Personal Coaching
Overview
Life coaching involves a range of advisory services, and often can lead to doing actual consulting work for clients (extra charge for consulting). It’s 2-4 hours a week, as needed, plus phone and text support. Here are the kinds of things I work on:
Health
As you can read elsewhere on this site, I want my clients to become strong, resilient, competitive athletes. But you’re not competing against other people — you’re competing against the person you are right now. The goal is to be stronger next year than you are today, and stronger still in two years. Five years from now, you should be at your peak, and then from there we work on not losing what you have gained. You may not imagine yourself as an athlete, but that transformation will give you 20 years’ more quality time with your kids later in life. You don’t want to be frail and susceptible to disease. You don’t want to fall down, break a hip, and never get up again. You want to be an asset to your family, rather than a burden. And it doesn’t take training like a powerlifter to get there.
As your life coach, I work with you on your health and the health of your spouse, kids, and parents. My goal is to make sure everyone is not insulin resistant, not overweight, and optimizing health. This includes making sure everyone has a good doctor, diet, and exercise regime.
Most diet advice is based on pseudoscience. But it’s important to eat according to what your A1c number (insulin resistance) allows. The more insulin resistant you are, the less you can eat carbs. You should also pay attention to amylopectins. We work together to build a diet profile that’s best for everyone in your family.
For supplements, we’ll find a good range for you from my supplement stack or whatever else you may need. Generally, it’s better to err on the side of fewer supplements and drugs.
Most recommendations for vitamins, supplements, “brain food,” healing foods, and “natural” foods are nonsense. Almost all recommendations for children’s diets are not scientifically based — kids can and do eat just about everything and most manage to do just fine. It’s important to keep kids metabolically healthy and not let them get overweight.
Hormone replacement therapy — I want all my female clients over 50 to be on HRT unless there’s a good reason they shouldn’t be. For example, some women on cancer-treatment drugs. At the very least, you should try it for six months. If you don’t like it after that, it makes sense to stop. But I don’t think you will.
Family dashboard
I create a family operating system using Notion. Here’s an overview:
The dashboard becomes the app for the whole family. Everyone can see schedules, resources, documents, projects, contacts, and much more. It pays to take time to set this up at the beginning, so it can save you time later.
Budgeting
We work together to set up a household budget and key metrics for making sure everything is going according to plan. We plan for big expenses, taxes, cash calls, tuition, and everything else that needs to be under control. We monitor the budget and adjust as needed. We want to give children an incentive and skills to make good choices with money.
Personal assistant
I can provide a personal assistant. He or she will work for us using our systems. S/he will always be working on the next thing that needs to be done, not waiting around for instructions. We can also start to use AI for many common tasks.
Household management
I can work with you to get the right people to take care of kids, make sure you get plenty of quality time with them, handle the details, and give you more free time to focus on yourself. I can manage multiple estates, collections, cars, boats and planes, and any other assets. I’ll make sure the gardening, cleaning, deliveries, and all the other duties are done the way you want them. You tell me once, and I’ll make sure it’s done right each time. As you can see from the video above, everything is in a system, so you can see everything up-to-date at any time.
Project and task management
In addition to a digital dashboard and remote work, I can take over many of the routine jobs and tasks you don’t want to do. I can give you 15 hours a week just by taking on the small stuff, getting it done, and checking it off. This could be paying bills, planning an event, getting food and wine delivered, shopping for a new insurance plan, travel logistics, getting computer systems set up, managing security, and much more.
I can also automate many of your routine tasks using AI.
Investments
Is your portfolio designed to reduce risk and be resilient in a big downturn? Is it as tax-efficient as possible? Does it provide sufficient cash flow each month? Do you keep needing to make adjustments to get all this done? Are you interested in funding start-ups or starting a new company yourself? Do you have a lot of illiquid assets that need to be disposed of? Do you own things that need attention? These are things I can do at a world-class level. Never give your money to a multi-family office, and most wealth managers are incapable of handling a sophisticated client. If you want it done right, let’s talk.
Decision support
I’ll create a decision framework for big decisions and track your decisions, so you can study your previous decisions and learn from them. Read my article on decision science to learn more.
Parenting
I want to help parents be better parents. We advocate an evidence-based approach to parenting, which means:
Don’t overprotect kids, that’s more dangerous in the long run
Don’t feed them a diet you read about online or in a book
Don’t go for most of the popular parenting tips
Don’t use popular medical sites and searches
Don’t teach them to read early, teach them to play
Don’t reward good behavior or say “good job” — kids will then do things for the reward
Minimize rules; maximize developing good judgment
Arrange as many play dates as possible
Love children unconditionally
Develop their intrinsic interests and motivations
Pursue their passions
Challenge them, do hard projects together as a family
Put them into a school that nurtures them as individuals, or homeschool them
Build a curriculum of learning outside of school
Build critical-thinking skills
Are your kids getting the best education? There are a lot of alternatives, especially for bright children. I think parents should consider homeschooling. My son is 13, he started his own school and is writing a book about education, in addition to giving a TEDx talk and starting an online community to help other independent kids do what they love to do and not be trapped by expectations from grown-ups. Do you have an independent child? Would your child like to give a TEDx Youth talk? We know the system. We can work with your kids to bring out their ikigai and pursue their passions.
Myopia control
I’m a myopia specialist. I can help kids not become myopic or try to stop the progression of their myopia in the first place. It’s far better if I can work with kids who are 5 years old, before they become myopic, and help them never need glasses for life. I do it for my kids, and I can do it for yours, too.
Cyber security
I want to keep you and your family safe from online attacks. There are many forms of attack and many weak points you need to strengthen. I can help you set up good password management, avoid scams, and prevent your devices from getting viruses and bots that can cause problems later. We also help you set healthy online guidelines for your kids and their use of technology.
