What 2020 Did For Me
Reflecting on 2020 brings back a mishmash of memories, breakthroughs, black swans, and the tenacious hours of honing on my skills. As the world shifted more toward a virtual/zoom reality, I was fortunate enough to eschew that direction (until now) and take some time to truly work on myself, helping my family, and the clients that I have been able to advise and help coach. I think we all knew that our bull market was going to at least alter in form somehow, but I don’t think anyone predicted for all of us to experience the tectonically shocking shakes and jolts, both in the financial markets, as well as in our relationships on a human level. Culture changed. My friends and followers changed. I changed.
I Decided to Transform My Body
One of the projects I took on was to go from being over-weight (190 lbs) back in July and to once again become in the best shape with the vision of once again adding “great tennis player” to my vision and lifestyle. Working out in my backyard six days per week in the afternoon, especially when the households that surrounded me were watching Disney+ or Netflix with their loved ones (I worked out while my loved ones were napping) tempted me to settle and to follow the herd in order to get out of the stress each time I would check out the CDC or John Hopkins website and feel the tragedy of quantitatively watching the numbers of deaths per state continue to increase. As an analyst, it’s only natural to apply one’s number sense and to anticipate that at an increasing rate, well it’s like volatility: when something bad increases it will increase for a longer duration of time, then settle down after its had its “phase”. I felt helpless so I decided to once and for all maximize my health and fitness, both to take on COVID robustly and to move on effectively to prepare for an unpredictable 2021.
Fast-forward 90 days and I lost 20 lbs. I decided to set another 90 day goal and innovate on my workouts by making them more “tennis-focused”, such as implementing more focus on improving my footwork, dynamic balance, and explosion with my large muscle groups. I would alternate weight days and cardio days and do abs 3x per week. After working out to day 180, this time I lost another 10 lbs., but also in a way that wasn’t costing me the loss of muscle. My meals were rigorously mostly chicken, vegetables, and oatmeal, but there were also the occasional fish burritos at the Mexican food shop as my cravings would get the better of me. Similar to trading in finance, it’s always good to have a default backup plan on how to analyze a financial security, especially if your emotions of greed and fear (we all have them) start to burgeon and suddenly get our blood flowing, leading us one half-step down the road of emotional trading to another. I can honestly say that I have never eating this healthy for this length of time, especially since I remember eating ramen noodles during the semesters I was an undergraduate student. I would bring three ramen noodles, a bowl, and chopsticks into my backpack and used the library’s snack room to heat up my food during my study break. Convenient, but costly in so many qualitative ways. It’s so critical to be true to myself, which also demands that I express myself authentically, knowing full-well the dangers of what it means to “accept” it if an individual as settled to the “body positivity” trend and to “love” themselves by getting fat. True love requires work. HARD work, followed by peak celestial moments of making a huge breakthrough or achieving a meaningful goal with implementing and integrating both quantitative and qualitative benchmarks to measure progress. My first 6-8 weeks vigorously working out while my neighbors and others around me either partied voraciously in their homes during dinner time and/or were on social media only gave me the opportunity: the opportunity to do something different that is congruent with who I truly want to become, along with how resourceful I want to be as a living example of success, rather than excuses, while starring straight into the face of a global, mutating pandemic.
I Decided to DETACH with Social Media
I used to be the guy who needed to see how much time I was on social media so that I could limit my time. This is the first year ever where I’m actually in a position to need to use social media more. The reason is because I reconditioned myself to get out of the addicting cycle of needing to answer tweets, and Like back, or Follow-for-Follow ASAP. I realized that in 15 minutes of social media (which goes by so fast), I could use that time to do an entire ab workout or connect with just one person through email. Yes, this strategy wouldn’t make me necessarily insta-famous, but it would make me insta-progressive toward mastery in “sharpening the saw” of my craft in research in finance and becoming an entrepreneur. This month (not waiting for 2021), I am starting to work on coming back to the world of social media, inviting new possibilities and the avalanches of positive vibes that are truly out there.
I Decided to Ditch My Loser Past Friends (Including Relatives) and to Master My Skills in Business and Finance
This is a tough one to talk about, but it’s critical to mention as I build my book of business. Just as a banana needs to thrive in a positive and supporting environment to stay fresh, an entrepreneur will only be able to maximize his or her skills by also thriving in a positive environment that is congruent with his or her goals and dreams. Challenge and a spartan environment are great at certain key times, like when working out, but the positive “chi and flow” must be present, especially in the morning. However, I have also learned to implement what Tony Robbins has argued, which is to use what life gives you, especially anything and everything that comes at you unexpectedly. Thanks to Tony Robbins, my inner game during COVID helped me make the transformations in my skills in Excel, research in finance, financial security analysis, and in becoming a better role model that we don’t have to be boxed into being one type of person. We can DECIDE to ADD-ON more things to our identity, our character, as long as we also commit to becoming the best manager for ourselves that we can become. I truly believe that without having to show up to a “party” to see my extended family members, only to harass me about bring up topics that related to things I wasn’t good at, it helped me hone in on my authentic strengths and to drive them to the next level of mastery while simultaneously raising my standards to not just blindly hope for perfection, but to demand perfection in every area of my life (while knowing I will never be perfect).
