Nonversations

Chapter 49

Nonversation. This is a word from Lee Bacon novel. It means a meaningless conversation. When it comes to productivity, nonversations are the ultimate death knell. This has graduated senses of meaning. It could be just avoiding someone you live in close contact with and now you have one word nonversations instead of conversations. It could just be the inane speaking of words which constitutes what passes for most small talk (why don’t we have big talk?). Or it could the mindless vomiting of each and every thought that passes through the frontal lobe of a person in the form of an endless monologue. And there are probably subtle shades in between. I have experienced them all, but the last one is most deadly to production.

It is a constant and unending pointless source of sound. Filling up every sacred moment of silence with nonversation. 94% of nonversation don’t even require a response. It is essentially a modern form of monologue under the guise of conversation. 

You know you are in a nonversation when you break in and try to take this to a conversation, and the person just continues off topic about what they were nonversationing about before you broke in. Or you would know you are in a nonversation when the subject hops irrationally from one unconnected topic to the next with no connector transitions. Or you know you are in a nonversation when hours of spoken words by one person, only require occasional grunts or eye contact from you, to continue. Hell, lets be honest, the nonversation will continue whether you give these fake signs of interests or not.

Escape if you can! Avoid if you can! Run away if you have the opportunity! Do not allow yourself to be cornered here in a nonversation. Because if you do, then prepare yourself to watch your productivity just trickle away into noncomplishment.

Memories

# Chapter 43

As I got the full tour of the devastation here in Paradise California and the surrounding areas, I came to conclusion that it will never return to what it was in the past. It will return, but that future will be something other than what was here before. It has to be. None of us can ever return to the past really. As Seth Godin calls them, “our memories of our memories.”

Here in California, they can’t return to the past because these houses that burned down (1600 of them!!) were built with money from decades and decades ago when land was cheap and so was labor. And currently post-fire land is relatively cheap. I was looking at some of those pieces yesterday. But the labor and building costs have skyrocketed. I can buy the lot for 10 grand maybe (a great deal in this part of the world) but to build the simplest cement block duplex would cost an astronomical (for me) $450,000!! Paradise was destroyed by a random convergence of perfect factors that resulted in a ferocious fire storm. But their past cannot be resurrected up out of the ashes, because things have changed. They always do.

As thus, neither can you or I return to the past. It no longer exists even except as “memories of our memories.” This is driven home over and over for me right now as I am spending all the time with my dad that I can, since both mom and brother are gone, and its just us (thankful so much for Brenda who breaks up the monotony!!) two boys, and my dad reviews his memories of his memories every day multiple times. About half the time those are the memories of memories of his childhood, and the other half of the time of my childhood. Those worlds no longer exist. There is not even a facsimile of those worlds any longer. While we may occupy the same chunk of ground in the same village, town, county, state and country, nothing else the same.

The only solution is to live in the present and aim for the future, whatever that may be. Here in Paradise, half of the people remaining are now living in RV’s on the burned out foundations of their former homes, and it will be years before the legal stuff is cleared up and they can easily move forward and rebuild. But most of them will not have the resources to do so. The present and future are not the past. The past is nevermore and neveragain. So I can either be constantly distracted by the past as I sit at the table and reminisce, or I can get up and live fully in today and reach for tomorrow. Take action. Move. Act. Don’t be penned in and incapacitated and distracted by your memories of your memories.

Too many options

# Chapter 39

The distraction of too many options. When we lived in Russia 25 years ago and we were on the road traveling between cities, which did not happen very often because of the restrictions and hassles of travel there, we would stop with the kids at a roadside building which advertised by picture or words, that food was offered there. We have done this a few times, but it is still the most unique experience ever - you go in and sit down and wait. That’s all. Just wait. 

No one takes your order or asked how you are doing or where you would like to be seated, or what you would like to drink. You just sit down and wait 10-15 minutes and then a Russia grandma would bring you out something. You would eat it. That’s all there was to it. No options. No menu. No choices. She brought you the one thing there was to eat for that day. If you were lucky it was hot.

That likely sounds horrible to my American friends but don’t knock it till you try it. No one was ever in ecstasy about Russian cuisine to begin with in my opinion, so what did it matter that you had no choice about which nasty thing to eat? But the almost complete lack of options, or choices, was unique even for Russia. 

