We know we should save and invest but how should we invest? We've seen from a previous article that we should dollar cost average to even out our entry price. But what should we invest in? I'm a big believer in following (scratch that, copying) the best. Who are the best asset managers over the long term? I'm going to talk about two: David Swensen, CIO of Yale University Endowment and Ray Dalio, co-CIO and founder of Bridgewater Associates, and look at the asset allocations that they use. What is an asset allocation? An asset allocation is how your asset classes within your portfolio are divided. An asset class is a type of asset, so one …
Inching towards 100kg on the bench press
One of my big goals in the gym is to hit 100kg on the bench press. I don’t know why that precise number to be honest. Maybe it’s just because it’s a nice round number. or maybe because not many people can do it. It’s a respectable number. I see a lot of guys in the gym doing 70kg, 75kg, 80kg. But not many doing 100kg. Okay it’s not superman weights, but it’s respectable. It means that I’ve worked at it and stayed consistent and I’ve got there. It could be a domino of success, that leads to more success, more confidence and more momentum for bigger things. I asked my mate Nour who benches 120kg and he said that it might take me a month or …
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Wake up and get down the gym
I’m not a morning person but in the last two months, I wake up, have a coffee to loosen my bowels, take a shit, shower, shave, then I go down to my little community gym which is right down at the bottom of my block. It’s literally 2 mins away which means I have literally NO excuse not to go. I aim for 20 mins. I do bench press first (currently 80kg 5 reps 3 sets), 3 x 5 pull ups, seated row (5 x 90kg x 3 sets), overhead press (5 x 70kg x 3 sets). If I didn’t go, I’d feel like a pussy. When I do go, I feel strong, powerful, and disciplined. What better way to start the day. Do it. …
In pursuit of better sleep
I've been an insomniac for most of my life. The first memory I have of it being a thing for me was in my first or second year at boarding school when my housemaster remarked on it. He said it was a condition that affected bright people. Of course, I took that. :) Left to my own devices on school holidays, I would stay awake long past midnight. I would read the latest Harry Potter until I finished it, say at 6am in the morning. I would then wake at 11am or 12 noon and not be tired until the early hours again. Over and over. This is fine when you're on holiday but less so when you have stuff to do the next morning. I remember at …
To paraphrase Jocko Willink, Decisiveness Equals Freedom
The legendary Jocko Willink says that Discipline Equals Freedom. I take this to mean that accepting and embracing discipline and structure in your life will take away the need for willpower as well as paralysis by analysis and procrastination. In recent days, I’ve been feeling good and I think it’s down to making decisions, quick decisions and good decisions about things big and small. Deciding yesterday in a Waterloo pub that I’d book us in for lunch in 25 minutes in St. John and Uber it there was pretty good. (Angelique seemed to like the decisiveness) And today, we took inspiration from my sister and decided to sell our flat and …
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Which are the best Python courses to take when you’re starting out like I am?
I’m a big believer in learning from multiple sources to accelerate learning. If you just picked one book, the writer might not teach the concepts in the same way as another writer and different writers might click with you on different sub-topics. Just pick multiple sources when learning anything. I’ve picked a few courses and sources to learn Python from: The first one is from Udemy called The Python Bible™ | Everything You Need to Program in Python. The second is from Udacity called Intro to Computer Science. (The instructor is great!) The third is also from Udacity called Introduction to Python Programming And the …
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Should we self-censor what we consume?
When I was at uni, I took an Aesthetics class. The Philosophy of Art. I don’t remember much from that course except for a couple of essays on Plato and Tolstoy. Plato was keen that when educating the young men of his Republic that their art be censored and that the youth should only consume art that promoted nobility. So poetry shouldn’t be about loucheness and hedonism, rather they should be about promoting bravery in battle and moral uprightness. I was reminded of this recently after binge watching a series of Mindhunter on Netflix, a show about the FBI’s profiling of serial killers in the 1970s. This is show that goes deep into the …