How A Garbage Man Became Your Broker

(Cosmo was not in the truck that day)

Raunchy porn magazines littered the dashboard. It smelled like rotting fruit, stale beer and dirty diapers.

“The other driver loves to keep the dirty stuff. He picks it out of people’s trash” he said. “I wouldn’t touch those without gloves on.”

We were 19 sitting in the sweltering cab of a recycling truck in suburban Chicago, in August. The grass was tall in the ditches next to the roads and the humidity held our sweat to our skin beneath our shirts. Something for the stench to cling.

He invited me “On The Route” so I went, now regretful, nose burning.

(what goes around comes around)

My friend confessed “it’s a good job but I don’t want to be doing this my whole life. I just can’t go to school. It’s a waste of time. Who are these teachers? They just throw stuff at you. This is real education.”

(all the gold, guns and girls. is it ever gonna be enough?)

My friend was the epitome of the James Dean type. Every girl ogled him but he was faithful to his girlfriend, contrarian, reckless but smart (once crashing his Dad’s new Mustang while driving underage, ditching it to avoid the police), questioning authority philosophically, appearing always like he stepped off the pages of a JCrew catalog (the most influential mail order of the time). I was not much like him, but we became best friends. I wanted to start a jazz club in Chicago called “Birdland.” We were obsessed with jazz. We had big plans. Always circling around how we’d leave our mark on the world, not sure how to start. Uncertain when our break would come, chasing.

We’d both dropped out of high school the same year. I tested into college and he went to work driving a recycling truck.

(we wanted to go back in time)

He drove the route every day while I tore through classes, tripling credit hours to graduate early.

But I didn’t have a job plan. I felt like I should. Anxiety was growing.

Sitting in the parlor of the house I shared with 4 girls and another guy, watching ticker symbols stream on CNBC two weeks before graduation, I had a flash: “can someone trade for a living?”

I graduated in December with two interviews at brokerage firms.

“Hey man I’m going downtown Monday to interview. You should come.”

“What are you talking about. I’m not going with you to your job interview.”

“Dude, it’s just an interview. You can introduce yourself and see if they have anything else. Seriously, no big deal. Come with.”

He agreed.

We took an early train from Barrington and met a guy in the office of Eurospread Associates, where some of my cousins un-coincidentally worked. “I didn’t expect two?” he said. We acted dumb and shrugged. He ushered us onto the trading floor. “People are gonna say shit. Just ignore them. Don’t take it personally.”

It was nothing we’d seen before: mass chaos, colored jackets, hands in the air, faces screaming, spitting and sweating. The floor was littered with paper.

Traders & clerks laughed and pointed at us chanting “fresh meat,” flipping trading cards our way like flat paper bullets.

We were overwhelmed by stimulus, captivated. You could feel the money.

“I didn’t know we were hiring two” one broker said.

My friend and I looked at each other “I guess you are” I said.

“Okay, fill out these forms. You can start January 3rd. I’ll put one of you in Yen and the other in the LIBOR pit. You’ll start as runners.” He got Yen, I got LIBOR.

We rolled out of the building laughing, high-fiving. “What just happened?!”

Two weeks later we walked onto the CME floor and started our future.

A year later I was hired at Michael Stoltzner’s Futrex Trading, training with Jeff Goldman (one of the largest EuroOptions traders) on weekends and went on to develop trading systems at Specialists DPM and Edge LLC until I left to pursue my dream on the West Coast.

People will tell you the better path is the path in pursuit of something they can see. The path that looks good on paper and reflects well when you tell your new girlfriend’s parents. They don’t like recycling trucks they like money and power and sophistication and houses in suburbs.

But when you climb the unfamiliar trail in front of you to the top of the first mountain, only then can you find the next mountain beyond.

16 years and witness to suicides, rehabs, parties, stories, more money than God, investigations, lawsuits, lies and fistfights, he’s a successful options broker at the Chicago Board Options Exchange. He didn’t need a college degree to get educated but he had to have the guts to hang on.

(this place smells like the cab of a recycling truck on a hot day)

And I’ll tell you the secret they don’t want you to know: it’s not the cab of a recycling truck but it’s still filled with raunchy porn, smells like stale beer, rotting fruit and dirty diapers. There’s just more money and more pixels, and looks better on TV.

Me? I just like to watch.

Sell the Sizzle: How to Turn $500 into $Millions With Your Minimum Viable Product

(what $8,000 looks like)

I spent $8,000 developing a web based visual media platform in 2011. It’s cool, and it works, and it’s out there on the web behind a password protected portal but it’s wrong. It should be prettier, easier to use and mobile. I lost money and time. I overbuilt the product before I had traction. I didn’t apply the idea of The Minimum Viable Product properly.

(lean and mean)

The Minimum Viable Product is a concept written about in Eric Ries’ book The Lean Startup. It’s now the de facto standard for startups. Before you waste money and time overbuilding an idea, you create something minimal first. The biggest problem with the concept of “The Minimum Viable Product” is what “Minimum” and “Viable” actually mean.

I’m working on a new product-based company and it has major traction. Starting this company cost $317. I had an idea for something I needed. I made 4 prototypes, each a different color. I posted some photos of it on social media and my friends said “Cool! I want one!”

But I didn’t believe them. You can’t trust your friends.*

So I took the prototypes to 5 stores. If 3 of 5 stores wanted it, I’d move forward with figuring out the details and getting them produced.

Four of the 5 stores wanted it NOW. Everyone said “Yes.” The product worked but wasn’t finished.

We figured out the details, took a few orders launched into 3 stores and sold out in 4 days. We refreshed the inventory and sold out again. Every new store we’ve opened sees a similar trend. We’re validated and now we’re going big.

