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The Road to 159 (2022): Week 2

What went well?

  • I’ve started to shift my eating a bit: more protein shakes, less food overall
  • Have been tracking food with MyFitnessPal and continue to track weight workouts with the Strong app

What can be improved?

  • Social eating, but I do think this has gone a little bit better. I did get ice cream but only ate 1/3rd of it. (It does feel wasteful so next time I’ll skip altogether.)

What to experiment with?

  • I joined a coaching program so there will be a lot of changes to both my workouts and nutrition. Looking forward to it

Fitness quote for the week

The secret to eating poorly and looking good:

“If you want to eat poorly and look good, be 22 and train about 60 hours a week.”
– Dan John

I’ve accepted that I’m past certain levels of fitness based on age. I’ve moved into the age range where professional athletes still producing results are outliers. Or miracles, even.

You’ve probably heard of the professor and the jar and the rocks…

Check out the full notes for “Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals” by Oliver Burkeman

The story of the professor with the jar and sand and rocks shows up in a bunch of productivity books. It’s pretty good for recognizing that you’re probably doing a bunch of small things that aren’t important at all.

But then you start to see a whole bunch of important things in your life.

“The smug teacher is being dishonest. He has rigged his demonstration by bringing only a few big rocks into the classroom, knowing they’ll all fit into the jar. The real problem of time management today, though, isn’t that we’re bad at prioritizing the big rocks. It’s that there are too many rocks—and most of them are never making it anywhere near that jar.”

I ran into this a bunch while trying to recap 2021 (currently writing this post in January 2022). I’d look at things to review and then try to score different things and then try to plan for the future and create some buckets for things:

  • Health
  • Relationships
  • Work

…but then well I should break health into mental and physical.

  • Physical health
  • Mental health
  • Relationships
  • Work

…actually my marriage should be highlighted as well. Let’s split that out as well.

  • Physical health
  • Mental health
  • Marriage
  • Relationships
  • Work

…and then this is a side project so I need to break this out as well

  • Physical health
  • Mental health
  • Marriage
  • Relationships
  • Work
  • Side projects

And you know what physical health is both fitness and nutrition

  • Physical health: Workouts
  • Physical health: Nutrition
  • Mental health
  • Marriage
  • Relationships
  • Work
  • Side projects

 Gonna need a bigger jar baby!

The Road to 159 (2022): Week 1

Writing this on the treadmill. Getting the walking in and starting a new habit of finishing up my food diary at night.

  • What went well: Made it to the gym a few times. I’ll call that a win right now. I was sick earlier in the week but it seems entirely cleared up now so I’m feeling like I’m back.
  • What went poorly: It appears social eating is still the major issue. Clearer rules and small meals prior to any social dinners might help with things.
  • What I’ll change this week: I no longer have the “I’m sick” excuse. So I’m aiming to hit the gym in the morning (have been sleeping and waking a little earlier each day to get to where I’ll have enough time in the morning). And then at night I’ll continue building this habit of finishing the food diary + slow cardio + some other journaling.

Okay I’ll keep this weekly thing short because these ran pretty long in the past and that eventually made me not want to do it. But I’ll continue sharing a fitness quote.

From Bigger, Leaner, Stronger by Michael Matthews:

One of our favorite ways to abandon our self-control is to justify our sins of the present with planned virtues of the future.

I’ll stop saying “I’ll eat less tomorrow to make up for tonight.

Time to eat like an adult.

Podcast Notes: Brandon Zhang (Backstage Careers)

  • Podcast
    Backstage Careers
  • Episode Title
    How This 20-Year-Old Found His Business Mentor Using His Podcast
  • Episode links
    Apple Podcasts

A few takeaways:

  • Working with Jack Butcher: He interviewed Jack for his podcast and then reached later with some ideas to contribute to Visualize Value. He got a chance to learn a bunch of different aspects of running an online business while getting great mentorship with Jack.
  • Continuing with college: He has the skills and connections to jump into a successful career in startups. But college still provides a great environment to learn and meet other people. And Columbia gives access to New York.
  • Pausing the podcast and newsletter: Too much going on. The good side of the podcast was that it gave him a reason to reach out to people for interviews. But later on he found he was listening to all this advice from people but then wasn’t actually applying it. So he took some time to focus on actually applying himself to see where that could go.

