Active Recall!

Podcasts, videos, and iPad art

It takes more than a leg drop for your complete transformation

All it took was a leg drop.

In Guy Evans’s “Nitro: The Incredible Rise and Inevitable Collapse of Ted Turner’s WCW”, there is of course a nice section on Bash at the Beach 1996. In a few seconds, Hulk Hogan goes from hero to villain.

Seemingly out of nowhere, with his unsuspecting devotees enveloped in celebration, Hulk backed up to the corner. With the coldness of a serial killer, the once-honorable hero shockingly shoved referee Anderson, and executed his patented finishing move—the leg drop—to the helpless Macho Man below.

On the bright side, It takes more than a few seconds to turn yourself into a heel.

(Or, okay, the version of yourself you don’t want to be.)

That said, we tend to default to unhealthy things: staying up late on our phones, eating junk, sitting instead of working out. So you’ll get there if you don’t take the effort to do a little good for yourself each day.

  • In Atomic Habits, James Clear describes daily habits as votes for your future self. If you want to become that image of yourself, a little over a long time is the path to get there.
  • In The Slight Edge, Jeff Olson describes a beach bum with no direction in life and the other a business success. Spoiler: they’re the same person at different times in life. The “after” comes after the person decides to make small positive changes every day.

Creator lesson: Remember that it’ll take more time than a Hulk Hogan leg drop to turn into the bizarro evil Hollywood version of yourself. Little positive actions each day (training, saying your prayers, eating your vitamins) will keep you running toward the good hulk version of you.

Small creative acts over time add up: 250 words a day, write ten video ideas a day, write down one new idea you came across each day, DM someone and let them know you enjoyed something they made…

It all adds up.

Snacking on workouts

I came across an article about the importance of being active throughout the day for older adults. I am now basically an older adult. Or at least getting there fast.

In any case, there’s a lot of good reasons to get in the practice of doing shorter workouts.

This was one of the main mental shifts that 75 Hard taught me. 45 minute workouts 2X a day isn’t exactly workout snacking. But the program does allow one of those workouts each day to be brisk walking outdoors.

I didn’t get through the program but doing it for a couple weeks (aka a few days) I saw the mental shift knowing that walking was progress.

Courtland Allen, founder of Indie Hackers, talks about a post-it note he has in his office that he tries to avoid looking at but inevitably looks at. It’s not a dreaded programming task. It says “push-ups”. The rule: when he sees it, he does push ups.

Pat Flynn and Dan John, fitness coaches, have an episode with “back pocket workouts”. These are workouts when you have some constraints.

  • If you’re constrained on time, have a full body workout that you can do in 10 minutes + 5 minutes for warming up
  • If you’re constrained on equipment, have a body weight workout (Men’s Health had these basically every month for you hotel jetsetting business execs out there)

You should figure out back pocket workouts that you enjoy and can memorize. Some ideas:

  • Just a pull up bar 1/4 Murph: 1/4 mile run, 25 pull ups, 50 push ups, 75 squats, 1/4 mile run
  • Just 15 minutes: 5 minute warm up, 10 minutes kb swings

I’ve been trying to figure out some good 25 minute workouts (5 minute warm up + 20 minute workout). I like this because

  • The pomodoro time block is a familiar time block
  • It can fit in between meetings w a little buffer to get to the home gym or apartment gym without rushing
  • It reminds me that I should warm up

It’s all a nice reminder that time shouldn’t be an excuse for skipping workouts. And practicing being flexible with these workout snacks now when I have time will make it easier in the future with kids and less time.

The Ramblings: Back on the treadder edition

Just trying to make it a habit to write daily. I’ve bombed Ship 30 for 30 again but there’s always the next cohort to give it a shot. Why write elsewhere when I have a sweet sweet empty void of my own right here?

Some lessons from the week.

  • Maybe you don’t have to work out for 90 minutes before writing: In Sean Anthony’s video about “The Golden Hour of Money” he talks about figuring out his morning routine. Which does mean going through a bunch of other routines and learning what doesn’t work. Movement is good, but a few minutes stretching gets the blood flowing enough. The more important piece is getting a focused block of writing in. For him, it’s a daily email. For you, it might be working on your novel, a video script, a blog post, etc.
  • Tim Ferriss is still the best at asking what the audience wants to ask: He went ahead and asked Cal Newport about his routine from as big as the environment down tot he 0.5mm Uni hall micro pen.

Because even if you say museum, if you’re in a city, there are multiple museums you could choose. So how did you choose a particular place? And then when you are working on some larger problem or project, what does that actually look like? Is it just pen and paper? Is it laptop where you’ve knocked out the Wi-Fi? If you could give maybe one or two real-world examples, that would be super helpful.

  • One physical notebook trick for both of them: each new book they write gets a dedicated notebook. It’s similar to Twyla Tharp keeping new dance routine contents in a banker’s box. Each project gets a box.
  • Tiago Forte points out that maybe you don’t want your note taking system to work like a brain: Our brains can be distracting for a reason. One mistake you’ll see following Evernote, Roam, Notion, etc. is that some people advocate as if there’s only one solution and that they’ve found it. (That goes for plenty of things beyond note taking apps, of course.) Ali Abdaal has returned to simple Apple Notes. Tiago is back to Evernote. David Perell still uses Evernote in his process. And many people get plenty done with Google Docs. Simplicity on the other side of complexity. (If I were writing this in a zettelskan I would write that I heard that phrase from Ali Abdaal.)
  • Speaking of, he did a webinar with David Perell leading into the next Write of Passage cohort. His main takeaway from when he took Write of Passage? POP writing. Remember: Powerful, observational, playful.

