Active Recall!

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Cardio Sucks book note: A little bit at a time

I need to start doing cardio. I did what I usually do when I want to start something new. I bought a book. Yes, I need to start applying it. I bought Cardio Sucks by Michael Matthews. I went with someone whose work I’ve enjoyed in the past. I read Matthews’s Bigger Leaner Stronger and I listen to his podcast regularly. He’s practical and motivating. Here’s what he has to say about building habits in Cardio Sucks.

Mini-habits can also fit into even the nuttiest of schedules and days. Andre Dubus III wrote the inimitable House of Sand and Fog in 20-minute daily installments in his parked car, longhand on a notepad, before driving home from work to join his family for the evening. Twenty minutes per day. House of freaking Sand and Fog. I love that and remember it whenever I feel like slacking off.

This reminded me of the Joshua Schachter interview in Founders at Work. The book is filled with very successful tech startup founders who succeeded in the first internet bubble. A lot of the stories are as expected: blood, sweat, and tears. Schachter, though, talks about building del.icio.us in his free time in very small increments.

Livingston: When you were doing this in your spare time, did you ever say, “Ugh. This is too much work”?

Schachter: Not really. I was always very careful (not anymore, because the guys that I work with are better programmers) to structure the code—each chunk of code wasn’t larger than the screen—such that I could come in and look at it, figure out what I’m doing, do it, and be done for the day in 15 minutes. So if I could get one thing done a day, I was happy. A lot of stuff, if I could spend more time, I did, but as long as I could get one or two things done a week total, if I didn’t have time, I didn’t have time. So it moved pretty slowly. I worked on it for years.

Learning to estimate 15 minutes of work accurately becomes a skill itself. Good enough is good enough. “If I didn’t have time, I didn’t have time.”

It’s easy to forget this. I’m trying to remember it in pursuing success in all the different pillars in life. More than once, I’ve put too much weight on the bar thinking I could power through it with enough willpower. I’m sure I’ll do it again in the future. At least once a week, I get frustrated that I don’t have enough time to finish some post or a video. In the long run, it doesn’t matter if I post it next week or even the week after.

You can argue that it might set a trend of laziness or not keeping to a deadline. That’s valid. On the other hand, in a year, if I write 80 posts or 120 posts it’s sort of the same. At least to a new reader. In the sense that they’ll at best read 2 or 3 articles and most likely will only read the one they land on, if that.

Anyway, I’m a fan of consistency. I know that I can accomplish something in small increments as long as I keep the momentum going. At the same time, missing a day isn’t anything to beat myself up over. Three days in a row, though? Now we’ve got a problem.

I just finished reading Ed Latimore’s book

I recently watched an interview between Tom Bilyeu (Quest Nutrition founder) and Evan Puschak (The Nerdwriter). Puschak talks about developing your own world view. Bilyeu says he’s built his by combining great ideas from other people. He looks for the connections between ideas. I’m trying to do the same.

Bilyeu mentions Pete Carroll and his philosophy. In one of his talks, Caroll talked about John Wooden and the importance of knowing what you believe in.

But what hit me is that he had this philosophy. He knew what he thought, and it wasn’t like anybody else. And I just stumbled into trying into figuring that out…. If you want to be great, if you want to do something really at the top of your game, you got to figure out who you are, what you stand for, what’s important. And not even that, so you can convey it to the people around you, so they know about it.

What does this have to do with Ed Latimore’s book? He knows what he believes in. He wrote it down clearly for others to learn from. He knows how to fit wisdom into a tweet. In Not Caring What Other People Think is a Superpower, Latimore starts each chapter with a tweet-length heading and he expands on that idea over a page or two.

Here’s what Latimore has to say about having activities that lead to growth:

Overcoming the struggle is where it’s at. You will always need something to force you to grow if you want to be happy. There must always be a mountain to climb because happiness is in scaling the mountain; not in reaching the apex.

