Phase 2 Day 4

You know where you are, you know where you want to go, and you're excited to get there. You have everything that you need to get started getting the life that you want!

In a lot of ways creating a life of our dreams is a lot like going on a road trip. I’ve used this metaphor before and I’ll use it again! 

Many people are scared to take a trip, even a vacation can be a big comfort challenge for some. 

To leave the familiar in search of adventure, excitement, or discovery can be difficult, but it is worth it. 

---

We are Life Athletes! We are training ourselves to live at a high-level and we are LIVING at a high level. Living this way means taking risks. 

It means venturing into the unknown, confident that we can make it work. Confident that this way of being we have nurtured will pull us through. 

We are aiming at a higher standard and that can be scary. 

If your dreams don't scare you little bit, chances are you're not dreaming big enough. 

Really I don’t need you to be scared, just ready to have the life you want.  A lot of this preamble is to set you up for probability that you won’t be able to fully complete today's exercise immediately.

The fear I’m talking about comes from the unknown, the unfamiliar, the hidden. The thing about things that are unknown, unfamiliar, and hidden is that we don’t know a lot about them. 

If you already knew how to get where you wanted to go, you’d be there. Because you’re searching, there will be blind spots. This is normal and quite alright. 

So, fully acknowledging that there will be blind spots, I’m asking you to connect the points between where you are and where you want to be. Simple...  

Once again, I am well aware that you likely don’t know all of the steps to take now and that If you did, you would be taking them now. 

I’m telling you that it doesn’t matter. You can figure out A step and that’s enough to move forward. Too many of us wait, trying to figure every facet of our goals out before we start taking action. 

A friend passed along this nugget as we talked about this a while back, “you don’t wait for all of the lights in the world to turn green before you start driving” he said. No, no we don’t.  

Another one I like is a metaphor involving a dark country road on an overcast night... you can only see as far as your headlights shine but you trust that there’s more road in front of you. You drive and figure it out on your way. 

It’s going to be the same here. You’ll have to fill in as much as you can and as you get closer, you’ll be able to see more and so on.

As you connect the dots between where you are and where you want to be, you are to look at the “map” from two directions. 

For some it will be easier to immediately start plotting out next steps from where you are currently forward. While for others it will be easier to start marking out steps or stages backwards from your horizon goals towards the present. 

I suggest that you try drawing it out from both directions.

Also, you might not get the immediate steps from either point and instead be able to see some of the middle steps. 

Treat this like a jigsaw puzzle... start wherever you can and fit pieces in as you spot them. 

Start writing every step you can think of and leave spaces to be filled in later.  Big steps, small steps, write them all down.  

There might be branches, or detours to the road you are laying out. That's okay as well, write it all down. 

Try your best to be as detailed as possible, however don't get bogged down .Feel free to start with a general outline and flesh it out from there.

Write it down in such a way that you can fill in details later. Just keep going and don't stop.  Be thorough, be patient, and be unstoppable. This is is work, but it’s your life and if you won’t put in the time planning this, what will you spend time on? 

Let’s hit the road! 

Daily Challenge: 

-Take your current point and your horizon goals and fill in the in between stages. 

Phase 2 Day 3: Turn your excitement up to 11.

How you feel has a huge impact on what you do. 

If you are feeling run down, tired, or just plain unmotivated it can be hard to get out of bed let alone conquer the world. 

Emotions can help or hinder and really they’re up to us to guide. 

Emotions can be a powerful tool in achieving our goals and we’re going to look at that today. Turn yours up and get excited about the future you're creating!

Many of us have so much fear at the idea of never reaching our goals, that we put ourselves off of the hunt for them. Many people give in to the fear and satisfy themselves with the hope that their goals COULD happen rather than risk taking a shot and failing. 

As the Great One once said: “You miss a hundred percent of the shots you never take.” 

---

We’ve already talked about blocks and so now we’re going to look at how emotions can help. 

What we want to do is use our emotions for good. 

We want to be able to visualize our goals as something exciting, something desirable, something that energizes us. 

When we supercharge our emotions so that the image of the achievement of our goals fills us with joy, we are stacking the deck in our favor. 

Tony Robbins says that people are motivated by two things:

1. The avoidance of pain.
2. The pursuit of pleasure. 

While he does say that people are more motivated by the avoidance of pain, it doesn’t mean that you can’t make both serve you.  If you’re tired of being where you are FEEL THAT! 

Expanding that feeling and allowing that discomfort can be powerful. The pitfall is that feeling bad without purpose ... has no purpose. If you use your motivations to move you away from something, move away from it. 

The second part is where you picture your goals as a huge success.  Allowing yourself to fully feel how great it would be to get yourself to where you want to be pulls you forward. 

When we are only mildly excited about something it's easy to be put off the trail. However, when we allow ourselves to be consumed with excitement then we must do this thing. 

The fear is that if we care too much and we don't get there we will be hurt, it's a real fear. That might happen. 

Allowing yourself to care at the risk of getting hurt might seem foolish, and you could find a lot of people to agree with that opinion. 

In response I leave you with this thought. 

In an interview I did with Dave Smart, he said this: “If you can’t learn to be a competitor in your passion... it’s going to be tough for you...” 

If you can’t get excited about your dreams... it’s going to be tough for you. 

Daily Challenge:

-Re-write your horizon goals and muster, fake, generate, create, FEEL 10X more excitement about them than previously. In fact, turn it to 11. Post your experience. 

Phase 2 Day 2 - Is there something hiding behind the goals you've set?

If you take a look at Facebook or the internet in general there are more advice givers on how to get the perfect six pack than I can count. Apparently lots of people want to have showy abs. 

or do they? 

Is there something hiding behind their stated goals? 

Something that they really want? Something that the other goal is just a cover for?

I believe that a lot of people think they want one thing while actually wanting something else. A person might want rippling abdominals because they think that this will make them sexier in the eyes of other people. Do they want the abs or the feelings that they think will come with them? 

---

The same thing goes for many goals that people commonly aspire to. They’re fixes, or said another way, they’re reactions to some perceived fault. 

People don’t feel sexy and so they want abs. They don’t feel powerful so they want more money. 

There’s nothing inherently wrong with this other than that it doesn’t work. 

When you have a goal for a purpose other than having that goal accomplished, it’s like you’re driving on a road thinking that you’re going one way but you’re going another. 

If you want to fix something, fix it. 

Setting a goal with the hope that the side benefit will be that it will “fix you” just doesn't work. 

Set goals for the things you actually want to be, or have, in your life.

There are plenty of people with rippling abs who have body issues and who don’t feel particularly attractive. Likewise there are all kinds of unhappy people who have achieved things other people aspire to because they believe they will make them happy. 

So, what’s the solution here? We know that goals are important to growth but here I am saying that some goals are fool’s gold... fool’s goals.  

Having goals that are authentic to who you REALLY are is key here. 

If you want to be sexy, or powerful, or whatever... be that now.  Be authentic. 

It is of course an over simplification to say “be that now”. These things can take time, but know that if your goal is to be (insert adjective) then THAT is your goal! 

Also, you can have more than one goal. You want to feel sexy AND have a washboard midsection? GO FOR IT! Just don't set a goal for one thing expecting it to give you anything other than what it is. 

Challenge of the day: 

-Ask: “have I set these goals to fix something in myself? or am I truly inspired by these goals?” 

-Ask: are these goals authentic? 

-If you find that you’re trying to fix something ask yourself this: If the things I want to fix in myself were already fixed, what would I want for myself and my life. Alter your current goals to reflect this. 

Phase 2: day 1 - Horizon goals.

Now that we’ve established a solid understanding of where we are, what’s working, what isn’t, our blocks, our strengths, our commitment and what we’re willing to let go of from the past, we’re ready to move forward. 

