Templates

If you're following your template, and you're getting the results you want, stick with it. Don't fix what isn't broken.

If you're following your template, but not getting the results that you want, it's time to either change the template or your expectations. No template will add 100 pounds of muscle in a week, but if your expectations are realistic then it is clearly the template that needs to change.

If you're not following your template, it's time to change yourself(assuming you picked the right template).

Make Your Bed

My new life hack to start my day on the right foot: make my bed.

Perfectly.

Even when the day is going to be hectic or I don't feel like making it.

Particularly when the day is going to be hectic or I don't feel like making it.

At first, I didn't realize why making my bed seemed to be correlated with having better, more productive days; I just chalked it up to a snowball effect of sorts, completing one task just leads to completing other tasks. 

However, after reading Delivering Happiness, I feel like it is even deeper than that. In Delivering Happiness, Tony Hsieh(CEO of Zappos and all-around badass) lays out his framework for happiness: perceived control, perceived progress, connectedness and being part of something bigger than yourself. 

While making your bed will likely never connect you with others or be part of some grand scheme in life, it definitely meets the perceived control(you can make your bed however you want) and perceived progress(making it faster or perfect-er).

Start your day off right, make your bed.

(Oh and if you want more about the awesomeness of making your bed, check out this University of Texas commencement speech.)

V for Vulnerable

If you want to set a new personal record in the squat, you risk getting stapled in the hole.

If you want to go on a date with the girl of your dreams, you risk getting rejected.

If you want to start a company, you risk falling flat on your face.

You are at your most vulnerable when you are in the hole, or asking a girl on a date, or fully committed to your getting your business up and running; that vulnerability is the precursor to success.

Squat high, stick to harmless flirting, and leave your business as a side project and you won't fall flat on your face... but you won't get what you want either.

Edit: This title is actually a play on the movie V for Vendetta, not the Seth Godin book V is for Vulnerable, which I have actually not read(or even knew existed) prior to writing this post.

Readings of 2014, April Edition, Part 4

World War Z by Max Brooks:

Brad Pitt, an ex-government official, and his luscious locks try to save the world from fast-moving, disease-fearing zombies and relocate his family.

Oh, wait, that was the movie of the same title, which had surprisingly little in

common with the book. Particularly irritating was the amount that the book harped on the fact that the zombies move incredibly slow and are utterly mindless, while the movie seemed to go out of its way to contradict that.

The format of the book was rather unique, where a narrator conducts a series of interviews, painting a picture from the very beginning to the aftermath of the zombie war. Not the quickest read in the world, due to the unique format, but I would definitely say it was worthy of the time spent.

Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks:

This is a satyrical how-to guide for surviving a zombie apocalypse, covering everything from building an emergency shelter to weaponry to training.

The tongue-and-cheek writing style made it pretty entertaining, but I don't think it is a required read by any stretch.

Don't Write on Stalls

The easiest way to ensure that people write on your stalls: put up a do-not-write-on-stalls sign.

Gaming Metrics

I woke up, set down my scale and stepped on. It spit out a whopping 80.1.

That is pounds, not kilos.

In my sleepy stupor, I inadvertently placed the scale on carpet, making the scale think I weigh less than half of what I actually weigh. There is a big difference between actually losing weight and making the scale display a lower number.

Don't mistake gaming metrics for improving what they are attempting to measure.

Do As I Say

Usually, when people are labeled as living by the mentality of "Do as I say, not as I do", that label does not come in a positive light.

However, when asking for directions, great advice in that form may come along very often.

Maybe your coach sees that your techique is a weakpoint, so they recommend that you should squat 7 days a week, while they only squat once a week.

Maybe your business mentor recommends pulling 80 hour weeks at this stage in your business, while they are currently working comfortable 40 hour weeks.

The best coaches are usually in a different place in their careers than you, so don't just copy their actions, ask for their advice.

The Perfect Diet

The second most important quality of the perfect diet(or any plan): can it produce the desired results?

The most important quality: can it actually be followed?

