Looking down from the horizon to navigate the road directly ahead.

Awww... Man! This is starting to feel like therapy! 

I’m someone who prides himself on being pretty self aware but it’s amazing how often something about me, which is obvious to others, will slap me in the face, totally surprising me. Again, it’s part of Life Athletics... once you take on bigger challenges, you’ll see where your weak points are, but come on.

Today’s blog challenge question is simple enough, “What three things would you most like your website to have and how will you go about getting them?”, and yet it caused me to shake my head at myself with an exasperated smile.

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The blind spot that I’ve caught a glimpse of here is that for as much time as I’ve spent imagining and planning Life Athletics, I’m doing it all 1-5 years out. I’m not looking where I am, but where I want to be.  To be clear, looking ahead is great! You need to know where you’re going but then you have to look to what is in front of you. 

It’s like I intellectually understand that projects have to be built incrementally but I really just want to be playing with a fully formed version of this one, NOW. 

Matt and Cherie Chan talked about exactly this thing in an interview I did with them. They talk about the expectations people have and that these expectations are often what’re holding people back. People burn out and become frustrated by not being able to get to their goals as quickly as they think they should. 

Things take time, I know that. My physical and emotional training has been following that lately and it’s been going well, with people noticing changes on both fronts. I’m getting back to a chilled and chiseled version of myself... okay, chiseled is still a little ways off but I’m showing signs of improved fitness and that’s due to a slow and steady approach. 

I’ve handled “Life Athletics: The Business” differently. I’ve handled that like someone walking into a gym, fresh from their couch, with very little training experience and wanting to do handstand pushups... on rings.  

It’s doable, don’t get me wrong, I can get there... but not tomorrow.  This is a project so big that when I describe it to people with any programming background, deep breaths are taken and heads are nodded solemnly. They’ve all loved the concept but know that it’s quite the undertaking. 

Again, it’s where I want to be working because I think it’ll provide the most value for the people using the system and put me in a position to be living every day, helping to cause massive growth in the lives of people around the world. 

So, yes... I believe that I have a good, idea. Well so do lots of people. Now the question is what version CAN I build tomorrow that will lead me to this vision that I have for the future? ...good question. 

Picturing the ideal is pretty easy but it’s often the next step that seems blurry to people... well to me at least. This ties into yesterday’s post. Letting go of the ideal and the grandiose in favour of the the immediate can seem... defeatist, but it’s the only way I know to set myself free to actually move towards some version of that ideal. 

As I’ve said before on Life Athletics, I have to ask “where am I?” and “where do I want to be?” and resisting the answer to the first question will slow my progress towards the second. 

So, paired down, what are the elements I most want on Life Athletics? I want people to have a way to clearly look at and evaluate the ten pillars of life in their own lives.

I want them to be able to plan their training in any areas that are not where they want them to be. 

I want people to be able to request assistance to a community of Life Athletes and to give assistance as well. 

I’m looking at switching to Wordpress and the feasibility / is there a point to ... setting up a multiuser version where people can create their own profiles. 

I’d be VERY curious to know if this would be of use to YOU. Also I’d love to know if there’s something else you’d like from Life Athletics. I really am building a platform for YOU to train yourself to have the life of your dreams because a part of that is my dream. 

I am a beautiful and unique snowflake... and so are you.

I've been helping a friend of mine plan a video application for an internship with VICE magazine. The first thing that came up in the process is that it's often hard to talk about yourself without feeling like you're bragging. In response, this quote came to mind:

"It's not bragging if you can back it up."
                             -Muhammad Ali-

My friend is amazing and VICE would be lucky to have her and I'm ... Well, I'm pretty ok as well ;)

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Coming up with answers to questions like "What are you better at than anyone else?" brings up another quotation: 

"You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake.  You are the same decaying organic matter as everyone else, and we are all part of the same compost pile."  ~Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

While this quotation might at first seem harsh it speaks to my journey, to who I am and to what makes me unique. 

I'm a guy who's come a long way to find out that what makes me great is that I'm just like everyone else. My power comes from surrendering the desire to be the greatest and adopting a belief in a shared greatness. 

Like many people I have spent a lot of my life striving to be something special, the irony is that there are few things more common. I don’t think that it’s a stretch to call it a universal desire in human beings.

The problem is that while we strive for “specialness” we know that everyone else is doing the same thing and nothing we do is ever enough. Brene Brown talks about this in one of her TED talks. She says that the challenge many people face is not that they don’t think that they’re good enough, it’s that they don’t feel extraordinary enough. 

It amounts to the same thing and it’s a crushing and debilitating state. 

It’s in recognizing our shared state that we can truly be with our own little corner of the human experience. Being special is an alienating state as it compares to others and demands that you not be similar to them. It is a state that demands that you be set apart. 

Being great however has a little more leeway. Are you great because you’ve done something others can’t do or haven’t done? Perhaps, but I think that greatness is found in people striving to grow themselves and push at the boundaries of their experience and their potential.

 A baby taking its first steps is doing something almost every other human being on the planet has done and yet it’s an exciting moment, every time.  We don’t have to be world beaters to be worthy, we just have to be us and once that sets in, we’re free to be great. 

Once we surrender to our sameness, we are freed to be fully ourselves, ‘a beautiful and unique snowflake’. 
Now... how does that play out in who I am?

A friend who I hadn’t spoken to in nearly a year recently wrote this to me after we had a short talk: 

“You know, Sometimes I think you are an angel sent to me from on high. You pop your head up out of nowhere when i am at my darkest and soothe my tortured soul.”

Another friend called me “the most stubbornly open bastard he’d ever known” after being a stand for him to take care of something in his life that led to a renewed relationship with his mother after a period of them drifting apart.

In both instances, all I did was show them who they were through my eyes. I mirrored their higher selves and they saw it for themselves. I saw the greatness in them as I see it in others.

I don't think that everyone is BEING great but I'm a stand that they have greatness in them. 

Now on to the blog challenge questions from the Suitcase Entrepreneur:

Q: What are you better at than anyone else?
A: I’m better at connecting random elements than other people. I see connections where others don’t and then I make bridges. 