We even developed a no-lose negotiation strategy that converts stores who say “no” to “yes” instantly and even makes them long-term customers.

We have revenue, demand and our idea is validated. Now we are confidently allocating more capital with a high expected return.

We’ve filed patents and invested in infrastructure. We’re refining our logo and branding. We’re getting better product photography and making promo clips. We’re begging media not to publish anything about us because we’re just a few steps away from being able to fill massive demand. We’re going to blow the doors off of a category that has been stale for 30 years or more.

We had revenue before we had a real product. That’s what matters. Now we can hunt without starving first.

(sell the sizzle)

The key to the MVP is one goal and one goal only: accelerate the sales cycle. The MVP should get you from concept to traction. If no traction move on immediately.

Don’t waste your time on infrastructure or paperwork or permission or overly ornate packaging or a business entity or lawyers or following “the rules” you think are required. Time is your greatest asset. You don’t even need a business plan. Whatever it takes to get to your customer saying “yes”, or better yet “holy crap I want that” is the point of the MVP. Any business can use the MVP philosophy.

Everything starts small.

Validate first, scale and grow later. Talk, date, marry, have kids.

Sell before you spend, promote before you develop, get users and customers before you dig a hole, don’t overdevelop your MVP. Don’t commit too much too early.

Sell the sizzle.

(lizanne falsetto started ThinkThin products in her kitchen. p.s. they’re really good)

Want to sell cookies? Bake a batch in your kitchen and sell them. Have a product idea? Prototype it cheaply and get orders with the prototype. Got a great beer recipe? Brew it and get restaurant or bar owners to try it. Mobile app? Design it in MS Word or Photoshop. Think of all the corners you can cut. It’s like speed dating for business. You talk, flirt and if there’s a fit you go on a date. You know very quickly whether or not you’re attracted in the first 6 seconds (aka “Blink” by Malcolm Gladwell).

That’s the point of an MVP. If you can’t sell the sizzle, put it to bed and move on. Don’t lose your hard earned cash or your time.

Want more? Read my friend James’ guide to selling anything and the story of how he started stockpickr.com for $500 and sold it for $10mil.

This is how to make $millions with a minimum viable product.

So what’s your idea?

*Unless they are honest or have a solid history of being accurate in their opinions

Faith, Death And Pepperoni Pizza On Lake Michigan

(Jib also goes by the name Genoa sail, nicknamed Genny. Our boat, Faith, is a sloop like this with a full keel)

The wall of black hit our boat.

Winds powered up from 5 to 70 knots. Waves grew from 1 to over 12 feet instantly, breaking upon themselves as frothy whitecaps collapsed down into black troughs and blew water pellets from the crest.

Our boat was bashed as our mother shoved the Genny down the forward hatch where my younger sister and I pulled the sail into the cabin directly on top of ourselves.

Dad held the tiller pointing the bow into the wind as my older brother reefed the mainsail.

(reefer madness. reefing the mainsail reduces lift)

Waves came from all directions.

My older brother, Mom and Dad layered on rain gear as they were stung by the pellets like kamikaze wasps. Torrential rain whipped sideways as the boat was heaved about.

My younger sister and I huddled in the cabin, as directed, not scared but aware of urgency.

Temperatures dropped 20 then 30 degrees, soaking and chilling the crew.

The boom was chocked to center by the main sheets.

We were facing north but blowing in reverse at 4 knots. There was little to do except fight and anticipate the next big wave and try.to.hold.steady. Bobbing straight up, then back down and getting hit from the side by cross waves.

(it was like this that day)

Until then it was a warm sunny day on Lake Michigan in 1986.

80 degrees with a light breeze. A boring sail up the West Coast of the Michigan shore. We lounged, making slow progress having left White Lake, Michigan hours earlier and only progressing about 6 miles.

We were convicted in our laziness, waiting for the next port to arrive while watching the shore slip by slowly. Minutes took hours, but it was summer so we didn’t mind. My brother, sister and I played the common deck games we invented while cruising the Lake every summer since birth. At 12, 8 and 6 our games were imaginative.

Off in the distance a wall of dark clouds came from the North, hanging low and moving quickly. We were too far to retreat. The shore offered only danger. We put our guard up and faced what became the worst storm we’d ever encountered on Lake Michigan.

“I think we should take down the Genny and prep the storm jib” Mom said.

She repeated the comment with more emotion, louder.

“Ok” said Dad, releasing the Genny (jib) halyard.

In 5 minutes the storm covered more than 5 miles, bearing down like a train. She ran to the bow and yanked the Genny down. The bow of the boat sprung straight up the first wave.

Mom climbed back to the cockpit, fighting to stay in the boat.

The boat tossed about. In the cabin we bounced like balls from a ping pong paddle.

Occasionally the aft cabin hatch slid open. Rain and a wet crew member poured in for a minute grabbing necessities and climbing back out.

This went on for hours into the darkness.

(been there done that)

But before darkness it was daylight and we weren’t the only boat to get caught with our sheets out.

The VHF radio was turned up to listen to weather and ships calling for help. Mayday.

We couldn’t help. We were small, slow, distant, and at the mercy of the storm. We could hear and see the victims churning about: a sailboat who lost rudder control (likely a sheared pin), and another inexperienced crew pleading for assistance.

We viewed the boats tossing and drifting out of sight. Hoping that mercy would honor the floating fiberglass bobber. It was a game of time. Whichever ended first – the boats or the weather.

There is a saying, “if you can handle a boat on the Great Lakes, you can handle a boat anywhere.”

Most people make the deadly mistake of thinking Lake Michigan is incapable of harboring some of the worst storms of any sea. It’s a lake, after all.

