Episode Details

#BigBoomerBites #TruesdellWealthChannel #SleepHealth #ChronotypeMatters #LionChronotype #FiveFiftyFive #CognitiveHealth #AmericanIndependence​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Due to our extensive holdings and our clients, you should assume that we have a position in all companies discussed and that a conflict of interest exists. The information presented is provided for informational purposes only.  The future performance of a security is not guaranteed. This IOC conversation does not involve securities. 

Truesdell Wealth, Inc.
A Registered Investment Advisor 
The Truesdell Professional Building
200 NW 52nd Avenue Ocala, Florida 34481
352-612-1000 or 
212-433-2525 
Paul Grant Truesdell, The Elder
J.D., AIF, CLU, ChFC, RFC
Founder

Rough Show Notes

OCTOBER 1, 1986
The Day I Stopped Letting Other People Run My Clock

I came upon this naturally.
Nobody taught me how to sleep. Nobody handed me a schedule. I just paid attention to my body, and over the years I learned what worked. Then I built a life around it.
For most of my life, people have told me my schedule is abnormal. They’ve told me I should adjust. They’ve suggested I’d be better off if I just slept like everyone else and ran my day like everyone else. I’ve tried. Every time I’ve tried to fit somebody else’s idea of normal, I’ve gotten worse — slower, sicker, less sharp, less productive. Every time I’ve gone back to what works for me, I’ve come back stronger.
Let me tell you where I learned that lesson the hard way.
In the 1970s and 1980s, I worked in law enforcement. Shift work. Rotating hours. Some weeks I was on days, some weeks I was on nights, some weeks I was on something in between. The schedule was set by the department, not by my body, and my body let me know it. Shift work was a killer. The men I worked with who stayed in it for thirty years didn’t all make it to retirement, and the ones who did weren’t always in the kind of shape a man hopes to be in when he finally hangs it up.
So on October 1, 1986, I declared my independence.
That’s the day I went out on my own. That’s the day I stopped letting somebody else’s schedule run my body. And I have a saying I’ve lived by ever since.
I do what I like. I am good and profitable. And what I can control .
I do what I like. I am good and profitable. And I can’t be controlled.
I’ll say it twice because it’s worth hearing twice.
The 1990s tested that decision. There was a stretch in there where I let the work creep back into the late hours, and the early dinners turned into late dinners, and the schedule started to drift. It almost killed me. I am not exaggerating. My health went sideways in a way that got my full attention. So I put my foot down. I went back to what my body had been telling me all along, and I have felt fantastic ever since.
Here is what that schedule looks like.
I don’t like to eat after five o’clock in the afternoon. By that time my body is already winding down, and food just sits there. I take an hour or two after dinner to relax — read, sit quietly, let the day come off the shoulders. When it gets dark, I get tired. When I get tired, I go to bed. Most nights that’s somewhere between eight and nine. I fall asleep fast. I sleep like a log. Once in a while I’ll get up to use the restroom, but I’m right back down. And then between three and four o’clock in the morning — most days right around three-thirty — I am wide awake, refreshed, eyes open, and ready.
That is when I do my best work.
From the time I wake up until somewhere around nine or ten in the morning, I have the sharpest, clearest, most productive window of my day. The phone isn’t ringing. The email isn’t pouring in. The world hasn’t woken up yet, and so the world isn’t asking anything of me. I get more done in those quiet hours than most people get done in eight hours at a desk. By the time everyone else is sitting down with their first cup of coffee, my best wo