Newsletter › #8
Digital Nomading in Kanazawa | The Psychology of Money | Three Weeks of Fasting
【What I've been up to】
Hi, Reader,
how was your weekend?
It's been getting cooler,
and at the end of November
winter has finally arrived in Kaohsiung 😂
The newsletter now goes out on Mondays.
It used to go out on Fridays,
but sometimes writing took a while
and it wouldn't go out until the afternoon.
Since you might not check email on weekends
(though I check mine every day, ha),
I've switched to Mondays.
I hope to bring you something useful
on Blue Monday.
P.S. Then a reader wrote on Sunday
asking if I'd skipped a week.
Sorry about that 🥹
【A digital nomad program in Kanazawa, Japan】
By the time you open this,
I should be on a plane to Japan.
I've signed up for
the LINNAS Kanazawa digital nomad program in Kanazawa, Japan:
eight days and seven nights, with activities every morning and evening, including
meditation, flower arranging, calligraphy and tea ceremony,
and free time or city tours in the afternoons.
The fee, including activities and accommodation, is about 78,000 yen
(about NT$16,000), not including flights.
I think it's well worth it.
Afterwards I'll stay three more days
to explore nearby, and fly back to Taiwan on December 11.
A member of the FIRE University book club shared it,
which is how I found out about this great program.
Why did I sign up?
It's been almost three years since I was last in Japan.
The last time was January 2023,
when I took my dad on an independent trip to Tokyo.
(Terrifying — never take elderly parents on a DIY trip 🤣)
Even I was surprised!
Nani! It's been that long since I went to Japan?
And meanwhile my friends keep going, ha.
Another reason: I wanted to experience the digital nomad life.
I wanted to know what traveling while creating feels like.
And finally, the murmur in my heart:
“I want to change my unchanging routine.”
Every day I meditate, do yoga, create,
read, visit clients, record, edit and exercise,
and on weekends I go back to the countryside to see my family.
Creating is fun, but apart from that
nothing else seemed to fulfill me.
Something felt missing, so I wanted to get away.
I'm hoping living somewhere else will bring new experiences.
Next week I'll share what I learned as a digital nomad.
The forecast says it might snow.
I hope it's not too cold — people with low body fat really feel the cold 😂
If you'd like to see my photos from Japan,
follow me on Instagram.
Here's the program's web page for reference,
though it's the old one — the new one seems to close once it's full:
【My fasting experiment】
My one-meal-a-day experiment is in its third week.
This week I felt hungry less often;
my body seems to be adapting to the new eating schedule.
Compared with November 9:
- Fat down from 12.1 kg to 10 kg
- Skeletal muscle up from 31 kg to 31.5 kg
- Weight down from 67.3 kg to 65.9 kg
- Body fat down from 17.9% to 15.1%
Losing fat from fasting didn't surprise me at all;
what surprised me is that my muscle went up, not down.
My physique has changed too — more muscle definition,
and my abs have appeared 🤭
I no longer need an afternoon nap;
I'm clear-headed all day 😆
and have an extra 2–3 hours a day to use.
And because I eat only once a day, I really look forward to it:
“What shall I eat today?”
I enjoy my food more when I eat, too.
One meal a day may be my biggest breakthrough this year,
for my health and my life.
Twitter founder Jack Dorsey
also eats one meal a day.
Even crazier, he does “weekend fasts”:
from Friday dinner until Sunday evening, only water.
So I've been wondering:
“What would happen to my body after 48 hours without food?”
One day when I'm feeling reckless, I'll try it and tell you 😁
If you're trying fasting too, write and tell me about it.
A sneak peek: next week I'll release an interview with a doctor
about intermittent fasting ☺️
【Book share】
- Author: Morgan Housel
- Title: The Psychology of Money: Timeless lessons on wealth, greed, and happiness
Today's book is a famous bestseller,
and this is my second time reading it.
I strongly encourage every investor
to read it before investing.
It helps you build a healthy investing mindset
and saves you a lot of detours.
Here's a classic story from the book:
---
Ronald Read was born in rural Vermont
and was the first in his family to graduate from high school —
more impressively, by hitchhiking to school every day.
