27 Hundredths

A collection of shit that makes me happy.

[thewanderingcoach]

Thick Skin

We commonly use the phrase “thick-skinned” to describe the ability to shrug off insult and insulate ourselves from criticism. We say things like “You need to have thick skin to make it as …[insert profession here: creative, athlete, entrepreneur, etc.].”

I agree completely but I have a very different definition.

Those who might describe themselves as thick-skinned have an ability to completely close off from criticism and critique. This isn’t thick skin but impenetrable armor. We need a measured dose of well-aimed and well-meaning criticism to realize our true potential. Shutting this out completely hampers our development.

Worse, those who shut out criticism readily welcome praise. Rather than demonstrating a similar discernment or rejection for the positive opinions of others, they readily accept any and all praise. Believing all praise is far more detrimental than believing all descent. What many describe as thick-skinned actually means creating an inflated and fragile ego by locking out all criticism and feeding delusional self-talk with only words of affirmation.

Thick Skin

Thick-skinned means to guard, but not isolate, your self-worth from the world. Skin is a barrier, yes, but not an impermeable one. Thick skin allows only the most meaningful words to pass through. Words offered with compassion and love. Words from those closest to us or those that understand our journey. Words that seek to offer guidance and contribute to our growth. Remarks with little to offer - cheap tear-downs and meaningless praise from those who do not understand you - never make it beyond the surface.

Being thick-skinned means to let your ego be self-generated, fed by self-love and merit, only allowing a slow-drip of well-founded feedback (both critical and uplifting) to direct your growth.

[thewanderingcoach]

The Golden Rule Reversal and Ruthless Self-Love

We constantly remind ourselves and each other to “treat others as you would like to be treated” or “treat others as you would treat yourself.” While this is a beautiful maxim it offers no assurance that we treat ourselves well.

Most of us are much harder on ourselves that we would ever be on another. We think of our own shortcomings as permanent and immovable. We dwell on our failures and flaws and allow them to feed negativity and inaction rather than serve as feedback for future success. We permit ourselves levels of indifference and inaction that we would never tolerate in an employee, colleague, or friend.

For most of us, treating others as we treat ourselves would lower our expectations and reduce our compassion. Turn the golden rule on it’s head and extend the same love, understanding, and standards to yourself that you so readily offer to those around you.

When a friend struggles through a difficult break up, we tell them “there are other fish in the sea.” Yet, we dwell on our loneliness and tell ourselves stories of inadequacy when faced with a similar situation.

We encourage others to take a big leap or make a big change when something in their life no longer suits them. We value the bold. Yet, we do little to change our own discontented realities.

We hold employees and co-workers to high (but fair) levels of competency, work ethic, and effectiveness. Yet, we so easily justify and allow our own lazy and apathetic work habits.

When friend’s hurt us or let us down we accept apologies and never see their mistakes as fixed pieces of their nature. Yet, we hold or own standards differently. We let our mistakes make major blows to our self-worth and feed internal stories of “not good enough.”

It is time to begin taking our own advice. We need to hold ourselves to the expectations we hold for those around us. Yet, we need to apply our external ability for compassion and understanding inward.

I call this Ruthless Self-Love. [1]

Ruthless Self-Love

Finding the perfect balance between contentment with yourself as you are, yet always wanting to move forward.

Demonstrating so much love for who you are that you insist on the best presentation of yourself and your efforts in everything that you do.

Maintaining a continual growth mindset not from feelings of inadequacy but but from love of what your future self can become.

This is not an easy quality to cultivate, but it is the highest pursuit. If everyone in the world was committed to being, loving, and becoming the best version of themselves, we would live in a completely foreign - and beautiful - place.

Idealism aside, how can we work to develop ruthless self-love?

I can offer no perfectly defined path up the mountain, nor a view from the top. I can offer only the two constant reminders that I use in my life and a few daily practices that help me toward developing my own ruthless self-love.

A Constant Reminder

How You Do Anything Is How You Do Everything. I hold this advice in my mind as I progress through each day. I think of every moment as practice in becoming my future self. Every action, decision, habit, and pattern is a practice repetition. I remind myself that when I am challenged - physically, mentally, emotionally or with temptation, fatigue, procrastination - I will reach into my backpack of practiced reps and draw one at random. I want to fill my bag with positive performances and productive patterns. I remind myself that repeated actions snowball into habits and the more positive actions I take the easier futures ones become.

Be of Service. I also think of this one as “Be Useful” or “take out the trash.” In other words, if you see something that needs to be done, do it. Don’t wait, hesitate, or schedule it for later. Just do it. If you can help out another in any way, do it. It is easy to batch tasks like cleaning and taking out the trash and schedule them for a later date. I am in no way perfect and quite often let all else fall away when I’m consumed in a project. But, I find that taking small actions immediately builds momentum. When you are productive and useful in anything, you are productive and useful in everything. Give it a shot - take out the trash, hold open a door, offer a smile to stranger - you will be amazed what these small things will do for you.

“Smile like you mean it and it will be returned”

- Nahko

A Daily Practice

I have several daily rituals that feed my soul and support my growth. Most are personal and I encourage you to find your own. I will share one practice that I learned from Lewis Howes and The School of Greatness that I recently adopted and have come to love.[2]

Just before bed, sit down for 5 minutes or less to recap on your day. Use this time to make the following lists:

Three Things You are Proud of Today. These can be anything that happened to you or you did. They can be simple things like “I woke up with the first alarm rather than hitting snooze” or “I smiled at that old lady” to larger accomplishments like “I nailed that presentation” or “I landed that big deal.” We so easily hold onto the things we did wrong and forget the things we did well. Take a minute to dwell on what you did well today. You earned it.

Three Things You are Grateful For. A daily gratitude practice is perhaps the single most valuable thing you can do to develop contentment and self-love. Studies show that actually writing these out or speaking them aloud proves much more effective to overall mood and outlook than does simply pondering them. Feel free to be simple or profound. Some days I journal about loved-ones to the verge of tears. Sometimes my list looks like: sunshine, avocados, coffee.

Top Three Things to Accomplish Tomorrow. What only three? That’s right, no piling your list high. Feel free to make a to-do list later but in this practice limit yourself to three. What are the three things that are important above all else tomorrow. I often do not accomplish my three for focusing elsewhere. The point is not to be rigid in forcing yourself to complete everything but to determine the most important things in your life are at the present moment. I often load myself with difficult or lengthy tasks, but I also often include things like “go surfing” or “make nut butter.”

Cultivating the quality that I call ruthless self-love is really what we are all trying to do. The details are different for each of us and you may not like the name “ruthless self-love.” The true aim is to develop a deep love, understanding, and contentedness with what and who you are. From this love, you may desire to  push yourself to new heights and new levels of self-mastery.

My methods and reminders serve me. Whether you adopt any of them or not, I share in the hopes that they inspire you to look deeper inward and extend love and compassion to what you find.

***

Notes:

I first heard the term “ruthless self-love” from Aubrey Marcus. I do not know if it is originally his, but it resonates deeply with me all the same.

I highly recommend The School of Greatness and all the other podcasts and content from Lewis Howes. He is an inspiration and a truly special individual. I am so grateful I had the pleasure to meet him and hear him speak last summer at the World Domination Summit.

[thewanderingcoach]

The Golden Rule Reversal and Ruthless Self-Love

We constantly remind ourselves and each other to “treat others as you would like to be treated” or “treat others as you would treat yourself.” While this is a beautiful maxim it offers no assurance that we treat ourselves well.

Most of us are much harder on ourselves that we would ever be on another. We think of our own shortcomings as permanent and immovable. We dwell on our failures and flaws and allow them to feed negativity and inaction rather than serve as feedback for future success. We permit ourselves levels of indifference and inaction that we would never tolerate in an employee, colleague, or friend.

For most of us, treating others as we treat ourselves would lower our expectations and reduce our compassion. Turn the golden rule on it’s head and extend the same love, understanding, and standards to yourself that you so readily offer to those around you.

When a friend struggles through a difficult break up, we tell them “there are other fish in the sea.” Yet, we dwell on our loneliness and tell ourselves stories of inadequacy when faced with a similar situation.

We encourage others to take a big leap or make a big change when something in their life no longer suits them. We value the bold. Yet, we do little to change our own discontented realities.

We hold employees and co-workers to high (but fair) levels of competency, work ethic, and effectiveness. Yet, we so easily justify and allow our own lazy and apathetic work habits.

When friend’s hurt us or let us down we accept apologies and never see their mistakes as fixed pieces of their nature. Yet, we hold or own standards differently. We let our mistakes make major blows to our self-worth and feed internal stories of “not good enough.”

It is time to begin taking our own advice. We need to hold ourselves to the expectations we hold for those around us. Yet, we need to apply our external ability for compassion and understanding inward.

I call this Ruthless Self-Love. [1]

Ruthless Self-Love

Finding the perfect balance between contentment with yourself as you are, yet always wanting to move forward.

Demonstrating so much love for who you are that you insist on the best presentation of yourself and your efforts in everything that you do.

Maintaining a continual growth mindset not from feelings of inadequacy but but from love of what your future self can become.

This is not an easy quality to cultivate, but it is the highest pursuit. If everyone in the world was committed to being, loving, and becoming the best version of themselves, we would live in a completely foreign - and beautiful - place.

Idealism aside, how can we work to develop ruthless self-love?

I can offer no perfectly defined path up the mountain, nor a view from the top. I can offer only the two constant reminders that I use in my life and a few daily practices that help me toward developing my own ruthless self-love.

A Constant Reminder

How You Do Anything Is How You Do Everything. I hold this advice in my mind as I progress through each day. I think of every moment as practice in becoming my future self. Every action, decision, habit, and pattern is a practice repetition. I remind myself that when I am challenged - physically, mentally, emotionally or with temptation, fatigue, procrastination - I will reach into my backpack of practiced reps and draw one at random. I want to fill my bag with positive performances and productive patterns. I remind myself that repeated actions snowball into habits and the more positive actions I take the easier futures ones become.

