You’ve been training your entire life for today.
Every single decision you’ve ever made has led you to where you are right now.
Your bank account is the grand total of all the times you’ve earned money and purchased something.
Your body is the grand total of all the times you did (or didn’t) work out or eat well.
Your relationships are the grand total of all the conversations and experiences you’ve had with others.
Remember your training.
Here are all the drugs I’ve ever done:
•Adderall
•Alcohol
•Caffeine
•Cocaine
•Ecstasy
•LSD
•MDMA
•Nicotine
•Nitrous Oxide
•Oxycodone
•Psilocybin
•“Shroom” pills
•THC
•Vyvanse
My favorite?
Clean health.
I’ve had amazing and god-awful times doing each one of these. The one drug which has never failed me has been when I’ve been clean, well-rested, and fit.
You might be rolling your eyes right now. That’s okay.
Getting a full-night’s sleep. Exercising regularly. Eating well.
All of these combine to create a high that is sustainable–which leads to incredible results.
Clean health is a drug I feel safe prescribing anyone. Try it.
“The best investment: investing in yourself.”
Cheesy. Self-helpy. But true.
Outside of the stock market, I have made–and continue to make–a number of investments which make my life easier, more enjoyable, and more fulfilling.
I have also made investments which have proved to have terrible ROI.
Here they are:
My mom let me live with her for free while I got my shit together. For that, I am eternally grateful; but having this new place to pay for has given me two things: the freedom to live an adult life, and the hunger to work well and increase my income.
Supplements are tricky. It’s hard to accurately pinpoint their benefits. It’s not as if I feel awful when I don’t take my nutrient shake. But even if it’s just a placebo, I feel mentally and physically strong knowing that I have all the essential nutrients and vitamins in my system at all times.
Moving into this new apartment, my roommate and I arranged that I would take the den and turn it into my own space for work and productivity. Separating this from my room has done wonders for my ability to focus and pursue deep work.
With the combination of my weightlifting gym and martial arts gym, I make sure to get consistent and well-rounded exercise. Aside from the physical benefits, practicing Brazilian jiujitsu has thoroughly changed my life. Increased confidence, a sense of family, an ability to defend myself…these are all priceless.
Although I have a massive amount of debt for a degree I do not have, I do not regret going to college. What I regret–and lament–is making $20,000 decisions at the age of 18. I was a child, and I went to college because that’s what you do. Not because I had a goal or a plan. Just go and see what happens. Well, what happened was it didn’t work (for me). And now I am indebted to the young fool that I was.
This has been one of the toughest realizations for me. Not all of our friends are helping us cultivate a happy and healthy life. This is incredibly sad, but totally natural. Identifying those who don’t make your forcefield stronger is one of the best things you can do for your wellbeing. I’ve spent an unfortunate amount of hours caring for and mending relationships with people when I should’ve just cut the cord.
What investments are you making that give you a great ROI?
What investments are you making that give you diminishing returns?
Bro-Science tip of the day:
Subtract one hour from the amount of sleep you think you got.
After using the SleepCycle app almost every night for three years, I can support this claim with consistent evidence.
The app tracks your time spent in deep and shallow sleep and gives you incredibly useful data: sleep quality, time in bed, time spent asleep, etc.
One of the most shocking discrepancies I notice each night is that my “Time asleep” is always an hour (or an hour and a half) less than my “Time in bed.”
This makes sense. Not only does it take us a while to actually fall asleep, but once we do, we inevitably toss and turn and half-wake up in the middle of the night or in the morning.
When you think you’ve gotten 8 hours, you’ve really gotten 7. Don’t rely on when you think you went to bed and when you think you woke up. These are rarely accurate.
For me, this was a hard pill to swallow. I had to accept the fact that I needed to start going to bed even earlier if I wanted to achieve the amount of hours of sleep I desired.
Last night, I “went to bed” at 9:42pm. I “woke up” today at 6:45am.
Time in bed: 9 hours, 3 minutes
Time asleep: 7 hours, 56 minutes
Get some sleep.