Q: What do you enjoy doing the most?
A: Next to sex, sailing, and SCUBA diving, I enjoy seeing people stepping into who they really are and being a part of that process is my favourite thing in the world. 

Q: What do (or could) you provide that no one else is providing?
 A: One thing that sets Life Athletics apart is that I’m not pushing any one particular agenda other than that life is yours to craft and it can be trained just like a muscle. I don’t have to run down anyone else’s system for getting fit, or handling finances or building relationships, because any system can work inside of the Life Athletics model. 

Q: What annoys people the most about your industry or blog area?
A: What annoys ME the most is that advice givers are fighting each other with smiles on their faces. There’s a lot of chest thumping in the “self help” industry as people are trying to carve niches out for themselves by claiming that their methods are better than others. I also dislike the connotation that something’s wrong with you if you’re seeking “self help”.  People are great and are entitled to work on every area of themselves, be it mental fitness, financial fitness or relationship fitness the same shameless way that they might train their bodies. 

Q: What is remarkable about you?
A: I’ve been weak and I’ve been strong and I’ve been weak again. There’s strength to be found in going through a range of human experiences and continuing in an effort to grow and develop. In the face of crippling self doubt I have built myself into someone I’m very happy to be.

Q: Do you have an unusual combination of elements?
A: I’d say that this is my defining characteristic... I’m an athlete/artist, Half Nicaraguan, half Canadian, giant kid. 

Q: Do you have a big personality?
 A: I’m 6’6”, everything about me is big. When I want to, I can fill a room with my personality, but I also like to stand back and observe.

I am unique and different because I provide a mirror for people's greatness which no one else in my field provides. No one else can or will provide this because they reflect the world in a different way. I an a beautiful and unique snowflake... and so are you. 

Getting out of my own way to model a business

This phase of the Suitcase Entrepreneur’s blog challenge has been a fascinating experience. It’s not really a surprise that it’s been the most confronting as it’s dealing with the area that I’ve known to be the weakest for a while... generating revenue. What’s fascinating is that I’m seeing how many mental and emotional blocks I have regarding generating revenue through my efforts.

It’s something I touched on in a previous post when I said that I’d stopped painting after people started asking me how much I’d charge for one of my pieces. It was such a confronting question to me for some reason that the only thing I could think to do was to stop painting... even though it had been something I loved to do.

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The thing that I saw was that, because it was something I loved doing, it felt easy and therefore taking money for it was ... wrong in my mind. It felt like I was taking advantage of people if I charged for something that was so easy for me and the last thing I wanted to do was take advantage of anyone. That they didn’t see it that way didn’t really factor in for me at the time. 

I see that the same thing is still at work in my mind for Life Athletics. It doesn’t matter that a number of people have already thanked me for the great contributions the site has made to their lives, it’s easy and fun for me, therefor it’s not something I can charge for. I see the twist in the thinking and now it’s a matter of transforming it. 

When looking at what business model I want to establish for Life Athletics, a combination of Active and Residual makes the most sense. I’ve touched on these already in the last two posts so I’ll keep going with the personal stuff that’s floated to the surface in looking at this. 

One of the things I could do to generate income quickly would be to offer coaching or running workshops. People have shown interest and it would be fun. The issues of charging for something I find fun came up as soon as the idea was tabled. It was actually difficult for me to imagine setting up a workshop and charging for it. If someone else charged for it, I could do it easily, I love working with people and leading groups. I’m not sure if it’s a fear that no one would show up, or that they wouldn’t get value... I know that once I got started, people would come. I know too, that it would be nearly impossible to spend time looking at ways of setting people’s lives up to match their dreams for themselves and not have it be of supreme value so and yet there’s something that’s catching the thought before it moves forward. 

It’s exciting really... it’s like finding a weakness or tightness in the body, it’s an opportunity to train and grow and by working on a weakness, our strengths get stronger. I see Life Athletics as a diagnostic tool for life, as you push your levels up, you’ll find where your weaknesses are faster than through any other method. At that point, it’s OBVIOUS where the work needs to be.  

There are many ways to work out this knot of an emotional block that’s in the way of charging for things connected to my passion projects. What I know is that often these things are often strategies that were built to serve us in the past... things we developed to keep some part of us safe. I’ve now grown to the point where it no longer serves me and it’s not required and so I’m going to thank it and let it go. 

An amazing thing happened while I was typing this... I received a text from a friend asking me if I’d  design a logo for them. I’ve been doing lots of graphic design projects lately as it’s been a way of seeing people in the world loving products that I’ve made and to do it in an easy way. Well, she asked how much I’d charge and I said, that because she wasn’t making any money from her project yet, I’d do it for free. In my mind it was a chance to support someone building their brand and that she could contribute to Life Athletics in the future. She was thrilled at the thought of contributing to Life Athletics but something bothered her... she WANTED to pay. 

She doesn’t have a lot of money and was very shy about the amount she offered. It was not a lot of money but it represented something large for her as it was her investing in her future and in herself. I saw that not letting her pay would be to deny her that experience and that letting her pay actually made her happier and more comfortable. It’s not the first time I’ve been paid for my graphic design work but it’s the first time I saw it like this. 

The walls are dropping already :) 

Streaming Revenue streams

It looks like I jumped the gun slightly on day 9 by not only answering which business I admired, but also getting into the types of revenue streams I'd be looking to create with Life Athletics.  While I did talk about it somewhat, it is the central theme for this installment of the blog challenge and so I'll happily go into it a bit more detail.

The one revenue stream I didn’t go into in the last post is the I'm the least focussed on at the moment but perhaps the easiest to implement immediately... coaching. People have sought me out for this lately, I've done it before, I'm good at it, and it's not where I think I'll make the biggest difference for the most people. Even from the start, I didn’t want to set myself up as the guy with all of the answers, and yes... I’m well aware that coaching is not about having all of the answers. 

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That said, I do love working one on one with people and for some that's the only way they'll take coaching and so, that's one revenue stream I might open back up.

