My Twitter friend Caitlin aka @Caitlinness called me out a few weeks ago and said she missed reading my blog posts. It would be an understatement to say I hadn’t been too active on here in the past few months. More appropriately, I’d fallen off the face of the interweb.

At the time when I read her comment I didn’t have a legitimate excuse – especially an excuse I could limit to 140 characters. So, I did what any self-respecting author of a book entitled No Excuses would do… I never replied.

Well Caity, you got me thinking girl.

The question I contemplated: Why would two of the men I most admire in history – Theodore Roosevelt and Ralph Waldo Emerson – be so intent on encouraging people they cared about to keep a journal? What’s the big deal?

The more I read about their journaling, the more I learned this wasn’t an obsession they kept to themselves or their closest friends and family. They both pushed journaling on just about anyone who would listen.

In a way, the blogosphere (and other social sites too) is a new journal medium. It doesn’t replace the intimacy and privacy of the traditional journal, but I think it delivers as a tool to share some of our insights and experiences with others.

So why did I personally stop?

To answer that, I had to think about why I started a blog in the first place.

And I’d be lying if I said part of me wasn’t doing it because every other speaker and author seemed to be doing it too. I didn’t want to get left behind.

We’re all hardwired in one or more areas of our life to emulate, and sometimes envy, one another. This is true whether we openly acknowledge it or not.

We all know the old saying too: Would you go jump off a bridge just because so-and-so did it?  Written from my perspective that looks like: Would you go start a blog just because Tony Robbins did it?

That’s a tough pill to swallow. It makes me admire people who avoid the trap of comparing themselves to others that much more. Once we stop comparing ourselves to other people or ideals, and start living life on our terms, some pretty cool stuff is bound to happen.

It seems to me that principle is written in the fabric of the universe in many different ways. Like me, you probably know what happens when you over pursue something like a job that pays more money or even having someone else love us. The more weight we recklessly throw at those seemingly impassable walls, the more hopeless we feel. Yet, we slam ourselves against the wall. Over and over again. And as we continue, we lie to ourselves. We hear a voice saying, “If you only put a little more force, a little more weight behind the next attempt, you’ll eventually break it down.”

The lie is that no amount of force will break the wall down. It’s only when we stop long enough to learn to accept who we are, do we realize there was a door waiting there all along.

Okay, even Emerson may agree that was a little too deep for a conversation about a blog. But I think there’s some real truth behind it.

Several times a week I see “social media experts” write about how to maximize your SEO keywords and meta-tags, but I don’t see that many of them telling people to write their truth.

I think we (bloggers) should be less concerned with amassing more pageviews and start paying more attention to the human beings on the other side of the screen. And we probably don’t need to worry about writing a killer meta-description if the actual content we write serves a purpose to somebody.

I believe all the stuff bloggers are looking for (clicks, likes, shares, comments, etc.) come naturally as a byproduct of not caring about that stuff. It’s like trekking through a forest looking for a unicorn or bigfoot… We all know they only show their faces when we don’t have our camera ready.

I tried to find a quote just now that articulates this concept more eloquently than I am about to, but you’re stuck with my version instead: “Stick with saying what you know, there are already way more than enough people out there guessing.”

Why do I want to write?

I want to share the cool stuff I come across with you, because I’m pretty sure my “RL” friends and family get sick of me jabbering to them all the time. And at least you have the choice to click the “X” and shut me up. Joseph Campbell says to ‘follow your bliss’ and my bliss is teaching.

In the same vein, I’d like to be accountable to learning new cool stuff, so I actually have something relevant to share.

I’d also like to do a better job documenting this wild ride that has become my life, so that someday I can have some cool stories to look back on.

And more than anything, if something were to ever happen to me, I’d really like my baby niece to know who her uncle was…  And for her to know that I love her with all my heart.

So, back to Caity’s question – Where did my blog go? I think it took me a little while to figure all this out. But what I should have said with my 140 character limit was thank you for lighting a fire under my butt

Did I mention she’s a blogger too? If you want to check out Caitlin’s blog, you can here: http://streamofcaitlinness.com/

Thanks for stopping by to check and see if I was still alive,

Kyle

As the political season is hitting its fever pitch, we’ve been reading a lot about the two candidates. While this post is in no way political, I did read an article about Obama that really got me thinking. No matter what side of the aisle we sit on, I think everyone has to concede that being the President is not an easy job. Major, and I mean major decisions must be made everyday, often without all of the information, that will affect millions (possibly billions) of people.

Talk about pressure.

And while most of us do not have to make the decisions that could send soldiers into battle or affect the global economy, we all have to make important decisions on a daily basis. Maybe we have to decide on the next product to release in our business, or if we should refinance our home, or what job offer to accept.

And everyday, on top of those major decisions, we are faced with thousands of smaller decisions. What should I eat for breakfast? Hot coffee or iced coffee? Paper or plastic?

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the problem of choice and how having too many choices can actually make us less happy (i.e. shopping for a pair of the ‘perfect’ jeans at the mall). There is no perfect pair. And the more pairs we are exposed to, the less perfect we believe our choice to be.

What happens when you not only have to decide about which jeans to buy, but which credit card to put it on, which podcast to listen to in the car, which roads to take home to avoid traffic, what to cook for dinner, what to watch on tv, etc.