If you are remembering or re-using your passwords, you are at risk. Call immediately to help you get set up with a strong password-management system.
Research and critical thinking
Many people are looking for the new big thing: life extension, vitamins, cold plunge, fasting, low-carb, keto, electric vehicle, CBD products, gluten-free, vegan, non-GMO, grass-fed, BPA free, soy free, supplements, jaw exercises, and many more. I help separate fads from fact, white elephants from evidence, and system 1 from system 2. We shouldn’t trust AI to give us the best information.
I like to work with clients through Socratic dialogue, looking for the big picture, trying to find the signal in the noise. I try to stay up on the latest research in most fields. If you’re ready to learn, I’m ready to make the learning process fast and fun.
Interests and goals
I’d love to support you in accomplishing important things you care about. Whether it’s helping a nonprofit, joining a board, helping fundraise, or creating awareness around your personal issues, we want to help make you much more effective. Most philanthropy is designed to make donors feel good but has very little impact. How can you use your gifts to help others in the best way possible?
Do you want to start a new company? A social movement? Write a book? Create a nonprofit? Learn a new language? Start a school? Improve a hospital? Open a restaurant or a store? I’ve done most of these things and can help you achieve big goals.
Much of your future is unknown. I advocate doing small experiments and learning your way to creating the future you want. I don’t believe in big plans and projects. It’s better to take small steps, create many small wins, learn as you go, and keep building on things that are working.
Instruction (extra charge)
I provide individual and group instruction for parents and kids on many topics, some of which are covered elsewhere on this site:
Professional: wealth management, economics, monetary policy, the history of money, cryptocurrencies, blockchain, education, math, science, writing, screenwriting, podcasting, blogging, spreadsheets, organizing your life digitally using Notion, design, collecting art, critical thinking, the scientific method, starting a new business, investing in startups, management, board membership, starting a nonprofit, impact investing, portfolio construction, and more.
Personal: homeschooling, critical thinking, tennis, skiing, weight lifting, running, fitness, cycling, climbing, skating, and many other activities.
We can find great instructors for you wherever you are.
We also work on teen issues: see our web page on teens.
Preventing divorce
In many marriages, the husband has and controls all the assets. The wife has no say in how things are managed, she just gets an allowance for spending. I want my clients to have their own money to invest and be more independent. I think that leads to a healthier relationship. I want my clients to be aware of what’s happening and have a say in how assets are managed.
The best way to not get divorced is to actively prevent it ahead of time. If you want to stay in your marriage, take action and make it happen. I can help you do that.
But if you can see divorce is inevitable, talk with me first. We need a plan before things get difficult. I’ve dealt with a lot of divorces in many states. It’s much better if you are aware of the situation in your jurisdiction and have a plan in place before talking about divorce.
For wives getting divorced
Wives are inherently strong but are overconstrained. I have years of experience with divorce and want to help wives become better equipped for the high net-worth lifestyle. I want to install systems to make wives stronger, fitter, more agile, more organized, and do more of what they really want to do. We also want to help make them more financially independent, so they can be equal partners, manage their own money and investments, make budgets, avoid debt, manage cash, and save for the future.
Marriage counselors all say that wives have these top-three complaints of their husbands:
“He Never Asks How I’m Doing”
“I Have to Handle Everything”
“He Always Wants To Fix, But Is Rarely Willing To Listen.”
Even wealthy wives have these issues. Given enough time, they can weaken the relationship. For wives, we want to make you a deal: let us manage all the day-to-day and difficult stuff for you — proactively — and you focus more on your health, fitness, parenting, skill building, relationship, and life goals.
For husbands getting divorced
Husbands may not have brought most of the assets to the relationship. We can help give them more autonomy, confidence, and independence. Not surprisingly, that helps the relationship in the long term. For husbands getting divorced, see our webinar for this group.
Hard projects
Again, this may not be on your top-ten list, but we believe families should do hard projects together. Kids don’t remember the day-to-day, but they do remember the big events. As an example, learn about our trip to Africa, which involves everyone climbing Mt Kilimanjaro and then going on safari. The climb is important, because it gets everyone practicing, working, and preparing together for months and months before the event. We believe it’s better to combine vacations with purposeful adventures that have meaning and require learning and training beforehand. These are far more memorable than going to a resort and playing tennis and golf.
Emotional and relationship support
We have fantastic relationship coaches who will patiently listen and work with you to make yourself stronger, more resilient, and unbreakable. You’re not going to change the grownups in your life. Better to understand what you can change and focus on getting the results you want. We will support those goals every step of the way.
Decisionmaking
I teach decision science. You can learn more about that on this website in the business section. I want to train you to become a better decisionmaker and support you in making big decisions. I’ll work with you to learn framing, research, options, evaluation, tradeoffs, cost-benefit analysis, decision quality, and how to manage a decision after you make it. In some cases where much is at stake, I can do most of the work. We’ll keep track of our decisions and review them at the end of the year to see how we can improve.
Executive coaching
See my decision-support and innovation website.
Business planning and modeling
I’ve built dozens and dozens of business models. I’ve found errors in many people’s business models! I build a spreadsheet like an app, so you can easily play with the inputs and see the outputs at a glance, with the machinery hidden. I’ve written dozens of business plans and pitch decks and will be happy to show you as many as you can read.
Legacy
What will you leave behind? How will your children manage? Most wealthy families do a poor job of governance and long-term wealth management. Most parents spoil their kids, which means they have few skills for their future. Most parents leave their money in trusts that are tax-efficient but not beneficial for the family long-term. Most wealth evaporates over 20 years or so. These are serious issues that most families don’t pay enough attention to.