A second one would be offering products. I already have T-shirts that people seem to like a lot, but the profit margin is minuscule under the current system that I'm using.  Still... it's an option that allows me to continue my love for design. Unrelated to the Life Athletics website, I’ve had quite a number of designs made into Jerseys, shirts, shorts, stickers and discs and so going to a local tournament is a little like seeing a runway show of my products. Many people have no idea that I’m the one who designed what they’re wearing and I see that as the highest compliment of my work, they’re just wearing the stuff because they like it.  

Affiliate marketing makes a lot of sense as Life Athletics revs up, as I'll essentially be creating a platform that highlights other people's training systems. While I believe this is the best way to ensure that each Life Athlete is truly free to create the life they love there will certainly be room to highlight certain favourites. 

A book is also something that I think would be quite beneficial to people. Fully laying out the Life Athletics philosophy and model for creating a life you love would be a lot of fun for me and quite the resource for readers. It would also have the added benefit of making my mom ridiculously proud as she’s been pushing for a book for quite some time now.

Moving forward, the idea is to build the site up and then add elements that would generate revenue as we go. Again, the plan is that clients and customers see so much value for themselves that the natural response is to want to contribute back by buying products and services that are offered. 

I believe that with an eye to creating massive value, Life Athletics will be able to build a solid following of Life Athletes, with appropriate implementation, revenue will flow from that. 

PS. This post was mainly written via portable bluetooth keyboard and iPhone while on the beach on the way home. I had to use the iPhone to take the photo but it rested on top of my Motorcycle helmet quite well thanks to a stand made out of binder clips :) 

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The Suitcase Entrepreneur on the three ways to make money on-line.

On-line businesses that I admire and want to emulate in some way.

The blog challenge has entered its second act and this is where the proverbial rubber hits the road. Envisioning idyllic scenarios has always been easy for me as I’m sure they’re easy to imagine for most people. A perfect day might be a slight challenge for some but people will eventually come up up with some combination of “I’d do something I liked, in a place that I liked, with people that I liked”...

Today’s challenge is, for want of another term, challenging!

“Whose online business do you admire most and why?” -The Suitcase Entrepreneur - Blog Challenge Day 9

Again, this is a challenge in part because of what my mind is adding to it. As I am someone who wants to have an on-line business, choosing one that I admire feels like I’m choosing the kind of business I’d like to have.

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The real challenge for me, but also the opportunity, is that no one is doing quite what I’d like to do. This is exciting as I have the chance to break new ground but I will freely admit, figuring out how to turn Life Athletics into a business has felt like my weakest area and this has limited its growth. 

I’m able to see what I’d like the site to look like fully formed, but even then I’m not exactly sure I  know where the money would come from, and so I certainly haven’t known how where it’d be found prior to that point. 

Fully formed, Life Athletics would provide multiple training options from multiple sources for the main areas of life. You’d be able to choose from a virtual menu of advice givers and tailor a daily, weekly and monthly routine that targeted every aspect of yourself that you wanted to develop, picking and choosing elements from different sources, in a way that suited your tastes and your needs. 

A subscription would make sense but I do not believe that it’s the best way to go. I think that giving away massive value is important on-line and since my main goal is to be a part of the transformation of as many lives as possible, I don’t want to turn Life Athletics into something that only the select few willing to pay up front can use. 

I’ve been hesitant however because I believe that anything that I offer for free has to stay free and so I feel like I have to be careful not to offer anything that I might want to offer as a premium subscription later. 

In this respect, Crossfit.com is a model for what I’d like to do. They give away a workout every day, along with some basic instructions articles and videos. Anyone could go onto that site and start crossfitting.  The do have the Crossfit journal though for people who wish to go a little deeper into their study of that discipline.

This is what I want for Life Athletics. For anyone to be able to come onto the site and have, at least, all of the basics that they would require to start training themselves in every area of their lives. After that, if people wanted more, offering a subscription element would be appropriate. 

As there would have to be a large number of collaborators in order to make this project really work, a subscription from the start would also be tricky in terms of who to pay and to what level. 

Affiliate marketing is an angle that has been suggested and I think might be a good option. Promoting products and services that Life Athletics users would be interested in, is in integrity with what I’d like to do. 

Extended out, I have envisioned a number of extensions to Life Athletics, including a clothing line, and fitness resorts. Lulu Lemon would be a model I’d want to follow for the clothing and Ninja Camp Bali is awesome and very similar to my vision for the resorts. I’m keeping these things on the periphery for now as the main site is my main focus first. 


Other sites I admire... There are blogs I like but as far as on-line businesses... my brain just keeps jumping to how there are elements of what I want to do in existence but nothing fully formed. I like them but I want to change them to fit a more holistic approach. 

Bodybuilding.com has the ability for people to post workouts that can be used by anyone in the community. Dailymile.com has the ability to track your progress and train in an online social environment. I even see elements of what I want to do in Songza, and Grooveshark... Services in which playlists can be chosen and plugged into your profile, customizing an experience through something that someone else put together for you. 

How to go from where I am currently to the place where I have the online business I’ve envisioned? 

As far as I can see, I have to take it in stages. First, I can start testing the program by contacting those who train people in various areas of life and having them start to build programs to fit Life Athletics. Then I can start having the new site designed and built. This still doesn’t answer the question of how to turn Life Athletics into a business.  An online business needs people to thrive and I have the feeling that “if I build it, they will come”.  The online community of Life Athletes that I believe will flock to the site will make many things in the business realm possible. If they don’t come, the point is moot as all of the money generating gimmicks in the world won’t make a difference. 

Online businesses that I admire are those that give away so much value that a feeling of excitement and reciprocity are generated in their users.  I have paid for a crossfit journal subscription for years and bought the books of Tim Ferris and Natalie Sisson (The suitcase Entrepreneur) among others, because they have provided me with value before ever asking for a cent. Giving them money for their work was a pleasure and and I’ve done it while happily promoting their sites for free. 

In the end, what I admire in any business is when the focus is on delivering quality and massive value along with an enjoyable experience... and the bottom line comes next. 

