It seemed like a typical day. I was at work, tutoring a student who needed help navigating her nursing homework. At the end of our session together, my student asked me: “Hey, Max, should I buy a llama?” While I was slightly surprised by the question, I was not completely caught off guard, and the reason why is simple. People ask me this question all the time. 

             I cannot say how many times over the years people have asked me this question. It varies from my family to my friends to my classmates to people I don’t even know. Of course, they all don’t ask me if they should buy a llama. Instead, they ask: “Is this a good buy,” followed by the thing they are considering purchasing. What is so special about me that lots of people will ask me, and what makes me qualified to give them a solid answer?

            The answer seems simple on paper since they are looking for just a yes or no, but it is in arriving at that yes or no that lies the challenge. The reason for this is that there is a lot of variability in the questions, and you cannot just arrive at a yes/no for each one. An example would be someone asking if I would recommend a Dodge SRT Hellcat to their seventeen-year-old son (hell, no!), while someone asking if they should buy a llama is much harder and involves some personal preference.

             When asked these questions, I generally start with asking some “boring” questions. These questions help me understand the thing they are trying to buy, although it may not always be a physical and tangible item. Sometimes, just telling me what it is would be enough for me to understand. Other times, I need an extensive description. Generally, my questions go along the lines of: “How old is it?” “What does it look like?” “Can you tell me all about it?.” “What will you use it for, and why do you need it?” And, of course, the proverbial “How much is it?” I will also almost always ask to see the post or a photo of the item myself since it helps me visualize and process what they are talking about.  

               By this point, I have received all the inputs, and much like Bing, I must give an output. And since the people asking me are looking for an impossible answer, I have built a sort of “algorithm” through many years of buying things ranging from small things like paperclips all the way to a house. My general approach stems from three lessons that I learned.

                My first lesson happened after I bought my first mountain bike, something I vividly remember. It was 500 dollars, and I absolutely bought the wrong bike. I bought a 50-pound steel bike aptly named “Sinister” with 8 inches of suspension and beefy tires that was designed for trails that only went down. I was sold since it was orange and looked badass. I rode mainly flat trails on the Sinister and suffered greatly. I learned that you can’t just buy things because they are cool.

               The second lesson for me was with my dad. My dad is arguably the person who got me into buying things and has seen my progress the most over the years. He has seen the many successful deals I have made and wants my opinion on the things he is looking at. Except he is a serial “finder-of-cool-things-to-buy” and constantly asks for my opinion on whether something is a good buy, sometimes dozens of times per day. It got so bad that I had to institute “No Buying Advice Hours” so I could get my schoolwork done. He asked me the question so many times that he taught me how to give a good answer to even something that I didn’t know anything about, like a llama. 

              The final and arguably most important lesson I remember happened around ten years old.  I was browsing possible gifts with my younger brother for his upcoming birthday. He asked what I recommended. I was in love with Lego Star Wars and, of course, recommended it in my unbiased opinion.  I tried to sell him the pros of choosing the best line of Lego and convinced him. However, on the day of his birthday, he opened a Lego City set, and my heart was broken. My brother taught me that even if you work super hard on convincing people to buy something, at the end of the day, they won’t even listen to you since psychology. 

               These three lessons and the thousands of things I have purchased or helped purchase are what make up my “algorithm.” If the first “boring” questions were answered successfully: good price, item seems good, etc., then I will analyze the person and hopefully try to understand what they are thinking. Do they seem like they really want the item, or are they hoping I will make the challenging decision for them? I will almost always tell them yes to the first option since I am just reinforcing pre-established psychological factors. The second one is more challenging since I am just rolling the dice. In the case of the llama, I said yes. I will always say yes to getting a llama. 

(^The llama with her new friends)