Category Archives: Habits

Business, Friends and Family, Goals, Habits, Health, Life, Sleep, Travel

Ready for what’s next

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Happy 2020! I didn’t write a mid-year update for 2019 because I was putting in crazy 16 hour days, under cyber-attack, and just trying my best to stay afloat. It was insanely tough and there wasn’t much to say other than it fucking sucked. But I got through it and here I am reflecting not only on the past year but the past decade as well.

 

A year ago I was terrified of leaving my job to work full-time on mailfloss. At the time it wasn’t doing a whole lot in revenue, had a high churn rate, and a ton of bugs. Mentally, I felt really isolated, unprepared and alone, but in retrospect, it was absolutely the right thing to do. It’s been incredibly challenging at times, but nothing in my life has ever felt so rewarding, either.

 

2019 gave me a glimpse of a new life and what’s possible. Walking into the new year and the new decade I feel like I’ve gained some confidence back and know that everything is going to be alright.

 

I spent half the year in Canada and half the year in Thailand. There was one issue with Thailand, and that was the fact that I didn’t work out at all. This is horrible and something I need to fix. I’ve been doing double duty since coming back to Canada for the past month and it’s really made a difference in my size and leanness, but it’s also starting to nag on my joints a bit, especially my elbows.

 

The good news is I’ll be heading to South America for 3 months starting next week, which was my original plan in 2018. I’ll give my elbows a break from the daily grind for a few weeks, but then I’ll still need to get into a bodyweight routine of some sort, or end up with a dad bod again, which happened this year but thankfully is now under control.

 

My Spanish will be put to the test while in South America, which is exactly what I need. I had a tutor for over a year and still feel like my Spanish isn’t up to snuff, which is frustrating but is what it is. I feel like I’ll be able to get by without too much trouble, but we’ll see once I get there.

 

I read 23 books this year and the one that I recommend the most was the first one I finished – Atomic Habits. It’s a blueprint to better habits and really helped my productivity shoot through the roof, eliminate some nasty habits and get better at sticking with good ones.

 

Some lessons I’ve learned and re-learned from the past 10 years include:

Consistency is everything. Slow and steady wins the race. The tortoise beats the hare 9/10 times.

Don’t tolerate toxic people. Friends, family, SOs, classmates or coworkers, it doesn’t matter. If they continuously disrespect you and don’t support you then get rid of them. You will be objectively happier and better off once they’re out of your life.

Nobody gives a shit about you and nobody owes you anything. Don’t cry about it, this is empowering. You can do anything. Get after it.

Friendships come and go in cycles. Life changes, people get married, have kids, move away. Don’t hate, accept it. You can’t force and beg people to be in your life. If it was meant to be, so be it. You never know when you’ll reconnect with old ones.

Be cautious of the “isms” and worship nobody, no matter how great you think they might be.

Respect everyone until they give you a reason not to.

Be kind, even to those who don’t reciprocate.

Effectiveness beats efficiency, but ideally, you’d want to be efficient at the effective stuff.

Be micro-impatient, and macro-patient. H/t to Gary V for this one. Meaning go fast and hard short-term so you can reap the rewards long-term. But they don’t come overnight.

Sleep well so you feel great and can perform well.

Eat consciously.

Kaizen – try to continuously improve, always.

1% improvements add up quickly.

Don’t sweat the small stuff, but don’t underestimate them either.

Believe in yourself, even when nobody else does.

Don’t forget to breathe. This is especially important when shit is hitting the fan.

Don’t be afraid to ask for help, especially if you need it.

Think for yourself and don’t believe everything you read or see.

Exercise, already!

Balance is still over-rated. Especially when it’s ill-defined.

Just because you love something doesn’t mean it’s good for you. This includes friends and hobbies. And cheeseburgers.

Try to full-ass stuff rather than half-ass stuff.

Travel more. (side note: Instagram doesn’t need to know)

Put away your phone. It’s alright.

