"Failed" Powerlifting Meet

You win some, you lose some. This past weekend, I definitely did not win on the platform.

But what I didn't win on the platform, I won in experience.

For the many people who are likely unfamiliar with powerlifting, it consists of 3 attempts at the squat, 3 attempts at the bench and then followed by 3 attempts at the deadlift, with the total being the sum of the best of each 3 lifts. It is also broken up by weight classes, with the classes being closer together in weight, and spaced further apart as they go heavier.

My last meet I totaled 1100 pounds weighing 181 pounds, this meet I totaled 972 at 165 pounds.

I obviously did much worse, but what did I learn from it, and how can I apply that to other aspects of life?

• I decided to do this meet at a lower weight class, while in preparation for a bodybuilding contest. Even though they are both fitness related, the end goals are not the same in each. This reinforced my notion that I can't split my focus if I want to get to the top.
• Not hitting depth on my second squat attempt. I absolutely smoked this weight and I thought I was deep enough, but it turned out I was at parallel instead of below parallel. If you're going to put in the effort to do something, make sure you know exactly what it is you're doing, so you don't waste time and energy.
• Only going 4 for 9/making too large of jumps between my 2nd and 3rd attempts. I definitely left plenty of weight on the platform, because I made bad selection attempts. You have to know when it's best to take on something a little easier and knock it out of the ballpark, as opposed to reaching too far and come up empty handed(you also have to know when you need to reach).
• I underestimated the impact that dropping weight and recovering from the stomach flu would have on my lifts. Similar to above, I knew I had a few outside factors which would affect my strength, so I probably should have backed off a bit. In life, the default seems to be to say yes to everything coming your way, but sometimes you are overloaded and have to say no or back off a bit.

Could I have totaled more? Yes. But this meet wasn't an entire failure, I will take what I learned and apply it to life and the next meet.

Readings of 2014, February Edition, Part 3

This edition will wrap up my reading list in February, and these 3 were quite the intellectual and motivational doozies.

The Black Swan by Nassim Nicolas Taleb:

Unfathomable events happen year after year on a macro scale, and day after day on a micro scale : dawn of the internet, popping of the dot com bubble, September 11th, and children being diagnosed with cancer. These are all instances of Black Swans.

Nassim Nicolas Taleb is very familiar with Black Swans, he cut his teeth as a young New York trader and made his(and seen many others lose their), as he calls it,  "F*ck you" money from the large scale Black Swans that occur on Wall Street. Unfortunately, he is also familiar with the smaller scale Black Swans: he was diagnosed with throat cancer as a young man... and didn't smoke.

Most of the book is spent on showing distinctions between "Mediocristan", where Black Swans are non-factors(height, weight), and "Extremistan", where the Black Swans exist(income). Additionally, he reinforces the need to guard against the negative Black Swans and to put yourself into a position where you are will be in the best position to come across the positive ones.

I would definitely recommend this book, it is far from an easy read, but I definitely feel like it was worth the effort.

Start Something That Matters by Blake Mycoskie:

The (former) serial entrepreneur, Blake Mycoskie, finally started something that matters when he started TOMS. He realized that there are many, many kids walking around without shoes, and that was a major cause of spreading of disease in that population. Instead of starting a non-profit to tackle that problem, he decided to go with his area of expertise, for-profit companies. However this for-profit had a twist: you buy a pair of shoes, we give away a pair to a child in need.

In stark contrast to The Black Swan, this book was a very easy read, and, while not very mentally taxing, definitely had a call-to-action to, as could be guessed, start something that matters. It is a pseudo-biography of the Blake and the company, documenting his process of going from knowing nothing about shoes to being the "Chief Shoe Giver" of one of the highest-impact shoe companies in the world. Along the way, Blake interjects with some of his take home lessons from various stages of the life of TOMS.

As I said, it is definitely an easy read, so if you are intrigued, you could probably finish it over a cup of coffee at the local bookstore. However, in the TOMS spirit, this book does have a one-for-one policy; for each copy sold, a book will be sent to a child in need.

Crush It by Gary Vaynerchuk:

Disclaimer, this is the first biz-dev book that I have ever read, so my virgin mind has no frame of reference with which to compare it. However, with that being said, I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

Gary's family immigrated to New York when he was a really young boy and, in typical immigrant lifestyle, his parents engrained an intense desire to win by out-hustling. His father started a liquor store when they came to the states, and Gary began hauling around ice there as a young boy(after being forced to step away from his very respectable baseball card-selling business). He despised his initial position, but eventually came to love it when he noticed that he could easily sell people wine(by becoming knowledgable through reading, he still couldn't drink the stuff), but the same thing couldn't be said about beer and liquor drinkers.

That is the take home message, find your niche, which was wine in Gary's case.

The meat of the book centers around Gary eventually taking over the family business, and growing it from respectable to gargantuan through a wicked concoction of hustling and effective use of social-networking.

