TwoShay

Quitting A Six Figure Job: One Year Later

2011-06-30T14:00:00Z

One year ago I published Why I Quit A Six Figure Job. Now I’m signing up for another one.

A lot has happened in the last year. Selected highlights include:

Kind of overwhelming, looking back. That’s exactly what I set out to do though — try some new ways of living. It has changed my perspective on things which I’ll cover below, but first some logisitics to give you some context.

The Numbers

I had enough funds to support myself going into the year with the intention of using that do to whatever I liked. I came out the end of it with quite a lot more than I started with. That was unintended, and has definitely shifted my relationship to money.

I am not quite at the end of the financial year yet and have some invoices still to come in, but so far my income after work expenses totals almost $75,000, broken up as follows:

Item	Profit
Contracting	44,000
DBIYF	10,000
Stilt Walking	5,500
Screencasts	4,000
Tech Mentoring	3,750
Interest	2,700
Vegan Month	1,300
Dance Teaching	1,000
Blogging	1,500
Profit	73,750

There is a lot of contracting income in there which I wasn’t planning on (it found me), but taking that out and allowing for a bit of opportunity cost, I was pretty much self-sufficient without having to dip into my reserves.

What Next

The theme for my last three months has been focus, which has been an interesting transition after spending the year essentially splitting my time as much as possible. I have come full circle back to programming, which is both heavily flow-inducing, and allows me to make significant contributions to goals bigger than myself. Both of these are pretty great things for happiness. (Csíkszentmihályi writes about it in Flow.)

To allow myself to focus on programming, I’ve been following two practices which have been pretty major mental shifts for me:

Treat all chores as work expenses. I buy my lunches, and pay someone else to do my taxes. These are not optional extras, they are what free up the time to allow me the luxury of being able to work eight or more hours a day.

Don’t schedule anything else. No regular dance teaching, no juggling everyday, no running training program. That’s not to say I never do them, they’re just not part of my day to day schedule. I still juggle and I still exercise, but they have been demoted off my habits calendar. This was a hard decision to make, especially given how goal-oriented and quick-skills-loving Jared and I are, but they were distractions and I feel better for it.

Meditation has really helped with this. It has allowed me to better regulate my focus and find ways to put ideas on a shelf to be dealt with later. Though I do like the idea of inspiration-driven production, I have found I am more consistently productive (and happy as a result) when I don’t chase each new idea that finds its way into my head.

This leaves plenty of free hours in the week and I don’t feel short of time, even though I’m often working well over the traditional forty hours. After a hectic and somewhat random year and having tried many different things, I’ve enjoyed settling back into a regular routine.

San Francisco. Kudos to theCipher.

In doing so, I’ve been hankering for the pros I listed in my original post, namely working on big, hard problems with smart people to shake up an industry. As such, I’ve decided to take up a position working with Square in San Francisco, starting in August. Jodie is relocating with me, which is going to be heaps of fun. I’m excited to live in a new city, working on a big problem that I have always said I wanted to fix if given the opportunity.

Life is always in flux, and I don’t disagree with anything I wrote a year ago. After the journey of the last year, the balance has changed.

Of course, the logical conclusion to these decisions is that I am also going to stop writing here at TwoShay. You may have noticed it has been a bit quiet around here recently anyway — this is why. I am really proud of the 60+ articles Jared and I have published in the last year, and I feel for the moment I have said all I have to say.

Perhaps in another year the world will have changed again.

Three Years Vegan

2011-05-07T14:01:00Z

Today is my three year vegan anniversary, and I am feeling reflective.

It has been a period of frequent change, and my thoughts, feelings and circumstances are drastically different to what they were just a few years ago. Four years ago I wrote an article about why I was a vegetarian, which is enlightening—I now disagree with much of what I wrote. It gives you a glimpse of the progression I have undergone, and indeed if you are currently an omnivore you may find it speaks to you more than this article might.

It is illuminating to compare what I wrote at the time to what I believe now. It emphasises that veganism, or indeed any worthwhile endeavour, is a journey rather than a switch. All quotes in this post are from my younger self.

At the time I had tried veganism for a month before deciding it wasn’t for me. Even then it was important for me to try things personally before dismissing them. I still believe the best response to indecision on a path of action is to jump into it for a limited time. Pretend to be vegan for a month: what does it feel like? How do people respond? How does your body respond? You’re not committed to the lifestyle, just trying on some new clothes. You can return them if you don’t like them.

A Second Time

Until I did my research today, I believed that it was only a few months between my first vegan trial and having it stick. The 2007 date on the above article compared to this hiking post tell me it was in fact a whole year later than I thought. At a leisurely rate, since I wasn’t actively working on becoming vegan, it took 18 months from my first experiment to feel comfortable slipping into a vegan life style. After the above mentioned hike finished—six days of enforced veganism, read the link for context—I didn’t feel like going back. A homecoming dessert of ice cream and fresh raspberries from grandma’s garden didn’t tempt me; the latter by themselves were all I felt like eating.

Perhaps my favourite berry. Photo by Lisamarie Babik.

I wasn’t committed to going vegan, but just took it one day at a time. There was no remorse; no foods I felt like I was missing out on. My body and mind had adjusted to the point I didn’t feel like I needed, or wanted, animal products anymore. After a week or so the idea felt like it had legs, and before I knew it a month had flown by. This time around I had a much wider repertoire of recipes and knowledge of vegan nutrition, though my awareness of vegan philosophy was still quite dim. I was vegan in diet only for at least the first year, but since then I have also stopped using other animal products such as leather. I can’t recall a specific trigger for this, it just built up naturally over time, tracking my increasing awareness of vegan ethics.

Ethics

The only ethical justification for [trying veganism] was that livestock are an order of magnitude more expensive (in near all measures of the term) than grain and vegetable sources, and as such are a burden that our growing society simply cannot sustain.

Unlike many, I was initially vegan for environmental and health reasons. Me and animals, we didn’t get along so well. In fact it went beyond that into active dislike. I was a vegan that hated animals.

I wouldn’t even touch domestic pets. I realised this was stupid, but it’s only in the last year I’ve been able to scratch a dog behind its ears—a tentative step towards my recovery.

Contrary to many vegans, I do not believe that animals deserve the same rights as humans, drawing the (admittedly grey) line at self-reflection and higher order thought.

Frankly, this statement shows an abominable absence of any knowledge about rights nor compassion for other beings, though a strict reading of it may be unobjectionable. Animals shouldn’t deserve the same rights as humans in the same way that children don’t have the same rights as adults. It does not follow that they shouldn’t have rights, though that is the conclusion I drew at the time. Also, the “contrary to many vegans” line is clearly a straw man in this interpretation.

Pigs are awesome. Photo by Jeremy van Bedijk

The clearest introduction to animal rights I have read is the aptly named Introduction to Animal Rights, a book with a terrible cover but excellent interior. In short, the book’s argument is that as long as animals can be owned as property, any rights we claim to grant them (such as the right not to be tortured, that most people agree with) will necessarily be compromised when there is a conflict between the animal and that animal’s owner. As with human ones, rights are required not for when things are going well, but for when they go bad. Further, we are structurally unable to respect the welfare of animals under our current legal systems. That’s just a taste—read the book before you decide whether you agree or disagree. I personally find it a compelling argument.