Be of Service. I also think of this one as “Be Useful” or “take out the trash.” In other words, if you see something that needs to be done, do it. Don’t wait, hesitate, or schedule it for later. Just do it. If you can help out another in any way, do it. It is easy to batch tasks like cleaning and taking out the trash and schedule them for a later date. I am in no way perfect and quite often let all else fall away when I’m consumed in a project. But, I find that taking small actions immediately builds momentum. When you are productive and useful in anything, you are productive and useful in everything. Give it a shot - take out the trash, hold open a door, offer a smile to stranger - you will be amazed what these small things will do for you.

“Smile like you mean it and it will be returned”

- Nahko

A Daily Practice

I have several daily rituals that feed my soul and support my growth. Most are personal and I encourage you to find your own. I will share one practice that I learned from Lewis Howes and The School of Greatness that I recently adopted and have come to love.[2]

Just before bed, sit down for 5 minutes or less to recap on your day. Use this time to make the following lists:

Three Things You are Proud of Today. These can be anything that happened to you or you did. They can be simple things like “I woke up with the first alarm rather than hitting snooze” or “I smiled at that old lady” to larger accomplishments like “I nailed that presentation” or “I landed that big deal.” We so easily hold onto the things we did wrong and forget the things we did well. Take a minute to dwell on what you did well today. You earned it.

Three Things You are Grateful For. A daily gratitude practice is perhaps the single most valuable thing you can do to develop contentment and self-love. Studies show that actually writing these out or speaking them aloud proves much more effective to overall mood and outlook than does simply pondering them. Feel free to be simple or profound. Some days I journal about loved-ones to the verge of tears. Sometimes my list looks like: sunshine, avocados, coffee.

Top Three Things to Accomplish Tomorrow. What only three? That’s right, no piling your list high. Feel free to make a to-do list later but in this practice limit yourself to three. What are the three things that are important above all else tomorrow. I often do not accomplish my three for focusing elsewhere. The point is not to be rigid in forcing yourself to complete everything but to determine the most important things in your life are at the present moment. I often load myself with difficult or lengthy tasks, but I also often include things like “go surfing” or “make nut butter.”

Cultivating the quality that I call ruthless self-love is really what we are all trying to do. The details are different for each of us and you may not like the name “ruthless self-love.” The true aim is to develop a deep love, understanding, and contentedness with what and who you are. From this love, you may desire to  push yourself to new heights and new levels of self-mastery.

My methods and reminders serve me. Whether you adopt any of them or not, I share in the hopes that they inspire you to look deeper inward and extend love and compassion to what you find.

***

Notes:

I first heard the term “ruthless self-love” from Aubrey Marcus. I do not know if it is originally his, but it resonates deeply with me all the same.

I highly recommend The School of Greatness and all the other podcasts and content from Lewis Howes. He is an inspiration and a truly special individual. I am so grateful I had the pleasure to meet him and hear him speak last summer at the World Domination Summit.

[thewanderingcoach]

The Golden Rule Reversal and Ruthless Self-Love

We constantly remind ourselves and each other to “treat others as you would like to be treated” or “treat others as you would treat yourself.” While this is a beautiful maxim it offers no assurance that we treat ourselves well.

Most of us are much harder on ourselves that we would ever be on another. We think of our own shortcomings as permanent and immovable. We dwell on our failures and flaws and allow them to feed negativity and inaction rather than serve as feedback for future success. We permit ourselves levels of indifference and inaction that we would never tolerate in an employee, colleague, or friend.

For most of us, treating others as we treat ourselves would lower our expectations and reduce our compassion. Turn the golden rule on it’s head and extend the same love, understanding, and standards to yourself that you so readily offer to those around you.

When a friend struggles through a difficult break up, we tell them “there are other fish in the sea.” Yet, we dwell on our loneliness and tell ourselves stories of inadequacy when faced with a similar situation.

We encourage others to take a big leap or make a big change when something in their life no longer suits them. We value the bold. Yet, we do little to change our own discontented realities.

We hold employees and co-workers to high (but fair) levels of competency, work ethic, and effectiveness. Yet, we so easily justify and allow our own lazy and apathetic work habits.

When friend’s hurt us or let us down we accept apologies and never see their mistakes as fixed pieces of their nature. Yet, we hold or own standards differently. We let our mistakes make major blows to our self-worth and feed internal stories of “not good enough.”

It is time to begin taking our own advice. We need to hold ourselves to the expectations we hold for those around us. Yet, we need to apply our external ability for compassion and understanding inward.

I call this Ruthless Self-Love. [1]

Ruthless Self-Love

Finding the perfect balance between contentment with yourself as you are, yet always wanting to move forward.

Demonstrating so much love for who you are that you insist on the best presentation of yourself and your efforts in everything that you do.

Maintaining a continual growth mindset not from feelings of inadequacy but but from love of what your future self can become.

This is not an easy quality to cultivate, but it is the highest pursuit. If everyone in the world was committed to being, loving, and becoming the best version of themselves, we would live in a completely foreign - and beautiful - place.

Idealism aside, how can we work to develop ruthless self-love?

I can offer no perfectly defined path up the mountain, nor a view from the top. I can offer only the two constant reminders that I use in my life and a few daily practices that help me toward developing my own ruthless self-love.

A Constant Reminder

How You Do Anything Is How You Do Everything. I hold this advice in my mind as I progress through each day. I think of every moment as practice in becoming my future self. Every action, decision, habit, and pattern is a practice repetition. I remind myself that when I am challenged - physically, mentally, emotionally or with temptation, fatigue, procrastination - I will reach into my backpack of practiced reps and draw one at random. I want to fill my bag with positive performances and productive patterns. I remind myself that repeated actions snowball into habits and the more positive actions I take the easier futures ones become.

Be of Service. I also think of this one as “Be Useful” or “take out the trash.” In other words, if you see something that needs to be done, do it. Don’t wait, hesitate, or schedule it for later. Just do it. If you can help out another in any way, do it. It is easy to batch tasks like cleaning and taking out the trash and schedule them for a later date. I am in no way perfect and quite often let all else fall away when I’m consumed in a project. But, I find that taking small actions immediately builds momentum. When you are productive and useful in anything, you are productive and useful in everything. Give it a shot - take out the trash, hold open a door, offer a smile to stranger - you will be amazed what these small things will do for you.

“Smile like you mean it and it will be returned”

- Nahko

A Daily Practice

I have several daily rituals that feed my soul and support my growth. Most are personal and I encourage you to find your own. I will share one practice that I learned from Lewis Howes and The School of Greatness that I recently adopted and have come to love.[2]

Just before bed, sit down for 5 minutes or less to recap on your day. Use this time to make the following lists:

Three Things You are Proud of Today. These can be anything that happened to you or you did. They can be simple things like “I woke up with the first alarm rather than hitting snooze” or “I smiled at that old lady” to larger accomplishments like “I nailed that presentation” or “I landed that big deal.” We so easily hold onto the things we did wrong and forget the things we did well. Take a minute to dwell on what you did well today. You earned it.

Three Things You are Grateful For. A daily gratitude practice is perhaps the single most valuable thing you can do to develop contentment and self-love. Studies show that actually writing these out or speaking them aloud proves much more effective to overall mood and outlook than does simply pondering them. Feel free to be simple or profound. Some days I journal about loved-ones to the verge of tears. Sometimes my list looks like: sunshine, avocados, coffee.

Top Three Things to Accomplish Tomorrow. What only three? That’s right, no piling your list high. Feel free to make a to-do list later but in this practice limit yourself to three. What are the three things that are important above all else tomorrow. I often do not accomplish my three for focusing elsewhere. The point is not to be rigid in forcing yourself to complete everything but to determine the most important things in your life are at the present moment. I often load myself with difficult or lengthy tasks, but I also often include things like “go surfing” or “make nut butter.”

Cultivating the quality that I call ruthless self-love is really what we are all trying to do. The details are different for each of us and you may not like the name “ruthless self-love.” The true aim is to develop a deep love, understanding, and contentedness with what and who you are. From this love, you may desire to  push yourself to new heights and new levels of self-mastery.

My methods and reminders serve me. Whether you adopt any of them or not, I share in the hopes that they inspire you to look deeper inward and extend love and compassion to what you find.

***

Notes:

I first heard the term “ruthless self-love” from Aubrey Marcus. I do not know if it is originally his, but it resonates deeply with me all the same.

I highly recommend The School of Greatness and all the other podcasts and content from Lewis Howes. He is an inspiration and a truly special individual. I am so grateful I had the pleasure to meet him and hear him speak last summer at the World Domination Summit.

[thewanderingcoach]

Challenge: Post a New Video Everyday for 30 Days

Today I begin a challenge to post a new video everyday for 30 days.

I have wanted to share my thoughts and coaching via video for a long time. I struggle with publicizing myself and the thought of speaking on video scares me. It feels so unnatural. I know that once I conquer an initial hump the fear will melt away. This challenge is my conquering strategy.

"If you're early work doesn't embarrass you, you waited too long to begin."

This challenge will help me overcome my early fear of speaking on video and provide feedback as I learn to become a more effective verbal and visual communicator. Welcome to walking this journey with me. Please enjoy the first 2 offerings.

To follow along please subscribe to the blog, subscribe to my YouTube channel, or visit my Media page.

[thewanderingcoach]

Integrating Imperfection: How My Childhood Weakness Became Adult Strength

The path to self-mastery does not come from changing or removing the aspects of yourself that you feel are negative. Yet, most of our cultural rhetoric around self-improvement would have us believe that we need to stamp out the pieces of our nature that block our path to success. Seek to eliminate bad habits but understand that there are no “bad” traits.

Overcome adversity. Conquer your weaknesses. These sound more like battle cries than encouragement. We do need to maintain a rigid, warrior-like commitment to our path if we are to travel far. However, viewing certain traits as enemies to be vanquished makes the self-love that self-mastery requires quite difficult.

