean I could do comparably well to the stock market. I wasn’t, and it was clear I wouldn’t in the future.

The final nail in the coffin was looking at how much my portfolio grew compared to the total market since March.

Total market ~60%

My portfolio ~19% (not counting cash added)

Those numbers are crushing. I knew I had to rethink everything. And that’s where we’re at today.

If I know I’m not going to panic sell when the market drops, and have even trained myself to be excited by market drops then why am I playing so defensive? There’s no reason I can see.

So every time I get paid the portion that gets deposited into my investments goes straight to SWTSX. The next logical question is, “ why don’t you move all your holdings to that fund?” Its a good question, and one I’ve been pondering. What’s holding me back is two reasons:

1. I don’t think it’s wise to make sudden sweeping changes to your investments. That kind of reactionary behavior can lead to bad habits, and I want to keep it slow.
2. Given my heavy allocation of bonds I can wait for market dips and reduce my holdings at a more advantageous time.

These reasons make sense, but could also just be masking a fear of abandoning a strategy that I put so much faith into. It’s a question I will continue to ponder. Any insights or opinions are helpful!

For now I’m investing all new money into SWTSX or VTSAX, and know that it will be the best option for us in the long run. Thanks for reading, I’d love to discuss it further if you want, either in the comments or by email: mswart.ogn@gmail.com.

For the next step in our story click here. We’re going to talk about how we think about investing.