“What do you call an economist with a forecast?”
“Wrong.”
I spent the weekend reading forecasts and strategies for the New Year. Rebalancing is a favorite trick early each year. If you do that, Uncle Sam will love you.
This year, the economy will continue its split recovery. The middle and lower class will do awfully. The upper class will search for increasingly scarce decent investments. You’ll find a few (very few) in the stockmarket, but mostly in real estate — if you can fluke buying a property “with hair on it” for a ridiculously low price and fixing it up.
Anything you own that shows decent, positive cash flow will be worth more. A lot more.
There’s too much money around chasing too few opportunities. That’s my theme for 2014.
The Journal has a negative piece on Micron (MU), which has gone up too quickly.
The Journal’s piece is worth reading. Click here.
Time to make your New Year’s Resolutions? For ex-fighter Mike Tyson, life is a constant battle. This is the one piece I read over the weekend I cannot get out of my brain. Read. Pretty amazing stuff.
January 3, 2014
Fighting to Kick the Habit by Mike Tyson
LAS VEGAS – IT’S the time of year for resolutions. Lose 20 pounds, get to the gym, eat healthier, be more productive, whatever. But in a few months, many people will let these goals fall by the wayside, to be revived next year. I belong to a group who can’t afford to make pledges we don’t keep. I’m an addict.
For addicts, discipline isn’t something to strive for each new year; it’s necessary for every moment. Though it might be surprising – considering all the craziness associated with the Mike Tyson persona – one of my best qualities is my unerring discipline, which my mentor and first trainer, Cus D’Amato, instilled in me. Cus and I worked hard so I could become the youngest heavyweight champ in history; I sacrificed most of my social life as a teenager and for years pushed my body to extremes every day, just to repeat the brutal regimen the next day.
Cus died a year before I won my first belt, in 1986. With him gone, I had less of an incentive to stay disciplined, and I started drinking heavily and taking drugs. I finally retired from boxing in 2005. I didn’t want to insult the sport by coming in out of shape, just fighting for a payday. That’s when I became a full-on raging addict. Since then, I have struggled for sobriety, sometimes successfully, at other times not.
Even though I possessed incredible discipline when it came to boxing, I didn’t have the tools to stop my slide into addiction. When I got a chance to get high – boom, I’d get high. I wouldn’t call my sponsor, wouldn’t call my therapist, wouldn’t call my sober companions.
No, in order to kick it, I had to replace the cravings for drugs or alcohol with a craving to be a better person.
I’ve learned that being sober is more than just avoiding drugs or alcohol. It’s a lifestyle focused on making moral choices and elevating the things that make life worth living to the forefront. Don’t get me wrong. If I craved drugs or alcohol, I’d still give in. I could never fight those cravings. But when I am focused on doing good and being good, and practice the day-to-day mechanics of a sober, healthy life, I don’t get those urges to do bad things to myself.
Of course, I needed a developed conscience to back it up. Over the years, my conscience has saved me from descending into a life of total, selfish hedonistic abuse. Even when I was just an antisocial kid, stealing and jostling in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, my friends and I would question our behavior. At my lowest points, I’d still be somewhat outside myself, thinking of the effect my actions had on other people.
Even with your conscience nagging at you, it’s extremely difficult to develop a sober and moral consciousness without a good support system. When I was in the prime of my career, I had a lousy support system. Greedy vultures were all around me, putting their hands in my pockets, using my status for their own self-aggrandizement. There was no way I could win with people like that in my corner. I am now very fortunate to have a wonderful wife and children surrounding me.
In 2009, I vowed to get sober after the accidental death of my 4-year-old girl, Exodus. I was determined to live a better life for the sake of my family, but the pain was so bad that I went back on drugs. Recovery is a drawn-out process, and without the continued encouragement of my support system, it would be close to impossible.
Strangely, times of success are most dangerous for me. When people tell me, “You’re great” or “Your comeback is amazing” or “You’re a god,” I could feed right into it and go get high. Hey, if my life is so good, how could smoking a joint be bad? How could a shot of Hennessy or a line of coke be so bad when everything else I’ve been doing is great – especially when there are beautiful, successful people feeding my ego and supplying the drugs? So I’ve learned that when people congratulate me, that’s when I focus on my flaws. That way I don’t allow my narcissism to fly sky-high and allow me to think that I can act out without any consequences.