14/30 – Give your top 5 pieces of life advice:
As much as we complained about it at the time, my friends and I reveled in the underground nature of underage shenanigans. Young, dumb high schoolers waiting in the backseat of a car while one of their older brothers grabbed a 30 pack of cheap beer and a bottle of even cheaper vodka. There was also the giddy anticipation of knowing we would be picking up a few grams of weed hours later. What kind? Who the hell knew at that time. OG Cali Kush, Purple Stank, Eastern Lights, Banana Peel…It could’ve been sticky oregano and I wouldn’t have noticed.
We were terrified about getting caught. It was taboo to be pursuing such shady endeavors. Meanwhile, the idea of having a few drinks and smoking some weed now, evokes no anxiety in me whatsoever.
For years I’ve contemplated the back-firing nature of prohibition; literally saying “you cannot do this thing.” Not only do humans–particularly Americans–not enjoy being told we can’t do something; evidence shows us that the amount of stress and restrictions we put on something directly correlates with the levels to which we abuse it.
I must preface this by saying I have immense respect for drugs and violence and their power. They lead to incredible experiences. They also destroy lives. This post is not aimed at getting people to do more drugs, to have more sex, or to be less responsible. My aim is to criticize the nature of the prohibition mindset. I find it to not only be delusional, but damaging as well.
Here’s what comes to mind:
Sex:
I pity the middle school teacher assigned to teach sex education to pubescent preteens. It just seems like a losing battle. I would apologize to mine if I could.
“What’s the safest form of birth-control? Abstinence.”
Fuck off.
I love Daryl’s response from The Office:
“Oh, I didn’t know we were asking trick questions. What’s the safest form of skiing? Don’t ski.”
It makes sense to hear this in a Catholic school, but public middle and high schools preaching abstinence seems ridiculous to me. Horny and confused teenagers are going to have sex. Plain and simple. Given that fact, shouldn’t the goal be to provide as much education about safe sex, pregnancy, and what love and sex actually mean…as possible?
A difficult game as well, but telling kids “don’t have sex,” and then being horrified when they do…something’s gotta give.
Bullying:
I was bullied when I was younger. I bullied when I was younger. It’s a terrible thing. Young, insecure boys typically want to express their physical dominance over others. Young, insecure girls typically want to emotionally scar others to make themselves look or feel better. Chaos.
Years of maturity, growing respect, and patience seemed to ween these problems out. What didn’t solve the problem? “Don’t bully.”
Of course something like physical violence or verbal abuse should be mitigated, but they are inevitable. What if, instead of demanding that confused, hormonal, angsty kids not bully, we taught them the fundamentals of defending themselves?
Naturally, I am biased toward martial arts. They are so effective not only in producing the skills needed to not get one’s ass kicked; but they also promote discipline, respect for self and others, camaraderie, and most importantly, a deep appreciation for the consequences of violence. People who know more about real fighting are actually much less likely to use that knowledge.
A little boy is being picked on in a group of other kids. He is being insulted. He is being threatened. He is being belittled. He is confused. He is scared. Tell that boy to “just walk away and tell someone.” That simply doesn’t work. I’ve been that little boy.
Drugs/Alcohol:
Most people know about the drug abuse problem Portugal had for many decades. In the early 2000s, they decriminalized the possession and consumption of all elicit substances. Shortly after, their opioid crisis stabilized, their levels of drug use dramatically dropped, and their HIV/Hepatitis infection rates, overdose deaths, drug-related crime, and incarceration rates all plummeted.
Obviously, the US and Portugal are different countries. But this is a clearcut example of how shifting norms can vehemently alter results.
When I lived in Germany for a year, I got to experience a totally different perspective on drinking alcohol. There, kids at 14 (with their parents close by) can have a beer or a glass of wine with dinner if they so please. They can typically drink beer and wine casually by 16. The drinking age is 18, and the years leading up to the legal age are those of openness and exposure. Drinking simply isn’t a big deal, and therefore is not abused nearly as often. Getting wasted in Germany is seen as embarrassing. Here, it’s a story.
“Dude. Last night, I got so trashed.”
“Lol that’s fucking awesome.”
