Book Reviews (2021 Q1)

1. How to Talk to Anyone: 92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships (by Leil Lowndes)

I’ve always admired people who can effortlessly crack up a conversation with anybody. It’s very interesting to learn about how to make others (and ourselves) more at ease when talking to strangers, and discover whether I have any subconscious bias when talking to people.

Some fun takeaways are:

• Kill the quick “me too”, and let others talk first.
• Hello old friend: When meeting someone new, play a mental trick by pretending that you’re seeing an old friend. Then you let the self-fulfilling prophecy do its work.
• When someone persists in questioning you on an unwelcoming subject, repeat your original response in the same tone. Then they’ll get the message.
• Never the naked “thank you”: always add what you’re thanking them for.
• Compliment through the grapevine: a compliment one hears is never as exciting as the one we overhear.
• When you receive a compliment, boomerang it back (for ex., “thanks, you’re very kind”).
• Make other people feel that your admiration just “slipped out” (for ex., “you’ve obviously been well..!”).
• Smile slower into a flooding smile: you will come off as more genuine.

This shouldn’t come off as manipulation, but more so a multiplication of your genuineness.

Conclusion: Quick read of a list of 92 with anecdotes of how to talk to people better. You can pick and choose what might apply to you.

2. Quit Like a Millionaire: No Gimmicks, Luck, or Trust Fund Required (by Kristy Shen and Bryce Leung)

When I told a friend of mine that I am not really involved in investing my discretionary income, she gifted me this book (“easy read… you can read it on the toilet when you have time”).

Kristy and Bryce (the authors, a married couple) are Canadian-Chinese millennials are self-made millionaires who retired by early 30s.

Also, the fact that they were (at least Kristy was) from a poor Chinese village and went to Waterloo, lived in Toronto, worked an average corporate job made it very relatable.

Their secret, from what I can distill, is: budget and invest. Be disciplined in your financial planning. And neither of the authors are financial experts, though they have obviously done their research.

With combined corporate income and consistent investing, they were able to achieve financial independence and quit their day-jobs by their 30s. By then, they accumulated total liquid assets of more than a million dollars, and with an income yield of ~4%, they get ~$40,000 per year from doing absolutely nothing.

And then they literally just travelled the world and Kristy fulfilled a childhood dream of publishing a book (this one).

I think this book is very interesting because they’re spelling out all of their tricks for you — and it’s not rocket science.

In the book, they discuss in detail about asset allocation, ETF selection, optimizing after-tax returns, etc. in layman language.

I think this book also highlights the importance of having basic to intermediate financial knowledge to properly manage your personal finance, especially when it comes to investing.

Though, not everyone can (nor should) apply all the principles from the book. First of all, they don’t have children. That would’ve significantly changed the game (i.e. size of your wallet). Next, 某事在人 成事在天：essentially, you can plan as meticulously as you want but life doesn’t always go the way you want. Thirdly, I personally think the authors are overly attached to money — they spend too much time thinking about their budget. Yes, this over-thinking did have a pay-off (they retired in their 30s); but I don’t want to be living with such constraints.

Further, I believe in working a job that you actually like instead of just for the money. I think the authors are treating their jobs like a means to FIRE (“Financial Independence Retire Early”). Although, to this point, some might argue that right now we are forced to work our jobs whether we like it or not (because we need the money), but once we achieve financial independence, we can choose to work or not.

Conclusion: Good read; I’d encourage anyone (especially millennials/gen z) to read it just to understand how an ordinary person can achieve financial independence. It’s also good to note all the caveats (having kids in the picture, being a home-owner, etc.).

3. The Psychology of Money: Timeless lessons on wealth, greed, and happiness (by Morgan Housel)

I’ve always hesitated to write about money or finance given my profession. Additional to trying to steer clear from any unintentional liability, I find that the more I learn about finance, the more there is for me to learn still.

But I’d encourage anyone to read the book to understand, as the title describes, the psychology of money. The book discusses why people do the things they do with money.

Even finance professionals recognize that traditional finance cannot accurately describe market behaviour without some input from behavioural finance. In other words, psychology plays a significant role in the way we, individuals, think about money.

The last part of the book goes into detail to describe how the culture of consumerism flourished in western society today. I think it’s quite interesting to read about the perspective because, let’s face it, we are so used to this consumeristic society and naturally, many people live above their means.

Rappers rap about red bottoms and Dior; and basic Influencers flaunt their closets and accessory details. It’s no lies that we end up aspiring to have their drip and live large like they do.