Looking back on the past decade, I can say without any doubt that this was by far the toughest decade I have gone through and perhaps ever will go through. I left the corporate world in 2009 and haven’t looked back, but nothing turned out the way I envisioned it. While my friends got married, bought houses, cars, had kids, got promotions and new jobs, I got none of that. I failed, again and again and again and AGAIN, moved home, was ridiculed and laughed at and wrote off, brushed aside, disrespected, ghosted, and thrown shade at more times than I’d like to think about.

 

But it’s all been worth it for what comes next. I genuinely believe 2020 and beyond is mine for the taking, and I’m coming for it all.

Goals, Habits, Life, Me

Mid year update

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We’re halfway through the year already. Damn, where’d the time go? Fast, man, really fast. So where are we at now? Looking back on my predictions for 2014, I’d say I am doing alright. Regarding momentum, I wrote:

“I plan on taking this momentum with me into the new year. No fucking around, just consistent execution every. single. day. I really like where my head is at these days, and am in a very good place spiritually, physically, and emotionally as well. Just like 2013, I expect the first half of 2014 to be very different from the second half. There are some amazing things in technology that I am expecting in early 2014 that I am getting excited for that will have a large impact on my productivity and career for the rest of the year.”

So far, so good. I’ve worked hard consistently. Spanish, programming, strength training, elliptical work, jiu jitsu, reading. Bam, bam, double bam. For technology, I’ve been all over Meteor. It’s the one. I won’t be switching to anything else anytime soon. I’ve also been working with Macaw a tad, although to be honest it has been disappointing and buggy, and a little bit of Famo.us – also a little bit buggy. However, there is no denying the enormous potential of these technologies to dramatically improve my workflow, and I will be following along closely. I wrote about these before.

So now that we are in the second half of the year, I predicted that it would be very different from the first half. I no longer think that will be the case. Rather than a sharp contrast between the first and second half, I’m noticing more of a slow transition. That’s ok, slow and steady wins the race. Or something.

My health goals in 2014 were just to get stronger. But as I upped my weight, I noticed my recovery was taking much longer. And then I started doing a lot of elliptical and jiu jitsu, and I was feeling crushed. So instead I switched out 531 for deadlifts and squats and replaced it with CAT. It’s more volume and poundage, but I find recovery manageable and power endurance improvements. I’m still sticking with 531 for overhead press and bench as I am still seeing gains for both. I’ve worked hard on ohp and bench and feel like I am no longer wimpy in those lifts, although my upper body strength is still pretty sucky. I’ve had this weird, naggy, weak feeling in my arms that has been bothering me for months that isn’t helping, either.

I cut my hair. It’s the first time I cut it in over 2 years. Last time I cut it was when I shaved my head prior to heading to Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia and Laos in May of 2012. Yesterday I cut it all off, got 9 ponytails out of it, and donated it to Angel Hair for Kids. Don’t ask why I grew out my hair. I don’t know. Seriously, I never thought about it. And then suddenly, 2 years later here we are. Weird, I know. I’m weird, sue me. I’ll probably never grow my hair out that long ever again. First off, it’s just a major pain in the ass to deal with. Second, I shed a lot. It’s disgusting. And third, there was this period of a good 8-10 months where I just looked ridiculous. Absolutely ludicrous, so bad that even I was ashamed to be in public with myself. Thanks to anybody who hung out with me during that time, you are all brave souls and deserve some sort of badge.

So there you have it. Not many big surprises for me, although there were a number of hiccups that bogged me down more than they should have considering I was expecting them. All in all though, I think this year has been going well so far. I expect come December things will be different, but through a slow and gradual change rather than immediate and sudden. I’m looking forward to it. I hope your year has been going the way you hoped, just because you’re awesome and cool for reading this whole thing.

Advice, Habits

Avoiding Brain Drain.

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Do you ever find yourself just completely exhausted after a long day of work, or perhaps a long day out taking care of your kids or dealing with family? Heck, ever get that feeling where your entire body and mind feel drained even though you’ve been sitting down in front of a desk all day staring at a computer? You shouldn’t feel drained, you didn’t even do anything physically taxing!