What? You drank alcohol and got drunk off it? That’s crazy.
So dumb.
I’m willing to bet we all felt a similar drop off once we turned 21 and could legally walk into a liquor store or bar and order a drink. When something is taboo or underground, as mentioned in the beginning, it’s just more fun. It feels dangerous, scandalous…and whether we admit it or not, it adds to the experience.
And finally, Prostitution:
Oh boy. I’m sure someone who is better educated on this industry would kill me in a debate. But hey, I’m just a guy with a keyboard…
Since people who are lonely will pay money for sex regardless, wouldn’t it make more sense to regulate the market? Most brothels (thanks Game of Thrones) are cesspools for STDs, hardcore drugs, and shady transactions. What if the girls were tested? What if they were given benefits? What if we could ensure that these areas were clean and safe?
To sum everything up:
People are going to partake in possibly dangerous and harmful activities no matter what. It makes more sense to foster education, safety, and acceptance…rather than prohibition, shame, and punishment.
The power of the internet has done wonders for our ability to communicate and learn new things. With these superpowers comes a great deal of darkness, however. Here are two things to keep in mind as you scroll:
• FaceBook, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, etc…These are companies. Crazy wealthy businesses which have to make a profit. Their service is not the product. You are the product. They are selling your attention to advertisers and other third party entities.
• Each one of these wealthy companies spends a boat-load of money paying professionals whose sole job is to find ways to get you to spend as much time as possible on their site/app. Addicted to your phone or checking social media? That’s on purpose. Algorithms and database formulas are not designed to optimize for your wellbeing; they are designed to hold your attention for as long as possible. Why do we often see so much drama and conflict on Facebook? Well, conflict catches and holds our attention, and the algorithm is designed for that, which means it steers us toward conflict because we are more likely to read through the comments or even jump into them ourselves.
I love the internet. I believe it is as beautiful or as evil as we allow it to be. But it is vital that we know exactly what is going on behind the curtain. There’s a reason most people working at these companies don’t allow their kids to create accounts…
I can’t recommend jiu jitsu enough to people. Martial arts in general are fantastic for the mind, body, and soul; but here are the specific benefits of doing jiu jitsu which I have experienced in a short time:
• Your size, athleticism, gender, race, intelligence…do no matter. Each and every person starts at zero. If a 5 ft girl has been practicing for a year, and a 6 ft male football player just started, she beats him 100% of the time. The only way to get better is by putting in the time and effort.
• It is a perfectly visible, tangible, real-time example of the learning process.
• The guys and gals you roll with become your brothers and sisters. I’ve found that intense struggle and learning are Gorilla Glue for relationships. You learn from, teach, and try to kill those you share the mat with. They try to kill you too, and when you’re an inch away from death, you tap their shoulder, they let you go, and you do it all over again.
Look up local jiu jitsu gyms in your area. It’s scary and overwhelming and intimidating at first, but it will most likely be one of the greatest decisions you’ll ever make.
“Process makes millionaires, and the events you see and hear are the results of that process.”
MJ DeMarco
It took me years to step out of my victim mentality in terms of all the things which weren’t going well for me in life. Everything changed when I realized:
• I’m not out of shape; I just have a poor fitness and eating system.
• I’m not lazy; I just have a poor productivity and management system.
• I’m not poor; I just have a poor money system.
There are certainly people with deeply-rooted issues which better habits won’t fix, but for the vast majority of us, our lives are a result of the strength of our processes.
From James Clear:
You don’t need to clean your room. You need good cleanliness habits so your room will always be clean.
You don’t need more money. You need better money habits so you’ll always have plenty in your bank account.
You don’t need to ‘get in shape.’ You need better health habits so you are constantly fit.
Your bank account, your body, your life…how it looks right now is simply the result of each and every decision you’ve ever made.
If your best friend becomes obese, you’re 57% more likely to do the same.
That’s insane.
It hasn’t been easy, but I attribute much of my success in the past few years to two things:
“In time, you begin to think, act, and even look a little like those you hang out with. But not only do their attitudes and health habits influence you, their relative success does too. If the people you spend your time with are high achievers, their achievements can influence your own.”
