May the Odds Be With You

Recently, I’ve seen a bunch videos of of people doing CRAZY EXTREME!!! things. First, on a TV station I randomly clicked on. Then at the beginning of a livestreamed Stacking Benjamins podcast.

Stunt, man

I admit to usually finding these stunts pretty amazing. And fun to watch. But, often when I watch these videos/shows, other thoughts pop into my otherwise empty head.

Like, “how many times did it take that person to get the trick right?” And, “how many injuries that person sustain in the course of perfecting the stunt (at least that one time as captured on video), and how bad were those injuries, alone and in the aggregate?” Also, “how many people did/will that person inspire to try (or top) that feat, and how often and badly will those people fail, maybe never reaching their objective?”

I’ll never know the answers to these questions, of course. But my guess is that the trick-performer sustained injuries in the course of trying to perfect the stunt. Likely a lot. And probably ones that were costly both as to temporary or permanent loss of physical capabilities, and as to medical expenses. Ditto for any people inspired enough by those videos to attempt the feats themselves. I also think it’s a safe bet that the number of people who die each year trying to perform these tricks is far from insignificant.

So, while even the not-easily-impressed, like me might be amazed by the successful performance, that doesn’t take away from the fact that the odds of actually pulling off the stunt and avoiding serious injury in the process of (finally) doing it, are thinner than a cheap toupee long.

As someone with both the faintest hint of a brain in his head, and a great fear of child protective services sense of responsibility for Thing One (The Elder) or Thing Two (The Younger), that all leads me to something else that I usually think when I watch these videos: “there is no way that I’m going to try to perform any of those stunts. Zero. Zippo. Nada.” Also, “there is no way I’m letting Thing One or Two do that. Zero. Zippo. Nada.”

Maybe rookies like us could eventually pull off the stunt. But the odds are stacked heavily against it. Too heavily. Any reasonable person knows that going in.

Non-risky business

I admit, I’ve never been a risk taker when it comes to CRAZY EXTREME!!! stunts. Now, I’m no complete wimp, and I’ll challenge myself. But I know a dangerous risk when I see it. So, my risk taking is based on a knowledge that the worst-case scenario is awful but highly unlikely, the best case scenario is at least somewhat within reach and definitely worth striving for, and the likelihood is that I’ll learn and grow in a positive sense as long as I’m reaching for the goal.

This risk-averseness extends to other parts of my life, too. Including personal finance. Part of this is natural inclination. However, I’ve known financial want. Once early in my life, and once later. I do not like financial want, Sam I am. I also invested in one individual stock in my life, and that was a swift and all but complete wipeout didn’t turn out well as an investment in and of itself.

But these events were invaluable learning experiences, which had long-term positive effects on my approach to risk. It took many years for these lessons to fully bear all of their significant fruit. But bear significant fruit they did.

Slow cooker

I regularly read personal finance-focused articles before I learned about FIRE. Most of those articles fell into one of two categories: (1) Article Type 1 – those advising to not take on credit card debt, to save 5–10% of your income for retirement (“save” implicitly meaning to put in a bank account), and, sometimes, to buy your residence and maybe pay off a little extra each month; and (2) Article Type 2 – those advising the reader to immediately invest in this or that can’t-miss stock or commodity, and then to lean back and wait for the quick, easy, and untold riches.

Article Type 1 I considered sound, but written for people just starting their careers, or the (wildly) irresponsible/ignorant, who need to get their financial lives in some order. But as to Article Type 2, even in my pre-FIRE-knowledge ignorance I knew that the odds of the payoff were probably zero and that the authors were selling snake oil. Between that and my risk averseness, there was a 0% chance I’d follow the advice.

Then I discovered FIRE, which a lot of people then and now consider akin a crazy stunt. After all, hardly anyone’s trying it, and most people think it’s bananas/not believable or attainable.

The blog posts/articles I read took the tenets of Article Type 1 and added simple but game-changing nuances. And then amped the whole thing up to 11. And they certainly made no attempt to say that success will happen super quick. Rather, it was unabashedly sold as a get-rich-slowish scheme.

Lots of practical-but-contrarian, easy-to-understand-and-implement advice, and math-based evidence that success can happen relatively soon, but no get-rich-super-quick promises? That I found credible. FIRE seemed to me not a stunt, but instead a crazy-great feat that could be pulled off with a high degree of certainty, Especially for someone like me, given my circumstances. I was hooked all but instantly.

Sure, the chance of people pursuing FIRE falling short of their objectives—or even facing financial ruin—isn’t zero. But the odds are stacked heavily in our favor. So we stand a solid chance of success. And, in far fewer years than the 40–45 years that makes up the average person’s working career. Similarly, those who start (much) later in life stand an excellent chance of achieving a much better result than otherwise would have been the case.

This is a stunt right within my risk tolerance level. And, one I’m all on board with trying to perform.

What’s more, I—and a lot of people pursuing FIRE—have backup plans. And backup plans for the backup plans. After all, the more you can stack the odds of success in your favor, the better. Risk is fine. But too much risk? Maybe not so much.

And in the end . . .

Dear Reader, Steve Stone, a former major league pitcher and now longtime baseball announcer, often says upon seeing the late-inning score of a ball game in which Team A leads Team B by some crazy amount of runs (think 19-1 in the bottom of the eighth inning), “I like Team A’s chances in that game.” Similarly, I like odds of anyone who pursues FIRE to reach their goal.

This all said, I don’t begrudge anyone the right to try performing CRAZY EXTREME!!! money-related stunts to get rich quick. I just think those are longshots not worth wasting time on. And likely just plain silly, just like a lot of CRAZY EXTREME!!! physical tricks.