As for compassion, to deny animals feelings is the same great lie that tells us that homeless people got what was coming to them, that death isn’t tragic in third world countries because it happens all the time, and that republicans are crazy psychopaths devoid of emotion. Our brain cannot accept the vast, unimaginable suffering that our society—or even just our world—perpetuates. To deal with it we rationalize “it can’t be that bad.”

Any sane observation will show you that animals feel pain, suffering, and mental trauma. It looks exactly the same as it does in humans, and there is no reason to believe it is any different. We already recognise this in domestic animals such as dogs and cats, it is a contradiction to treat other similar animals (pigs, for instance) differently.

If you are not so sure, watch Earthlings then we can have a chat.

Eating Out

I found it difficult to eat out anywhere, and while people will usually be all too happy to cook a vegetarian meal for you, they generally blanch at the prospect of not using cheese.

I do not feel this at all anymore. I have a far better knowledge of where the good places to eat in Melbourne are, but that can’t be the end of the story. Perhaps I am better at spotting vegan options? Perhaps I am more comfortable asking for a non-standard meal? Perhaps my taste has become less discerning?

Perhaps I am better at sucking it up when I get a shit meal.

I spent a few days last year in Nashville—an openly unfriendly vegan location—and had no troubles eating well, much to the surprise of my colleagues.

Good Vegan Beer. Photo by James Cridland

Not to mention that [veganism] eliminates virtually all desserts(!), and many types of beer(!!).

Wow. So so wrong. Most of the beers worth drinking are vegan. My rule of thumb is no CUB (VB, Carton Draught, etc…), no Matilda Bay, no Guinness. That leaves on the list: Coopers, James Squire, Mountain Goat, White Rabbit Dark, Asahi, plus many more. This is a total non-issue. I also don’t drink as much as I used to.

As for desserts, I don’t know what to say. I epic failed my research. I still remember my house mate at the time scolding me after the month for saying such a stupid thing, and gifting me a vegan dessert cookbook. You don’t even need obscure ingredients. Eggs, milk and cream simply aren’t necessary. Outside the home kitchen, there is no shortage of incredible brownies, cupcakes, regular cakes, crumbles, scrolls, icecream, and other sweet goods to be easily found in Melbourne. I simply hadn’t looked outside my regular venues.

Vegan Canolli. Photo by Emilie Hardman.

Health

I felt my alertness waning, and could not find ways to affordably maintain an athlete’s diet.

This was a function of having NFI at the time what vegans actually ate, though I didn’t know of my ignorance then. I have a far better appreciation of nuts, legumes, grains and vegetables now, and how to make them the core focus of my diet rather than bonus extras. A vegan diet has quite different fundamentals to an omnivorous diet, or even a vegetarian one. Going out on my own, I wasn’t able to assimilate these within the course of a month.

I am in better physical shape now than I ever have been, so I guess I figured out the athlete diet. Dry legumes are about as cheap a food as you can buy. Not that I skimp on food these days (I was at university when I wrote the above), but that is unrelated to veganism.

Lovely dry things. Photo by Coconinoco.

I feel support from my social group would help in this regard (which I can’t see happening any time soon!)

This sentence is so revealing. In hindsight, if I could have changed just one thing about my first vegan trial, it would have been to surround myself with at least a couple of existing vegans. My level of ignorance was staggering, and could have easily been alleviated by knowing someone who actually knew what they were on about. It would have also provided appropriate support during a difficult transition. I also felt at the time that my friendship group was static, which is never the case.

You choose your friends, and you become your friends.

These days I am active in Melbourne’s thriving vegan social scene and count many other vegans as friends. A far cry from the big fat zero I knew three years ago. I helped put together the recently released Vegan Melbourne website that documents a number of regular events, and also run a vegan mentoring group that includes weekly dinners. Melbourne is widely regarded as the best Australian city to be vegan in, and I believe it is a contender worldwide also.

Alternatives

Theoretically it is possible to continue an omnivorous diet within this constraint, but in practice finding (and affording!) organic meat is non-trivial, so I chose to abstain from meat all together.

At last one thing that hasn’t changed! I still believe that, in Melbourne at least, it is far easier to be vegan than to only consume “ethically” produced animal products.

One of Melbourne’s many excellent veg*n eateries. Photo by Wei-Hang Chua.

Epic Change

It is humbling to see just how much my core beliefs changed in such a relatively short time frame. Going vegan has been the strongest example in my life of how thoroughly you can change how your mind and body feel, think and react. I can barely put into words how liberating this realisation has been.

I can’t wait to see which parts of this post I am quoting in three years time.

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Twenty Five Minutes

2011-04-29T15:00:00Z

The Pomodoro Technique is a time management technique that prescribes twenty five minute blocks of undistracted concentration. It sounds great, but this article isn’t really about that.

I didn’t know much about the Pomodoro Technique. Honestly, I still don’t. There is a free e-book you can read, but I have only skimmed it. What I picked up was that you work for twenty five minutes, take a break for five. And that is all I needed to know.

A temptation when introduced to the Pomodoro Technique is to dive in the deep end. Read everything you can about it, buy a cute tomato timer (protip: pomodoro is Italian for tomato), print out some journal sheets, and slam it with everything you’ve got. This is undoubtedly effective, but suffers from a relatively high start up time and effort cost.

Start up costs are the enemy of personal development.

Our brain is the master of keeping us on the same old track. Business as usual. “You’re effective already!” it praises. “You don’t need to learn another technique” it coos. “That’s a lot of effort reading and buying and printing. Just keep doing what you’re doing.”

Here’s another approach: just start a twenty five minute timer. There is no way your brain can object to that. It takes literally seconds, and there is no cost or commitment. You are just starting a timer. It will expire in twenty five minutes. What happens between now and then … who could say?

A month or so back I had a blog post I wanted to write and was having trouble getting started, so I just threw on a timer. That’s it. No journalling, no planning, no commitment to get anything done, just a simple alarm. Worst case scenario it is only half an hour I am not getting back. For the next twenty five minutes, I felt compelled to write. When the timer expired, I had half a post and barely even noticed the buzzer. I just kept writing.

I don’t practice the Pomodoro Technique. I took one element from it, and that was enough for me. Anytime I sit down to write, or anytime I think I should write about something, I simply set a twenty five minute alarm. When it goes off, most often I plow right through. This morning I wasn’t sure how to get started, and it’s now two hours later and this is the second post I’ve written.

I dabbled with respecting a five minute break but it totally killed my flow. I realise for longer productivity endurance there may be benefit—it is something I may try one day—but for a blog post that takes an hour or two to write once I get started I can sit down and bang it out.

There are an overwhelming abundance of tips, techniques, and programs in which you could invest in the time management arena, let alone the wider personal development sphere. The real point of this post isn’t about setting a timer. That is one technique that worked for me at a time I needed it. The greater point is: If you can’t seem to adopt a new technique, or try a new behaviour, try taking just one thing from it and just doing it. It’s cheap and you can see quickly whether it yields you any improvement.

