Mindfulness

Here’s a paradox: 

1- I know people who have more money than they will ever need but are totally insecure.
2- I know people who have almost nothing but are totally secure. 

The conclusion this forces me to draw is that if security exists at all, it is a feeling… not a number. 

The good news is that means we can have some control over it. 

The bad news is that means it’s up to us to learn how.

-Carl

P.S. As always, if you want to use this sketch, you can buy it here.

Treat everyone you run into as if they’re going through something heavy. Because if you do, you’ll probably be right.

I remember thinking about this in the airport when I found out the mother of one of my best friends had just died quite suddenly. I called my friend. He was crushed. We cried. And then I boarded the plane.

I thought about everyone else on the plane. I wondered if the airline employee scanning my boarding pass could see that I had been crying. I wondered if there would be room for my bag in the overhead bin. If the person next to me would be nice.

In that moment, I couldn’t help but think about how odd the situation felt.

All around me were strangers. I knew no one. And as far as I knew, no one had any idea what I was dealing with. I thought about the flight attendant, the man sitting next to me, the woman across the aisle. Did they have a sick child or a friend in the hospital? Were they on that plane in a race against time? What about the person who had been yelling at the gate agent?

As I turned away and stared at the Pacific Ocean through the little window from my seat on the plane, I was left with a bunch of grief and two big questions.

What burdens are all the people on this plane carrying? And how would I treat them differently if I knew?

I don’t know the answer to those questions… but I do know this: other people have burdens, too.

So treat them like they do.

-Carl

P.S. As always, if you want to use this sketch, you can buy it here.

We only have so much time, energy, and attention. So how do we decide where to place our focus?

To figure out the answer to that question, I like to ask myself two additional questions: Does it matter? And can I control it?

Unless the answer is yes on both counts, I know I can stop thinking about it. Because if it doesn’t matter, then who cares, and if you can’t control it, then why worry about it?

For me, that means I can stop focusing on:

1. Whether my children get into college or not (because I can’t control it).
2. Whether I could have saved $5 on groceries by going to a different store (because it doesn’t matter).
3. Whether the stock market is in flux right now (because I can’t control it).
|4. That guy who cut me off in traffic (because it doesn’t matter).

Not thinking about any of those things allows me to put more energy and attention into things that I can control and that do matter. For example:

1. How I treat my children, regardless of whether college is a good fit for them or not.
2. Aligning my spending with my values.
3. How I behave when stock markets fluctuate.
4. Learning to count to 10, taking a deep breath, and letting go when other drivers act like jerks.

Just imagine what might happen if you quit worrying about things you have no control over and quit obsessing over things that don’t matter.

Where else might you be able to invest that extra time, energy, and attention? 

-Carl

P.S. As always, if you want to use this sketch, you can buy it here.

It’s crazy how fast a want can turn into a need.

I noticed this once when I saw an ad for a new iPhone. I remember thinking, “Wow, that’s cool, but I already have one.” And then, within what felt like a matter of days, that new iPhone showed up on my desk, and I was totally blown away by how it got there.

The important question to ask is: Do I really need that?

Of course, the answer to that question is inherently wrapped up in other bigger questions. What if happiness is not about getting more but about wanting less? What if you can never really get enough of something you don’t need?

Look, we all know that the shiny new toy we just had to have often ends up in the garage sale pile or donated to charity.

This is part of what makes personal finance so complex—there’s no definitive list of the 100 things every family must have. These decisions end up being incredibly personal, and the only way to know the difference between a want and a need is to get clear on your own values.

The best way I’ve come across to do that is to simply put some space between yourself and the impulse to buy, and use that space to reflect. You can always go back and buy it tomorrow if you still need to.

And if you don’t need to?

You may just find that after coming to that realization, you don’t want to anymore, either.

-Carl

P.S. As always, if you want to use this sketch, you can buy it here.

Humans make decisions first and then do their research. That’s backward.

For years, I didn’t even know I was doing this. Every time I had an idea for a new creative project, I’d run it past my friend Jason. I would gather evidence to prove how great it would be, and then I would call Jason to have him confirm it. Which he did, every time I called. After repeating that process countless times, and having many of those projects fail, one day, my wife asked me when I was going to stop calling Jason.

Of course, my wife was right. In fact, there’s even a name for this behavior. It’s called Confirmation Bias—the process of making a decision, then gathering evidence that supports what you’ve already decided, and summarily dismissing anything that disagrees with you. It’s a pretty dumb way to operate.

The tricky bit is how hard it is to break this behavior pattern. But I have found one thing that seems to help. I call it the Confirmation Bias Prevention Program. Here’s how it works:

1. Find someone who disagrees with a decision you’re about to make (an anti-Jason).
2. Ask them why they disagree with you.
3. Carefully listen to what they have to say.
4. Continue listening until you can honestly say, “I understand why you believe that.”

The Confirmation Bias Prevention Program isn’t an ironclad guarantee that you won’t fall into this trap. But what I’ve noticed is that it does seem to provide me the space to consider the possibility that I might be wrong, and every once in a while, that realization stops me from making a costly mistake.

-Carl

P.S. As always, if you want to use this sketch, you can buy it here.

