Karl Aquino's Official Unofficial Advice

What advice does Karl Aquino have for young scholars, avid cyclists, expecting parents, and first-time homebuyers?

Without having reflected on any relevant readings, conversations, or direct experiences, I have formulated several tips for life and career success that I will share with you in this section of my website. Many have followed this advice and achieved stunning results. Click here to see the lifestyles you could enjoy by translating these tips into action.

Young Scholars
As you may know, the key to succeeding in academics is generating as many peer reviewed publications, research citations, and research grants as you possibly can. Here are my tips for accomplishing these objectives:

1. Conduct a realistic assessment of your own abilities and then find co-authors who are smarter, more creative, harder working, taller, and preferably better looking than you are.

2. Try to find coauthors who are close friends with editors of top-tier journals. Alternatively, seek coauthors whose contact information includes the words "Harvard University," "The Wharton School," "Kellogg" "Stanford Graduate School of Business," or "Drucker".

3. Even if they are only marginally relevant, always cite as many of your own papers as you possibly can and encourage all of your coauthors to do likewise. To illustrate the effectiveness of this principle, if you publish 3 papers, each of which has 3 coauthors, each of whom also publishes 3 papers with 3 coauthors, who themselves publish 3 papers with 3 coauthors, and so on, you are guaranteed to have over one million citations by the time you go up for tenure.

4. Stand in front of a mirror every morning and practice saying the following phrase with heartfelt sincerity: "Wow, that's a really interesting paper. Any chance you could staple me on it as last author? I'm really good at copy editing, and I can return the favor on a publication after I get tenure."

5. Always be optimistic. Even the most trivial, unimaginative, and repetitious research project can be perceived as making an important contribution to the field if you follow my advice for young scholars.

Avid Cyclists

In addition to spending time with my family and working to improve my influence ranking, I occasionally ride a bicycle to work. I have also read short reviews of the movies Vision Quest and Breaking Away. Based on my personal experiences and what I have learned from movie reviews, I have often given unsolicited advice to avid cyclists, which will be shared here (for the first time).

The key to cycling success is to own as many bikes as possible. At a minimum, you need to own 10 bikes: 4 road bikes, a tandem, a mountain bike, 2 cross bikes, a time trial bike, and a unicycle. Many people believe that Orbea Orcas are great road bikes, but my favorite road bike is a Huffy Dream Journey. I also like my Schwinn Flowmaster BMX bike, which used to be owned by the cousin of Lance Armstrong's neighbor's gardener's son.

To improve your cycling prowess, you need to ride your bike at least twice a year. You also need to challenge yourself to improve. For me, this involves attempting to beat my personal best time for riding the 1.8K from my home to my office (which is just a whisker over 30 minutes @ 30:07:86).

Expecting Parents
I'll begin this section with a disclaimer: my parenting advice is not based on any conversations with pediatricians, child psychologists, social workers, friends, Montessori schools, leading experts, or people who are better looking than me. I have also spent less than 3 minutes thinking about the subject. As you may know, the key to succeeding as an expecting parent is denial. Try to avoid confronting the realization that everything is about to change for as long as you can. When your spouse wants to talk about your pending new arrival, tell him or her "I love you because you are you" and then try to change the subject. If your first effort fails, try using a comment with a descriptive label like "are you feeling fat?" or "would you like some cheese with your whine?". Also, if you haven't done so already, now is the time to follow my advice for young scholars; otherwise, you may need to earn tenure on your own merit. Now is also the time to begin following my advice for first time homebuyers.

First Time Homebuyers
It doesn't matter where you live or how much money you have to spend. In any market, the smartest move for a first time homebuyer is to buy at least one over-valued property in West Vancouver, BC. I call this my "new and immutable bedrock principle #1" for real estate investing (replacing my previous bedrock principle pertaining to undervalued property in East Atlanta). I myself own one such property, and hope that increased demand will make it even more overvalued than it is already. I would be happy to share specific streets and neighborhoods in which an increase in demand would be self-beneficial.

New and immutable bedrock principle #2: If, after purchasing one over-valued property in West Vancouver, you still have enough positive cash flow to buy another property, invest heavily in Turkey (I recommend owning vacation properties near the one I own on the Aegean Sea).