The exact opposite is true here. Too many options. It takes longer to order here, than it did to get food there in Russia. But the stress!! You likely don’t even realize what a huge distraction and stress all your options are, because that is the only normal you have ever known. But live a few years with zero options, and you will run screaming from the Cracker Barrel or most other places.

Looking back on it, there was a great freedom and simplicity in having few options. We should design our days and schedules with less options, so that we can focus and produce something amazing.

Going optimal in a less than ideal world

The distraction and opportunity of being a slave to someone else’s schedule. Its 4:50 am. My dad is up and awake and humming and whistling. He is happy as a bedbug in a mattress. He is excited and cranked. We are taking a road trip to Tennessee to spend the whole day looking at antique cars. His agenda. At 4:50 am. 

I would rather be having a root canal. The whole structure of my day is wrecked. Up too early. Not enough sleep. No workout today (except patience. Is patience a muscle??)  No decent food. No development work. And on and on I could go, this is just the beginning of the list. I don’t even like antique cars very much.

But this isn’t about me. I agreed to go on this trip. You agreed to take that job, marry that person, choose those in-laws, have those children, live in that neighborhood, go to that college, study that degree, make that investment, fail to make that investment, take that posture, have that attitude, and live this life that you have largely chosen. This is also true for me. My dad is hopping and eager for this day trip! Its evident by how early we are up and how energized he is this morning. While the day will be mostly agonizing for me personally, its a dream for him. Why would I not agree to go?

We all make lots of decisions and even deciding to not make a decision is really a decision. We all agree to many things in our lives that are not necessarily our first choice. Ask any mother with a newborn, but we still made the decisions that brought us to this place and once the decision is made and things are in motion, all that you generally have left to work with are attitude and effort.

So how much effort are you gonna put toward make this as good as it can be, whatever it is? What’s your attitude gonna be? Are you going to be sullen and resentful all day because you are doing something less than your ideal day, or are you going to make this the best day that is can be given the parameters it already has? 

Go optimal. Give it your best effort and attitude.

Fuel to be your best self

For the last month I have been writing about distractions, and frankly I thought I would be done long before now. And I wanted to be done by now, because I have other things I want to write about! But there are yet more distractions and they are keeping me on this subject.

Stage or cycle of life can be a huge distraction and keep you from both your best self and your best work. I am closer to 60 years old than I am 50 years old and it is easy to see the shift in how people view me and my advanced years. Finished. Over. Done. Out to pasture. Retirement fodder.

Yet I am stronger than I have ever been. I am very healthy. Weigh the least I have ever weighed. Doing some of my best work ever. How the young people at the store see me and how I see myself is violently different. Some of my favorite Leadership thought-leaders wrote the bulk of their best work when they were even older than me. Why do you think I am writing this stuff every day?  I am practicing!

However, there are specialized distractions that come with each decade, and in the getting-older-decades, they have more than their fair share. When you are in your 20’s you are distracted by the overwhelm of possibilities and fear of making a major mistake. In the your 30’s you are distracted by establishing yourself, starting a family, and the growing burdens of responsibilities, etc etc right on through when you get to your 50’s. The greatest distraction so far in this decade has been the shear number of death’s that we have had to face. Parent’s, uncles, aunties, cousins, siblings, and friends. Today would be a perfect example of this distraction - planning to go to the funeral home this afternoon to see a neighbor who passed away, and then stopping off to see an uncle who has days to live. 

Stay focused, and use this dark and painful distraction and disruption of life as fuel to make every day matter and be your best self. Its not easy, but it is really important.

Foggy mornings

We are spending the weekend on the lake, at an AirB&B and this morning it was so foggy. The air temperature was so much higher than the water temperature, that there was a solid wall of airborne moisture surrounding the lake, the house, the woods, everywhere. And here in rural Virginia, I discovered that these country drivers don’t use their headlights at all in the fog. I almost hit a couple of them!