Even though social networking came out when I was in early high school, I still feel relatively naive with respect to how to most effectively use them to build personal branding. After reading this, I feel less naive; if you are in a similar position, I would definitely recommend taking a few hours out of your life and reading it.

Lessons From Jurassic Park

"I spared no expense." - John Hammond.

Well, almost no expense.

For those unfamiliar with Jurassic Park, I feel sorry for you, but I will still fill you in.

John Hammond was the millionaire,(maybe billionaire) serial theme park builder. Jurassic Park was his most extravagant one: a theme park filled with real, live dinosaurs. However, he only had one programmer in charge of the computer systems on the entire island... and this programmer felt like he was grossly underpaid, so he shut down the entire island to steal dinosaur eggs for someone paying him better.

He got eaten.

So did many others... those damn raptors.

So what have we learned?

1. Don't get cheap on your people.
2. Don't have have any person operating without checks and balances.
3. Don't surround yourself with shiesty folks.
4. Most importantly, if you do manage to recreate dinosaurs, let the raptors stay extinct.

10,000 Hours: The Forgotten Part

We all have heard it takes 10,000 hours working on a skill to become an expert on it, yet:

• I have spent close to 10,000 hours behind the wheel of a car, yet I am no Michael Andretti.
• I have spent close to 10,000 hours singing, yet I still sound like a squealing pig.
• I have been walking my entire life, yet I would be hard pressed to finish a 10k.
• Insert many many many more.

Just putting in the time isn't enough. The time spent must be spent near the limit to illicit any growth, that is why I think competing is so important.

But it's hard.

That's why you can go into a gym and view many people who will look exactly the same months and years from now.

That's why you can go into a bowling league and find many bowlers who average the same as they did years ago.

I am guilty... I played guitar for "6" years, 1 year of learning and 5 years repeating that first year. I could have pushed more, but, in retrospect, I liked the idea of becoming an expert guitar player more than actually becoming an expert guitar player.

Now, I am working on becoming an expert software engineer and powerlifter(well working on that bodybuilding thing too), and I learned my lesson from my failed attempts at becoming the next Eddie Van Halen. I am working on my weaknesses, as opposed to spending time doing what I already know. 

Now, I spend my time bringing up that which is hindering my progress(my knee is hindering my squat, so spending more rehab/prehab time on that, which I had neglected in the past), learning complementary skills(learning graphic/web design), competing(hackathons, powerlifting meets and bodybuilding competitions) and just genuinely putting in the quality work.

10,000 hours is nice, but you have to fill those 10,000 hours with meaningful shit.

Don't Ship on Fridays

Shipping code releases on a Friday is a lot like getting maintenance work done on a car right before a road trip.

Something is bound to break.

(Wrote this from the passenger seat of a tow truck. Got maintenance work done yesterday.)

Readings of 2014, February Edition, Part 2

This part will feature one book about creating pretty decent bodies through getting good at doing the simple stuff that yields the highest ROI, and another book about plenty of delicious, physique-wrecking food.

The 4-Hour Body by Tim Ferriss:

This is Tim Ferriss's second book, which is a follow-up to The 4-Hour Workweek(thoroughly enjoyed). What the first book was to the business world, this book is to the fitness world. An opening disclaimer states that what you are learning in the book won't take you to the 99.9%, but will take you rather painlessly from typical out of shape American to looking and performing pretty damn good.

Even though I did really enjoy the book, I wasn't able to derive much use from it,  outside of the rehab/prehab section,  since I have been involved in the fitness lifestyle for such a long time. However, if you are someone just starting out, I would definitely recommend picking up this book.

Momofuku by David Chang:

Pork fat lovers unite, this book is filled with many recipes and stories revolving around uses for the massive surplus of pork fat that Momofuku has as a result of the massive amount of pulled pork(this is now my goto pulled pork recipe) and pork belly for it's wonderful, delicious ramen.

Contrary to most cookbooks, this one feels more like David Chang decided to write a memoir about his hatred for his original jobs, leaving that job to go to culinary school, love and quest for the perfect bowl of ramen, and his underdog-turned-award-winning ramen shop, Momofuku(which I actually got a chance to eat at this past week, unfortunately I was under the weather so couldn't taste much, poor me).

If you have feel any love at all towards pork or ramen, I would definitely pick up a copy of this book; if you don't feel any love towards pork or ramen, I would definitely go see a doctor(contemplated going with jump off a bridge, but that would be rather mean of me).

Detail-Oriented

Be wary of anybody who describes themselves as detail-oriented.

It usually means they lose the forest for the trees.

The Red Zone

"Roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes." - Pareto's Principle

In football, the red zone, is the last 20 yards standing between the offensive team and the end zone. One of the best markers of a great offense is the percentage that they score a touchdown, given that they enter the red zone. Relatively speaking, it is also the most difficult 20 yards to move the offense; the defense has substantially more field to cover during the other 80 yards, leaving much wider windows for the offense to exploit. Ironically, the red zone is the perfect manifestation to the final 20% accounting for 80% of the effort in Pareto's Principle.