More tools

I wanted to do a follow-up to yesterday’s post on tools to maintain mindset. I didn’t feel like I had properly addressed the question. It’s an off day for the blog challenge but I had a video in mind that I wanted to post and was very excited.

The video was an interview with the man who placed 6th in the Crossfit Asian regionals Ben Thompson. Right after the entire competition was over and people were clearing the floor I hastily set up my rig and conducted the interview. 




Well apparently they’re right when they say that “haste makes waste” as I didn’t record the interview. I messed up and recorded the chatter before we started the formal part of the chat and the bit at the end where I’m thanking him for the great stuff he shared. Apparently I paused the camera during the interview. It’s all very embarrassing.

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So... why am I telling you about this great interview that I can’t show you? Because THIS is when tools to help maintain a positive mindset are needed. In the real world, in real time, when we screw up and the mind wants to punish itself, what we do matters. I interviewed Thompson because his mental fortitude was apparent through the competition. Here are some takeaways... from memory. 

-Competition, like life, is about the “top two inches” Thompson said while pointing to his skull. He knew that he was a smaller athlete in this field and used his grey matter to his advantage. Knowing that everyone was sizing each other up, he focused on making his strengths look easy (he was chatting with the judge while doing toes to bar during one of the events) and his weaker areas look less painful than they were. He figured that if the guys who looked like monsters saw a little guy holding his own on the elements where they were meant to excel and breezing through the movements where they, themselves were struggling, it would give him the mental advantage. “Lot’s of guys are all show and no go” he said. 

-He also used an expression that is apparently common in his native New Zealand, “take a spoonful of cement and harden up”.  When talking about what’s needed to get over adversity. 

-He’s also funny and uses humour to his advantage. He wore a flash costume for his video entry into “13.5” a workout in the Crossfit Open. 


I’ll post a video the Crossfit organizers did with Ben at the bottom of the article. 

Other tools:

So, releasing shame when I make a mistake by not hiding it and then forgiving myself are two of the tools I use to maintain my mindset. 

Another is positive self talk. 

I have done affirmations and see some benefit in using them to program your unconscious mind but I like the direct approach as well. I read an article in Sports Illustrated years ago which said that pitchers who talked to themselves out loud are more successful than those who don’t or those who keep it all in their heads. So I tried it. 

The way I do it is to pretend like I’m my own best friend and come from a place of support. It felt really silly at first but I was surprised to find how easily I was able to maintain a dialogue with myself and how my mental self was willing to listen to my voiced self. I was able to alter thought patterns in response to the good suggestions put forth by this trusted voice. It is something I really have only done in extreme cases but it’s very calming and I have found it to be very effective. 

Another tool I use is tip I got from Tony Robbins which is simply that thoughts are state based. What this means is that you have to be in a certain state to have certain thoughts. The popular exercise to test this is to throw a giant fake smile on your face and to stand up with your head up and shoulders back and then to contemplate how awful things in your life are. It’s incredibly difficult verging on impossible. This is not a challenge by the way, just a reminder that we have the power to alter our state quickly through posture and by moving our bodies and our thoughts to a position where the likely outcome is a state that is beneficial to us.  

One exercise I picked up from Tony Robbins that I LOVE to have people do is to have them walk as though they were wearing a superhero cape. Fell the weight of the cloth as it’s picked up by the wind and pulled back feel how it forces your chest up and out and enjoy feeling awesome. 

Yet another tool that I love is one I adapted from something Wayne Dyer said. Do not remember where I read or heard this but he talked about two of the meanings of the word appreciation. One is “the recognition and enjoyment of the good qualities of someone or something” and the other is “an increase in value”. He linked the two by saying that when we appreciate something, we ourselves appreciate in value. I maintain my mindset by stopping and finding things that I appreciate about ‘now’. 

I’ll end off here by saying that asking myself “If I was truly being a Life Athlete here I would...” is probably the best way I’ve found to maintain my mindset. Finding a place to anchor to, one that reflects the best of you, allows your thoughts, feelings and actions to flow from that place. Being in integrity with my vision for myself is the best way I’ve found to maintain my mindset. And now dear Life Athletes... what are some of your tools? 

Tools

“Which key tools will you turn to regularly to maintain your mindset and how will you use them effectively?” - The Suitcase Entrepreneur

Any tool that lets me move my life forward as a Life Athlete is a tool that helps me maintain my mindset.

I’m going to start with the tools I DO use and maybe talk about other I’d like to adopt another time.


I’m going to look at a few areas of life and the tools I use to train myself. Here we go...

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Body.

I'll start by saying that I think that a stopwatch is the most important exercise tool you can have. 

Here are some of my favourite formats for a workout: 

-The first is taken from Crossfit and is called an AMRAP (As Many Rounds As Possible). Choose two or three movements and set a number of repetitions for each at a weight that will challenge you but not stop you. Then choose a time duration (usually 10 - 15 minutes) and see how many rounds you can do in that time.  You should be a puddle on the floor at the end.  Remember to keep an eye on your form!


-The second is to set an amount of work in front of me and then to see how fast I can get it done. It might be 30 heavy cleans and presses or deadlifts or anything really. This is also a Crossfit mainstay. 

-Next is something called Tabata. It was developed by a Japanese speed skating coach I believe and has been heavily adopted by people who want a quick workout. The basic idea is that you get more of a fat-burning, cardio hit by doing intense sprints than by long duration training. So what you do is choose a movement and go as hard as you can for 20 seconds, then rest for ten and repeat for a total of 8 rounds. This is hard to manage with a normal stopwatch and so I use the Tabata timer built into the “GymBoss” app. 

-Another feature of the GymBoss application is the ability to create custom timers. I have used this to make a yoga routine for myself that I’ll actually do. Up until setting up this timer, yoga existed as a good idea that I often had but didn’t follow up on.  I have done yoga in India and used to work for a yoga clothing company and I LOVE yoga and think that it’s very beneficial but I’ve struggled to do it on my own. As I’m not always geared up to go to a class, I wanted something I could do to break at home between bursts of work and so I created this timer. It tells me to what positions to hit and how long I have to hold them. I just hold on until the timer beeps and tells me to move on to the next position. It might not be the purest form of the discipline but it’s getting me to do the movements and my body and mind are happier for it. 