Ah, but the mind, it uses energy too. And just like physical energy, there is a finite amount of mental energy available to you. The more you use, the more you lose. Every time you make a decision, a little bit of mental energy depletes. Ever use the term “Long day at work” even though it might have been 8 hours just the same? I call it the end of day mush. Focusing on hard problems. mush. Hard, hard concentration. Lots of mush. The brain gets fatigued much like the body does. During undergrad, my brain was in a permanent state of mush. It was a disaster.

The brain also needs sustenance much like the body does. The brain’s endurance can be strengthened much like the body. If you’re out of shape, you might be able to take a few steps of stairs, but might be unable to walk 10 flights of stairs – at least not without breaks and recovery and sustenance. Think of a video game – hold down the turbo button for a burst of energy, but eventually you’ll blow your wad if you don’t recharge. NBA Jam, anyone? However, if you train the brain, eventually 10 flights of “brain” stairs is nothing.

Focused concentration takes a lot of energy. So does willpower. It depletes. Some studies suggest that low levels of blood glucose lowers performance on “willpower” tasks like self control and motivation. But then restoring glucose also helped in restoring performance. So there you go, just have some fruit or gatorade! That’s perhaps one simple and useful trick. And a good trick to have in your tool belt. And another idea that I like a lot is to minimize your decision making. Ever wonder why Steve Jobs always wore a turtle neck? Or why Mark Zuckberberg sticks to a hoody? Perhaps, and this is just a theory, they intuitively understood the idea of minimizing decisions so they could have the energy to focus on the important stuff like their work and their legacy.

Sleep is also one of those things that seems to recharge the brain and body. Napping is a key method that can be used throughout the day to help restore some brain juice. History is filled with superstar nappers. Churchill, Napolean, Leonardo da Vinci, Edison, etc… A daily nap(s) is huge.

Other forms of relaxation that I find are useful include things like meditation, listening to calming music, doing some form of physical activity like going for a walk, lifting weights, or playing a sport. Anything that you enjoy is fair game including playing a game, painting, reading a good book, etc. – as long as it isn’t in excess and helps the mind stay away from the thing that was draining it is good in my books.

Full confession. I get brain drain every single day to varying degrees. If I don’t have my nap, and I didn’t get a good nights sleep, and I don’t get in any form of exercise. Forget it, I’m done for the day. Mush brain. However, if I’m on point, and I’m able to fit in some light reading or some meditation, I can keep on going like the Energizer bunny. In my experience, a focused 3-4 hours of hard, concentrated work produces much better results then 10 hrs of unfocused, mush brain work. So I always like to take breaks when I can. Work. Nap. Work. Read. Work. Exercise. Work. Coffee. Work. Eat. Work. Play. Work. Sleep. Turtlenecks and Hoodies. Ah, the good life.

 

Habits

Make Better Choices

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In a world of infinite choices, picking the right one sometimes feels like agony. There are many examples/studies that show more choices actually lead to more indecisiveness, and more unhappiness. A great book on the subject is The Paradox of Choice, which I highly recommend. There’s a great Ted talk by the author, Barry Schwartz, here.

Part of what makes us human and special is our ability to choose. If you’re an animal, you have much less options. You hunt or you die. You try to stay safe in a pact and pray you don’t get eaten or taken by the elements. Or if you’re a snail, you keep on snailing.

Making the wrong choice on a micro level has little consequence – eating a bag of chips isn’t going to kill you. But continually making the wrong choice has huge consequences – eating entire bags of chips with dip 5 meals a day for 15 years straight and you’ll get fat, have a heart attack, and all of that awful stuff. These are what we call bad habits.

So you see, bad habits are just a bunch of wrong choices that have become automatic. Habits themselves are harder to break but easier to change. The Power of Habit is a good book on the subject. Better though, is to make good choices in the first place, and let those habits form – i.e. what we call good habits.