It doesn’t matter if you’re not doing real Pomodoro, or not sticking to an exercise program, or not giving up cheese while going Vegan, or not getting all your lines everyday. See a problem, try something new, and fail fast.

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Quick Skills: Pull-ups

2011-04-23T14:01:00Z

What’s this? Quick skills are small challenges that are rewarding and once mastered you’ll have forever. You can add them to your arsenal of awesome in as little as five minutes.

Skill Pull-ups.
Time to Learn Five minutes, if you can already do one.
Equipment Something to hang off.

Lots of people do pull-ups wrong. That makes us sad. Here is how to do them right, including some tasty bonus variations.

Click here if you do not see an embedded video

Protips

If you can’t do a pull-up yet, get someone to hold your legs up for an assisted motion.
The hardest parts are the few centimetres at either end, so if you’re struggling restrict your range of motion.
The technique shown is a strict form pull-up. You can also do kip pull-ups, where you use your body to throw more momentum into the movement. BodyWeightCulture has a great interview comparing the pros and cons from two different trainers.

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Living Dark: My Life Without Internet

2011-04-13T15:00:00Z

I have no computer and therefore no internet. I can’t see this becoming a permanent lifestyle but for the last four months it’s something I’ve been trying out.

Why?

Originally there was no why. Having no computer wasn’t a situation I consciously put myself in. Perhaps in an effort to make me cooler my sub-conscious was rebelling against the geek culture I largely subscribe to. I operate on the surface though and for me that’s a treacherous enough pile of shit. I don’t need to include sub-layers to speculate as to why I thought it was a ever good idea to keep a fire hazard disguised as a personal computer in a room with my personal belongings.

I gave up caring about what was under the hood many years ago—my rig was literally frankensteined together from hand-me-downs and shit I found in dumpsters—so when I say fire hazard I am using my generous voice. Not surprisingly, my computer packed it in, and that’s how I ended up in this situation. ‘Living dark’, as per the title, because ‘dark’ sounds cooler than ‘lame’.

The coolest rebels.

You might think the aforementioned contraption wouldn’t be too hard of a thing to miss, but I got some serious mileage out of it. When prompted I would always tick the ‘heavy’ box next to usage. Unless you’re a sound engineer or porn editor, gaming is pretty much the only thing you can’t do with 256MB of RAM.

On the subject of gaming, I’ve always had a much greater fascination with games as a medium, rather than as an activity to be partook. Instead of dropping eighty bucks on the latest AA title I would download some youtubes and watch other people play them. Quite often this process would involve me jumping the video forwards in massive increments so in the space of ten minutes I could have inhaled a game in its entirety, leaving the next hour free for me to contemplate difficulty curves, story arcs, mechanics, and artwork, and the next one to read every blog on the internet about other peoples’ contemplations. In short, I didn’t feel that I was missing out by not importing liquid nitrogen to cool my quad cores.

That sort of behaviour isn’t uncommon for me, so you can see why not having a computer might be a healthier choice. There were other things my science box could do though that perhaps you’ll be able to better relate to: email, text editing, and Facebook. I’m not going to try and drive traffic by hating on Facebook—point 11 is all that needs to be said. As for text editing it was mainly just blog posts and I write them out by hand now. Email is probably the biggest issue but seeing as I’m pretty much the only person ever to not have a computer I can always use someone else’s.

Why are these good things?

The reason I’ve decided to continue this life style is because some really interesting changes have come about as a result and I’m curious to keep at it and see what else comes up.

I never kill time. I have almost eliminated all down time from my life. I wake up and I can’t turn on a computer. I come home and I can’t turn one on then either. That means I do more things. Previously I would wake up and immediately turn the computer on. Sometimes I’d spend an hour or two compulsively checking things and reading, but even days when I had something else on would always start with emails and Facebook.

Now that just isn’t an option.

When I wake up I have to run, I have to practise something, I have to do all that shit I keep putting off like washing and house cleaning. There isn’t an alternative anymore. During the days I have to either keep doing these things, or find other things to try out or go and see. Usually that involves seeing more people as well simply because when you’re out doing things it tends to be with other people.

Learning new things. Another bonus is that my compulsive learning habit has surprisingly become more successful. I get curious about things and have to learn about them. Previously I used the internet, which you’d think would be the mecca of random learning, but now I am forced to go to a library. I don’t even research online for the best books or look for reviews. I just pick a topic, find 3 or 4 books that look relevant, and smash through them. I do this even when I’m only a little curious about something, and the end result is I get much better information.

Surely there are some shit bits?

There are definitely some bad points.

Writing is harder. This blog suffers because I’m never around a computer long enough to actually get a blog post into digital format. Writing them out by hand is much harder than it should be. My process used to involve me using cut and paste to re-arrange words I liked the sound of into something Xav might be able to edit to make publishable. Pencils force you to be linear with your thoughts, while I prefer parallel or tangent methods.

Emails don’t get checked regularly. They were getting checked way too often previously but considering all my work and scheduling is done primarily via email once every few hours may be a better option than once every few days.

Simple Dependencies. There are quite a few little things that I didn’t realise I was dependent on. My work timetables are harder to get and often I’ve shown up at a school to teach and released I don’t actually know which student I’m meant to be teaching. And when I do figure it all out I end up sending in invoices late.

Instead of properly recording dates and times for gigs I would know roughly when stuff was on and hit the internet to check when I really needed to know.

Google maps was my way of hiding the fact I lucked out on getting the gene that gives males an instinct for direction.

Is it left or right at the lights? Gregory Peck knows.

These suck a bit but aren’t too bad. Getting paid late and been forced to use a diary more efficiently are things I can deal with. Perhaps now I might even develop a sense of direction.

I spend more money. This is the worst thing. My expenses have gone up considerably now that I’m out of the house every single day. More planning needs to be down to cut down on this. I tried buying heaps of food and cooking it on Sunday. It almost worked, but I probably spent the same amount because I still ate out and met up with people lots, but the difference was when I was alone was I always had pre-made, more healthy food.

I don’t have plans to get a new computer any time soon. Currently I’m just saying yes to everything and rolling with whatever comes up. I’m looking forward to being a bit more deliberate with all the time I’ve freed up and seeing what new things I can add to my life. I’m considering picking up what ever flavour of smart phone the kids are into and making the change more long term, but until then I’ll keep living with the lights out.

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Give Up Your Phone

2011-04-08T15:00:00Z

I have not carried a phone on my person for eight months, since I got rid of my iPhone. In addition to the benefits I noted at the time, I have observed a number of other wins. It has been a liberating experience.

No distractions. There is rarely a social situation where it is appropriate to not have your phone on silent. On the bus, on the plane, in the café, in the library, croquet with friends—phones off! And if it is going to be silent, why bother carrying it at all?

A phone simply would not be proper. From Heart Felt Robot.

Being on time. You show up punctually to events because you can’t message to say you are only fifteen minutes away. Better yet, other people show up on time to meet you! It’s the old chicken technique, where in two cars driving towards each other one driver blindfolds himself and rips off the steering wheel. Blunt, but it works. In the last eight months I can recall only one time where a phone would have saved an awkward half hour of waiting for someone to not show up.

