I HAVE UNFAILING GOOD LUCK
It is not uncommon to hear successful people claim it was their intelligence, ambition, and hard work that enabled their success. I don’t think they understand the role luck has in your life. There is no doubt that one makes a lot of their own luck. But it is uncanny how my luck has been unbelievably good. Even the things that appear to be unlucky turn out to be good luck.
Here is a list of some of the luck I have had.
1. Being Caucasian. Whiteness gives many advantages.
2. Being male. Men have always had it better than women.
3. A good genetic inheritance. Canada is a country of immigrants. My genetic inheritance reflects that exceptional genetic diversity – half Norwegian, a quarter English and a quarter French Canadian (probably with some indigenous genes thrown into that side) helps to guarantee no inbreeding or genetic disabilities.
a. Above average intelligence. My IQ is between 120-140, the best range. I am certainly not at a genius level which probably has more disadvantages than not. In Malcolm Gladwell’s book “Outliers”, he states that being over 120 is all that is necessary for success. The person with the highest IQ recorded, an American with 194 never completed a university degree as he came from a very socially handicapped family.
b. A strong body. I probably have below-average upper body strength (unlike my father who was a very powerful man) as I take more after my maternal side. But I have great legs, an asset that allowed me to pursue possibly my greatest passion, hiking. I have never participated in sports that risk knee and leg injuries like running or downhill skiing so have good joints.
c. Asperger’s syndrome. This may be my greatest genetic advantage. It allows me to look at things in a logical, common-sense way, a huge asset in my life and career. It gives me the wonderful ability to pursue any passion to its fullest. It gives great curiosity and drive.
d. Good to average plus coordination and athleticism. I do not do well at team sports probably due to my Asperger’s, but have done well at individual sports: badminton, tennis, racquetball, and my best sport, golf. I ended up being a much better golfer than all my jock high school friends, all with much more inherent athletic ability. Some of this owes to being involved in sports from an early age (baseball, hockey, tennis) so that I developed good eye-hand coordination.
e. Great eyes. At 68, I have never worn glasses and think it unlikely, I will ever need them. My vision is no longer perfect. I have mild astigmatism in my left so I no longer have 20/20 vision. I did inherit malleable lenses that I have endeavoured to keep that way. I’ve never used reading glasses and try to read as small print as possible every day. This has kept them malleable so that presbyopia has never reared its head. I can only read the smallest print with good light.
My father and oldest brother have marked astigmatism and are virtually blind without glasses.
f. At least average good looks.
g. Great hands and feet. I have exceptionally long fingers and good dexterity, giving me an advantage in being a passable GP surgeon. I think I could have been a hand or foot model.
h. A chance at long longevity with little risk of age-related dementia. I would prefer euthanasia to dementia.
4. Good parents. Until just recently (in my 60s), I had always carried a lot of resentment towards my parents, especially my mother. I finally accepted that they did the best job they knew how. They led by example, easily the best parenting style. I can never remember being told to do anything or being given any direction. I never remember a compliment except when I finished all the food they put on my plate. I only remember being told that I wasn’t as good an athlete as my brothers. They never said “I love you”. But I still love myself. That allowed me to develop my own ego consciousness.
They gave me a great work ethic and I never missed a day’s work or skipped a class in school. Sounds boring.
I do think I would have benefited from more guidance. It would have given me some relief from having to navigate my Asperger’s all on my own. I don’t think I would have been so socially impaired
5. Being born in Canada. Most everyone thinks the country of their origin, upbringing, and life is the “best”, but Canada is a great country to come from. Affluence brings many advantages – a good education, few financial concerns, a good social safety net, career opportunities, and the ability to achieve whatever you want.
6. Being a Baby Boomer. Our generation has had the best opportunities of any generation – access to a good education and career. We were the first generation to make more money than our parents.
7. Access to the best education possible. Finland possibly has the best education model in the world. Canada’s public education system is not as good, but it is still excellent. One needn’t go to a private school to access a good school system.
8. Medical education. The University of Alberta gave preference to pre-med students with only 2 years of university, even favouring them over students with degrees. I applied at a time when the competition was hard but not nearly what it is today. With my relatively low-grade point average (impaired by my English marks), I doubt that I would be accepted today.
9. One-year rotating internship. I believe 1976-77 was the last year that this was allowed to receive a license to practice medicine. As a result of 5 and 6, I was in full-time practice at age 24.
10. Having children early in my life. My lovely daughter was unplanned and, at the time, the farthest thing on my agenda. But this resulted in having children relatively early, being able to educate them at a time when I had a lot of money and then when I was planning retirement, to do it at an early age.
