JDP Bookshelf – Walden on Wheels

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I want to start off by saying I picked up this book by accident.

I was given a Kindle for Christmas and I was looking for books to read. I figured I’d give Kindle Unlimited a try finally deciding to use my free month and browsing through the book selection I came across this book. Thinking it sounded familiar, like a book someone on the Tim Ferriss Podcast recommended, I picked it out, and added it to my library. That night I decided to give it a shot. I… WAS… BLOWN… AWAY!

Summary:

Ken Ilgunas is an average high school student who goes off to college to continue his average academic career. After 5 years in school, he finds himself with zero job prospects and over $32,000 in debt. Soon after hearing a Jiminy Cricket type voice in his head, he decides to take a fate filled trip to work in Coldfoot, Alaska, a town with the population of approximately 10 people which primarily serves as a truck stop on the Dalton Highway. Soon he becomes obsessed with getting out of debt taking several jobs in and around the Coldfoot area, cleaning up in Gulfport, MS after Hurricane Katrina, becoming a voyageur, and hitchhiking all across the US. After completely wiping out his debt in only a few years, Ken decided to get his Masters in Liberal Arts at Duke University in Durham, NC. Resolute in his desire to stay out of debt he becomes a Vandweller throughout his collegiate tenure, graduating as debt free as when he started.

Why I loved It:

The short answer is almost all of it. Honestly, this hit extremely close to home for me. Much like Ken, I was an average student in high school, though I could have been better if I’d applied myself, I was an average student in college, for much of the same reason, and both of us went off to find adventure while needing to pay off a sizeable collegiate loan. One of the main reasons I left to join the Navy was to break out of the linear progression my life seemed to be taking me. School, more school, job, wife, kids, family. I was on the assembly line of life, due to no one’s fault but my own, destined for mediocrity. Unlike Ken, however, I’ve mostly continued to play it safe.

The main focus of this story is Ken’s resolute desire to get out of, and stay out of, debt. He wants to get out of debt so badly he chastises himself whenever he spends is money “frivolously.” Many of these so-called “frivolous” items are things most of us don’t even bat an eye at. Things like buying new clothes, going out to eat when there’s perfectly good food at home, having a cell phone plan, spending money to hang out with friends, or any of the myriad of things we do throughout our lives and take for granted.

At first, I thought this book was about one man’s obsessive need to be out of debt. Then I thought it was about having adventures while getting out of debt. It wasn’t until a few days ago I realized this was a personal development book and a commentary of what we think we need verse what we actually need.

For many of us, the thought of living in a van and eating food from a camping stove conjures up images of homelessness, not a choice someone’s made to save money while being frugal. The idea of moving to a town in the Arctic Circle in Alaska for work is something we would do out of desperation, not for fun or excitement. Forget about hitchhiking down the street, let alone across the country. That’s for hobos and vagabonds, not respectable folks like us. But why? Why does the thought of these things fill us with dread? Why are we afraid of downsizing our lives to need and want less, rather than always trying to get more? Why not decide to pick up and leave today with only the clothes on our backs?

I’m sure for many of us, myself DEFINITELY included, it’s fear. Fear of not having enough. Fear of what other people will think. Fear of needing something and not having it. We live in a world of excess so of course, the thought of having less scares us. It’s not the norm. It’s not our neighbors, the Jones, are doing. They want more and better and new so it becomes our default as well.

Why do we need more? Does it make us happy? Do we become more fulfilled with each new purchase and each new thing? I know for me, it makes me feel exhausted. Exhausted by the wants. Exhausted by the perceived needs. An exhausted feeling I’m swimming in stuff which doesn’t really make my life better.

This is what made this book so appealing. It wasn’t just the self-discovery or the adventure after adventure Ken took. It was the realization we are the ones who are holding ourselves back from what we really want. In fact, the things we have around us which we think are making our lives better are actually acting like anchors. They keep us from the life we want. Does this mean we shouldn’t buy the brand new car or the 70-inch flat screen? Of course not but it shouldn’t be at the expense of our dreams or put us under so much debt we are constantly drowning.

In the end, the book represented freedom. Freedom from debt, freedom from things, and freedom from the average, uneventful life. It might be an extreme example but I think Ken’s journey can teach us all how to leave happier simpler lives. I know his book has already helped change the way I see my home, what I value, and the world around me. It won’t be a quick change but I’m excited about the journey.

Come check out the book for yourself. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

Finding Our One: Building Our Virtual Mentor Network

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I’ve always wanted a mentor. Someone I can turn to help guide me through my personal and business related developments. Someone who is willing to help me start a business and grow it into something sustainable. Or someone who bounce questions and ideas I have in my personal life. Unfortunately, I do not any formal relationship with anyone, however, I’ve found the next best thing. I discovered a world of virtual mentors who I can “crowd source” for information on the questions I’m facing. We’ve never met but they help guide me more than they’ll ever know.

“But, Joe, there are so many people out there peddling their Cure All’s, how do we know who to trust?” It’s a good question. There are tons of people out there, including me with this blog, who are looking to help and share what they know, many even come with a cost. It can be difficult to know who to trust. Where are the individuals we will actually find helpful and who are the snake oil salesmen/women? (I don’t want to discriminate against salespeople.) Most importantly how do we find them?