As it turns out, being bombarded with decisions (big or small) can have major consequences in our lives.

Scientists are learning that our ability to make decisions works just like any other muscle in our body. It gets tired. In fact, it has even been given a name. It’s called decision fatigue.

Recently, one of my best friends got married, and I was talking to him and his new wife about the process of planning the wedding. It was a stunning wedding, but boy did they have some long days planning it.

The number of decisions you have to make in planning a wedding are seemingly endless. You have to decide on the church, the reception, the day, the time, the flowers, the cake, the DJ, the dress… and on and on.

Then there are a million smaller decisions to make as well, and my friend admitted to me that sometimes he would just be too exhausted to make any more decisions. He would ask his soon-to-be-bride if she could choose for him, or he would just pick something seemingly at random.

This is classic decision fatigue and when this happens in our lives, just like with my best friend, we do one of two things.

1. Give up and pass the decision-making responsibility to someone else.  OR….
2. Just pick something without any thought.

Even the best decision-makers in the world suffer from this. It may not really matter in the grand-scheme of things if your wedding cake has vanilla or cream-cheese frosting, but there are decisions that we make that do matter. Like who we marry, for instance. They matter a lot and it is of critical importance that we are not emotionally and mentally fatigued when we have to make them. 

In a recent NY Times article, John Tierney describes a real-life example that makes life altering decisions- serving on a parole board. These are people that were required to decide if prisoners were granted freedom or not. After analyzing the statistics, what they discovered shocked me. They found out that prisoners who came before the board in the morning received parole about 70% of the time. The prisoners who came in the afternoon? They received parole about 10% of time.

That’s insane!

They looked at all kinds of data to make sure there weren’t other factors at play. Did the morning prisoners commit less violent crimes? Were they of a different race or ethnic background? After looking at the data, there was no statistical difference. In fact, two people approached the board on the same day who were convicted of the same crime, were of the same ethnicity, and had the same sentence. The guy who appeared in the morning was granted parole while the one who came in the afternoon was denied. There is no conspiracy or bias or malicious intent here. It’s a simple result of decision fatigue. The board members were simply exhausted at the end of the day, and chose to just make the quick and easy decision.

Now what can we learn from this? How can we make sure this doesn’t happen in our own lives?

I have 4 of my own ideas to improve our decisions, and therefore, our quality of life. But I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts on whats helped you make important choices.

1. This may seem pretty obvious, but we can start by not making major life or career decisions when you we’re mentally drained. We need to make sure we are well rested. If you’re running on 3 or 4 hrs. sleep and dependent on caffeine to get through the day, make sure you get some shut-eye before contemplating the big ticket items. Personally, I feel much more effective and confident in my choices and actions when I get good sleep, even if that means spending less time doing something.

2. Hunger can also lead to decision fatigue since our brain runs off of glucose (aka blood sugar). So you don’t want to be making these big moves on an empty stomach. And if your diet is heavy in sugar or grains (wheat, rice, corn, etc), then your blood glucose levels are probably going to be less stable in general. Eating a diet that’s balanced correctly for you with a variety of lean meats, green & multi-colored veggies, some fruits and healthy fats such as those from nuts & seeds can go a long way in combating decision fatigue.

3. Whether you believe me or not, we’re almost all at our best in making choices earlier in the morning. I don’t traditionally consider myself a morning person, but the further we get into the day, the more decisions we face, and consequently, the more fatigued we can become. Think about each decision as being like doing one sit-up at a time. It might not be too hard for those first few, but gradually with each repetition it will get harder and harder.

But sometimes we do have to make big decisions late in the day. What can we do then? Well this is what I found so interesting about President Obama. Every morning, he makes sure that there are only two suits in his closet- a blue one and a grey one. A President is required to make important decisions all day every day. He can’t schedule when emergencies happen. So he also tries to limit the mundane decisions to save his energy for the important ones.

4. In my opinion, this final suggestion may be most important of all. We must ask ourselves “Is the decision I am making one that I feel strongly about or is it one that I feel I “should” make because of family, co-worker, peer or societal pressure?” We are all capable of being overly influenced by people, factors and forces outside of ourselves. And it can happen in many different ways and at different times in our lives. But it is critically important we know where these influences are coming from and how they are affecting us. For the truly important decisions we make in our lives, it’s O.K. to be given guidance, but we need to be good with the choices we make ourselves. It’s not enough to do something only to make someone else happy.

Take a look at this excerpt from my friend Randy Gage’s new book that launches this week, entitled “Risky is the New Safe” (http://www.randygage.com/riskyisthenewsafe/)

“When I was growing up, my mom told me to go to school, earn a degree, and get a job with a big company – then I would be set for life. That was the safe thing to do, and millions of other parents around the world were telling their children to do the same thing. 

“Today, however, that might be the riskiest thing you can do…

“Fortunately, I was expelled from high school, so I never got a chance to follow my mother’s advice. And not following that safe path has made me a very rich man.”

Randy’s life would have been much different had he taken the route his mother, and probably most of society, would have advised. But because he made his own path and took risks others would have warned him against, he’s been able to touch hundreds of thousands of lives. Randy is one of the best speakers on the planet and the only mentor or coach I’ve ever had in public speaking. And I am personally grateful he never bought into the lies when people said he’d be a failure if he didn’t take the normal route.