The Red Zone also manifests itself in every day life... just think about how many people you see at the gym with pretty decent physiques, yet how few you see that look truly exceptional, or how about how many projects you have laying around that are "done" minus a few of the truly difficult tasks?

Getting stuck in The Red Zone has been a problem of mine in the past, but consistently punching through it is the skill that I am currently most working on, and let's face it, punching through is a bitch.

I believe the way our education is structured is one of the reasons why so many get stuck in The Red Zone. Getting 100% in a class is rewarded equally to getting a 90%, yet getting a 100% requires substantially more work. Combine that with the fact the students are typically taking 5 or 6 classes at a time, and focusing on getting 100% in one class will likely leave only enough time and mental currency for a 70% in the other classes, yet it is perfectly feasible to get 90% in every class(pretty much sums me up as a straight-A student). We become very good at figuring out what 90% looks like and shooting for that.

What is my biggest solution for punching through? Treat it just like the best offense in the NFL would; visualize nothing besides the end zone, drop the trick plays and buckle down and play tough football. That means that I am only focused on one project at a time, I only read one book at a time, and I (am still attempting to) focus on only one fitness related aspect at a time. You wouldn't see the Broncos(this past seasons best offense, minus the Super Bowl) attempting to score on two fields at a time, would you?

So stop settling for field goals, or worse yet, turnovers, and start punching through The Red Zone. 

Cultivating and Weeding Relationships

I don't mean the romantic variety(even though what I am about to say is probably applicable there as well).

I am talking about great friends, family members, mentors and people who you have a working relation with.

Many relationships exist purely out of convenience, however to cultivate the truly meaningful relationships with the above people, we must work to maintain those relationships precisely when it is most inconvenient.

This past weekend, I was in my great friend's(almost like a brother) wedding... on a few day notice... and it was 2 states away. Did I also mention I am currently jobless? I didn't even have the right color suit. Would any reasonable person hold me in the wrong for not going? Nope. However, it is a relationship that I wish to cultivate, so I bit the bullet, purchased all the clothing necessities and a last minute ticket and off I was to the wedding.

On the flip side, some relationships exist out of convenience, and are more convenient to keep going than to finish, even though they are not correct for either party.

My first job coming out of college was with Qualcomm, which was an awesome company, it just wasn't awesome for me. I realized about 3 months in that I just wasn't fired up about working there, but continued for another 9 months because it was a comfortable relationship, and, frankly, quitting is far from comfortable. Even with as uncomfortable as it was, the weight off of my shoulders made up for it a hundred times over.

You have to know when you need to go the extra distance for your relationships; sometimes it will be to fetch water for them to grow, sometimes it will be for a lighter to watch them burn.

Readings of 2014, February Edition, Part 1

Well, February was quite the doozy for me in terms of number of books read. My grand total for the month was 7, which brought me up to 8 for the year(just managed to get through Walden in January).

To be fair, some of those reads were a little on the fluffy side, but I viewed my first 2 books as palette cleansers of sorts, analogous to the pickled ginger you eat in between different sushi rolls.

Who Moved My Cheese by Spencer Johnson:

If you're looking for an incredibly easy read, that still has a bit of substance to it, I would look no further than this book. It is far from mind-blowing, but the ideas are presented in an easy to grasp way.

If you don't feel the need to but the book, you're in luck, because my cliff notes version will be rather sufficient. 2 mice and 2 little people(people who are the size of mice) live in a maze and need to eat cheese to survive. They don't know how the cheese gets to the various cheese stations, but it just does. The story starts off with the 2 mice and 2 little people having found a vast amount of cheese at a cheese station, so the 2 little people decide to hang up their running shoes and move their homes closer to the cheese; while the mice always keep their shoes around their neck and commute back to their original home. The mice and the little people are enjoying the comforts of the cheese for a long time, until one day the cheese runs out. The mice then move on to look for cheese, while the little people stick around angry that the cheese is gone and hoping that it comes back. This persists almost until the point of starvation, when one of the little people decides to go venture out in the maze in search of cheese while the other stays back. Eventually, he finds the mice at a cheese station and has his fill, while the fate of the other little person is left a mystery.

Moral of the story: Don't get too comfortable in your current situation and embrace change, otherwise you may starve to death.

F*ck! I'm in My Twenties by Emma Koenig:

This is another easy read... not sure if I can even call it that though, seeing as it is just a compilation of various sketches that depict the struggles of post-college twenty-somethings. However, seeing as I am also a post-college twenty-something, I was able very easily able to relate.

Where as "Who Moved My Cheese" had some substance to it, this book is thoroughly devoid of substance, it is simply a series of (pretty funny)rants.

I wouldn't recommend buying it, but what I would recommend is going to your nearest bookstore with a coffee shop, grabbing it from the shelf and reading it while waiting for your coffee, because that is precisely the time it will take to finish.