Happy holidays! I usually do not start with my life experience but this quarter I’ve switched a couple things up. However, before I share I would like to express my gratitude for taking the time to continually read my newsletter by offering the first person who leaves a comment on the Tim Ferriss interview a signed copy of his latest book The 4-Hour Chef
(be the 1st to leave a comment and I will email you directly for your mailing address). I finally was able to break a nine minute mile in a half marathon this quarter.  It happened at this year’s Rock ‘n’ Roll San Jose 1/2 Marathon.

2012 R ‘n’ R Half Marathon | San Jose, CA

Sometimes people can get in the way of themselves… I certainly can. Over the years I’ve gotten some great advice through the interviewees in this regard. Jeff Atkinson stated one of the most important aspects of achievement is switching motivation from a goal-obtainment mindset, to one of enjoying the process of achieving a goal, in other words the process should be the goal. Mike Gervais stated, “posture of being open to change and a continual passion for rich experiences,” is the secret sauce, and in this quarter’s encounter with Tim Ferriss he indicated he is more impressed by a person with an extraordinary history of progress when compared to someone with an extraordinary tally of accomplishments.

So it has finally sunk in; improving sustainable achievement is about enjoying, trusting, iterating, and improving the process. The traditional goal – albeit admirable – is an end point, a destination, and often fleeting. Concerning yourself more with the goal than enjoying the process is missing the point. At a personal level I’ve recently focused on switching to this paradigm and can report considerable improvement in most aspects of my life. For the fear of pontificating or boring you with how this new approach allowed me to finally break the 9 minute mile barrier I share with you this video created by Matt Stone and Trey Parker based on the work of Alan Watts, it conveys the sentiment of this quarter’s message better than I can do with words alone.

This quarter’s wellness interview is with Sky Christopherson. Sky is a successful entrepreneur, filmmaker, and former member of the U.S. Cycling Team. As a filmmaker Sky authored and directed The Greater Meaning of Water and is currently working on another project about the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. His latest entrepreneurial endeavor is Optimized Athlete, a company using biometric tracking to improve athletic performance. My interview with Sky Christopherson about biometric hacking can be read here.

Although I never plan on breaking from the five question format of the Live Life Love project for these quarterly interviews, my normal one-to-one interview process was modified this quarter when I got a chance to sit down with Tim Ferriss (famous author of The 4-Hour Workweek) during a small group session. Five entrepreneurial questions for Tim Ferriss and his answers can be found here.

Around the holidays most of us try to count our blessings and personally I’m grateful for many things. As a result of donating to Public Enemy (circa Newsletter 11) I recently got a mention in their latest compact disc.

Attribution in the latest Public Enemy album

As a result of not giving up on the goal I set up in Newsletter 16 I am able to relish in the success of the Rock ‘n’ Roll San Jose 1/2 Marathon. As a result in humbling myself at the beginning of 2011 (circa Newsletter 14) I can now report I will be speaking as an expert in biometrics at next year’s IHRSA convention.

Come see me speak at the 2013 IHRSA Convention

For contribution this quarter I donated to a few charities, one being the United Way who is orchestrating aid for those affected by the tragedy in Newtown, CT. I will end by sharing something that was shared with me because of my prior contribution to Caine’s Arcade (circa Newsletter 19)… in the wake of the Sandy Hook tragedy Caine and his entourage wanted to remind us that for all the bad that is being reported, there is a wealth of good in this world that gets little exposure… they shared this link 26 Moments That Restored Our Faith In Humanity This Year which I think is pretty cool. If you need a pick me up I recommend you check it out.

Wishing you joy, fulfillment, and flourishing for you and yours during this holiday season and in the New Year ahead.

Warm regards,
Michael

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This marks the end of the fifth year of the Live Life Love Project. I cannot believe five years have gone by already! Getting to meet and talk with so many fascinating people has been a real honor and strengthened my belief in the power of reciprocity. Looking back at past interviewees it’s amazing what these people have accomplished since I was able to sit down with them. Todd Dipaola made the cover of Entrepreneur Magazine. Ed Baker sold his company to Facebook and stood next to Mr. Zuckerberg himself during Facebook’s IPO. Matt Szymczyk’s company was just awarded a game-changing patent. Bryan Pate’s ElliptiGO bikes can be seen everywhere now. Dr. Michael Gervais was called out on international television by Kerri Walsh Jennings as being a crucial part of her success in the Olympics. Simply great stuff… inspiring and motivating! This quarter I’ve reached out to two more entrepreneurs on the fast track to success.

