Active Recall!

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Learning about generalism

I’ve been binging pretty hard on the Pat Flynn podcast. Not that Pat Flynn. The other Pat Flynn. The one that writes about kettlebells.

(Check out his episode with Dan John, inventor of the goblet squat.)

At least that’s how I learned about him. I thought the podcast would be about that but now I’m learning it’s actually more about his approach to a lot of things. (Fitness is just one of them.)

He calls it generalism. It’s really resonating with me and a lot of the stuff me and Wally talked about on our podcast last year.

In particular, we talked about the book “The First Twenty Hours”, which explains that it’s important to start off on the right foot. If you start practicing something, you want to practice it right. That way you can get proficient as quickly as possible.

With generalism, Pat Flynn isn’t saying to avoid specializing in things. It’s the opposite. You should specialize deeply but aiming to get to 80%. Then move on to something else.

You don’t have to be the best writer in the world for writing to be valuable. Or the top 95%. You can get proficient to where you can mix it with some of your domain knowledge and write something interesting.

It’s not just for professional skills either.

You don’t have to be the best in the world at riding a bike to have fun riding a bike.

Once you’re proficient, that skill goes in maintenance then you shift your focus and specialize in something else.

Then you’ll be good at many things and great at some. Getting from 80% to 99.999% is much harder than getting from 0-80. It’s why we admire those outliers. It’s also why some of them have done terribly in other dimensions of their life.

Ric Flair is one of the most influential wrestlers but he was never around when his kids were growing up. In 500 years, the Nike swoosh may very well still be around. But one thing Phil Knight writes about in “Shoe Dog” is how he also wasn’t around enough for his kids.

(So never have kids! Just kidding but just be aware of how your energy is spread out.)

Last year I was interested in writing, podcasting, and making videos. I went deep on them for a few weeks at a time. I could have benefited from staying deep for a few weeks longer on some.

This year I want to go deep on videos. But then I just wrote all of this. I’ve got some work to do. In the meantime, I’ll be listening to more Pat Flynn episodes.

Some kettlebell notes

I took a kettlebell class today. I thought it’d be good to just start sharing some notes. Actually I mostly want to write these down so I remember them. If they add up over time, great.

Here was the rough program as far as I can remember:

  • Deadlifts 3×10
  • Rack hold walk, 3 push presses per side, 3 rounds
  • Swings, 1 minute
  • Push-ups
  • Farmers walk with uneven bells
  • Squats 5, 3 reverse lunges per side
  • Heavy bell hold 1 min, 3 rounds

With various planks in between some exercises. I definitely didn’t remember it all exactly but I hope I captured some of it.

Here are a few things the coach corrected me on.

  • Swings: exhale at the bottom—I was exhaling at the top of the swing but you should exhale when starting the movement.
  • Rack hold walk: hold kettlebell below collar bone—I was holding the kettlebell too low.
  • Heavy bell hold: don’t focus on grip and forearms—pay attention to tightening the rest of your body. Flex your glutes, keep your shoulders back, engage your traps.

That’s that! I also joined and will be trying to focus more on kettlebell training this year. Along with something else that starts with “ket-“. You guessed it. (And if you didn’t, it involves lots of fat.)

Review your beliefs (your future self will thank you!)

I’ve been reading Michael Hyatt’s Your Best Year Ever. I made a video about some of about the first third of it. I’m planning to finish it this week.

Here are some of the things I go over in the video:

  • Look at your past year: It’s important to reflect on the past. You can reflect on what went wrong, see what lessons you learned, and apply that to the future. You can also be grateful for all the things that went well. It’s easy to overlook.
  • Beliefs are powerful: You might have some negative beliefs that are holding you down. Take a look at the beliefs you have in your life. They come from many places. Maybe you grew up with that belief. Maybe you think the world is falling apart because you check the news 10 times a day. Maybe you think you’re the only person without a perfect life because you check social media 100 times a day.
  • 4 Rs: Use these four steps to process those beliefs: recognize, record, review, reframe (or REJECT).

It’s a new year and I’m planning my own year out.

I read a lot of books last year and was thinking of how to combine this and that with that and this to come up with an annual planning method.

Instead, I’m going to work through the steps in this book and trust the process. (Okay I might try to do some 12-Week Year scoring, too.)

One of my goals this year is to focus on videos. (The old pivot-to-video!)

I wrote about this in the last newsletter: Making videos helps me get out of my head more than writing does. A short video is more engaging and energizing to make than a short post is. And writing long posts makes me really less present in the days that I’m in the midst of it.

I’ll write short posts to go along with the videos. I also want to start putting some posts together as I learn to draw.

Last year I tried to move away from writing about writing, blogging about blogging, all that meta stuff. I enjoy that though, so I’m going to go ahead and do it but make sure it isn’t just about writing. It’ll at least be writing about drawing or writing about making videos or writing about podcasting. 

Writing about things that are fun to me. (One step toward my best year ever!)

Kicking Things Off (Newsletter issue 1)

I’m starting the year with a newsletter. I set the timer for 25-minutes. Last year I learned I don’t really have a handle writing anything long. (Mostly from trying to write about Bill Simmons’s writing from college.)

Instead, I’ll write a bunch of short things. Here are the podcast recommendations from me and Wally from our latest episode.