Worry is a terrible strategy for solving problems.

But I have a confession to make: for a very long time, it was the only one I knew.

For example, each time I wrote a column for The New York Times, I was worried my editor would say, “Sorry, Carl, this just isn’t very good, I’m afraid that is the end of the Sketch Guy.” And then I would have to crawl under a rock, never to be heard from again.

I would bring my worries to my business partner (AKA wife). I would go on and on about, “What are we going to do if this happens?!” And when she seemed totally calm, I would say, “Aren’t you worried?!”

Because she’s generally unflappable, she would say, “I could be, if you want me to be, but I don’t see how it would help.”

It might feel like worrying helps. But as Shantideva put it:

“If you can solve your problem, then what is the need of worrying? If you can’t solve it, then what is the use of worrying?”

Worrying endlessly about something that may or may not happen in the future doesn’t help. But making a plan for what to do if that thing comes to pass does.

So now, when I catch myself starting to worry—which is often—I try to sit down and make a plan. And then I take that plan, file it away, and stop thinking about it.

That’s it. I don’t need to worry about that scenario anymore because I have a plan.

Next time you find yourself in one of those cycles of worry, remember what Shantideva said. Action is a strategy, worry is not. So make a plan, put it away for safekeeping, and get back to work.

-Carl

P.S. As always, if you want to use this sketch, you can buy it here.

Living in Park City, Utah, I have often found myself feeling hopelessly inadequate. It seems like everyone is a top athlete of some sort. From mountain biking to running to climbing and skiing, you just know that everyone you see in the local grocery store is elite at something.

And then, there’s me. Competent, sure. Competitive, to a degree. But not a pro. And while everyone is super-encouraging, it’s hard not to get a bit overwhelmed by how much better everyone else is. And we all know what immediately follows a feeling of hopeless inadequacy: envy.

Of course, envy is not confined to the ski slopes. Now that we all spend countless hours on social media, it seeps into seemingly every aspect of our lives. And nowhere does envy raise its ugly head more than with money. 

When I think about envy, more than Park City, I think back to an op-ed I read in The New York Times way back in 2014 that opened with this line: “In my last year on Wall Street my bonus was $3.6 million — and I was angry because it wasn’t big enough.”

Stop and think for a minute about the envy behind this statement. Something good happened to this guy, but in his mind, it wasn’t good enough because he knew there were other people who received more. Who gets a $3.6 million bonus and gets angry about it? 

Well, probably the kind of person who compares themselves to anyone who seems to have more than they do. AKA, all of us.

It’s easy to get angry at the Wall Street bro and ignore how we are guilty of the same exact feelings of envy. But just look at how we engage on social media. We’re constantly focused on making it look like we have a better life than everyone else. But even as we take our own pictures and apply filters to our world, we’re flipping through other people’s photo streams and feeling envious about what we see. It’s a hard cycle to break.

The interesting thing about that op-ed is that it didn’t finish the way I expected it to. The ex-trader eventually realized that his envy and addiction to wealth were hurting him, and he left his job. The decision didn’t come easily. He feared walking away from the life he knew (and the seven-figure bonuses). But luckily, he found a way to break the cycle of envy and discovered what actually made him happy. And it turned out it had very little to do with what the guy next to him earned as a bonus.

In fact, it turned out that, for him, it had everything to do with learning how to believe that he had “enough.” On Wall Street, the idea of “enough” simply didn’t exist. It was like a fairy tale or a story for children. Again, this isn’t just the case on Wall Street. The experience of feeling like you never have “enough” describes social media to a T. You know this is true. As you endlessly doom scroll, how often do you see a picture and think:  “If I only had a little more money… If I only had a better body… If I only was better at [Insert Extreme Sport Here]…”? 

Let’s say all those things happened. Then what? 

There will always be something else we don’t have that someone else does, and our envy becomes a trigger for all the bad behavior we’re supposedly trying to avoid. 

After all, it’s really hard to focus on saving as much as we can and sticking with our financial plan if doing so gets in the way of having what we think we want right now.

-Carl

P.S. As always, if you want to use this sketch, you can buy it here.

We don’t know when to stop.

At least, I sure don’t.

Sometimes, on the way home from work, I’ll swing by the grocery store, buy a pint of ice cream, and eat it.

That’s right. The whole thing.

Yes, I know. That’s a LOT of ice cream.

I’ve noticed that a very interesting thing happens when I do this:

Bite 1: Best thing in the world, ever.
Bites 2-10: Really good.
Bites 11-15: Good.
Bites 16-20: Meh.
Bites 21+: OK, now I’m sick.

I learned this lesson the first time I ate a pint of ice cream in a single sitting.

And yet, for some reason, I still occasionally repeat the experiment.

Of course, this phenomenon doesn’t only occur with ice cream. This is a well-documented economic principle called Marginal Utility, and, you guessed it, it applies to money, too.

Beyond a certain point, having more money will not lead to more security, freedom, and happiness.

Because security, freedom, and happiness do not come from more money (at least, not beyond a certain point). They come from knowing when to stop.

-Carl

P.S. As always, if you want to use this sketch, you can buy it here.