This quarter’s business interview is with Eric Quick, the Founder and CEO of Cloud 9 Performance Solutions. Eric has over twenty years experience in food production including time with notable companies like Disney, Safeway, and Revolution Foods. My interview with Eric Quick about using technology for good while still making a profit can be found here.

This quarter’s wellness interview is with Kenneth Snyder, the Founder of LifeGadget. LifeGadget is a budding company that aggregates social, activity, and wellness data to build a comprehensive and contextualized view of oneself. My interview with Kenneth Snyder about the power of personal data can be found here.

My contribution this quarter went to John Z’s effort to support the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network. John not only finished The Disney Half Marathon this month, but also was able to double his fund raising goal for pancreatic cancer as a part of this admirable achievement.

I have a lot this quarter that qualifies as new life experience but what I’m most proud of is attending my first Quantified Self Conference and being allowed an “office hours” slot with my colleague Ryan McFadden.

Quantified Self Conference 2012 | Palo Alto, CA

I’m developing a thought-leadership position in the area of technology and behavior change. As all my personal passions start to meld together — psychology, health and wellness, technology, and marketing — I’m quickly finding my professional footing as these fields serendipitously are converging in the consumer market of biometric and medical tracking. Someday soon, someone will be writing about my success in their opening paragraph.

Speaking of paragraphs, my sincerest gratitude for reading this all the way to the last one. Wishing you happiness and your own success as we close out 2012!

Warm regards,
Michael

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As always I hope this message finds you well. Here in California summer has kicked off in spectacular fashion but wherever you are in the world I hope the jovial spirit that summer brings is with you.

This quarter I was fortunate enough to be invited to a Champion Charities benefit breakfast that featured a one hour roundtable discussion with five of California’s most legendary quarterbacks: Aaron Rodgers, Jim Plunkett, Joe Montana, Steve Young and Tom Brady. A runner-up for this quarter’s life experience to say the least… but it was also a great opportunity to learn about peak performance from some of the most notable competitors of my time.

Picking just one of the many profound takeaways from that experience to share, it is that all five of these people are where they are today because they persevered. In their lives they have rarely let setbacks influence their ability to be ready when the opportunity to be a champion presents itself. Montana described his 2 and 14 first season with the 49ers. Aaron described how he never let up on getting better even though “Title Town” was not receptive at first to his presence. And Plunkett, his renewed career with the Raiders is simply one of the most incredible stories of perseverance. The thread between them all is that they did not let failure stand in the way of their success. Many of us succumb to the folly of the path of least resistance. These gentlemen stand as an example of the spoils that await those that take the road less traveled.

This quarter’s business interview is with Alex Kaplinsky, the CTO of SolutionSet. Alex is an incredible mind that has helped develop some of today’s most innovative websites. My interview with Alex Kaplinsky about innovative Web design can be found here.

This quarter’s wellness interview is with Brian Russell who is the CEO of Zephyr Technologies, a biotechnological company that specializes in mobile health and remote monitoring products. My interview with Brian Russell about wearable sensors can be found here.

My contribution this quarter went to Caine’s Arcade. As a child in many ways I was very much like Caine and I was incredibly moved that what I do for a living now was used in such a way that an otherwise anonymous community rallied around this child and forever changed his life. Simply amazing!

Hands down this quarter’s true life experience was celebrating my first Father’s Day as a father with my daughter.

Father’s Day 2012

There is only a distant second from this experience, which is either breakfast with Aaron Rodgers, Jim Plunkett, Joe Montana, Steve Young and Tom Brady as described above, or the trip Anna and I took to the Pacific Pinball Museum in Caine’s honor.

Pacific Pinball Museum | 2012

All around an exceptional past three months, in addition to the what I’ve already discussed, professionally I launched another enterprise project ClubOne.com. If you have a quick second, take a look and let me know what you think.