I learned about Ed Latimore through an episode of The Knowledge Project. I opened up Amazon and bought his book after hearing him explaining life before and after alcohol:

You ever watch Angel? That old show Angel? About the vampire with a soul. He was a vampire so he did a lot of ill shit as a vampire. And all of a sudden he’s got a soul so now he feels guilty about it. So he spends a lot of time brooding and feeling bad and trying to do good to make up for all the evil he put into the world.

If you enjoy him in that interview, you’ll like this book. The topics are similar and his voice comes through through in his writing. Some chapters end with actionable steps to take.

I’d love to know what I believe in and share it in a way that’s clear and entertaining. Ed Latimore shows what that can lead to. I’ll do the work to get there. One post at a time.

Book reaction: The Forever War

I just read The Forever War by Joe Haldeman. Here’s how I think I came across it:

  • I was browsing Audible because I’m always browsing Audible
  • I saw a link to The Accidental Time Machine which is a somewhat recent book and part of the description mentioned that the author wrote The Forever War
  • I came across The Forever War while walking around Amazon Books in Columbus Circle

At that point I learned it was published in the 70s. It was also at that point that I learned it was a science fiction book. I set out to pick up a softcover novel. I’ll write another post on this, but I suspect it will help me practice focus.

I just finished the book and would like to present some reasons for why you might want to check the book out.

Did you enjoy Interstellar? Particularly the haunting idea of aging while your friends check out a planet with time dilation effect and you’re many years older while they’ve only aged a few hours?

You might like The Forever War.

Are you interested in the Vietnam War? And have you ever imagined what it would be like if instead of Vietnam it was different galaxies and times?

You might like The Forever War.

Do you enjoy brutal war scenes with people wearing suits that would fit right into Gears of War or Halo?

You might like The Forever War.

 

I really enjoyed it.

Some questions for myself

Here are some questions I’ve had lately regarding this site and what I’ve been trying to make lately. I’ll work through these. I’m in no rush.

  • What do I actually want to make? I want to write. I want to make videos. I want to make the podcast. I want to draw. I’m figuring out what order I want to do those things in.
  • Do I want to focus on books? Sort of. I’ve been reading a lot this year so it’d be good to share some of what I’m enjoying. I’m not sure if it’s interesting to other people. Then again, it’s up to me to make it interesting to other people. Quantity over quality might be a good idea right now but it might just lead to aimless things like this post.
  • What do I enjoy reading myself? I’ve always loved content from Bill Simmons and then Grantland and now The Ringer. I also enjoy everything from Barking Up The Wrong Tree. I subscribe to Stratechery. I can start by being a terrible imitation of them.
  • Why am I doing this? I’m not clear on this. I want to be a better writer. On an episode of The Showrunner podcast, they said that you should make sure your podcast focused on one of these three things: entertaining others, educating, or inspiring. I want to focus on entertaining others, but I’m a long way off from that. Why do I want to entertain others? It seems like the most fun route of the three. And it’s challenging.

How to post more (by writing less!)

What’s the single idea of this post? I’ll improve by writing shorter posts

I’m reading Josh Bernoff’s Writing Without Bullshit. I liked this idea of getting a grasp of different word counts:

Aim for a word count. Your emails should be under 250 words. Your blog posts should be under 750. Learn the feel of a 100-, 300-, 500-, or 1,000-word hunk of prose. Imagine that words cost $ 10 each. How much can you afford to spend, and where can you economize? A word count makes brevity a concrete goal.

I don’t have a feel for those hunks of prose. Someday I want to be on the Hunks of Prose calendar, so I’ll practice with shorter pieces.

I don’t have trouble sitting down and writing. Not through talent but through practicing and setting up systems. I have trouble sitting down and writing things worth reading. I need to practice improving different elements of writing.

My hunch is that aiming for shorter posts will help me shore up my many weaknesses. While the frequency helps with a strength: I can change topics day to day and stay interested. What am I hoping this will lead to?