Fog. Fog is a terrible distraction. This morning was so foggy. It obscured everything. It made my morning bicycle ride down right dangerous. It makes it so difficult to see clearly. It requires warning lights. Flashing lights are barely enough! My biking glasses completely fogged up and I had to ride without them. The moisture was so heavy in the air that helmet become completely wet on the outside and was dripping water in my eyes! My clothes were soaked with air moisture. It was a wet thick heavy distracting dangerous ride. My probability of getting killed or hit and injured was likely 10 times higher than normal, and its pretty high all the time.

All because of fog. All the same metaphors apply in leadership and development. The fog is not moisture in the air, but rather obscure business dealings, problems, employee retention, the VUCA world, volatile currency markets, trade agreements, shifting markets, and unexpected consequences of executive decisions, staff changes, and generally an unlimited amount of other challenges can be your fog. 

Take precautions, all that you can that doesn’t require a debilitating amount of effort. Stay extra vigilant when things are foggy. Have a clear purpose and destination and let it drive you forward steady and carefully, but as my friend Dr Anderson says, “Go and make!”

The learning curve

Learning curves

I just had a great conversation with my son-in-law and fine Nicaraguan cigar on the balcony last night. He and I both have fully stepped into a venture of Real Estate investing and we are making lots of mistakes. Even though we have been studying this process for years, and dedicate time each day to learning more, we are still making mistakes. We had each other howling last night, as we were trying to out-mistake one another!

Perhaps you might think that we are just bumbling amateurs who really don’t have a clue and should sell all of the assets we are building immediately to stop the bleed? Perhaps you think we are unintelligent and lack diligence or patience, and that we are in over our heads? Out of our depth? And perhaps you might be correct in some minor way with each of those, but we are committed. Committed to making more mistakes. Because this is how we learn. It is also how you learn too, and if you don’t believe me, then you aren’t learning anything at all.

This is called the learning curve. Every new venture, relationship, goal, objective, and pursuit in life has one. You go from being a person who doesn’t even know what they don’t know, to a person making regular mistakes, to a person of high competence. There is no short cut to that process. If you aren’t willing to learn, to make lots of mistakes, to fail regularly, then you will never reach the class of the highly competent. The only way to hone these skills is through messing up and taking chances, and falling down and getting back up every single time. You can become the sharpest blade in any drawer if you are willing to face the learning curve.

Becoming

Becoming. Or as James Clear asked, “Can my current habits carry me to my desired future?” This is a most difficult perspective to grasp when you are younger. The idea that you aren’t fully formed and complete when you graduate from high school is distasteful medicine to drink and few do. But when you have multiple decades of life to reflect upon, and you can see the arc of life, then you get it, becoming is a natural part of getting older if you have practiced the right habits along with way to get where you want to go.

On the other hand, the vast majority of my high school mates, haven’t read a single book since they graduated 40 years ago, and when they look back, they see the same person that they were 40 years ago. The terrifying part of that sentence is that they are perfectly content being that same person that they think they were 40 years ago. If this describes you, then you are reading the wrong blog.

This blog would be for those who can (or want to) see the beautiful arc of what they are becoming and those who are ready to change their habits to become a person that can change the world. These people are always ready to change themselves first, because they understand that they cannot possibly change the world until they become something more. Actually it is more nuanced than that . . . they would not enjoy changing the world nor the changed world, unless they become something more first.

I am in my late 50’s, approaching 60, and I am changing more habits than ever before. I want to become more than ever before. My expectations and hopes are more than ever before. Build those habits that can carry you into a future you really desire!

Impatience

Distractions abound. Impatience is a terrible distraction. It is wanting something without the willingness to commit the necessary time to the process. In other words, most of the time we want it instantly. And most of the time, important stuff takes time. 

My son is brilliant, sweet, wonderful, warm, fun man, but completely incapable of delayed gratification of any type it seems. He is the only one of us who does not have a college degree, which of course is just an exercise in delayed gratification. He can’t save money nor save for retirement, again exercises in delayed gratification, or in other words - impatience. No instant here. Its killing his progress.

But you can’t build wealth or knowledge or skills or a business with impatience. You can’t build credibility without patience and consistency. You can’t build trust being impatient. These stepping stones of progress take time and you may not see the results that you are aiming toward, for a long time. Projects at scale, take time to come to fruition, to produce something world changing, to have results that move us all. The more important your task or goal is, then longer it may take to see it happen. The bigger the project, the more complex the pieces are, and the longer it takes to find alignment. Thus impatience becomes a distraction.