To create a life that we love we have to start with a vision. There are a number of metaphors we can use to explain why... I’ll use two: 

1. If you don’t know where you’re going, how can you expect to get there. 
2. If you don’t know what you’re shooting at, how can you expect to hit it? 

---

As I’ve looked at this over the years an element of this has become clear that I didn’t see before, although it might be obvious to you. What happens if you reach your goals by accident? Generally I think that people are dissatisfied if this happens unless they quickly recognize that “this” is what they wanted. 

I believe that a key element of goal setting is the ability to look back and notice our accomplishments. We can say “I have arrived!” even for a moment and feel great about that before moving on to the next goal. 

When I run I like to have some place that represents the destination and I’ll touch that before looping home. When I indoor climb I like to touch the metal beam the rope is looped on before climbing down. Having a clear “check!” point helps me and I believe that it can help you. We’ll go over that more later though. 

Onto the vision! 

I used to call this phase of goal setting “dream goals” but I changed it as felt there was a connotation I didn’t like.  Many people feel that dreams are not real. 

I’m now calling these “Horizon Goals” as they’re as far as you can see currently on your journey. 

Either way, I think they names explain what these goals are. Imagine your ideal reality and figure out what that would look like in the context of each area of your life. Regardless of where you currently are write our your vision. These are the ideals, not the immediately achievables. 

Make these inspiring to you! 

Notice whatever feelings come up as you write. Discomfort is normal here and while you don’t have to write anything grand to impress anyone, don’t avoid something you want to write down out of fear. 

Imagine that you are standing on a cliffside looking out onto the world preparing for the adventure that’s beyond the curve of the earth and dare to dream big! 

Challenge: 


-Get yourself excited about the future,
-Write your horizon goals for each area. (Write your goals in the present tense, as if they've already happened.)

Phase one is done! Enjoy your day off!

Phase 1 is done and now you're getting a well deserved rest day. If you've fallen behind at all, this is a GREAT time to get caught up! Phase 2 will start tomorrow and we'll start to build our visions for the future! See you then! 

Phase 1 Day 9: What are you willing to let go of moving forward?

Day 9! This is the last step of phase 1! Congratulations!

Moving forward there is one more question to ask yourself, what are you willing to let go of. 

We’re about to look at what you want in life. Presumably there are some shifts you want to make. 

You will not have more hours in the day. You will not magically have more energy.

You will be you, trying something new. 

In order to do something new, you will have to let something go to clear space.

---

This could be emotional, physical, something in your schedule, a connection to a person that's no longer healthy, or one that has been hurting you for a while.

Most likely it’ll be a combination of things AND they’ll be more visible as you’re actually moving forward. Still you need to be aware of this concept now. 

There’s an attachment that forms to the things in our lives that we’re familiar with, we see them as part of us. 

This includes things that we’ve outgrown. 

If you’re like most people, you have a hard time throwing out things with even the slightest bit of sentimental value. The problem is that, as old things accumulate there’s less and less room for the new. 

Letting go of those attachments can be hard yet powerful. As you clear the out the things that have outlived their usefulness, you’re allowing new things to enter your life that are more appropriate to where you are or where you’re going. 

This also holds true beyond knick knacks and extends to habits, emotions, people, behavioral patterns, belief systems etc. 

You can want to be wealthy until you’re green in the face but if you’re unwilling to let go of your view of yourself as someone who is bad with money... good luck. 

The same goes with fitness, relationships... really any part of your life. If somewhere you’ve determined your own limit in these areas, you’re stuck there until you let go of that self image. 


It can also be a behavioral pattern. You want to be more energetic but you don’t want to shut your computer off an hour earlier and get to bed. 

You want to be more present to your partner but you’re not willing to shut your computer off an hour earlier and get to bed. ;) 

Whatever it is that you want moving forward, you’ll have to let go of something now. There’s a cost to the steps you’re about to take. It might just be the fear that you can’t do it. Let go of that one as fast as you can. 

Challenge of the day:

-Make a list of the things that you’re willing to let go of. 

-Take a minute imagining these things being released and leaving your space, making way for the awesome vision that you’re about to create for yourself in Phase 2! 

Phase 1 Day 8: How committed are you to having the life of your dreams?

Once we look at where we are, and we realize that we want more, for whatever reason, the question really becomes: how committed are you to making it happen?

Is this a passion, or a passing interest?

We haven’t begun looking at what it is that you want to create in your life BUT that almost doesn’t matter. You know that’s where we’re headed, are you committed to yourself as you move forward?  The choice is up to you.  

Regardless of what it is that you want, the key to getting it, is your level of commitment.

Things that are, kind of, sort of, maybe, a good idea, don’t get done.

Knowing that you HAVE to make a shift is necessary to making a shift. Wanting to isn’t enough. Will you run through a wall to make it happen? Are you willing to pay what it costs?

---

It’s important to note that no one said that you had to choose to change something in your life. If you're thinking of changing something because someone else thinks it's a good idea... well that’s not a good idea. It needs to come from you. 

You can likely keep doing things as you’re doing them.  If lives were in immediate danger I’d hope you’d be doing something more than reading this installment of a 30 day challenge. You’re fine. 

Most of us aspire to more than “fine” though. We want to be more fit, more wealthy, we want to be smarter, healthier and happier. We want to make a bigger difference in the lives of those around us and we want to be closer to people. We want a better world... and we want six-pack abs.

We might not be in mortal danger but we might be dying a slow death, letting one dream die after another. Or we might just be in danger of being mediocre. 

The point is that these have all been your standards we’ve been talking about and now is the gut check time. Will you make a difference in your life? 

Are you serious and ready to pay the price for a new life, or are you just window shopping?

Challenge of the day: 

-Look at your life and ask yourself “am I committed to moving forward and meeting my potential?”

-Make sure the answer is yes. 

-Turn the volume of your commitment to 11.  

Phase 1 Day 7: What are your strengths?

Day 7 and still going strong! Well done!

Today we’ll be looking at our current strengths.

This always seems harder than anticipated. If you’ve ever tried to write your own bio for something, you know what I mean. Even just writing a resume can be difficult for a lot of people. 

It’s fascinating to me that self loathing is more acceptable than self love. People can run themselves down ad nauseam but if they try to pat themselves on the back they’ll have no problem finding someone eager to take them down a notch. 

Modesty is one thing but the inability to see one’s own strengths is not healthy. 

---

On the flip side, it’s not that much better to be in love with one’s strengths. People like to look good and we sometimes use our accomplishments as shields to hopefully convince people that we’re awesome... or worthy of love. 

I believe that the trick is accepting ourselves as we are, weaknesses, blocks and strengths alike. 

Recognizing our intrinsic worth is extremely important. 

We are not great for any reason other than the fact that we’re great. 

What I think people have to do is separate that conventional “I’m great because...” and replace it with “I’m great, and...”. 

Yes, I want people to feel good about themselves AND I want it to be authentic. 

If you’re financially wealthy, are you any less worthy a human being if you lose it all? 

If you’re a decorated athlete and you break your leg, or lose it, are you any less valuable? 

If you have never received any accolades or external markers of success, are you any less human? 

I’m saying no. 

...and yet, we reach. We aspire, we dream of greatness and of doing great things. We WANT to accomplish. For many of us, that’s why we’re here. We DO think that it’s better to achieve than not to. 

The nuance is that your accomplishments are not you. 

From a place where we accept that we just ARE okay as we are, I believe that we can truly build to greatness. It also builds empathy for others as we start to see the greatness in them as well. This is essentially the meaning of the word “Namaste” actually. “I recognize the divine greatness in you”. 

Now that that’s out of the way, what are your strengths? 

What are you proud of? What is it that you’d like to build on moving forward? What IS working? 

