“Do what you feel in your heart to be right – for you’ll be criticized anyway. You’ll be damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

I started freelancing and discovered that I could do this full time.  I made some really good connections and learned some cool new skills.  I also discovered the world of online marketing.  It annoys me how terrible I am at it.  Imagine trying to learn every sport all at once, and that’s how I feel about this.  It is like an entirely new world I discovered, kind of like the time I found out that people go on the internet to learn pickup but way, way cooler and way more annoying.  But I’m building my muscles and paying my dues, this much I know.  I’m putting myself in some serious debt.  Aside from time, money is another thing I’ve been aggressive in.  But I feel ok doing it because I am not spending on fancy watches and nice shoes but rather paying for useful software, paying for memberships and subscriptions and educational courses, investing aggressively, all things that have potential to bring back a positive ROI (and some have already).

School starts in September and I can honestly say I am not looking forward to it.  I am not convinced that the material you learn and the people you meet are worth the $75k bill that it requires.  Take that same $75k, apply it to the school of hard knocks over the same 2 year period, and the education and connections you make are likely way more valuable.  I’ve been to a few school events already and I know good friends who have completed or are completing the program at top tier schools.  Highly motivated, highly intelligent, successful people.  Lots still can’t find jobs.  Others question why they did it in the first place.  The rest don’t seem to really care beyond the superficial surface relationships.  This keeps me awake at night.  But I could be wrong, and there’s only one way to find out, so we shall see.

I’m very thankful for the people I’ve met and the friendships I’ve forged at my previous employer.  Some, like my manager, were highly influential in my growth and development over the years and this I will never forget or be able to repay.  But its time to move on.  I feel this should have happened sooner and it felt like it just kept dragging on but its over now and it feels nice not having any responsibility outside of myself.  I am really glad I don’t have a minivan and a mortgage.  I am really happy I don’t have any mouths to feed, because if I did I would be terrible at it.  That lifestyle honestly feels like it is a lifetime away at the rate I am going.  Slow and steady wins the race, at least that’s what I keep telling myself.  I have too much I need to see, experience, feel before I’m ready for that.  If I had all the money in the world, all the women I could handle and I could be anywhere in the world and be doing anything I want, where would I be and what would I be doing?  I’d be in Iceland, with all of my possessions strapped to my back, looking for adventure and hanging out with friends.  If not there then Japan, or Brazil, or Egypt.  Seeking solitude in India or building a school in Laos. I’m still not there but this is never far from my thoughts.  How do you eat an elephant?  One bite at a time.  I start today.  And I brought my appetite.

I’ll be updating at http://landland.posterous.com for any quicky pics and notes that I can throw up for the next little while on my adventure.

The Agony of Defeat and The Sweet Taste of Victory is a post from: Awesomeness Deluxe

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Rev Abs is a very cool program.  Its designed to strengthen your core using cool Capoeira moves and other fun exercises, some involving dumbbells.  In traditional Beachbody fashion, you don’t really need a lot of equipment aside from aforementioned dumbbells.  Brett Hoebel is the guy in charge of this one, and he’s a likeable and funny dude who can get you moving and grooving.

Rev Abs is a 90 day program, with two phases, each 45 days long.  Phase 1 is designed to give you the strength and endurance needed to do Phase 2.  I did notice Phase 2 to be slightly more intense.  I wouldn’t say this is an extremely difficult program.  In fact, if you were to ask me which program to do to get in shape I would say start with Rev Abs.  That isn’t to say its a walk in the park, you still have to bring it and you will definitely sweat and feel it.

There are 3 rounds to every workout with the last round called the Spice Round.  Its the most challenging of the rounds and its designed that way so that you push past your comfort zones.  I like this a lot.  He talks about paying your dues and this is something that resonates with me quite a bit.  Nothing of value comes without paying your dues.

Brett makes you do a lot of silly things like say the Rev Anthem to test your heart rate and a bunch of other stuff.  I would highly suggest you participate in it, because it makes the program a lot more fun.  This was a very fun program.