The overpowering need to see results sooner than they are ready to appear, makes many important actions and decisions seem to be overwhelming. It is tempting to quit before success is achieved. It is difficult to keep going if you are impatient for the the results, more than the process. Focus on the right processes, and the results will get here - eventually. But they will get here.

Control or no control?

What you can control and influence and change has limits. There are many things outside of your control and influence. I made an airport run yesterday to pick up my wife, which is a very very common experience in our lives. But unlike the short 30 minute trip this would be in Skopje, it is 90 miles trip to Atlanta, and can take from 1:45 to 3 hours on normal days. If there is an accident somewhere along the way, it can take far longer. There are probably 50,000 cars moving between here and the airport at any given moment, and any one of them can become the bottleneck that changes everything. All beyond my control and influence. And 100 other factors that are similar between here and there that I also cannot control nor influence.

That point made, this chapter is about what I can control and influence and change. Yes there are lots of things that I can’t control, but I don’t have to let that lead me to be AWOL about the things that I can control. You and I have control of our responses. Our responses even to the things we can’t control, and the unexpected events that occur. My wife’s flight landed two and a half hours late yesterday. My response was to find a comfortable chair and read a good book and enjoy a few extra hours of solitude. No fretting, no frustration, no regrets, no churning. 

But better than that is the control we have over our initiatives. We don’t have to wait until things happen, we can make things happen. We can take the initiative, plan for contingencies, look for the possible events that may occur outside of our control and take precautions. This is frankly a far superior decision than just responding well, even though that has its place in the scheme of our lives.

Focus on what you can control and influence and change. Respond well to those you can’t. This is the winning combination of those thrive.

Redirection

How do we turn all of these distractions into something productive, some form of alignment? I have tried many many strategies over the last three years and they mostly have some fashion of mild success. But the only one that has consistently provided real distraction relief has been redirection. Or if that word doesn’t help you mentally picture what I am suggesting, think of it as creating projects to do and to change the endlessly circling monologue.

Yesterday was a prime example. The first redirection of the day was sending my dad out for lunch with a girl, his friend, who isn’t his girlfriend, but is a good companion. However that redirection ran out of gas after lunch. So I then I did a second redirection, I asked him to go with me to look at a property that I was thinking about developing. That kept him talking about all the reasons this property was dangerous for hours. Otherwise, if I don’t do this redirection I get monologues like the worm hole size monologue that I am getting at this moment at 6:44 am.

Worm hole sizes. Yes that is what I said. Unfortunately he is not talking about the Space variety, but rather the vegetable variety, i. e. how big the hole in his squash was yesterday from the worms, and now he has jumped to how many cows are in the pasture across the road . . .. You can easily see why redirection is a necessary tool to have in your arsenal.

One warning here though, redirection has limitations. It will not always free you up to focus and concentrate. Many times the best it can give you, is a better/different monologue/conversation. Who or what do you need to redirection today to get your best opportunity to produce something amazing?

The ants turned off the water

The distractions of the day can also include insects. I kid you not. In fact, though you may find this difficult to believe I swear I am telling you the truth, because I saw it with my own eyes. And I promise you, I did not believe it either until the last second where I could no longer deny the truth of it - the ants turned off the water to the house. Completely. No running water at all in the whole house. Because of ants.

One of the vagrancies of fire ants in particular, besides their vicious bite, is their love of electricity. And in the grass field 200 yards above the house that my dad lives in, where the well is located, the only source of electricity there is the well house and well pump itself. So even though this may be stretching the bounds of believability, the ants piled in there until their mass shorted out the contacts. No electricity, no water.

When I pointed out to my dad that the water was not flowing, I just assumed 1. That the breaker had blown or 2. That the well had run dry. But my dad swore, "those damn ants!" And he hops up off the chair where he was uselessly wasting his life watching what is called "news" in this country, and started issuing instructions for the tools and actions that we would need to defeat the ant empire. At this point I was starting to consider senior citizen homes and remedial therapies for seniors, but I went along with him, because if for no other reason, it made him stop watching the "news".

