Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 116

Seconds always matter.

Patience and steadiness rewards

On Friday, the Nasdaq Composite (a stock market index heavily weighted towards companies in the technology sector) finished up 2.09%, closing at 13,047.19, reflecting a rise of more than 20% from its low in June.

This means the Nasdaq Composite is officially in bull market territory again.

Obviously, this shift may be temporary. The market expects to be volatile throughout the rest of the year, but inflation was lower in July, gas prices have been dropping precipitously for weeks, and employment numbers were stronger than expected, causing stocks to surge,

Eventually, volatility will decrease in the market and things will turn around for a longer, more certain period of time, as they always do.

Here’s the problem:

If you wait for things to turn around before investing again, you’ll be paying for stocks on the way up instead of on the way down. You’ll pay more for companies that are oftentimes fundamentally the same on the way down as they are on the way up.

You pay a premium rather than a discount, thus reducing your overall return on investment.

This is why I was purchasing stocks and increasing my level of investing dramatically in March of 2020. As many shareholders were divesting in the market in fear of what might happen to the world during the pandemic and the stock market was plunging, I was paying rock bottom prices to increase my investment in large, stable companies that were likely to weather the pandemic relatively unscathed.

This strategy paid off handsomely.

This isn’t because I’m an especially savvy stock picker. I don’t possess any inside information.

I understand one simple tenent about investing:

The stock market, given enough time, will produce positive gains.

If you’re wise enough to continue investing as the stock market loses value, you’ll realize those gains in larger, faster quantities.

Investing, as I say to my children so very often, is about “taking care of your future self.”

These are two quotes, spoken by two of the most successful businesspeople of their time, that I think about a lot when it comes to investing. They are essentially saying the same thing in two different ways, but I tend to think that nothing wiser has ever been said when it comes to investing.

I am left-handed.

Today is International Lefthanders Day.

I am left-handed.

Or perhaps more accurately, I’m non-right-handed.

At least that is what Dr. Geschwind a professor of human genetics, neurology, and psychiatry at the University of California School of Medicine argues. Left-handers, it turns out, have less asymmetric brains with more even distribution over the two hemispheres. “Perhaps a more accurate conceptual way to think about them is as non-right-handers,” he said. “Many of them are much more likely to be ambidextrous and have fine motor abilities with their right hands.”

This is true.

I play baseball right-handed (the effect of being given the hand-me-down glove of a right-handed player), but I can swing the bat from the left side of the plate almost as well. I lack the power of my right-handed stance, but there was a time when I could slap the ball just about anywhere from the left side.

As a result of my right-handed dominance in baseball, I also play golf right-handed. A golf pro once told me that my handedness is actually ideal for golf. “A lefty who plays right-handed means that your dominant hand and arm are pulling through the zone. You should be able to clobber the ball.”

It hasn’t been the case, but I also carry a left-handed club in my bag and have used it on many occasions to excellent effect.

Watch me eat and you’ll see that I can be holding my fork with either hand and may even switch between bites.

As a pole vaulter, I made my coach crazy by shifting from a right-handed to a left-handed stance almost unconsciously.

When I was arm wrestling in underground, illegal gambling leagues in Brockton, Massachusetts, my left-handedness made my backers and me a lot of money. I would begin the night wrestling right-handed and do well, convincing the room that I was a solid, right-handed arm wrestler. Then I would switch to my left hand. Not knowing that I was left-handed, we would place big bets on my matches against actual left-handers who never suspected that I am equally strong in both arms.

We made a lot of money.

Despite all of this, I’m not really ambidextrous. I write exclusively with my left hand and favor my left in most other circumstances.

Recently I learned that six of the last twelve Presidents were left-handed, along with former Presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Al Gore, Bob Dole, John Edwards, and many more.

In fact, the only four right-handed Presidents of the last 40 years were Jimmy Carter, George W. Bush, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden.

Draw your own conclusions.

Of course, violent criminals and murderers are also far more likely to be left-handed, so perhaps re-draw those conclusions.

The world is also aggressively designed for right-handed people. Everything from doorknobs and gear shifts to wire-bound notebooks are designed for right-handers. Cup holders are always on the right. Can openers are designed to be used with the right hand. Scissors and vegetable peelers and cameras are all designed for righties.

We shake hands with our right hand. Most musical instruments are designed for right-handed people. If you hold a glass measuring cup in your left hand, you’re stuck reading metric measurements.

Even the act of writing, left to right across the page, is designed for right-handed people.

The list is endless.