The author said the above better: “The lifestyles of a small portion of legitimately rich Americans inflated the aspirations of the majority of Americans, whose incomes weren’t rising”. I think that’s a pretty astute observation.

Overall, some takeaways I found insightful are:

• “People do some crazy things with money. But no one is crazy. Your personal experiences with money make up maybe 0.00000001% of what’s happened in the world, but maybe 80% of how you think the world works.” I put this in quotes because this very adeptly describes how people come to their decisions. Maybe the 80% of what you understand isn’t even right! Some things, in retrospect, may seem to be crazy (e.g. selling at the market bottom? GME?). Every body has their own way of looking at the world, and their decisions made sense to them when they made it.
• You’d think that people make rational decisions toward money and personal finance, but “people’s lifetime investment decisions are heavily anchored to the experiences those investors had in their own generation — especially experiences early in their adult life.” I agree with this because I even see it in my own investment behaviour. I gravitate(d) towards bonds because in my short professional life so far, bonds have performed very well (until a couple of weeks ago!).
• “The single most powerful thing you can do [as an investor] is increase your time horizon… [Time] makes little things grow big and big mistakes fade away.” Be patient and let the power of compounding to do its magic.
• Think of volatility as a fee.
• “Do not aim to be coldly rational when making financial decisions. Aim to just be pretty reasonable. Reasonable is more realistic and you have a better chance of sticking with it for the long run, which is what matters most when managing money.” This is a funny line for me because in my professional we learn about biases suffered by the investor, such as mental accounting (basically believing your portfolio to be optimal but in reality you’re not taking into account various factors). But we are not cold robots. We need things (our portfolios) to make sense to us for us to stick to it in the long term.
• Saving is a hedge against life’s inevitability to surprise the hell out of you at the worst possible moment. Having cash and enough savings is the oxygen for independence.
• Control of your time is the highest dividend money pays.
• Pessimism sounds smarter, and optimism usually sounds like a sales pitch. But that’s not what they really are. Optimism is a belief that the odds of a good outcome are in your favour overtime.

Conclusion: Good read about the psychology of money. Get basic concepts to why the wealthy stay wealthy. Uncover your potential biases towards money and personal finance. Very high-level investing advice which you should also think critically while taking your personal situation into account.

4. Treasure Islands: Uncovering the Damage of Offshore Banking and Tax Havens (by Nicholas Shaxson)

I literally bought this book (hard copy) from an Amazon recommendation, because I was searching for literature to read about offshore finance.

Even for newcomers in the finance world, offshore banking is ubiquitous. I just wanted to understand more.

I think this is an important book to read to start to understand how offshore banking, tax havens, secrecy jurisdictions, corporate governance, trusts,
transfer pricing work.

It seems that Shaxson has done his research, and his experience as a journalist to the Financial Times and the Economist (both of which I read) certainly helps.

The book elaborates on the history and creation of various offshore jurisdictions, including but not limited to the Cayman Islands, the Bahamas, British Virgin Islands, Delaware, Jersey, the City of London (!).

I knew the offshore world was not small, but from what I took away in the book, the actual size and influence is indeed enormous.

When we think of “offshore”, we might think about tropical islands. Indeed, some offshore jurisdictions are indeed based there. However, according to Shaxson, “offshore is not just a place, an idea, a way of doing things, or even a weapon of finance industries. It is also a process: a race to the bottom where regulations … are steadily degraded.”

He argues against these offshore practices with thorough reasoning, even in the name of capitalism.

The book was published 10 years ago, I would love to read a revised version today, as I know the offshore world have evolved since then.

A snippet from the book. Those of you Narcos fans might recall the scene where Carlos Lehder met Pablo Escobar to help him transport white powder. This book was published in 2011, before Narcos even came out.

Conclusion: Not a light read. Be prepared to take some notes and do research as you flip through the pages. However I think it’s very comprehensively written and you will learn a lot more about the offshore world in terms of what it is, how it works, and perspectives towards their existence.

5. Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity, and Disease (by Robert Lustig)

Here we go again, another book about dietary wellness. I almost didn’t want to read it because I knew this was going to make me scared/paranoid about our modern food environment again.

And I have every reason to feel that way. The odds are stacked against you if you wish to live a metabolically healthy life.