Readings of 2014, April Edition, Part 3

The Money Code by Joe John Duran:

I feel most people(myself included) can always learn more about money. I have read a few books on money in the past, but they seemed to either be about how to save more money or how to make more money. None of them really dug into to the psychological reasons for why we want money in the first place.

Until I read this book.

Duran proposes that everybody seeks money for varying degrees of the three reasons:

    1) To provide a sense of security.

    2) To obtain things that they want.

    3) To provide for others.

He proposes that until we look within ourselves to figure out where we fit in in the above 3 types, and translate those to tangible goals, quantifying how much money we actually need, we will forever be stuck feeling like we don't have enough money.

I would highly recommend reading this book to anybody even slightly confused by the role that money plays in their life. It is an extremely quick read, most could probably read it over a few cups of coffee.

The Twitter Book by Tim O'Reilly and Sarah Milstein:

Not unlike money, Twitter is a tool that I never felt totally comfortable using, always feeling like others are using it much more effectively than I.

Maybe, I was using it wrong.

Maybe, I wasn't fitting enough wit into those 140 characters.

So, I figured I would give this book a read and see if I could get to the bottom of it.

Unfortunately, the book was a tad bit out of date so most of the stuff I either knew(how to use hashtags) or behind the times(suggested third party twitter apps, and need to use metacharacters for retweeting).

It was a pretty quick read, so I didn't feel like I wasted much time reading through it, but I don't think I would suggest it.

The Move

So it's really happening, I found a place on Airbnb, took my own advice to be the small fish in a big pond and am moving to San Francisco.

Don't get me wrong, San Francisco seems about a billion times larger than any city I have ever lived in, I am scared shitless and will miss Boulder and all of the truly awesome friends I made while I was here! However, I know I have to surround myself with the largest startup and technology culture in the world if I want tot truly push myself.

So it is time to put the best advice I have ever received to the test, and get a little uncomfortable.

Correct-Amount-Of Information Diet

Have you ever notice that as soon as you start dieting, everybody seems to becomes a diet guru?

Or how about when you're about to quit your job, everybody seems to turn into a career coach?

Unfortunately, most of the time the advice is pretty horrible. Usually, it is for innocent reasons; they want to feel like they are helping, but they simply lack the expertise to provide quality information.

However, sometimes it is for not-so-innocent reasons. Maybe they hate their job, but are too afraid to leave it, so they project those insecurities on to you. Or maybe they are insecure about their bodies, so they try to consciously(or subconsciously) attempt to undermine your attempts at obtaining the physique that you desire.

Not everybody needs to know the whole story about why you're quitting your job, for most people it can simply be "it wasn't a great fit" and leave it at that; the less that they have to go off of, the less inclined they will be to "help". For people who can genuinely help(manager, actual career coach), the story should be much more detailed.

Give people the correct amount of information; not too much, and not too little.

IPhone Chargers

IPhone chargers are great at their primary goal: charging phones really fast.

However, they really blow it when it comes to their secondary goal: universality.

If I lose the charger for my Galaxy S3, I can use a charger from any other Galaxy device. Or any Android device. Or any Kindle device.

Any generic micro usb can charge my device.

That is the beauty of conforming to standards.

When you forget your iPhone charger, and you are only surrounded by Droid users, you will wish that Apple had sacrificed a little performance for accessibility.

The Best Coach

Imagine you're trying to hire a new coach. Also imagine that the only information you have to go on is their relevant athletic career.

Would you hire the hall of fame athlete?

Chances are you would.

But you'd probably be wrong.

How about we rephrase it. Who do you think knows more about losing weight: the guy who came out of the womb with chiseled abs and bulging biceps, or the former pudgy guy who is now pretty lean?

Not to bash the work ethic of hall of fame athletes, chances are the worked their asses of to obtain that title. Chances are also pretty good that they also happened to always just be a little bigger, stronger, faster, and their sport just generally came easier to them; they can't really pass that knowledge on to others, because they never had to learn it themselves.

