Capitalogix

Carol's Keeping Me In Shape

As I get older, I become more conscious of my mental and physical health. It's easy as an entrepreneur or business person to lose track of your health - but investing in your personal health can be the best thing you do for your business.

Many of my friends now believe that with technology and a sustained focus on health & longevity, they can live past 100. They're paying attention to genetic, physiologic & biochemical makeup, cognitive function, body composition, cardiovascular performance, hormonal status, and much more. Whether they're going to live past 100 or not, I can see the daily results in the quality of their life and the way they look. 

It's the reason I started working with APEX, Dr. Jeffrey Gladden's concierge medical wellness practice.

They've got me eating salads, taking supplements, and thinking about what it takes to be healthy, fit, and vital. 

The goal is to enjoy life though ... Not to deprive yourself as this image portrays ...

 

Exercise is also an important part of the "healthy, fit, and vital" equation.

With gyms being closed during the recent Quarantine, I found another tool that I fell in love with.

Her name is Carol; an AI fitness bike that personalizes a HIIT workout for you,  based on your fitness and your preferred workout length. It makes it way easier for me to fit workouts into my schedule (and way harder to justify skipping a session). 

 

The promise is an "hour's worth" of exercise compressed into an 8-minute workout that really only has two 20-second periods of intense effort.

The science is sound. My experience is that it works for me.  I've done it for about two months now.  The results are undeniable (in terms of muscle tone, endurance, 20% improvement on many of the metrics tracked by the bike, etc.).

The more you use it the smarter it gets. It automatically adjusts to give you exactly the resistance you need to keep you motivated and to continue making progress.

I've been impressed. Working-out at home has always been a struggle for me. I've bought other tools for lifting or cardio, but they tend to end up as coat racks or space fillers. 

Exercise has a "social" component for some people ( comes to mind). Some people need the "social" component of exercise to get through hard workouts (think Peloton or OrangeTheory.) The Carol bike doesn't fully satisfy that part of exercise ... but they do a great job of keeping the session short, fun, and gamified (so that you know where you are, how you are progressing, and where you stand in the rankings).  The combination of the efficiency of the workouts - and being able to see that you are getting fitter, objectively, has been just what I needed. 

Besides Carol's website, here is a link to check out their YouTube channel. 

Onwards. 

Solid Advice from MMA fighter Chael Sonnen

Chael Sonnen is a famous retired mixed martial artist. He was also a coach on the show The Ultimate Fighter. 

The advice in the video is fantastic - whether you're fighting in the ring or your own personal battles. 

 

via UFC

Silencing the voice in your head that says "you can't" is impossible, but ignoring the voice, and learning to compete with it is entirely possible. 

Failure is an option, but it's the only option available if you don't try. Motion begets motion. And, with persistence, failure can be a stone on the path to eventual success. 

Onwards! 

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - May 3rd, 2020

 

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye recently. Hope you find something interesting.

Lighter Links:

• China Has Started a Grand Experiment in AI Education. It Could Reshape How the World Learns. (TechReview)
• I Have Seen the Future And It's Not the Life We Knew. (The Atlantic)
• Army Ranger School is a Laboratory of Human Endurance. (Outside)
• Watch Picasso Make a Masterpiece. (YouTube)
• Michael Jordan Reportedly Once Turned down a $100 Million Appearance Fee. (FTW)

 

Trading Links:

• Buffett's Berkshire Posts Nearly $50 Billion Loss as Coronavirus Causes Pain. (Reuters)
• Bets against the Stock Market Rise to Highest Level in Years. (Wall Street Journal)
• NYSE Research Shows Humans on Exchange Floor Limit Volatility, COO Says. (Cheddar)
• Nasdaq, Cboe Fix Feeds Facing Options Overload. (WatersTechnology)
• China's National Blockchain Will Change the World. (CoinDesk)

 

Beyond The Snap: Business Lessons From Football

The NFL draft happened this week, despite the Quarantine.