These are important questions. How do we cut through the noise and the garbage to find the people we can trust? Here is the best way I’ve found to find quality virtual mentors:

Start with One: Cutting through the noise and finding quality mentors comes down to this one simple principle: Start with One. What does this mean? Well, we find one person we trust, whether personally or virtually, learn as much as we can from them, and find out who they trust. Then the cycle begins again. Our “One” could be a parent, friend, celebrity, or someone we heard about on the news. Maybe it’s Warren Buffett or Steven King or our Dad. The important thing is to find someone, just one person, to start the process. Typically, this is someone in a field we’re interested in but we can start anywhere.

Once we’ve found, and learned from, our “One,” we find out who they trust, usually through interviews, books, or personal blogs, if they have one. It doesn’t them long to mention at least one or two people they like, follow, are reading, etc. If they aren’t famous or don’t have much information out there on them, check social media profiles. It’s easy to check to see who they follow on Twitter or Instagram which gives us more people to check out. Then it’s a matter of looking into these new batch of people to hear what they have to say. If we like what we hear from this “New One,” we assimilate it and repeat the process. If what they say doesn’t resonate, move on to the next person on the list.

I started collecting virtual mentors when I found podcasts in 2014. It started with a show called Barbell Shrugged and they were interviewing Joe De Sena, the founder of the Spartan Race. Having wanted to run a Spartan Race for some time, I decided it was worth a listen. I LOVED IT! The interview was intriguing, the conversations were fun, and the hosts were interesting and knowledgeable. I felt it was an all-around great show. From this point on I was hook.

Later the hosts of Barbell Shrugged created a second show, called Barbell Business, where they discuss the ins and outs of running a gym business. Since I was currently the admin of a CrossFit gym in the area, I soaked up every piece of information form ever episode. In one episode they shared the business books they believed helped them the most. This is where I found Tim Ferriss, his book the 4 Hour Work Week, and, soon, others who would change my life.

I picked up the book on Audible and blew through the 13-hour recording as quickly as I could but it wasn’t enough for me. I wanted more Tim Ferriss as soon as possible. This led me to his blog and eventually his recently started podcast. I subscribed to the show, started from episode 1 and continued to work my way through the list. Each episode was filled with new and interesting people I had never heard of, spider webbing the number of people I turn to for advice and guidance.

It’s not a quick process but, when done well, can lead to a mountain of quality mentors. I’ve found new “mentors” from podcast interviews, blog post mentions, reading lists, social media suggestions, Google search rabbit holes, friends, family, and more. This process, which I unintentionally started when I listen to that fateful Joe De Sena interview, has blossomed into a network of virtual mentors in a variety of categories, which still continues to grow. People who I “know” and trust the information they share.

It’s said knowledge is power but I believe the right knowledge is even more powerful. Finding the right people to listen to and trust can easily set us up and apart from those around us. It is this drive to learn and be better which will eventually help us grow into who we want to become. The best part? It only takes “One!”

*I’m curious to know who you consider your “One.” Let me know in the comments.*

(Bonus) Perfect is Boring Challenge

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Today, I issued a challenge to post/share publically something you haven’t shared because it was unfinished or not perfect. The goal is to become more comfortable and get over the fear of being imperfect. This would make it easier to share more of your imperfect work in the near future.

Not wanting to be left out or have you thinking I’m not up to my own challenge I’m sharing the post below to show I still struggle with imperfection. As you’ll see there are a few breaks and restarts. Now everything will make sense because it is still a draft but I’m stilling willing to share it. While I believe in the topic and eventually I’ll post the completed draft, at this moment I’m unable to find the “perfect” words to explain my point. Enjoy.

“I don’t have the time.” It’s a phrase I’m extremely tired of hearing and one I’m working hard to remove from speak, much like “I can’t.” The more I hear it the more frustrated I get by the people who use it. Frankly, I feel it’s lazy. When we say, “I don’t have time,” or its sister phrase, “I’m too busy,’’ what we are really saying is, “It’s not a priority” or “I don’t want to.”

The problem, I’ve found, is we waste so much time on things we don’t want to do, things we could do better, or things that don’t matter. I know most of us have made plans we wish we didn’t, binged watched an entire season of a show on Netflix, or tried to get the bottom of our Facebook Newsfeed. It happens to the best of us and it’s not necessarily a bad thing. It is important to spend time to unwind and relax. We need “me time.”

Unfortunately, we abuse the “me time” we take for ourselves. Instead of making it focused quality time, we procrastinate, putting off the things we need to do until the last minute. Then we are scrambling to get the important things done while other things get missed. There are a total of 168 hours in a week. When you subtract the time we spend at work, the commute, and 8 hours of sleep we are left with as much as 62 hours each week to get things done.

“But, Joe, I’m a very important person and lots of things I NEED to get done. I don’t have time to waste time.” Uh huh, sure! It’s easy to feel like we don’t waste time. I was only on Facebook

First we need to understand our priorities. While these could be things we want to do from our bucket list, most likely they are items we need to do every day. Making dinner, getting ready for work, laundry, and spending time with our families are responsibilities we have on a regular basis. Then there are things we choose to take on beyond our normal responsibilities. This could be volunteering, helping a friend move, cleaning out our attic, or working out to be healthy. Lastly, we have bucket list type items. Once we take some time to create this list and put things in an order of importance we can find ways to give us more time.

My favorite way to give myself more time is bundling. While some days I do this better than others, I’ve found it to be an effective way to give myself more time during the week. This is the process of doing a task you might spread out over the course of a week like grocery shopping or folding laundry and doing it all at once. By bundling certain tasks together, we save time by not having to prepare each time we want to do the same task. Something as simple as ironing a shirt every morning could take 10 minutes a day or almost an hour a week but might only take 15-20 minutes if the shirts were ironed all at once. The iron is already out, warmed up, and ready to go. We only need to use it once. So much time can be saved by bundling tasks together it’s surprising we don’t do more of it.