Good sleep is absolutely essential to a happy and healthy life. It affects energy, eating habits, endurance, focus, recovery, memory, and overall brain power. Why the hell would we sacrifice it?
Well, for fun, obviously. It’s more fun to say yes to staying up late with friends than it is to leave at 10 pm and go to bed.
Many people also feel that gaining more hours in their day adds to their productivity.
Surely sacrificing sleep every once in a while is excusable, but for many of us, it’s a habit; and such sacrifices actually do the opposite of what we hope for.
I woke up this morning at 4 am. Not on purpose. When I wake up it’s nearly impossible for me to go back to sleep. With 3 extra hours in my morning, I would be able to get so much more done, right? Wrong, Sally (or whatever your name is who’s reading).
My morning routine took an hour and 45 minutes as opposed to the usual 45 minutes. I couldn’t keep my focus on anything for more than 60 seconds. My mind would wander and no matter how captivating whatever I was reading or writing was, I inevitably found myself daydreaming about going back to bed.
Something similar happens when I have late nights with friends. Don’t get me wrong; I love them…on occasion. Having beautiful conversations, doing drugs, and drinking beers with my peoples until the sun rises are some of my fondest memories. However, if it happens every weekend, I feel the costs outweigh the benefits.
4 am euphoria leads to 11 am misery–or whenever the crash hits. A truly glorious morning evolves into pleas for death, and vows that I will never do that again.
Every decision is a tradeoff. We typically think about trading good sleep and a comfortable tomorrow for a long, fun evening tonight. But what if we considered other tradeoffs?
What if we sacrificed tonight’s hours for: making an early breakfast in the morning; going hiking when we wake up, or any other combination of plans you’d rather be alive and energetic for the day after?
We’re all human. It’s unreasonable to ask everyone to get great sleep every night…but if we only sacrificed it on rare occasions, we’d be shocked to see that it actually makes us more connected, more productive, and more willing to be adventurous.
Get some Zs.
Yesterday, I prepared a picnic with two of my close friends. We sat out at a local nature park.
It was gorgeous. There were barely any clouds and we sat next to a pond which mirrored the sky and surrounding forrest.
Humans have collectively spent much more time outside than they have inside (over the span of tens of thousands of years). Air conditioning is cool (get it?), but going outside is a natural (get it?) therapeutic.
Go outside.
I certainly can’t provide an accurate formula for how one rids toxic people from their life. I’ve written about it in the past, but cutting someone out of your life is an incredibly uncomfortable and confusing process.
What I can touch on with more clarity is: the importance of surrounding yourself with friends you admire and people who contribute to your growth as a human being.
I firmly believe that in some way, shape, or form, you should be inspired by your friends. That’s not to say that every single one of them has to have the exact same values as you do; but if they’re not encouraging you to give fire to your own values, this should give you pause.
It can sound incredibly cheesy (especially for a guy [but I think those standards are eroding]), but I want a friend in my tribe:
• to laugh and make me laugh
• who is interested in the world
• who cares about their own improvement
• to give me feedback and hold my feet to the fire
• to help me and ask for my help
• with whom we can share our fears, struggles, and appreciation without judgment
This list makes me sound like a needy bitch, but I’ve been lucky to accumulate a tribe over the years which meets these standards. I live a healthy and fulfilling life and I have my tribe to thank for that.
We all have embarrassing memories which come to us unannounced; making us visibly and audibly cringe.
But right now, try to vividly remember embarrassing moments other people have had…It’s much harder.
No one thinks about you and your mistakes more than you do. Ease up.
You will be tricked into thinking it’s a good idea if you:
• Go to the grocery store when you’re hungry
• Make life decisions when you’re angry or depressed
• Don’t take action when you’re unconfident
• Turn on Netflix when you don’t even know what you want to watch
• Grab your phone for no apparent reason
• Text them when you’re horny
Just don’t do it.
Last night, I invited several friends to a morning video chat. Half of them said that they would not even be awake until 1 or 2 pm.
I am not one to judge how someone lives their life, but this is clearly not optimal.