I recently had a moment of deep personal insight of how a struggle I faced as a child has become a driving force for my current passion. I was on a date with a girl studying to be a Speech and Language Pathologist. She works to help people overcome speech impediments of all kinds from children, to stroke victims, to adults wishing to reduce or eliminate their foreign accents. I told her that I had speech issues as a child and attended speech therapy in 2nd and 3rd grade. I never really overcame or eliminated my issue, I simply learned a way around it. Insight struck while I told my story; learning to sidestep my problems forced deep introspection and integrating my issue actually fostered growth toward traits that I now consider some of my greatest attributes.

My Speech Problem

I typically describe my speech impediment as a stutter, more for convenience than accuracy. I never repeated sounds or whole words like most people associate with a stutter. More accurately, I had hitch or a lockup. My mouth and jaw would seize up and become physically incapable of producing certain sounds. Specific words and sounds more frequently gave me trouble, but no clear pattern emerged. It could happen often or infrequently, at the beginning, middle, or end of a word, and seemed to occur at random. The only common factor was nerves or anxiety.

The seemingly random occurrence presented extreme frustration. It also led me to live in fear of when it might happen again, which, undoubtedly made the issue worse.

Working with my speech therapist, Mrs. Cornish, helped tremendously. She was nurturing, compassionate, and helped me to discover as well as value my voice. However, I never solved my issue in the classical sense. I never overcame or conquered the impediment by learning how to stop it from happening. I learned about myself and integrated my issues in my life in a healthy way.

Integrating Imperfections

When I was young and hit a hard stop I would pause until I discovered different words to talk my way around the block. I have no idea how long these pauses were but they felt like an eternity, shame and frustration growing with each agonizing second. As I matured my vocabulary grew in parallel with my awareness of the blocks. I developed a stronger sense of when a problematic word or sound was approaching. I cannot fully describe this sense. I can only say that I could feel when a block was coming. I completely believe these blocks to be self-created, but that does not change their arrival or ability to completely halt my speech.

As I learned to see them coming, I learned to subtly re-route my sentences to avoid the roadblocks. What were once hard stops forcing a sharp detour now were slight course adjustments further upstream. This process has grown seamless for me. Most people that I met as an adolescent and young adult would never detect that I ever struggled speaking as a child.

Even though I speak with ease and confidence now, both personally and publicly, I never fully corrected my issue. I still feel the hard stops coming, but I have grown adept at moving around them. I used to view this as a bit of a cop-out, sidestepping the issue rather than confronting it head on.

I now understand that we all have aspects of our nature that we will never completely eliminate. These issues, while frustrating and painful, offer us our greatest opportunities for growth.

Moving Forward

Two of my greatest strengths as a coach and writer are born from my early difficulties speaking.

I often receive compliments for the clarity and simplicity with which I explain challenging and technical concepts. I consider this quality to be my greatest strength as a teacher. I honed this ability to articulate during my years teaching calculus, working as an engineer, and coaching. But my initial aptitude grew out of necessity to find multiple ways of expressing the same meaning.

I love the process of crafting language and reading authors who play with their words. I do not consider myself a wordsmith like many of my favorite authors, but I do receive praise for my unique selection of words, metaphor, and analogy. This attribute relates to the first; word selection with apt metaphors, similes, and analogies contribute to my ability to clearly define and teach. These skills are two sides of the same coin and grew from my early struggles with words. I used to take pride in talking my way around a block so smoothly that no one but I could detect it’s presence. Now crafting a fun turn of phrase or unique description offer an extension of this same enjoyment.

I offer this story not to boast but to demonstrate how a struggle that used to bring shame and frustration provided fuel and a launch pad to develop two traits that define my path in life.

I still experience the rare road block. I still freeze up during the occasional stressful situation requiring a long pause and a sharp turn to re-route the sentence. For the most part, I feel the blocks coming a mile away and alter course so subtly that I am hardly consciously aware. I have learned to integrate this part of my nature into a vital piece of how I operate. The process I learned to overcome my speech impediment contributes to my current success.

Integrating Your Imperfections

Think about the parts of your nature that provide a constant source of struggle, frustration, or shame. Do not let your least favorite parts of your nature provide a source of pain. Celebrate these imperfections as well as what they can teach you. How has living with these aspects forced you to grow, forced you to learn, forced a deeper understanding of yourself?

Many of the best coaches were athletes whose passion for their chosen sport far exceeded their natural abilities. They were forced to become dedicated students of their game to reach any significant level of success. Their childhoods were likely filled with frustration as their dedication and hard work still found them on the bench, or worse, in the bleachers. Their struggle to improve gave them unique insights on the craft of the game. Early struggles birthed a highly effective coach.

We all have pieces of ourselves that we wish to eliminate or change. Many traits and patterns can be completely stamped out, but many cannot.

I wager that your unique abilities grew out of your unique struggle.

[thewanderingcoach]

What Do You Do?

What do you do? A seemingly benign question that we ask so automatically. In most other countries it is considered the height of rudeness to inquire about a person’s vocation before learning about them as a person. We ask this question in the US first because we attach the answer as a part of another person’s identity.

What are we really asking underneath the simple “What do you do?”? How do you make your money? How much money do you make? Do you make more or less than me? Are you more or less important than me? Where do we rank relative to one another on the socio-economic scale?

In asking, we immediately assign value to a person and decide our attitude toward them. We create an instant division and hierarchy. The true purpose of a meaningful conversation is connection, sharing, exchange, and relating. Imposing a class structure from the onset stunts the depth of connection possible.

This is not an entirely original observation. I loved The Minimalists examination of this phenomenon. Once I became aware I began to see this practice at play all around me. Meet and greet actually means swap titles and perform a cost/benefit analysis of this interaction.

Even though I see the “What do you do?” exchange for what it truly represents I still find myself falling into the trap. This question presents far too easy an opportunity to build oneself up. I used to take pride in my answer of Engineer, Design Engineer, or Mechanical Engineer because of the abilities and intelligence that those titles imply. Many people are impressed by someone working as an engineer at 23 or 24 and I seized most opportunities to proudly declare myself as such.

When I was traveling, and soon after, I answered by describing how I had left a good engineering job to travel the world. I was using the opportunity to proudly declare how free, independent, and committed to my own well-being I was. I proudly declared how little money I made because of the implied freedom and courage in such a choice.

Now I find myself describing my many jobs but being quick to caveat how I left an engineering job, traveled, and now I am building my own business. I proudly declare these because of the implied independence, focus, and strength.

I thought that since leaving my corporate job with a impressive title and large salary I was immune from the trappings of the “What do you do?” exchange. I took pride in the fact that my answers were different and that I was bucking the trend of the typical line of questioning. I now see that while my answers became more unique, they still fell into the same original pattern. The problem was not my title or answer itself, but using the question as an opportunity to proudly declare something. To present the primary piece for the identity the other person will assign to me.

Other people will always build their view of our identity based on what we communicate to them. Communication, though, is much more than just words. Most of us choose our words strategically to directly give (or indirectly imply) the type of qualities and identity we wish the other person to assign to us.

Step Outside the Question

Rather than feed a person labels or titles, give them something deeper. Re-directing the question and your answer to something you are passionate about shares more of who you truly are. This eliminates the possibility for them to assign socio-economic value and immediately creates a conversational landscape that allows for more genuine connection.

Most of us light up when discussing our passions and a deeper part of our true self shines through. Discussing your passions gives another person the opportunity to better understand and relate to you.

Return your redirection back to them and ask “What are you passionate about?” Chances are that they will default to their conditioned response to “What do you do?” Ask again. They might be taken aback at first but will ultimately appreciate that your interest in what drives them supersedes your interest in how they earn money. Take a genuine interest in their answers. This typically is not difficult. It is far more captivating to speak to someone lit up by their passions than simply someone giving the well-worn description of their vocation.

In re-directing this standard line of questioning you will break the attachment between your title and your identity. You demonstrate to yourself and others that you are not your job. You open the door to more meaningful connection and growth. At the very least, you set the stage for more interesting and captivating conversations.

“So Justin, what do you do?”

“Well, I do lots of things, but I’m really passionate about writing, coaching, and teaching. I love to skateboard. I also love to move and learn and discover new ways to move. What are you passionate about?”

[thewanderingcoach]

Book Review - The More of Less

Book Review: The More of Less by Joshua Becker 

Of all the many voices and messages in the modern minimalism movement Joshua Becker’s The More of Less rises to the forefront. This book not only delivers a practical guide to owning less and leading a more meaningful life, but delves deeply into the joy and freedom that come from a minimalist lifestyle.

I was first introduced to minimalism by Colin Wright and The Minimalists and embraced the message and movement years ago. I constantly seek to discover the most meaningful influences in my life and remove the things that distract me from them. I write this review midway through a challenge of no purchases for 90-days.

I found tremendous value and insight in this text. Even as someone who fully embraces and lives minimalism, Joshua’s perspective and guidance challenged me to face even tougher questions about how I spend my time, money, and energy. I consider myself relatively mature in my minimalist journey yet Joshua’s insights added fuel to my flame and pushed me to grow ever further. My favorite practical guidance came from the Maintenance Program chapter. No matter how firmly we belief in the value of minimalism, without a strategy and vigilance to maintain, the cluster always finds a way back in. I have implemented many of this maintenance strategies. My favorite is to keep a bag in my closet for cloths to donate. I put items that I do not wear often in the bag. If I do not miss them by the end of the month, I donate them. This is a modification of his strategy to keep a box for “junk” items next to the trashcan for items you suspect you will not miss.

The More of Less not only gives practical guidance and motivation to those of us already minimizing. Joshua offers plan to easily begin your minimalism journey. He outlines a beautiful process of beginning with the easy things and gathering momentum as you begin to the feel the value from the early stages. His offers personal beginning (and difficulties) with minimalism as motivation and to inform his guidance that will help you to begin for yourself.

The greatest value that Joshua’s words offer are in his discussion of the philosophy, purpose, and meaning of minimalism. This is what truly sets his text apart. He not only wants to help you own less, but to “find the life you want.” He blends ancient wisdom from many philosophical and religious traditions with modern applications to deliver a unique brand of minimalism.