When choosing a seat at a dinner table, left-handers are always seeking the left side at all costs. If we have a right-handed person to our left, elbows will bump constantly throughout the meal. Yet this is the burden of the left-hander. Never in my life have I seen a right-handed person make a seating decision based upon the left-hander at the table.

They are completely oblivious to this need.

For all of my life, I’ve watched in astonishment as right-handers sit with impunity at a dinner table, never aware of the subtle but absolute needs of their left-handed brethren.

To choose a seat, absent calculation or requirement, must be a blessed thing indeed.

But here’s the strangest and possibly most frustrating thing about being left-handed:

When people notice that you’re left-handed, they often ask, “You’re left-handed?”

They almost always ask this question while you’re signing your name or completing a form or writing a note with your left hand.

It’s a weird question since the answer to the question is obvious, yet failing to answer or pointing out the stupidity of the question makes you look like a jerk.

Still, I often opt for the nonresponse. Sometimes I toss in a subtle glare.

Must be the criminal in me.

To all my left-handed friends out there (12% statistically), enjoy International Lefthanders Day. I don’t think it’s going to score us a free ice cream or half-price admission to a movie, but please know that you’re not alone in this difficult, right-handed world.

Grant was so correct

President Grant could apparently see the future.

Disturbingly do.

Growing the legend

Scott, my golf guru, has said many wise things to me on a golf course. Swing thoughts and strategy and decision making.

He has also advised me to “grow the legend” wherever possible.

This means that when faced with the choice of a safe, high percentage shot or an exceedingly difficult, low percentage, possibly remarkable shot, always choose the latter. Even though your score might suffer, scores are quickly forgotten.

Remarkable shots are remembered forever.

I like this philosophy a lot.

Here’s the problem:

My legend isn’t entirely legendary, at least when it comes to the golf course, and quite possibly throughout much of my life.

In the years I’ve been playing golf, I’ve killed a bird mid-flight with a tee shot. Hit a duck on the side of a hill. Hit a ball that traveled 130 yards on a 90-degree arc around a stand of tall grass, over a pond, and into a pipe on the other side. I’ve hit the side of a barn. Hit the side of a house. Hit myself with a ball twice on a ricochet off a tree.

I once hit six consecutive shots into a condo complex in Bermuda, each shot landing within several feet of the other. I’ve hit multiple balls into multiple ponds, streams, and rivers many, many times.

I once hit a tee shot that somehow ended up 100 yards to the right, slightly behind me, onto a green where four guys were putting.

“Putting for eagle?” one of them asked with a smile.

I once hit a ball out of a sand trap straight up into the air. I looked up and couldn’t see the ball, so I asked my friend, Andrew, who had been watching the shot, where it had gone. Then the ball came back down, landing on the brim of my hat, resting there for a moment, before gently rolling off my hat and into the divot that I’d just made.

Andrew witnessed the entire thing and might still be laughing today.

I’m legendary on the golf course, but not for the reasons a golfer wants to be legendary.

On Sunday, I had a chance to grow the legend yet again, With one hole to go, I was beating my friend, Andrew, by two strokes, playing one of the best rounds of my life despite being unable to hit my driver. It has been a long, long time since I beat Andrew in a round of golf, and a two-stroke lead is sizable with one hole to go.

It’s hard to lose or at least tie with a two-stroke lead on the final hole.

I shot an 11, growing the legend once again.

After requiring only 40 shots to complete the first eight holes, it took me 11 to complete the last hole.

There were lots of reasons for this disaster:

An errant tee shot put my ball under some trees off the fairway, which wouldn’t have been disastrous except the ball was also in a hole, making my second shot a miserable little thing.

My third shot was fine, but now I was facing a blind shot over a hill. Andrew told me that there was a stream on the other side and advised me to lay up. I heard “stream” and thought that even if I hit a bad shot, the chances of landing in a stream were low.

I hit a less than ideal shot, walked over the hill, and discovered that Andrew’s “stream” was a large pond.

He had forgotten that it was a pond.

Outraged, my next shot barely made it across the pond, requiring me to stand in the muck on the other side and hit my ball out of leaves and mud It was such a ridiculous spot that Andrew thought I should take a penalty and drop. I chose to hit, and though I managed to get the ball out onto the fairway, it traveled only 10 yards.

Eventually, I three-putted for the first time that day – mostly because I had lost my mind – for my 11.

A truly legendary hole.

Beating Andrew would’ve been fantastic.

Finishing with a 44 or even a 45 would’ve been excellent, especially considering I failed to land a fairway with my tee shots.