Warm regards,
Michael

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I hope 2012 has been as exciting for you as it has been for me. As many of you know this month I welcomed the birth of my first child Sloane. The whole birthing process is simply amazing and I am happy to report Mother and Daughter are doing great!

My life has been so rich this past quarter but there is always room for improvement. In Positive Psychology two concepts that help people live happier lives are Relishing and Resilience. Relishing is the act of choosing to think about positive experiences when you let your mind wander – opposed to dwelling about negative past or future events. Resilience is, in part, the mental defense you build up against depression and negative feelings when you live optimistically and relish positive experiences.

Last month I had a great day… a wonderful day… leading up to a very short but negative interaction with a San Francisco bus driver. The incident lasted five minutes and was a distinct outlier from most of the happy experiences I have had in the Bay Area. Yet that day and a few days after I let this five minutes linger and influence the memory of an otherwise brilliant day. I let a moment in time damage an entire day of positive experience. I can do better! If you see me do this again, tell me to go home and read my newsletter.

For my health and wellness interview this quarter I was excited to get the chance to meet and interview Nadeem Kassam. Nadeem is a serial entrepreneur and investor who has been focusing on innovation in the health and wellness arena for over a decade. His latest endeavor is the new BASIS watch, a biometric device getting a tremendous amount of early buzz. My interview with Nadeem Kassam about biometrics devices can be found here.

This quarter’s business interview is with Jerome Breche. Jerome is the co-founder of SnapEngage, a customer engagement start-up that empowers anybody to quickly get a robust chat system embedded onto a website. My interview with Jerome Breche about customer enchantment can be found here.

Aside from the awesome life experience of becoming a father, this quarter’s other life experience was learning to fly. I really enjoyed the challenge and the thrill of being able to control an aircraft.

Learning to fly | Palo Alto Airport | 2012

Lastly, this quarter’s contribution went to Planned Parenthood. I’m comfortable going on record that it is my belief that health and wellness should transcend political and religious debate. Within the context of this belief, it is my opinion that Karen Handel’s political maneuvering to try and reduce the funding of Planned Parenthood was just short of diabolical. I am proud to be part of the movement that publicly rebuked her behavior through economics.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. – Margaret Mead.

Wishing you the best in the year ahead.

Warm regards,
Michael

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It’s the seventeenth edition of the Live Life Love newsletter, which finds us almost at the close of 2011. First, let me open by wishing you and yours the best holiday season possible! This year please accept this email as a humble substitute in lieu of a greeting card. It has been quite an engaging quarter so there was no bandwidth to get out traditional cards unfortunately; as many already know my wife and I are expecting a baby girl come the New Year. I’m really excited to experience the changes fatherhood will bring and I’m fairly confident that more than a couple of the future quarter’s life experiences will include this new edition to the world. Hopefully she’ll be inspired to start a project of her own some day.

Last quarter I set the milestone of running a sub-nine minute mile pace in a half marathon. I missed that goal by 43 seconds, but in the process ran the first long distance race where the second half was faster than the first (referred to as a negative-split) and I still ran faster than any previous race (referred to as a personal record – or PR for short). These two events occurred while participating in the inaugural Walnut Creek Half Marathon. Although I would have enjoyed logging a sub-nine finish, I graciously accept a new personal record, and more importantly my first negative-split, as a victory and this quarter’s life experience.

Walnut Creek Half Marathon 2011 Finish | 1:58:43

For this quarter’s business interview I connected with Erik Allebest who is one of the founders of Exercise.com, a website that helps anybody improve their well-being and health through various innovative online tools. Among Erik’s specialties are Web marketing and building sustainable monetization models. He is also the founder of Chess.com. My interview with Erik Allebest about Web entrepreneurship can be found here.

My health and wellness interview this quarter is with Alex Gourley. Alex is a University of California, Davis alumni and one of the co-founders of Active Theory, the company behind BitGym, a mobile application that has been getting a lot of recent buzz including recent features in TechCrunch and VentureBeat. My interview with Alex Gourley answering five questions about technology and exercise can be found here.