11. Joining a great medical practice in a rural area with few specialists. The group of six men had a very advanced view of medicine. They all had special skills and actively encouraged me to develop my own skills as a doctor. Along with having no specialists in one town, I could do anything I put my mind to. Read below all the skills I developed in rural family practice.
We never had a clinic manager and each of us had a “job” to do to run the practice. Mine was making the schedule. That allowed me to tailor my job to suit my passions. It also allowed us to have a very low overhead of less than 20%. – making it possible to save a lot of money.
We had some advanced ideas – we were forced to take 9-week holidays a year and a day off every week. This gave me the time to pursue my many passions. I went to the desert SW of the US for 2 weeks twice a year for 15 years. When I worked five times in the Canadian Arctic, I used one of those months each year. I did therapeutic abortions on my day off.
As a group, we attended a “self-improvement” session at Naramata Center, where we came to understand each of our roles in the practice. I found out I was the least influential person in the practice, probably because of my inability to express my ideas in a way that won many converts. A lawyer also attended and he showed us a “legal” way to continue to practice as a group but still have a professional corporation. The best way to practice Family Medicine is in a supportive group.
12. Living in the West Kootenay of southern British Columbia. This small area in south-central BC is halfway between Calgary Alberta and Vancouver but is on Highway 3, not the Trans Canada so sees little tourism. It is almost all mountains with four great provincial parks: Valhalla, Kokanee, Purcell Wilderness Conservancy, and the Goat Range. I kayaked all the lakes: Arrow Lake (Columbia River) from Revelstoke to Trail, Kootenay Lake (Kootenay and Duncan Rivers), and Slocan Lake, possibly the best canoeing anywhere in the world (I’ve done it five times). The Pend Oreille River has a short course in BC emptying into the Columbia just north of the US border, and I’ve paddled parts in both the US and Canada. See my post: http://www.ronperrier.net/2020/08/30/boating-on-the-lakes-of-the-west-kootenay/ for good descriptions.
13. Belonging to the Kootenay Mountaineering Club which I have belonged to for 35 years.
14. Practicing in a country with a great universal medical insurance plan. Canada does not allow specialists to see patients without a referral from a family doctor. That allows general practitioners to develop and use any special skills that have a hankering to learn. I optimized that opportunity. I have a hard time believing anyone could have as complete practice as I developed. It would be impossible today.
With only one insurance company to deal with, billing was very cheap. One staff member had a half-time job billing for 7 doctors (the six partners plus a locum we always had to allow us to have 9-weeks of holidays per year). We were paid promptly and had virtually no bad debt as everyone has medical insurance in Canada that is completely free with no user fees.
15. Financial luck. Early in my career, I read the Canadian classic on financial success, “The Wealthy Barber”. It has guided most of my financial decisions. I gave a copy to my three children who have all been good savers.
I have never spent more than a few hours per year dealing with investment and financial planning. Physicians in Canada have access to MD Management and MD Personal Investment Council, both with relatively low MERs and a wide range of investment opportunities. 15-years after retirement, I still meet with them for my annual one-hour meeting where 95% of my investment decisions are dealt with in one visit.
a. Canada offered a one-time $100,000 capital gains tax exemption. I took advantage of it.
b. Making three crucial investment decisions. In 2007, just before the Great Recession, I had the feeling that things were going to “head south”. I sold all my American stocks and bought about $300,000 of gold at $880/ounce. It has done well. I sold half when it came close to peaking at about $1460/ounce and most of the rest in 2021 when it appeared that the stock market was a much better investment than gold (actually a mediocre investment most of the time as gold had little industrial use).
I bought a lot of silver when I was finally able to be paid for my medical practice (a full 10 years after I retired). It also has done very well since 2020.
All investment success is dependent on the adage “it is not what you make but what you spend”. Since my divorce, I have been a great saver (that isn’t luck!).
16. Having a professional corporation. These were introduced in Canada just when I started to practice and I was able to take full advantage of all the financial advantages they offered – family trusts, paying only 19% tax, splitting income (I paid my wife handsomely for doing my books, a task that required a few hours per month). Incorporating’s biggest benefit as a great savings vehicle that allowed me to retire at 53, and a method of withdrawal of income as dividends (the first $48,000 of dividend income is tax-free in Canada). If it were not for Canada’s pension benefits (CPP and OP), I would never pay income tax.