And there are different paths for all of us. No one can truly make a judgement one way or another for someone else on a decision like the importance of going to school. That’s something we need to decide for ourselves.

But I know for certain my path in life would have been much harder had my parents believed it when people told them I would be dependent on their help forever. They asked the question “why can’t Kyle lead a normal life?”

What about you, what factors and forces outside of us are weighing too heavily on your decision making? Is knowing what these influences are enough to change your path and take a risk? How about in your health, are you preparing yourself with good enough rest and nutrition to make the tough choices?

And what decisions are you making everyday that aren’t important and may be weighing you down? Is it possible to limit those decisions or make them ahead of time? What do you think about restructuring your day so you deal with the important issues first?

This week, lets all try to make one tiny change in our schedule or routine that could help us become a better decision-maker. I would love to see what that change is for you in the comments below.

The important thing to remember is that everyone makes bad decisions. I am no different and I could spend a long time writing out the wrong choices I have made. It’s a part of being human. The most successful people I know, however, can recognize when they are most prone to making them. These people know when they need to sleep on it.

Until next time,

Kyle

###

And you can check out this 16-minute video clip where Randy describes his new book here: http://www.randygage.com/riskyisthenewsafe/  … The book is brash, brazen and you probably won’t agree with some of it, but I can guarantee it will make you stop and think. This should be required reading for people who want to take a chance in their lives and make a difference in the world.

We are a little over 3 weeks into this challenge, and at least for me, times are getting a little tough. The newness of this experience has worn off. I don’t quite feel the same excitement as I did last week. Not only that, but I have learned that this is not easy. Changing habits can be really difficult. Since I want to change my fitness and nutrition, this is a big life change for me. I have developed some seriously bad habits over the past few months. For many of you, especially those of you who are making larger changes in your life, you might be feeling an even greater sense of fear or dread. This is a long and hard up hill battle, and we have only just begun. How can we ever hope to take control?

Have I told you that I am a motivational speaker? 

In all seriousness, I know that this challenge is difficult, and I became really interested in figuring out how to make this process any easier for you and me. After doing some reading and some research (particularly in the book “The Power of Habit” by Charles Duhigg), I learned a really crazy fact. This fact is so simple but so profound, and I think it can go a long way to answering the question posed above.

How do we take control?

The truth is that most times, we are not in control at all. Thats right, you are not in control.

Feeling better? (Haha, just bare with me here)

Now, I’m not talking about philosophy here. This isn’t a question of free will or determinism or any one belief. I want to talk about some really cool science that I think can provide some tangible benefit to us all.

I mentioned this briefly in an earlier post, but the truth is that our brain is a pretty marvelous machine. There are many different parts to it, and scientists are finding that one of the most important parts is an area called the basal ganglia. Many scientists think that this is one of the most primitive parts of the brain because it controls some of our most basic functions like motion.

Our ability to move our arms, legs, and eyes, all come from this part of the brain (consequently this is also the part of the brain that is damaged by diseases like Parkinson’s or Huntington’s). New research is finding that this part of the brain also plays a pivotal role in our motivation. In other words, the basal ganglia not only controls when we move and what we move, but why we moved it.

Now, how does the basal ganglia relate to our habits? Well the truth is that this part of the brain is actually responsible for all of our habits, so understanding how it works can help us figure out how to change our habits.

There are many actions, like brushing our teeth in the morning, that we don’t even think about. Our basal ganglia just does it for us, and oftentimes this is great. Our brain would be exhausted if it had to think about all these tiny actions, so instead the basal ganglia puts us into auto-pilot so we can focus on more important and complicated things.

What scientists are learning is that the basal ganglia works off a 3-step process. 

1. The cue – a sign that tells our brain to start a habit (maybe walking into the bathroom or turning on the faucet in the morning)
2. The routine – the act of going through the habit (putting toothpaste on the toothbrush, brushing your teeth, spitting etc)
3. The reward – the good feeling we get when we have completed the habit (the fresh taste in our mouth)

All of our habits work in this way, whether they are good or bad. Running everyday works the same way in our brain as eating a box of twinkies on the couch. If the right cue is there, our basal ganglia will kick our bodies into auto-pilot until we get the reward it is accustomed to.

See what I mean? There are many actions that we don’t control at all.

After I learned this, it completely changed how I viewed my habits. What I needed to do was try and eliminate the cues that start the bad habits, and instead consciously develop new cues that would start a good habit.

For example, whenever I arrive at a new hotel, the first thing I do is head up to my room. I tell myself that I am just going to drop my bags off, change my clothes, and then I am going to go workout. However, I have discovered that entering the hotel room is a cue for a bad habit. As soon as I enter, my basal ganglia kicks in and I inevitably hop on the bed to relax. Next thing I know, a couple of hours have gone by, the tv is now on, and my brain is receiving the reward of relaxation. 

The funny thing is, however, that even though habits never actually disappear from our brain, they can be very fragile. Changing the circumstances of your cue even a little bit, will prevent your basal ganglia from kicking in and re-starting a bad habit.