The second way to create more time is to delete responsibilities. These is obviously more difficult than bundling but might be even more important. Many of us have a difficult time saying no to things. People ask us for help and we oblige because we don’t want to let them down. There are other tasks we feel are important but if they were removed from our lives we would never notice. These items need to go on our priority list somewhere usually bumping something else we thought was important, down the list. The problem is we didn’t want to do it in the first place but we didn’t want to say “No.” There are also PLENTY of responsibilities we take on because we want to and we think they are priorities but wouldn’t be missed if they were gone.

Delete and understanding your priorities

Our lives are filled with maybes and somedays. Someday I’ll start a business. Maybe when things slow down I’ll organize my closet. Someday I’ll get to spend more time with my kids, parents, or friends. Maybe, if I had more time, I could finally take my dream vacation. “These all sound nice but where will I find the time, Joe?” I have a few ideas.

The problem is we don’t understand our priorities. We classify everything as important even when it isn’t. Then things which should be important get pushed to the back burner relegated to “maybe someday.” We need to understand all the things we need or want to accomplish and put a true order or importance. Take time to do an honest assessment of your list. Are there tasks you can bundle together like planning the meals for the week and grocery shopping for everything? Are there tasks you can delegate or ask someone for help on like moving furniture or pick up the kids from school? Are there tasks you have on the list you’ve been putting off for

Trying bundling. This planning meals for the week and buying all of the groceries at once instead of each day. Or picking out work clothes and ensuring they are ready instead of each morning. You can even bundle different chores together like doing the dishes while dinner is in the oven or cleaning your room while the laundry is in the washer and dryer.

Perfection is Boring, Let’s Be Imperfect!

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For years I wanted to create something. Something people would find interesting and exciting. At first I thought it was a business. I was going to be a titan of industry, creating a startup, and “disrupting” the world but I never found the “right” idea. Then I thought it would be a podcast. They seemed easy to do and I found the “perfect” partner to make it happen. Unfortunately, we had different life goals which killed our project. Realizing I might need to go in alone, I thought a blog might be the best way to start. Still it took me almost two years to get started. It wasn’t until I let go and started was I able to make progress.

So, what happened? How did I go from a serial project procrastinator to publishing over 40 blog posts? Honestly, I got pissed off and feed up with myself and stopped fighting the resistance. I stopped coming up with excuses to push my project back another week. I stopped trying to be perfect.

I consider myself to be a fairly rational person. I can see the world for how it is, warts and all. Unfortunately, being able to think rationally doesn’t stop me from acting irrationally. Sometimes the mind goes on autopilot and the body is only along for the ride. (I’m sure I’m not alone in this respect). So when I decided I wanted to start some kind of project, creative or otherwise, I KNEW I was going to suck at it no matter what I thought I knew. I was a beginner, a white belt, a N00B, if you will. I wasn’t going to be the next Mark Zuckerberg in business, Joe Rogan in podcasting, or Steven King with writing. I knew they weren’t great out of the gate either. It took years for them to develop the skills they needed to get where they are today. I knew even if I did make it to their level, it would take me years of hard, continuous work.

I knew all of this but still didn’t start. Why? I wanted, whatever I was doing, to be perfect. I was afraid of what people might say. I didn’t want to show the world my imperfect product to be judged as garbage. If it was perfect, however, no one could say anything!

It wasn’t until I read Linchpin by Seth Godin, it clicked. I realized perfection is impossible. Perfection is boring. Sure I don’t want to put garbage into the world (there’s already enough out there) but I didn’t know why I was waiting, either. Perfection is a made up word the resistance created to keep us complacent. Keep us in fear. Keep us from reaching our potential.

Think about it. Who out there is perfect? Who out there is without flaws? Brad Pitt might be extremely attractive but his relationships are a complete mess. (That’s right, I said it… Brad Pitt is attractive). Robin Williams was a great comedian and actor but he took his life when his demons finally caught up with him. And don’t get me started on the Kardashians or all of the people we see on Facebook.

Still, we seek perfection in our own lives. We want things to be flawless before they are shown to the world, much like this Apple Commercial. The problem is perfection is boring. It’s the imperfections which make us, and our work, unique. We aren’t some cog on the assembly line needing to be exactly the same as the one before it. We are supposed to be the square peg trying to fit into the round hole. We are, by nature, imperfect so let’s act accordingly.

Once I figured this out progress became much easier. I’ve create significantly more when I let go. When I leave in the flaws. When I accept what I made will be imperfect. This doesn’t mean I’m trying to product something of low quality. I care about what I write and what I’m putting out into the universe. I also know it can be a quality product and imperfect at the same time.

I am giving each of us a challenge today. We need to share something we’ve created, especially if it is incomplete or unfinished. Take a picture or share the blog post, or whatever, on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Nextdoor, or a blog. Whatever way gets the imperfection out there into the universe. Then post the link in the comments section.

*Remember we always suck at the beginning but with some practice we get better, faster. It’s far easier to make progress when we are first starting out (learning the first 80% of a new skill), then later on (learning the last 20%).*

Who Do We Want To Be?

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I wrote a few posts last week about New Year’s Resolutions, here, here and here. It was a good week for me. It was the first week, I put three posts out on the day I promised I would. It wasn’t easy but I forced myself to write them, and I’m grateful I did. It made me feel good and gave me an enormous amount of confidence. Unfortunately, this weekend hit and the motivational stores are running low.