Once again what we’re looking for is as unbiased a view of yourself as possible. Don’t puff up and don’t hold back... what’re your strengths? 

Challenge of the day:

-List your strengths in each area. .

Phase 1 Day 6: What's working?

So far we’ve looked at a general overview of your life and then we dove right into what wasn’t working, what was in your way and what you could do to get past whatever’s been stopping you.


That could be seen as a rather gloomy set of exercises.

The purpose was threefold:

First, if something was a thorn in your side, that needs to be addressed before any forward movement can take place.

---

Second, people are either motivated by moving towards something or, more common, by moving away from something else. Why not use both? 

Third, we want to separate the wheat from the chafe as it were and making the “chafe” conscious is a good start. 


Now it’s on to the cheerier part. I want you to look at what IS working. 

Before we go too far with this however, I want to put in a note... sometimes people are as stopped by what IS working as they are by what isn’t. We haven’t looked at your dreams, ambitions, deepest desires or just overall wants yet. So you might also choose to leave things behind that are working, but just not as well as you’d like. 

It’s important to find somethings that are working even if we’re in a dire situation. We’re human and we need to know that something is going right. So, if you’re in a low place, perhaps what’s working is that you at least have an internet connection and the ability to read this. Grab at anything. 

If things are going great for you... great! Many people suffer just as much in this state as they do when nothing’s going right. I have had more conversations that I can count with people for whom things are seemingly working out fantastically but who just aren’t happy. 

I’m pointing this out because I want to make sure that no one beats themselves up in ANY WAY as they go through this process. If you have a long list of things that are working but you aren’t feeling how you think you SHOULD be feeling... cut yourself some slack, take a deep breath, and ask yourself if you’ll let yourself feel that way now. 

As with each exercise up to this point we want to be as emotionless as possible for this part. We want to just observe the parts of our lives as though they were a story we were clipping together for a screenplay we were writing or looking at a map and planning a trip. Point out the rough roads and the clear ones and know that you’ll be able to handle things when you get there. 


Daily challenge:




-Look at each area of your life and identify what’s working. 

-Post to acknowledge that you’ve completed this challenge. 

Phase 1 Day 5: Moving obstacles out of the way and clearing the road.

You’re going on a road trip, and you’re excited. You’ve packed your car, you’ve packed enough food to last you and you have a playlist that’ll be the envy of every 8tracks user out there. The weather has cleared and you’re ready to go! You strap yourself in, turn the car on, ease out of the drive way, turn the first corner and ... there’s a tree across the road, apparently knocked over in the storm the night before... now what?

It doesn’t matter how prepared you are or what your intentions are... there will be obstacles in your way that you have to deal with.

One I’ve encountered is with people trying to transform themselves and live a life that they love. The IMMEDIATE thing that happens is that they see everywhere where they’re not the person they want to be already. 

---

Another common one is the desire to look good and the fear that people won’t accept us if we go for our “weird” dreams... forgetting that most people have weird dreams of their own that they’re afraid we’ll judge THEM for... 

Whatever your personal obstacles, they’re as capable of stopping you as you allow them to be. 

"Obstacles cannot crush me. Every obstacle yields to stern resolve. He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind." -Leonardo DaVinci,

In yesterday’s post we talked about these obstacles and now the question is what can you do to move past them? 

Some might be mental or internal and some might be external. The first step in moving past them is to take full responsibility for yourself and your life and believe that you have the personal power to make a difference. 

Done taking full responsibility and claiming your personal power? GREAT! 

Now start to think of what you need in order to move past these supposed barriers. 

An important note on these is that some things need to be dealt with directly and some things need to just be dropped and replaced with workable versions. 

Again, this is is just to make sure that you’re ready to move forward and that you’re not bringing personal demons with you that’ll sabotage you on your way. 

It’s time to get some living done. 

Daily challenge:

-Look at your list of blocks from day 4’s challenge and determine the best way to get past each one. 


-Put any actions that can’t be done immediately in your calendar, to do be dealt with.

Phase 1 Day 4: Barriers? What barriers?

Michelangelo was once asked how he sculpted something as wonderful and lifelike as his “David” and he said, “I simply carved away everything that wasn't David and there he was".

I believe that being a Life Athlete is a similar undertaking. You are there in your greatness and there are some things in the way. We have to remove the things that aren’t true to our authentic selves in order to be truly free.


Judgements, self doubts, negative emotions, limiting decisions and excuses are all extraneous to the task at hand; getting the most out of the experience of being a human being as possible.

It might seem like we’re focussing on the negative, and in a way we are. Before we move forward we have to look at why we haven’t already.

There are three categories that you might fall in:

---

Things might be going great and you just want to keep that momentum moving and get to the next stage. You know what you want and are on your way. 

OR 
 
You’ve had your sights set on something for a while and yet you’ve never quite made the leap. Something’s always come up and the dream remains a dream. 

OR

You have NO IDEA what you want in this area but you know that you don’t like what you have. 


I’ve been in all of them and am in at least two currently. Today’s post is especially  for people in the second and third categories. 

“I like everything about everything right now and don’t want anything to change” isn’t really a category as there’s no pause button on life and if we’re not moving forward atrophy kicks in. You don’t have to overhaul anything but looking at what’s next is necessary. 

So, what’s in the way? 

It might look like this:
I’ve always wanted to X but haven’t because Y. 

Someone once told me “in life you can have what you want or the reasons why not... they’re not the same thing.” Making our reasons more important than the things we want in life is a low way to live.

“I’d start a business but I’m...” too young, too old, too smart, not smart enough, I don’t have enough money, energy, time, patience, experience... the list is wide and varied. People have thought of pretty much every possible variation. You are not alone here. 

These barriers can take many shapes and forms and I’m not suggesting that you necessarily remove them now... only that you notice them, and write them down. 

What are the thoughts that hold you back? Are there people who you put the responsibility on? “I’d do ‘Z’ but my ’Q’ thinks that’s ‘W’. 

What “truths” about yourself stop you? We’ve all made up all sorts of silliness regarding what IS that just isn’t. The number of people who when you dig a little have some version of “I’m not lovable” kicking around inside of them is enough to make you weep! 

Do you think that you can’t be fit because of your genetics and so you eat badly and barely move your body? Tell the truth here! 

A note on this... take responsibility here! 

Don’t say “I’d be living my dream if not for my mother.” Say instead “I blame my mother for why I’M not living MY dream.” 

You’re a powerful, beautiful, work of art. It’s time to chip away and brush off all that other crap.


Daily challenge:


-Look at all of the areas that you said weren’t working from yesterday’s challenge as well as any other areas where you’ve felt blocked. 

-Write a list of the areas and the blocks you have in each. 

-Check the list to make sure you’ve taken full responsibility and ownership of every single block on your list. 
-Ask yourself if now is the moment that you finally move past. 

Phase 1 Day 3: What's not working?

Now that you’ve taken stock of your life and figured out where you’d rate yourself in each of the 7 training areas in a non-judgmental way, you get a little reward! It’s time to judge.

Nothing need be wrong to pursue growth. Growth and development is healthy and necessary in humans. Pushing from good to great is what we’re looking for here, BUT if something is not working or not working as well as you’d like it to, it’s best to identify that early.

Do you have any fires to put out?

If you scored yourself a 5 or below in any area, this might be cause for concern. Essentially that’s the pass fail mark as determined by you. A score below 5 is a sign that you think you’re doing harm to yourself in this area. It’s up to you to determine if this is a fire that needs to be dealt with NOW. 

---

If your house is burning down, don’t wait until the end of this program to do something about it! 

If there aren’t any lives immediately at risk then take a breath and identify what’s not working for you. There can be all sorts of reasons for why things aren’t working but despite my earlier joke, leave the judgements to the side and just tell it like it is. If something’s not working for you, it’s not working for you. 