Mind

-Being an expat is a lovely existence but it does have a few drawbacks.  Being in a place that doesn’t use one of the three languages I speak means that I’m essentially using a mangled form of English to make myself understood most of the time. It can have a detrimental effect on the way I speak which I believe is connected to the way way I think. In talking about this with a number of expat friends, I have discovered that many of them have experienced the same degradation of their mother tongue while living in foreign lands.  Luckily we live in the internet age and there are resources to rescue us from this predicament. I’ve found that listening to podcasts featuring eloquent and informative people is a GREAT countermeasure to language decay.  I have started using a combination of iTunes and Stitcher to manage my podcasts. Some of my favourites are: Q, The Moth, The Dirtbag Diaries, Quirks and Quarks, Under the Influence, and Entrepreneur on Fire. 


-Additionally, I am almost always listening to some sort of “self-help” content as I believe it’s a good way to train my mind to think in a way that works for me. I’ve found that this kind of content is great for me to listen to while I go on longer runs as they allow me to focus on something other than running. Listening to music has me changing my tempo to keep pace with the beat. Audiobooks and self help audios don’t have that effect. They just let me contemplate life and reconnect with the language of possibility. (Brian Tracy, Tony Robbins, Eben Pagan, and Fredric Lehrman  are some of my favourites.)

Work
The book Making Ideas Happen lays out an “action method that I have used for my projects lately.  Essentially it’s a system that has three categories. Paraphrasing the sections are “do now”, “do later”, “resources and notes” (here’s the author, Scott Belsky giving a TED talk.)  . I’ve added a “completed” folder to the mix and aim to move things there. It’s been surprisingly effective. I’m planning on giving the book another read as I’m sure there’s more depth I can glean by going through it a second time. 


There are other tools I use, but I’ve already gone on here longer than I’d planned. I am actually very curious to hear about some of the tools you use to make your life better and to play full-out in the game of life. Please post yours and if you have any questions about the things I mentioned here or about any other tools I might use for specific things, please ask. 

A call to action!

LIGHTS! CAMERA! ... um...

Action. It’s a sexy word, dynamic and brash. It’s also a word that I’ve added to today’s post in the blog challenge. It’s not there, but when I read it “action” is all I saw. 
Perhaps this quotation was playing in my head:


“Action expresses priorities.” 

                                                                                                             -Gandhi-

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To bring everyone up to speed, the question of the day from the Suitcase Entrepreneur’s blog challenge was this: “What are my three priorities for the next 30 days that will move me closer towards living life on my own terms?” 

This was the first of the questions for which I sought outside assistance. After skyping two dear friends in different parts of the world It became clear that I was scared. 

I was scared to commit to action and even though my friends showed me easy outs I had to face the fear and act. 

The question is ambiguous enough to be interpreted in many ways. One of my friends talked about what “living on your own terms” really meant. Shifting your perception, you could conceivably talk yourself into believing that whatever is happening at this very moment is on your terms. We create our own realities after all, right? 

Buddhist monks are said to find happiness through being desireless. 

The mirror in the first Harry Potter book (yes, I read them all...) showed people their greatest desires and it was said that the happiest person was the one who could look and just see themselves, just as they were already. 

I agree with that and yet, there are things I want in my life that I don’t currently have and I enjoy the pursuit of growth. Living life on my terms would mean transforming a few areas and taking new actions. 

‎"Without action, without decision, you remain in possibility, which is safe and beautiful but eventually enervating and boring." -- Jennifer Louden

I have lived in possibility for long enough. Now’s the time for action. 

My philosophy through Life Athletics is that the greatest possibilities for growth are found in the areas where we’re the weakest. This is all relative and open for interpretation so, if you’re playing along in your own life, please look through whatever lens you wish and find where the biggest bang for your transformational buck will come from. 

For me it’s in business. I’ve been making strides creatively, and physically. My emotions are getting stronger after a few recent tough life events and all in all I’m feeling good. 

The most important thing about the last while is I’ve given up my resistance and have just accepted and celebrated that I‘m enough. 

From that place, the thing that would make the biggest difference is to develop an income source that replaced my day job and allowed me the freedom to pursue my vision of life fully. 

I have a number of projects in mind that could be turned into businesses but currently my heart and mind are focused on building Life Athletics into the life changing resource I know it can be by building the tool I have in my head. 

This is where that fear I talked about from earlier comes up. My favourite limiting subconscious phrase is “I don’t know”. People have teased me for years that if you ask me a question, I’ll say “I don’t know” before thinking for a moment and then laying out a detailed and thorough answer. 

It is then no surprise that my initial reaction to this project is “I don’t know how to do this”. 

It’s something I’ve been embarrassed to admit in the past. Now, I don’t care that I don’t know. I’m clever, I’ll figure it out. 

My target goals for the next 30 days are:

• Wire frame the new Life Athletics tool so that it can be shown to designers and developers.

• Talk to developers to determine what’s involved in the build and developing a plan to see it come to life as easily and quickly as possible. 

• Reach out to people who I want to be part of this project from the start. The measurable part of this goal is that I want to have at least 5 people committed to building modules for use in the Life Athletics. 

This will of course be done while respecting the Life Athlete’s way of making sure that the other areas of my life are also being looked after. 


What are your target goals for the next 30 days? 

My Perfect Day

“I was in the Virgin Islands once. I met a girl. We ate lobster, drank Piña Coladas. At sunset we made love like sea otters. That was a pretty good day. Why couldn't I get that day over and over and over?” - Phil Connors, Groundhog Day.

What's MY perfect day? 

I was surprised when thinking about my perfect day that pure hedonism only lingered in the recesses of my mind for a moment or two.  Initially I thought that I’d be writing a post confessing that my perfect days would be filled with nothing other than sexual exploits on a private beach with occasional breaks for meals and naps in shaded hammocks.

Those days are great and I welcome them into my life but the question of a perfect day for me has morphed into my ideal “regular” day.  