But songs have been written about the storms that sank unsinkable freighters. Buoys and visible wrecks mark the more notable or dangerous while the most famous “Edmund Fitzgerald” is hidden 500 feet below.

Over 6,000 wrecks can be found throughout the Great Lakes; hundreds known on Lake Michigan.

(the Francisco Morazan is visible from the south end of South Manitou Island in northern Lake Michigan where she was bashed ashore in a storm and sits rusting away)

What makes Great Lakes storms such killers?

The Great Lakes are not as large as oceans so the waves have less distance to form. They thus form short, steep waves like alleys between buildings.

The storms start swiftly. Ships are caught unprepared. Wet graves are dug.

(we were in waves like this – short, steep, from all directions)

Large freighters sink on the Great Lakes partly because of midline breaches: vessels caught bow on one peak and stern on the other, splitting in half. Smaller boats – yachts – of 45-60 feet – cannot transition wave to wave, so end up heading down one face as the next buries the bow in water, or swamps her entirely.

But our boat – Faith – was of both size and build fitting for a lake like Michigan.

25′-9″ long with a full leaded keel, perfect to ride steep waves up and down while remaining upright.

Our family was notorious for going out in hard conditions – cruising in seas of 6 ft waves and 20 knot winds wasn’t abnormal. My parents were trained by Great Lakes sailing legend Bill Morgan, once a deckhand on a pirate ship in the caribbean in the early 1900s, and since a master captain who solo-sailed around The Great Lakes for fun.

For a long time we did not have money, but we bought Bill’s boat and set out for two weeks each summer touring Lake Michigan as a family, earning our sea legs.

And there we were.

The battle finally subsided to 6ft seas and 30 knot winds.

Exhausted, we came about and ran south back to White Lake, arriving at nearly 2am.

(this is running)

We huddled into the yacht club restaurant which the manager held open serving hot drinks to harbor workers. The cooks gone, we ate 6″ pepperoni pizzas from the microwave. The taste of death averted, life given back.

(OMG!)

Others were not so lucky.

Off Traverse City, Michigan at least one boat capsized. Four people drowned in the storm, other cruisers were washed ashore as they lost control. Damage was extensive to ports such as White Lake. Boats moored at the harbor were lifted onto docks and run aground on shore. Boats arrived by US Coast Guard tow all night, with harrowing tales of survival. Others had to be salvaged from beaches.

But we survived. Maybe it was the training by Mr. Morgan. Maybe it was the skill by which our parents sailed the boat. Maybe it was right-place-right-time. Maybe it was practice. Maybe it was the boat itself.

Sometimes it’s just your lucky day. And we were glad to take it.

(Faith at her current home in Everett, Washington)

7 Ways To Make Money NOW

(i rented a room in this house where i started my first business)

When I was in college I was pretty broke so I started a business in Missoula, Montana in my tiny 75 square foot bedroom in a 6-bedroom house where I lived with 4 girls and 1 other guy.

I had no space and very little money but sometimes our constraints are advantages.

I was an outdoor athlete along with many others in Missoula, so I used my Dad’s company “Equipment Sales Company” (a company that built machines for the ceramic wire industry) to open accounts with outdoor gear companies. I posted handwritten signs around town “Wholesale Outdoor Gear 30-50% Off. Call 406-555-5555”

They would order the gear they wanted, save a ton of money on gear and I would get a 10% cut risk-free. It wasn’t huge but it paid rent. I’ve gone on to start 3 or 4 more businesses, help turn around a $50M company, help raise money and build a company into its IPO and I’ve got a few new projects I’m working on. I have a different perspective on things, but sometimes you need money NOW.

A lot of us are broke but the thought of starting a company is intimidating. We don’t know where to start or what to do. We’re afraid we might do something wrong or we need an accountant or an LLC, SCorp, CCorp, and so on. In short, we talk ourselves out of doing it because we’re afraid of the scary monsters in the lurky business forest.

But it’s not that scary. You just haven’t seen the forest during the day when the ferns and trillium are lit by sunlight. There are no monsters, just opportunities, and you’re standing there in the middle and I’m going to try to help.

(the forest seems scary at night…)

(…but it’s not so scary after all)

Before you start, this is what I recommend:

1. Write down ideas every day. What’s an idea? the idea and the next step it takes to start the idea.
2. Look around at your resources: somewhere to live, a talent, a car, bikes, boat, skills like cooking or drawing, maybe you know something unique, maybe extra space, a dock, a piece of land.
3. Be specific about how much money you need. Maybe it’s $50 for food or $1,000 to pay your mortgage.
4. See where you can cut expenses now so you can relieve some pressure. Give yourself some freedom.
5. Forget about the big details. Once you get traction (money coming in) worry about the rest. Maybe you never need a business structure and can just stick to nothing and file a Sole Proprietorship at the end of the year with your taxes.

With our smartphones and the web in full force, you have a powerful platform and tools to make money.

Here are 7 of the ways you can make money NOW:

(rent a place to crash on airbnb)

1. Rent your space. Use Airbnb, Vacation Rental By Owner or Craiglist. I was in Maui and people were renting tents in their back yard in Hana for $45/night with sleeping bags, refreshments and breakfast. There are no boundaries anymore. Rent your couch, rent your deck, rent your sleeping bag. Turn a room into a pirate ship and rent it. Throw in an eye patch and hot buttered rum. Offer your space for storage-  use a small corner of the garage and rent it for $100/month. Maybe your shed. Anything you have – get creative. Rent the space that is just sitting there.

(rent your tools on craigslist)

2. Rent tools. Growing up I was oblivious. We had a barn full of tools we hardly used: a wood splitter, a chipper, power tools, several lawn mowers. I could have put an ad in the paper and rented the tools and made a ton of cash (well, a ton for a kid anyway). Use Craigslist and rent your tools. Someone needs that tile saw in your basement.