If you want to find the best coach(or professor or manager or...), look for the loser who made themselves pretty damn good.

Readings of 2014, April Edition, Part 2

Remote by Jason Fried:

Jason challenged the successful business status quo in his last book, Rework. In Remote, he does it once again.

In Rework, he mentions in passing that it is possible to have a majority, if not all, of your work force working remotely; in Remote, he expands upon the benefits and pitfalls of doing so, and offers suggestions for companies or employees looking to transition towards remote work.

It is a rather quick read, so I would definitely recommend it for anybody even remotely interested in working remotely.

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg:

Why do you grab that 3 o'clock cookie?

Why do you go on a morning jog, rain or shine?

How can people with amnesia, walk around their neighborhood without getting lost?

We all have habits, beneficial and detrimental alike, that guide us through our day-to-day lives. In the Power of Habit, Charles guides us through the how-to of habit formation, distilling research and anatomy into easily relatable text.

Before reading this book, I was a firm believer in the driving force of habit, which has only been reinforced since reading it. Above I alluded to the biggest testament to habit's power presented in this book: an old man with amnesia could walk around his neighborhood, without getting lost, yet he had no idea where he was going or where his house was.

Another book that I would definitely recommend for anybody looking to make positive change in their life, and understand why that change is taking place.

The Long(and the Really Long) Journey

Some journeys are long. The route may not be so clear, but they have a clear beginning and end.

The road trip from Illinois to Colorado that I am about to take with my mom is a long trip.

On the other hand, really long journeys have no destination, maybe some landmarks along the way though. In a sense, the journey is the destination.

Each training session, powerlifters are trying to make themselves stronger, more technically efficient or healthier. They may be working towards a personal record, world record, or some other benchmark, but those are just landmarks; as soon as they reach it, another will be placed just off in the horizon.

Long journey's shouldn't necessarily be enjoyable(of course my upcoming road trip will be, though), think about about that college class that you despised; grinding through was manageable as long as you got your degree. On the other hand, if you're not enjoying your really long journey, you better take the next off ramp.

Customers and Marriage

Switch to <insert cell phone service provider>, and we will pay off the remainder of your old phone contract.

Buy this new truck, and we will pay off the remainder of your previous car loan.

Get cable/satellite service and save 50% for your first 12 months.

Get married to me, and I will give you this huge ring, an amazing wedding and a loveless marriage.

Wait, that last one sounds horrible, yet it is oddly similar to the messages sent in many of the advertisements I see on TV.

Instead of worrying about what sort of trick we will use to get out our next customer, or, if polygamy floats your boat, next spouse, how about we start taking care of those we already have.

Better than Perfect

Solid state amplifiers create a less noisy signal that tube amplifiers, yet many audiophiles prefer these imperfections.

Perfect form and technique are preached while lifting, yet while performing maximum effort attempts form usually deteriorates slightly.

Perfectly seared scallops and julienned vegetables prepared by a master chef just won't cut it, if your stomach truly desires a greasy cheeseburger, thick chocolate shake and salty fries.

Cindy Crawford's mole and the gap in Michael Strahan's teeth are both imperfections, but those imperfections have allowed them to be more relatable to regular people, making them more perfect in a sense.

Sometimes you need to be less perfect in order to be more perfect.

Asking for Directions

How do you get to Kaneohe, Hawaii?

If you were to ask most people in America, they would probably tell you 2 things:

1. Head to the South-West.
2. You need to head there by plane or boat.

If you are in most of the United States, that would be a great start. But what about those who are in Honolulu?

In fact, to get to Kaneohe from Honolulu, you need to head to the North-East by car.

Knowing where you currently are is just as important as knowing where you want to go, be wary of blanket statements that don't take the former into account.

Readings of 2014, April Edition, Part 1

The Circle by Dave Eggers:

What happens when social media becomes so deeply ingrained with our day-to-day life that we begin paying our bills, voting, and even (literally) display every moment of every day for the world to see?