Regarding contribution this quarter I was excited to use the platform Kickstarter to help a high school friend and a college friend get one more step towards their goals. Dean Yamada is an inspiring filmmaker with some significant success already under his belt, he is trying to “kick start” his latest film project Cicada (more details about Dean’s project can be found here: http://kck.st/ukdmI4). Eric Quick has a history of success in inspiring people to eat healthy with more than a decade of executive experience in the food industry. His latest project is a mobile application to inspire kids to make better eating choices (more details about Eric’s project can be found here: http://kck.st/uEfRXR).

One of the powerful ideas behind the Live Life Love project is data. In one respect it is the data/information I’m able to share from some brilliant minds in my areas of interest. More selfishly, it is the data/information that I submit each quarter committing myself publicly to create a life experience and contribute to the greater good (at least once every three months). Success is never a result of the “start”, it’s a result of the “continue”. If you have yet to experience keeping a journal or log where you track progress towards a worthy goal I challenge you to give it a try (whether it’s publicly shared like mine, or kept private is your choice). As we embrace the information age we’re living in it’s clearly evident that we can harness and utilize data in limitless ways to improve our lives. (Check out this great TED video highlighting the power of data…

…it is specific to improving health, but the concepts can easily be applied to improving overall well-being too.) By committing to collect data against a goal, you enrich your “continue”.

Whether this method towards success works for you, or it is another of your own design, my hope is that 2012 is one of many years to come that you exceed all your goals. As always, let me know if I can help in any way.

Warm regards,
Michael

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I hope this latest edition finds you well and you’re in the process of wrapping up the end of a great summer. From the feedback I’ve received, or events I’ve been able to attend… weddings, birthdays, reunions, graduations… there was so much to observe and celebrate these past three months that it appears to have been a rousing third quarter for most. As many of you know, the entreating I did a couple of quarters ago paid off and resulted in a well-suited job in the health and wellness sector. Plus, the entrepreneurial hobby with my father continues to be engaging. For all of this I am quite grateful, especially to the college friend and the high school friend (KJ & JM) that helped make it happen. I look forward to keeping this momentum going and doing my best to pay it forward.

My next major goal is running the Boston Marathon by 2016. My best marathon time to date is just under 4:30:00 so I’ve a ways to go… quite a ways! To make it happen I’ll need to break the goal up into smaller milestones. This tactic towards achievement has served me very well with other goals. The first milestone is running under a nine minute mile pace in a half marathon race. I’m committed to making this happen as next quarter’s life experience. As such, I’ve signed up for the Run with the Jets Bay Area Half Marathon and the Walnut Creek Half Marathon. Goals are always more fulfilling when shared, so please consider this email an open call for training partners! Regarding the project’s deliverables this quarter, here you go…

I was extremely fortunate to get to spend some time with this quarter’s health and wellness expert Dr. Liz Applegate. Dr. Applegate has worked with a wide range of competitors from professional sports teams to USA Olympic athletes. She has also published six well-received books on nutrition. My interview with Dr. Applegate answering five questions about nutrition can be found here.

This quarter’s business interview is with Scot Hacker. Scot recently built an entire social goal sharing platform from the ground up. He also has authored two books about technology and is an all around incredible mind. My interview with Scot Hacker about website engineering can be found here.

My life experience this quarter was learning to kiteboard. A couple of friends and I took lessons out in the Berkeley Marina and loved it! It is something I definitely recommend trying to anyone that likes to be on the water. Anyone want to learn how to fly? That is next year’s experience and I have already reserved a spot for two. Let me know.

Kiteboarding | Summer 2011

Lastly, I was privileged to get the opportunity to support the effort of Robert and Kristen this quarter, a husband and wife team who walked a combined 120 miles during the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure event to raise money to help find a cure for breast cancer. I look forward to continuing to support more of these fine efforts as the project continues.

Warm regards,
Michael

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The Godfather of Flow, Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, defined flow in his book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience as the “experience of optimal fulfillment and engagement,” and “a deep and uniquely human motivation to excel, exceed, and triumph over limitation” in anything we love doing.

Dr. Csikszentmihalyi stumbled upon Flow in his youth. As a child growing up in Hungary Mihaly saw how many in Hungarian society were affected by war, many devastated because of the loss of their social status and/or finances. Dr. Csikszentmihalyi wanted to avoid the perils of this negativity and see if he could find meaning outside the confines of what was happening around him. In his own words, he wanted to, “live life as a work of art, rather than as a chaotic response to external events.”