Alright enough rambling for today. (Aka I hit 45 mins on the treadmill.)

Lessons from Draymond Green (The Old Man and the Three)

Some lessons from Draymond Green on JJ Redick’s “Old Man and the Three”

  • Your window isn’t closed: Okay this is more of a timing thing, but he admits to JJ Redick that he did think that the championship window closed. Klay has a major injury and you know that KD’s going to leave. You have a terrible losing season.
  • You can be among the best in the world and not love what you’re doing: Draymond talks about how few people understand and love basketball in the NBA. (And he mentions Durant just absolutely loves basketball. He’ll watch 10 year olds play.)
  • Behind Ja’s highlights are instincts showing high basketball IQ: We all love seeing Ja’s game winners and dunks. Even his missed dunks are great. But Draymond talks about how Ja is showing really high basketball IQ in how he plays.
  • Clippers were front runners (but not JJ Redick): If we hit them in the mouth, they’ll fold. He doesn’t name people, but he does say JJ was one of the people who wouldn’t fold in those circumstances.
  • Modern player empowerment began with The Decision: LeBron and team might’ve done some things differently with the announcement, but the decision to join the Heat was a good one. Players realized the negotiation power they have and the platforms that they have.

Arnold gave up his girl, what will you give up?

In “Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder”, Arnold (Schwarzenegger, if you didn’t guess by now) talks about meeting someone really special.

Then in 1969 I met a girl who changed my thinking. Her name was Barbara; she was a waitress in Zuckie’s in Santa Monica, working there during the summer to help pay for schooling at San Diego State. I asked her out and was impressed immediately by something I felt about her, something that was different from most of the girls I had been dating. I could describe it as an inner warmth, the wholesomeness one associates with a hometown girl.

But not special enough:

“Gradually a conflict grew up in our relationship. Basically it came down to this: she was a well-balanced woman who wanted an ordinary, solid life, and I was not a well-balanced man and hated the very idea of ordinary life. She had thought I would settle down, that I would reach the top in my field and level off. But that’s a concept that has no place in my thinking. For me, life is continuously being hungry. The meaning of life is not simply to exist, to survive, but to move ahead, to go up, to achieve, to conquer.” — Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder by Arnold Schwarzenegger – https://a.co/6lZsPy1

A little harsh, and it’s definitely a case of “not special enough… for that point in his life”. He’s the best bodybuilder in history and is about to go shift the movie industry with a few other super jacked action stars.

A couple questions that can be helpful:

(1) What do you want right now?
(2) What will you sacrifice for that thing? (And are you willing to make that sacrifice?)

Yes, I do want to drop 10 pounds. What do I have to sacrifice?

More than just time, because I was already carving the time out for workouts.

Not sleep, because that will go counter to the goal, especially when framed in terms of overall health and sustainability.

The joy of food. Yes that’s one thing. So I need to remind myself that that particular joy is fleeting.

The social connection of shared meals. This is a big thing where my beliefs are wired wrong. I can still join in on social meals. I don’t need to eat the most. Finishing the remaining food at the bottom of the container doesn’t make the friendship deeper or bring the money back.

I’m also past the time in life where most of my friends are going out every weekend. So I kind of have it easy!

Being consistently hungry in this goal means literally being consistently hungry and being okay with that feeling.

Info Diet (Jan 26, 2022): Ali Abdaal, Oliver Burkeman, and “The More You Do The Better You Feel”

Check out the full notes for “The More You Do the Better You Feel” by David Parker

Okay just popping the editor open and writing. Back to basics. Kindle notes on the left. WordPress editor on the right.

Instead of having a to-do list that, you take a blank page, write one thing to work on, finish it, cross it off, then write the next thing that you’ll work on. I’m still reading the book but I jumped around to find a description of the technique. From “The More You Do The Better You Feel”, the “Just one thing” method:

You work on the task immediately after writing it down. And these tasks can be super easy. (Example from the book: “Put DVD away”.) In Stephen Curry’s MasterClass, he talks about how he doesn’t come into the practice gym and start bombing threes. He starts with lay-ups and works his way out. The J.O.T. method is like getting right back next to the hoop and building your confidence back up. If you’re a well oiled productivity machine, you don’t need to resort to the J.O.T. method. But if you’ve found yourself completely distracted for days on end, start feeling bad about how little you’re getting done, then ending up more distracted because you’re feeling bad… …time for lay-ups. Some other things that this could help with:

  • You can skip prioritizing and overthinking things that you need to do. Take care of that when you’ve built up a little confidence.
  • You can get some reps in with seeing how short or long things take. One of the all-too-familiar scenarios he describes is choosing to go out and buy disposable plates and utensils because it’s easier than washing dishes. This takes 40 minutes. Then—you do eventually have to wash the dishes—he sees that it takes much less time than expected.

Anyway. Listen to Ali Abdaal and Oliver Burkeman, then go read “The More You Do the Better You Feel” to get some ideas for becoming productive again, then come back to “Four Thousand Hours” to remind yourself that productivity isn’t the ultimate goal. (So you don’t end up feeling too badly when you’re in an unproductive phase.)