Welcome to this week's Upwarding newsletter.  My blog, with more in-depth content, can be found here.

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Check out this “willpower support tool” known as a kSafe.  It is a locking safe with no override.  It’s a great place to store my dark chocolate almonds (which I promised myself I won’t eat until Thursday).  Once I make the promise, there is simply no going back, so the self-negotiation ends and I am no longer tormented.

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST EPISODE

Just remember – you can never turn the timer back and the base is pretty much indestructible.

Mindfulness/Spirituality/Chill

A nice and very popular one for getting to sleep by Jennifer Piercy.

Health/Wellness

Another reason to practice mindfulness: to reduce your cortisol.  Cortisol makes you motivated to do more of everything – including eating.  Chilling out will make you thinner!

Investing/Money

My book is now available.

I like this alternative retirement investment strategy by Nobel Prizer winner William Sharpe, called a “ratchet policy” (warning, a bit technical).  You invest in two buckets, the first 85% is in a “committed bucket”.  This is conservatively invested to generate your annual income, often through a life insurance product or some other secure investment like US Treasury Bonds.

The other 15% is in a “discretionary account”, invested EXTREMELY AGGRESSIVELY, for example in 3x levered stock funds.  If at the end of the year, the 15% has grown to more than 15%, you put the excess into your committed bucket, permanently growing your base income.

Random Thoughts

Ever since my (awesome) college nutrition course, I’ve been skeptical of the recommended daily allowance of calcium, about 4 glasses of milk!  I’m not the only one.  See here too.

RDAs are supposed to be based on deficiency studies, and apparently the credible studies show a calcium requirement 60%-75% lower than the published RDA.  There is some evidence the dairy lobby had a big say in pushing up the RDA decades ago (to sell more milk of course) and it stuck.

It also doesn’t mesh intuitively with 1) widespread lactose intolerance, 2) a complete lack of evidence linking calcium intake with a reduction in bone fractures, and 3) reasonable evidence that dietary calcium increases calcification of arteries.

Reflection/Quote

I’m appreciating that I picked a great partner in life/wife!

This quote is a good summary of the advice I’m going to give my kids on relationships:

“The goal is to laugh forever with someone you take seriously” - Unknown

Stay well,

Chris