Also, don’t justify why it is the way it is. People will adapt to just about any crappy situation and you deserve better than that. Using language that softens (“It’s okay”, “It’s not THAT bad”, “It’s only been a few months, weeks, days, years..”) or making excuses will just keep you where you are. 

You’re the one saying this thing doesn’t work, notice if you have internal reactions that come up and then defend it’s existence. 

You are neither what works in your life or what doesn’t. Those things are external to your Self and you’re allowed to let go of them. 


Are you willing to identify them and let go?

Again, nothing really needs to be wrong here. Just identify things that aren't working as well as you'd like them to, the things that you think could be taken to the next level. 


Daily challenge:

• Look at each area and identify what’s not working.
  
• As yourself if you’re willing to replace what’s not working with a workable version? (You don’t have to know what that is quite yet... we’re just looking for a willingness to live a life that works.) 
  
• If yes, great! 
  
• If no, what’s in the way and why are you holding onto something you’re saying doesn’t work? Look deeper and figure out what it’d take to make you willing to embrace a workable version in this area. 

Phase 1 Day 2: Where are you?

And off we go! 
 
The first thing we want to do as we draft out a plan to make the next stage our lives the most amazing yet, is to figure out where we are now.

First a warning... I love maps and journeys and I love map and journey metaphors, so brace yourself.

Lots of people feel lost because they don’t have that red “YOU ARE HERE” arrow clearly in their sites. We make plans that are too many steps beyond where we are or too many steps behind. By taking a moment to figure out exactly where we are, we’ll be better equipped to make a move.

This will demand honesty but despite what you may have heard, it need not be brutal... just courageous.

---

As you look at where you are, notice the judgements that come up, good or bad. Don’t judge the judgements. Just notice them. If you start saying to berate yourself for not being better off financially or if you start patting yourself thunderously on your shoulder because of your gigantic biceps (which prevent you from quite being able to reach your back) just know that both forms of self talk can be limiting. 

For some feeling bad can be a motivator, sometimes feeling good can make a person complacent. It’s your job to notice what you’re doing, what effect it’s having and then to use what works. 

You get to decide what “working” means for you. 

To find our current whereabouts we’re going to use a program I developed a few years ago. I’m not editing it overly from the original form as I still dig it. Have fun with it. I did!

We’ll be looking at the 7 areas of life that I’ve identified. I’ve called them pillars, I’ve called them training areas, you can call them whatever you want. The important thing here is that you look at yourself as a whole being. 

If we let one area sag it will drag the others down. The same is true for improving one area, it’ll improve others. I just haven’t found that to be a lasting thing unless I use that energy to shore up the areas that aren’t working well. When life is working across the board, even if it’s just to the level where no one area is hurting you, it’s a great feeling! 

My goal is to get the most out of the experience of being a human being, to get the most out being me. It lights me up to think that my journey might inspire others along their own. 


The 7 training areas are (in alphabetical order): 

Finances

Health/Fitness

Mind

Play

Relationships

Self

Work


(At the bottom of this post is a collection of words that explain what I mean by these)


Now we’re looking for a simple way to identify where we are and so I’ve created a ranking scale. Some people really, really have a problem with being ranked or graded and resist this part. It seems to me that this resistance is due to the fact that they’re already grading themselves as not good enough in their heads... we usually call this judging. This is where the courage comes in. Just tell the truth and let it be okay. You’re fine where you are and I’m not telling you that you need to change a thing. 

Most people do want to change something however and this kind of honesty is key. So, in each area You’re going to calibrate the scale by figuring out what you think 10/10 is. I like to calibrate this on a global level but it’s really up to you. 

From there it’s about figuring out where you land using the scale I’ve included. 

I’ll explain this a little further. Let’s say that we’re looking at physical fitness. 10/10 for me would be a cross between Aja Barto (the tallest crossfit games competitor ever, measuring 6’5”) and Kobe Bryant who is also about my height and weight and is also about my age. I’ll toss in Rich Froning Jr. as he’s the reigning three time male Crossfit games champion and therefore holding the title of fittest on earth.  These guys not only represent the best in the world at what they do but for Aja and Kobe, they represent the best at my body type. This is personal, obviously, and you need to calibrate it to YOU. 

You might be a distance runner, or a power lifter, or simply a person living their life with no specific sporting back ground to compare to. What you do is find a person, group of people, or set of ideals that you think represent the best in the world. 

If you ARE the current best in the world you can raise the bar and imagine where growth is possible and set that as the top mark. 

Being 10/10 yourself isn’t the goal, it’s all about seeing what’s possible and having something to work to. 




I’ve been asked many times about using your perceived best as 10/10 and I really think that most of us are too skewed about ourselves for this to be effective. Why set a top limit for yourself? If you’re more comfortable doing it this way, go for it but know of this possible pitfall so that you can figure out a way to avoid it. 

Also, some people have been worried about feeling bad comparing themselves to someone farther along in the process than themselves. If you fall into that category, don’t use real people and be careful of that pitfall. 

What you must do is imagine what you’re current view of the best is in each area. 

Next, use the tongue in cheek grading system I’ve concocted to place yourself somewhere on the scale. 

Daily challenge:

- For each area of life (Finances, Health/Fitness, Mind, Play, Relationships, Self, Work) Establish what 10/10 is for you in each area. 

- Use the scale to determine where you are. Write a brief explanation of why you think this is your grade. 

(note: This is to be a matter of fact assessment not a list of the blessings or curses you’ve encountered. Ex. I can deadlift 320lbs and run a 5k in about 30 minutes which places me at about 6-6.5 on my scale.  Lots of room grow! Exciting!) 


-Post what you come up with. (note: you can do so anonymously if you don’t want the world to know too much about you.) 

That's it! 

(Bonus! A series of words that kinda explain what the training areas mean to me:

FINANCES

money, cash, dollar dollar bills yʼall, investments, donations, earnings, savings, spend, invest, manage debt, plan, “money doesn't solve your problems but with money you can show up in a limo to deal with them.” -Tony Robbins -, managing for your future, managing for your present, having the means to live your life on your terms, paying your bills, makes the world go ʻround, assets, liabilities, your ticket to ride, trading, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, RRSPs, your portfolio, toys and flashy things, purchasing power, your ability to help with your checkbook, food on the table and a roof over your head, fiscal matters, capital, funds, resources, “A big part of financial freedom is having your heart and mind free from worry about the what-ifs of life.” - Suze Orman -, sponsorship, scholarships, bankroll, angel investments, underwrite, backing, the willingness to be wealthy, to prosper, to thrive financially, markets, bulls and bears and the bellies of pigs, commodities, value, lean times and times of plenty, the line between needs and wants, your ability to handle your needs and afford your wants, your bank account, your overseas bank account, the money under your mattress, your piggy bank, trust fund your milk money, your fortune, your parachute... whatever colour it might be.

HEALTH/ FITNESS

force x distance/time, sweating (whether to oldies or something else), building work capacity, moving your body, maintaining your body, what you eat and ingest, freedom from illness and disease, the ability to function, cardiorespiratory endurance, jumping power, sport, leisure, looking good, feeling good, pretty much anything to do with your body, hair growth, muscle retention, skeletal alignment, bone density, gum health, your feet, rest and recovery, power, pull ups, flexibility, yoga, coordination, throwing, catching, hitting, striking, agility, balance, pushups on rings, walking lunges, handstand pushups, challenging yourself to lift more, run faster, jump higher, taking care of your body so it can take care of you, trying new things,, rest, pushing to the limit and then recovering, “Our health always seems much more valuable after we lose it.” -anonymous-, 3 2 1 go, sex, rings, sandbag, medicine balls, bumper plates, other heavy things, running on trails in the woods, running through the city, doing pull ups on scaffolding, skating, playing new sports, playing old sports, stretching, doing crossfit, doing yoga, martial arts, swimming, getting yourself checked out, medicine, alternative medicine, good food that nourishes the body is my favourite medicine.