I was happy to distract myself from the economy and news cycles.

Football is something I used to love to play. And it is still something that informs my thoughts and actions.

Some lessons relate to being part of a team, while others relate to the coaching or management side of things.

Some of these lessons stem back to youth football ... but I still learn things watching games – and even more from watching Dallas Cowboys practices at The Star. 

Think about it, even in middle school, the coaches have a game plan. There are team practices and individual drills. They have a depth chart, which lists the first, second, and third choice to fill certain roles.  In short, they focus on the fundamentals in a way that most businesses don't.

The picture, below, is of my brother's high school team way back in 1989.

To re-state, most businesses are less prepared for their problems than an 8th-grade football team. Now, that sounds offensive to some of you, but if you think about it ... it's pretty true. 

Losing to An 8th Grade Team

I shot this video right before the COVID-19 shutdown.  I encourage you to watch it.  I think it's 3 minutes well spent.

 

Teams think about how to improve each player, how to beat this week's problem, and then how to string together wins to achieve a higher goal. 

Contrast that with many businesses. Entrepreneurs often get myopic ... they get focused on today, focused on survival, and they lose sight of the bigger picture and how all the pieces fit together. 

The amount of thought that goes into football - which is ultimately a game - is a valuable lesson for business. 

What about when you get to the highest level? If an 8th-grade football team is equivalent to a normal business, what about businesses that are killing it? That would be similar to an NFL team. 

Let's look at the Cowboys. 

Practice Makes Perfect

How you do one thing is how you do everything. So, they try to do everything right. 

Each time I've watched a practice session I've come away impressed by the amount of preparation, effort, and skill displayed.

During practice, there's a scheduled agenda. The practice is broken into chunks, and each chunk has a designed purpose and a desired intensity. There's a rhythm, even to the breaks.

Every minute is scripted. There's a long-term plan to handle the season ... but, there was also a focus on the short-term details and their current opponent.

They alternate between individual and group drills. Moreover, the drills run fast ... but for shorter time periods than you'd guess. It is bang-bang-bang – never longer than a millennial's attention span. And they move from drill to drill – working not just on plays, but the skillsets as well (where are you looking, which foot do you plant, how do you best use your hands, etc.).

They use advanced technology (including advanced player monitoring, biometric tracking, and medical recovery devices ... but also things like robotic tackling dummies and virtual reality headsets). 

They don't just film games, they film the practices ... and each individual drill. Coaches and players get a cut of the film on their tablets as soon as they leave. It is a process of constant feedback, constant improvement, or constant renewal. Everything has the potential to be a lesson. 

Beyond The Snap

The focus is not just internal, on the team. They focus on the competition as well. Before a game, the coaches prepare a game plan and have the team watch tape of their opponent in order to understand the tendencies and mentally prepare for what's going to happen.

During the game, changes in personnel groups and schemes keep competitors on their toes and allow the team to identify coverages and predict plays. If the offense realizes a play has been predicted, they call an audible based on what they see in front of them. Coaches from different hierarchies work in tandem to respond faster to new problems. 

After the game, the film is reviewed in detail. Each person gets a grade on each play, and the coaches make notes for each person about what they did well and what they could do better.

Think about it ... everyone knows what game they are playing ... and for the most part, everybody understands the rules, and how to keep score (and even where they are in the standings). Even the coaches get feedback based on performance, and they look to others for guidance. 

Imagine how easy that would be to do in business. Imagine how much better things could be if you did those things.

Challenge accepted.

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading, February 2nd, 2020

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye recently. Hope you find something interesting.