I had been sober for five years when I had a slip and started drinking again last August. I had just finished the manuscript of my book, my one-man show was about to air on HBO, and we had a reality series in the can for Fox Sports. I was not accustomed to all that success in an arena other than boxing.
I have such a negative self-image that I just expect bad things to happen to me. And even though I hadn’t been using for five years, all that time I just didn’t feel comfortable in my skin. I was holding secrets from my loved ones, things that I had to get off my chest because I was dying inside. That’s the worst feeling in the world, keeping things to yourself. When I resolved those issues, through therapy and by talking honestly with my family, I felt like a new man. When I relapsed in the past, I would keep getting high until I was in a car accident or got arrested. But this time, after drinking for two or three days, I came back. I didn’t wait for an intervention. I just got right back on the wagon. After years of therapy, I had learned not to beat up on myself. I remembered that relapse is a part of recovery.
This is the best I’ve ever felt. I’m on the pathway to humility, fully aware that you can’t rule until you’ve served. I’m looking forward to a glorious 2014, when all of our best-intentioned resolutions become realities.
Mike Tyson, a retired heavyweight champion, is the author, with Larry Sloman, of the memoir “Undisputed Truth.”
I bet chicken farmers are not in the best of financial shape. This one had a better idea. Two shelled, hard boiled eggs for $2.99. Good tasty eggs.
Portland’s Whole Foods are really different to New York’s. They have a huge amount of good local stuff, like this yummy ice cream, modeled by a Whole Foods’ employee:
Portland is renown for nose rings, ear plugs and tattoos, like this one on her arm. Her father wrote her these comforting words when she expressed concern for her life and job — bag packer at a Whole Foods checkout counter:
The tattoo reads: “Everything will fall into line.” It’s in her father’s actual handwriting.
I saw one on a lovely girl that actually read — in LARGE LETTERS — “Time Flies.”
This nice man worked in the Charcuterie department at Whole Foods. Note the ear plug:
This is his department:
He said his biggest-seller was this stuff:
You read correctly — $26.99 a pound.
After all, it is Whole Foods.
I bought some more Whole Foods shares on Friday. I also bought some (a little) of this prosciutto. It wasn’t very good. But then, what do I know? I’m not a foodie.
This was among my favorite Whole Foods products A piece of wood for $5:
They also sold shoes and hats, all made from sustainable materials, which means (I think) they grow shoes and hats in Oregon. An amazing place.
Harry Newton, who visited new granddaughter Eleanor in Portland, Oregon last week. Here’s her at six weeks.
Favorite Portland bridge. it’s called the St Johns Bridge. It spans the Columbia River. It ends in a mountain and a T-junction. Only in Portland, Oregon.
Life is wonderful. Delta upgraded us to first class on the way back. I don’t know why. But thank you Delta. Despite the weather, we actually arrived half an hour early. Go figure.
A few years ago, Mike Tyson gave a performance on the heavy bag at a gym where I coached boxing. It was obvious to all who watched the workout that “Iron Mike” was one wrong word, one negative gesture away from blowing up. There was palpable danger in the room.
When the workout ended we applauded, gently, almost timidly. No one dared approach him. We thanked him at a respectable distance, fearing he might explode at any moment.
Later we inspected the heavy bag; there was a large tear, stuffing oozed; the bag had to be replaced.
It’s heartening to know Mike is gaining control of his demons. Despite his ominous presence that day in the gym, one could sense vulnerability alongside his furious inner core. Apparently he is in touch with his vulnerable side, working it hard as worked the bag.
Harry,
I like your gadget recommendations (among others). Can you recommend a good but lightweight laptop?
Thanks
Living with a loved one who is working on sobriety is tough. Living with one who is not working on sobriety, but should be, is even tougher.
that mike Tyson piece was awesome. The truth is we are all of us most prone to do bad when we are most convinced that “I am a good person, I’ve done good things” (psychologists call it “moral license”).