And now for the bad news.  If you fail to follow a good nutrition program like I did, you will not get the results you want.  I’ve been involved in a little experiment in which I basically eat how I ate in high school.  Buffets, massive family dinners, beer, ice cream, you name it.  This has added belly fat to my stomach despite my best efforts with the Rev Abs program.

This is a lifestyle choice people.  You can run and lift and play sports all you want, but if you aren’t eating properly and you aren’t resting properly you just won’t see the results.  Somehow, after over a year of six workouts+ a week, I’m a bit of an authority on these home workouts.  I get all of the same questions over and over again..should I do [x], do I need [x], can I see [x]… All I can say is JUST DO IT.  I see people flop at it all the time.  They don’t see immediate results and then they quit.  On the flip side, people who completed the programs look and feel much better than they did before.  I did P90X without actually seeing hardly any results, but I felt stronger. That was convincing enough for me to continue.  Over a year later, my only regret is I didn’t start sooner.  I have been asked when I will stop, and the answer is rather simple.  Never.

Rev Abs is a great program.  If you follow it, push yourself hard and eat right and get your rest, you will see results.  Simple as that.  Take out even one part of that formula and the magic disappears.

Rev Abs Review is a post from: Awesomeness Deluxe

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Humans are lazy creatures by nature. Its just the way it is. Laziness isn’t a bad thing, in fact I think it has many benefits including getting adequate rest, keeping things as simple as possible, doing only what’s important, etc. If we can just accept the fact that we are lazy by nature we can use it to our advantage. One of the ideas I’ve been playing around with lately is the idea of intolerable inconvenience. The basic premise is you make something so utterly inconvenient for you that your laziness kicks in and you decide not to do that something. This works great for getting rid of bad habits, saving money, sticking to a good eating lifestyle, and so on.

I first noticed this myself one fine morning when I realized I didn’t have any food in the kitchen but was starving. I was going to drive over to Tim Horton’s for a breakfast sandwich and coffee (bad habit) but realized I didn’t have a car for the day. “Oh, how inconvenient” I thought to myself. So what did I do? Nothing. I decided to fast that day instead (good habit). When I noticed that I did a good habit instead of a bad habit because I was too lazy to walk to the Tim Horton’s, I thought “hmmmm, what else can I make really inconvenient for myself to force good habits?”. Some of the stuff I came up with was removing a lot of bookmarks to time wasting websites so that if I wanted to go to them I would have to type them in manually. Too lazy, screw it. Another is hiding the remote control for the TV so that I don’t watch it. Get rid of the junk food in your house or put it in the attic or something. Lock your credit cards in a safe. You can get pretty creative with this if you use your imagination. Cell phone bill too high?  Give the phone to your neighbour.  Need to study more and play games less? Hide the power cord to your Wii.

Note that the opposite also works. Make good habits super convenient for you. Have a giant glass of water beside your bed so that when you wake up in the morning you can chug it down and hydrate right away. Put the vitamins and supplements you take right beside the glass of water. Put your keys in the same spot everyday so you’ll never lose them. Leave your lunch at the front door so you never forget it (or set a daily reminder that goes off before you head out the door reminding you to grab it from the fridge). The list goes on. Make the good stuff easy to do and the bad stuff really inconvenient. I like it, nice and simple and effective.

Making Things Intolerably Inconvenient is a post from: Awesomeness Deluxe

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What do you do for the weekend in April when the weather forecast expects below freezing temperatures, rain, snow, and a lot of wind while also being sick and having a busted knee? Well if your me, you take a weekend summer survival course!! That’s what I did this past weekend, and it was awesome. The conditions were perfect; The weather was miserable, I hurt my knee from hiking the bruce trail the day before (actually re-irritated my LCL and IT band after a drunken night of St. Patty day shenanigans), didn’t have proper clothing/gear, and I was still sick after nearly two weeks. It would have been easy to feel miserable about having crappy weather, freezing your ass off and whining about walking on muddy hills with a busted (very painful) knee after dropping about four hundred bucks for the course plus gear. Rather, it was exciting for me. It made the experience of being in a survival situation much more authentic. In other words, how you think matters. You know, that story about two prisoners looking out their cell window and one sees the bars while the other sees the sky.