He was intrigued and studied why some people did not lose their sense of self during this time, even after losing everything, where as others were devastated and were not able to reclaim their sense of worth. He discovered that people found pleasure in very profoundly different ways.  As Csikszentmihalyi matured he continued to be fascinated by this and conducted hundreds of interviews with people from different walks of life including athletes, artists and CEOs to discover what compelled their passions.

He continued to find people define this state very differently but discovered a common theme, that people that really enjoy internal pleasures described enjoying those pleases like being in a trance. He began to develop a concept of Flow, that of being an extremely productive and fulfilling state where one forgets about their self and is extremely focused at the task at hand.

He observed that people experiencing flow do not notice fear, they do not really keep a mental record of what they are doing and actions are instinctual. That is not to say that you can find Flow in routine tasks, on the contrary the mundane has been shown to hinder flow because the lack of challenge does not provide the right stimulus.

So what does Flow mean (in the mind of Dr. Csikszentmihalyi):

1. Concentration – being completely involved and focused
2. Elation
3. Inner clarity – clearly seeing tasks and executing them flawlessly
4. Confidence
5. Serenity – complete self-trust and lack of fear
6. Timeliness – absorbed in the Now
7. Intrinsic motivation – doing for the sake of doing

.

As I previously discussed achieving flow cannot be found in the mundane, Dr. Csikszentmihalyi believes there needs to be balance between skill and challenge. It is the sweet spot between arousal and control. Too much arousal and you might get anxious about the outcome, too much familiarity and control and boredom may get the best of you. Find the balance between the two and you are able to fully engage yourself in a desirable state.

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First off, thanks for taking the time to check out this quarter’s newsletter. My invocation experiment last quarter was met with unintended results, none-the-less I’m filled with gratitude from all the warm responses I received. I assure you all is good and things are moving in the right direction. One of the main aims of this “project” is to stay publicly committed to succeeding at the goals that were set forth when it was launched. The project’s success, and by extension my success, is influenced by engaging these commitments and taking some risks. I’ve been dogmatically preaching the benefits of optimism and positive psychology for more than three years now because it has served me well. However, last quarter I was compelled to highlight that there are a few more pieces to the puzzle.

This short allegory quickly sums it up better than I can: Throughout his life a man asked his creator (insert the deity that works for you) to assist him in winning the lottery. Almost every week without fail he pleaded, yet lottery winnings never manifested. He kept his faith and continued this ritual until the day he died. Now face to face with his maker the man proclaims, “I asked you my whole life to help me win the lottery. I made the best attempt to live life with love… plus you must have foreseen I would’ve used the money for good… yet I was never obliged. I’m not bitter as I’m sure there are reasons, but I am curious to know why?” …the reply, “I’ve wanted to help you your entire life, but buddy… you never bought a ticket.”

Things are getting exciting and I want to again extend my gratitude. This summer is filled with weddings, races, and concerts, which means there is a good chance I will get to see many of you in person over the coming months. Until then, I wish you a fantastic and rewarding summer! Without further ado, here are this quarter’s deliverables:

Entrepreneurship: This quarter’s business interview is with Deena Varshavskaya who is the founder of Wanelo (short for Want, Need, Love) which is a community platform for online shopping that recently made Entrepreneur magazine’s list of the most brilliant companies in 2011. She has a lot of great information to share about social shopping and female entrepreneurship (there is a must see illustration of antiquated gender roles within the post). The interview with Deena Varshavskaya about Wanelo can be found here.

Health and Wellness: This quarter’s wellness interview is with Ellen Burton. Ellen is currently the program officer for Exercise is Medicine®, which is a multi-organizational initiative coordinated by the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) to help promote exercise as a form of preventative care. It is an extremely important and ambitious endeavor. My interview with Ellen Burton about the Exercise is Medicine program can be found here.

Life Experience: This quarter I traveled to Miami for the first time to enjoy the Winter Music Conference. I went with a great bunch of guys and got to listen to a lot of great music. Miami is as crazy as it is made out to be.