MIND

your brain, your capacity for thought, your capacity to reason, interpret, understand, derive, intellect, learning, education, state of mind, “A man is but the product of his thoughts what he thinks, he becomes.”- Mahatma Gandhi -, clarity, consciousness, awareness, being observant, calm, healthy, aware, learning, be educated, discover, explore, consult, relax, inform, read, ideas, plan, refresh, new concepts, knowledge, clarity, outside the box, judgement, outcomes, develop, redevelop, search, find, connect, meditate, integrate, immerse, open, experience, something new, calculate, research, examine, frame of mind, enhance, productive, organized, peace of mind, fearlessness, your brain, wits, sense of humour, memory, judgement, concentration, grey matter, intellectual capabilities, the mind

is a muscle that can grow and thrive when used properly, it can become stronger, more agile, more flexible, “In a world in which the total of human knowledge is doubling about every ten years, our security can rest only on our ability to learn” - Nathaniel Branden - , learning something new, being a lifelong learner, learning languages, musical instruments, new skills, mastering old skills, doing more than one thing at a time, perspective, blowing your mind.

PLAY

laughter, sport, fun, romp, cavort, enjoy, frolic, unwind, de-stress, cards, theatre, loaf off, glee, bliss, love, music, incubation of ideas, access to the subconscious, sabbaticals, “You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.” Plato, joy, enjoyment, passion, folly, fearlessness, innocence, entertain, like, pleasure, “We donʼt stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” George Bernard Shaw, be silly, watch movies, watch t.v., be a kid, be a grown up, socialize, read a book, read a newspaper, read a comic book, read nothing, do nothing, play with your dog, play with your cat, play with somebody elseʼs dog, play with somebody elseʼs cat, have a beer, have another, join a club, go shopping, get your hair done, treat yourself, treat somebody else, eat out, eat in, make someone laugh, party, have sex, go on vacation, travel, flirt, dance, sing, fall in love, spend time with friends, make new friends, learn something new, take a class, join in, laugh and then laugh some more, do something crazy, let loose, forget your inhibitions, play tennis, go sailing, scuba dive, have a picnic, play with your kid, play with someone elseʼs kid, fly a kite, go for a hike, play frisbee, chill out, smile and relax life is good.

RELATIONSHIPS

friendships, romance, family, friends, acquaintances, coworkers, teammates, classmates, roommates, drinking buddies, the people you pass on the street, the people in your neighbourhood, the guy who works at the corner store, your employees, your employers, pen pals, lovers, on-line dating, real life dating, that girl at the gym, that guy at the gym, your trainer, your coach, your guru, your husband, your wife, your ex, “Shared joy is a double joy; shared sorrow is half a sorrow.” ~Swedish Proverb~, your boyfriendʼs new boyfriend, your boyfriendʼs other girlfriend, your girlfriendʼs other boyfriend, your best friend, your new friend, your college friends, your teacher from grade 3, the teacher you had a crush on, the teacher who had a crush on you, your crush, your stalker, that guy you just canʼt stand, “Remember, we all stumble, every one of us. That's why it's a comfort to go hand in hand.” ~Emily Kimbrough-, your parents, your siblings, your grandparents, your aunts, your cousins, your uncles, your doctor, your therapist, your tailor, your butcher, your grocer, your local farmer, your mentor, Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” ~Marcel Proust-, people who inspire you, that person you dream about being.

SELF

your self esteem, your self perception, how you view YOU in relation to the world, you inner space, your outer space, how you dress, how you talk, how you walk, your habits, your habits of thought, your habits of action, “Self esteem is the reputation we acquire with ourselves.” - Nathaniel Branden-, your apartment, your girlfriend, your boyfriend, your car, anything that you might see as connected to you and what you deserve, your wealth, your drive, your motivation, that little voice in your head, your doubts, your insecurities, your failures and triumphs, your ability to bounce back from adversity, what you think you deserve, your story, what makes you YOU, your memories and what you think they mean about you, your choices, your decisions, your vision for yourself, your dreams, your ambitions, your fears, “You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” -Buddha-, your floor and your ceiling, all of the good and bad that you see about yourself, if you donʼt think you're good enough... you're right, if you do think youʼre good enough... you just might be, It's not who you are that holds you back, it's who you think you're not. ~Anonymous-, self-acceptance, worthiness, the drive to improve while being okay with where you are.

WORK

your job, employment, career, money, skill, performance, the thing you do with your time, what youʼre giving to the world, your legacy, “Whatever your life's work is, do it well. A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better. - Martin Luther King, Jr - your effort and your input, your output, a challenge, stimulating, a project that lights you up, a cause that gets you up in the morning, that thing that you wish you were doing with your life, Nothing will work unless you do. -Maya Angelou-, Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life. - Confucius -, good work, the satisfaction you get from a job well done, your passion, what youʼd be doing even if nobody paid you to do it, Leaders aren't born they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work. And that's the price we'll have to pay to achieve that goal, or any goal. - Vince Lombardi - reaching goals, breaking a sweat and loving it, "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work."-Thomas A. Edison- that thing that keeps you up at night plotting and scheming, your white whale, your reason to get up in the morning, your vocation, your calling, your trade, your business.

2014 Phase 1 Day 1

As you may have noticed, the calendar year has clicked forward yet again. We’re starting a new year and for many people this time also includes attempting to start a new life. Reinvention of self, personal challenges, and resolutions are just as common at the beginning of January as failure to follow through with any of those good intentions is by the end of January.

What I’ve put together is one month of exercises designed to make me very aware of where I am and where I want to be next. I’ve built this for me and I’ve built this for you.

---

It’s broken up into three parts. 

In Phase 1 we will be looking at where we are in every are of our lives. Taking stock of what is and becoming very present to the reality of our present is key when looking at building towards some dream or goal. 

In Phase 2 we will be looking at where you want to go. I have been surprised at how often I’ll be talking to people who are dissatisfied with some aspect of their lives but have no idea what they’d like instead. Whether you do or not, Phase 2 will be an opportunity to make those visions crystal clear and to make sure that they’re harmonious with the kind of life we want as a whole and compelling enough to spur us to action. I like to picture this kind of work like I would a physical journey. If you know your starting point and your destination, all that’s left is planning the route. 

In Phase 3 we’ll be planning the route. How do you get to where you want to go? How to you integrate the things you want to do in your life in a way that they’re doable? 

We’re not looking just for momentary inspiration or a few good ideas, we’re looking to create lives we love and to be Life Athletes. This will require some work to do but I’ll break it down so that the most time you’ll have to spend on any given day will be about 20-30 minutes.   At the end of the thirty days we should have a clear idea of how to get from where we are to where we want to be in every area of our lives, and the strong desire to get started. So... let’s get started. 



Daily challenge: 

Commit to following through with this program for 30 days.  Post and make public your commitment to be a Life Athlete in  2014. 

Hacking Life is after all, just travel hacking extended over a longer period of time.

“What’s your best travel hacking story to date (where you scored a free upgrade, used miles or just got a bonus perk) OR Name 2 ways in which you’re going to become a savvy travel hacker in the next 6 months”

Phew...


This is the weakest part of my traveling game. I see the term “travel hacking” and I think “that’s a way to try to make cutting coupons sound badass”.

---

Somewhere along the way I've developed an aversion to filing out forms and looking for deals ... I’ve dismissed it as "counting coppers" (Hooray for GOT references!).  I'd much rather be doing... ANYTHING else. Calculating how many air miles I can get if I pay for this with that card, or for that with this one makes me tune out really fast.