Less stuff in your pocket. I forget things at the best of times, and being honest pants don’t look great with full pockets anyway. Now I am down to keys and wallet, and if I don’t need my bike lock I can stash the keys somewhere as well. That’s a 33% reduction that I’d take with pride to my performance review.

No tumours. I’m no expert on microwaves and I haven’t extensively reviewed any literature. My impression from what I have read is that a precautionary principle is prudent to adopt for mobile phone usage, especially when that usage provides little benefit. Mobile phones are a new technology, and if they did increase risk of health issues it seems plausible that those issues may not show up for decades.

Research seems mostly undecided on the issue, but with such a large economic incentive behind mobile phone usage I’m prepared to give more weight to those recommending caution. As we’ve seen in the past with cigarettes, pesticides, margarine—just to name a few obvious ones—the science can take decades to settle down not just due to the nature of the discipline, but also when it is fighting an uphill battle against profits.

Redundant. If I want to catch up with someone, I want to see them in person. If that isn’t possible, Skype with video isn’t a bad second option (it’s also free!). To organise an event with multiple people, broadcast mediums like Facebook, Twitter and email are far more effective than SMS or calling everyone individually (and one again, free!). This relegates the role of a mobile phone to last minute scheduling, which is an activity I intensely dislike anyway. There is no useful function left for a mobile phone to perform.

I meet many people who cannot comprehend living without a phone. This dependence is unhealthy. If you do want to carry a phone, be sure it is on your own terms. Try going without for a few weeks and see how your life changes. I guarantee you will learn something worthwhile.

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Mindful March Recap

2011-04-01T13:01:00Z

I meditated every day last month. Starting with just five minutes a day, I quickly jumped to ten then to fifteen after the first week, where I stayed for the rest of the month. This post is a collection of thoughts and experiences from the month.

I kept a log of my sittings, consisting of just a time and few words of comment. Total time meditating: six hours, fifty-five minutes. Looking back on it after a month, I didn’t quite capture what I was after—I have which sessions were good and which were bad, but little about the circumstances of those sessions. I will be adjusting what I write going forward.

My monthly ration of incense. From Janne Moren.

Anecdotally, meditating directly after waking was often sloppy, and post-shower pre-breakfast seemed to be a good time. Sitting in the sun, when available, was always a winner. When I was really inspired or excited by an idea awareness was tricky because my mind was so active. I found it easy to let go of negative thoughts, but letting go of positive thoughts too was hard because I really quite enjoy them.

I added incense to my sittings half way through the month. I like how it helps establish my “meditation space”, so have continued to use it. It was especially pleasant on crisp mornings.

Progress

Meditation is still somewhat of a leap of faith for me. I am not noticing direct benefits yet, though I know from practicing more external skills such as piano and juggling that you don’t get better everyday, but practicing everyday improves your skills in the long run. It sounds like an obvious point, but recognizing this motivates me when I am having an otherwise ordinary session.

Juggling provides obvious feedback on progress: Last week I couldn’t do a trick, this week I can. I have had small moments like that with meditation, but they are internal and hard to put in to words or even recognize as “progress”. Thrice towards the end of the month I experienced a very calm state of mind where I was watching my mind and was able to identify thoughts bubbling up and corral them away into a corner. This felt right. I don’t try to make this happen, but it is nice when it does.

I planned to seek out some kind of formal instruction, but this never eventuated. It is something I am still keen to do since I believe it would be beneficial not just for technique but for motiviation.

Fifteen minutes a day isn’t very long, so it’s easy to find time to sit everyday. I am curious about a fuller immersion into meditation—I know people who meditate an hour a day and a couple of times a year go on multiple day retreats. What would that be like? What affect would that have on my life? This curiosity inspires me to keep discovering meditation.

Support

Though I didn’t receive personal formal instruction, I did seek some educational material. I read “Mindfulness in Plain English” at the start of the month, which was beneficial. It is available online, though I read a soft-cover version. The image that stuck with me the most was a glass of muddy water. If it sits still, the silt falls to the bottom to reveal clear water at the top. I return to this metaphor often while sitting.

I also found Jon Kabat-Zinn speaking at Google to be very informative, and the guided meditation he runs excellent. Thanks Kim for recommending it, and for lending me his book “Full Catastrophe Living” which I hope to read this coming month.

Another monk in a cave. From Steven Belcher.

At the start of the month I created a Mindful March mailing list, which quickly swelled to fifteen people. In the back of my mind was a concern that the extra “noise” of a support group would actually be detrimental to my practice, though this concern was not realised. The list was very low traffic, and provided very interesting material to incorporate back in to my sittings. Being new to meditation, I appreciated being made aware of different tips and techniques that I could choose to utilize. I believe the others on the list found it valuable also, and due to its low traffic I see no reason to close it down now the month is over.

I feel I have only scratched the surface of what meditation has to offer, and so will be continuing with my practice through April.

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Quick Skills: Beatboxing

2011-03-31T14:00:00Z

What’s this? Quick skills are small challenges that are rewarding and once mastered you’ll have forever. You can add them to your arsenal of awesome in as little as five minutes.

Skill Beatboxing.
Time to Learn Hammer.
Equipment Functioning human voice. At least one homie.

Beatboxing is the art of imitating drum and percussion sounds. People have used their voice to make sounds for a rather long time but it’s only in the last 30 or so years that Hip Hop and drum machines made it popular. We are both white suburban kids so in addition to frisbee golf we are required to like both those things.

The sounds are actually fairly simple to teach and we wanted you to get your fiddy cent worth, so in this video we get quick to the groove construction.

Click here if you do not see an embedded video

Protips

Cover your mouth with your hand. One, it stops you spitting everywhere and two, it is a ghetto EQ (it makes your beats sound rad)
Boots and cats aren’t the only animals that have beatboxable names. Try adding baboons and pigs to your menagerie.
Breath between each sound. After the hi-hat is easiest, but this is still tricky. Use your diaphragm.
You need an MC name. Snoop is taken so here are some alternatives:
- MC Donald
- MC Squared
- MC 3po
- Dr 2d2
- Dr Dre Table
- Faux Shizzle

That’s all for this episode. Get fresh or die trying.

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It's OK To Feel Stupid

How To Start Running

2011-03-30T13:00:00Z

I love running. I started in second year university (2005) when the accumulated pressure of Jared and both parents being runners finally built up enough to get me out for a spluttering fifteen minutes. Since then I’ve been through phases of running over 50km a week to hardly running at all, but I’ve managed to race three half marathons in that time. Running is my go to physical activity, and I definitely notice a marked difference in my mood and motivation when I haven’t been for a run recently.

A 14km loop of Washington DC that takes you past most of the monuments you would want to see, with plenty of water along the route—I did this on a 37C day.

I am a running generalist, not being particularly good at any aspect but loving the full spectrum of experiences it offers. I enjoy the physical and mental toughness needed to run fast, and I enjoy the time to think when running slow. I enjoy the solitude, and I enjoy a long yack with Jared running together. When I’m travelling it is a great way to discover a new city.