I fell in love with Joshua’s words and message on his blog and I feel honored to receive and review an early copy of this book. The More of Less surpassed even my lofty expectations. Joshua’s message - shared here, his many other books, and at BecomingMinimalist.com - comes from a place of genuine compassion for his fellow human. He truly wants to help you live the most meaningful life possible.

Whether you fully embrace the minimalism movement or you are just exploring for the first time, The More of Less will bring immense value to your life.

***

Disclaimer: I received an advance copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review. I applied for the advanced copy despite the fact that I had already pre-ordered the book months ago. I find tremendous value in Joshua's work and wanted to offer all of the support I could for his most recent offering. I will give my copy to the first person to asks for it. Please comment or contact me directly. Thank you.

[thewanderingcoach]

Creating Need - A 90-Day Challenge Update

I have received a lot of inquiry about how my 90-day challenge of non-consumption is progressing. Is it difficult? Have I broken the rules yet? Where am I most tempted? Will I continue all the way through June 28? Am I learning anything from this experiment?

I am proud to report that my purchase record contains only consumables: food, gas, hygiene products. I will absolutely continue through the original end date. I have felt tempted and challenged, as the name and intention imply, but this has been an amazing driver of insight and growth.

My intention was to purposefully challenge myself, to shine a light on subconscious patterns, and break my use of pacifiers and distractions.

The greatest challenge comes in abstaining from podcasts. I lived for so long (even while traveling abroad) with my valve open wide to the torrent of new, exciting, educational, and funny information that podcasts offer. With my valve now completely shut the waters of my mind have settled into a stillness and calm that I never knew was beneath the constant flow. I find myself more at peace and more clear-headed than ever.

This new found serenity and clarity create a much better environment for creative thoughts and work to come through me. My work feels easy, light, focused, and exciting.

After the challenge I will return to podcasts with a completely new relationship to their use. I need new information. I need my perspectives constantly challenged. In podcasts I find inspiration, motivation to grow, fodder for new creative pursuits, and (most importantly) fun. I am a serial learner and teacher and will always need both for complete fulfillment. I will meter my podcast consumption with an understanding of the role they can play in both my growth and stagnation. This challenge has inspired a new lifestyle rule:

    Each day, I will not take in until I have put forth.

This rule maintains my priority on creation, allowing in new information only once I have earned it and made space for it. Utilizing the calm waters before breaking the surface with a new stream.

Creating Need

I have not had a terribly difficult time refraining from purchases, but that does not mean that I have not been challenged. The greatest challenge comes from the implication of need. Consumption grows out of control because our criteria for defining need are nebulous. We can too strictly define our needs to halt over-consumption.

There are needs that cannot be argued against like food, water, and love. Many other needs fall into a category not necessarily vital for survival but might as well be considered so: shelter, clothing, basic hygiene. Once we have satisfied these basics, we define our needs by personal criteria. There are no right or wrong needs. Think about the type of things that you feel you need to be happy. Your survival does not depend on these but its OK to consider them needs to feel completely fulfilled.

I define my computer, a few favorite kitchen supplies, my skateboard and surfboards as needs. Your definition will be quite different.

The point is that we actually define our needs by conscious choice. We all draw a line at the level of consumption that we deem necessary. Regardless of where you draw yours, it’s important that it be clearly defined.

Problems arise because we do not maintain a rigid definition. Obviously our personal criteria will change through the various stages of life but it is important to maintain a clearly defined set of needs moment by moment. Without a clear set of guidelines we allow our definition of need to drift with the tides of external temptation and internal justification.

We easily convince ourselves of new needs, mounting justifications for why a given product is vital to our existence or our happiness. Advertisements and other external forces need only make a subtle suggestion of need and trust that our own internal process will finish the job.

I made a black and white definition of my needs for 90 days, setting abstinence as my default purchase decision. This has not and cannot free me from the internal dialogue. I only ensure that no matter the conclusion my little justification engine reaches I will reject the outcome.

This was difficult at first, but now brings liberation and lightness. I feel as though I have seen beneath the surface and can transcend my internal conversation. I feel like an observer to the internal dialogue rather than an active participant.

The greatest temptation comes from sale and discounted items. I see an item online that represents a fantastic deal on an item that I really like. This is the perfect fuel to the internal process that expands my definition of need. Once the initial disappointment subsides I actually have fun watching something deep in my subconscious make a valiant effort for justification.

I look forward to continuing this challenge to the end. I will inevitably miss out on a few fantastic deals and meaningful podcasts. Crystallizing my personal definition of need is more than worth the sacrifice. The longer I can stay out of the conversation that creates need the more thoughtfully I can participate in the future.

The point is not to maintain a completely rigid set of needs, but to use careful consideration in how I adjust my line in the future.

[thewanderingcoach]

What is the Point of Setting Goals?

Goals are perhaps the most vital piece of success. Goals add fuel to the fire and guidance to the hustle. The only path to greatness is by setting clearly defined goals and working your butt off to achieve them.

But...

What is the true purpose of setting goals?

Is it the final outcome and nothing more?

Goals offer guidance and direction to a journey. Reaching the outcome at the end feels incredible but never fail to see the value in the individual steps required to reach that goal.

The true purpose of setting a goal is to embody the qualities that the specific accomplishment requires rather than the outcome itself. Power lifting competition aside, is a 400lb squat truly more meaningful to your overall strength and performance than a 390lb squat? Is it less meaningful to performance than 410lbs? The true goals is to be incredibly strong and powerful and to create the type of body that is capable of performing a heavy squat as well as many other feats of athleticism. The number on the bar helps you measure your progress but the number itself is meaningless outside of the value that you attach to it.

I really want to accomplish a full middle split. As impressive as I deem this feat, the true goal is to have the type of hip mobility and flexibility that allows a full middle split because of the freedom and movement potential that it creates.

Goals are important to give us direction and push us forward. Attaching too much meaning to the outcome can lead you to lose sight of your original intent. I try to focus on the direction rather than the destination [LINK] and celebrate the process rather than the result.

I still want the splits but I also appreciate the growth and learning along the journey to achieve them. I have discovered and invented several new stretches, movements, and patterns. I have researched deeper into hip, pelvic, and leg anatomy. I have tested many things that did not benefit me. All of this work and discovery brings new joy to my personal movement practice and allows me to better teach and train others.

Have I accomplished a middle split yet? No.

Am I a more embodied and fluid mover, a more effective teacher, and overall better human because of my work and progress. Hell yes!

Do not stop setting goals. Do not stop working your butt off to achieve them. Do not stop attaching value to the final outcome. However, learn to love the whole process for the growth that each stage brings.

The first step of a journey brings you equally closer to the destination as does the final step and every step in between. Which is the most valuable step?

[thewanderingcoach]

Failure is Feedback

I coach a little gymnast who struggles with his confidence. He easily and frequently reaches a state near catatonic from a single missed attempt. Several times each class I watch a single imperfect handstand literally bring him to his knees. Head down, shoulders slouched as he assumes the classic failure posture

Each time this happens I explain that he comes to gymnastics class each week to practice, that no one expects perfect handstands, and all I ask is that he do his best and continue trying. I tell him that no one, especially me, has perfect handstands and we are all trying to get better together. This typically gets him standing again but I can see his fear of failure and reluctance to try grow with each attempt. His aversion to failure prevents him from trying his best with each new attempt.

I constantly try to impart a valuable lesson: failure is feedback.

I am struck each time to how analogous his behavior is to mine and many others. I see this aversion to failure holding so many people back from realizing their true potential. My little gymnast offers an extreme example. While his response is worse than most it is not unlike how most people deal with failure.

What is your failure aversion preventing you from trying?

My fear prevents me from showing myself and publishing my work. Each time I make a piece of my work or ideas public I love the feeling and the public response. Yet, prior to publication a fear takes holds that pulls me away from sharing.

Failure aversion comes from allowing our focus to dwell on the two realms where we have no power: the past and the future.

Past Failures - Past failures are no guarantee of future results. We allow past failures to create and further the belief that we are likely to fail again. This pulls our focus from putting forth our best effort in the present.

Possible Future Failure - Fear of future failure create a hostile mental and emotional environment for the optimism and enthusiasm that enable success in the present. Dwelling on the possibility of failure only points you straight toward it.

Failure is Feedback

Re-frame unsuccessful ventures as information on how to adjust your course. Thomas Edison felt he never failed but learned 10,000 ways that the light bulb does not work. This classic tale offers us a valuable lesson: lack of success is only failure if we fail to learn from it. Failure is feedback.

Do not think of past failures as confirmation that you are ill-suited for success. Examine each failure for how it may inform your next attempt. Celebrate each failure for how it will improve your odds of future success.

A succession of failed attempts does not increase the likelihood of a subsequent failure. A conscious examination of each attempt brings you closer to success. Future failures are not to be feared . They only bring new and valuable information that brings you closer to succeeding.

Learn from the feedback but maintain your focus on the present. Just like my little gymnast, forget your last handstand and focus on doing your best right now.

[thewanderingcoach]

90-Day Challenge of Non-Consumption

March 28, 2016

Today I begin a challenge. I pledge to not purchase or consume anything non-essential for 90 days. I began this as a simple promise to myself about a month ago. It did not have rules or a time frame and arose primarily out of a need to save money and a desire to prevent excess clutter into my life. 

I begin it today as an official, public challenge. The rules are simple, purchase only essential consumables until June 28, 2016.

Consumables Allowed:

Food

Gas

Rent

Hygiene products

Supplements (only those I take regularly)

protein

BCAAs

Fish oil

Greens powder

Not Allowed, including but not limited to:

Clothing

Cooking equipment

Workout equipment

Additional supplements (to try out or test)

Podcasts - This will likely be the hardest of all

Music

Audiobooks

The Purpose

My purpose of this challenge is three-fold:

Demonstrate to myself how easily I automatically consume. It is too easy to reach for something new and shiny, already convinced that we need it before ever asking, “Does this truly add value to my life?” By making abstinence my only available choice I will deepen my awareness of when and how the impulse to buy arises. The purpose of this challenge is not deprivation but rather to increase the deliberation I use when bringing new influences into my life. Even those of us who commit to a choice minimal lifestyle can easily find our home, life, and mental capacity quickly becoming cluttered. My aim is to shine a light on the pernicious little forces that allow this to happen.

