If you have a body, you’re an athlete.
People love to quote this bullshit.
Oh. Is it too soon to say it’s bullshit? Sorry.
Fitness marketers love this definition of athlete, because it so simply sells the concept of the “fitness lifestyle,” which necessitates the purchase pro-grade accessories for mundane daily activities like walking your dog.
If you think you need $100 pants to practice yoga or workout, you are a sucker.
A complete dupe.
You are not an athlete. Continue reading
By about the age of twelve, I had become extremely proud of my mastery of sarcasm. Through my teen years, irony protected me from people that didn’t appreciate my intellect.
In my early twenties, I read David Foster Wallace’s essay about how televisual culture co-opts any criticism leveled against it with ironic self-reference, and I recognized the tactic. And I was moved by his idea that earnest feeling and unselfconscious truth-telling could be more constructive. Continue reading
There’s a billion posts out there on the “must-have” tools you need to start a business and the “essential” traits of an entrepreneur…
…and they’re basically BS.
You don’t need 53 fancy webapps. You don’t need to find your passion (where do you look, anyway? Under the bed?). You don’t need to learn about social media.)
Build your business from the bottom, up – from the foundation.
Here’s what you really need. Continue reading
There are 6,800,000,000 people on this planet, with just under 20% of those being females between 25 and 35 years old. I’ve just cut the pool of possible romantic partners down to 1.36 billion.
Not that I’m looking, mind you, but as a thought experiment, it’s kind of intersting.
Half of these 1.36 billion lovely ladies identify as either Christian, Muslim, or Jewish, and are therefore incompatible with me. Down to 680 Million. Approximately 1/6 of these are said to use the internet regularly. Let’s call that an even hundred million.
Meaning: There are 100,000,000 women in my age range out there who could potentially see this note. Continue reading
I teach people about health. In a normal week, I get at least a few emails asking questions like:
How do I get a fighter’s body?
What kind of workout should I do to look like a gymnast?
My answers are usually very simple. If you want to be a fighter, train to fight. A gymnast? Take up gymnastics. Olympic sprinter? Lace ‘em up tight and get to work.
There are no secret techniques for looking as if you’ve done something when you haven’t done it. You can approximate, and you can cheat. You can even fake a few people (most notably, yourself) out a certain percentage of the time. But if you really want something, the path to getting it is most likely direct and well-known. Continue reading
Note: I wrote this in June of 2009. I’m no longer 32, and Noriko and I are quite married now.
People make a big deal about love. And this is generally a good thing.
In the video below, Van Halen asks the question, “How do I know when it’s love?” and Sammy Hagar answers that he can’t say, but that it lasts forever. Then Eddie plays one of his most understated (and one of my favorite) guitar solos. Later, Sammy (who, incidentally, is wearing yellow stretch pants) goes on to elaborate that it’s something you feel together and that, when it happens, “nothing’s missing.” Continue reading
A few days ago, somebody asked me for advice about business coaching.
I get questions like this all the time, and I usually just say it depends, but I’m tired of people hiding from themselves and blaming the failures of their bullshit businesses on outside factors. So I wrote this reply.
If you’re in the early stages of starting a business, listen up. This might save you a shitload of time, money, and frustration. Continue reading
I used to think this was a stupid idea: this whole “how to find balance” thing.
But I’ve read some really eye-opening blogs lately on the unglamorous reality of working from home and finally figured it out: These people are morons.
OK, so maybe that’s not so nice. I can hear all my friends’ mothers giving a collective sigh of resigned disappointment. I’m sorry – I don’t really mean literally that people wanting to increase their feelings of control in their worlds are actually stupid.
If you happen to be someone who has sought life balance at some point, please don’t be offended. I’m sure you’re a very nice, intelligent person with excellent taste in clothes and music.
But perhaps you’re just a tad confused. Continue reading
Lately, I’ve been rather annoyed.
I won’t claim it’s a new thing for me, especially when it comes to linguistic conventions – the way we abuse words infuriates me. Nothings means anything anymore, because so many words are interchangeable.
Calling something “awesome” used to mean it was extraordinary and truly great in a way one couldn’t hope to encounter every day. I just unfollowed someone on Twitter who insists on using the word to describe almost everything anyone in his online clique does. It made me feel sick. Can they really all be so enormously talented as to create awesomeness at such an unbelievable rate, or has “awesome” gotten watered down somehow?
Why do we find it so easy to believe the “unbelievable” things our friends tell us? Continue reading
Clay Collins is a savvy dude, and I’ve learned a LOT from him over the past few years. One of my favorites is this little nugget:
The greatest skill in business is the ability to feel into a situation and do what needs to be done to make the sale; and you might need to modify/adapt this for your business.
Clay’s point absolutely hits the bulls-eye as to why many people get stuck in business. Continue reading