So we got a tank of compressed air, insect repellant, filters, pliers and a screwdriver. I found the breaker for the well still "on" and flipped it off so that we didn't get accidentally shocked. Fast forward to my dad using the compressed air to blow away all the ants, and then turn the power back on and viola we had water again! Never underestimate the power of a distraction, even if it is an insect. And let me tell you about the guinea wasp nest that we dealt with next. . . . 

The triangle of production

I missed a day. And I did not even know until the following day which uh, I guess is today. Does that mean this is not yet a habit? 11 days does not a habit make. Actually it was Sunday and the flow of a Sunday is different than the flow of other days, and I just hopped from my morning workout routine, into a hustle to get to church, and then the day was gone. So clearly I need focus, even micro-bursts of focus in order to write daily, but I also require commitment to get my butt in this chair.

Ok ok everyone needs a day off, and I will let Sunday's slide into that day's off category, once this habit is solidly formed and the question of weather or not I will write is not one that is under consideration. But commitment or intentionality are the other side of the coin of focus. Without them, I don't need focus because there is nothing to focus on. Commitment and intentionality will make certain that I structure my day week month life in such a fashion that I will complete what I have intended to do. That seems like such an innocuous statement, but there are layers and layers of success or failure tied up there.

I realize as I am writing this, that there is also a third element, which might be required. Call it grit or persistence or even stubbornness but that something other to make sure the commitment or intentionality get structured, and that the focus is actualized. This threesome could be seen as gas, car and motion if you need a different metaphor. Or energy, structure and actualization if you need yet another one. If you haven't caught the whiff of possibilities yet, then you are probably reading the wrong book or blog.

The superpower of silence

Six glorious days of quiet and peace and thinking and margin and space and relaxing and did I mention quiet? Silence. That highly underrated element of the introvert universe, that superpower of those gifted with quiet. In a world that never shuts up, silence is so absent that many have never experienced it ever. It's like those who grow up in big cities with lots of light pollution have never seen the Milky Way except in pics that someone took, somewhere else.

I made an interesting trip across America three years ago on a bicycle over an eight week period, with a group of Americans. There are so so many things I could tell you about that trip, but the one that intersects our chapter this morning is the introvert table. It came about because of the three Earl-like monsters on the trip. The kind that if-their-eyes-are-open-their-mouths-are-moving types. Fred especially. Never a ruder non-stop talker ever existed. I actually ended up bunking with him the very first night I joined this group in Seattle on our way to D.C. Never again. I bunked as far away from Fred as humanly possible and still be indoors after that. 

The introvert group out of sheer despair finally made a sign that we stood on our eating table, especially especially at breakfast. "NO talking allowed at this table." If you are not an introvert, you may find that sign offensive or rude or controlling. But for those of us sitting there, it was heaven. We just wanted a quiet morning, alone with our own thoughts, and NOT anyone else's thoughts, until later in the day, . . . maybe.

I have had six days alone with my thoughts for the most part, and it has been so refreshing. I am gonna need that refreshment because now I will be logging three months with my dad, and he is near-Fred in his need urgency frantic panic to never have any silence. What gives me energy and fills me with life, fills him with dread and fear. At least I imagine this to be true, but I can't be sure, because he has never given silence a try.  

Moments

I wish I could capture for you the vibrancy of this moment, the vividness of the purples and pinks and whites of the flowers near me. The utter beauty of this breeze blowing on this balcony, so breezy in fact I had to put a light jacket on, to capture the raw pleasure and peace and ease this moment is for me. I am not leading anything. I am not the charismatic extroverted master pastor that I had been for decades, orchestrating teams of people to lead, sing, teach, all on a tight timetable. It is a quiet, peaceful, God-filled introvert heavenly moment, that honestly I could not have even imagined in the past.

I don't have to be in charge, I don't have to be busy, I don't have to be humorous or quick to reply, I don't have to manage, I don't have to practice nor decide. I simply can be. Could this have happened in my 40's? Maybe. But in my 30's or 20's no way - I had too much to prove to the world . . . and to myself. No longer. To simply be is the rarest sort of gift. A gift that few people receive it seems, if the turbulence of this world is any measure. Contentment in this moment - the best gift of God on His day.