Joe DeFranco 142 (Mickey Gall): Turning Setbacks into Comebacks —
You might know Mickey Gall as the person who destroyed CM Punk in his UFC debut. I was rooting for CM Punk. I’ve been a casual MMA fan for a few years. Watching this fight and hearing Overeem commenting on CM Punk’s BJJ experience pre-fight (something like “What is he a purple belt?… Oh he’s blue? Oh boy.”) really opened my eyes to the gap created by experience in MMA.

Oh yeah, this episode. It’s about failure. Mickey Gall lost his most recent fight. It’s his first UFC loss. They talk about going through a loss and Gall talks about the steps he took to get over it and the steps he’s taking to start bouncing back.

Art of Manliness #363: Budgeting Doesn’t Have to Suck —
Wally recommended this as a good discussion on budgeting and personal finance. I recommended the app Clarity Money. Last year I wanted to save more so I installed Prosper Daily to keep an eye out. That app was discontinued and users were recommended to transfer to Clarity Money. It works really well also.

Tribe of Mentors: Jocko Willink – Discipline Equals Freedom —
Jocko in Tim Ferriss’s book, Tribe of Mentors: “Look at the situation and assess the multitude of problems, tasks, or issues. Choose the one that is going to have the biggest impact and execute on that. If you try to solve every problem or complete every task simultaneously, you will fail at all of them. Pick the biggest problem or the issue that will provide the most positive impact. Then focus your resources on that and attack it.”

The Tribe of Mentors podcast has guests giving answers to the questions in the book with some commentary and they also answer a few extra questions. It reminded me that you can learn a lot through podcasts. (Which will lead to me and Wally probably shifting our focus from books to podcasts.)

Knowledge Project: Is Sugar Slowly Killing Us? (Gary Taubes) —
Wally recommended this. It’s a good one for your New Year’s health goals. Stop eating sugar. Or at least so much of it. Speaking of, here’s another thing I wanted to mention: Martin is back at Leangains and the site is refreshed. If you want to learn about intermittent fasting, go there.

For a good sample of his writing, check out his classic F-arounditis: “It might sound tedious to keep doing the same movements every week and the appeal of ‘mixing it up’ can seem strong. However, the tediousness will soon be replaced by the much stronger joy you get from seeing your lifts go up on a weekly basis.”

I should probably read that every single week.

Active Recall: Tribe of Mentors (ep. 28) —
I’ll be sending out a newsletter whenever Wally and I release a new episode. It will have links to our latest episode and some podcast recommendations. I mentioned that I don’t have a handle on writing long things.

I’m also learning that it might not be the best thing for me right now. I get super distracted in the midst of it. I’ve noticed I’m not present when I’m writing long posts. With practice I bet you can learn to turn it off and on. But it’s probably lots of practice. Right now, I’d rather make short things and finish them. Videos are better for that so I’ll be working on videos. (Check out the channel!)

Here’s a photo for the week. If you’ve got some resolutions, go do them!

NewImage

Posting some training notes

Ok started the new year off with a kettlebell workout. I signed up for Strong ON mostly because I listened to a couple of Pat Flynn’s podcast and liked his approach to things. Good first impressions go a long way.

Kettlebell workouts feel good in the way running feels good. I mean I guess that’s the cardio aspect of it.

When doing Simple & Sinister I really needed to be tracking my progress to make sure I was making any progress. It’s always a good workout when I actually do it. Especially as it was getting heavier.

I’m program hopping again. Though I’m at least keeping the kettlebells.

Simple & Sinister seems very much sustainable and consistent. It fulfills the whole “What might this look like if it were easy?” mindset also. Though Strong On also fulfills that in that you log on and it tells you what to do. The workouts themselves aren’t easy but they are compared to when I started last year with one of those magazine workouts meant for 19 year olds experimenting with every chemical possible. I got sick after two days of like 45-set workouts.

I’m not looking for intensity. This goes with “it depends” being the answer for everything. Intensity might be key for what you do. I’ll keep with the idea that you can ease off the intensity if you increase the frequency. It’s somewhere in Simple & Sinister.

(Same goes for writing. I’ll keep this journal as I go along. I’ll tag it “training notes” or something like that.)

Know who you are

Yuval Noah Harari, in Tribe of Mentors: 

So you have no choice but to really get to know yourself better. Know who you are and what you really want from life. This is, of course, the oldest advice in the book: know thyself.

The answer for everything: it depends.

Okay, so what does it depend on? You!

What’s the best food to eat? It depends what your goals are and how well your body can process certain foods. (That said, vegetables are a good starting point.) What’s the best work out? It depends also on your goals and what you’ll actually do consistently. What’s the best way to build a habit? It depends on what’s causing friction in the first place.

(Check out a post I wrote about Harari’s book Sapiens and the stories we believe in.)

It’s important to know yourself to know the best way to approach things that come up in life. 

You might be on the right path and doing the right things that worked for someone else that might not work for you. One of the reasons I really like Tribe of Mentors (and Tools of Titans before it) is that it provides glimpses of what a lot of different people do.

You’ll see conflicting information between people who were interviewed. It worked for them. Parts of what they do will work for you. If you know yourself well, you’ll be able to pick and choose techniques that will be effective for you.

Speaking of conflict, Tim Ferriss even talks about how his approach now is a lot different than it was when he was younger. He had a high pain tolerance so he pushed through things when he was younger. Plenty of people have that mindset. You’ll often see success attributed to that. (Work hard through everything. Run to the end zone with a broken leg!) Now he knows some of the pain wasn’t necessary.

Now he asks: what would it look like if it was easy?