Starting Out

There is only one thing you need to know to start running: follow the c25k program to the letter. It didn’t exist when I started running but it is pretty much what I did, only better. The c25k program is excellent. Get your shoes on and just do exactly what it says. It isn’t hard, and it isn’t a large commitment.

The rest of this post is just protips.

Do heed the warning about pushing yourself too hard. No matter how keen you are, your body will need time to adapt. I made this mistake when I started cycling. Already having a hefty bit of aerobic fitness, I flogged myself every session. Climbing a hill one day, my knee gave out and I had to peddle home with one leg. It was a couple of months before I could run or ride again.

Go easy on your body, and take the rest days. One of our mates came to us for advice on sore legs and exhaustion after having just started running. On investigation we found he had run every day for ten days straight! Three days a week is plenty to begin with, giving you at least a day off in between each session.

When running slow, there is a tendency to move in a similar manner to how most people walk: striking the ground with your heel and rolling your foot through it. This is a really bad idea. Running places a lot more stress on your body than walking, and your heel is not made to absorb it. Try running even just a short distance barefoot to see what I mean. Shoes cannot provide enough support to negate that stress. A thin strip of rubber cannot absorb the entire might of your body weight thrown at it with bad technique.

Click here if you do not see an embedded video

See the related videos of this one for force diagrams of other styles of running.

Instead of landing with your heel, you should land towards the front of your foot. This allows the natural suspension of your foot, ankle, and leg to properly absorb and redirect the downward force of running. Modern shoes act as an impediment to this; excess padding retards the ability of your foot to feel the ground and do what it does best instinctively.

You will likely feel self-concious when you start running. Am I wearing the right shoes? Does this stride look ridiculous? Is my breathing too loud? This is normal, but you will eventually realise that nobody cares. Really, more so than in normal life. You can hear my tortured breathing a mile off. Just get out there and run.

Going Further

Once you can run 5km without stopping and want to continue training you have a few options. There are plenty of programs on the internet to take you from 5km to 10km to 21km or to a full marathon. You’ll do alright by just picking one and sticking to it - they all follow the same pattern. Each week do at least three sessions:

A slow long run. This should be much slower than you would think; your heart rate and breathing should stay well down. The basic idea is to train your body to tap into its long term energy stores. You are going for distance, not speed.

A medium run where you push it a bit—a “tempo” run. The best description I have heard of this run is from a Runner’s World article: “You know you’re working, but you’re not racing. At the same time, you’d be happy if you could slow down.”

A short hard intervals session, such as 10×300m or 4×800m, with only a partial recovery between each. If you don’t feel like throwing up afterwards you are Doing It Wrong. This session probably isn’t necessary if you are just after endurance, but it’s pretty fun so totally throw one in. I don’t know how to make you believe that last sentence. Perhaps just start by putting bursts of speed into your normal runs.

Fill in any other days you wish to run with easy sessions, getting kilometres in the legs.

They run marathons faster than you can sprint. I’m not even kidding.

Once you get the basics in your legs, running is the most rewarding of exercises. You can do it anywhere, in any weather (monsoonal rain is heaps fun to run in), with only a pair of shoes.

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Books Books Books

2011-03-07T13:00:00Z

Reading is great. I really dig it. Since I started my habits calendar last November, it is the one habit that has been on there every single month. In the past year, I have read forty books. I know this because I track them with Goodreads. I also leave a short review and rating, which I frequently use to recommend reading, and have used for this post. I wanted to share the cream of the crop, books that have quite literally changed my life by exposing me to new ideas, new thoughts, and new ways of being.

It is hard to unilaterally recommend a book. The value of a book is not what is written in it, but what it makes me think. This is highly dependent on my state of mind, so certain books (such as Atlas Shrugged) hit me just at the right time, and in other circumstances may have been a much less enjoyable read. As my latest book offered: “The words are only fingers pointing at the moon. They are not the moon itself.” Still, I can only report on my own experiences, so with that in mind, onwards to The Twelve Books That Changed My Life In The Last Year.

(Jared is still trying to make a dollar off the internet, so here is an affiliate link to The Book Depository that nets him 5% of anything you buy if you take me up on any of my recommendations. I purchase most of my books from there: good range, cheap prices, and free delivery worldwide.)

The List

Here we go, in ascending order of the date I finished reading.

Walden by Henry Thoreau

Pretty sure they didn’t have editors in the 1800s. There is some gold in these pages—his criticism of modern life, technology, economy, and wasteful culture are timeless—interspersed with incredibly droll accountings of Walden pond. Walden is a great read, so long as you speed through the boring chapters.

The Value of Nothing: How to Reshape Market Society and Redefine Democracy by Raj Patel

I am a big fan of Patel’s clear writing style and thinking, having being introduced to him through Stuffed and Starved: Markets, Power and the Hidden Battle for the World Food System (how can you not love those subtitles). This is the last book I read before I quit my job, the proverbial straw on the camel’s back. It challenged a number of free market ideas I had taken for granted such as property ownership and international trade, and provided numerous examples of communities around the world that are succeeding with different economic and political models.

Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Chris McDougall

This is a rip-roarer of a book, one of the most engaging stories I have read, and I believe would be even if you have never run a step in your life. Born to Run was a major force advocating the barefoot running movement, but for me it simply got me excited about running again—not about running fast, or running hard, just plain running.

Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life by Martin Seligman

I consider myself an optimist and didn’t think I’d get much out of this book. Incorrect! While a lot of it was revision, it had a wealth of good techniques and codified a lot of things I only knew vaguely and instinctively. It also contained some amazing research that has gone into explanatory style, with the way people explain things to themselves causing large swings in results of everything from academic tests to sporting games.

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

You cannot read this book and have it not affect your life, if for no other reason that it weighs in at over 1000 pages! A serious tome. It took me almost three months to read. This book is in many ways the opposite to “The Value of Nothing” above, but I enjoyed the thorough presentation of Rand’s objectivist philosophy—there are many takeaways even when you don’t agree with the entire corpus. It wasn’t all roses: I thoroughly hated Rand’s writing style by the end of the book, and the love plots were weirdly disconnected from the main philosophy. Overall though I am glad I read this book.

Letters to a Young Contrarian by Christopher Hitchens

I finished it and went straight back to page one to read it again. Excellently written, very inspiring, and I added a lot to my reading list from his name dropping.

The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst

I got so excited about typography after reading this that I went out and wrote a book (The Ultimate Dominion Strategy Guide) just so I could typeset it. Bringhurst writes with a confident arrogance and wit that is a delight to read. Of the unspaced em-dashes we us on this blog: “[they] belong to the padded and corseted aesthetic of Victorian typography.” Sorry, Robert.

The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation by Matt Ridley

From my notes: “Excellent book, made me smarter.” Some really counter-intuitive research in this book, most contrary including a demolishing of the myth that indigenous peoples generally look after the environment, and that the nationalization of land creates a tradgedy of the commons more often than it alleviates one.

Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

We are going to do a quick skill on pronouncing this guy’s name. I put off reading this book because I thought I knew the gist of it. I did, but it is the details that you want: the types of flow states, how excess flow can be destructive,what kinds of flow create lasting happiness. In addition, it gave me a new understanding of the happiness people find in activities I cannot even comprehend enjoying, such as raising a family and sporting fan-dom.

Introduction to Animal Rights: Your Child or the Dog? by Gary L. Francione

An excellent and clear exposition of the basic abolitionist argument: that although we practically universally agree that animals should be treated humanely, as long as they are owned as property the humane treatment principle will never be respected. Having read much of Peter Singer’s writing, I particularly appreciated the direct comparison to his philosophy in the middle of the book.

The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat-Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman by Tim Ferriss

Jared wrote a review of this, go and read it because I agree with him.

The Ascent of Humanity by Charles Epstein

A friend once described reading a good book as “marinating in someone else’s brain for a while”. That is the best description I have of this book. The essential premise is that humanity’s obsession with technology and progress will inevitably lead to a collapse, and we will need new modes of operation to rebuild. Many challenging thoughts, though a large part of it could be cut; I tend not to enjoy philosophers interpreting or writing about science.

Honorable Mentions

There was not a lot of fiction in that list, clearly I don’t read as much of it. Here are three other excellent books I read over the past twelve months.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

I enjoyed that the relationships in this book didn’t feel stereotypical, and everyone had a different perspective. Kundera knew how to turn a phrase, too. I realise now that I borrowed this from Sarah and it is still in my bookshelf, so uhm … sorry about that if you are reading. I rode my bike over one night and punctured a tyre, so had to catch the train home and wanted some reading material: this was the only book in her bookshelf I felt I could stomach. Turned out to be a winner.

Einstein’s Dreams by Alan Lightman

A beautiful book about the many dreams and conceptions of time Einstein must have had creating his theory of relativity. In one, time is circular, so that people are fated to repeat triumphs and failures over and over. In another, there is a place where time stands still, visited by lovers and parents clinging to their children. It is a quick read, took me barely two hours, so you have no excuse not to read it.

Liar’s Poker: Rising Through the Wreckage on Wall Street by Michael Lewis

I suppose I am cheating, this isn’t really fiction, but it may as well be. Great story, well told, and a nice introductory overview of the finance market to boot. I’m looking forward to reading another of Lewis’s books in the same vein: The Big Short.

That gives you a fairly comprehensive picture of the type of literature I read. You can see the full list of forty (plus more from history!) over at Goodreads. Now it is your turn: what books should I add to my list? Send me an email or hit me up on Twitter.

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Mindful March

2011-02-27T13:00:00Z

I am thoroughly convinced meditation is good for you. At a personal level many people I respect practice and recommend it, and there is more science than you can poke a stick at backing up their claims. Also Tibetan monks are bad ass. More on that later.

Meditation is said to relieve stress and put things into perspective. I feel I am pretty on top of these two, but I could always go a bit more. It is also reported to improve creativity, cognition, and attention which is the mega-benefit as far as I am concerned. Trying meditation has been on my list for a while, and I have finally decided to tackle it: during March I will be trialling meditating everyday.

I don’t really know how you are “supposed” to meditate, but from what I gather you can’t really get it too wrong. I am going to start by following this illustrated guide, and I have lined up an evening course through the Sri Chinmoy Centrie to try and pick up some basics. I also have book on the way, “Mindfulness in Plain English”.

With that out of the way, let me tell you about the monks. These guys have decades of full on meditation training, and they can pull off some freakish skills. For years it was thought that there was an automatic physical “startle” response to loud noises. Even trained police marksman and CIA agents could not suppress an involuntary muscle spasm on hearing a gunshot, even when they knew it was coming. Researchers had never found anyone who could repress this startle.

That is until they got the monks in the lab. They got them meditating, counted down from 10 to 1, BANG, and not even a flich. One monk described it: “If you can remain properly in this state, the bang seems neutral, like a bird crossing the sky.”

I’m telling you, these monks are dudes. They turn different meditations on and off like taps. Oser, the monk in the above experiment, described his three hour MRI—normally a hellish experience for anyone—as a “mini retreat”.

In another test with a different group of monks, they wrapped themselves in near-freezing wet cloths, meditated, and steamed them dry. Any other person would have succumbed to hypothermia. Check this video. Other feats such as epic heart rate control have been recorded.

In a word, meditation makes you more awesome. I want in.

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Awesome Investing

2011-02-25T13:00:00Z

This post is about how I invest money. I have a fair chunk of assets, but I dislike the traditional approach of chasing ROI. I prefer a holistic approach that considers my investments in the context of my overall well being and happiness. This often means some of my investments don’t align with classic profit motivated advice, of the type you’ll find in countless books on the subject.

Let’s start with how I don’t invest.

Common advice for personal finance is to invest in “blue chip” shares such as BHP or the banks. Often overlooked is what “investing” actually means. It is giving a company your money with a vote of approval for them to turn that in to more money in a way they see fit. As such, any investment needs to match the values you live by in other areas of your life. If you are anti-mining, investing in BHP doesn’t make sense. If you don’t eat meat, investing in McDonalds is incongruent. If you bought big on BP when they tanked after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill to cash in on the subsequent rebound, you are part of the problem, not the solution.

Even if you only invest in companies you support, unless playing the stock market is an avid hobby for you, it is just not worth the distraction. Markets are volatile and susceptible to unpredictable fluctuations and manipulations, where professional traders do their job Really Fucking Well and makes loads of money while you just sit and watch and hold and hope that the 10-year trend holds its line. The real estate market is the same.

Focus on values, not ROI

For the most part money—and trying to turn it into more money—is a distracting game, but there is virtually no way to live in a modern economy without playing some part in it. I have money in a bank account, and I live in Australia so I have a compulsory superannuation account. I am striving for these to require as little of my attention as possible. I haven’t achieved this yet, but I’ll tell you about the current state of affairs and where I see them heading.

I own some shares but mostly as a legacy; I plan to sell them. Currently I own around $4,000 of NAB and Bendigo Bank shares given to me as coming of age gifts. The NAB ones are well over five years old. At purchase they were $24 each, they travelled up to near $40, now they are back at $26. I just watched and sat and held. I did own a few thousand dollars of BHP shares (again, gifted), but I transmuted them into shares in some carbon sequestration companies mostly out of anger. They haven’t gone so well but it beats funding the strip mining of our natural resources and cultures.

I have around $60,000 in the bank, a large chunk of it in short term deposits, simply because I don’t have a better place for it. I imagine the bank performs Questionable Investment Activities to give decent interest on that amount. Long term I need to do something with this but honestly have no idea what. It is nice to have some amount of savings in the bank, but it doesn’t really contribute that much to my sense of security. I quit my job, ostensibly to “live off my savings” for a while, but they kept going up.

My super is at $25,000, and is (well, once the forms go through) invested through Cruelty Free Super, a great fund manager that only invests in companies that do not contribute to the torture of things (a frighteningly rare attribute).

Since I have investments in the system and see no reasonable way of extracting them in the near future, I have begun aligning them with my values, eliminating one more source of dissonance that stresses me out.