There are some universally good choices, and universally bad choices. Say no to cocaine and stuff – those are bad choices. Eat your vegetables – they are good choices. Yes, even spinach. Choosing work over family is a bad choice (in the long run). So is choosing work over your health. Trust me, I don’t have a magical crystal ball, but I’m pretty sure nobody lye on their deathbed and wish they had worked more. So we have a general idea of what are good choices and what are bad choices on the good-bad spectrum. Obviously we’ll want to have most of our choices on the good side of the spectrum.

If you’re unsure what a good choice is, I’d suggest the following mental model: If it contributes to your life in a meaningful way – that is, it adds value, happiness, or meaning, it’s probably a good choice. If it adds value, happiness, or meaning to family and friends.. good choice. Ditto for complete strangers, the environment, and the world. And always choose the long term benefits over the short term.

This is where people get messed up and why you have to be veryyyyyyyyyyy careful with these suggestions. That video game might be tempting, or that huge cheesecake, and you might think they add value, and to an extent they do, but only in the short term. In the long term, those cheesecakes add up, and next thing you know you’re on a one way express to Diabetes Town – population: you.

I know far too many people that never achieve the goals they set out because the small choices they make in the day to day are not in their best interests towards achieving their goals. My very good friends fall prey to this all. the. time. And it kills me to see it and makes me sadface. I slip up quite a bit, which is fine and normal, but over the long run I believe I make more good choices than bad ones. That’s also important to know. Nobody is perfect and nobody should be held to perfect standards, something I have to remind myself of frequently. The important bit to know is that as long as you’re making better choices over the long run, the math is in your favour that good things will happen.

Habits

Stop the gossip

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I can’t think of many awful habits as useless as gossiping. Gossiping is bad, not because it is inherently harmful (although it can be), but rather because it is pretty pointless. Seriously, what is the point of gossiping, somebody please let me know.

And yet, just like many pointless and useless habits, it is addicting. It’s especially addicting when the peer group you are in loves to gossip. I don’t know if it’s a result of a herd mentality or peer pressure or something else, but from my own limited experience I do know the gossip engine stars roaring around certain social circles I am in a lot more than others. And yet, as pointless as it is, I still find myself guilty as charged as soon as I’m around certain people.

I don’t like feeding monsters. It’s bad practice and ungentlemenly. So when I find myself doing it I feel it is akin to dieting hardcore for a week and then guiltily gorging on an entire chocolate cake. If only I took baby steps, this never would have happened!

That is why I like letting myself get away with eating chocolate cake every once in a while – so I don’t eat the whole damn thing. The same goes for gossip. The same goes for x, where x is the evil monster that is always hungry. Feeding it a little bit won’t stoke the fires too much, but it won’t make you eat the whole damn cake, either. The lesser of two evils.

Mind you, the best outcome would be to slay the dragon. But let’s be honest here, there’s just too many damn dragons. You can slay a bunch, as I have, but it’s nearly impossible to slay them all (unless you are a super monk or something.. or you live a long time and are actively slaying, I don’t know as I’m not there yet).

Gossip is like cake. It can be ok in bite sizes. Just don’t gorge. But if you can, get rid of it.

Goals, Habits, Health and Fitness, Me

A Month Late

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Last year I wrote a post about some of my strength goals. One of them was to reach a 400 lb deadlift by the end of the year. Well, I’m a month late, but I did it. Monday, during training, I put 400 lbs on the bar and lifted it up. It was my first time trying. The most I had lifted prior to that was 375, which I had done the week before.

On 5/3/1, you don’t normally do a maximum effort lift. You basically enter your estimated 1 rep maximum (1 RM) into a spreadsheet, let it spit out some numbers, and you do the program based on the given numbers. And the program does its thing and magically your 1 RM just shifts up and to the right on your fancy progress chart as you get stronger. But you never really “see” it. My estimated 1 RM currently stands at 452 lbs. But like I said, the most I’ve actually lifted is 375. Luckily, 5/3/1 offers a deload week where you just lighten up, relax and do your thing, and this week I figured I’d give 400 lbs a try for shits. And bam, sure enough, up it went (that’s what she said…not!).