Since learning this, I have started doing things differently. After checking into a hotel, I still have to go drop my bags off at my room.  However, while I am in the elevator I turn on a specific song on my phone. (I turn on ‘Sail’ by AWOLNATION because it really pumps me up.) I listen to this song as I enter, and now I get a very different feeling. I don’t want to jump into bed, I want to go to the gym and get in a good workout. I have changed my cue.

After consciously choosing to do this, my basal ganglia started to learn a new habit, a healthier habit, and my brain kicks me into auto-pilot until I have gotten the reward of a really great workout. Now, I don’t even have to think about it. As long as I play the song as I am entering my hotel room, my brain does everything for me.

Not being in control can actually be pretty awesome.

As we all are working towards this challenge, I urge you to think about how our basal ganglia controls our habits. What cues bad habits? How can we change these cues to start learning good habits? I would be honored if you shared some of your new cues in the comments below.

Oh, and make sure you remember to reward yourself. That is equally important in reinforcing those good habits!

Until next time,

Kyle

What if I told you that you could make one tiny change in your life, and it would make your life better?  What if I told you that it doesn’t even really matter what change you make? It could be big. It could be small. As long as its a change for the better, it doesn’t really matter what change it is.

What if I told you that you don’t even need to actually make the change for you to have a better and happier life, that all you needed to do was decide what one thing you wanted to change? Let me say this again; To lead a happier life you dont have to actually change anything, you just have to decide what you would like to change.

For all of the people out there who have already decided to join me on my 3-month challenge, you have already made your life better and happier without lifting a finger. Don’t believe me?

Just read on. I have some science to back this up.

For all of our knowledge and experiences, one question continues to elude the human race:

What is the secret to happiness?

Unfortunately, we still can’t answer this question definitively, but scientists have started to answer an important variation to this question:

What makes us happier?

As it turns out, there is now some very surprising evidence that flies in the face of conventional wisdom, and some of it comes down to choice.

The traditional thought is that choice and freedom has a one-to-one relationship with happiness. If we have more freedom and more choices, we will be happier. We think this all of the time. When you go to a clothing store do you want to be able to choose between a variety of different pairs of jeans, or only one? Stores advertise this all of the time. We hear phrases like “The largest selection of ______ in the country!”

But do all of these choices make us happier? The answer is actually a bit more complicated.

According to the independent work of Barry Schwartz and Dan Gilbert, it is true that a little bit of choice is a good thing. People generally won’t be happy if a department store only carries one type of jeans. Not everyone is going to like the same pair of denim. However, new research is finding that there is a limit. A few choices can make us happier, but too many choices can make us really unhappy.  How can this be?

Well as it turns out, as our number of choices increase, so do our expectations. We no longer expect to find a really great pair of jeans – we expect to find the perfect pair. As a consequence, every little thing that isn’t perfect with the jeans becomes magnified in our  mind. We begin to obsess, and examine things too closely. We become overwhelmed, exhausted, and (you guessed it) unhappy.

To make matters worse, even after we have made a decision and bought the jeans we like the most, return policies continue the torture. We can prolong the decision-making process. We can bring them home, and decide we don’t like them as much as we thought. Maybe we like another pair more. A hundred years ago, the concept of “buyer’s remorse” didn’t even exist. When we really think about it, the concept is completely absurd. We needed a pair of jeans. We bought a great pair of jeans that look good and fit great and for an affordable price, but now we are unhappy because maybe there is an even better pair out there somewhere.

I think the example of jeans works great because every man and woman can relate to this one. We have all felt a little overwhelmed walking into a department store these days (and maybe even worse when we walk out of one). The truth is, that this same paradox of choice happens with bigger things in our lives (and not just with our purchases).

There was a reason why I asked everyone to choose one habit to change. I know for me, there are a million things in my life that I would like to improve. I want to improve my business, my relationships, my knowledge, but I didn’t let myself think of all of those choices. I chose just to improve my health. For those of you who have joined me in my challenge, you have chosen just one thing as well.

Out of all the things we could have chosen to improve, we didn’t overwhelm ourselves. We chose just one habit. And unlike Macy’s 30-day return policy, we can’t return this one for a different one. We can’t decide that this habit is too hard to break, so we are going to choose a different one. There can be no “buyer’s remorse” here.

We have made the decision. We now have a singular focus. We don’t have to wake up each morning and decide what we are going to improve. We don’t have the “luxury” of second-guessing our decision. Our minds are also not overwhelmed with all of the different poor habits we’re trying to break or good habits we’re trying to start. By making a decision and not looking back, we have eliminated the ever-increasing number of choices and decisions. Less is more.

I don’t know about you, but this has made me a lot happier already.

I think you will also find, that just like a great pair of jeans can make any outfit look better, this one change, this one habit, will improve all aspects of your life.  In fact, I know it will. There is science behind that too, and in the next few weeks I look forward to sharing it.

I’m so excited to continue this journey with you all. We will all become better, happier people together.

Actually, we already have.

Until next time,

Kyle

It’s only a few days in and I already know I’ve been pushed outside my comfort zone. I’ve been hungry, I’ve been sore… and I’ve probably been a little moody too if you ask my friends and family! How is the challenge going for you?! Haven’t signed up for the challenge yet? There’s still time! Click here to commit to a major change in your life.