(sell your cookies!)

3. Sell your food. My aunt won Illinois State Fair awards for her chocolate chip cookies. Her recipe could be bigger than Famous Amos. In grad school I built her the front page of a website called “Aunt Bee’s Bakery.” It had bees buzzing around a chocolate chip cookie and the chips were each a different menu option that popped up on scroll over. She hasn’t done it but maybe you can. Sell food in parking lots in front of busy stores, rent a small space and start a little tail gate restaurant at a food truck lot. Offer to cook for parties. Sell at Farmer’s Markets or other events. Dave’s Killer Bread started this way and is huge today. Grow something (no, not that) – trees, flowers, vegetables, anything, and sell it to local stores or florists or nurseries.

(build stuff people want…)

(…like the bubble tea collar from ii inu)

4. Build stuff. In 2004 I cofounded a company called ii inu (ee-ee-new; Japanese for “Good Dog”). It was a designer pet products company started when my partner created a cool looking collar for her dog. People stopped her to ask where they could buy. First we built them ourselves, then I outsourced manufacturing to a company in Seattle. Within 6 months we were in stores in 36 states and 12 countries. Our cost was $2.40-$4.30 and they sold for $42-$60 retail. It was a good business. What can you make that someone else can buy? Sell it on Etsy.com, eBay,  get a Shopify web store or in local stores. No local stores? Find other stores and call them or send a free sample.

(do this, but not creepy like this guy)

5. Offer other services. If you’re a student you should launder peoples clothes for $7.50/basket. 100 loads is $750/month. Maybe it’s 1,000 loads. Offer to create facebook pages and twitter accounts for $20/month for businesses. Get 10 businesses and you’re making $200/month for just a little effort. Get 100 businesses and you’ve got $2K/month. Would that change your game? Do yardwork, mow lawns, serve elderly or handicapped by running errands, offer a coffee delivery service to offices near you. Drive someone – sign up with Lyft or Uber and user your car as a service. People in cities are making $50K/year doing this. Think of a service you can offer right now to people in need. One idea I think would be a great business is helping other people convert their extra space to being Airbnb ready or driving people to airports at 1/2 the cost of a town car. Decorate Christmas trees, power wash decks, string lights or shovel driveways.

(entertain people)

6. Entertain people. Can you play music, edit video or do some other fun thing? Offer to perform at parties or services for local active events. Teach music or sports or tutor kids in those activities. Belly dance. I know one girl who teaches belly dancing and practically owns the market for belly dancing costumes.

7. Help local businesses make money. What local business can you help? Approach restaurants, stores, anyone and offer to help them advertise or run special events. Take a % of the money from each event or that day’s sales. Help a different businesses every weekend and observe to find more services they need or opportunities to extend the money you make.

But there’s just one catch. In any of these ideas, do it differently. Be remarkable. Give people more than they expect:
-if you’re mowing lawns, dress up like a clown. Be “Clown Mowing”. Every time a car passes they will be like “hey there’s a clown mowing a lawn!” When they need their lawn mowed, they will want you. Maybe they’ll start using you every week just for laughs
-if you’re renting a space on Airbnb throw in more than the guest expects. If they rent your couch, throw in dinner or a free Netflix movie. Surprise them to the upside so they give rave reviews or come back again
-if you’re cooking something throw in a sample of something else you cook or give them a recipe for anything they’re interested in. Help them learn to cook themselves

Being remarkable will do two things: 1. It will get you a lot of attention. Imagine how many people would share “Clown Mowing” on facebook, twitter and Instagram. 2. It will make you more money. More people will want to have that experience and they’ll be willing to pay more for it.

Colonel Sanders started KFC by selling chicken at his gas station. Ray Croc wasn’t too good to flip burgers. Conrad Hilton started with one crappy hotel, built a business, lost it and rebuilt it. You’re not too good for whatever idea you have. Just do the work.

When I feel uninspired or unmotivated I remind myself that everything, EVERYTHING, starts small. Microsoft was just a few guys in a room. Facebook was one kid in his dorm. Famous Amos cookies was an eccentric guy and a recipe. McDonald’s was a single diner. One thing is all it takes.

Right now I am working on at least 3 projects. I’ll share the details when it’s time. Some of it won’t work out, hopefully some of it will. No matter what, I’m not going to stop, because everything I want is just ahead.

And when I feel like stopping, I go to Wikipedia and read about Colonel Sanders, Conrad Hilton and others who started from nothing.

Sometimes I wonder what is missing in the world today because so many other people quit just before they became a huge success.

If you feel like quitting, read these stories and don’t give up. I believe in you:

Colonel Sanders

Ray Croc

Conrad Hilton

Sarah Blakely

John Paul DeJoria

Howard Schultz

Nick Woodman

(inspiration)

Take A Deep Whiff

“You have to smell it. Take a deep whiff.”

Their grandfather was in his 90s. It seemed he was in his 90s for 15 years because when you’re a child age is constant. Until he passed away.

But before he passed away, he was in his 90s and lived with them, C & B (initials for privacy), our friends.

We grew up on the end of a dead end street in Illinois. You could now call it a suburb of Chicago. But then it was just rural Illinois.

It was the dead end of a street with a 2-acre yard bordered by thousands of acres of woods and wetlands, streams and ponds.

It was a small neighborhood so us kids formed a gang.

(it only took 1 google search)

We had a plastic urinal from their grandfather because there’s a lot of schwag that happens with an old person and a plastic urinal seemed useful. We hid it under a large spruce tree in our yard.

So my older brother and our neighbor, B, made an initiation out of it.

After lunch someone convinced someone else to stick their finger down their throat and puke into the urinal.