The Circle documents a new Circler's(that's what the employees call themselves), Mae, rise through the company the most influential and controversial company on the planet.

The Circle's intentions begin innocently enough; they begin as essentially a mixture of PayPal and Facebook, which requires a verified social security number to fight online fraud. Mae begins at the company a few years into it's life, and The Circle is now even more deeply ingrained into everyone's life, which Mae is slightly torn about.

As the story goes on, this only increases, as The Circle takes the Silicon-Valley buzzword, transparency to another level; Mae actually begins wearing a video camera, which documents every second of her day for the world to see.

I am not going to give any more spoilers out for the book, because I believe that you should go read it. It is an amazing insight into some of today's fictional technological and moral problems that could very well be the facts of tomorrow.

Dot Complicated by Randi Zuckerberg:

Yes, that Zuckerberg.

Where The Circle focuses on future fictional implications of the growth social media and technology, Randi Zuckerberg focuses on the present: beneficial, as well as negative.

Like I alluded to earlier, Randi Zuckerberg is Mark Zuckerberg's sister, as well as one of Facebook's first employees, where she led the marketing efforts.

Throughout the book, it is apparent that Randi is torn between all of the benefits that social media has to offer(connecting people, sharing of information, etc) and all of its obvious and subtle drawbacks(never being truly present, feeling the need to document all aspects of our life for the world to see, trying to maintain multiple online personalities, and the need to learn a constantly evolving online etiquette).

Again, I won't ruin the whole book for you. I would definitely recommend reading both... there are some very interesting connections to be made between the two.

Finding What You're Looking for

If you know what you're looking for, it is easy to find.

Just look at supplement companies. Increase muscle mass by 200%, decrease fat by 30%, increases testosterone levels 50% greater than the competitor, and clinically shown to increase growth hormone level by 1000% in 16 year old asian males. The claims on the packaging have to come from research somewhere. 

Not everybody responded positively? Let's just focus on those who responded well.

The control group generally performed poorly, with the exception of a few outliers who outperformed everyone. Eh, let's just throw out the outliers or re-run the experiment.

We all have supplement company-like tendencies from time to time.

Worried that indeed your ass looks fat? Ask your spouse if those jeans make your butt look big... they won't dare to tell you that it does.

Want to hear that your new business is the second coming of Facebook? Vet it by your friends who worship the ground you walk on.

I am guilty of it. It feels great, but it doesn't get us anywhere.

Most of the time, we need to find what we're not looking for; we need to hear that we could lose a few pounds or that our social networking site for cat lovers is not even remotely viable.

If you want to grow, surround yourself with those who will be completely honest with you... or you could pretend you are growing and surround yourself with those who are kinda-sorta honest with you.

Which will you look for?

Mission Statements

The two things that all successful organizations have in common: having a tangible mission statement and empowering everybody to do their part to make sure that the mission statement actually manifests into reality.

Zappos mission is to provide the best customer service possible. It works because their is no customer service department; everybody, at every level of the organization, is empowered to provided that customer with the best service.

Similarly, Starbucks has a very tangible, albeit slightly longer, statement consisting of sourcing the finest coffee, the promise of a perfect beverage, highest quality customer-employee interactions and welcoming stores that "are a break from the outside". I bet you could have paraphrased their mission statement just by your experiences in the store. 

"Put a computer on every desk and in every home." That was Microsoft's old mission statement, and the evolution of computers clearly reflect it. In computer's infancy, they were expensive and impossible for all but experts to use. Microsoft solved these issues by driving the commoditization of hardware to bring down prices and continually making the operating systems easier to use.

Now that a computer is essentially on every desk, and has been for a few years, Microsoft has had to create a new mission statement. This one consists of many fancy sounding phrases like "Interoperability among assistive technology products". 

What does that even mean?

I wouldn't go so far as to say that Microsoft's decaying public perception is a direct result of their hand-wavy mission statement, but I would imagine it definitely plays a part.

If having tangible mission statements work for companies, imagine what a personal mission statement could do for all of us...