Spend less than you earn

This isn’t an investment tip—yet. Stay with me. Obviously there are two ways to spend less than you earn. Let’s look at the first: spending less: I’m not saying be a cheap miser, rather just don’t spend it on crap you don’t value. I decline invitations to the cinema these days because sitting in a dark room, not able to talk, surrounded by the stench of popcorn is no longer an activity I particularly enjoy. Not only that, but dropping out of the mouse wheel of higher earnings, higher spending, ultimately makes you happier. Or at least, frees up cognitive surplus to work on being happier. The following graph has been cited hundreds of times, but it is worth repeating. Unless you are below the poverty line, if you are not happy with your current income, increasing it is not going to help.

The second way is more relevant to investment: earn more. As an investment target, your earning potential is a winner. If you can always make more money, it doesn’t matter how much money you have. This usually means knowing more things, and knowing more people. The more you know, the more difficult problems you can solve for people, and the easier it to get them to give you money. And the more people you know, the more opportunities you can create for people to give you money.

You can invest in this directly through educational courses, tutoring, conferences, and the like, but for most people the bottleneck will be time. It takes time to learn new things, it takes time to network. This is great if you are accumulating monetary savings, as they can be spent (invested) to create more time for yourself. This can be done by dropping back to part-time work, taking time off, or by paying other people to do things for you (washing, cleaning, cooking, etc…).

I did this last year when I quit my full time job. I drastically expanded my contact base by running a workshop across the US and Europe, which directly lead to a published screencast—an excellent source of passive income—and a deepened knowledge of the field that has led to futher work (on my terms) at higher rates.

I have also spent the time I bought working on my stilt walking, which led to performing at the Woodford Folk Festival last year—at very lucrative pay aside from the benefit of attending the festival as an artist—plus many more sweet gigs coming up this year.

I rocked this costume.

My investments in myself have the net result that I am wealthy in the true sense of the word — my life is sustainable. As a side benefit I make far more money than I need, but take away my savings and move me to another country and I can still provide for myself, stay happy, and generally just keep on keeping on. That is worth more than any stock.

Big ups to Steve Hopkins for inspiring this article, reading a draft, and helping make it far better than it otherwise would have been. He is a champ and you should go check out his blog The Squiggly Line.

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Four Hour Body Review

2011-02-24T13:00:00Z

The 4 hour body is essentially an overview of various ways to hack your body with a chapter about sex thrown in. Tim Ferris rounds up a bunch of experts and theories about getting bigger, smaller, faster, and stronger, throws in a bunch of self experimentation, and summarises it all in book format. At face value it looks like a round up of fad diets, secret exercises, and other bullshit we see everyday flashing away on banner ads, except these ones really work you guys. Some of the content is bordering on exactly that however for the most part this negative impression is the fault of evil marketing companies.

Our bullshit detectors have been trained to go haywire at the slightest mention of health or fitness. It’s a shame because for this reason it’s hard to go into the book with a neutral attitude. Tim is fighting an uphill battle and doing so with varying degrees of success. Some chapters failed to convince me that they existed for any reason other than being able to list ‘living longer’ in the contents. Others though left lasting impressions and have changed the way I think about and practise exercise.

The Good

Regardless of the actual content it is the underlying principles and attitudes that Tim employs that I found the most interesting about the book. The three main things I took away from it were:

Measure freakin’ everything
Less time and effort can yield significant results
Jump in and try something for yourself.

(If I was to throw in a fourth for good measure it’d be that Tim has borderline OCD.)

I’m already an advocate of measuring and writing things down. Tim takes it to a whole new level though. In addition to some pretty common fitness metrics, such as body fat levels and rest times between exercises, he steps it up and gets an implant to measure his glucose levels and travels overseas, where medical care is cheaper, and stocks up on every test they have available. There’s a great story in the book about a guy who lost weight by doing nothing but writing stuff down. He’d measure his weight every day, made some sweet graphs with it, and watched the kilograms drop. Just having a visual representation of his goal was enough to change his behaviour.

Tim getting reading to deliver a CONTENT PUNCH.

Doing less of something on the other hand is something I’ve specifically advised against. It’s a hard pill to swallow when you read that someone works out for only four hours in one month and packs on 15+ kilograms of muscle. This is where the title of the book comes from. An experiment where Tim does two half hour sessions a week for four weeks and puts on some serious muscle mass as a result. There are other examples though thrown in too: Training for sprints by walking, and training for ultra marathons with incredible low mileage. All of these are counter intuitive and it’s this sort of stuff that you normally find washed up celebrities endorsing on midday television. Tim always finds people who are pulling it off though and in most chapters gets some pretty impressive results himself. A key principle to getting these results is finding the small changes and differences you can make that will yield the biggest improvements. By focusing on these you can cut out a lot of wasted time. This mindset is something both Xav and I have adopted since reading the book and it is pretty big shift from our usual approach of just harden up and high ball it.

The Bad

That’s all I’ve got for the pro column. Now for some cons. There are actually quite a number of issues I have with the book.

First I don’t give a shit how many records Tim breaks. He has this habit of throwing in a line about how he set a new record for X activity at gym Y or training under instructor Z. In at least once instance he explicitly states he’s not trying to boast but that just makes it more annoying. It’s like when someone starts a sentence with ‘I’m not racist’ then goes on to tell you about how they just aren’t down with all these black people. I have a theory that because he’s travelling around to get help from experts who deal with people in the top 1% of their fields, it leaves him as the only non professional signing up. It’s going to be a hell of a lot easier for someone like Tim to throw five inches on his vertical leap than a professional NFL player. The learning curve goes straight up. Even if I’m wrong about this it doesn’t excuse the fact that he’s gloating about getting the most injections at some overseas clinic or posting pointless videos online of him swallowing 25 pills at the one time.

Whilst I’m on his writing style I may as well bring up that starting every chapter with the name of a famous person you were with, the trendy city you were in, and the over priced food you were eating, does not make you sound like a trendy journalist. It makes you sound like a wanker. There’s a fair bit of name dropping and general behaviour of this sort. At one point he tries to make a joke about going out with Angelina Jolie, except by that point I was so used to hearing about people he hung around with that I had to read it a few times to figure out he was joking. I’m still not entirely sure and I like to think I’m at least a competently versed comedic styler.

An issue a bit more content relevant is that Tim’s OCD can be a touch selective. The most glaring example is his claim that there is no need to measure what you eat. I can see why he wouldn’t want to. His life style of travelling and eating out would make writing down calories and nutrition information almost impossible. He never mentions this though. Instead he brushes it off by saying basically “I’ve never done it and I’ve never had any problems.” I can’t figure out why someone who is so set on measuring every little recordable detail neglects nutrition. It seems like it’d be right up his alley.

The worst part about this is that instead of measuring food he advises people to just high ball it (for muscle gain anyways) and this shits in the face of everything he bases the book around. He harps on about the minimum required dosage to achieve the required result and I found this to be one of the most interesting parts of the book. Eating until you’re on the verge of vomiting does not sound like a minimum dosage.