We ate a lot of summer sausage and cheese. What can you expect? We lived not far from the border of Wisconsin. And so it began.

“Take a deep whiff.”

I was the first after my older brother and B initiated themselves.

I whiffed. But it wasn’t bad at first.

You’d hold the handle, pop the yellow lid with your thumb and stick your nose to the edge. At first it required the help of a finger in the back of the throat because the smell wasn’t horrible yet, but you could visually identify sausage rinds and cheese curds if you looked closely, so the visual and the finger kickstarted the gag reflex.

I puked. They cheered. We passed the urinal in a circle for a second round.

We puked, laughed and cheered.

It was fun.

The next day it was worse.

It smelled of ripe meat and rotten cheese mixed with fermented fruit. Enough to trigger the gag reflex, no finger required.

We invited friends over.

It grew riper as each new member’s initiation succeeded.

“Take a deep whiff.” If it didn’t happen on the first, we’d repeat “take a deeper whiff…”

Friend after friend whiffed and puked. Another kid’s reflux was added. We dry heaved and celebrated.

The yellow lid was flipped down and urinal placed back at the base of the great blue spruce.

(this is a blue spruce and this is perhaps the only valuable piece of information in this post)

We forgot about it for awhile.

It was a hot July in Illinois. Degrees of heat = humidity in percentage.

It fermented and gestated.

Until an altercation.

Our neighbor, B, and his sister, C, notoriously fought.

She said something. They yelled at each other. They tugged and pulled.

He stuttered back and disappeared under the great blue spruce.

He emerged. Yellow lid open, urinal in hand, she wide-eyed in panic.

We dry heaved at the sight of the yellow lid, trained like Pavlov’s dogs.

His arm arced broadly. Drops, then streams, of puke and loogies and pee and maggots spewed forth.

We scattered like mice from a cat.

We arched our backs and ran, extending our bodies as far from the smell and funk as possible.

(everything was in slow motion)

I’m sure we screamed. But I remember only silence and slow motion like a tranquilized Will Ferrell in “Old School.”

She ran, he chased and sprayed until it was empty.

A drop on the hand was cause for panic. A spray on the shirt drew tears.

Clothes were shed as we ran inside.

Friends raced home to shower.

The yard was abandoned to all but the lonely, dirty urinal tossed back under the great blue spruce where it sat for 3 years until receiving a proper burial in the trash.

It was an upchuck tornado and the second most disgusting memory I have of childhood. I will not recount the first.

“Take a deep whiff.”

But we all have our own urinals.

News, commercials, war, poverty, hunger, sickness, cancer, injustice, death, traffic, anger, hate, fear, drugs, slavery, and so on, and so on, and so on.

Virtual urinals people stick in our faces and tell us “take a deep whiff” because we just have to smell what they’re smelling and add to their collection of puke.

So we whiff. And with each whiff we throw up a little bit inside, filling up our urinal a little bit more. And we feel better when we share it and someone else throws up in our urinal.

Each day it ferments and gestates into something more disgusting that we hold onto until something triggers us and we pass it on, telling them “take a deep whiff.”

We’re trained like Pavlov’s dogs.

Our urinals are no longer obvious like they were then. They are anything that makes us feel worse about ourselves or our lives or our relationships, eroding our happiness.

So I’m not whiffing any more. I quit awhile ago.

I’m keeping my stomach acid where it belongs.

Digesting goodness into energy that I can use for my well being and the well being of my friends and family.

I whiff only the fruits and flowers of Maui, roses of Portland, autumn in Washington, Jasmine in Southern California, sharing it with those I love.

What would you rather whiff?

(stop and smell the flowers or the urinal. it’s your choice)

How To Run 50 Miles (part 1)

(these guys are running 100 miles. let’s start with 50)

You may have just finished the 33rd Annual ING New York City Marathon, in which case you might agree:

Running can be miserable.

While running I’ve been:

Screamed at by passing cars in the middle of nowhere and black-smogged by those jacked-up diesel engine redneck trucks (you know the kind with tennis balls hanging from the trailer hitch).

(yah. like that)

Warned by a US Navy Seal “You are in a restricted zone with unexploded ordinances. Go back the way you came. IMMEDIATELY.”

(Honey Bucket please sponsor me)

Hit with runner’s distress more times than I can count: squatted in a patch of recently mown poison oak (I didn’t know, obviously), relieved myself behind bushes a few feet from other people who are lucky they didn’t look over, relearned how to pray (“Please, God, let there be a Honey Bucket!”) and sacrificed more underwear to the trail gods than I care to remember.

I’ve bonked* in the mountains 10 miles from home, cramped badly hobbling the last couple miles, and suffered from heat exhaustion while running in 100 degrees through the desert.

Jumped over rattlesnakes, chased by coyotes, gotten way too close to a mountain lion, brushed up against tarantulas, been sunburned, stung by bees and bitten by ticks.

Rolled my ankles so many times that it doesn’t phase me, and suffered from near hypothermia as rain and ice poured down on my jacketless body.

I even ran on a broken leg once. Yes, it hurt. No, I didn’t know it was broken.

This year I projectile vomited at 1:30AM on a rural highway in Oregon. Four times. (it looked pretty awesome in the light of my headlamp but scared me thinking I was not going to finish the race (it could have been an instagram that made even @JoseCabaco proud) note: later diagnosed with e-coli)

(like this but at night and looked awesome in the light of my headlamp)

But I still run. I can’t stop. I’m an addict.

I just spent a week living in a van like a dirtbag, sleeping in parking lots and weird places, running remote trails on Maui because it was one of my dream trips. If that doesn’t say ‘ADDICTED’, I don’t know what does.

But my torture is your salvation.