Cultivate focus, appreciation, and gratitude to the influences I already have in my life. Eliminating the possibility of purchasing a new t-shirt brings a lot more meaning and value to my current favorite shirt. I do my best to avoid rampant consumerism but I still feel the discontent that comes when admiring something shiny and new. I want to focus on the value of all of my current possessions; both value they have already brought to my life and the future value they have yet to provide. I want to remember and feel grateful for all the warmth my favorite coat has brought in the past and appreciate all the warmth it still has to offer me in the future. This value is far more meaningful than the luster and excitement of something brand new.

Slow my media consumption and fuel creation.  I have a habit for incessant media consumption, especially podcasts and audiobooks. I wear headphones constantly, nearly 100% of the time I spend at home. I do not drive without my iPod. I meditate to bring silence and stillness into my life and to build comfort in that stillness. With this practice, I aim to cultivate a meditative state that will spill over into my life outside the practice. I disallow this process by constantly filling the empty space with audio education. Halting my podcast and audiobook consumption will allow me to:

Cultivate and appreciate silence and stillness

Revisit past podcasts and books that I found truly valuable. I will break my constant seeking for new information. I will listen to only podcasts and audiobooks that I downloaded before March 28, 2016. I will re-listen to the media that I found truly valuable to fully integrate the information rather than moving on to something new. I will not purchase any new books or audiobooks. I have a a stack (both physical and digital) of previously purchased books that I will focus my attention on.

Allow more time, space, and capacity for creation. When we are consuming, by definition, we are not creating. These 90 days I will focus on putting forth rather than taking in.

The details and duration of this experiment are unimportant. It could have different rules and a different time line to accomplish the same ends: create a system to foster a deeper consideration of the influences that draw my time, money, (and most importantly) energy, and attention. The challenge is meant to create discomfort, for this is the only place from which we grow. My purpose is to return to consumption with a greater discernment of where I spend my most valuable, non-renewable resources: time, energy, and conscious attention.

[thewanderingcoach]

Is Your Training Overly Simple?

Is your training overly simple?

Training with complexity will breed mastery over the simple. The opposite never works.

I do not mean complexity in the context of complicated rep schemes, strange variations or versions of classic exercises, or even a constantly varied program. I mean complexity of stimuli that each individual movement or pattern presents. A type of complexity that is not possible in a gym setting. The type of complexity that is only offered by the natural world.

When living in nature, human movement falls into 5 primary archetypes: running, jumping, climbing, lifting, and throwing. Running is the simplest label applied to the broader archetype of ground locomotion that includes running, walking, crawling, and any variations there of. Many secondary movement archetypes arise from a combination of the primary patterns such as swimming, combatives, and dance.

Most movements that we train are an oversimplification or a complete deviation from these primary functional, archetypal movement patterns. The pull up is a classic example. While the pull up is one of my favorite exercises and an extremely functional fitness training tool, it represents an oversimplification of the climbing archetype.

Most people train only a few versions of the pull up to excess. Their hands only encounter a small range of the possibilities of an actual climbing situation. Even with varying bar diameter, grip width, and hand arrangement, we can still only re-create a small percentage of the possibilities. Think now of the variables when climbing trees or rocks. There are thousands of species of tree and hundreds of varieties of rock. All possess a different size, shape, texture, and surface contour. Each hand placement feels vastly different to the hand and places the hand and arm in a unique position relative to the body. The climbers body must negotiate wider or narrow grips, surface textures, gripping shapes, one hand higher or lower, a sloped, vertical, or inverted climbing surface, or a branch that bends, flexes, and twists. All of these factors create a completely unique pulling load with each hand placement. The pull up variations are endless before we even consider the variations in temperature, wind, humidity, sound, light, and shadow that are possible outdoors. 

This is not an indictment of the pull up. Understand that the pull up is a tool, not the end goal. The pull up serves a climber who wants to build strength very effectively. An exclusively gym-trained athlete with a highly developed pull up cannot expect his/her training to translate to climbing proficiency. However the opposite is true. A highly proficient climber will perform quite well when tested with pull ups. Complexity breeds mastery of simplicity, not the other way around.

Anyone who has trained with me knows that I love pull ups and I use them frequently in my personal movement practice. I classify the pull up as a compound, full-body, and functional movement. I also classify the pull up as an isolation movement. An isolation of a single movement pattern that provides the joints, muscles, and fascial networks involved with the same (or similar) loads with each rep or variation. This singular movement pattern develops only a singular coordinated neurological pattern. 

Pull ups (and the variations) are the most effective tool to develop pulling strength. This strength means little to true functional fitness until it is integrated back into a holistic movement practice.

We can make a similar examination of the power development movements (and every other classic qym exercise for that matter). Power cleans, kettlebell swings, and plyometric jumping are perhaps the best available tools for developing power and coordination in triple extension. Triple extension is the coordinated extension of the hips, knees, and ankles. Speed, power, strength, and timing in this pattern characterize high level running, sprinting, jumping, and many other athletic demonstrations of power.

Power cleans, swings, and plyo jumps are the best tools for developing strength and power through triple extension, but training these movements exclusively will not develop elite level running and sprinting abilities. The true purpose of sprinting is involvement in the food chain, either to acquire food or avoid becoming it. This type of running presents the challenge of uneven ground, inconsistent surface texture or grip, obstacles, twists and turns, and many other unforeseen challenges that must be negotiated in real-time.

Training to develop triple extension will improve a runner’s ability to perform in this setting. Power training alone is not enough to ensure a highly developed running ability until it is integrated back into a real-world running practice.

Your training has given you a quiver of highly-developed skills, patterns, and positions. Your body is a collection of finely-honed tools. Do you use these tools in isolation, for only a singular purpose to continue sharpening them? Or are you a truly skilled artisan that can use all of your tools together to create something incredible?

Gym training is like sharpening your set of chisels. A real-world movement practice is your chance to utilize your tools to craft a beautiful sculpture.

The gym is where you learn all the notes. A real-world movement practice when they come together to make music.

Are you content to continue sharpening your blades, or practicing your scales?

Find an integrative, creative movement practice to become something greater than a sum of many finely-tuned parts. Find a practice that requires you to flow between movements and positions. Find something that makes you connect all the dots and in ways you never a have before. Dance. Wrestle. Climb a tree. Run around barefoot. Go off the trail. Get creative.

Gyms are fine to isolate. Nature is where we integrate and our movement comes to life.

[thewanderingcoach]

A Coach's Manifesto

Our cells possess an intelligence that informs our physical growth and prosperity. Like the cells of the tree that are rich with the wisdom of how to grow tall and strong, our bodies innately know how to thrive. 

Through postures, movements flows, and our breath we bridge the gap between our intellectual wisdom and the innate wisdom our bodies. By kindling this divine spark within our selves we can ignite a fire that will burn bright with health and vitality.

We all have a vast and innate capability for amazing movements and wide ranging emotions. I am called as a coach to guide others to ignite their fire to help them experience the fullness of life and the possible richness of this existence.

“Our body is the home of our spirit. It is the means by which we enact our beliefs. Therefore, the maintenance of the body is a spiritual duty, an act of love not only toward ourselves but toward all humanity.” - Rolf Gates

My heart lit up and I nearly leapt our of my seat when I first read this quote. I am struck not only by the eloquent grace of the statement but how perfectly Rolf captures what I feel my calling on this Earth to be.

I truly believe the maintenance of our physical bodies to be one of the most worthy pursuits. Please do not mistake this for the cultivation of an aesthetically pleasing appearance. Our bodies are so much more than simply a temporary collection of tissue that move us through the world. They serve us in every possible pursuit.

Our bodies are the interface through which we experience other people and the world around us. Ill health is a dirty window. We experience the world not for what it truly is but through a filter mired in the filth that we have neglected to wipe away.

Our bodies are the source of some of the deepest pleasure we can ever feel. The sun on your face, a tight hug, feet in the sand, sitting after hours on your feet, an incredible sexual experience. We hardly ever notice the immense pleasure of these moments. Think back to the last time you paused to bask in the pleasure of a particularly enjoyable physical sensation. An intimate relationship with our bodies brings a present awareness to the possible richness of our physical existence.

Our bodies are the vehicle by which we express our selves, our values, and the work that we do. I agree with nearly every spiritual tradition in the assertion that we are not our bodies, but I assert that our bodies are the sole vessel through which we can express what we are. Physical and psychological maladies of neglect and disconnect diminish your capacity for empathy and warmth.

This is not to say that one must be a runway model or in the “buff, bronze, and bitchen club” to make a positive impact in the world. Quite to the contrary. When our personal internal fire burns bright with health and self-love we can better shine outward with our love and compassion. To be the best friend, spouse, lover, parent, or sibling you can be, strive first to be the best version of your self.

“Action expresses priority” - Gandhi

The more I look inward to understand what I am and how best to care for myself, the more I understand other people and my role in this life. My personal health and fitness journey was simply the gateway to a wider understanding of my body and how it informs my everyday reality. I began with the aim to become a more capable mover and athlete. My journey evolved into seeking to become the best human I can be.

Through nurturing and training my body I awakened something deeper. I have always enjoyed coaching others to become strong and mobile movers but I now understand this to be a higher calling.

Not everyone will become a highly competitive athlete. In fact, most of us will not. Everyone however, can cultivate a deeper relationship with their body. Everyone can better understand how best to care for themselves. Everyone can elevate their physical capacity. Everyone can enhance their experience in this life by igniting their body’s innate yearning for health and strength and happiness.

