Month: July 2021

Joe Maguire in Jocko Podcast 292 starting around 2:05:00.

I started the 75 Hard program on May 1. Today is July 30. That’s damn near three months of twice-a-day workouts. Here is what has happened.

I aimed low. Two walks in the neighborhood would be my workouts. I allowed myself to go to the gym (I like it except for the fucking masks and fucking lockdown fucking bullshit, but that’s not the gym’s fault) but didn’t expect it or force myself. I allowed myself to run if I felt like it, but didn’t expect it or force myself.

Sometime in late June or early July I found myself waking up early to walk. I didn’t force it, I didn’t want it, I didn’t expect it. But now I’m waking up automatically and I’m out the door around 5:00 am. I always wanted to be an early riser . . . and now I am. Without trying.

I rarely set out to run. Yet I break into a trot more and more. It just happens, without stress or effort.

I can bang out 4 miles of running anytime I feel like it now.

The lesson learned:

• Change happens automatically and you don’t have to engineer it.
• Create the conditions for good change and good change will happen. (I bet the reverse is true, too.)
• It takes a long time. Longer than you think. No, even longer than that. I feel as though the early riser, automatic runner behavior is a new sprout that must be nurtured to grow into a sturdily-rooted tree.

Aim low. Win. Repeat. The results will take care of themselves.

The Feynman Algorithm:

1. Write down the problem.
2. Think real hard.
3. Write down the solution.

Too often the advice we get is approximately that useful (that is, the advice is utterly fatuous, masquerading as profundity).

“Start with the end in mind.” “Plan your work and work your plan.” These are intellectual potato chips.

This is a vapid little blog post, I admit. There is an idea in my head that is struggling to get out. It revolves around pundits looking profound but leaving you no better off (after hearing them speak or reading their books) than the day before you knew they existed.

How do I not be like that?

I’m leaving this here, half-baked, so that perhaps one day I will come back and find why I am so deeply dissatisfied with self-help and business books.

Maybe it’s like pop songs. They are churned out by the bushel. Most are crap. Maybe most of everything is crap.

How do I be not crap?

A lot of people talk about this. In A New Pair of Glasses somewhere he talks about turning your life over to God (and reaping the rewards of that decision) or not turning your life over to God (and reaping the rewards of that decision). There was a passage in one of the Jordan Peterson books I read recently along the same line. More than a passage. It’s the lengthy discussions of the meaning of sacrifice that he engages in. The Bible talks about sowing and reaping.

And today came a video from Andy Frisella on this point. Clearly stated, as usual.

It’s delayed gratification.

Those are dead words. Andy Frisella says it better: the action you do today determines what you get back in 90 days.

Or, put in words of sacrifice, the day you give up today you will receive back, 90 days from now.

The question is what you receive. Abundance? Yes, if you did the footwork today that creates abundance in the future.

I have been doing twice-daily workouts since May 1. That seed I planted on May 1. What does my August 1 self look like as a result of my May 1 decision? How happy am I today that I have been exercising to a sweat, twice a day, for all of that time?

Pretty damn happy.

Keep Andy Frisella’s simpler version in mind: 90 days.

My judgment of my own actions. That’s the killer. Listen to that voice, and learn.

In the 75 Hard program, the “rules” are adaptable. You define the criteria, and you stick to them. Example: one of the things you do for 75 days is “follow a diet.” And . . . no cheat meals. You define the diet. You define cheating.

In a recent podcast, the creator of the 75 Hard program (Andy Frisella) discussed this with his guest (Ben Newman). They noted that many people have questions about what will meet (or not) the requirements for the program.

“If you have to ask the question, the answer is no.” That was the statement from them. I love it.

The 75 Hard battle is entirely between your ears, and if you’re trying to cut corners with yourself at the front end, you have already lost the war.

You may believe there’s nothing wrong with what you are doing, but keep it between yourself and God. Blessed are those who don’t feel guilty for doing something they have decided is right.

Romans 14:22 NLT

The KJV version is simultaneously a bit more archaic and obscure, yet crystal clear:

Hast thou faith? have it to thyself before God. Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth. Romans 14:22 KJV

If you are condemning yourself for what you allow yourself to think or do, you’re going to have a hard time.