  • I’ll actually finish posts. I have plenty of post outlines and drafts. Some even have a lot of words in them. They’re nowhere close to finished. A giant giant wall of text is further from finished than a short, clear outline is.
  • I’ll actually revise my work. I can sit down and free-write for hours on end. It’s overwriting. It’s not meant for reading in the first place. When I intend to write for something I’ll publish, I still end up with raw material that’s way longer than I want to revise. I add placeholders to keep writing a wall of text and then I don’t finish because all the placeholders become overwhelming.
  • I’ll actually stick to one idea. A connection comes to mind, I add a placeholder. Then I try to connect ideas. Some aren’t fully formed. Shorter posts will help me focus on single ideas at a time. If some disconnected idea comes to mind, I’ll pat myself on the back because now I have a new idea. For a different post. For a different day. Back to today’s idea.
  • I’ll (hopefully) actually get feedback. “Hey read this 2000-word thing I didn’t revise.” That’s a hard sell. I need feedback to improve. Shawn Coyne says it’ll be hard to sell a book if you can’t get 10,000 people willing to read a free book. I can’t get feedback on long posts if I can’t get you to read my short posts.

Why all the “actually”s? I’ve read enough how-to-write books to know how important each phase is in writing. Now I need to actually go through those steps.

18: Primal Branding

I made this video before we recorded the podcast. If you’re interested in content from the book, well it still might not be the best resource. But it sticks a little closer to talking about the book.

How professional wrestlers nail the 7 branding elements

We talked about Primalbranding by Patrick Hanlon. In the episode, we talk briefly about wrestlers and their brands. That idea stuck with me so I expanded on it in this post.

On this week’s podcast, we talked about Primalbranding by Patrick Hanlon. In the book, he explains how successful brands hit all seven components of the primal code:

When products and services have all seven pieces of code (the creation story; the creed; the icons; the rituals; the pagans, or nonbelievers; the sacred words; and the leader), they become a meaningful part of our culture.

Let’s take a look at how it applies to wrestlers, because that’s the only mental model I’ve got.

Creation story

Remember how the Midnight Rockers were AWA darlings and went big time by signing with WWF while still champions?

No? Remember when Shawn Michaels kicked Marty Jannetty right in the chompers then threw him through the glass window in Brutus The Barber Beefcake’s portable barber shop?

From Chip and Dan Heath’s The Power of Moments:

Some powerful defining moments contain all four ele- ments. Think of YES Prep’s Senior Signing Day: the ELEVA-TION of students having their moment onstage, the INSIGHT of a sixth grader thinking that could be me, the PRIDE of being accepted to college, and the CONNECTION of sharing the day with an arena full of thousands of supportive people.

The elevation of seeing this on camera. The insight of thinking that could be me if I also was knocked down by standing too close to my close friend body slamming a Nasty Boy. The wounded pride of being a fan of the Rockers. And the connection of sharing that with wrestling fans around the world.

Creed

The creed is sometimes made obvious by a company’s mission statement. From Primalbranding:

The statement was written by founder Horst M. Rechelbacher: Our mission at Aveda is to care for the world we live in, from the products we have to the ways in which we give back to society. At Aveda, we strive to set an example for environmental leadership and responsibility not just in the world of beauty, but around the world.

Our mission at the new world organization, I mean new world order, is to destroy the world we live in, from Rey Mysterio Jr.'s tiny head to the Giant's giant one. And we're always hiring. Come join us (really!)

Icons

A lot of companies have recognizable logos. Wrestlers have them but their brands have more prominent elements. The factions do the best job with logos. DX had theirs and nWo's logo is probably the most popular in history.

Colors and costumes are more important. How do you separate Crush from his Demolition days? Swap the black and white for purple and orange.