I know that it’s an important skill and I suppose I’m in need of a reframe here because I just haven’t been able to get excited about that aspect of travel. 

My secret traveling tool has been to piggy back on the research others have done. That sounds HORRIBLE when said out loud but it’s true! 

I seem to have friends who love doing this type of digging and if we're traveling together I do my best to provide value elsewhere. Praising them for their cleverness, ingenuity and ability to find us a great deal also seems to be appreciated. 

I have no idea where this aversion to deal hunting comes from. I know consciously that I could be traveling more and for less if I just followed a few key steps and yet...

Maybe it's a sense that It's too good to be true that people will give me something for "nothing". If I just fill out this form and get this card and sign up using this code... all of my dreams will come true. 

Likely it's my resistance to being led. I see signing up for these kinds of deals and discounts to be similar to jumping through hoops. I think that there's a deep dark part of me that remembers a past life as a circus tiger or something and those hoops they made me jump through were on fire! 

Regardless, it's this kind of work that I don't like, the small detailed kind of things that really make everything else function.

This is that skill I’ll be working on over the next 6 months... doing things the right way from the start. 

This website was built on the platform it’s been built on because Wordpress seemed too involved at the time and I wanted to launch something right away... honestly, I’ve switched blog formats twice in order to save myself a bit of struggle in the early stages. 

Really, Life Athletics is built on an area that I personally struggle with. I’ve put this all together in an attempt to train myself into this one good habit: practice and preparation. 

Malcolm Gladwell says that the key to becoming great at something is to practice for roughly 10,000 hours. I however have an internal reaction to hearing that that’s more Allen Iverson than I’m comfortable with now that I’m becoming consciously aware of it. 

In my first interview for Life Athletics Stu Turnbull talked about how practice made his success on the court possible. 

Putting in the advanced work made him not only capable of making that shot in those conditions but it made it probable. That's powerful. 

This is not: I think that I’ve seen doing advanced preparation almost like... cheating. As though it was an admission that I wasn’t very good and so I had sneak in extra work to compensate. Not that I don't put in work at the start of things but... I know I could do more.  As I typed that, some faint memory, of being satisfied as a child for understanding what others didn’t at school despite not doing the homework, popped up. 

Even then, however, it was not a sustainable system. I fell behind in school and frustrated my teachers by being the clever kid with potential who didn’t put in the work. 

Is this a stretch as a response to a question about travel hacking? Maybe but since I’m overlaying everything over the more general topic of “life”, I think it works. 

Now, I’m training for two races and an Ultimate Frisbee tournament, building a wordpress site with the help of a friend and focusing on doing things the right way. Hacking Life is after all, just travel hacking extended over a longer period of time. 

Being a minimalist is simple but not easy.

Years ago I backpacked through central america. I didn't have any plans beyond just going. My cut-rate airlines flight changed the destination of my flight to mexico from... I don't really remember.... to Cancun, and it didn't matter. 

I was aiming for simple and that meant that I had to simplify myself as well. I'd looked up ‘travel essentials’ so that I didn't take anything superfluous. My wardrobe was sparse, versatile, utilitarian and yet stylish. I did take a white dress shirt with me, which was a bit luxurious for what I was up to, but they're versatile and can dress up a pair of shorts or jeans pretty quickly should need arise and I had no idea if I’d want to be a little more respectable at some point on the trip.

---

Thinking of that experience and how easy it was to just be unburdened of all the extra stuff I usually have with me, makes me think of a quotation from fight club: "The things you own end up owning you".

The Blog challenge question I’m working with today is “Could you live a minimalist lifestyle?”

I'm unsure about what I want to do next, I really just want to spend my time working on graphic design projects and the Life Athletics site but it’s not making enough money for me to exist off of quite yet and my savings would vanish faster than I’d care to admit.

The contract for my day job is almost done and the thought of leaving this situation is at once exciting and daunting. 

I'm in a very comfortable spot. I like my apartment and my motorcycle. I have accumulated fitness gear that serves me well and I wouldn't want to walk from all of this to put myself in a position where in a few months I’d be scrambling to again situate myself in a place with a regular pay check. 

The dream of living off of Life Athletics is still a little ways away. This is not at all a terrible place in which to find myself but it is not a place of total freedom and carefree fancy. 

Traveling minimally is a wonderful concept but it very much depends on the level of connection you choose to have to a place, to people and to things. 

I’m sentimental and form attachments to mementos. 

A friend of mine once burned all of his old writing, poetry, drawings and photographs in an effort to become free from the past. I was impressed and aghast. 

I’ve stepped away from places, people and stuff in the past, and while that’s led me to where I am now, there have been things I’ve missed. 

Thoughts, projects and ambitions are also difficult to streamline. Wanting it all often leads to having nothing and being a minimalist must also include an elegance of purpose and thinking. 

I’ve often marveled at people who could leave their apartment or home for a vacation and rent it out for a week or more. Everything in it had a purpose and the personal items packed away neatly into a box and were stored somewhere unseen, off site or taken with them.  

Having everything that matters to them be portable or easily secured while their decorations were more replaceable and impressed me as everything around me has a memory attached and would be hard to walk away from. I know I will be doing just that soon and that I’ll be making my life and myself more minimalist once again but It will not be 
easy. 

Four Key Areas to Being Location Independent

I've decided after my last post to stop being so darn stubborn when it comes to this blog challenge. I’ve already fallen far behind and really it serves no purpose other than to make me feel momentarily right about issues that often don’t often matter all that much to me. 

I was resisting the travel aspect to the challenge because of, or despite, the fact that it's been three years since I've been home.. and that visit had only been for a couple of months after six months spent in India.

Being dismissive about the travel aspect is just arrogant of me and I'm not here to try to impress anyone, I'm here to learn, share what I know and to grow. 

Inside of a context of “what skills I need to develop”, I’d say that being open and coachable should top the list. A close second should be getting things completed and shipped. 

With that said, today's challenge follows the travel theme of the blog challenge's third act and I have to say, it's a great question. It's also a question that applies to anyone, traveling or not: "What skills do you need to build or refine to be a happy Suitcase Entrepreneur?"

---

Despite dropping my resistance, I will twist the question to apply not just to being a suitcase entrepreneur but also to my goal of living as a Life Athlete, I believe that they overlap anyway.

Natalie Sisson (THE Suitcase Entrepreneur) listed four attributes that she felt were key to maintaining her productivity on the road.

They are:

Productivity

Staying healthy

Keeping up with clients

Keeping in touch with your network

It's hard to fault the list. I'll adopt it and go over what each one means to me.


"Productivity" is one that I think is great as it's measurable. Often in the past I've take "working a lot" to mean the same thing as being productive but I've recently adopted an axiom that my dad stole from somewhere "Keep shipping”. Seth Godin talks about this too. He cites his prolific nature as the secret of his success. He just keeps going and eventually his content has improved and found an audience. 

I’ve been viewing productivity in terms of what I’ve been able to ship or complete and take off of my desk. Obviously with larger projects this takes longer but the closer I get them to that point, the more productive I’ve been. The caveat has been that sometimes I’ll go in a direction that truly doesn’t work and I have chosen to view those moments not as a waste of time but rather as learning experiences. Still, ranking those lower gets me to not just run in circles thinking I’m learning. It’s better to move projects and ideas forward than to not, inside of my current way of thinking. 

Staying healthy is one that matters to me on a number of levels. The main, and overlooked, key to this is energy. Energy is often seen as this odd term that doesn’t mean much but it is essentially one’s ability to do work. 

No energy, no nothin’. 

Staying healthy isn’t about going to the gym a lot, or eating certain foods, or practicing yoga... at least not exclusively. As I’ve said recently I’m an exhaustion addict and so doing those things can be detrimental to me if I allow myself to OVERdo them. 