To everyone who knew him,
he was as ordinary as can be:
low-key and quiet,
just like millions of other rural Americans.
He fixed cars at a gas station for 25 years
and swept floors at JCPenney
for 17.
At 38,
he bought a two-bedroom house for US$12,000
and lived there for the rest of his life.
His wife died when he was 50, and he never remarried.
A friend said his biggest hobby was chopping firewood.
Read died in 2014, at 92.
That year, this unknown rural janitor
made international headlines.
2,813,503 Americans died that year;
fewer than 4,000 of them had a net worth over US$8 million.
Ronald Read was one of them.
His will stunned everyone:
US$2 million to his stepchildren,
and more than US$6 million to the local hospital and library.
Everyone around him was baffled:
how had this janitor, with his modest pay and simple life,
accumulated millions?
The answer is no mystery.
He didn't win the lottery or inherit a fortune.
He simply saved what he could, put it into blue-chip stocks,
and held on patiently for decades.
That's how, bit by bit,
he grew his meager savings into more than US$8 million.
That simple.
An unknown janitor became a philanthropist.
The end.
---
I love this story.
It's very close to my own investing philosophy: buy and hold.
The book also tells the opposite story:
another wealthy man, Richard Fuscone,
made the news at the same time —
but for going bankrupt
after spending lavishly.
To keep this newsletter from getting too long,
I won't go into the details here.
One idea from the book:
“People do some crazy things with money,
but no one is crazy.”
Different generations, different incomes and values,
born into different economies,
with completely different educations —
everyone sees how the world works from their own point of view.
And what you experience yourself
leaves a deeper mark than what you learn from others.
So you and I
see how money works in completely different ways.
What seems crazy to you
may seem perfectly reasonable to me.
That's why, when people ask me how to invest,
I can't just give them an answer.
What I see as gold
may look like trash to someone else.
For example, I think VOO is great —
growing along with the US economy.
But Machi Big Brother (Jeffrey Huang)
might think VOO is trash,
because he made a killing on bitcoin and NFTs —
though by now he's probably lost it all.
So I can't teach you how to invest
in a few short sentences.
But I can give you an idea anyone can use:
invest in the whole market for the long run.
It's an old refrain,
but in the end you'll find that the greatest truths are the simplest.
The simplest things are the ones that stand the test of time.
I recommend this book to three kinds of people:
1. Those just starting to manage money who want the right investing mindset.
2. Those easily swayed by market emotions.
3. Those always tempted to go all in, hoping to turn their lives around.
The book has many more stories about investing and money.
I hope you enjoy it.
This week's episode
#54 | Earning NT$30,000 a month? Don't rush to invest — do these three things first
For people on a modest salary (about US$1,000 a month), the first step is not investing but building the ability to move up: know your survival baseline, handle people who don't understand you, and invest in your skills before stocks.
Read the full show notes in English › (the episode is in Mandarin Chinese)
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If you enjoy the show, take a screenshot of it
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Deals
Don't Want to Go to Work Lab
I'm a student of this course myself. If you follow along and do the work, you can design your own digital product and sell it.
So after finishing it, I approached the founder about working together to share the course with my listeners, and she kindly offered an exclusive discount:
👉 Course page: eleanorfilmacademy.tw/VlRMg (in Mandarin)
🔥 My listener discount: use the code FIRETW for a limited-time price of NT$4,200.
👉 My purchase link: eleanorfilmacademy.tw/NfK0d
Gear I recommend
❇️ MONITORMATE
⚡️ MS-Z magnetic 3-in-1 charging stand
💼 The travel essential for Apple users — the smallest and lightest, with fast charging
🈹 Enter the code 【FIRE150】 for NT$150 off right away!
❇️ MONITORMATE
⚡️ TD1 — a 13-in-1 Thunderbolt 4 dock
🈹 Enter the code 【FIRE300】 for NT$300 off right away!
That's it for this issue of the FIRE Life Weekly.
If you have any questions about the show,
or suggestions for the newsletter,
just write to me at doug@firetw.com.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Have a lovely week,
and see you next Monday.
Doug