But somehow, Scott is right. Growing the legend, even when that legend isn’t one of excellence, is probably the way to go. Had I beat Andrew on Sunday and managed my lowest score ever, it would’ve been thrilling and even memorable, but somehow, the 11 seems better four days later.

I grew the legend on Sunday, as my guru Scott advises.

Just not the kind of legend that most people – including me – really want.

Here’s Andrew’s pond, by the way.

 

The Middle finger

Charlie says, “This middle finger thing is ridiculous. I can’t raise one of my fingers without offending the world? Seriously? Isn’t life hard enough already?”

He makes a good point. You can’t even raise your middle finger on network television without your hand being blurred by the censors.

It’s really quite stupid. A relec of ancient times that has somehow continued to persist for centuries.

We should all agree that hence forth, the extension of the middle finger – absent the extension of any other digit – is a meaningless, benign gesture.

Charlie is correct. The idea that we have attached meaning to a simple gesture like this is ridiculous.

And he’s also right:

Life is hard enough without taking offense to a finger.

Strange matter and a strange boy

If you continually add water to an unbreakable container, Charlie tells me that you will eventually get strange matter.

I’ve been alive for five decades and have never heard of a strange matter before.

He keeps doing this to me:

Tells me about something I’ve never heard of before but feel like I should’ve known all along.

But it’s admittedly an interesting theoretical question:

What happens when you continue to add water to an unbreakable container?

So I did some reading, and it turns out that Charlie is right. You would theoretically get strange matter.

“Theoretically,” Charlie explains because if strange matter exists, it can only be found at the center of a neutron star and a black hole, so its existence has not been verified. “Only mathematically calculated,” he says.Just those words are both impressive and frustrating.Please note that this is the same kid whose shoes can often be found in two different rooms. He’s the same boy who can’t apply cream cheese to a bagel or carry a beach chair without complaining. He can’t remember to say excuse me when he burps, has never turned off a light in his life, and moos like a cow incessantly.He’s not some super genius.Yet he seems to understand strange matter, which I didn’t understand for all of my life. I didn’t know it exists for all of my life.According to my reading, strange matter is created when nuclear matter (made of protons and neutrons) is compressed beyond a critical density. At this extreme pressure and density, the protons and neutrons dissociate into quarks, yielding quark matter and, theoretically, strange matter.Strange matter is also apparently contagious:Theoretically, if strange matter were to touch not-so-strange matter, it would turn that not-so-strange matter into strange matter.I have no idea why this is so.“So strange matter is like the zombies of the sub-atomic world,” I told Charlie admittedly excited about my comparison.“No,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Not even close. Strange matter is made of quarks. Not zombies. It’s really not that hard to understand.”Quarks are the fundamental building blocks of matter. An atom is made up of protons, neutrons, and electrons. Quarks are what make up the protons and neutrons.Apparently, electrons are just electrons. They are made up only of themselves.I’m sure Charlie knows this, too, and probably even more about quarks than I already know, but I’m not going to engage him in a discussion about quarks unless he makes me.I’m tired of being the dumb one in our relationship.

Habits over motivation or inspiration

This image says it all.

You’re not always motivated, though admittedly it helps. If you’re not consistently motivated, this might help in that department.

You’re not always inspired, though admittedly it also helps. And there are a ton of ways to become inspired about the work you do. Read my latest, Someday Is Today, for ideas.

Available in bookstores everywhere. Also in audiobook form.

But daily habits? The establishing of routines that will carry the day?

Yes, those can happen every day. And habits, once formed, are independent of motivation and inspiration.

Jerry Seinfeld once said that the way to become a better comic was to create better jokes, and the way to create better jokes was to write every day.

To accomplish this goal, Seinfeld suggested purchasing a large wall calendar that has a whole year on one page and hanging it on a prominent wall. Then purchase a red magic marker. For every day that you write, put a big red X over that day.

“After a few days, you’ll have a chain,” he said. “Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You’ll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job is to not break the chain.”

Seinfeld does not talk about finding motivation or inspiration to write. Instead, he suggests a system that will guarantee that you write, even on days when you don’t feel like writing or when the writing is not good.

I’ve written every single day of my life, without exception, since November 30, 1988. That writing has come in many forms, but every day, without ever missing a day, I have written sentences attached to other sentences. I wrote when I was homeless. I wrote on my wedding day. I wrote on the day I was arrested and jailed for a crime I did not commit. I wrote on every day of my honeymoon. I wrote when I was battling pneumonia. I wrote between contractions on the day when Clara was born.

