I’m Merkado Barkada, ask me anything! (PART 4)

This is day four of celebrating over 1 million weekly readers with an “Ask Me Anything” episode based on reader questions I solicited last week. Here’s the second set of answers! Congrats to all the winners!

• Jeff:  What do you do in your free time aside from reading business news?
• MB:  I have a very active toddler, so most of my non-work life is taken up making sure that she’s getting playdates and doing activities to keep her stimulated and happy. I am trying to get back into running, but the COVID lockdown decimated my marathon running shape and I’m basically starting from scratch. Or worse, considering that I’m 5 years older. My actual passion is beachcombing. I love going to new beaches and seeing what’s there. I collect stuff that washes up. Nice rocks, interesting shells, strange bits of fishing gear that have fallen off of the commercial boats. The best trip I have ever taken for “local” beachcombing was to Batanes. I still dream of returning. But in the meantime, I like to visit the west-facing beaches around the Morong area. 
   
• Art:  Do you ever regret all the other things you had to give up to focus on MB?
• MB:  No, not really. There are times when I miss that inspirational feeling of working together on a team toward some shared goal, but I never feel any sense of loss for the mundane daily legal work that I’ve set aside or for some unrealized dream job that I could be doing, like running a beachside bar near a quiet (but trending) scuba tourism destination. Writing MB from home has allowed me to be there for my family for the entirety of my daughter’s life, and while an active kid like my daughter might make me yearn for a couple of hours away from the house every once in a while, I really don’t want to be away from the chaos for more than that. I was a lawyer in a law firm for my son’s first two years, and that felt like torture. Both because firm life sucks, but also because being away from a young child is so hard. I’m very thankful for how my life is configured right now.
   
• chel:  What is your favorite fruit?
• MB:  I have so many! I love fruit of almost any kind. I’m crazy about suha (pomelo) but my body is allergic or something, so I can’t have more than two or three sections before I get intense, painful gas that lasts for hours. I can’t stop eating it, though. My son is the same, and he gets the same reaction. Must be genetic. One fruit that always delights me when I get to eat it is chico. Better than eating the chico is the look my mother-in-law shoots me when I finish my second or third fruit in one sitting. She’s always warned me about the laxative powers of the chico fruit, but I must be immune because I eat them like crazy and notice no changes. I guess my +2 chico resistance balances out my -2 suha vulnerability. 
   
• RavenPlantsRice:  How should I start “training/learning” to understand financial statements? I’m not literate on numbers, I’m more of a narrative gurlie.
• MB:  Me too! Identifying what you’re good at (narratives) is a good first step, and then backfilling the knowledge that you don’t know is a fantastic path forward. As for how to start gaining familiarity with consuming financial statements, I’d look to YouTube first and find a content creator that you can stand to listen to for more than 5 minutes and dive into some “financial statements for beginners” videos. Watch a ton of these (from different creators if possible) until you start to feel yourself anticipating what the person is going to say next. That’s when I’d switch over to reading some content from a trusted neutral site, like Investopedia (link), Harvard Business School Online (link), or a free resource like Khan Academy (link). You can also try talking with ChatGPT about specific financial statements. Just upload the financials you want to talk about, then ask all of the questions that feel too stupid to ask to a real person, and let ChatGPT politely take you through the data and explain how it fits together. This last bit is obviously “new” and there are a lot of variables with respect to the accuracy of what ChatGPT might be saying, but the key thing that I took away from your question is this need to feel comfortable and familiar with financial statements. In that way, conversing with ChatGPT about a specific set of financial statements might really help you gain that comfort and feel. It’s just a suggestion, though, and I’d love to hear from readers about how they’ve bridged the knowledge gap with financial statements.
   
• yalubill:  What inspires you, and how has it changed over the years?
• MB:  The overall theme of my inspiration has remained relatively constant from the beginning, which is to simplify the complicated in order to make better sense of the financial world for myself and for others. How that theme plays out on a yearly or seasonal basis does change, though. Sometimes I’m inspired by new tools, like learning how to scrape and track data with Google Sheets. Sometimes I’m inspired by new ideas, like the advent of REITs in our market and the challenges of educating investors about the pros/cons. Sometimes I’m inspired by readers, like when I get a huge bump in subscribers and I receive a bunch of emails from new readers that make me look at something I’ve been doing with fresh eyes. Sometimes I’m inspired by fear. The fear of being wrong about facts, or of missing some important point that isn’t obvious on its face. Sometimes I’m inspired by daydreams of what could be, like when I imagine trying to do a podcast or a daily YouTube show and the ways that the existing MB community could morph and grow with those changes. I like to have a diverse pool of inspirational resources because I feel like I burn through them so quickly!

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