World Music Conference | Miami | 2011

Contribution: There were some great opportunities to give back this quarter. I helped sponsor Jamie’s sister in her London Marathon effort raising money for Mencap. I sponsored another friend’s effort to raise money to help fight Angelman syndrome at the Angelman Walk-a-thon in Sacramento, CA. Finally, continuing with my effort to help music based charities, I made a modest donation to Musicians On Call, which is an organization that connects musicians with ailing patients in health-care facilities.

Warm regards,
Michael

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Let me set forth the argument that in the world of achieving peak human performance, optimism is the desired course. When evaluate your own performance, there is evidence to show that over the long-term you are better off overestimating your abilities. In the paper, On the Evolutionary Emergence of Optimism, researchers Aviad Heifetz and Yossi Spiegel show that high performing individuals are regularly found to be overly optimistic. These results run contrary to what one would expect. However, one of the many differences between optimists and pessimists is that pessimists are more realistic about their performance by way of either underestimating themselves, or more likely giving themselves a realistic self-evaluation.

Optimists on the other hand are likely to self-evaluate themselves as more effective than they actually are. Intuitively one would assume this to be a negative. However Heifetz and Yossi found being optimistic changes the structure of one’s environment and with optimists (as opposed to pessimists) successful tendencies proliferate faster (even when overestimated).

When pessimists accurately perceive their performance they often can find the motivation to continue. Viewing the situation as unsuccessful, it is easier for a pessimist to classify an activity as an unworthy pursuit. The positivity possessed by optimists provides these individuals with the drive and emotional support to continue, eventually mastering the skills needed, and influencing outcomes. What was once an unrealistic evaluation (by the optimists), over time now becomes reality.

This has powerful applications outside of achievement as well. Looking broadly at human performance, optimists are fighters. We (I fancy myself an optimist) do not go gently into that good night. In the study Optimists vs pessimists: survival rate among medical patients over a 30-year period when a person shows a pessimistic explanatory style (determined by the Optimism-Pessimism scale on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory assessment) their risk of mortality is 19% higher than someone who is optimistic. Being realistic is often just a defense mechanism of someone who wants to protect you or themselves from the future based on a perceived failure often with roots in a personal failure from their past. Optimists believe the past is not a good determinant of the future, and science backs us up. So if you are an enthusiast of optimizing human performance, dream big, it will suit you well.

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While researching positive psychology I have seen the studies that point to a genetic predisposition to happiness. Some researchers in psychology argue that we inherit our ability to be happy and that the level to which we are able to derive satisfaction in life is significantly influenced by our genetic make-up.  However, in the study Long-Running German Panel Survey Shows That Personal and Economic Choices, Not Just Genes, Matter for Happiness researchers observed 60,000 Germans over the span of 25 years, and found that levels of individual happiness actually correlated stronger with setting goals and personal choice and less on genetic factors.

In the long-term, those who value family and personal relationships seem to be happier than those who are focused on material success and/or career advancement, which strengthens the argument about happiness as a choice because personal relationships are an area where we have much better control over external outcomes.  For example, we can decide to be a good friend (or not), but we cannot decide to force our company to give us a promotion.

So how is happiness affected based on personal choice? There are many easy ways we can influence our own behavior that will help improve your mood. One way we can increase happiness is by making a conscious effort to focus on the positive attributes of any given situation. Deciding what to focus on in any given circumstance is a personal choice, and one of the most straightforward ways to increase happiness.  There are more subtle ways as well… For instance, making an effort to keep a mild and friendly pitch when we talk has shown to increase mood. In the study Speech Pitch Frequency as an Emotional State Indicator, evidence suggests that the pitch and tone of our voice reflect and affect our emotional state. Gentler tones will also maintain low stress levels in the people around us.  Another example is, accordingly to the brief report Keep Smiling: Enduring Effect of Facial Expressions and Postures on Emotional Experience and Memory, the simple act of choosing to smile. Simply making an effort to smile more has been shown to have a positive effect on our well-being in numerous ways and happiness is one of them.

In short, current scientific findings are challenging that happiness is somehow outside of our control. Simply being cognizant that you have power over your emotional state, and coming to the realization that you can actively decide how you are effected by certain life events, can help increase your overall happiness in very profound ways. If you have any tactics that work for you, please share them in the comments below.

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