I hope you enjoy the video from the Chicago airport! And I’d love to hear your thoughts on how this applies to your life.

Click the image below to see the video.

The Traveling Caveman

One of the topics I speak about for some organizations is how we will follow a habit until we make a decision to change it and fight to stick to the change. And with my gym No Excuses CrossFit starting their own health challenge this fall, I thought it could be a lot of fun to start a virtual challenge online.

The challenge is to change a major habit in 3 months. But before we discuss the details of the challenge itself, we should understand what a habit actually is.

Behavioral psychologists have recently discovered habits are triggered by a different, deeper part of our brain than what stimulates conscious decision making. Our brains developed habits in order to take a complicated set of behaviors and act on them subconsciously. And acting through our habits subconsciously helps keep our brains energy efficient.

What would happen if you had to make up a new behavior pattern every time you woke up in the morning? Most of us (myself included) have a hard enough time stumbling to the coffee pot, let alone going into deep thought about whether or not we shower before we brush our teeth. These decisions, however seemingly small, can add up over time and use a tremendous amount of mental energy.

Think about the number of steps it takes to perform a habit as simple as backing the car out of the driveway. We open the garage, unlock the door, put the key in the ignition, buckle the seat belt, turn the wheel, check the mirrors, check for obstacles, check for oncoming traffic, put our foot on the brake, shift into reverse, take our foot off the brake, judge space between the garage and the street, and finally apply slight pressure to the gas pedal and brake. Yet somehow we seemingly do it all without thinking.

In The Power of Habit Charles Duhigg describes what has to happen in our brain in order to form a new habit, regardless of whether it’s a good or bad one. The process begins in our basal ganglia; a group of cells deep in our brain near our brain stem and spinal column.

The basal ganglia operates off of a three-step loop. First, there is a cue the brain recognizes as a trigger to go into auto-pilot and decide which habit to use. Second, there is the routine itself, which can be physical behavior or it can also be mental or emotional one too. And third, there must be a reward compelling enough for your brain to decide if this entire routine is worth repeating again in the future.

Think about what can make it so hard to quit smoking for instance. New research is showing us it’s not only a physical addiction to nicotine, but it’s the entire cue-routine-reward cycle. Maybe the cue is a particular time of day when you get in the car or have 15 minutes left before your lunch break ends.

Each time we go through the cue, routine, reward cycle, the behaviors becomes more and more automatic. Eventually the cue and reward become so connected to the routine that a new habit is born.

————————–

THE CHALLENGE

————————–

You have 3 months to replace a major habit with a new one that better serves you:

The New Habit must improve how you Look (i.e. clothes fit better, eyes look more rested from better sleep), Feel (more energy, less hungry, etc.) and/or Perform (performance could be on writing a book, increase in sales at work, personal records in the gym, etc.)

This leaves us with a pretty wide range of possible choices, but the reason for classifying it into one or all of these categories is that we can clearly define an objective. 

And it’s best to describe one or all of these objectives in even more detail– listing out how you will look, feel, and/or perform and what will be different than before.

I can’t tell you what habit to tackle, but I can encourage you to pick one and stick with it. The most important thing about this habit formation is the “sticking with it” part.

In Order to Participate: You must leave a comment answering Letters A – C in the comment section below.

(A) What is your new habit goal?

(B) What factors cause the old habit routine to begin? What are your cues?

(C) What is your reward? What will be different about how you look, feel and/or perform?

The challenge starts on Saturday September 8^th and ends on Saturday December 8^th.

I believe it helps to have a definitive date to get us started and a deadline to help us achieve what was once seemingly impossible. If we don’t set a date, then we don’t act.

If you’re a few days late to start in reading this, it’s ok, just jump on the train today!

———————–

MY NEW HABIT

———————–

(A) New Habit Goal: Improve my health and fitness while I’m traveling over the next 3 months.

I’ve been traveling quite a bit over the summer and I’ll be traveling a lot more (somewhere around 30 cities) between Sept. 8 and Dec. 8. I am already starting out in ‘less than stellar’ shape and in the past, it might have only continued to go downhill. This time it’s going to change.

I will also be blogging my progress under my new alter-ego…

THE TRAVELING CAVEMAN

(B) My old routine and cues: A lot of the time when I travel, I’m wiped by the time I make it back to my hotel room at the end of the night. When I get back into the hotel room, I’ll put off my workouts to the next day, and the next day after that.

Eventually I won’t have worked out for days or weeks in a row and my energy suffers even more. It goes without saying, but my diet suffers when I don’t keep myself accountable in my workouts.

My new habit will change this behavior routine while I’m on the road and give me more energy to take on the day.

(C) Goals in how I look, feel and/or perform: I plan to post a “before/after pic” on Dec. 8. I think setting the deadline to publish that pic on the website, facebook and twitter alone will help me get motivated to follow through. I will post the before pic and the after pic holding a newspaper with the headlines for Sept. 8 & Dec. 8 to show there was no foul play. Currently I weigh around 142 lbs and I will be around 10 lbs lighter by the end of the challenge.
And in addition to looking better, I hope to have more energy and be less reliant on midday espressos. I also think this energy will help me perform even more effectively while I’m on stage speaking.