It’s not surprising though. New Year’s Day was last Tuesday and it’s easy for us to ride out the “I have goals and dreams and I’m going after them,” high this time of the year gives us. Now it’s a new week and we lay there realizing we have a “Coyote Ugly” hanging on our arm. Present Us made a promise Future Us has to keep and now it’s time for Us to collect.

But a promise is a promise so we give it the old college try. We’ll begrudgingly stumble to the gym or type random works on a blank word document to find our motivation, all the while grumbling about what an asshole the Past Us was for this resolution.

So what happened to us? How did we go from ultra-motivated to the lazy beatnik who only wants to chillax on the couch? We have our goals, we even came up with a plan, but we are still coming up empty.

The problem is we haven’t changed our identity. We still see ourselves as the same slackers we were last year and don’t think our goals will help us become our own Heroes of Battle. I think James Clear in an interview with Jory MacKay from the RescueTime Blog says it best, “Who is the type of person you want to become? Who is the person that’s already achieving the results you want for yourself? For example, the type of person who loses ten pounds is probably someone who doesn’t miss workouts. That’s just part of their identity. They see themselves as someone who exercises consistently. And going to the gym is just part of their being.”

Maybe the goal is to start the business we’ve put off starting. We just became an Entrepreneur. Maybe it’s time to learn a new language. BAM, now we are linguists. We need to change the way we see ourselves to bring us closer to our end goals.

For me, I want to be a Skald, the badass warrior-poets of the Viking world, similar to the medieval bard. These were the people who fought next to great warriors and passed their stories on from generation to generation. They need to be strong to be a part of the Viking world but also used their intellect rather than spend all their time thinking about raiding. I want to be built like a brick house and write like a philosopher.

Unfortunately, if aren’t willing to focus on the person we want to become it is easy to stay in our rut. If we want to lose weight but don’t see ourselves as a lover of fitness or we want to write but don’t see ourselves as a writer, it’s easy to let our goals slip away. Basically, if we continue to see ourselves as losers this is how we will stay. It’s only when we are willing to change the way we think about ourselves, we are able to affect real change. Sometimes it happens by accident but most of the time it takes time and focused effort.

Still having trouble making the change? Take a page out of Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, proverbial book and try writing it down. Every day he writes down what he wants or who he wants to be on a piece of paper 10-15 times until it comes to fruition. Sometimes it’s quick and other times it can take years but it allows him to focus on the path he’s trying to follow. He used this technique when he wanted to be an illustrator and now he’s the creator of one of the most recognized comic strips in America.

Remember, we will never be the same person we were yesterday and tomorrow we can be whoever we want. Taking time to stay focused on who we want to become will only help bring us closer to our goal. This way, when we are presented with what use to be difficult choices, we already know the right answer. We’ve already made the choice. We can skip the extra piece of cake or the three extra episodes of the show we would normally binge. That’s not us anymore. We are the hero of our own story.

This isn’t a magic bullet. We will still need to put in the work but it will make it easier the more we practice. Good luck.

*Check out James Clear’s article “Identity-Based Habits: How to Actually Stick to your Goals This Year” for more on this topic.*

Fitness Friday – Ringing in the New Year with Fitness

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It’s a new year so it’s going to be a new us. (Sensing a theme yet?) We bought new workout clothes, found a gym near the house/office, and we’re full of fire and determination. It’s gonna work. Now’s the time. Carpe Diem!

Of course, it will. It worked for us last year, right? We had the clothes and shoes and a gym membership or found the PERFECT app. We were ready to go. What happened? By February we had given up. Life got in the way. We didn’t adjust and got steamrolled. Maybe we went too hard out of the gate getting burned out quickly. Maybe one, “I’ll get it tomorrow,” turned into two or three and then it was all over. It could have been any number of things but the point is we didn’t keep it going.

But it’s a new year and another chance to start over. We want to be successful this year making it the best year ever for us. But where do we start? How do we ensure we don’t fall into the same traps we do every year? Here are a few tips and tricks I find helpful.

Make Goals Specific and Attainable: Inevitably, every year people create nebulous New Year’s Resolutions of losing weight, going to the gym, or getting healthy. While these are great in theory they are vague and unhelpful. There is too much wiggle room and no way of knowing if we meet or fail at our goals. These “goals” are not measurable.

We need to add specificity to our goals. Instead of “losing weight” make it “I want to lose 10 lbs by the end of February.” Change “I want to go to the gym,” to “I want to go to the gym 3 mornings a week for 30 minutes, rotating between upper and lower body workouts, for the next 6 weeks.” Go from “I want to get healthy” to “I will reduce my soda intake to 3 times per week for the next month,” or “I will cook 3 paleo meals a week, for dinner, for the next month.”

See the difference? We made them specific: losing 10lbs, going to the gym 3x per week, and making a specific lifestyle change instead of a general one. They are also measurable. We either meet our weekly goal or don’t. Lastly, we’ve built in a time frame giving us an end goal to shoot for rather than a vague time frame of… whenever.

They should also be attainable. Want to lose 30 lbs in a month? I’m sure it can be done for those who don’t like eating and are on the show Survivor. Planning on working out or running every day for 2 plus hours? Hopefully, we were a bodybuilder or marathon runner in a previous life. Deciding to go strict Paleo, cutting out all our favorite foods, cold turkey. I pray we have the willpower. The problem is these aren’t attainable for the average person. We need to start with smaller more manageable goals. Most people can lose 1-2 lbs safely per week, 30 minutes to an hour at the gym 3 times per week is sufficient for general health, and removing foods slowly can make the change more sustainable.