Willingly I will walk (fly) away from this idyllic moment in a few days, to the endless talking and noise and chatter of my dad, and his world, where a moment of silence is a terrible foe never to be unleashed or allowed. But I need to look after my dad, and this is the price of admission. Moments, will have to be gathered while on a motorcycle, or doing some solitary activity that absolutely prevents him from intruding, but that is in a few days. We should not let the impending future cloud the present.

He would have been 55 today

He would have been 55 today

My brother's birthday is today. I can no more forget him or his birthday than I can my own name. It is still surprising how much his absence costs me in terms of anger and pain. Yet I have never felt more vibrantly alive. This is intentional, the best way I can honor those who have already passed on into eternity. Each family member and friend that goes before me, calls me to bring a better and better version of myself into play each day. These three plus years since he died have been one long roller coaster ride, but I keep breathing and thinking and working and seeking to change this world for the better. To make other's lives better.

The agony has turned to a dull steady ache. The torn fabric of life now has a scar. But I am called to face the challenges of life, of living, to take care of Earl our dad, to look after my brother's girls and his granddaughters. I am left to find a way to keep moving forward, to stand guard, to move this world to where his kids and my kids and our grandkids can have a better life, a more sure footing than we had. This loss can be the fuel to change the world, so my end and your end won't be like his end. To work toward having his death continue to matter, as if he were still with us, because he is.

Happy birthday Roger Dale. Happy double nickel man. I miss you.

To follow up on “The Switching Costs”

To follow up on "The Switching Costs"

I took the whole entire complete day off yesterday. I haven't done that in forever, because there is always work to do and work is well . . . what I do, what I have always done as an adult to be valuable and important, so I can humble-brag my significance to the universe. I understand I don't have to be busy (read The Switching Cost) to be important. But there aren't many people believing this, even as I am trying to figure it out myself.

I was at dinner with a client this past week and he was telling me how one of his main engineers just calls him regularly to tell him how busy he is. The phone call goes something like this (and I am quoting) ring ring, my client answers and barely can spit out a hello before the engineer yells from the other end, ". . . man we are so f*cking f*cking f*cking busy, we are going out of our heads, f*ck f*ck f*ck" and the engineer hangs up. (Sorry about all the F bombs, but this was a quote)

Yes I would consider this an extreme example, but this actually happens in the real world, over and over. Everyone is too busy, and that is a poor decision. We need something other. My friend and co-worker Bernie calls this white space, a place where nothing can happen and there is no pressure for anything to happen, which allows for the amazing to happen sometimes. And I brushed up against that white space yesterday when I did  . . . well nothing at all. Gonna try it again tomorrow.

But what I noticed most significantly yesterday as I was having a total complete do nothing day, were the costs of switching. It became so apparent when I switched to what was going on in my dad's head when he called from the USA, to switching to the challenges that my wife is facing in her ginormous work with women, to switching to what was going on in my own head! I wasn't switching tasks as much as I was just switching my focus from one person's focus to the next person's focus, and it took me forever it seemed to start tracking (truly) with the next person. So The Cost of Switching became far more apparent, when I only had to do three big giant switches in a single day, rather than the constant switching that I apparently do so much each day that it feels like the norm. So if you ain't getting this, take a "do nothing day" or even half day, and watch for the switches. They will be much more apparent.

Food intake is the battle

Food intake is the battle

About 24 years ago I weighed in at 296 pounds on a 5 '10' frame. I was walking death coming down the street. Maybe the most unhealthy human being ever. Long story short, and a brain aneurysm later, I got busy exercising. And 60 pounds less later, I continued to exercise, but primarily so that I could eat what I wanted with few restrictions, and stay at 240 . . . which seemed like a good weight after being 296! But a decade at 220-240 and it became clear that 200 was healthier and I felt a lot better at 200-220, than I had at 240. But then I turned 50, which birthday I spent with my niece, brother and sister-in-law in Thailand. Was a lovely trip. But my brother said to me, as he was trying to help me get out the door for my return flight to Macedonia, "man this bag is heavy" and which I replied, "it is just the standard 50 pounds allowed by the airlines."  Then he noted, "man you are still carrying THIS much extra weight every moment of every day! Pick up this bag and feel your body's pain!" I did.