There is no logical reason to run 50 miles. None.

There is no rainbow. No pot of gold at the end. No leprechaun.

(this will not be there)

You will not get rich. You will not get famous.

You will suffer. You will question yourself. You might burn your skin and get bad blisters. If you’re not prepared, you could get dehydrated or overhydrated.

Your body could fail. Your kidneys could shut down.

You may lose control of your bowels.

But a few people out there still want to do it.

I get it.

And you know what? They can.

I’ve seen 77 year old women finish ultramarathons.

(at 70 he’s run the 135-mile Badwater Ultra 14 times)

If you do, it will change your life. It will change your context and your perspective.

When we look at our bank accounts, our jobs, people driving fancy cars, the things we always wanted to do but haven’t, we sometimes lose our way and think those things are bigger than us. We need to remember. We are humans and we are bigger than anything material that we’ve created.

Doing something you never thought you could makes you realize that if you can do that, you can do anything.

You are bigger than money or cars or jobs or skyscrapers or 50 mile races. You are part of what created those things. You are not a victim. You can manifest anything with the right focus and effort. You are still alive.

If you don’t want to run 50 miles. Stop here.

If you do, I have to warn you.

I’m a running hacker.

I’ve never done a marathon (at least not a sanctioned one).

I hate running on pavement.

I want to do the most by putting out the least effort.

I may not be fast, but I can go forever.

In 2009 I got ready to run The Leona Divide 50-mile Ultra in 4 months. Since then, I can pretty much run anything up to 30 miles with little preparation more than my standard running schedule, and this training method.

I don’t cramp. I don’t bonk and I don’t stress over it.

But how is this possible? People kill themselves getting ready for 26.2 miles.

They cramp, they puke, they bonk, they cry.

But I don’t:

Because most of what people do for marathons is wrong.

Much of what you’re doing is probably wrong.

Because you’re trying too hard and ignoring your nutrition.

Running a long distance is possible (unless you have a condition that makes it particularly difficult); it’s a 3-step process:
1. Stand
2. Walk
3. Run

And the key to everything, the under-appreciated and under-discussed secret – is your nutrition.

You have to eat and drink while you’re exercising or your body will shut down.

More importantly, you have to eat and drink certain things. The right things.

Someone once said to me “I feel like you’re one of those people who just got up one day and decided to run 50 miles and did it”. I was slightly offended by this because it’s not that simple. I put tons of work into preparing, it just wasn’t traditional preparation. Then again, I’ve always been an outlier.

I may have never run a marathon or been stereotyped as a “typical runner” going out and working my way up from 5k races to marathons to ultras, but I did something different that applies to any endurance sport: I gained experience bagging alpine peaks, competing in 8-12 hour cycling or adventure races, and climbing long technical rock routes in Washington, Oregon, Montana and elsewhere.

I spent hours reading books on endurance nutrition and testing theories. It was almost 10 years of learning, trial and error. Then after all of that “I just got up one day and decided to run 50 miles…”

It was during those adventures that I found secrets – what works and what doesn’t. Especially for nutrition.

Here are the secret nutrition rules no one ever told you (probably because they never knew):
1. you can only absorb 16-20oz of water per hour
2. you can only digest ~300 calories per hour
3. the wrong kinds of foods will not only upset your stomach (runner’s distress) but will also cause your endocrine system to go berserk. Mass changes in insulin cause mass changes in energy. Eat the wrong thing and you may bonk or worse.
3a. if exercising <2hrs you can get away with long-chain carbs and electrolytes in energy drinks and that’s it
3b. if exercising >2hrs you need to add electrolyte supplements and protein to your fuel plan to avoid body cannibalization (i.e. your body breaking down muscle into energy)
4. your body has a certain amount of muscle glycogen stored up within muscles and your liver. for me, it’s about 54 minutes of intense exercise. You may have more (up to 90 minutes) or less. Beyond this threshold you need to eat and drink.

These rules mean you will always be operating at a caloric and hydration deficit during endurance events and there is nothing you can do to change it except ingesting the right things at the right time in the right amount.

If not, you will bonk, DNF or worse, during races – they may train hard (even too hard) but they lose when it comes to their food and drink.

Ingesting proper food and drink will save you, even if you’ve undertrained.

So This Is What You Do
Combine the secret rules above and this becomes your formula for success:
A. For each hour after your initial hour (or whatever your limit is for not needing food) of exercise, you should drink no more than 16-20 oz water and eat no more than 300 calories per hour. If you know you’ll go for a long time, you can start eating and drinking as soon as you start exercise.
B. For exercise beyond 2 hours at a time, you should supplement with concentrated electrolytes and protein supplements
C. Once you finish exercising you should eat recovery food immediately that consists of a combination of electrolytes, protein (like whey) and fortified with something that will quickly replace muscle glycogen (like glutamine)

Chances are, you’ve been eating too much or too little, drinking too much or too little and haven’t been supplementing with electrolytes: all your bonking, cramping, and other distress is for naught.

In other words, you’ve been torturing yourself trying to get better and thinking you’re not capable when the secrets were right there hidden out of sight.

If you master nutrition, you’ll master ultra-marathons (or marathons or whatever athletic even you’ve always wanted to do).

(me just before running Haleakala, Maui rim-rim October 26th, 2013

If you’re just starting out, heed this advice: it’s critical for performance and will save you a ton of trouble. Your training will be less painful, more fun and your gains will happen faster.

At the end of the day, if you get nothing else, you will at least appreciate your couch a whole lot more after running 50 miles.