——————–

In Conclusion

——————–

There comes a time when we have to stop thinking about changing something and we set a date to do it. Without action nothing will ever improve. It is our actions combined with our desire that lead to real change in our lives.

I haven’t mentioned my thoughts on how to change specific habits (i.e. How to quit smoking), because I think deep down you already know a lot about how YOU need to change it. If not, I implore you to find the right resources (personal trainer, psychologist or life coach, etc.) to make it happen.

And the final thought: think about your deepest “why” for taking on this goal. Make a promise to someone who loves you and share this post with them to see your commitment. Or write your “why” down and keep it somewhere you’ll see in that moment when times are tough and you need the encouragement.

Remember– even when we temporarily fall off the wagon– we are not beat until we choose to stay down. Regardless how many times it takes to stand up, dust the dirt off and keep moving forward.

Alright– enough talk, let’s get to work!

Kyle

I want to start off this post by thanking you guys. I want to thank you guys for reading, but thank you guys for responding back as well. I love hearing your own stories and your own thoughts and opinions. Without fail, you say something that makes me stop and think, consider another point of view.

Mike Sellers, if you are out there, I want to thank you for offering your perspective on the topic of time. Back in the post “The Pressing vs The Paramount,” you wrote something that had a profound impact on me. You said…

“As someone who turned 50 years old last week, I’d like to share some advice it took me 49 years to learn:

Paramount is important- but so is sitting down and eating a whole box of Oreos while watching Jimmy Fallon in your PJs. Do you know what I mean?”

While some of my Paleo diet friends may not support the whole box of Oreos part , I know exactly what you are saying, and this really got me thinking.

In the previous post I mentioned above, I outlined two types of tasks:

1. The Pressing – the items that feel like they need to be done now (but often can wait).
2. The Paramount – the big, important things in life that we should really be working on.

Then I talked about how we should try and make the Paramount into the Pressing so we actually work on the stuff that will change our lives.

And Mike has pointed out there is actually a third type of activity… perhaps the most important of all.

3) The Precious – the moments in our life when we are truly content.

These are the times in our lives that truly take our breath away. These are the moments we remember forever, because we are truly and utterly happy.

I can think of one that happened for me just recently– holding my newborn niece Kinleigh. It was magical, it was organic, and I wanted to remember that feeling forever. When she looked up at me for the first time and smiled with her big dimples, something changed in me forever.

Sometimes finally fulfilling those Paramount goals will lead to the Precious, but I truly believe that often you can’t plan these moments. They happen, and only when you are in it, or directly after, do you realize just how Precious it was.

I mentioned how climbing Kilimanjaro was this Paramount goal of mine. I had no idea what it would feel like to stand on top of the highest point in Africa. This was a goal I always dreamed of and spent months and months planning, training, and preparing for. I had convinced myself, that the moment on the summit would be transformative, life-altering, the most Precious.

The funny thing is, while the summit was cool, it didn’t compare to the truly Precious moments. Those moments I will forever be grateful for, and they were the moments I never anticipated. They were the dinners in the meal-tent telling jokes with the team. They were watching one of our team members, Sandra Ambotaite battle back from her cold and keep going. They were listening to our Marine Chris Hadsall read an inspiring letter from a soldier we met on the trail. They were hearing the cheers and songs from our incredible porters when we arrived into camp.  They were placing the ashes of our fallen soldier Cory Johnson around my neck for the first time.

These were the moments that I will always remember.

In our quest for productivity, success, and self-improvement, sometimes we just have to slow down and enjoy the Precious moments we have with ourselves and with those closest to us. When we turn reading a bedtime story to your child into a game of efficiency, we have missed the point.

Please do the things you need to do. Change the world. Accomplish those huge dreams.

But I urge you, take stock and recognize the truly Precious things in your life. Slow those moments down. Enjoy every last second of them.

After all, we will never know just how many more Precious moments we have left.

- Kyle

I can’t thank you enough for your support in sharing my ESPY nomination with your family, friends, and coworkers. It’s hard to even fully express how good it felt to know so many people stood beside us in the voting. And I know it’s put me behind on getting this post out there (thanks Walt for the kick in the butt I needed) but we pulled it off together! Thank you again for your help.

I have huge respect for the other athletes I was nominated alongside, but if you couldn’t tell, I’m a little competitive. And even in the ESPY nomination there has been some great direct experience with choosing what to put my focus on. Since the nomination came about a week and a half before the award show, there was a limited amount of time to get the word out and a clear deadline for when we would know.

In my last post, we discussed identifying the Paramount. But identifying something is just that, it’s only an identification. Actually working towards completing those Paramount tasks is an altogether different challenge.

It’s hard to do all of the little things, ignore all of our impulses, and actually work on those long-term, complicated goals. As we talked about last time, our bodies are actually designed to give-in to these impulses. No wonder this is hard — we are fighting against nature itself.

I still continually ask myself– how do we set aside the noise and focus on what really matters?