Under-doing isn’t any better. Laying around sleeping won’t make you more energetic unless you’re also building capacity by pushing yourself and allowing recovery. The food we eat, when viewed as an energy source also makes a difference. Are we looking for short term, medium term or long term effects from our food? Chocolate, or french fries might make us feel good in the short term but those feelings don’t tend to last. Choosing to push only as much as I need to in order to grow and then finding foods that fuel me in three-four hour bursts and also provide a good base for longevity is key for me. 

Also naps or meditation often allow me to recover and prepare me for bursts of effort and have been things I’ve been putting in place lately. 

Another aspect of health is this. When my body feels badly, the rest of me does too. I find it difficult to maintain a positive, balanced and patient mental outlook when I’m tired, worn down or hungry. I often joke that I can handle ANYTHING when I’m fed and rested and lament how rarely I find myself in those states. And there’s the rub. These are states which have to be managed. They don’t usually happen by accident. 

Keeping up with clients is obviously an important aspect of having a business, whether you’re running it from the road or not. 

The trap I fall into is wanting to have all of my correspondences be brilliant and insightful and so I have been known to put off responding until that mythical moment where I have “more time”.  

Practicing forgiveness has been the key to getting over that worry; and from there focusing on conveying the most important message.

Keeping in touch with my network is another one that often is sacrificed to the beast called “being more productive”.  Attempting to fill every free moment with work hasn’t proven to be very effective and yet it’s the default I fall into if I’m not careful. I’m clearly at my best when I work in controlled and predetermined chunks of time separated by activities that refill that focus on joy and refill the batteries... and yet I constantly find myself just trying to plough through projects. Not only does that rarely work but it also leads to me not being overly communicative with my networks as I’m burnt out by that point. Being more aware of these patterns has allowed me to choose more effective options. 

For my money the most important of all of these ... the one without which the others could not function ... is energy.  

When I manage my energy, everything else falls into place. In general I know what to do most of the time and yet when I’m drained, choosing the right actions rarely happens. On the other hand, when I manage my energy, all of the things I’ve filled my head with over the last 10-15 years come to the surface and everything becomes that much easier. 

Success: Knowing what to do is half the battle, then just do it.

Never is it so clear that success is the natural outcome of “right action” than when I’m not taking those actions. After hurting my neck last week, I stopped all forms of, training, no weights, no yoga, no biking, running etc. I also stopped sleeping well, my emotions went a little wonky, I had a falling out with someone close to me, I stopped journalling as it hurt to sit, I stopped posting here because it hurt to sit and I was feeling badly about the falling out and a week later I’m amazed at how quickly things can snowball. 

The ship can be righted. I went on a bike ride to a beautiful park with a great wooded workout area last night. I ran a little, did a few pull ups and just got my body moving again. The night before I’d had dinner with a buddy of mine and we started talking about this idea. The idea that despite knowing what we have to do in order to maintain ourselves as the people we want to be, it’s easy to slip into a routine where these elements are not included.

He’s been visiting Korea for about a month. When he arrived, he’d been meditating, training, doing breathing exercises he’d learned in a recent trip to India for an hour a day. Now, he had stopped doing those things and didn’t really remember stopping. We know hat we have to do, but we haven’t been doing it.

Like G.I. Joe said, “knowing is half the battle”, with the other half covered by Nike’s slogan “just do it”. 

---

We both agreed to take action and mine was to make a list of the things that I do that build me up, recover energy, heal the body and emotions, on a daily basis. I won’t do them all every day but as long as I’m hitting some daily and rotate through them, I find that I’m pretty golden. 

The blog challenge has veered into territory where I’ve quite honestly felt like dismissing it.  It’s not that there’s no value to it but it’s not the value I feel like I need right now. That said, “a doctor who treats himself has a fool for a patient” and I’m guessing that the same can be said for a few other disciplines. 

Because the blog challenge is through the Suitcase Entrepreneur it is designed to train us to be suitcase entrepreneurs ourselves. 

The question of the day is this:

What are your travel essentials for your chosen destination(s) ?

The blog challenge has been excellent so far and while this question isn't a bad one, it's more geared towards a specific goal than I'd like as that goal isn't exactly one I have for myself at the moment. I’ve traveled and feel comfortable doing that, what I want is to become financially free to do that on a regular basis. 

It's a danger of naming yourself... it narrows your field. Naming both creates and eliminates possibilities. Creating a niche is an important thing in terms of marketing yourself but it can also be tough as you essentially now have to push forward a certain concept.

With the Suitcase Entrepreneur I see this playing out by the need to emphasize the "suitcase" as much as the entrepreneur.

Lulu Lemon Athletica suffers from the "athletica" part, as their street line is explained as being for "to and from the gym" as opposed to just clothing for an active life.  Some of it is great, but I think that many of their pieces would be better if they were straight shirts for example rather than something built for a sport. Because they’re a sporting line however, shirts have multi coloured panels or pockets for golf tees or other design features that I personally don’t need or want. 

Life Athletics might suffer from the same problem. Many people see the "Athletics" part of the name and think that this is a site about health and fitness exclusively, or think that it's just for jocks, and that's simply not the case.

I’ve thought of renaming it but I like the name and others seem to as well.  

Other variations sound a little too "self helpy" and that was something I wanted to avoid. "Life Training", "Life Building" and so on, gave me a feeling of drudgery or the need to fix something that I didn't get from the name "Life Athletics". 

The problem remains that it evokes images of gym classes, sweat, scraped knees, being picked last and other unfortunate connections to possibly bad memories for some. 

All I can hope is that Life Athletes are able to get past whatever mental blocks they might have and embrace the idea that "training" just means doing something repeatedly that is designed to help you improve in a given skill, attribute or task, and that this can be a fun thing.

That said... I suppose that I’ll be pushing an athletic element in any future challenges I do and I do love travel so... I’ll stop resisting and answer the question. 

It’s actually kind of tough to answer this simply as there are so many places I want to go to BUT at the moment, my main desire would be to go somewhere tropical where I could SCUBA dive, swim, sail and maybe finally learn to surf. A place with a good internet connection would be ideal so that I could work on the site in the evenings. 

What I’d need to bring, beach clothes, my gymnastics rings, (cabins usually have GREAT beams to hang rings and all of a sudden pullups, dips, rows and pushups become a lot more fun. Throw in squats, the occasional sprint session on the beach and some stretching and ... well you know what I’d like to be doing now.), I’d also take my ebook reader and some note books. 

From my answer, I see that the daily routines that make me healthy, happy and productive are second nature to me while I travel and I see them as additional tasks while at home. Okay, okay... the travel angle was beneficial after all ;) 

We’re back, game on!

I've been MIA for a few days and when I saw the title of the blog post my mind went in one direction but when I saw the actual question, it went in another. I’ll address both here. 

The title of today’s challenge is: “The Key Qualities and Characteristics you Will Need to be a Suitcase Entrepreneur”

As I see it, the qualities and characteristics needed to be a Suitcase Entrepreneur are similar to those needed to be a Life Athlete.

Once you choose the life you want, it's a matter of going for it, and making it work. No matter what you call it, it’s an inspiring level of existence. 

There are lots of excuses for why I’ve fallen behind with the posts.  I’ve had visitors for the last couple of weekends, I've had good times with friends as well as some bad times that took a lot out of me, I've completed or nearly completed four graphic design projects (for an event and a couple of blogging friends... all will be unveiled soon!), and I pulled a muscle in my neck making impossible to turn my head to the left.

I allowed all of these things to slow me down a bit and wear me out BUT they're not why I haven't posted in a few days. I haven't posted because I’ve got a twist in me that needs to be kneaded out that I’m going to call myself out on. 