Lighter Links:

• MIT Professors Sound Alarm on US Falling Behind on AI. (CA)
• Doomsday Clock Moves to 100 Seconds to Midnight - Closest Point to Nuclear Annihilation Since Cold War. (FoxNews)
• The Bill Belichick Trade Turns 20 on Monday. (ProFootballTalk)
• Incentive Competitions and the Challenge of Space Exploration. (Interesting Engineering)
• How Time-Travel Works in Fiction: a Concise Breakdown of How Time Travel Functions in Popular Movies, Books & TV Shows. (OpenCulture)

 

Trading Links:

• Peter Diamandis: in the next 10 Years, We'll Reinvent Every Industry'. (TheGuardian)
• 5,000 Years of Interest Rates. (DailyReckoning)
• Will We Ever Stop Talking about the VIX? (RCM Alternatives)
• How to Make a Billion Dollars on Horse Racing. (Bloomberg)
• Tesla is More Valuable Than GM, Ford CombinedDespite Selling 98% Fewer Cars. (Observer)

 

 

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - January 26th, 2020

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye recently. Hope you find something interesting.

 

Lighter Links:

• 8 AI Trends We're Watching in 2020. (O)
• Navigation Apps Changed the Politics of Traffic. (CityLab)
• There's No 'Going Dark:' Always-On Surveillance Posing Risks to US Covert Operations. (TD)
• 6 Predictions About Data in 2020 and the Coming Decade. (Forbes)
• Data is Only the Beginning. Connecting the Dots Creates Knowledge. However, It is Wisdom Which Translates Insights into Impactful Decisions. (LinkedIn)

 

Trading Links:

• How 5 Big Tech Companies Really Make Money. (Infographic)
• Capitalism Draws Fire, Despite Strong Global Economy. (Wall Street Journal)
• Immune Discovery 'May Treat All Cancer'. (BBC)
• How to Raise a Billionaire: Maye Musk on Where Elon Gets His Drive. (Forbes)
• Toyota Invests $394 Million in Electric Air Taxi Company Joby Aviation. (Forbes)

 

 

Super Bowl 2020

A friend has two tickets for the 2020 SUPER BOWL — both box seats. He paid $2,500 for each ticket, but didn't realize last year when he bought them that it was going to be on the same day as his wedding. If you are interested, he is looking for someone to take his place — it’s at St. Dominic's Church in San Francisco at 3pm. Her name is Melissa . She's 5'7 about 140 lbs. She's a good cook, too. She'll be the one in the white dress.

 

As for the Super Bowl, it seems like this will be a good matchup. The KC Chiefs are in it for the first time in 50 years (and have an amazing offense), while the 49ers are coming off a series of tough seasons (but have an amazing defense). It will also be a Super Bowl without Bill Belichick's scowl gracing our screens. 

It's not just the fans that are excited about the matchup, it's also the bookies. Two years ago, gamblers set a record by placing $158.6 million in Super Bowl bets. Expect more of the same with gambling now legalized in an additional 13 states beyond Nevada. 

 

If you're still looking for a bet – there's another wishful thinking approach you could take to find one ... it is called the "Super Bowl Indicator."

 

 

The theory is that a Super Bowl win for a team from the AFC foretells a decline in the stock market and a win for the NFC means the stock market will rise in the coming year. So, if you're hoping for a strong S&P you'd be rooting for 49ers. 

There's one big caveat ... it counts the Pittsburgh Steelers as NFC because that's where they got their start (or as a data scientist would caution ... they did that to fit the data better). 

With that "adjustment," at one point the SBI was "right" 33 years out of 41 - an 80% success rate. Sounds good, right?

Come on ... you know better. It's been wrong four of the last four years ... another sign of spurious correlation if you weren't sure. 

Here are some other "fun" stock market fallacies:

• January Indicator
• Aspirin Count Theory
• Hemline Indicator
• Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Indicator
• Men's Underwear Index

 

Back to Reality

Rationally, we understand that football and the stock market have little in common, and we probably intuitively understand that correlation ≠ causation. Yet, we crave order and look for signs that make markets seem a little bit more predictable.

The problem with randomness is that it can appear meaningful. 

Wall Street is, unfortunately, inundated with theories that attempt to predict the performance of the stock market and the economy. The only difference between this and other theories is that we openly recognize the ridiculousness of this indicator. More people than you would hope, or guess,  attempt to forecast the market based on gut, ancient wisdom, and prayers.