As a coach I commit to constant educational growth in natural movement, strength and conditioning, nutrition, gymnastics, recovery, mobility, corrective and restorative exercise, yoga and any other means of enhancing our physical, mental, and emotional experience. Each body is incredibly different. Each individuals’ life, priorities, and desires vary. I study and practice widely to acquire a comprehensive toolbox to draw from.

I want to help you craft habits and practices that align with your lifestyle to help you achieve your health and fitness goals. Whether you are the strongest athlete or just taking your first steps I can help guide your journey.

If you are interested in working with me, I encourage you check out what I offer. Please feel free to reach out with any questions and comments. I hope to hear from and/or work with you soon! 

***

Author’s Note: As so often happens, this piece grew into something entirely different than intended. The idea spark was simply about our bodies innate tendency toward health. I feel that if we can tap into our deeper selves, often the path to health and wellness unfolds naturally. Words began to flow and this grew into a manifesto of my entire wellness paradigm and why I do what I do. 

[thewanderingcoach]

Practice

Every moment we become ourselves. No matter what factors control this process, it is happening. Every decision and every moment are practice and preparation for the person you are to become. Nothing is set in stone. Nothing is pre-destined. Every aspect of the person you want to become is simply a skill to be developed and honed. 

I first explored this idea in the context of fitness and strength training. Strength athletes tend to obsess over specifics: workout days and times, rep schemes, percentages, rest times, de-loads, diets, etc. I will never discount the efficacy of any specific strength program. All programs prove effective if the athletes actually adheres to the regimen. Commitment and consistency (read: practice) then prove the strongest determining factor for success. Strip away the specific protocols from any elite strength coach’s program and you find two universals:

Lift Often - Consistency is the most important factor to success. Lift Well - Maintain a mindful commitment to form and proficiency. Perform every movement to the best of your ability with a constant focus on maintaining and improving your form.

This process extends far beyond the field of strength training. These two human universals define the path to any effective change in our lives. We can characterize anything as simply an acquired skill. Practice makes anything possible.

To gain physical strength we do not need to understand the specific program details or physiological processes involved. We need only to understand that strength in a specific movement or lift can be addressed like a skill. Proficiency and progress require only consistent, quality practice. Strength follows time and effort investments.

Expand this paradigm outward. All qualities are possible through practice. Call to mind the “healthiest” or “happiest” person you know. They did not arrive on this Earth in their current form. All of their healthiest qualities - their dietary, movement, sleep, and emotional patterns - were cultivated and remain under constant maintenance. Simply put, they practice being a healthy person. They understand that they can create and reinforce any new behavior. They know that we are all a product of our choices. They understand that consistent practice defines the only road to the qualities they want to see blossom in themselves.

This traits-as-skills model means that changes come slowly. No one simply decides to embody a new quality and thus becomes it. You have to put in the reps. Do not feel discouraged in the thought that there are no easy changes. Allow the thought that any change is possible through consistent practice to uplift and motivate you. The change process is simple (not easy, but simple) and universal: practice.

The best writers consistently put their ass in the chair.

The most capable athletes and movers practice constantly with a dedicated attention to their movement quality.

The shrewdest investors follow a systematic approach and remain ever conscious of the outcome of each decision.

The cleanest eaters make consistent healthy decisions until their patterns become deeply ingrained.

The most grateful, empathic people became so through a consistent gratitude practice.

I like to imagine every decision as placing repetitions in a backpack that we carry with us. When challenging circumstances test us we reach into our bag and draw a single instance from our practiced experiences. The next time you attempt a max lift, what type of repetition will you draw? The next time your patience and grace are tested, what type of practiced response will surface? The next time you are presented with unhealthy nutritional choices, what type of developed pattern will you follow?

Practice your values in every moment and stack your deck with positive choices and patterns. Understand that you are constantly becoming your future self. Every moment is an opportunity to write your story. You can embody any quality you wish to possess through practice.

Success is grown, not born. Practice.

[thewanderingcoach]

Rethinking Cardio

The current mainstream thought in the fitness industry is that cardio is king. Large chain gyms fills most of their available real estate with elliptical machines, Stair Masters, trend mills, and rowers. Cycling as a sport, pastime, and form of transportation has never been more popular. We view the height of athletic achievement as the adventure race, local 5k, marathon, or ultra-marathon. Many prefer a higher intensity form of cardio as evidenced by the proliferation of classes like HIIT, spin, cardio kick-boxing, and even CrossFit. While the mainstream ideals are shifting to emphasize strength training as well, the idea persists that optimal health and longevity follow a highly developed cardiovascular capacity.

It is safe to say that we have a cardio obsession.

Where Does Our Cardio Obsession Come From?

In the late 1940s and early 1950s a trend of increased heart attack and stroke emerged. This trend is no doubt linked to the industrial food movement that arose from the post-WWII industrialization. Many agencies arose to address this raising epidemic including the American Heart Association in the United States and the Medical Research Council in Great Britain. A landmark study from this era known as the London Transport Workers Study began to shape the understanding of this issue. The study compares the rates of coronary heart disease (CHD) in drivers and conductors of the London Transport Executive. All subjects were men between the ages of 35 and 65, had nearly identical working hours, but quite different work duties.

The drivers remained seated for much or all of their shifts while the conductors remained in motion nearly all of theirs. The conductors where required to board and exit the trains, trolleys, and buses, walk up and down the aisles and double-decker stairways, and remain standing while riding. The study found reduced incidence of CHD in the conductors and less severity in the cases of CHD that they did find.

These findings led to further epidemiological studies of other occupations, all confirming the fact that humans who move more have a lower incidence of CHD. What a novel idea…

So, how did these studies lead to our cardio obsession? 

Follow up studies through out the rest of the Western world sought health markers that they could isolate and measure to quantify the health of the individuals that they were studying. Enter all the measures of cardiovascular capacity that we know today: heart rate, stroke volume, blood pressure, etc.

The studies presented findings correlating measures of these factors with reduced risk of CHD and improved overall health and longevity. As we so often do in the Western world, people understood these findings to mean that healthy measures on these test were to source of good health, rather than symptoms of it.

This line of thinking is akin to a student studying only material that will only be on the final exam, rather than working to achieve a comprehensive understanding of the course subject matter.

Training to improve upon these several measures of cardiovascular function expresses an extremely narrow view of health. A good score on the test doesn’t necessarily mean a vast understanding, but a vast understanding will always lead to a high score. Analogously, strong health from constant movement will lead to strong measures of health markers. Training specifically for the markers does not guarantee optimal health.

How We Got It Wrong

The prevailing lesson from these studies ought to have been that people who move more and stagnate less are healthier, as evidenced by their measures of many health markers and their rates of heart disease. Instead, we sought to change nothing about our lifestyles and working conditions and simply adapted our minimal movement practice to improve a few measures of cardiovascular function.

The Western world has an over-mechanized view of the human body. We tend compare ourselves to machines, understanding our various systems as analogous to the mechanical systems we build. The obvious example when it comes to our cardiovascular system is a comparison to a pump and network of pipes.

While this model provides a basic understanding, it fails far short of providing a framework to understand how to optimize our cardiovascular health. This analogy places a heavy emphasis on the heart as the sole driver of circulation, with the veins, blood vessels, arteries, and capillaries simply as static pipes through which the heart pushes blood. Our cardiovascular system is far more complex than this model suggests.

The pump and pipes model developed because the activity of the heart is easy to measure. Think how quickly and easily your heart rate and blood pressure are taken at the beginning of each visit to the doctor. The heart’s activity exists on a macro enough scale to lend itself to easy measure.

Measuring the activity and flow through the various other parts of the system remains far more difficult. We can measure the flow through some of the larger passages of the cardiovascular system, but the flow through blood vessels happens one cell at time, like a single-file line marching through a narrow doorway. To measure this flow you would need to be in the blood vessel itself.

Our heart-centric model negates the dynamic nature of the vascular network and the important role it plays in circulation.

A New Cardio Model

I propose a new way to imagine our cardiovascular system. Rather than a large central pump and a network of static pipes, think of your tissue as sponges. Muscular contraction and relaxation drives local circulation. Contraction flushes out spent fluid and blood like squeezing out a sponge. Muscle elongation or relaxation draws in fresh blood and fluid to oxygenate and hydrate the tissue.

Movement drives the entire process. A strong heart ensures the entire system runs cohesively, but local contraction and relaxation drives the specificity to where the oxygenated blood actually absorbs.

To rinse out a sponge hold it under running water and continually squeeze and release until you have flushed out everything. Simply holding it under water will do little to flush the entire sponge. Our tissue functions largely by the same principle.

Sitting on a bicycle is certainly better than no movement at all but it is incomplete as a sole form of exercise. Leaving the limited, linear, repetitive range of motion and poor posture aside, cycling uses little more than the large muscles in the upper legs. It is a valid form of movement but understand that it does not achieve the true goal of “cardio”: to create fully systemic circulation to re-oxygenate as much of your body tissue as possible.

Increasing your heart rate will pump blood through the larger passages of your whole body. This blood will not enter any tissue unless it is specifically called. In the cycling example, blood is really only called to the large muscles of the upper legs. The upper body very obviously remains uninvolved, but even the lower legs and feet have minimal roles in cycling. The calf remains engaged to keep the ankle largely static to most efficiently transfer power from the upper leg through the foot and ankle to the pedals, yet cycling requires little to no movement of any joints and tissue below the knee. Cycling, while raising your heart rate, is mostly sedentary except between the hips and knees.

Rethinking Cardio

Understand that your cardiovascular system consists of a cardiac system and a vascular network. Your cardiovascular system is meant to be used as a whole. Seek dynamic, fully body, creative movement to drive circulation to the unfamiliar corners of your system.

Muscular activity not only brings circulation into individual tissue but aids in systemic circulation by pushing blood along with each contraction and drawing it forth with each elongation. Each cycle of muscular contraction and elongations is a small pumping action that drives overall circulation. Elevating your heart rate without the corresponding aid to circulation from your vascular system adds additional stress to your heart. This is analogous to running a main pump all out while leaving any smaller secondary pumps turned off. We see a high correlation between endurance sports and atrial fibrillation, but that is a topic for another article.