---

I like to be a frontrunner, I like to be in the lead. I don't like to feel like I'm in a position where I'm behind at all to the point that I’ve quit when I’ve fallen back in the past. It wasn’t conscious or obvious to me but that’s what’s up. 

Perhaps it's because I was the youngest (but the tallest) kid in my class growing up but I have a distaste for feeling like I'm behind at things. 

It doesn’t really matter where it’s come from unless that’s my access to releasing it; What matters is the impact it’s had. 

It's caused me to hold back from starting some new things until I felt comfortable that I could excel right away and it's made it so that if I've tripped and stumbled I've sometimes just given up.

I saw the same thing in my brother and sister when they were young (they’re 13 and 15 years younger than me) and visiting me in Montreal.  I was able to clip it in them during a bike ride up Mount Royal in which they had wanted to quit. After a a talk that rallied them, they made it to the top now remember it as a triumphant moment in their lives. I didn't see that I had the same thing in myself and didn't make the same intervention. I've of course made it through lots of tough things in my life without quitting but that doesn't mean that this isn't still a pattern at work in me. 

I started this blog challenge 12 hours later than I'd intended due to the time of the first posting and the time difference where I am in the world.  I had waited to see what the first post would be but I didn't see it before it was time to go to sleep and so I saw it in the morning my time. I posted a response and that evening there was a prompt for the one for the next day. I was already on the edge of falling behind. 

My window to be productive in my personal pursuits isn't huge and so if I don't fiercely protect it, it’s easy to find myself behind in my projects and there's really never a good time to catch up.
It can feel overwhelming to see all of the things I’ve agreed to do on top of the things I’ve promised myself. Sacrificing sleep is the easy solution to finding more time I’ve fallen to in the past but as Admiral Ackbar said “It’s a trap!”

It’s one I’ve fallen into often, staying up until 4am working on projects and then waking up a few hours later to start working again, while trying to also workout, be social and go to my day job just kills my ability to really shine. 

Working smarter instead of harder is the key. Managing my energy allows me to be far more productive than when I’m exhausted. It’s one of those easier said than done things for me. 

If I was to say what my main opportunity for improvement is, what key characteristic or attribute would make the biggest difference in my pursuit to be a Life Athlete, it would be being unstoppable.

The funny thing is that this often means that I must stop so I can recover my energy and not fall into exhaustion. 

The combination of maintaining my energy and being unstoppable in terms of my production are they areas that I’m training currently. 

I've already talked in a previous post about how we're only as strong as the thing that stops us. Letting a few delays stop me sets my bar a little lower than I know I'm capable of.

Even worse, fear of looking bad by posting late is also not a reason to stop. People give in to their excuses all the time. Being abel to brush them off and take action, even if it's slightly delayed, is a triumph.

Wanting things to be perfect, immediately and with the fewest hangups possible is normal. I'm aiming a little higher and so here I am, a little late but standing before my readers to say that I will not stop, you will have a system you can use and count on in Life Athletics, and I'm going to have fun as I go.

Now, to answer the actual question... “What’s your level of location independence and your nomadic quotient?”

I have been to twenty countries and have livd outside of my own more than I've lived in it over the last 8years. That said, I've now lived in the same country for nearly three years and I've only been out on vacation once. 

What my nomadic quotient looks like is this, I'd like to have a home, a base of operations with a big soft bed, a good home gym and a fantastic kitchen. It doesn't have to be huge or showy, just well located and comfortable with a good internet connection.

The main difference to my vision and what I have currently is that I’d like to be in a place I can see myself living in for the next 10-20 years. 

With that in place, and income coming from an online business, I'd like to do courses around the world or participate in initiatives globally that inspire me. Ideally this would be on a three months at home and one month away, loop.

I'm a firm believer of building a life you don't need a vacation from but I'm also a huge proponent of travel and growth opportunities and I see this as an ideal set-up to balance those two aims.

Everyone stumbles but getting up, laughing and continuing on your way is whatLife Athletics is all about. This is just a game, and so I choose to enjoy and keep playing! Game on!

Jamming the switch in the “on” position.

“If you chose to live anywhere in the world, where would that be and why?”

We've entered Act 3 of the Suitcase Entrepreneur's blog challenge which is ostensibly about being homeless, or nomadic, or free to wander the earth as we see fit. The realization that I'm hit with as I ponder where in the world I'd like to live is that I've felt homeless for quite some time now. I have an apartment... but I don't consider it a home. I'm living in a loft in Busan South Korea. By the standards of most of my expat peers, it's a nice place. Roomier than most and only a short walk from the beach. It's a fine place, but it's not where I want to settle and I've known that for a while.

In fact, I've known that about every place I've been for quite some time now. 

---

It's easy for me to imagine where I want to be, because that's really where I've lived for a long time now. Existing inside of my imagination has laid out a pretty clear path and now I'm ready to take steps. 

It's very possible that I could have started with the stepping much earlier but sometimes it takes going through the journey to realize that we had everything we needed at the start.

Dorothy had to travel through Oz before she knew to click her heels and I've had to go through what I've gone through.

Entering into situations that I thought of from the start as temporary means that I've treated everything associated with them in the same manner. I haven't put down roots because I've been preparing to leave most places as soon as I arrive. I've been in my current apartment for almost two years but it's still decorated in such a way that I could walk away from it pretty easily. My couches and furniture were gifts or purchased on the cheap second hand while I dream of a time when I can start putting together a home "for real".  I dream of quality pieces that create a layered and textured aesthetic that conveys comfort, quality and style. I do this while living like a slightly well heeled college student.

There's nothing wrong with my life other than that in some areas it's not the one I've wanted and so elements have been neglected while I wait for my real life to start.

It's been my silent belief that I would suddenly “turn it on” when it counted but if now doesn't matter now, why would it matter later?

Dave Smart has had unprecedented success as the head coach of the Carleton Raven's Men's Basketball team. During the two seasons in which I covered the team, I believe that they were undefeated through the regular season and in the second year, through the playoffs. Iv'e only seen them lose one game.

Many of the other teams that they play are nowhere near their level and sometimes this leads to lopsided scores.

Regardless of the competition though, the Ravens always seem to play as thought they were down by five points with less than a minute on the clock.

They've been looked down on for this with critics accusing them of bullying lesser teams. Dave brushed those sentiments aside and simply stuck to his assertion that they were just respecting the game and trying to play the right way. 

He knew that there would be better teams to play against and if they ever played down to a lesser opponent they would be setting themselves up for defeat down the road. "It's not a switch you can turn on and off" he once told me about the intensity needed to be great.

From the point of view of that metaphor I've been stuck in the "off" position and ignoring Dave Smart’s sage advice believing that I could switch it on later.

The dream? I want to live somewhere inspiring and comfortable. In my mind that could be Barcelona or Montreal but I’m not limiting it to either of those places. They just represent some things that I like. 

I’ve lived in Montreal while I’ve never lived in Barcelona but both exist in my mind as charming places with good food, art, and culture. They are their own places but also having access to international airports so I could visit family or go on adventures easily.  

I also like the people I know from these places and if I were to have kids, something I do want in my life, I’d want to be somewhere that produces good people. Whether it takes a village or not, I think that the surroundings sure play a large role in raising a kid. 

Another place I haven’t been to plays heavily in the fantasy. I’d vacation in Bali often and partake of yoga, sailing, scuba diving, hammock napping, great food and Ninja Camp. 

All that said, I rode my motorcycle home along the coast and stopped to eat at a Japanese restaurant on the beach. I wrote half of this post while waiting for my grilled tuna... "here" is good when I let go of frantically trying to get "there". 

The challenge will be being who I think I’ll be in those places, when all of those elements are set up, now.  

I’m taking a breath and flipping the switch.