I know we aren’t working to be average or “most” people but we need to start somewhere and remember getting “healthy” is a marathon, not a sprint.

We Can’t Out-Train Our Diet: If we run one more mile we can go get McDonalds or ice cream or whatever tasty treat our hearts desire. The problem is we can’t out-train our diets. If we work out in the morning then eat like shit all day, we will likely have a surplus of calories which only adds to the scale. This can easily become discouraging making it easier and easier to give up.

Jeff Godin Ph.D., CSCS, SGX wrote a post for the Spartan Race website which highlights this concept perfectly. As he lays it out, it’s easy to see how many burpees someone would need to complete to work off these various delicious items. For example, to work off one slice of Domino’s Pepperoni Pizza I would need to do 161 burpees. I hate doing 1 let alone another 160 of them.

This doesn’t mean we need to give up everything we love but if we want to meet our goals, changes will need to be made. Trade a glass of water for the usual can of soda, or two. Make an extra healthy meal at home rather than eating out. Buy the small “hundred calorie snack pack” instead of the full-size container of the same snack. By making smaller changes to our diet we can set ourselves up for greater success than going cold turkey.

That being said, some of us might have difficulty with moderation. (I’m pointing at myself pretty hard right now). I tend to be an all or nothing kind of person. I know this about myself and I’ve learned to be okay with it. For those of us who need to go cold turkey to make these changes in our life pick one thing at a time. Remove soda, cookies, or ice cream one at a time rather than cutting out ALL sugar at once. Once we master the removal of one item we can move to the next.

Figuring Out Where We Belong: I wrote about Fitness Communities a couple weeks back so I won’t beat it up too much here. The important thing I recently learned is, for most of us, it doesn’t matter what kind of fitness regimen we follow we just need to follow one. There are tons of different ways to work out and fitness sub-communities to belong to out there. It’s important to try a few to see which one sticks.

For years, I tried many different ways to get “in shape.” It’s was until recently I realized I wasn’t a fan of the cardio based workouts like running, spin, or high-intensity interval training (HIIT). They filled me with dread every time I needed to work out. This was why I found it difficult to stick with CrossFit. I enjoyed the lifting but the circuit training scared me so I would skip more classes than I’d go. Now I only lift and I love it.

In comparison, I have a friend who recently found HIIT training through a company called D1. She wanted to get her kids physically active and decided to join with them. SHE LOVES IT and can’t get enough! Every week she tells me how difficult it was and how much fun she had doing it. She’s figured out where she belongs and her life is changing because of it.

Another friend of mine is running a 100-mile marathon in April. He’s been training for the last year and can’t wait. He loves doing the long endurance training but could care less about lifting anything more than his bottle of kombucha. Both sound exhausting and unappealing to me but exciting to them.

We have a tendency to follow the new fitness crazy or go along with what everyone else says we should do. Unfortunately, we ignore our personal goals to follow other people. Take some time, experiment, and find the right fit to keep the fitness train running.

Keep it Simple Silly (Stupid feels so Angry): Every time I decide to get back into fitness I usually spend a ton of time looking through different workout routines. I delve into sites like BodyBuilding.com, Men’s Health, or individual fitness “leaders” workout regimens to see what’s out there and to find my new routine. It’s doesn’t take me long to get overwhelmed by all of the information out there and the complexity of each routine. Each workout programs about 5-10 exercises per day, 5-days a week. They take forever and soon I’m too frustrated to continue.

Everything changed when I found Jim Wendler’s 5/3/1 program. It was SO SIMPLE! Later I found Starting Strength and Stronglifts 5×5 which were even less complicated. I’m using Stronglifts 5×5 right now and I’m finished within 45 minutes.

This led me to realize how difficult we make fitness on ourselves. We believe we need to find programs with an unnecessary number of exercises programmed in them but it’s not true. There are better ways and, depending on the community, it can be really simple.

For those of us who are looking to work out at home or alone there are plenty of apps to choose. I’ve mentioned a few free ones before like Running for Weight Loss or Zombies, Run for runners, Hylete’s Daily Circuit for HIIT training, and StrongLifts 5×5 for strength training. There are plenty more of these in the App Store. Those of us who prefer working with a partner or with a group most gyms have free classes or Personal Trainers, there’s CrossFit or other functional fitness gyms, Yoga, or Fitness Boot Camps.

The point is unless we plan to geek out on fitness, letting someone else do the grunt work for us is a good thing. This way we can sit back, relax (but still get at it), and enjoy the fitness ride. By making it more difficult on ourselves, the less likely we are to continue.

Don’t forget to rest: When we start any new habit there is always the fear of backsliding. It takes 21 days for a habit to stick, right? Not necessarily. According to the author SJ Scott, it can take up to 66 days, depending on the person, for a new habit to stick with us.

When we start a new fitness habit we feel we need to go all in every day to ensure our routine sticks. (We don’t need a rest day. We just had 365 of them). Then what happens? After a couple of days of working out, we get too sore to continue. Then we take a day or two or three to rest and recover which turns into a week or more. Now we are in pain, pissed at ourselves, and quit. We figure this fitness thing isn’t for us and we move on with our lives.