I Decided to Transform My Body
One of the projects I took on was to go from being over-weight (190 lbs) back in July and to once again become in the best shape with the vision of once again adding “great tennis player” to my vision and lifestyle. Working out in my backyard six days per week in the afternoon, especially when the households that surrounded me were watching Disney+ or Netflix with their loved ones (I worked out while my loved ones were napping) tempted me to settle and to follow the herd in order to get out of the stress each time I would check out the CDC or John Hopkins website and feel the tragedy of quantitatively watching the numbers of deaths per state continue to increase. As an analyst, it’s only natural to apply one’s number sense and to anticipate that at an increasing rate, well it’s like volatility: when something bad increases it will increase for a longer duration of time, then settle down after its had its “phase”. I felt helpless so I decided to once and for all maximize my health and fitness, both to take on COVID robustly and to move on effectively to prepare for an unpredictable 2021.
Fast-forward 90 days and I lost 20 lbs. I decided to set another 90 day goal and innovate on my workouts by making them more “tennis-focused”, such as implementing more focus on improving my footwork, dynamic balance, and explosion with my large muscle groups. I would alternate weight days and cardio days and do abs 3x per week. After working out to day 180, this time I lost another 10 lbs., but also in a way that wasn’t costing me the loss of muscle. My meals were rigorously mostly chicken, vegetables, and oatmeal, but there were also the occasional fish burritos at the Mexican food shop as my cravings would get the better of me. Similar to trading in finance, it’s always good to have a default backup plan on how to analyze a financial security, especially if your emotions of greed and fear (we all have them) start to burgeon and suddenly get our blood flowing, leading us one half-step down the road of emotional trading to another. I can honestly say that I have never eating this healthy for this length of time, especially since I remember eating ramen noodles during the semesters I was an undergraduate student. I would bring three ramen noodles, a bowl, and chopsticks into my backpack and used the library’s snack room to heat up my food during my study break. Convenient, but costly in so many qualitative ways. It’s so critical to be true to myself, which also demands that I express myself authentically, knowing full-well the dangers of what it means to “accept” it if an individual as settled to the “body positivity” trend and to “love” themselves by getting fat. True love requires work. HARD work, followed by peak celestial moments of making a huge breakthrough or achieving a meaningful goal with implementing and integrating both quantitative and qualitative benchmarks to measure progress. My first 6-8 weeks vigorously working out while my neighbors and others around me either partied voraciously in their homes during dinner time and/or were on social media only gave me the opportunity: the opportunity to do something different that is congruent with who I truly want to become, along with how resourceful I want to be as a living example of success, rather than excuses, while starring straight into the face of a global, mutating pandemic.
I Decided to DETACH with Social Media
I used to be the guy who needed to see how much time I was on social media so that I could limit my time. This is the first year ever where I’m actually in a position to need to use social media more. The reason is because I reconditioned myself to get out of the addicting cycle of needing to answer tweets, and Like back, or Follow-for-Follow ASAP. I realized that in 15 minutes of social media (which goes by so fast), I could use that time to do an entire ab workout or connect with just one person through email. Yes, this strategy wouldn’t make me necessarily insta-famous, but it would make me insta-progressive toward mastery in “sharpening the saw” of my craft in research in finance and becoming an entrepreneur. This month (not waiting for 2021), I am starting to work on coming back to the world of social media, inviting new possibilities and the avalanches of positive vibes that are truly out there.
I Decided to Ditch My Loser Past Friends (Including Relatives) and to Master My Skills in Business and Finance
This is a tough one to talk about, but it’s critical to mention as I build my book of business. Just as a banana needs to thrive in a positive and supporting environment to stay fresh, an entrepreneur will only be able to maximize his or her skills by also thriving in a positive environment that is congruent with his or her goals and dreams. Challenge and a spartan environment are great at certain key times, like when working out, but the positive “chi and flow” must be present, especially in the morning. However, I have also learned to implement what Tony Robbins has argued, which is to use what life gives you, especially anything and everything that comes at you unexpectedly. Thanks to Tony Robbins, my inner game during COVID helped me make the transformations in my skills in Excel, research in finance, financial security analysis, and in becoming a better role model that we don’t have to be boxed into being one type of person. We can DECIDE to ADD-ON more things to our identity, our character, as long as we also commit to becoming the best manager for ourselves that we can become. I truly believe that without having to show up to a “party” to see my extended family members, only to harass me about bring up topics that related to things I wasn’t good at, it helped me hone in on my authentic strengths and to drive them to the next level of mastery while simultaneously raising my standards to not just blindly hope for perfection, but to demand perfection in every area of my life (while knowing I will never be perfect).
RSS Feed