I believe it extremely important to strengthen your heart but using your system as a whole remains far more important. Understand that short (or long) bouts of exercise to elevate your heart rate cannot undo the effects of a sedentary lifestyle.

This article is as much a case for movement as it is an examination on the cardiovascular system. Your entire body and all of it’s wonderful systems require constant movement for optimal function. Most of us have heard the tale of sharks whom must always remain in motion to drive circulation of water through their gills. Think of your systems the same way. Movement drives the operation and dictates the function of all your wonderful biological systems.

The over-mechanized view of our bodies leads to the idea that our cardiovascular system (and many other systems) can be trained in isolation for optimal function. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Ancient Greek physician, Paracelsus understood the holistic nature of our bodies’ optimal function when he claimed “There is but one disease in the body and its name is congestion.”

A New Form of Cardio

The value of a movement does not lay in how much it makes your sweat, elevates your heart rate, makes you feel sore, or achieves “likes” on social media. Learn to value your movement choices by how much of your body they require, how differently they load your tissues, and how well they challenge your entire system including your mind. Crawling on the ground using as many different crawl variations as you can dream up rates much higher by this standard than nearly every piece of gym machinery that you could use. It requires whole body engagement and awareness, will drive circulation to nearly every tissue, and challenge your body in a completely unique way. If you still feel the need to spike your heart rate just do it fast and non-stop. I can think of few exercises more exhausting than freestyle crawling for 10 minutes straight.

Change your priorities from blasting your heart rate to exploring new movement patterns. The possibilities are endless and each movement session becomes an opportunity for creation.

Avoid stagnation in every form. Seek constant motion and creative, dynamic movement. 

Keep moving if you want to keep moving forward. 

[thewanderingcoach]

2015: A Year in Review

This marks the beginning of a tradition of self-reflection and evaluation. I’ll no longer receive an annual review since leaving a corporate work environment. This is the first of annual self-reviews to gauge my progress, direction, patterns, and short-comings as I progress along my life’s path and entrepreneurial journey.

2015 began for me in London at an epic New Year’s party with my brother Adam. We spent the following 10 days on an amazing tour of England. I’m truly grateful for that time with my brother. It is hard to believe a full year has passed since our share experiences abroad.

After London I enjoyed a brief stay at home before continuing to New Zealand for two months. I left New Zealand to attend a buddy’s wedding in Chile and finally returned to California, by way of 4 days in Portland, in the last few days of April 2015.

I have written elsewhere of my travel adventure. While these experiences played an immense role in shaping 2015, I pick up this review upon returning home as I began to craft the next phase of my life.

What follows is an honest and vulnerable examination of me and my performance as a human in 2015. Conducting this review reminded me of the moments this year worthy of praise and celebration. I also remember where I fell short, stepped off track, or (perhaps worst of all) allowed myself to fall into inaction.

I share my review - and the many to follow - to incite positive change in those read it. I hope that you may share in my lessons learned and feel inspired to open a similar self-discourse about your life. Enjoy.

2015: A Year in Review

By the numbers:

Countries Visited:          4 (England, New Zealand, Chile, Canada). 1 new…New Zealand.

States Visited:                2 (Oregon, Washington). None new.

Articles Written:             30

Articles Published:        10    Article archive

Podcasts Published:      3     Podcasts

Books Read:                   25    See Full list at the bottom of this post

Top 4 Non-fiction (because I cant’t choose 3)  Move Your DNA  On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft  The 4 Hour Chef  Natural Born Heroes

Top 3 Fiction Still Life with Woodpecker The Graveyard Book Nocturnal

A short list of notables:

Travel

World Domination Summit - July 2015 I traveled to Portland, Oregon to attend the World Domination Summit. The WDS conference was nearly indescribable (although I did my best in this post) and brought immense value to my life. The connections made and the lessons and inspiration absorbed that weekend continue to move me forward.

Wanderlust Festival - Whistler,BC, Canada - August 2015 I spent a week in British Columbia at Wanderlust festival with two close friends, Josh and Adam. The three of us had not spent much time together since all leaving California. We had an amazing time reconnecting, doing yoga, and going to live music shows. Wanderlust was one of the highlights of 2015 not only for my time with Josh and Adam but for the new friendships we built. This podcast was also a product of the festival.

Certifications

Russian Kettlebell Certification - Level II

Precision Nutrition - Level 1

USA Gymnastics Coach Certification

 Professional Development

My professional aspirations upon returning from my trip were to:

Create a business, both physical and virtual, from which to share my personal methodology to optimal movement, health, and wellness.

I was unsure of the specific steps to make this happen. My goal for 2015 was to immerse myself into the health and fitness realm. I knew that the first step was to surround myself with the people and influences that support my path. I have a long road yet to travel before building my vision but my commitment to this work has led me through doors I never knew existed.

I returned to coaching at C Street CrossFit, a job I held while still an engineer. I have an incredible relationship with the C Street family and I knew that it was a great place to launch the next phase of my journey.

No more than a week after returning to C Street the opportunity arose to work with Linda at Body Fat Test. I love the work and opportunity it provides me to expand my influence within the fitness community all over southern California. Linda aligns deeply with my health values and truly has my best interest at heart.

The next door to open was coaching gymnastics at Delano Athletica. I never thought I would coach kids gymnastics but it has become my favorite job I have ever had. I am incredibly grateful for the chance that Carmen, the owner, took on hiring me with no experience. I am extremely optimistic for what this opportunity holds for 2016 with our new facility and expanding class and team offerings.

In November 2015 I began to offer workshops and regular weekly classes at The Studio. The owner, Helya and I are friends from college and she asked me to teach after we reconnected earlier this year. I teach kettlebell and mobility classes and plan to add to these offerings in 2016. Helya and I share many core health and fitness ideals and she gave me the opportunity to teach nearly anything I want. I feel blessed to work with such a good friend and to be given the trust to teach classes that are born out of my personal values.

The most exciting development to my professional life for 2015 came in the growth of my personal coaching. I began to offer workshops, private nutritional coaching, and personal training. None of these have risen to primary means of income but I am optimistic with the momentum I am gaining. I could have worked much harder to push my entrepreneurial coaching further but will examine this in more detail below.

I redesigned and rebuilt my website over the summer of 2015, switching the primary domain from thewanderingcoach.com to JustinLind.me. This deserves mention as a professional development.

Personal Development

2015 brought significant opportunity for personal growth. I spent the first 4 months of the year largely alone. I know no better driver for introspection than solitude.

Understanding Myself

I got rid of most of my physical possessions and distanced myself from all my personal relationships when I left on my trip in September 2014. Removing all of the influences of my previous life helped me to establish the things that I value. I now have a better understanding of myself and the life that I want to live.

I began crafting a new life since coming home in May. I learn new aspects of myself everyday as I progress through this journey. Like everyone, I used to dream about a life of my own design, but I discovered that we cannot know all of the details until we begin to create. The next step remains obscured until we move close enough to behold it. Every article I have ever written began with a core thought but developed organically into a series of beliefs and ideas that I did not know existed until I began crafting them. Musicians and artists describe a similar process, the work channeling through them with the finer details revealed only as they come to them. Crafting my life works just the same. All I can do is remain true to my core values and maintain my commitment to continue creating. The details appear as I approach. 

Coming Out of My Shell

I have always been quite introverted and remain so still. This year I learned to open up, begin conversations, and reveal myself to people sooner. I still struggle with this and it presents a hindrance to my personal and profession development (more on that below), but every time I open up, express myself, or show vulnerability I feel how our connections grows. This remains one of my primary focuses in personal development but my progress this year was noteworthy.

More Self-Aware in the Moment

I have always been very introspective…I can’t turn it off. I believe this to be a positive trait. Examining myself, my behavior, and the patterns I fall into forces me to re-evaluate the way that I operate. I constantly discover aspects of myself that need work. Knowing what I need to work on is one thing. Integrating this knowledge to manifest new behaviors in the moment is another thing entirely. This year I feel that I have improved my level of self-awareness in the present moment to actually create the positive changes I want to see in myself.

The most notable example of this is interrupting and talking over other people. I used to struggle quite a bit with this. I knew how rude this type of behavior could be but I used to lie to myself that the way I did it was different. When a topic arose that I felt passionate about my excitement would bubble over and I would jump in without regard for anyone else. I used to tell myself that I was just passionate and excitable. While this might be true for how I personally viewed my behavior other people see only my actions. Inherent in this action is a disregard, or at least a devaluing, of what others have to say. It says, “I’m not really listening, I just want to talk.” I now hold this thought in my head in nearly every conversation. When I do slip up I am immediately aware and feel guilty. Most importantly, I keenly recognize this behavior in others and feel first-hand the receiving end.

 Areas Where I Struggled

The less fun yet invaluable half of the annual review: the short-comings.

Finances

I am hardly financially independent. I have no debt and no dependents, yet I can afford little more than rent, food, and gas. I am driving a borrowed car and it will be sometime (at the current rate) before I can afford to purchase my own.

All of my needs are met and I am blessed with incredibly supportive friends, family, and work that I love. I require no more than my current means provide but my goal for 2016 is to increase my income to support the supplemental aspects of my life that I desire: a car, the means to live alone, personal projects, and travel.

Fear and Inaction

As I stated above I could have worked much harder to build my personal business. This was also the primary way I to have improved my financial landscape.

I allowed fear to hinder my creation. The most pernicious pattern a creator (and I believe every person to be a creator) is inaction. Taking action is always a step forward even if it seems you no closer to your goal. Humans learn by making mistakes. Movement always teaches because new influences only enter our life as we move forward along our path.

I have lofty creative aspirations. Articles, ebooks, books, and manuals to write. Courses and seminars to create. Videos to film. Podcasts to record. All content to be created and shared.

Inaction is avoidance. If I never try than I can never fail. When I first began to write articles and record podcasts it was simply for me. The only reason I sat down create was out of love for the content and belief in the message. Now it feels like there is more on the line.