Surprisingly work featured heavily in my initial brainstorm of my perfect day. I love working on this stuff, and would choose to do it inside of my perfect day. Drawing, writing, creating and contributing to people, are all part of who I am. 

Rest also jumped in as an essential element. Previously the “I’ll rest when I’m dead” mentality felt like the way things were done and anything but that was laziness. Recently however my views have changed.

I’ve been implementing some of the concepts from the book “The Power of Full Engagement” and have become an advocate that managing your energy is the key to not only personal productivity but also happiness. So a siesta or a nap would have a place in my perfect day.

Before I get started mapping out my perfect day let me acknowledge that this is part of the blog challenge through the Suitcase Entrepreneur. Here’s the challenge directly from their website:

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My Perfect Day:
My perfect day starts with me waking up next to my girlfriend at around 7am. 
I do some breathing exercises and make a light meal. 
We then walk / run our dog(s) to a park that has a training area and I do a 5-20 min met-con. 
I then stretch, and play with the dog, and my girlfriend, a bit and we head back. Once home, showered and fun is had, I have another small bite of food. and get ready to work. 
I move a project forward and would have 2-3 hours to do it. 
More food and some reading on a couch or hammock would follow the working and if a nap happened, great!  
At this point I handle any personal correspondences that need to happen. Once I touch base or talk to the friends and family that need to be reached I check basketball scores, movie reviews facebook and other similar extracurricular interests I might have in that moment. 

More snacking wouldn’t be out of the question here. 
I would have another work session moving either the same project forward a little more or working on a different  one. 
I would do a quick sprinting or skipping workout and once cleaned up we have dinner out with friends.
My girlfriend, and I walk the dog(s) again. 
Home for more fun time. Read before bed.  
End of day.

There could easily be a beach version of this where the workouts are replaced by scuba diving or ocean kayaking... BUT the main vision is to be primarily in a very livable city like Vancouver, Montreal or Barcelona. The main concept for me is that I would get 4-6 hours of work in every day broken up into two chunks. I would train my body and my mind and make time for important people in my life. 

The work I’d do is an extension of Life Athletics. The future of Life Athletics is exciting with the site becoming a powerful tool that puts Life Athletes in the most empowered place they’ve ever been. It  will be a place that allows you to create and live the life of your dreams. 

My perfect day is one where I’m living fully as a Life Athlete and am surrounded by people I love, in a place I love, and where I get to look forward to a tomorrow where I get that day over and over and over. 

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What is your definition of location independence?

A HUGE part of creating a life you love is choosing a place to live. ... or is it? This is a response to a question posed by Natalie Sisson, the Suitcase Entrepreneur after all. The question of “home” is shaken a bit when dealing with dealing with someone who is proudly “homeless”, or nomadic.

At first when I read the question of the day for the blog challenge, “What is your definition of location independence?”, my reaction was that we’d finally started on the indoctrination and were meant to start into buying into the idea of selling our stuff and sleeping on other people’s couches.

As I reigned in my reactive side, I realized that my dream is indeed to become location independent, just not in the same way as Natalie.

So, what is MY definition of location independence?

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My definition of location independence is to have the freedom to live your life on your terms, regardless of where you are geographically. This isn’t as radical as it sounds at first, let me explain what I mean in more detail and through the use of an example. 

Years ago when I lived in Montreal, many English speaking friends expressed a desire to live there as well, but felt that the language requirements of most companies made living in Montreal an impossibility. 

Could they have found a way to make it work? Of course! But... they didn’t feel that they could do it on their terms and that was the clincher. 

To me, being location independent means that you can live and work anywhere you want because you are not tied to a place, and only your choices determine where you are. 

Another factor in location independence is the freedom to move when you choose. Being able to set up a business anywhere is great but if you can’t take it with you or if you can’t go on vacation, or react to the demands of life, then you’re as trapped as anyone else. 

A person close to me has set up an impressive and thriving business in India  which is wonderful... except that they hate where they live. They hate it but feel that they can’t leave because of their business. Exotic can lose it’s luster quickly if it’s not what you want to be surrounded by daily. 

I’d go so far as to say that without location independence we’re caged. The cage might be gilded but, does it really matter? 

“Choose Freedom” is the slogan on the Suitcase Entrepreneur’s new swag and it’s fitting, even if you don’t want to live, full-time out of a suitcase. 

So, Life Athletes... what’s your definition of location independence and what does look like for you?

What’s your definition of freedom in business and adventure in life?

What’s your definition of freedom in business and adventure in life?


The question in of today’s blog challenge through the Suitcase Entrepreneur is: “what’s your definition of freedom in business and adventure in life?” I find it to be a fascinating question as it speaks to two of the pillars of Life Athletics that many people often see as opposites, work and play. 


It’s a wonderful cliche that when you love what you do, it’s not longer work, but I do wonder how many people achieve that. I used to have a fairly severe mental block to the idea of making money for doing something that I love. My upbringing was one where hard work was emphasized, by at least some of the adults around me, and looking like you were having fun would get a stern response. Hard work was meant to be hard and not enjoyed. This is something I carried with me for some time. 


I used to paint a lot and would show my work in galleries. It was all for fun but when people started to inquire about purchasing them I freaked out. To me at the time the idea of selling my paintings meant that I would be giving up the joy of it. I stopped painting for years. I’m not the only one who has had this limiting belief. Just yesterday I asked a friend who blogs, if she wanted to join me in this blog challenge. The idea of it being daily and assigned freaked her out and she said that she couldn’t stand to lose the fun.

My way out of this kind of thinking has to just focus on the fact that I’m doing something that I like and to remember how often in life I’ve wished to be doing just this very thing. My dream of turning Life Athletics into a network and community of people all working to live extraordinary lives is fueled by my love of seeing people grow and my desire to surround myself with extraordinary people.

To me, freedom in business means doing something that I love, surrounded by people I love, with enough flexibility to maintain other interests, manage my important relationships and to powerfully deal with anything that might come up in life. Essentially freedom in business means that I’m empowered to live well by the work that I do. It also means mobility and the chance for lots of adventure.