So, as with anything I don’t know, for years I’ve been searching for an answer. Countless books have been written on time management and productivity. I’ve studied so many of them… The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Getting Things Done, the 4 Hour Work Week, and many, many others…

Through this geeky productivity obsession I stumbled on the work of Cyril Northcote Parkinson. He was a British Naval historian and author, who also wrote pretty extensively on administration within organizations. Back in 1955, drawing from his experience in the British Civil Service, Parkinson wrote a humorous essay which detailed a new theory he had. He dubbed this “Parkinson’s Law” and it states that:

Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.

Now, lets think about this for a minute… He is saying that work and time are directly related. Ok we know that already… But Parkinson takes this one step further.

He says that work is actually dependent on time – not the other way around.

What does he mean?

Well, when we approach a task, we often ask ourselves a simple question:  How much work will this require?

And then, How much time will it take me to finish this amount of work?

Parkinson is saying that we are going at it backwards.

Instead we should be asking, how much time do I have?

Don’t worry about how much work it is because the amount of work will automatically change depending on the amount of time we give it. If you have a little bit of time, the amount of work to complete the task becomes very clear. If you have a ton of time, the perceived amount of “work” will fill up whatever time you decide you have to finish it.

Simply put: Little time = very clear amount of work to get the job done in time to meet the deadline. Lots of time = the amount of work will seem more ambiguous and continue to stack up until the deadline becomes much closer.

Think back to the times in your life when you had a clear deadline. You would do whatever it took to get the job done. And you probably cut out a lot of unnecessary steps along the way.

Now what about the other way around? What’s happened in your experience when you had all the time in the world? …..

I don’t know, but if I had to guess, it was a completely different (probably more complicated) experience.

For me at least, this is a colossal change in thinking.

Looking back, I realize just how true this is. Last year, when we were planning for

Mission Kilimanjaro, it seemed like a huge task, it felt like a tremendous amount of work.

In the early stages, we didn’t have a set date, so this made the amount of work seem much greater. I was working with two of my best friends Joey and Dan (who also has a great blog at www.AthleticCapital.com) and we were working tirelessly on this, but felt no closer to Africa. In fact, under the amount of pressure I felt, it was my inclination to convince the guys to push the date of the trip back several months.

Later I had a conversation with my mom where I told her I was wanting to push the trip back to March and she flat out told me to book my flights for January. She said if you don’t do it now, you’re never going to.

And she was probably right.

I realize now how much Parkinson’s Law was at work. When we started working on the trip we had an indefinite amount of time to get there. And because there was an indefinite amount of time, more and more work would seemingly appear for us to do.

Finally, we set a date. We booked our plane tickets. And like magic, everything became streamlined. We stopped overcomplicating things. We worked just as hard as we did before, but as the date moved closer and closer, our list of things to do kept shrinking instead of expanding.

You can call it luck or fate, but inexplicable, incredible things started happening. All of sudden we were introduced to our mountain guide, Kevin Cherilla, and his business partner, Kristen Salcito. Kevin and Kristen introduced us to Barb and Brett Boutin who built the carbon fiber orthotic devices I used to climb. They proceeded to build the orthotics, which had never been done before, in an unbelievable 2 months from start-to-finish.

I just read the Steve Jobs biography, and not-surprisingly, Steve seemed to be an expert on this. He would want to develop a new product, and his designers and engineers would tell him that they needed a certain amount of time to complete it.

Then Steve would set a due date… Suffice to say, Steve’s idea of a reasonable due date wasn’t really on par with everyone else’s.

His developers would freak out, push back, and threaten to quit. They would say the deadline was insane or impossible. Even if they could do it, they would exclaim, the ridiculously short time would mean that the quality of the product would undoubtedly suffer.

Like the conversation I had with my mom, Steve disagreed.

Now Apple is outpacing the industry, releasing new products every year.

So what do we take away from all of this?

Last week, we talked about identifying the Paramount from the Pressing. Parkinson has taught me that we need to make these things the same. We need to identify what is Paramount in our lives and make them the Pressing.

Maybe this means setting seemingly-impossible deadlines for ourselves.

Sometimes we’ll wait forever with such important things in our lives that will never happen until we make them happen.

Maybe this means setting alerts to ourselves (just like a tweet or a message) that constantly prompts us to work on the Paramount and to be reminded of the deadlines we have set for ourselves.

Maybe this means just approaching our tasks differently. And not worrying about how much work something is, just deciding how much time you want to devote to it.

By starting with this, I believe we can all achieve some insanely great, Paramount things.

Kyle

Life is short. Plain and simple. And like we discussed in this post, our time is a scarce resource. I know that none of us want to squander it intentionally, none of us want to waste it.

The question then becomes, however, how do we determine what should be occupying our time?

I think this is such a crucial question, and one that I personally struggle with all of the time… no pun intended

So this got me thinking… what is actually occupying my–

BEEP BEEP

Oh sorry about that. Looks like I got an email. Let me check that real quick…

So what I was saying was, I started asking myself a really important question and that was–

TWEET TWEET

Oh. Nice. Someone just tweeted me a hilarious picture.

Alright, sorry again. Where were we?

RING RING

Oh, my friend is calling. This must be important. One second…..

…….

…..

……

Do you follow where I’m going with this?

I often think I am spending my time wisely. I feel busy. I feel exhausted. I should also feel productive, but many times I don’t. Somehow I can spend an entire day running a couple errands, checking and responding to emails, facebook and twitter, and making a couple calls.