That was seven years ago, 50 pounds ago, and yes I have been in the 160-165 pound range these last seven years, and yes as the scale goes down, the better and better I feel. So much so that I have been toying with the idea of the 140's . . . but I am digressing from the point of all this history.

I have been operating under the wrong idea that exercise was responsible for weight loss. Of course after working out practically every single day for 24 years, I had started to suspect that "calorie in and calorie out" was not how our bodies actually work. The pinnacle of learning that lesson for me was bicycling across the entire USA three years ago and gaining 12 pounds. Exercise has a zillion benefits and I still do it everyday, but weight loss happens in the kitchen. Tom Kravirtzs stated about exercise affecting weight loss, "It's not nothing, but it's not nearly equal to food intake — which accounts for 100 percent of the energy intake of the body," 

And there it was in bold letters - food intake equals 100% of the energy intake of the body. The enemy to weight loss is simply how much I eat. Nothing else can affect it really. Sure you can manage the types and frequency and the fine details, but in the end, it all comes down to how much you eat. I exercise - alot and the upsides are real and great, but how much I eat matters the most when it comes to weight management. 

The switching cost

The switching cost

After 57 years of life, I read something that finally sunk in today that is so astonishing and mind-altering and revolutionary that I am wrecked. James Clear said it perfectly, "As a society, we've fallen into a trap of busyness and overwork. In many ways, we have mistaken all this activity to be something meaningful. . . . I think we're kidding ourselves if we believe being busy is what drives meaning in our lives."1

And you are thinking yeah yeah yeah so what? You. Don't. Have. To. Be. Busy. To. Lead. A. Powerful. Meaningful. Life.

That is so what. I don't have to be busy to be important. I don't have to be busy to change the world. I don't have to be busy to accomplish important meaningful life changing work. I just have to focus. I don't even have to be busy to contribute something to the world that is the most valuable thing I can contribute.

But I lived the multitasking life for so long, that this is revolutionary. Clear describes "the switching cost" of focusing on everything and anything rather than the one thing. The switching cost, is the mental disruption that occurs when I change from one focus to another focus. Email alone costs most workers one minute out of every six, not because of reading slow, but because of the switching cost. The mental disruption that is the most clear and obvious disaster of our technologically driven pings, chirps, burps and signals from our phones and computers and iPads that are demanding our action and attention.

But the final nail in this colossal mental shift that I am exploding with, was when he posted his weekly priorities. Seven days - seven priorities - and two were "days off". 

1. You can read (SHOULD READ!) the entire article here, unless you are one of my clients, because I will be sending you this entire article and insisting that you read it multiple times!

An Eastern European root canal

An Eastern European root canal

There are few less fun things to do, than a root canal, I care not where you are in the world. But there is only one filling in my mouth that is less than 40 plus years old, and they are starting to simply wear out. I get it, these teeth have been with me a long long time and they have worked hard every day for almost six decades. 

So about three months ago I had a tooth break, and today I found out that it actually was a filling that broke, not the tooth itself. And OK, so you really should not wait three months to get something like this looked at, but I don't have dental insurance and I can not afford an American dentist, and I have been traveling all over the world and been on the road for months. I ran out of excuses this month though, and was starting to have more and more pain in the "broken tooth" especially while flying which I do often, and so I set my appointment and went. 

She immediately told me that the tooth wasn't broken, but the filling was and she need to dig it out and redo it. Of course here, anesthesia is used rarely, but I was already expecting this having had dental work done here before. So she dug right in (pun intended) and she drilled out the remaining part of this ancient filling. Then she found a cavity underneath. She drilled some more, deeper and deeper. My tension rose as the pain escalated. She finally ran out of tooth completely and saw that she was gonna have to do a root canal to do the job properly.

At this point she decided that some numbness would keep me from coming completely out that chair (although I still left her a nice puddle of sweat when it was all said and done), and likely messing up her fine dental work in process, and so I received the rare blessing of a numb face. There is so much more I could say about this experience that would grow hair on your chest, but I will refrain. The only two blessings were the total bill - $117.96 - and the hope that tomorrow that my tooth will not hurt nor be broken any longer. Next Wednesday is round two.