If your sleep schedule is fucked up due to this quarantine (or just in general), there are two options to get it back on track:
1) Quick and uncomfortable: Start waking up an hour or two hours earlier each day. You will be exhausted during the day—which will not be fun—but you will look forward to going to bed earlier as well. It will take a few days, and severe discipline; but this is the quickest way to get a stronger sleep schedule.
2) Slow and painless: Each day, wake up 15 to 30 minutes earlier than you did the previous day. This is self-explanatory; it’s the same process as option 1 but at a more gradual rate.
It is difficult to talk about people’s sleep schedules without sounding condescending, but there is a ton of science (science.real) which states that waking up earlier (and not in the middle of the fucking day) leads to increased productivity and happiness overall. Wake up! (Grab a brush and put a little makeup).
With all this free time, it’s vital that you maintain structure in your days to avoid falling off the rails.
However, this is also a great opportunity to explore creative projects. Fuck it.
Write poetry or short stories. Record your thoughts for ten minutes. Start reading that book that’s been collecting dust on your nightstand. There are no wrong choices. Just pick something and do it.
Your friend calls you today and asks for a list of your best tips and advices on how to stay sane during this quarantine.
You compile your list and email it to her. You look closely at the list.
How well are you following your own advice?
”Wisdom is nothing more profound than the ability to follow one’s own advice.”
-Sam Harris
My good friend—and most recent podcast guest—Colin Smith, along with his partner Chris Varano, run a blog in which they peruse through simple and effective methods for one to live a more optimal life.
With Colin studying psychology and Eastern philosophy, and Chris working in the medical field…the two combine their technical and spiritual perspectives for how we can improve our mental, physical, and emotional wellbeing.
I imagine we will be doing several more collaborations in the future.
Check out their incredibly important work here: MindHive.Online
I’ve said it before, but it’s one of the most important attributes you can develop.
We all have feelings. Everyone experiences a fluctuation of emotion. That’s okay.
But we’re fucking psychos. If we’re constantly letting our thoughts and emotions dictate our lives, reality gets fuzzy and we can end up in a place we didn’t have to be.
No one is thinking about what you’re doing more than you are.
No one is judging you harder than you are.
People don’t want you to fail as much as you think.
No one is a master of all and we’re all terrified.
You’re not a genius, but you’re not a dummy either…Be a student each day and try your damn best and eventually you’ll get to where you need to go.
One of the toughest truths to realize in terms of living a disciplined and organized life is this:
You don’t get to take days off.
You show up to work everyday. It’s not like you exercise regularly for a year, and then you’re just in shape for the rest of your life. It has to be maintained.
We don’t clean our rooms and have that be the end of it. We do little things to make sure it’s tidy each and every day.
I suppose you could take a day off…but that just makes it ten times harder to get back on the horse the following day.
We spend an average of three and a half hours staring at our phones each day. That’s fucking crazy.
It may seem trivial, but cleaning up and organizing our phones can be incredibly useful. I see it as one small movement which over a long period of time makes for a smoother day to day.
Here’s a great video on trimming up your phone.
Our time is limited here. Hug your family. Relax with your friends. Tell everyone you care about that you love them.
R.I.P. Kobe.
Sleep is quite possibly the best medicine on account of how cheap it is and how many scalable benefits it provides. Yet many of us fail to prioritize it.
Aside from ensuring we get 7-9 hours and go to bed and wake up at the same time everyday…Something else which drastically helps our happiness, discipline, and energy is not hitting the snooze button.
We go in and out of sleep cycles which last an hour to an hour and a half. Getting nine more minutes—even thirty more minutes of sleep, doesn’t help us. It actually does some damage. This is why we rarely feel well-rested after a few taps on our phone. We’re just prolonging the inevitable.
My advice sounds crazy: Just jump right up and start your day. You’ll be tired, often exhausted…but it truly is a habit you can develop. It helps if you get your brain working almost immediately. After drinking a full glass of cold water to hydrate, do some reading or writing to let your brain know, “we’re working today.”