I have a theory about this part too though. Counting calories is a massive time sink. It takes heaps of preparation and is not a sustainable way to live. That’s perfectly ok when you are just screwing around with your body for a month, which is what Tim seems to be all about, but when you are trying to sell a wonder diet (hint: it’s the Atkins diet) you really don’t want to include stuff like that in it.

Another beef I have is that a few of the exercises in this book are actually quite difficult to execute properly. Tim obviously comes from a sporting and fitness background and I thought he could have perhaps spent a bit more time saying some of the things he was doing aren’t easy. The whole appeal of the 4 hour body experiment is that you are only working out for 30 minutes twice a week. I lifted weights for over a year and am pretty active in general. Working out with a 5 second cadence (taking 5 secs for both the positive and negative parts of a lift) is absolutely grueling. And when the aim is to hit failure (the point where you are physically incapable of lifting anymore) it becomes borderline torture. To work out with this intensity on big lifts such as the Deadlift or Yates Row isn’t just mentally tough, there’s a fair amount of training required before you can activate the correct muscles and do the lift with proper form. My best lift is the Dead lift and I can feel my lower back in pain just thinking about doing a set of them to proper failure.

Occasionally I found myself wanting longer explanations of the science, or even a single short one, but this is only a minor point. The book isn’t meant to be a tome of knowledge so going easy on the science side of things is forgivable. It’d be nice to know though why eating 200g+ of protein a day is a good idea for getting mega-huge or how a single kettle bell exercise somehow turns you into a fitness model. I’m perfectly capable of trekking down to a library myself and finding the answers to these questions though. I’ve heard they’ve got free Internet there.

The Sex

I’m almost positive this chapter exists so the front cover can have the word “SEX” on it. I’m OK with that though. We’ve written some stuff to try and drive traffic. When it’s done right you get high quality content with a catchy title, when it’s done badly you get rubbish content hidden in list format.

This chapter falls somewhere in the middle. Catchy title (SEX YOU GUYS!!!) and below average content. Ferris goes about learning the art of sexing in his usual manner: OCD backed with heaps of time and money. It’s entertaining to read about him travelling around to chat to sex experts, pornstars, and mums who paid said pornstars to have sex with their sons (actually happens). It gets a little creepy though when he starts joking about finding willing participants for him to experiment on.

I’m going to keep staring until you say yes.

He reveals the secret angles you should be using and even recommends some pillows that will help set things up. There is also a whole section on how to rub up girl parts for 15 minutes and I can’t quite figure out why. I don’t need help setting up awkward situations. A sterile, emotionless, long exercise that has no end result (exactly what you think it means) isn’t something my bachelor arsenal needs.

Let’s say I wanted to put some of these protips into practise. Assuming I passed the conversation about bringing a protractor into the bedroom I’ve still got a few problems. I’ve only got so many hands and if I’m using them to measure angles and use a stop watch I’ve pretty much ran out. Unlike Tim I haven’t taken a class at Sex Insitute but I’m fairly certain I need to be doing something else with them.

Closing Thoughts

About half way through the book Tim was describing how he finishes the day with a glass of red in front of the discovery channel. That’s when it dawned on me: this book wasn’t written for me. I would have caught on much sooner if I’d skipped straight to his chapter on vegetarianism/veganism, or his light hearted approach to describing the living hell science is putting monkeys through in order to unlock secrets about longer life. These are areas where we are at polar opposites. My views in these areas make me an outlier by mainstream standards, but it’s the mainstream that is his audience.

The book is written for a culture of gym memberships, egg whites, and whey protein, so even when a chapter resonates with me, it is written from a different perspective. To give just one example there was some great nutrition advice on eating more veggies, except it was all frozen veggies (the modern man has no time for food preparation) and it was Tim Ferris approved that you could chase this down with a can of diet coke.

I can’t critique an action movie for having a love story though. As much as I would have liked a 300 page science dump on exactly how his 4 hour body trick works, that just isn’t what this book is about. A few chapters desperately needed expansion and some should have just been cut entirely, but as an introduction even those served their purpose. Xav and I both own a copy, read it cover to cover, and talked about it for a week so I guess that for our first TwoShay book review it scores a perfect 2 out of 2.

Quick Skills: Hiccups

2011-01-29T14:00:00Z

What’s this? Quick skills are small challenges that are rewarding and once mastered you’ll have forever. You can add them to your arsenal of awesome in as little as five minutes.

Skill Curing Hiccups.
Time to Learn 1 minute.
Equipment Glass of water.

This is a fairly well known trick, but I only learned it the other day and wanted to share. There are just under a million ways to cure hiccups and I was going to lay down some science on it, but turns out science doesn’t really know much about hiccups. Where do they come from? Why do they stay? Why won’t they leave? All big questions.

So here is one method that works for me.

Take a glass of water and go to drink it, but instead put your lips on the opposite side of the glass (the side furthest from you). Now drink the whole thing. Yeah, it’s awkward.

Protips

If you have a friend in need, try offering them $20 to hiccup again. They will crumble under the pressure, guaranteed.

Who’s Better?

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In a rare occurence, we have to call this one a tie.

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Motivational Posters

2011-01-16T13:00:00Z

“Recognizing the influence of my subconscious mind over my power of will, I shall take care to submit to it a clear and definite picture of my major purpose in life and all minor purposes leading to my major purpose, and I shall keep this picture constantly before my subconscious mind by repeating it daily.” —Bruce Lee

What a champ. That’s direct from the first month of my Bruce Lee habits calendar. This calendar is so freaking good. Everyone should have one.

Philosophy has never looked this good.

I used to think “motivational” stuff like this was a bit naff. This attitude stems from the repeated misuse and abuse of mission statements, to the point where it’s cliché for them to be empty. It’s pretty standard to read something like “at Nestlé, we believe that research can help us make better food so that people live a better life.” (ref.), while they go around killing babies. When you can’t tell satire from the real thing, you know you have a problem.

Choosing a poster for an entire organisation is really hard to get right (though some are starting to get it). Choosing one for yourself however is totally effective.

A Slogan For Me

When I was training Parkour and living by myself a few years back, I decided to do a one month trial of putting up inspiring slogans even if I thought they were a bit lame. I had “Strong Body, Strong Mind” as my desktop wallpaper, and I also wrote it on paper plates that I attached to cupboard handles. Didn’t even need Blu-tack. (That was pretty ghetto, and I got some weird looks when I had people around for dinner and forgot to take them down.)

This is the type of slogan that can sound empty, but for me personally it encapsulates a mindset and approach that is far deeper than the words themselves.

It felt strange. I was quite self-concious to begin with, even embarrassed. As with anything though, by the end of the month it felt natural, and for bonus points: it actually worked. It gives your mind something to focus on when it is becoming bored or restless, and it if doesn’t immediately inspire you to do something useful, it’s at least better than worrying about whether Gilligan and the Skipper will escape the island next episode. That was not only a great month for training, but being aligned behind a focus does wonders for your happiness too.

It doesn’t matter how cliché your slogan or blackletter font is, on an individual level you know the personal context. You cannot capture everything in three words and a picture, but if it gets you in the right mindset your actions will follow.

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