**Dear Reader, I hope you enjoy this article. - Vitaliy**
Watercolor is by my father, Naum Katsenelson
My Self-Improvement Journey
I am 14 months into working on my new book,
**The Intellectual Investor,** which is far from being finished. I have
written fifty thousand words but have yet to find answers I am looking
for, and thus the journey continues. Working on this book has been one
of the most fulfilling experiences of my life. Because of it I am:
* 11 months into not eating dessert (read my "I Don't Eat Desserts"
article here
)
* 6 months into working out twice a week with a trainer
* 5 months into not eating carbs - no more bread, potatoes, or rice
* 5 days into doing meditation.
Working on the book accidentally stirred up this whirlwind of
self-improvement. Giving up desserts ended up dramatically improving my
cholesterol. A few months later I got a trainer. Before then I had never
worked out continuously for more than a month. Six months into working
out, I feel differently. It is difficult to describe that sensation, but
growing muscles provides physical fulfillment I did not know I was
missing.
Giving up desserts and working out didn't result in weight loss,
giving up carbs did. Over the last five months I have slowly but
steadily lost 22 pounds (about 10% of my weight). A friend asked me if
giving up desserts made me less happy or even unhappy. I found that it
had zero impact on my happiness. None. Instead of desserts I eat frozen
blueberries and cottage cheese.
Writing (almost) every morning gives a creative high that is similar to
the sensation I have for a few hours after a workout, the feeling that
my muscles are growing and stretching my skin, except that this is
happening in my skull.
This brings me to my latest endeavor - meditation. I can sit and write
for hours (I once wrote nonstop for eight hours on a flight to Europe
and would have continued writing if my laptop battery hadn't died),
but my patience for sitting and doing nothing is that of a
five-year-old. Every time I tried group meditation in the past I failed.
As I have gotten older I have started to explore existential questions
and have become a fan of Sam Harris. In one of his talks he said,
"Changing how you respond to the world is often as good as changing the
world." This phrase has stuck with me.
We really have little control over the outside world. We have some
control over things and people in our personal corner of the world. I
have tried to change my interactions without the outside world by
carefully selecting who and what I allow inside. This extends not just
to the people I surround myself with (friends, coworkers, clients) but
also to aspects of the outside environment, which today mainly means
politics. I try to spend as little time on politics as possible. I
barely watch any news TV. I read selectively. I try to read more books
and less Twitter and other social media. But filtering and blocking will
only get you so far.
Something will always go wrong, somebody you love will say something
that upsets you - that's life. As much as you might like to, you
cannot control the world; but you can control how you react to it. As
Sam Harris puts it, "The quality of your mind determines the quality of
your life... happiness and suffering are mental events."
Meditation allows you to mindfully (intentionally) examine what you are
doing with your own mind. "Every thought and feeling you ever had, good
or bad, has a arisen and then passed away. The anger you felt yesterday
or a year ago is not here anymore. And if it arises in the next moment
based on your thinking about the past, it will once again pass away when
you no longer thinking about it" (Sam Harris ).
I am five days into this meditation journey, but with the help of Sam
Harris' meditation iPhone app
,
Waking Up (which I highly recommend), I was able to meditate for nine
minutes yesterday (my previous record was four minutes).
How A Stock Market Turns Investors Into Gamblers - Audio Edition
Today I am going to share with you an article
I wrote after the January 2018 stock market volatility. It's as
relevant today as it was then. However, this time around you don't
have to strain your eyes; you can use your ears. Optimal Living Daily
has turned my article into a podcast. Turn off your TV, shut down your
brokerage website, relax, and listen to the article and then to the
classical music that follows below.
http://contrarianedge.acemlnb.com/lt.php?s=f87dab6a556b4d3658dffe7a36fd5db2&i=408A455A10A4127
After you are done listening I would love to have your feedback. Should
I accompany my future articles with an audio version similar to this
one? (I won't be the one reading them).
http://contrarianedge.acemlnb.com/lt.php?s=f87dab6a556b4d3658dffe7a36fd5db2&i=408A455A10A4128
Digital Painting is by my brother Alex Katsenelson
October - Pyotr Tchaikovsky
I am writing this in October. Summer is behind us. The trees that turned
yellow will soon turn grey. It is cold, wet, and snowing outside. It
seems very appropriate that the music I will share with you today is
"October," by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, from his
**Seasons** collection. (If he released it today it would be called an
album.) Somehow this music feel very right.
Click here to listen
**Vitaliy Katsenelson, CFA**
Student of Life
I am the CEO at Investment Management Associates
, which is anything but your average
investment firm. (Seriously, take a look .)
I wrote two books on investing, which were
published by John Wiley & Sons and have been translated into eight
languages. (Even in Polish!)
In a brief moment of senility,
**Forbes** magazine called me "the new Benjamin Graham." (They must have
been impressed by the eloquence of the Polish translation.)
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