It's a world where you can pull off pink through an entire career. From Bret Hart's biography Hitman:

Judy, the seamstress who made our wrestling gear for us, had mentioned to me that she had a nice new color she wanted Jim and me to try: neon bubblegum pink. After careful consideration we realized wearing pink would get us instant heat and give us a new look for our SNME debut. Still, in the dressing room in San Diego where we were doing pre-tapes for SNME, Jim and I felt funny pulling on those pink tights.

I was dressed and picking up my tray in the cafeteria when Vince, who was sitting with Dick Ebersol, head of NBC sports, yelled at me, “Stop! Don’t move!” Heads turned. It got suddenly quiet. I thought we were in some sort of trouble, and I couldn’t imagine why. Vince stood up and circled around Jim and me grinning, “Don’t ever change that color! That color is you! It’s what you guys have been missing all along! From now on I don’t want you to wear anything but pink!”

Steve Austin had the Austin 3:16 shirts which I'm guessing are still the best selling wrestling shirt ever. It's immortalized in Kevin Love's Budweiser celebration. Stone Cold also has the smoking skulls as another icon. But it doesn't stop with visuals. Icons can target your other senses. Steve Austin's most recognizable icon targets your ears.

Wrap your hand in a towel and punch through the nearest window. A bathroom mirror will work also. Or grab a drinking glass and toss it as hard as possible at the ground. Just make sure to say say da-dun-da-dun-da-dun.

Every wrestler has intro music.

Ohhhhhh what a rush!

That looks dumb on screen when I type it. But that really got me going when I was 5.

It plays before the match but there's a more important time for it to play. Someone you like is in real trouble. You tense up. You don't notice that your ears are waiting for it. Mick Foley got his sock blocked and now he's getting stomped in the middle of the ring. No mercy. They're taking turns hitting him with chairs now. By god, someone's gotta stop this madne..

…If ya smelllllll..!

Rituals

Monday nights, I'd fire up Nitro and watch the first hour passively as the various Mortal Kombat clones wrestled without much narrative. Then the overlap came and I queued up USA Network. For the next two hours I jammed on the 'Jump' button to toggle between Raw and Nitro. I'd run into my brother's room. "Did you see that?!" Nods. Then run back to my TV.

Popping when someone's music hits is part of the ritual.

When dark characters come out, people now put their cell phones in the air like lighters.

And you can always throw your toothpick at your friend and say "Chico".

Nonbelievers

Nonbelievers are the people who don't believe in the creed. Or who actively oppose it. Nonbelievers usually have their own brands.

Here's a shortcut to see which creeds are opposed to each other: look at the Survivor Series rosters.

Demolition's got 3 partners and they need one for Survivor Series. And their mystery partner is… one of the Bushwhackers?

It wouldn't happen. Well it probably would. But it's noticeable. It feels off.

Sacred Words

Brands have sacred words. If you want to have a strong brand, just do it.

What?

It takes time to develop your brand. But it's what you need if you want to be the best there is. The best there was…

What?!

Personal branding is more important today than ever. Start working on it, whether you're the realest guy in the room or you're 7-foot tall.

What?!!

You've got to nail all the elements of the brand. Again it takes time. But once it's all together, brother, you'll be able to run wild on everyone.

What?!!!

You sit there and you thump your silhouette of guys on horses playing polo. Talk about your Swooshes and your Jobs 3:16. Austin 3:16 says I just whooped your ass.

Leaders

"Bret screwed Bret."

Vince McMahon became Mr. Manager. He stepped into the light. Whoever had that winged eagle belt around their waist used to be the leader. The company followed that champion.

Now reality mattered. Well. "Reality."

Listening to older WWF broadcasts, ok there a ton of things to notice. But one thing that sticks out is hearing McMahon as strictly an announcer. That was his character.

The Montreal Screw job was the creation story for his personal brand. He was the manifestation of The Man, which itself is a personification of corporations. It gets exaggerated at each step. He became The Devil adjace.

The villains need someone to answer to. The antiheroes need a leader to antagonize. Now they looked to Mr. McMahon.

Backstage, they had always looked to Vince.