We didn’t give ourselves enough time to rest. Our New Year’s vigor created an all or nothing mentality, which told us not to slow down and we listened. We need to remember it’s okay to rest. It’s okay to slow down. It’s okay to get our bodies’ use to this new level of physical activity. We should put our heart into our workouts and give it our all, but burnout is really easy to do, especially early in our training. Again we are looking for sustainability over the long run and ensuring our bodies successfully recovers is essential.

Bringing it Home: Phew… Still with me? Alright! I’m going to end it with this recap. First, we need to make specific, yet attainable, goals we can measure to know we are making progress, not go off our feelings. Second, our diet is more important than physical exercise. If we are consistently eating like garbage we won’t be able to burn off enough calories to make see a difference. Third, we need to find the type of fitness which makes us excited to get out of bed. Don’t know what it is yet? Experiment. Fourth, KISS it! We want to make it as easy as possible to get excited about exercising regularly. Fifth, do not forget to rest. Our body’s need time to heal and recover to maintain progress. Lastly (and a bonus), slow and steady will win this race. We are participating in a marathon, figuratively but possibly literally, not a sprint.

There it is. I hope you are as excited as I am to start the new year off right. Leave a comment and let me know what you think. Are you planning on using any of these? Were these tips helpful? Keep me posted and good luck.

*Didn’t get enough in this article and want more ideas to make your fitness goals stick? Check out these Nerd Fitness articles: The 10 Key Differences Between Weight Loss Success and Failure, How to Build Healthy Habits that Stick, How to Build a Batcave for Habit Change. Enjoy!

Experimenting in the New Year

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Happy New Year and welcome to 2019. It’s a whole new year of possibilities. Out with the old and in with the new, as they say. We’ve done our past year review, made plans, and thought to ourselves, “but what about all of the new things I want to do this year?” Maybe it’s time to learn a new language, become a writer, or the ever-popular working out. I know I have about a million different things I want to do and I want to do them all at once. Here are just a few:

Start another blog
Write Short Stories
Workout 3x per week
Drop 30 lbs
Meditate for 10 minutes every day
Keep a personal journal I write in each day
Learn another language (because who doesn’t)
Learn to code

You know… just a few easy goals to get me through the year. Right? This isn’t even everything and doesn’t include things I’ll want to do later on in the year.

These lists can be daunting? There’s so much on them and each one is the “most” important one to start right now. How to choose? How do we know which ones are right for us? We could start learning a language and realize it sucks but are we stopping because it’s hard or it’s not right for us?

First, we need to realize “we can do everything we want, just not all at once.” We have to understand we will need to create an order of precedence to figure out what we care about most. If we find a new, shiny object, we add it to the list to try next but don’t stop what we are working on now. One at a time. Slow and steady.

Once we know what we want to do we need to start executing. So what next? We start by thinking about life in 2 Week Experiments and 6 Month Projects. Again, this idea comes from Tim Ferriss (yup I’m talking about HIM again) in an episode of the Tim Ferriss Podcast where he’s being interviewed at Google. Let me explain. In episode 175, he was asked about his 5-year plan or goals. He told the interviewer he breaks things up into 2-week experiments and 6-month projects rather than having long drawn out plans. This allows him to try new things to ensure they are worth his time and to keep an open mind when new ideas or projects come along.

What does this mean for us? It means we get to be both the scientist and the test subject. We are both dart thrower and dart board. We are putting ourselves in control with our own destiny and giving ourselves a nice, easy window for testing. Want to start a blog but haven’t written in years? We can start journaling every day for two weeks to ensure we want to continue writing. How about completing a Spartan Race? We can try HIIT training for two weeks to see if it’s something worth pursuing. After the two-week experiment is over, if we are still excited, we can turn it into a 6-month project. Go out to get a free WordPress website (*cough* *cough*) to start a blog or sign up for a gym membership to take their free classes to move forward. If, however, after the two weeks are over, we don’t want to continue, we quit. No harm, no foul.

There are two important things to remember when starting these experiments and projects. First, there needs to be some criteria for success or failure. Something specific and attainable. Start by journaling every day for 10 minutes instead of planning to write for 30 minutes or an hour. Try this 20-minute bodyweight beginner’s workout by Nerd Fitness 3-4 times a week instead of paying for a gym membership and planning to be there every day for hours. Specific but attainable.

Second, develop a plan before each experiment. We have success criteria but now we need to figure out how to execute. It’s important to carve out specific time to work on our experiment and not assume (it makes an ass out of “u” and me) we’ll get it done. Figure out when we have the most energy to help ensure success. (Some people are morning people while others get there second wind in the afternoon or evenings. We know ourselves better than anyone else.) Also, ensure consult plans with spouses or children whenever necessary to increase the possibility for success. As Ben Franklin said, “Failing to plan is planning to fail!”

Remember the idea is to figure out what we want to learn or do, then break it into two-week tests for ourselves. This is long enough to either start building a new successful habit or realize it’s not our cup of tea. Then if a new shiny object does come along we don’t feel like we are giving up anything to try something new. This way we aren’t trying to pull ourselves in a thousand different directions and instead, working to be more productive with our time. Sure we might experience bumps in the road but with some practice I know we’ll get to do everything we want in life.

Let me know what experiment you are looking to try first this year. I’d love to hear from you.

A New Year and A New You: Past Year Review

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It’s that time of year again when we say, “Fuck you!” to the previous year and warmly embrace the new one. It’s a time when we look at our past failures and try to fix them in the year ahead. It’s a time when we set goals for ourselves with milestones to hit to become a better person. It’s a time for New Year’s Resolutions.