But I didn’t know any of this last year when I made my 400 lb goal. I didn’t know I would be on 5/3/1, either. I didn’t know anything. All I knew was that I arbitrarily set a goal for 400 lbs and I achieved it a month late. Some people would call that a failure. Those people are dumb. If you know these people, don’t listen to them. You see, because in the absolute sense I failed since I didn’t achieve the goal at the designated time, but in the relative sense that’s a a lot of weight to be lifting for a guy my size and my lifting experience (150 lbs and 1.5 years, respectively).

As I’m writing this, I am reminded of the time way back when I was doing Insanity and decided to climb the CN tower for charity. Again, I made a completely arbitrary goal of finishing in 15 minutes without doing any prior research or having any prior knowledge of how long it typically takes to run up the tower or what’s involved. And I ended up finishing at 15 minutes and 13 seconds, which from what I can recall was a pretty good score. That moment for me was a huge eye opener. I didn’t know it at the time, but something as simple as setting arbitrary goals has pushed me to achieve them (or come really close) in situations that I would not have been able to achieve otherwise. And it has served me very well ever since. Even if it took me 30 minutes to go up that tower, I would have been content. Why? Because that 15 minute goal set in motion the necessary actions for me to train and prepare myself in a way that I may not have done otherwise. All I needed was direction, and a goal provided just that.

Part of me wants to say rah rah you can do it. Aim high and shoot for the stars. But that’s just the rosy coloured story that you read in autobiographies and watch on movies or tv. The reality is that the arbitrary goal was just that, arbitrary. But it did help me do what was by far the most important thing, and that is show up and do the fucking work. There’s really nothing else to it. Who cares if you’re a month late, you did the work. That’s worth something.

Habits, Mindset, Systems

Getting In the Ring

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It’s 12:30 am on a Saturday night (Sunday morning) and here I am typing on my laptop. I am trying to write. I forget how to. It’s pretty tough.

I spent the day trying to deploy the latest web app I’ve been working on for the past couple of months. It was as I expected – disaster. You know that law, Murphy’s. Damn you. It was the command line tool that I was supposed to install not installing. Then it was the bundle tool not working with the extremely useful error message…. “Error”. Then it was git acting up. Then the virtual instance. Then the internet connection. Shoot me now.

I’ve been trying to chunk my time. Four hours for some deep work. An hour to read. A half hour nap. An hour to write. And so on. It’s hard when shit doesn’t work. When things break and go bad. It’s hard to get into the habits when all I feel like doing is taking a sledge hammer to my computer. So I tinker, wait for the computer terminal to spit back some venomous error, and I tinker again. Rinse. Repeat. Next thing I know 6 hours have passed and I haven’t eaten. I haven’t progressed much, either. More time passes. More tinkering. More suckage. Screw it. White flag. Live to see another day. And now I’m here, trying to salvage my day.

I’ve been doing alright for the most part for the past 6 months. I’d give myself a B. I start the day strong, but post dinner I don’t have much juice left in me to write. I don’t have much juice to do anything. Not tired enough to sleep, too tired to think. Wah, I don’t want to do this. Everything is telling me to stop. Then I just start. And bam, here I am.

Damn, I’m at 300 words already. Then I remember how the pros do it. They just do. Screw motivation, they just do it. Then I remember how I am supposed to do it. Screw motivation, just do it already. It’s that simple. Simple, yes. Easy, hell no. But that’s why the pros are pros and the amateurs are not. Do I want to be an amateur or a pro? I know my answer. What’s yours?

Hey, what do you know. I have words, real words. Not bad. I’ll do this again tomorrow. Because I know habits take time. And consistency. I know processes and systems are better than willpower. But willpower can be strengthened anyway. Pros know this. Then they do it, even when they don’t want to. Need some sleep. Got to recover from the day’s beating. Tomorrow, I put on the gloves and get back in the ring. Rinse. Repeat.