Also, download the free app SleepCycle. I’ve been using it for years and it ensures you wake up at the lightest level of sleep during whichever cycle you’re in.
Matthew Walker also has a phenomenal book on the intricacies of sleep called Why We Sleep.
My least favorite quality in a person is hurting other people because you yourself are hurt.
I think passive aggression is a root of evil. It’s typically a sign of someone not having control of their own thoughts or emotions.
It’s fun to hurt others when we feel down. We believe it’ll make us feel better. But it never does anyone any good. It causes a wake of damage and erodes relationships, bit by bit.
Be kind to others, even when they’re wrong. This is a difficult task, but so rewarding.
I’m finally getting over being incredibly sick since three days ago. I suppose that’s offensive to anyone with a real sickness or disease…But I felt truly debilitated. I’m always like that when I’m ill or hungover…useless. I regress into a child-like state and need to be taken care of because it hurts to stand up, read, talk, and think.
I know having a bad cold isn’t a traumatic event for most people, but it makes me violently insecure because I’m unable to do any of the productive things which give my life meaning: BJJ, exercise, read, podcast, write, have conversations with friends…Life consists of highs and lows, and these moments always bring me back down.
BUT! This morning is the first morning since it began where I don’t want to blow my brains out (figuratively). After going through a low, I find it helps to identify it as a low, remind yourself that you won’t feel this way forever, and get back on the horse. It’ll be a rough and sluggish start, but you’ll start moving forward in some way, shape, or form. You just have to do it on purpose. Live your life on purpose.
Using your phone Notes, or a physical journal, you should track your dreams.
Not only will this increase the likelihood of lucid dreaming, but you’ll also wake up remembering your dreams at a much higher rate.
Plus, it’s so much fun to read a short snippet of a dream you had and be reminded of it entirely.
I did a podcast this week about why we struggle living a disciplined life [#19 – Why You Can’t Stay Disciplined].
In a nutshell:
1) We’re impatient. We want results and progress immediately and get discouraged when we work hard and nothing happens…but it will if we keep going.
2) We sacrifice long-term satisfaction for short-term pleasure, instead of the opposite.
Obviously there are people with real depression who require medication to make their lives tolerable. This is an unpopular opinion, but I think most of the “depression” in this country is simply due to people not pursuing the things they’re interested in and not training their minds.
Most of our unhappiness and dissatisfaction could be solved by doing these things:
• Find things you love to do which are difficult, do them all the time, and get better at them.
• Meditate. Recognize thoughts as thoughts. Don’t push away negative thoughts. Be open to them and realize that they simply appear.
• Exercise. Fucking exercise. You just have to. Do something. 3-5 times a week. You can come up with as many excuses as to why you can’t, but your blood sugar and your beer-belly don’t care about your feelings.
• Stop talking and start doing. Taking action is the best way to increase confidence and ability.
• Laugh more. Spend time with the people you love. One day, they’ll all be dead.
You don’t have “seasonal depression,” you’re just not living a fulfilling life…and you happen to be cold at the same time.
As our lives slowly unfold, the relationships we have evolve as well as everything else. This makes sense because we are constantly changing: our bodies, our minds, our values, our actions…
One of the most vital choices you make for yourself and the wellbeing of your present and future self…is the people who surround you. You may eventually discover that your best friend is actually dragging you down, or someone close to you isn’t doing anything to support you.
Avoid people whom:
• are constantly complaining about the things they can’t control.
• show no interest in learning about the world, improving themselves, or having deep conversation.
• are mean (i.e. shit on people for the sole purpose of hurting them, or even worse, hate something about themselves and attack others in order to feel better).
• glorify laziness (e.g. “I woke up at 2pm, ate a bunch of garbage, played a shit ton of video games…it was lovely!” Everyone needs a cheat day, but living your life like this isn’t cool or laid back, it’s lazy and foolish).
• come up with excuses as to why they aren’t as successful as they could be.
• don’t challenge you in some way to be better.
Do your friends have any of the qualities? Let me know.
PS. There’s a new podcast today (#16 – How Being a Teen Mom Makes You Bulletproof), and I’m fucking thrilled about it! Check it out!