(part 2 of this post will explain the running regimen that will train you without killing you, and I’ll tell you the supplements I use when training and heading out for long runs)

*Bonking is a term that means you feel like your body can no longer move; like you’ve overexerted yourself and run out of gas, whiich, in a lot of ways you have

The Phone Was Dead – 5 Things I Learned From September 11, 2001

(we saw this outside our office window)

We pulled up the blinds of our office window on the 23rd floor of the Chicago Board Options Exchange building as an FA18 fighter jet burned past.

All air traffic was halted. The Chicago skyline was silent except for the jets loaded with live missiles and the haze wallowing over the South Side.

We could see the pilot’s head through the cockpit canopy.

An hour earlier we arrived for work. I had moved from trading on the floor of the exchange to our office. We had the news on all day, starting at 5am.

CNN showed smoke pouring out of a hole in the tower.

The second plane hit.

We’ve all seen this 1,000, perhaps 10,000 times.

But it was different for me.

On the floor of the CBOE our pit was responsible for making markets – offering retailers and street traders prices so they could buy and sell options with us.*

Several times each day we were on the phone with traders and brokers working from the towers in New York.

(they where there on Monday, then they were gone)

We talked to Cantor Fitz every day.

They were mostly professional conversations, but during slow times there was small talk. How’s your wife? Where’s your daughter going to college? Dirty jokes were shared. Pranks were played. “We have to get drinks when you come to New York” they said.

The drinks were never gotten.

Sometimes I wonder if anyone I saw jumping from the towers on TV were the guys on the phone.

But when we saw the fighter jet blast by, a switch flipped and I knew it wasn’t an accident.

I left.

The El** in Chicago was packed with people and the one guy with a portable jogging radio (pre-twitter and smartphone) relayed the reports to our train car while everyone else was silent.

“Oh my god the second tower fell”

“The Pentagon is still burning”

“There may be other explosions”

People were crying. Cell phones weren’t working.

We were trapped in the train car alone with each other. Strangers were hugging. It’s the only time in life that I’ve been with a group of complete strangers and we looked each other in the eyes with pure empathy. Everyone cared.

It was 15 minutes on the Brown Line to Armitage in Lincoln Park, it may as well have been 15 hours.

My best friend Rich, his friend Brad and I went to Mongolian Barbecue and drank beer.

We talked about the people we knew in NY, and what was important to us.

Some of the guys in NY were lucky – missed a train, got a late breakfast, had the flu – and lived.

But we were alive, too.

I was 23 and had been trading almost 4 years. I felt old. I was stressed out all the time. I was driving up to 10 hours on weekends to get away from concrete and corn field.

I was afraid. I wasn’t happy, but uncertainty seemed scarier.

I also realized I wasn’t in control. A bomb could go off, a plane could crash, a train could derail, a zillion other things could kill me that day. I’m surprised more people don’t die by all the things that could kill us.

I told the firm partners I was moving to Oregon where there were mountains, rivers and oceans. Changing my life took me 10,000 strides closer to happiness.

I realized 5 things on September 11, 2001 but took 10 years to understand:

1. We all care – Everyone cares but we don’t extend empathy to strangers very often because we’re all fighting our daily battles. Extending empathy to a stranger once every day makes me realize there are bigger things at play than me.

2. My world is made up and I’m in control – Everything in my world is a result of my own mind and my own decisions; fear can be fought with ideas and ingenuity. Ask “how can I do this” and write down ideas. This will empower you and build your own reality the way you want it to be. Everything is an experiment.

3. I’m not in control – We can’t control others, so any day could be your last. I try to make sure the people I love know I love them, and I try not to kill anyone.

4. Happiness is a choice – Losing things can make you realize what you had and what you have left over. When I feel poor or constricted I count the bounty: there are hundreds of millions of cars on the road, food in every market and every little diner across the country. Thousands of new businesses started every day. Count the bounty.

5. Have faith – Believe in something. Believing is the first step to finding purpose in life.

At the end of the day we tend to think we’re here alone, but then something horrific happens and we realize we’re here together.

But we’re alive and we can pass the torch of those in the past by being better than we were yesterday.

To my friends and acquaintances and the families of Cantor Fitz, my thoughts are with you.

(thanks to Mr. Lutnick, Cantor Fitz has thrived since 2001)

* We made the market for UAL – United Airlines – and 10 other underlying stocks.
** The El is Chicago’s subway system. It’s short for Elevated Rail.

It’s Not My Job To Save Your Life, But I’ll Try Anyway

(I didn’t know what would happen next)

I was 22. It was Christmas, 1999.

My high beams reflected off of her back.

Turned away from me, her hoodie up, one hand raised to her face.

Two passersby stood next to each other, facing her and facing me, the blood drained from their blank faces. Something was very wrong.

The hooded girl turned around, light revealing her face slowly, evenly, left to right.

Blood ran down the right side, dripped into both eyes and the ear where she held the stranger’s cell phone:

“Mom, Mom I was in an accident! I’m bleeding! I can’t see!” She was yelling into the phone.

Her forehead was split with a gash 6 inches long running diagonally from just above her right eye back into her hairline past the center of her head. I could see her skull.

I was driving home from family Christmas in Springfield, IL. It was about 2:00am on I-55. I passed two cars on the shoulder with three people standing outside, a car with its flashers on, another running idle. A third was out in the field between the off ramp and the overpass, headlights dim and windshield spiderwebbed; the door was open.

I was still a trained First Responder from the Western Montana Mountain Rescue Team and it looked like they needed help. I was in derivatives finance now, not on a rescue team. It was not my job to help.

I U-Turned twice and rolled up behind the hooded girl. I turned my emergency flashers on.

(she used the white line as a guide but it didn’t work)

The girl was so drunk she was using the white lane marker on the right edge as her guide. When the line curved off onto the exit ramp, she followed the line until she realized it was an exit. She jerked the wheel back to the left and the car launched off the exit ramp, crossing about 100 yards of field before hitting the bridge embankment head-on.