17. Getting a divorce just before my maximum years of earning potential. My wife and I were not great savers. Both were guilty of free spending and I left the marriage with virtually no savings despite earning good money for 17 years. We played bridge all over the northwest of North America – with travel, accommodation, and card fees, bridge is a very expensive game if playing duplicate in the American Contract Bridge League. I played golf courses all over western North America, not a cheap game. Our children played expensive sports like hockey. That all changed in 1994 with my divorce. I had a great divorce lawyer who discouraged using courts to settle disagreements and encouraged me to accept what appeared at the time to be a lot of money. I started a very sparse lifestyle. I was able to pay most of the cost of the divorce (about $800,000) with pre-tax money. In retrospect, it seemed like a great financial burden, but I was making so much money, I didn’t even notice.
When anyone asks what the key to my financial success was, I tell them, get rid of your expensive wife and with her, an expensive lifestyle. Not many married women appreciate that.
18. Some Travel Luck
a. Extortion in Shanghai. I was held at a business here and US$5,000 was extorted from my credit card. It is a long story, but the outcome was all luck. I went to the police station and soon the owner of the bar was sitting beside me trying to get me to leave the police station. After a long hour of intense bargaining, I was able to get 10,000, 5,000 and finally another 10,000 RMB or about US$4,200. It never appeared on my credit card and I made some hard cash. I went diving.
b. Accident Jan 2020. I was hit by a drunk driver on New Year’s Day 2020 outside of Verona Italy with 27,000 E damage to my Volkswagen California camping van. My Belgian insurance company did nothing but obstruct the repair to the point that the repair garage would not even deal with them. I eventually had to fund the entire repair personally to get things started in June 2021, 18 months after the accident. Repairs were finally finished on Aug 5, 2021.
That may all seem like bad luck but because of Covid, it turned out to be lucky. I had no use of the van for that entire period and paying for storage was not necessary. I also had a few thousand euros worth of parking damage to the right side and rear that was also fixed in the final repair. As a result, I sold my van in near-perfect condition, getting top value for it.
I started international travel again on July 14 and was only able to get to Verona to pick it up on August 4, 2021. That’s an amazing coincidence.
c. Two flat tires in Namibia. Namibia was at the end of a 5 1/2 month overland trip from Morocco to Cape Town, South Africa. I left the trip in Windhoek and rented a car to see the many places missed on the drive down. Namibia’s roads are almost all gravel and glass and tire insurance is advisable.
I was in the very south, and most remote part of the country next to the South African border. Namibia has driven on the left side of the road. On a left-hand corner, I hit a large rock, bending both rims and getting two flats on that side. Over the next couple of hours, three vehicles passed and stopped. They all concluded that I was screwed.
Then a resourceful farmer stopped. With a large sledgehammer, he pounded the rims straight. We checked for leaks and he pounded some more. He has a tire inflation pump and I was all set to go.
On my return to Windhoek, I stopped at every tire repair shop I found. None had the rims I would have needed to fix the flats. I was screwed.
d. Camper Accident in the US. In May 2020, I was struck by an impaired woman south of Detroit Michigan. My truck was still drivable but the camper received such a severe torquing blow that a great deal of internal damage was done and the camper was written off. That may seem like bad luck, but I received a great payout in the insurance. The camper had had 15 years of hard use with many minor accidents. I was able to make a large down payment on a new Bigfoot camper that I purchased in 2022.
SOME BAD LUCK
a. I have a poor weight-strength ratio because of my poor upper body strength and heavy muscular legs. I was never a good runner (which I believe only the lightest people should do or risk knee, hip, and back injury), or good at track and field and could never rock climb at anything above 5.9. But then again, I have barely lifted a weight in my life.
b. Difficulty losing weight. I would be the last to die in a famine. I have to get a huge amount of exercise or starve to lose weight. When I walked 1750 km of the Camino de Santiago, I had no difficulty shedding 25 pounds in my first month, but I was averaging 24 km/day in a very hilly southern France.
c. Atrial Fibrillation. I developed this at about age 50. It was recurrent and always stopped on its own. It was a real handicap when hiking. But I always worked with it. I eventually had two long atrial ablations and was cured. I have never had a recurrence now for at least 15 years. This may have been lucky too, as I was able to avoid all medications (unnecessary with no complicating factors) and now have little chance of developing it later in life when it could be much more debilitating and not without serious consequences
d. Gambling. I have never gambled much other than playing poker with friends in Castlegar and the occasional foray at the blackjack tables in Las Vegas. I have even read a book on playing blackjack so understand the theories of winning. But I have never broken even.