by Max | Aug 30, 2023 | Mindset
Sometimes I wonder what the hell I’m doing even writing this blog.
I don’t think it furthers my ‘dreams’.
Tangent: Amazing that I put dreams in quotations. As if it’s embarassing to have dreams and I need to protect myself from people finding out that I have them.
And I hesitate to even write my dreams here. But I am going to do it. The trick to realizing your dreams is admitting that you have them. Kind of like alcoholics admitting they have a problem. Only with addiction, you admit you have a problem and have no control over your problem (although you then promptly try to take control by stopping to use the addictive thing). For dream realization, you’re in complete control. It’s all you. You just need to start chipping away at it one step at a time.
And really that first step is to be able to say what you want and what you want to do.
People’s identities are so tied up in their dreams. I feel embarassed to admit a dream I have because I have not accomplished it yet. My identity of being a person who one day could achieve this dream is threatened by the fact that I have not yet achieved it. So then who am I if not the guy who will eventually achieve this dream.
It’s even scarier to take a tiny step towards that dream. What if that step is a misstep? What if I fail at one of those steps? Now that’s really threatening my identity and scaring the shit out of me.
One of the exercises in “The Artists Way” is to write 10 times in your journal, “I am a talented and prolific ______”. The blank is whatever you want to be. For many reading that book it’s ‘writer’ or ‘filmmaker’. For me, it was ‘entrepreneur’. Which is embarassing because I’m not currently running a business that I’ve started. So technically, I’m not an entrepreneur.
But the exercise is incredible. It makes you so uncomfortable to write it. And if you pay attention to all of the little voices and doubts in your head that pop up as you write it, you can start to dialogue with those critics. You can rebut their critiques.
It’s powerful. Just as powerful as it is writing on the internet that I want to be a deeptech entrepreneur and take an important environmental technology out of a research lab and commercialize it into a startup.
So if that’s my dream why do I take precious time every morning to write these lame posts when I could be taking steps to further that dream?
I guess the practice of putting it out there, on the internet, and silencing those inner critics is/was the next necessary and important step.
by Max | Aug 29, 2023 | Health, Mindset
This morning I REALLY didn’t want to do the workout I had planned.
My body was achey. I had planned to do suicides on the basketball court near my apartment. Suicides are where you sprint to touch each major line of the basketball court, returning to the baseline in between each line touch, until you’ve sprinted the full length of the court. They’re brutal.
I’m trying to get my VO2 Max up. VO2 Max is the maximum rate of oxygen consumption your body can use. And pushing yourself as hard as you can is how to improve it. I don’t have a fitbit or apple watch so I don’t actually measure the number, but having a high-intensity workout day is now part of my mix.
Suicides are awful, and they hurt. In general, VO2 Max day is one of the more uncomfortable workout days in my regimen. You’re working as hard as you can, out of breath, and in pain.
I really felt resistance to walking out the door to do this workout today. And that’s why I had to do it.
I’ve started to pay attention to when I feel that resistance. Saying something to my partner that I’m afraid to say. Speaking honestly about something that’s bothering me. Doing that task that’s been on my To Do List for weeks that I REALLY don’t want to do.
But the reality is – you do them, and then it’s over in a flash. Just like almost everything in life.
And our mental resistance to it is an opportunity to prove to ourselves that we can do hard things, and those things are often the best things for us.
One way to practice this is to stand under the cold water as your shower warms up. Especially in winter – it sucks. But then it’s over. It’s a small daily way to practice doing uncomfortable things that are good for you.
Overcoming that intertia is the hardest part. I haven’t quite figured out a recipe for overcoming it. It sounds trite to say, “you just gotta do it”, but that’s the truth. Just sense the impending pain and discomfort, and then put yourself on autopilot mode and get it done.
Once the ball is rolling….once you’re standing in the shower under the showerhead before you’ve turned it on, you’re already there. Once your shoes are on and you’re out the door, it’s already begun. I think it’s kind of like getting a heavy ball to roll at the top of a hill. The first couple of pushes are difficult and require strength, but as it starts to gather momentum, the ball becomes hard to slow down.
Get that momentum going, and don’t look back.
by Max | Aug 23, 2023 | Health, Mindset
Today I wanted to do some pull ups. A good ol’ fashion’ pull day.
I am in a new town and don’t have a pull up bar, so I googled “workout park near me”. Calestehnics-parks.com was the first result and showed me a park that was nearby. Seems like a great tool actually.
But when I bicycled over to the park, it was a children’s playground. I can make due on a playground but the bar was really low and not at all what I was hoping for. I wanted one of those dedicated workout parks. Blast!
But I did the best workout I could do, and felt good about myself.
I think that this practice of trying to adapt and accomplish the mission, even if it’s janky and not how you pictured it, is an extremely good practice.
I suspect people with children are forced into this practice. I think all good entrepreneurs have mastered this. Sometimes it feels like the entire state of Israel is one janky attempt at getting things done however possible.
Letting a hiccup derail your plan is easy to do and probably what our brains default to. It’s a pretty “Fixed Mindset” trait. Very tempting to give up, saying “I would’ve done it, if the setup had been right”. Perfect is the enemy of the good, and all that jazz.
Life is messy, there will always be hiccups. Nothing will go according to plan.
I did the best I could, and feel happy and proud that I did.
by Max | Aug 22, 2023 | Health, Mindset
Another late arrival to the blinking cursor! Work got in the way, and then lunch. Writing now after lunch, which means I’m in a lactose-derived brain fog.
I’m pretty sure I’m both allergic to dairy and lactose intolerant. Why do I keep eating dairy? It’s just so damn good.
My first coffee of the day is black, and I usually have a good intermittent fast cookin’ until lunch time. But at lunch, if there’s dairy involved, my afternoon coffee is replete with half-and-half cream.
I ought to get away from using the cream in that coffee, and switch to oat milk or just stick with black.
But I had cheese on my eggs for lunch.
And I used butter to cook those eggs.
This brings up for me a concept that my partner told me about, that I think she heard from some influencer on instagram – Don’t Slash All Your Tires. If you puncture a tire when driving down the road, you don’t then take out a knife and slash each one of your tires.
I like this concept and it’s so apt to describe addiction or self-reinforcing behavior or whatever more accurate psychoanalytical term there is out there.
Just because I used butter to cook the eggs, doesn’t mean I need to put cheese on the eggs. Just because I put cheese on the eggs, doesn’t mean I need to then put cream in my coffee.
But I broke the dairy seal! I cracked the threshold and now I’m on dairy. I now know that, objectively, this is just an excuse to justify behavior that I only want to partially be accountable for. It’s addiction talking. I used to do the same thing if I smoked some weed, or had a drink, or puffed a cigarette. The seal is broken, I might as well let it all loose and get totally fucked up beyond recognition.
Long story short, I failed today with dairy. I slashed all my tires.
But maybe tomorrow I’ll avoid the cream at least and drive away with one full tire. That would be an excellent little victory.