I learned so much this weekend. Did some survival fishing and got pretty good at it, actually caught something for once as well. Made some cool traps, practiced some more fire making techniques, refreshed my memory on some first aid and shelter making. It was great. Its funny, the older I get I’m constantly reminded about how little I know. I really feel like a kid just trying to soak everything in. Learning and skill acquisition are so important to me. One of my instructors for the weekend spent a year out in the bush by himself (his only visitor being Les Stroud aka Survivorman) and when people ask him why he did it he didn’t really have an answer. He basically said it was a calling that he felt on the inside and it isn’t the first time I’ve heard that from people who have done extraordinary things. I feel the same way about skill acquisition and learning. I don’t know why I do it, I just like to do it.

I re-designed the blog website last week. I tried to make it as ridiculous looking as possible and think I succeeded. It was a fun learning experience and I’m glad I did it (there’s still bugs in the system, let me know if you find any. free hug!). I don’t know why I did it, I just felt like doing it. I also paid to be a part of Scott H Young’s “Learning On Steroids” program which involves rapid and accelerated learning techniques as well as Ramit Sethi’s “Earn 1k” program. Scott’s program is a monthly subscription and Ramit’s was a one time deal with an option for ongoing support (which I chose not to pursue at this time). It was funny, I emailed Ramit and pretty much told him I have little money with a condo and big fat tuition bill on the way, no time, and soon to be no job and explained my situation to him. He basically wrote me back and said man up or go home. I literally laughed out the coffee through my nose because I knew that was what he was going to say and because I would have said the same thing to someone who emailed me that. Then I busted out my credit card. Sneaky, persuasive bastard.

The journey into awesomehood is never easy but always rewarding. It’s about focusing on your strengths and improving upon your weaknesses. It’s about taking what’s useful and discarding the rest. It’s about ignoring everybody and everything, sometimes including common sense and conventional wisdom. Standing at the edge is better than standing in the middle. You get a better view.

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The thing with self help is, people write these lists, 10 things you need to do to be happy, 14 things to help you stop stressing, 45 ways to save a kitten, and they are all USELESS.  These people aren’t any better off than you are.  I bet I could get under their skin if I really wanted to  The reason that I am so against reading these tips is it is an excuse for inaction.  Some people call it paralysis by analysis, I call it the one more thing syndrome.  One more book to read then I will be ready.  One more purchase then I will be complete.  One more piece of equipment then I can start.  One more piece of advice so I’m prepared.  All cleverly masked excuses.  I would prefer something called next syndrome.  What’s the next challenge, what’s the next obstacle to overcome, what’s the next mistake I’m going to learn from?  There’s just no way in hell you need 45 ways to stay positive, firstly because you aren’t going to remember them all, and secondly because it doesn’t matter.  You need one and only one.  You aren’t going to read a 5000 word blog post by Steve Pavlina about the “Law of Attraction” and then become complete.  Instead of reading that, go out and do something that will actually get you results.  There is NO fundamental difference between reading a blog post about “Moving past fear based emotions” and watching a youtube video of a guy farting in terms of actually defeating your fear of something.  Want to beat your fear? Then do the thing that terrifies you.

You need ONE tip to relieve stress. Breathe.  Want another one? Ok fine, but last one.  Stop doing that thing that stresses you. DONE. Moving on.  You need ONE tip to get in shape. Eat less. One more? Fine. Exercise. That’s it, not hard at all.  The best technique, the most efficient method, the smartest tool, you’ll find out eventually through trial and error and immersion into the subject once you start doing it, not usually before.  Too much advice is bad, too many choices is very bad.  Simplify, reduce, limit your choices, ignore everybody.  Nike had it right with their “Just Do It” slogan.  Really, just shut up and do it.

You Don’t Need More Tips is a post from: Awesomeness Deluxe

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