Every piece of content I birth into the world is a reflection of me. As I strive to create a platform and audience I am all too aware that some content (perhaps all of it) will be met with negativity. Intellectually, I know this to be false. I have received large amounts of positive feedback on my writing and podcasts, yet I still allow the fear of nonacceptance to hinder my creation.

My content that receives the most praise are those pieces that I created quickly and passionately and published before allowing my self-doubt and awareness of the audience to mire the purity of the message. The reason I started to write and create was because I had something to say. I had message to share and felt like it had to come flying out of me. In 2015 I allowed the awareness of my audience to paralyze me into inaction.

Stephen King advises in his memoir On Writing to “write with the door closed.” Write for an audience of one. Write for yourself and the one person closest to you. Let your writing be a true expression of yourself. Do not allow self-editing to disrupt your creation.

I remember why I began to create in the first place. I have slowly drifted from this pure intent. I know that when I try to please everyone, I end up pleasing no one. In 2016 I will try to full integrate this belief into my creation, remembering that the reason to publicly share work at all is to express pieces of my true self and my core beliefs. I cannot allow any distraction from this intent.

No more avoidance to contact potential podcast guests. No more complete and unpublished articles. No more complete and unpublished videos. No more book-beginnings and book-middles without book-ends.

Communication and Relationships

The first half of 2015 brought two short-term romantic relationships. The first on the later part of my trip, the second within a week of returning home. Both ended for the same underlying reason: my failure to understand and communicate the fact that I was not ready for these relationships.

Both came at very dynamic and confusing phases in my life. I basically wandered solo for 8 months. I made friends and shared many wonderful encounters with them along the way, but one of the defining themes in my life for nearly a year was solitude.

I lost touch of what it was like to be constantly surrounded by people, both familiar and unfamiliar. Even on a crowded city block you can feel completely alone if you do not speak the language. Upon returning I struggled being in a room full of people, even my family, for any length of time. I can only describe it as reverse homesickness.

I was also thinking constantly about what would come next in life for me. I did not have a clear idea of what I was or where I was going. Everything felt up in the air. Uncertainty is exciting but also terrifying. 

This was very inopportune environment to invite an intimate partner into my life. 

I failed to communicate what I was feeling (largely because I still did not fully understand) in these relationships. I avoided discussing what I felt and when I did try I was unable to articulate my thoughts effectively.

I understand now that neither the timing nor the matches were right for me. I cared for both girls but I see now that I welcomed these relationships primarily out of loneliness. My greatest failure was in understanding what was best for me at these times and in my ability to communicate this effectively.

 Defining Values for 2016

I do not believe in destination-based goals. I believe that we should commit to moving in a positive direction and not measure success by a strict outcome. Destination vs. Direction

Below are a set of defining values to shape my behavior in 2016.

Ruthlessly Eliminate the Nonessentials

I significantly downsized the stuff in my life before leaving on my trip. This began with the clearing out of most of my physical possessions but grew into a lifestyle. I began to look at all of the influences in my life - habits, patterns, relationships, jobs - and ask the tough question, “Does this truly add value to my life?”

Ruthlessly editing the things that occupy my mental, emotional, and physical space allows me to focus on the people and things that matter most. I have more energy and time for the relationships that I want to pursue and nurture. None of my physical space feels clutters. My time feels largely my own.

As I settle back into life in California, I feel the pull of consumption and negative influences trying to take hold. I feel the positive force of minimalism in my daily life and in 2016 I will remain committed to this ideal.

I have two favorite defining expressions for my choice-minimal lifestyle:

“Discipline is power” - Holding yourself to schedules, guidelines, and healthy habits is the highest form of freedom. It ensures all your decisions are you own and you are not prone to being blown off course from the slightest distraction or temptation. A life defined by only your personal values, free from external pulls, is the highest form of freedom.

“Busy is out of control” - Those who claim to busy all the time are really confessing that they have no control of their time, schedule, and life. An open schedule or one filled of your choosing demonstrates a mastery of the influences in your life.

Create

I allowed my fear and self-doubt to prevent me from completing or ever embarking on many creative endeavors. I have a long list of topics for unwritten articles and a huge archive of unfinished works. The more often I require myself “sit in the chair” as Steven Pressfield says, the more I feel creative work flow out of me. Creativity is a muscle that grows stronger with use and practice. The largest obstacle to my work in 2015 was my own self-doubt and refusal to sit down and begin.

Allowing self-editing into the original creation lowers the purity of the message and obscures my true voice. In 2016 I will focus on creation and will create for myself first.

Create first. Edit later.

Publish and Share

I produced a lot of work in 2015 that I am very proud of. Unfortunately much of it never made it to publication. I allowed my doubt to creep into my completed pieces as well.

I often delayed the posting of a complete article by telling myself that I would let the ideas settle in my mind a bit longer and then come back to edit. This was a way to avoid the fear that comes with making a piece of your thoughts and yourself public.

In 2016 I will publish all that I produce knowing that if I feel strong enough to create, the end result must see the light of day. I must always remember that I am not writing for everyone. I am write first for myself, second those who need to hear my voice. I have made so many positive changes because of the words and other media I consume. My ideas, presented in my voice, could be the precise thing that someone in the world needs to hear to create positive change in their life. I do the world a disservice by withholding anything I feel strong enough to create.

Even now, as I near the end of this review I am unconsciously searching for reasons to delay the posting. I add this paragraph during my third and final editing pass and hereby commit to publish. Let the posting of this review open the flood gates of vulnerability and publication for 2016!

This ideal also applies to my personal life. I feel how strong personal connections grow when I open up and reveal to those who I care about. My greatest struggle in past relationships has been in opening up. I am at the beginning of a new relationship and I cannot remember ever feeling so much excitement for a new person in my life. I try to remain committed to open up, say what I feel, and reveal myself to her as much as I can.

Build a Platform

My goal is to create a business - both brick and mortar and online - from which to share my ideas about how best to lead a healthy and fulfilling life. In 2016 I will focus on broadening my reach. I am uncomfortable with self-promotion and could have done a much better job of growing my audience in 2015. 

I do not want to grow a large audience for the sake of size. I do not even really want a large audience. I want to create a community of individuals that hold like values for life, movement, and health. I will focus on content creation and publication but also doing everything I can to ensure that my work finds those with whom it will resonate.

I prioritize quality of my personal relationships far more than the quantity of people in my life. I fell the same for the supporters, consumers, fans, and followers of my work.

To this effect, please reach out if you enjoy this review or any of my other work. I would love to hear from you. Are there any pieces you particularly enjoyed or disliked? Are they any topics you would like me to explore in the future?

Integration and Action

I consume a lot of media. I am nearly always listening to a podcast or audiobook. I read books, blogs, and articles voraciously. I love to learn. I constantly seek new ideas and new perspectives. 

In 2016 I will slow down this constant stream of information to be able to integrate what I have already learned into my paradigm. I believe in a hierarchy of information.

Raw data is simply information, facts about the world. We have more of this available to us than ever yet most people do not seem any happier or wiser than before. In fact, most seem less happy.

Knowledge is hearing what the data has too say. Seeing trends and understanding what they say about our world. These are the valuable insights that the best authors and other creatives offer.

Wisdom is integrating all of your knowledge into a cohesive worldview that shapes your values, relationships, behavior, and choices. Wisdom develops only from within. It comes from introspection and paring down of all the external noise. Holding onto only that which brings value and meaning and letting all else pass by. See the world outside yourself and understanding how you are only a small piece of it.

I love everything that I read and consume but I will shift my focus to slowing down and to integrating everything presented. Understanding and internalizing all that I learn. Fast-paced media turn over, even while aimed at learning and wisdom, can still be a form of running on the endless hamster wheel and avoiding deeper work.

I plan to re-read books that made a large impact on me. I plan to seek new material from old material; books and essays written long ago whose ideas have stood the test of time. We often obsess over the new and different. Works whose ideas are still relevant long after original publication present a far greater opportunity practical wisdom.

I find that I often use the consuming of new media as a way to avoid taking action. I trick myself into thinking I am productive when reading a new book when really I am avoiding the work I set out to do. I plan to curate my media choices more carefully, slow down the steady stream (this includes social media), and focus on taking action.

2016 is to be a year of focused work and growth.

 Conclusion

2015 was an incredible year. I have made incredible progress in only the 8 short months since returning home.

This review has revealed to me how much harder I need to work to make my vision a reality. I have a better understanding of who I am and what I want. I feel a renewed commitment and drive to work and create. I have a clearer vision of the work that is to come.

I feel both excitement and fear for the vulnerability that comes from the sharing of this review, but it invigorates me to create and continue sharing.

Thank you reading all the way to the bottom. I hope that you have shared in the lessons and insight and feel inspired to open a similar honest investigation within your life. I cannot begin to describe the satisfaction and relief I feel in reaching the end.

- Justin

 Full 2015 Reading List

(in alphabetical order)

A Renegade History of the United States by Thaddeus Russel

Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton

Don’t Just Sit There by Katy Bowman

Hypnotizing Maria by Richard Bach

Jonathon Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach

Making Ideas Happen by Scott Belsky

Meditations from the Mat by Rolf Gates and Katrina Kenison

Move Your DNA by Katy Bowman

My Best Friend’s Funeral by Roger W. Thompson

Natural Born Heroes by Christopher McDougall

Nocturnal by Scott Sigler

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King

Piranha by Clive Cussler

Recession Proof Graduate by Charlie Hoehn

Relax Into Stretch by Pavel Tsatsouline

Still Life with Woodpecker by Tom Robbins

The 4 Hour Chef by Tim Ferriss

The Art of Work by Jeff Goins

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaimon

The Happiness of Pursuit by Chris Guillebeau

The Truth: An Uncomfortable Book about Relationships by Neil Strauss

Ultimate Athleticism by Max Shank

Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion by Sam Harris

We Learn Nothing by Tim Kreider

Whole Body Barefoot by Katy Bowman

 ** Full disclosure - All book links are Amazon Affiliate links. I receive a small percentage of any purchase made after clicking on one at no additional cost to you.