The problem is there are too many days that go by that cause me to look back and say, “What did I actually accomplish today? Am I really closer to where I want to be?”

Why is this? How could I have spent my entire day doing things, being active, and not feel any closer to accomplishing those things I really want to achieve in my life.

I know that a lot of you have to feel the same way sometimes. It can be frustrating, even depressing. Yes, the cellphone can be distracting, we all know that. But I think it goes much deeper.

This Seattle Times article goes into some of the fascinating science and biology behind it. Apparently, our brain releases a little pleasure chemical (dopamine) when we get notified, which is why its sometimes so hard to not look at your phone when you feel it vibrate.

This same trait actually used to help us. A long time ago, this chemical in our brain would help save our butts when a lion or other predator would approach. It helped us focus on the immediate problem (like running from a hungry lion) rather than a long-term problem (like building shelter).

However, I want to go on a limb now (I’m full of bad puns today!) and say that these traits may now be keeping us from doing the things we want the most; the things that are Paramount to us.

For me, one of those Paramount activities was preparing and putting together Mission Kilimanjaro. And I know there are things in your life that are just as important. Maybe it’s starting that new small business, or planning the big family reunion, or writing your first book.

These goals are often big, complex, and long term… and Paramount tasks should be. We can expect anything important in our lives to be hard.

The problem is that on a day-to-day basis, we often spend our time taking care of the tasks that feel Pressing instead of tasks we know are Paramount. We feel like we have to respond to that email right away. We feel like we should check our facebook because someone just responded.

Don’t get me wrong, there are exceptions. There are emergencies and emails or calls that actually are Pressing. However, I bet the majority of the time you spend during the day is dealing with the tasks that just feel Pressing. That buzz in your pocket is tricking your brain into thinking that a lion is after you – when really it could probably wait…

And I have to come clean and say the people who know me best would probably agree I could focus more time on some of those Pressing tasks. I know it may sound a little contradictory, but sometimes I do take this to the extreme and altogether ignore the beeps and buzzes. BUT (that’s a big but), I do find continually trying to discern what is actually Paramount to be critical in getting me to where I want to go in life.

This week I want us all to try something. Go through your day and analyze what you are doing. Are you actively working on the Paramount things in your life, or are you just busying yourself with the things that feel Pressing?

And if you feel comfortable, please share your week’s Paramount activities below.

I think the results may surprise all of us and give us an awesome insight into how we are actually spending our time.

- Kyle

I recently dove headfirst into philosophy, specifically Ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, and one essay hit me like a ton of bricks. “On the Shortness of Life” is an essay written by Seneca the Younger. You can find the whole thing for free here.

While I don’t agree with everything that he says, he brings up a point that I think is just too important to ignore. Our life is short. No matter what you believe may have become before you or what may be after you, I think everyone can agree that our time on this earth is limited and only getting more so.

I don’t want to get too dark or depressing, but I have been thinking a lot about this recently. I just celebrated my 26th birthday, seen the birth of my beautiful niece, and met an incredible soldier by the name of Sgt. Travis Mills who survived against incredible odds after losing all four limbs in battle. These events have all caused me to stop and think- how am I spending my time?

The story of Bernie and Byron Tekippe in the video last week also made me think. As clockmakers they bring a unique perspective to the subject I’d like to discuss for the next few weeks – time.

All throughout their day they are constantly reminded we only have 24 hours in a day, only 7 days in a week, and only 4 weeks in a month. In a flash, time passes us by and we barely have a time to consider it.

On a personal level, I don’t know a ton of details on my condition. I know that it’s extremely rare to be born without arms or legs. I have heard of a scientific name to describe how I was born, but to put it frankly, doctors just don’t have a lot of information on it. As a consequence, my body works a little differently. Much of it is the same as you, but I simply don’t know how a lot of things will be affected over the long term. Will I live as long as a “normal” person? Will I be able to do the same things I can do now as I get older?

I may live just as long, but maybe my body will wear faster because of the stress or strain I am required to put it under. This has a lot to do with why I opened a CrossFit gym and am as passionate as I am about longterm sustainable health.

And the truth is, nobody knows their own future any better than I do. We all come from different backgrounds, have different life styles, and make different choices. None of us know how these things may affect our future. None of us can predict the accidents, or the luck, or the fate that may lie before us.

Just the other day, as I set up the security system in my town home, an interesting thought occurred to me.

Here I am, putting forth measures to protect my home, to protect my things. We have more and more complex passwords to protect our online identity and finances. We have retirement accounts to protect our future plans, wills to protect our assets for our families, insurance to protect our things in case of accident or misfortune. I mean, we even take measures to protect our WiFi.

It’s great to be protective, don’t get me wrong, but at the end of the day we are just protecting stuff. They are just things, and as awful as it would be for them to be stolen, they can all be recovered or replaced. Some are harder than others, but we can buy new things, we can make more money.

However, there is one thing that we often don’t take measures to protect. There is one thing that many of us don’t even think about protecting. And this is the only thing that we can never get more of. It is our most precious resource.

You know, that thing that keeps ticking away.

Protect it. Cherish it.

Spend it wisely.

And by all means… don’t waste it.

- Kyle