I came across the verse while doing my 10 pages of reading for 75 Hard this morning.

There’s a little verse in the Book which says: “Blessed is he who condemned not himself in that which he allowed.” What does that mean? I believe it means that if you can do a thing without condemning yourself, it’s not so bad. But if you condemn yourself for it, you jolly well better quit or it’ll kill you.

A New Pair of Glasses, page 94.

And once you get on The Path, the number of things you can do without condemning yourself becomes smaller. The author continues:

Personally, I could do many things five years ago that today I cannot do. And so it depends on where we are as to what we can do, and what we have to get rid of. And it’s a continuous process because the higher we go the more we have to discard, and the more we discard the freer we become. It’s amazing.

A New Pair of Glasses, page 94.

Don’t do anything that would make you hate yourself. Don’t do anything that you know — or even dimly and subconsciously feel — is not aligned with who you are or want to be.

This may be the same idea as that barbarically-worded verse “If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out.” Root out all thoughts and behaviors that make you feel bad about yourself. One at a time. Deal with the obvious stuff first; more will bubble up later, and you will deal with it later.

Even a simple self-questioning should be enough of a tug on the reins to make you pay attention.

If you are comfortable with what you’re doing, keep doing it. (I can tell you from experience that what you are comfortable with will change in time.) But if you have even the slightest twinge of doubt, cut it out.

Get on The Path. Stay on The Path.

I’m at the Benz dealership, waiting for them to complete my A service. I’m close to where I lived 30 years ago, so I go for a run in the old neighborhood.

The years have not been kind to this part of the city. The area was not good then. If anything, the streets are a bit dirtier, the buildings a bit more worn. It’s the kind of place where, 30 years ago, it wouldn’t be unusual for me to hear gunshots late at night.

I ran by the old apartment building I lived in. The donut shop on the corner where, every morning, I would walk to for a cup of coffee and a couple of donuts, just to simulate the existence of a pattern in my life.

Thirty+ years of focus. Thirty+ years of not drinking. Thirty+ years of hard work to the best of my ability: professional, personal, and spiritual.

And here I am. Getting an expensive car serviced on time, as recommended. Hoping they don’t bring my car down while I am weeping because I can’t believe the difference between then and now.

Happy, thriving family. Peace of mind much of the time. An old guy who can peel off a 4 mile run anytime he feels like it without thinking twice. Who have I become?

The Promises.

They came true for me. They will come true for you.

Stay on The Path.

What do you know about yourself? You are, on the one hand, the most complex thing in the entire universe, and on the others, someone who can’t even set the clock on your microwave. Don’t overestimate your self-knowledge.

12 Rules for Life, page 109.

Anytime I’m feeling tired and discouraged I remember the excerpts from memoirs about the Korean War. The men who were pushed back almost to the sea — how they persevered, in the bitter winter. The Battle of the Chosin Reservoir. Hackworth.

I can do this, one step at a time. One day at a time.

Other times, I think of other heroes of mine. People I will never meet, people I have met. Ordinary men, putting their heads down and getting it done, quietly and without fanfare.

I too can do this. God willing, I will bear witness with fortitude and dignity. I will be there when they need me, lending a hand.

• I have something of value to share.
• The person I want to share with is important to me.

The fact that I have something of value to share—that’s a stunning thought that didn’t occur to me until the drive to work today.

Why the self-discounting? Why the self-depreciation (and not self-deprecation in a good way, conducive to the humility that leads to integrity)?

You learn when you learn.

You might start by not thinking—or, more accurately, but less trenchantly, by refusing to subjugate your faith to your current rationality and it’s narrowness of view. This doesn’t mean “make yourself stupid.” It means the opposite. It means instead that you must quit manoeuvring and calculating and conniving and scheming and enforcing and demanding and avoiding and ignoring and punishing. It means you must place your old strategies aside. It means, instead, that you must pay attention, as you have never paid attention before.

12 Rules for Life, pp. 107-108. Emphasis in original.

It brings to mind the Tony Efrati episode. How, if he has a target and is planning an attack, he just looks at it. Really looks.