Her head hit the windshield.

(don’t let your head hit the windshield)

Rule #1: When you come across an accident the first thing you do is make sure the scene is safe, under control and determine how many people are in the accident. If it is not safe, under control or you’re not sure, leave it to professionals. If you must park your car, park it out of the way with the flashers on.

“Have you called 911?” I asked

“No, she wanted to call her mom so I gave her my phone” the woman said

She was on the phone with her mother.

Never give your cell phone to a victim to make a phone call. They cannot think straight. Call 911.

I took the phone “I’m a first responder and I’m going to help your daughter. Your daughter has blood in her eyes from a cut; she’s not blind. I have to hang up now so we can call 911”

I hung up.

“Call 911” I said to the woman

I told the man to go get something for the girl to sit against. She was going into shock.

I always carry at least 1 pair of rubber gloves with me and a first aid kit in my car. I grabbed a roll of paper towels, a big blanket and the kit.

I put on the gloves.

Rule #2 – Always carry rubber gloves with you. You can protect yourself from blood, but they also make great water balloons, inflatable turkeys or can be used to flush the toilet you don’t want to touch.

I sat her down and leaned her against a cardboard box from the man’s car.  I covered her in a blanket and pulled her lacerated skin back together with my hands, then pressed a big square block of gauze to her head, keeping the skin together with pressure. The gauze bled through quickly, so I packed paper towel on top of that until it bled through again, and repeated, stacking bandage on bandage. The best way to treat non-arterial bleeding is by applying direct pressure.

Head injuries bleed a lot.

Once the bleeding was covered up I treated her for shock and assessed further, keeping my hand pressed against her head.

The woman was behind the girl bracing her head and neck.

I could smell the alcohol in her blood seeping from her head.

In a car accident, body parts fly everywhere. Injuries aren’t always obvious. If victims are not treated at a hospital within an hour, their likelihood of survival goes down, especially when the head is involved.

Rule #3 – Never move a victim unless you have to (like a car is going to explode). More injuries can be caused by moving victims than by keeping them in place.

With head injuries a lot of other things can happen. Things can break, hemorrhage, pop, slice, and dent. Frequently it takes hours, sometimes days, for the injury to present itself. People have died from simple head trauma thinking they were okay.

Sometimes it takes awhile for damage to show up. When it does, it’s too late.

The girl sat under the blanket. The ambulance was on its way.

The emergency road guy showed up but he didn’t get out of the truck. We asked him for gauze from his kit. The sheriff showed up, but he wouldn’t get out of his car. “It’s not my job.” they said.

Rule #4 – Don’t expect anyone except the ambulance to do anything medical at the scene of an accident. “It’s not my job” is a ubiquitous phrase and people are afraid of being sued for wrongful harm. It is a risk.

I was asking questions and taking measurements. The man was writing down the answers to the questions and the woman was doing everything else.

The three most important questions are used to determine alertness:
A. What is your name?
B. Do you know where you are?
C. Do you know what day it is?

I used more questions to monitor alertness and distract her from panic. I ran through more checks like heart rate, breathing rate and pupillary response. Everything seemed good but she wanted to sleep –  an alarming sign of shock and other larger problems.

Rule #5 – once the area is secure/stable, assess the victims based on the ABCs: Airway, Breathing, Circulation (and then C-Spine)
Airway – is the airway clear or obstructed?
Breathing – is the victim breathing?
Circulation – is there a heartbeat? is the person bleeding? From where?
C-Spine – stabilize the cervical vertebrae (the vertebrae of the neck); the c-spine is most vulnerable to accident injury.

The ambulance arrived. The first medic approached.

(don’t expect anyone except the ambulance to give medical help)

I told him “I’m a first responder. This is a single intoxicated 26 year old female who was in a single car accident and is the only victim involved. She has a 6″ laceration on her forehead and is nearly in shock. Here is the information we have (handed the note)”

He looked at my hands covered in blood, and the clotting pile of gauze and towels on her head. He thought my hands were bare.

“I’m wearing gloves. Do you have antiviral wash?”

I went in the ambulance, rinsed the gloves in solution that kills everything and peeled them off. Somehow my thriftshop-found cashmere sweater and white pants (yes, I broke that rule) were blood free.

She was loaded in, doors closed and driven away. She was taken to Loyola University Medical Center, the hospital where my mother was a nurse.

The blanket and box were covered in blood and the man and woman were still silent, in shock.

We carried on small talk as they explained how they saw the accident and the girl walking across the frosty field to the road, flagging down help.

They had never seen an accident or an injury like that before.

I’ve seen too many. The unharmed drunk man ejected from his pickup in Montana after rolling it 3 times into a field. The Mexican family of four t-boned in a West Side Chicago intersection cut by glass from the shattered windows. A family of two in Chicago driven off the road into the cement median on I94 North near Touhy Avenue. The speeding motorcyclist who hit the pickup truck in Portland, Oregon packing a 9MM in his waistbelt and a ball of cocaine; most of his upper body and a leg were broken, probably his skull too; the helmet was dented. The cyclists I saw after they were hit by cars in LA, more than a few on Wilshire alone. And more.*

At night sometimes when I close my eyes I see these things flash by: Split skin, dead bodies, injured kids crying, broken glass, my own arms bent at impossible angles, my family hurt and in pain.

Then I wake up. It’s a new day. Someone else will be hurt today. Maybe physically, maybe emotionally. Someone needs you to save them. Will you do it?
*More than 31 percent of traffic fatalities involve alcohol. The numbers are higher if you include other drugs. In most of the cases I’ve seen, drugs or alcohol were involved.