The takeaways are:

• Fructose, when not eaten with the whole fruit, is terrible for your health (liver).
• The fatter you are, the fatter you’re likely to become. Insulin and leptin (satiation) resistance lead not only to increased food intake but to increased palatable food intake or anything that is high in both fat and sugar.
• Why do we love fast food? we? Because it’s designed to contain the greatest concentration of fat, sugar, salt, and caffeine, and is placed into as small a package as possible.
• Sleep deprivation has been shown to increase cortisol (stress hormone) and reduce leptin (satiation hormone), and in doing so, mimic starvation and hunger. So you’re more likely to eat junk if you don’t sleep well.
• There is no fat accumulation without insulin. Insulin shunts sugar to fat. It makes your fat cells grow. The more insulin, the more fat.
• The worst place to have fat is your belly (“visceral fat”). Your visceral fat is really just a proxy for your intra-organ, fat — the fat in your liver and muscles. This is the real killer and disease-driver.
• You don’t have to be obese to have metabolic syndrome. As of the 2010s, ~40% of normal-weight adults have it. Metabolic syndrome starts as your body accumulates energy, storing it in the liver and in visceral fat tissue.
• Antidotes: Eat more fiber, and exercise lots. Cut the added sugar. Fiber alleviates the load from your liver. Exercise increases the number of mitochondria in the form of increased muscle. And increased muscle means you burn more energy at rest. Exercise is also your internal stress reducer.

Conclusion: Read if you want to learn about why it is so hard to lose weight and eat a healthy diet. Prepare yourself for lots of scientific jargon (but also enough doses of humour to even it out). Since I’ve read similar literature in the past, this was a good refresher for me to remind myself about how to lead a healthy diet/lifestyle.

6. Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters (by Abigail Shrier)

I know, this is a highly-sensitive topic today. Thus, I feel the need to first declare: I am not transphobic, I support trans rights and I don’t believe we should discriminate anybody on the basis of sexual orientation or gender. Yes, I recognize the hardships transgender people have to go through. The author voiced the same thing.

Per Amazon’s summary: “coming out as transgender immediately boosts [young] girls’ social status, Shrier finds, but once they take the first steps of transition, it is not easy to walk back.”

I have to admit, this is one of the few books that actually had my heart wrenching. I found it distressful to read the anecdotes and putting myself in the shoes of the parents. What if my pre-teen kid told me to either allow transition, or watch them kill themselves?

I think more conversations and (civil and reasoned) debates on this topic should be held so we can truly understand each other more. I think the author recognized this point.

Another recurring theme in the book is the role of social media on young females.

She recognized that young adolescent girls are awkward and anxious, and social media is only exacerbating the pain. “They sense a dangerous chasm lies between the unsteady girls they are and the glamorous women social media tells them they should be. Bridging that gap feels hopeless… Social media saturation, anxiety, and depression fell together like so much dry tinder and kindling.”

I thought the book was very compassionately and honestly written.

Conclusion: Thought-provoking, fact-based book of a very difficult topic that lays out perspectives you don’t hear in mainstream media or social media. Takes you to another level of critical thinking to look at the bigger picture yourself.

7. Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life (by Jordan Peterson)

I read this book before Irreversible Damage, but a thought I have is, some of the folks Shrier describes can use some advice by Dr. Peterson.

Shrier writes: “there’s our modernday obsession with mental health, medicating everyone toward the optimal level of happiness, as if we are all just tires in need of topping up. With the help of battalions of therapists, the upper-middle class has made a habit of extirpating anxiety, depression, and even the occasional disappointment wherever they find them.”

If you are familiar with Dr. Peterson’s work, you will know that he will tell you perhaps happiness is not the ultimate goal. Instead of seeking happiness, perhaps you should work towards shouldering responsibility, and having the strength to overcome life’s inevitable suffering.

Chasing happiness is a fool’s game; and to that end, I agree. Although if you happen to have it (happiness), that’s wonderful as well.

I’ve read his 12 Rules for Life and I was more than elated to find out that a new book was in the writing. This was probably the first book I ever pre-ordered.

Overall, I really enjoyed the book. It will take more than a blog itself to reflect on what I took away. Why do I like it so much? Maybe I have just been craving for somebody to tell the truth. Maybe I have known some of these truths, in bits and pieces, all along; and to have someone articulate it so succinctly, precisely, is a catharsis in itself?

Conclusion: If you haven’t read 12 Rules for Life, read that first. This book can be thought of as a continuation. As with 12 Rules, I could never really pay attention or understand all the Christianity stuff, so maybe I will come back to it one day. It takes some time to digest and think through what he is saying, and decide whether you agree or not.

Thanks for reading. Please feel free to reach out to discuss anything!

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Disclaimers: Reviews are by nature subjective. This blog represents my personal views only, uninformed or biased as they may be. Opinions do not reflect views of my former or current employer. Not investment advice. Some takeaways are in quotes while some are not, but the latter may have been directly copied from the author as well. Images of book covers don’t belong to me.