(Seems like it’s gone very well so far.)

The best things I learned in 2021

  • Podcast
    Shit You Don’t Learn in School
  • Episode Title
    44. The Best Sh*t We Learned in 2021
  • Episode links
    Apple Podcasts • Spotify

Steph Smith and Calvin Rosser answer a set of questions to review last year. I thought it was a nice balance of work and personal questions, so I’m going to just jot some quick answers down here. This will act as a TODO to elaborate on in the next podcast episode.

  • Best New Idea: Close race between mimetic theory and memesis
  • Best New Skill: Dog dad + husband aka being an adult
  • Best New Life Hack: Two-a-days but lower intensity (75 hard, sort of)
  • Best New Experience: The actual wedding itself after all the planning
  • Best Purchase: Gym membership
  • Best/Worst Investment: NFTs as both
  • Best Trend: Mental fitness (and home gyms)
  • Best Podcast: Not Investment Advice
  • Creator of the Year: Nat Eliason (same as Calvin’s from this episode)
  • Best Personal Win/Accomplishment: (also: some work stuff went well)
  • #1 Goal for Next Year: 159 pounds (also: get a house but a lot of factors are out of your control)
  • Prediction for the New Year: I finally finally focus on the podcast and bring it back instead of getting distracted by web3, other platforms, etc.

I might change the answers when I record. Anyway go listen to their episode for their more insightful answers.

5 Lessons from Logic and David Perell

Some notes from David Perell interviewing Logic.

“I don’t listen to rap”

A big theme from this is that Logic is interested in far more than just hip-hop. He’s taken the approach that many other 30-somethings do: just keep listening to what you used to listen to—for him this is stuff like “Midnight Marauders” by a Tribe Called Quest.

“Hip hop was my everything. Now my son is my everything. My well-being. My wife.”

When he was rapping, recording, touring full time, he was really going at it. It was everything. All he thought of. It consumed him. Feedback hurt. And he wasn’t happy.

Now he has different priorities. When people tell him “Oh I miss the old you the old you cared about rap more”… they’re right. He’s more focused on his family and having fun with creative work that brings him joy. The old way made him rich and famous. And very unhappy.

“The competition mentality… I don’t like that.”

This probably differs from most rappers. Especially most pre-internet rappers. The industry was fueled by beef and battles. That’s still part of the culture as well.

Logic doesn’t look at it as competition. While he’ll think along the lines of Oh that’s nice but I want to try to do something better, he’s not thinking that someone else winning means that he’s losing. There’s not a limited pie to go around.

“I’m one of the best rappers”

He is absolutely confident in his skill. And he knows the amount of work that he’s put in. He talks about this in the context of trying out new types of music, having different interests. He says he wants to try something he’s not good at because it’s interesting to learn something new. To be challenged. He can rap already. He’s proven that.

“Lord Subliminal” Yes.

Everyone had bad usernames when they were younger. Lord Subliminal was one of his on a rap site. He used to write raps on Spoken vs. Written. He talks about how weird this was where you’re just typing out battle raps.

(I used to do dabble in this on probably some sub forum on Rhyme Arena or some lesser known forums in the early 2000s—good times!

“Stay off the internet.”

That’s the secret.

Get out of your own head.

He talks about turning all the noise off in the past few years. By turning that down, he’s found he’s finally able to focus and be more creative.

Getting feedback on the internet is different for celebrities in a way that is probably hard to feel if you’re not one. People say your wife is ugly, your baby should die.

And when it comes to creative feedback, at a certain level you will never release something that people universally love.

At a certain point, you can’t get constructive feedback so you just need to turn it off.

“I make stuff for people that like the stuff I make.”

That might not be the best mindset for someone brand new to something because your stuff is probably bad.

But once you have an audience, it might be more sustainable to just make stuff for people that like your stuff. Why convert haters when you can find the people who would love your work?

“I love everything about making it except releasing it.”

Logic absolutely loves making music. The creative process is always going to be a part of his life. What he doesn’t look forward to is releasing it, for the above feedback reasons.

Last thing: if you want to get good at freestyling, read the dictionary and thesaurus over and over and over.