While hope and prayer are good things ... they aren’t good trading strategies.

As goofy as it sounds, some of these "far-fetched" theories perform better than professional money managers with immense capital, research teams, and decades of experience...

I have a thought experiment I sometimes ask people. 

What percentage of active managers beat the S&P 500 any given year?

... Now, what percentage beat the S&P 500 over 15 years?

Recently, the answer is about 5% (and that's in a predominantly bull market).  For the record, that's significantly worse than chance. Perhaps that means something they're doing is hurting, not helping. 

 

 via Gaping Void

There's simply too much information out there for us to digest, process, rank, and use appropriately.

Every second you spend looking at a market is a second wasted.

There are people beating the markets — not by using the Super Bowl Indicator ... they're doing it with more algorithms and better technology. 

There will never be less data or slower markets. A good reminder that if you don't know what your edge is ... you don't have one!

Onwards.

A Roller Coaster of Emotions

I recently saw this video during a presentation.

It's hilarious – and a great reminder that it doesn't matter how simple something is (if the stakes are high enough) and the environment is distracting enough. 

That's where automation comes in. Enjoy. 

 

Eliminating fear and greed are great steps to take in the pursuit of eliminating discretionary mistakes.

Think about how many other places this video explains the "why" behind disappointing results.

What Does The Average NFL Player Look Like (By Position)

Football season is officially underway! In honor of that, here's a look at each position's composite player!

As you might expect, different sports have a different ratio of ethnicities. For example, you might expect more Pacific Islanders in Rugby or Asians in Badminton.

The same is true for different positions on a football team.  Apparently, offensive linemen are more likely to be white while running backs are more likely to be black. 

Here is a visualization that shows what happens when you average the top players' faces in various positions?

osmutiar via Reddit

Composites are interesting.

While you may be thinking "this player must be unstoppable" ... statistically, he's average.

The "composite" NFL player would be the 848th best player in the league. He's not a starter, and he plays on an average team. 

We found the same thing with our trading bots.  The ones that made it through most filters weren't star performers.  They were the average bots that did enough not to fail (but failed to make the list as top performers in any of the categories).  The survivors were generalists, not specialists.

In an ideal world, with no roster limits, you'd want the perfect lineup for each granular situation. You'd want to evaluate players on how they perform under pressure, on different downs, against other players, and with different schemes. 

That's what technology lets you do with algorithms. You can have a library of systems that communicate with each other ... and you don't even have to pay their salary (but you will need data scientists, researchers, machines, data, alternative data, electricity, disaster recovery, and a testing platform).

You won't find exceptional specialists if your focus is on generalized safety. Generalists are great, but you also have to be able to respond to specific conditions.

Onwards.

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - September 1st, 2019

 

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye recently. Hope you find something interesting.

Lighter Links:

• Google and Amazon Use Smart Speakers for 'Surveillance,' Top Tech Investor Says. (Finance)
• Streaming TV is about to Get Very Expensive Here's Why. (TheGuardian)
• Professional Video Game Player Signs Deal with Adidas. (CNW)
• Giant Virus Has Evolved Its Own Kind of CRISPR to Destroy Invaders. (NewScientist)
• Pole-Dancing Robot Strippers' to Perform Next to Human Dancers on Stage at Nightclub. (TheSun)

 

Trading Links:

• Surprise, Surprise, Warren Buffet Was Right: Machine-Managed Investment is a Better Bet. (Forbes)
• How ETFs Swallowed the Stock Market. (Wall Street Journal)
• Do We Really Want a Microsoft of Marijuana? (New York Times)
• Businesses Can Now Claim Their Trademark Blockchain Domains, Before It's Too Late. (Finance)
• Ray Dalio Warns of 'Serious Problems' and a Bond 'Blow-off' as a Repeat of the Late 1930S Looms. (CNBC)