Except, should it be? Should we be setting goals for ourselves for things we don’t necessarily want or won’t to do? Is there a better way to make next year better than our last? I think so thanks to Tim Ferriss. (What can I say? I’m a huge fan).

Tim recently posted his article called “Forget New Year’s Resolutions and Conduct a ‘Past Year Review’ Instead.” It’s a quick article describing the five steps for a successful PYR (Past Year Review), which you can find in the link. Basically, you go through the past year and write down, in two columns, all of the Positive or Negative people, activities or commitments you dealt with. Then you find the 20% of people and things you enjoyed and schedule more time for them now, today. Plan trips, activities, or events now to avoid the last minute “what the hell do I do now?” Then take the Negative column, write “NOT-TO-DO-LIST” and keep it in a place where you can look at it regularly. This helps avoid “forgetting” how much frustration was caused.

There you have it. Do more of the things we enjoy and less of the frustrating stuff. Simple right? Now we can be unencumbered of our boredom and monotony to start living a life of adventure and freedom! So good luck and have fun on your life of leisure.

“Hey, Joe… Aren’t you forgetting about a little thing called life? It kind of gets in the way.” Sure, life can be unpredictable and chaotic at times but why is that the case? Why do we tend to feel like we are a first class passenger on a runaway train with no time for fun? If you’re anything like me it’s because we tend live life by the seat of our pants. We don’t plan anything and become wishy-washy with commitments. Then when something comes up we don’t want to do or it’s someone we don’t want to hang out with, we get frustrated we aren’t doing something fun.

Thanks to Tim’s article, I’ve come to realize I need to be more assertive with the things I want to do and deliberate in the planning. I know things will come up and plans might change but if I don’t make time for the people and things I want to do, I’m headed on a one-way trip to miseryville. Here is a list of some of the things I’ve realized I need to add onto my calendar for the upcoming year.

Spend time with my family (both immediate and my extended family)
- Visit my parents and sister/Brother-in-Law/Nephews more
- Have more “Date Nights” with my wife
- Spend specific time with my kids but together and individually
Spend more time with my friends (other than the monthly poker game)
Play more Dungeons and Dragons (Yes, I enjoy Roleplaying Games)
Invite out of town friends for the weekend
Take more trips to my in-law’s cabin in Boone, NC
Have more get-togethers at our house.
Make time to write
Make time to play video games

At first glance it feels a little overwhelming but by understanding the things I want to spend more time doing, the more I can do. By planning fun things ahead of time I can ensure I am more deliberate with the necessities as well. I also believe it will allow me to be more present in my life which is something I desperately need to work on.

“Joe, I’m not going plan every minute of my life.” Of course not. The idea is to be more deliberate with our actions and time not to ensure we schedule our life completely. We want to ensure we add more positivity into our lives and avoid as much of the negative influences weighing us down. We want to get away from the feeling of being out of control. Stoic philosophy explains the only thing we have control over is our emotions and our actions. If treat our lives with ambivalence, we will continue to repeat the same shitty patterns each year. When we take time to care about who we are spending our precious time with and how we are using our time, our lives will improve.

Life will throw us curveballs and things won’t always go as planned. We may miss out on fun, spontaneous opportunities which come about but in the end, I believe, we better in the long run. So this year, let’s take some time to think about the positive and negative in our lives and be deliberate with what we want for the upcoming year. Make a plan, schedule it out, and defend it at all cost… especially from ourselves. Happy New Year, Everyone.

Fitness Friday’s – What Gets Measured, Gets Managed

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Hey you. Yes, you over there. The one reading this article. I hope you are having a great holiday season and I want to thank you for taking the time to read my work.

I was blessed again this Christmas. Santa was very good to me and I got several things on my Christmas list. One of the things I’m most excited about is this Bluetooth scale from Renpho. I know it’s silly but I’m can’t wait to use it. “What’s so exciting about a scale, Joe?” Well, it has to do with a quote people miss associated with Peter Drucker: “What gets measured, gets managed,” which is crucial when dealing with fitness and weight loss.

January 1^st is next Tuesday which starts many people’s New Year’s Resolution season. We tend to see the new year as a time of rebirth and reinvention. Last year is over and next year is full of possibilities. The sky’s the limit for all of us. The world is our oyster and we’re going to shuck it.

The problem is we start of strong each year and by February we’ve given up. We stare down the Hydra and it swallows us whole. Change takes work and dedication, which we know, but life has a way of creeping up on us. Things happen, we hit speed bumps, and we get discouraged. We don’t see progress being made so we feel like failures slowly letting our resolutions slip away.

This is big with fitness especially. Everyone starts out, or wants to start out, strong but it slowly slips away. We don’t measure our progress so we use our “feelings” instead of actual metrics. We “feel” like we aren’t losing the weight. We “feel” like we aren’t getting stronger. We “feel” like we aren’t getting healthier. We feel, we feel, we feel. And even if we are measuring it’s not consistent enough to capture the highs with the lows.

“What gets measured, gets managed.” This idea is about taking the time to CONSISTENTLY measure what we are doing to see the progress we are making each day. This means creating a workout plan where we test ourselves at regular intervals, measuring the different areas of our body with a tape measure, and weighing ourselves every day. Then we need to keep a log of this information to track the progress instead of keeping this in our heads. This helps us see trends in the data.