Once you’ve started a chain, why break it?

I’ve also written and published a blog post every single day without exception since June 23, 2003. That’s 6,986 posts and counting. Not every post is good. Not every post is entertaining or informative or even well written. They are admittedly better today than back in 2003, but not everything I write is scintillating and memorable.

Perhaps you’ve noticed.

But I haven’t missed a day in more than 19 years.

I also wrote to my children every single day from May 14, 2008 (the day we discovered that Elysha was pregnant) through December 20 of 2015. Those posts, 2,793 in all, now exist online at greetingslittleone.com and in six volumes of printed text in our home.

Some of those posts contain sage wisdom for my children. Others capture moments that I’m so happy we will never forget. Some of a lot less inspiring. But I didn’t miss a day for nearly seven years before deciding to move on to other projects.

I’ve also established habits related to many other things in my life. You have, too. Presumably, you brush your teeth twice a day regardless of your inspiration and motivation. You probably have established routines related to personal organization and household chores. If you have pets or plants, you have daily habits that keep those living things alive.

Motivation and inspiration can be hard at times. Habits are not hard. Once formed, they simply become part of your everyday routine.

I may admittedly be more motivated and inspired than most people, but there are days – believe it or not – when I am less than inspired and less than motivated. Perhaps these days happen a lot less frequently than most, but they do occasionally happen.

On those days, I’m grateful for the habits that I’ve created. The chains I will not break. The ease at which I sit down and write my sentences because it’s what I’ve done for so many days before.

If you want to accomplish a goal or make a dream come true, find a way to establish habits along the steps of that path.

Forget results.

Focus on the process.

Worry about doing the work instead of the quality of the work.

A 1956 refrigerator and a lot of question

Serious question:

Why is this 66-year-old refrigerator, built by General Motors, better than the refrigerators we have today?

Also, what the hell is Charlie’s name in the video? Charlie what?

Also, and I’m serious:

Is the woman in this commercial – now dead and buried – playing both parts?

Or are there two actors in this commercial, speaking with identical voices and speech patterns?

Asking the right question

I lifted the tray off the counter at Panera and handed it to Charlie. Then I turned to reach for my own food when Charlie said, “Dad, this macaroni and cheese looks like soup.”

He was right. In addition to it being ten thousand times the price of the macaroni and cheese we make at home, the noodles in his bowl were floating in what looked like cheesy water.

I took his tray back and placed it on the counter. “Excuse me,” I said. “There’s something wrong with this macaroni and cheese. It looks more like soup.”

The employee on the other side of the counter glared at me. Gave me the stink eye. Threw me a dirty look. Appeared genuinely annoyed. And she waited for what felt like an eternity before flatly saying, “Did you want me to make you another one?”

I really didn’t get it. The macaroni and cheese did not resemble macaroni and cheese. It wasn’t just a little wrong. It was a different species of food entirely. Not something I’d ever allow Charlie to eat.

Annoyed, I said this in response:

“I’m sorry. Did I do something wrong to engender the response that I’m receiving right now?”

“You didn’t ask me to replace the food,” she said, still less than politely.

“When I worked in food service,” I said, “and a customer told me that something was wrong with their food, I always made the cognitive leap and assumed that the food needed to be replaced. Perhaps I should just be more explicit next time and not make any assumptions about your powers of deduction.”

I was proud of this response. Completely unprepared but deliciously pointed. I braced myself for her inevitable retort, but at that very second, someone said, “Are you Matthew Dicks?”

I turned. It was the cashier with whom I had placed my order minutes ago.

“Yes,” I said.

She held out her hand. “You left your credit card in the machine,” she said, handing it back.

I thanked her, took the credit card, and turned. The less-than-polite employee was already back in the kitchen, preparing the new meal.

The moment was over. Dummy me forgot his credit card. I was so annoyed.

But I liked my initial response a lot:

“Did I do something wrong to engender the response that I’m receiving right now?”

It’s a question that explicitly but subtly calls out your opponent’s rude behavior while also forcing them to provide an answer. And by answering the question, they are forced to acknowledge their rude behavior.

I’ll be using it again, I’m sure. And not only in customer service situations. Whenever someone treats me passive-aggressively, which is sadly most people’s primary mode of expressing displeasure.

Why be courageous, mature, and direct when you can be cowardly, infantile, and indirect?

Also, don’t leave your credit card with the cashier. It’s a great way to look stupid in the midst of a verbal confrontation.