Adventure... excitement... a Jedi craves not these things!

Not being a certified Jedi allows me to enjoy adventure and excitement without disapproving comments from little green aliens with awesome ears. The dream of running business primarily through the internet is that it would allow a freedom of movement or of home. Being able make money from anywhere means that I could live anywhere. I’ve long dreamed of living in Spain, or spending my winters on a beach in Bali. A life that involved healthy doses on SCUBA diving, sailing, kayaking and motorcycle trips in gorgeous locals would be my kind of adventure.

Now it’s your turn, Life Athletes! What is YOUR definition of freedom in business and adventure in life?

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If you woke up tomorrow and were free to do anything you wanted with your life, what would you do and who would you be?

A friend of mine recently shared this gem: “Life's not always going to be as good as you want it to be, it can only be as good as you’ll allow it to be.” At Life Athletics, we often talk about the life we want. But stepping back and reflecting upon the life we’re allowing ourselves to have ... that’s potentially more powerful. 

People become comfortable with the familiar, and while there is a giant industry built on trying to help people change from their previous versions of “normal” into some new and better form, it’s hard to battle against what is familiar. 

We are the way we are because we think that’s the way we are. 

What this means is that we manage ourselves by the image we live so the idea we have of ourselves is the byproduct. We’re only as fit, healthy, happy, or wealthy as we think we should be. Are there exceptions? Certainly, but by and large we all revert to our own self-concept. 

I’ve heard it described as comparing people to a climate-controlled condo. If it gets too cold, the heat comes on and if it gets too hot, the AC turns on. 

This concept has played out in a number of ways in my own life, but I’ve noticed it the most physically. I keep myself reasonably fit. Fit enough that most people comment that I seem athletic, but not really fit enough to amaze myself. I’ll go through periods where I’ll gear up and workout harder, eat cleaner and I’ll see changes and then...become complacent. Traditionally, once I see that I’m in great shape I coast and fall back into “good enough”. Essentially, I am used to seeing myself a certain way, not just in the mirror, but also in terms of how I train, how often, and in any number of habits that keep me looking and acting like “me”. To change my body, I’d have to change my self-perception. 

This brings me to the portion of the post where I address the blog challenge of the day: If you woke up tomorrow and were free to do anything you wanted with your life, what would you do and who would you be? If I woke up free from any constraints, I would be working full time on turning Life Athletics into the tool I know it can be for people. That, and I’d be doing it from a beach... possibly in Bali. The glib answer to whom I’d be is “a Life Athlete”. To be clearer, I’d be decisive, self-assured, and relaxed, while also excited and present to the expanding difference I, and my work, make for people around the world. I’d also be very happy with all of that. 

Why I haven’t done this already is simple enough, and has to do with the first part of this post. I’ve become used to life a certain way and this has kept me doing things the way I’ve done them in the past. In realizing that I’ve held myself back from becoming the physical athlete I could be, I’m now training smarter and seeing the results, while also maintaining a workable schedule. In seeing that I’ve held myself back with Life Athletics, I’m declaring that I’ll be doing the same thing and working smarter to get the results I want in order to make the greatest contribution. How good am I going to allow things to be? 

Extraordinarily good.

I'm doing the 30 day blog challenge!

Life Athletes, I've got to come clean about something. Lately I've been so focussed on my plans for the future of Life Athletics that I've been ignoring this space and this blog. The 30 day challenge I'm participating through the Suitcase Entrepreneur in is an effort to let go and be present. It will likely lead to more personal content than ever before but it will all be filtered through the lens of Life Athletics and designed to add value to the growth and development of the Life Athletes who read, watch and listen to the content here. Thanks for the support and let's begin! 

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Matt and Cherie Chan

 Outside of the Crossfit community, where they are rock stars,  Matt and Cherie Chan might not be household names but they are world class individuals who are an inspiration to the people who know them and it's my pleasure to present them to you here. I was as excited to meet them as I've been to meet anyone in a long time.  I had admired their candor, elegance of being and their pursuit of excellence from watching prior interviews with them and from watching them compete. These people embody what it is to be Life Athletes and it was a supreme pleasure to be able to sit down and have this chat with them. The topics range and I've done minimal editing so that you can get a sense of who these people are. 
 Matt Chan was crowned the second fittest man in the world after placing second in the 2012 crossfit games and his Wife Cherie has been a high level competitor also competing in the Crossfit Games. They have a number of videos on Crossfit.com and have a blog detailing their current adventure: http://theeternalpursuit.com/

Marcus Smith - innerfight.com - interview

Marcus Smith of InnerFight.com, and a competitor at the recent Crossfit Asia regionals, talks about the importance of the inner game in sport and in life.

Reid Koss of the Seattle Sockeyes talks about Sports and life.

The Seattle Sockeye are one of the top Ultimate Frisbee clubs in the United States. Earlier this year players from the team came to Ulsan South Korea and put on a skills clinic. Here are four excerpts from an interview with Sockeye player Reid Koss where he talks about tips and techniques that he's learned through his Ultimate career that have helped make him successful on the field and off. 

Habit: act. now.

Welcome Life Athletes!
    This week’s habit is one that comes from a number of sources as well as my own observations. That said, Eben Pagan put it perfectly in his program Get Altitude when he said that the one trait all successful people share is a fast “rate of implementation”, so we’ll use that term for it.  

This is one that I’ve struggled with and have been injecting into my life lately so it’s close to my heart.  Essentially, those who are successful in any field do things and they do them now. They take action while other people are still thinking about any number of things other than. 

The thing about this habit is that it’s counter to many parts of my thinking as well as many others I’ve spoken to.  We want to make things perfect, we want to consider, ponder and observe. However well those traits have served us, it isn’t until we focus on this habit that we can move things forward and start creating what we want in life. 

While I’d be the first to extol the virtues of the clever and the cautious, I think that there’s a danger to them, one expressed beautifully in one of my favourite quotations:

If we listened to our intellect, we'd never have a love affair. We'd never have a friendship. We'd never go into business, because we'd be cynical. Well, that's nonsense. You've got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.