“But, Joe, that seems like a TON of work.” I know it does and it does take some planning but it’s easier than you think. There are plenty of different fitness programs, apps, and ways to track health and fitness progress depending on your goals. (I plan on covering some of these apps in greater detail in a later post). It’s important to find one and stick with it. Interested in becoming a running machine? Check out the Running for Weight loss or Zombies, Run! apps. Looking for free daily circuit and HIIT training? Hylete’s gotcha covered with their app. Want to get super strong? The StroStrongliftsnglifts 5×5 app helps build brick houses. Need to track weight loss progress? The iPhone and most of the wearable fitness trackers, like Fitbit, have health apps or you can weigh yourself each morning and put it into a Google Spreadsheet (which is what I didn’t for several years before Fitbit). All of these are free and reduce the friction of measuring progress.

This is why I’m thrilled (Yes, I said “Thrilled) about my new scale. Since it’s Bluetooth capable it makes super simple for me to capture all kinds of information. I get my weight, Body Mass Index (BMI), Body Fat Percentage, and half a dozen other things set to my phone by standing on it each morning. I don’t need to remember to record the data at all, which is something I have a problem doing. Now, there’s no hiding or forgetting.

The important thing to remember here is we want to use data to help us meet our goals and instead of using our feelings. The data will tell us if what we are doing is working or if we need to adjust fire. Maybe we “feel” like we are being healthier because we’ve cut out soda but still put too much sugar in our coffee. We “feel” better but the data tells a different story. Maybe we don’t “feel” like we are getting stronger but the data shows we are making progress each week. It’s the data which will help us make better decisions and, when used wisely, will help keep us on track. Good luck and stay strong!

*I know measuring things like weight doesn’t always give us an accurate picture of what’s going on but it’s an important start. We want the data we are collecting to be simple, measurable, and something we do consistently. This way if we gain a pound from the previous weigh in we can thing about possible causes and work towards making corrections. If we lose weight, we can give ourselves a pat on the back and try to replicate the success.*

**Important side note: If you are going to weigh yourself, it is important to remember to weigh each morning after you go to the bathroom but before you eat or drink anything. This helps to give you the most accurate assessment of your actual body weight without anything extra. Weighing yourself in the mornings ensures you are consistently using the same baseline. The more accurate the information the better decisions we can make.**

Fitness Friday – Fitness Communities

It’s amazing how life works sometimes. I have been struggling for the last week trying to figure out what to write about today when a topic fill into my lap. I went to the store this morning, after my workout, to get more eggs for breakfast. I walked in wearing my Spartan Sprint Finisher shirt (I won participant) when I was stopped by a guy in the front of the store. He was a part of a group of guys who got together on Fridays and just finished a “boot camp” style workout down the street. (We have a Starbucks in our grocery store. Don’t be jealous). After a minute or so he invited me to join their workout group. Normally, I HATE having conversation with random people in public places (Stay in your own lane, am I right?) but today I was intrigued. I shook his hand, thanked him, and walked away deciding to quickly Google the group’s name before I forgot.

The group is called F3 Raleigh (Fitness, Fellowship, and Faith). From their website it looks like their mission is “to plant, grow, and serve small workout groups for the invigoration of male community leadership.” Now, I prefer to keep my fitness and faith separate but I found the idea of group interesting and important in a much larger sense, when it comes to fitness.

No matter where we are in our fitness journey, all of us started from scratch. We are all newbies at some point. The thing I find interesting is the longer we go without getting into fitness the harder it becomes to start. Our pride and insecurities get in the way and we start making up excuses as to why we shouldn’t work out. Fitness is intimidating. There are a million different exercises and a million different ways to work out. You can work out by yourself or with a partner but you would have to find your own programming or workout plan. You can work out in a group but it’s easy feel like you’re competing and being judged by the others in the group. With all of the fear and pressure to fit into this new group it is no wonder people quit their New Year’s Resolutions by February.

The thing I’ve learned over the years, bouncing in and out of fitness, is no one gives a shit about our fitness journey but us. Will there be people who will judge us when we show up to the gym on January 1st? Probably, but most people won’t give us a second look. They are too busy with their own journeys. They are focused on what they are doing.

I get it. We all know in our minds we aren’t being judge but it doesn’t stop the irrational thoughts from creeping in to freak us out. The resistance wants to gain access to every part of our lives. How do we fight the resistance? How do we get rid of those irrational thoughts? We need to join the community. The community of fitness enthusiasts and we do this by showing up regularly. Does a weightlifter, powerlifter, or CrossFitter look at the runner or the Zumba-er (I think that’s what they are called) the same way? Probably not but they are still a part of the same overall fitness community. Their specific goals are different but each of them care about the same thing: Fitness.

For years I bounced around doing various types of programs. I tried P90x, I ran, I took Spin Classes, I did traditional bodybuilding workouts, and I did CrossFit. I didn’t mind any of them, but something was missing. It wasn’t until my wife got me a squat rack for my garage, I found my niche… Powerlifting. I started doing Jim Wendler’s 5/3/1 program and was hooked. 5/3/1 helped me realized where I failed in the past. Wendler’s program was simple, unlike the tradition bodybuilding workout style, and though there can be cardio and conditioning elements added it’s a major part unlike P90x, Spin, Running, or CrossFit. The important thing was I found where I belong.

The point is we need to find our people within the fitness community, especially when we first start. This takes some experimenting and trying new ways to work out. If one doesn’t feel right, after giving it an honest shot, then quit and go find something else. The important part is to be excited about a fitness program to ensure we stay motivated. Grab a friend, try a class, and find a community. I promise you won’t regret it. And if all else fails it might be time to build a community of your own, much like the F3 guys.