New and immutable bedrock principle #3: Real estate markets are dynamic, so check back periodically for "new immutable bedrock principles," as I am constantly revising them.


home accomplishments advice about Karl photo gallery
	What advice does Karl Aquino have for young scholars, avid cyclists, expecting parents, and first-time homebuyers? Without having reflected on any relevant readings, conversations, or direct experiences, I have formulated several tips for life and career success that I will share with you in this section of my website. Many have followed this advice and achieved stunning results. Click here to see the lifestyles you could enjoy by translating these tips into action. Young Scholars As you may know, the key to succeeding in academics is generating as many peer reviewed publications, research citations, and research grants as you possibly can. Here are my tips for accomplishing these objectives: 1. Conduct a realistic assessment of your own abilities and then find co-authors who are smarter, more creative, harder working, taller, and preferably better looking than you are. 2. Try to find coauthors who are close friends with editors of top-tier journals. Alternatively, seek coauthors whose contact information includes the words "Harvard University," "The Wharton School," "Kellogg" "Stanford Graduate School of Business," or "Drucker". 3. Even if they are only marginally relevant, always cite as many of your own papers as you possibly can and encourage all of your coauthors to do likewise. To illustrate the effectiveness of this principle, if you publish 3 papers, each of which has 3 coauthors, each of whom also publishes 3 papers with 3 coauthors, who themselves publish 3 papers with 3 coauthors, and so on, you are guaranteed to have over one million citations by the time you go up for tenure. 4. Stand in front of a mirror every morning and practice saying the following phrase with heartfelt sincerity: "Wow, that's a really interesting paper. Any chance you could staple me on it as last author? I'm really good at copy editing, and I can return the favor on a publication after I get tenure." 5. Always be optimistic. Even the most trivial, unimaginative, and repetitious research project can be perceived as making an important contribution to the field if you follow my advice for young scholars. Avid Cyclists In addition to spending time with my family and working to improve my influence ranking, I occasionally ride a bicycle to work. I have also read short reviews of the movies Vision Quest and Breaking Away. Based on my personal experiences and what I have learned from movie reviews, I have often given unsolicited advice to avid cyclists, which will be shared here (for the first time). The key to cycling success is to own as many bikes as possible. At a minimum, you need to own 10 bikes: 4 road bikes, a tandem, a mountain bike, 2 cross bikes, a time trial bike, and a unicycle. Many people believe that Orbea Orcas are great road bikes, but my favorite road bike is a Huffy Dream Journey. I also like my Schwinn Flowmaster BMX bike, which used to be owned by the cousin of Lance Armstrong's neighbor's gardener's son. To improve your cycling prowess, you need to ride your bike at least twice a year. You also need to challenge yourself to improve. For me, this involves attempting to beat my personal best time for riding the 1.8K from my home to my office (which is just a whisker over 30 minutes @ 30:07:86). Expecting Parents I'll begin this section with a disclaimer: my parenting advice is not based on any conversations with pediatricians, child psychologists, social workers, friends, Montessori schools, leading experts, or people who are better looking than me. I have also spent less than 3 minutes thinking about the subject. As you may know, the key to succeeding as an expecting parent is denial. Try to avoid confronting the realization that everything is about to change for as long as you can. When your spouse wants to talk about your pending new arrival, tell him or her "I love you because you are you" and then try to change the subject. If your first effort fails, try using a comment with a descriptive label like "are you feeling fat?" or "would you like some cheese with your whine?". Also, if you haven't done so already, now is the time to follow my advice for young scholars; otherwise, you may need to earn tenure on your own merit. Now is also the time to begin following my advice for first time homebuyers. First Time Homebuyers It doesn't matter where you live or how much money you have to spend. In any market, the smartest move for a first time homebuyer is to buy at least one over-valued property in West Vancouver, BC. I call this my "new and immutable bedrock principle #1" for real estate investing (replacing my previous bedrock principle pertaining to undervalued property in East Atlanta). I myself own one such property, and hope that increased demand will make it even more overvalued than it is already. I would be happy to share specific streets and neighborhoods in which an increase in demand would be self-beneficial. New and immutable bedrock principle #2: If, after purchasing one over-valued property in West Vancouver, you still have enough positive cash flow to buy another property, invest heavily in Turkey (I recommend owning vacation properties near the one I own on the Aegean Sea). New and immutable bedrock principle #3: Real estate markets are dynamic, so check back periodically for "new immutable bedrock principles," as I am constantly revising them.
home accomplishments advice about Karl photo gallery