Ray Bradbury

A fast rate of implementation means that when you hear something that you think is a good idea, an idea that would serve you and your life, you take an action towards putting it into effect immediately. 

It’s simple, magical, and people throw fits for the right to do things later.  

It can’t be denied that the people who I’ve met who exemplify the habit of a fast rate of implementation make lots of mistakes and have jumped the gun from time to time but what they also do is take notice of their mistakes earlier than most and act to change them. 

My father, who might be the living embodiment of this habit said this when I mentioned this topic to him: “The thing about doing things that are new is there are going to be new problems. Seeing too many sides is a definite disadvantage and god help you if you can see what might go wrong that will turn your guts to liquid. You need to be a little bull-headed for sure”. Watching him operate in his life can be dizzying and at times befuddling to me but what he’s accomplished in his business and in his life are impressive by any metric.

He expects problems but unlike the people who get stopped by them he treats problems as a driver would react to other cars on the road.  Sure it’s easier to drive when the road is clear but it’s not always that way and waiting for the road to clear is a good plan if you want to spend the rest of your life in your driveway. 

I made a comment to a friend of mine a little while back that my dad would have already completed some of the projects I had been just starting to plan.  It wasn’t that he had more money than me, he does, or that he was more clever, although he might be.  It was his ability to put things into action and not stop until it was finished, or he was, that would have got it done. 

That realization is why these last few posts are going out imperfectly. They don’t have photos, they might not have the best prose I could muster given the time to craft. What they do have is the distinction of being good enough and published. “Good enough and published” beats “perfect but existing only in my mind” any day. This is me putting a success habit in place, one post at a time. Life Athletics isn’t about being perfect, it’s about seeing where you’re weak and taking action to make those area stronger to benefit you, your loved ones and your life. What action are you going to take to make your life better today? 

Action step: Take some action towards your goals now. Listen to the reasons you have for not doing it now and ask yourself if those reasons sound familiar, then take the action anyway. 


Journal it. 

How to get what you want.

Last week we spoke of the importance of habits and then focused on the habit of “being responsible”. This week we’re also looking at a mental habit and it flows from the same vein as the first. 

I picked up this habit from Brian Tracy and want to give him full credit. I read what I’m about to share, put the book down, shook my head, rubbed my eyes, and felt like I’d found the secret to happiness.

So... without further ado, here is a paraphrased version of Mr. Tracey’s concept. 

Happy and successful people think of two things exclusively, while unhappy and unsuccessful people think of another two things exclusively. In order to be happy and successful, you must train your mind to think of the two things in the happy column and... that’s it. 

First, unhappy and unsuccessful people think only: “What don’t I like?” and “whose fault is it?”. 

To me that was a powerful revelation. I immediately saw a myriad of experiences from my life which weren’t working as I would have liked fit the “unhappy and unsuccessful” format perfectly. 

One that is both shameful and funny was how much I blamed my mother for my poor basketball skills. I’m tall and all my life people have asked me if I played basketball. In fact it happened on the subway again yesterday. I  didn’t grow up playing organized ball but played with my friends and always wished I’d be on a team. I was raised by a single mother who was also a student and sports weren’t a priority and so, my potential languished and in my head it was all her fault. 

Even later when I was able to go to practices on my own and take some responsibility for my own experiences, the blame stuck around and so whenever I felt as though I wasn’t as good a player as I should be, I would immediately blame my mother in my mind. It wasn’t conscious but it was powerful as it completely stopped me from being able to improve. My mind worked to make me “right” and so I had to stay at a low level. 

Once I caught this blame loop, I was able to unhook, apologize to my mom and I made a HUGE jump in skill on the court. I’m certainly not a world class basketball player but I’m good enough to have fun and have played in gyms and parks with a smile on my face all over the world. 

Disliking that I didn’t have the basketball skills that I felt I should have and blaming my mother for not putting me in a situation to have developed them at a young age was a road map to failure and upset. While I didn’t like seeing that I had so often frequented that neighbourhood, I also felt relieved that I was now aware of the road signs and would be equipped to steer clear in the future. 

It’s important not to go into a blame loop of your own upon reading the above “bad” habit. Some people I know have responded by saying “I do that and I don’t like it! It’s (fill in whoever’s name... it doesn’t really matter) fault because (fill in whatever reason... it doesn’t really matter)!”,  or they might blame themselves for not having caught and changed this habit sooner. My advice is to skip that blame cycle entirely and move onto the next part: moving toward happiness and success.

According to Brian Tracy, the two questions that all happy and successful people asks themselves are: “What do I want?” and “how do I get it?”. 

A Life Athlete is actively practicing this by aiming their actions to drive them towards their goals. All people will fall into the “what don’t I like and whose fault is it” trap from time to time but it’s your job to make sure that the majority of your thoughts revolve around some form of “what do I want” and “how do I get it?”.  When you find yourself participating in the thoughts of the unsuccessful, stop and think the thoughts of the Life Athlete, “What do I want in this area?” and “How do I get myself there?”.

This week:
-Look at 1-3 situations in your life where you’re happy and successful and see if your thinking in that area matches “What do I want? and how do I get it?”

-Look at 1-3 situations in your life where you’re not happy or successful and see if your thinking in that area matches “What don’t I like and whose fault is it?” 

-Be aware through the week of instances where your mind clicks into one mode or the other. 

-Challenge yourself to operate from “what do I want and how do I get it”

-Journal your responses. 

Dave Smart: Passion

Dave Smart, the coach of the Carleton University men's basketball team, winners of 9 of the last 11 Canadian national championships, talks about toughness and passion in life and on the court. This one stuck with me long after the interview and I think it's a powerful call to greatness. 

Dave Smart: Celebrating the lows.

Of the many successful people I have spoken to, Dave Smart is perhaps the most used to winning. In the two years I covered the team he coaches, I think I saw them lose once. The Carleton Ravens in Ottawa Ontario are now the National Champions once again and that marks their 9th championship in the last 11 years. Despite this unprecedented amount of winning, Smart's focus might surprise those of us who aspire to that level of success in our chosen fields.