338. become a monster
We’re living in a world that’s currently thriving on scarcity and fear. Where people choose to find comfort in passivity. Where it’s more acceptable to back down, than stand up. Where strong convictions often lead to exile.
However, it shouldn’t be wrong to exhibit strength. To be resolute in your beliefs. To stand firm for what you want out of life. At the same time that doesn’t mean any of us should treat those who do not share our exact views with contempt or malice. It doesn’t mean that you can’t be kind if you’re strong, but it does mean that if you can’t exhibit strength if you succumb to weakness.
So don’t be afraid. Don’t be docile. Don’t be idle. Don’t be weak. And most importantly, don’t be a dick.
Become a monster.
Be ruthlessly ambitious, and then learn how to control it.
At the end of the day, it’s always better to be warrior in a garden, than a gardener in a war.
337. letting go
For those who hang on to things forever, it’s important to realize that at a very fundamental level, our role as humans is to grow. And the only way for that to happen is by letting go of the people, ideas, habits, etc. that no longer serve us and the person we wish to be.
You may want to be loved by this person, or continue to practice a certain habit but it’s not the person or the habit that you want, it’s the result of those experiences we’re after. Holding on to things that no longer take us in the direction we want to go, only keeps us from arriving at the destination we want so badly.
Letting go provides us with the space to develop new relationships, learn new lessons, and create new opportunities so that we find the things we’re after. This isn’t to say that the process isn’t without heartache or strain, but it sometimes becomes a necessary part. Whenever we find the strength to let go, we open ourselves up to possibility — a place where we originally found the thing/s we current find ourselves having trouble living without — which is where we always find something new and wonderful within the space we created.
320. anti-fragile
Imagine a champagne glass being shipped in a wooden box, during shipping if you shake the box too much it will shatter; that’s fragility. Now imagine the opposite of a champagne glass, something that doesn’t break under stress, perhaps you’ll think of a rock in the box. If you shake it during shipping, nothing happens; it doesn’t break. But the strange thing is, the opposite of fragility isn’t sturdiness or resistance to the surrounding pressures, it’s gaining strength under volatile conditions.
What gains from stress? Things like the muscular system, good relationships, immune systems, emotional health, and connected communities are all examples of things that grow under stressful situations. In fact, they need stress in order to change in a positive way, and a lack of imposed stress can even be detrimental over time.
The only way our muscles can grow is through the stress of resistance training (no matter how much anabolics you’re on). The bond between two people in a healthy relationship only grows stronger when confronted with challenges together. The immune system is only bolstered by coming in to contact with and fighting off things that cause to make us sick. Our emotional health can only develop in response to the full spectrum of emotions that we all have. Likewise, communities only seem to thrive under the shared experience of collected stress; just look at how the country, and much of the world, came together post 9/11.
So don’t run from stressful situations (unless it’s a bear, of course). Lean in. Endure. Make it through. Learn and grow from your experience as it will only serve to make you more anti-fragile.
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Side note: The world we’re quickly fitting into isn’t one that tests our limits, strengthens our resolve, or seeks to promote an anti-fragile version of ourselves. Everything we push for — from technological innovations to “healthcare” directives — only make our lives easier. But nowhere in nature does this encourage growth. It simply creates dependence on those who create the comfort. Continuing to infuse ever-greater ease into a system that is already disproportionately skewed away from anything uncomfortable and toward ultimate comfort will never allow us the resiliency we need to withstand our box being rattled, much less creating a situation where we can gain from our foundations being shaken.
285. one key element
Many years ago in the Arizona desert, scientists conducted an experiment known as “Biosphere 2.” It was a huge steel-and-glass enclosure with clean water, air that had been purified, nutrient-rich soil, and plenty of natural light. The idea behind this contraption was to create ideal living conditions for the ecosystem within. And while it was successful in many ways, there was one glaring failure.
As the trees inside the Biosphere grew to a certain height, they would simply fall over, again and again. At first, it was a confusing phenomenon, until scientists came to the realization that one key element was overlooked in the planning and construction of this idyllic environment. Wind. In a natural environment, trees are buffeted by the elements, namely wind. And they respond to that stress and agitation by growing stronger and deeper roots to increase their stability.
Like the trees, if our environment doesn’t challenge us, we’re destined to fall into a certain level of complacency. We waste a lot of energy trying to stay comfortable within our bubble, and in doing so, we fail to realize our potential. Our fear is rooted in the challenges and stressors that come along with change, but it is exactly those situations that are necessary for us to grow.
212. double punishment
Our collective narrative — the stories passed down through generations to help the next succeed — has become lost amid a rapidly advancing world. No longer can we agree on a path forward, as a result, our health suffers. All this stems from a profiteering medical system that seeks to “better” humanity by further disconnecting us from our natural past, and what gave us the strength and vitality to thrive up to this point, instead creating greater discord within our body.
We’ve been misled in thinking that there is no knowledge to be drawn from our past that can improve our health, when everything in life, and especially science, has been built upon the foundation that came before it. What works sticks, what doesn’t sloughs off. Now we are led to believe that the best way to capture health is NOT to look back to what gave us strength and vitality in the past, but to look forward to what science can manifest. That medicine has the power to save us from ourselves, if only we take this or cut that out. All the while we casually walk down the path of double punishment, losing who we are, along with the health we are trying to reclaim.
84. physical power of thought
What you think about is important, not only in life, but training as well, because it literally has the power to manifest physical change. As I’ve said before, bodybuilders are the original “biohackers” as they are always looking for ways to push the boundaries of what is possible and consistently improve their performance. It is from their tireless effort that we get the mind/muscle connection, or thinking about the muscle helps it grow exponentially more than just placing it under tension alone.
Why?
It comes down to the fact that the mind is the sum total of the central nervous system functioning, whereby its endocrine secretion is called a thought. That secretion can directly affect cellular activity and protein formation, which, very simply, means a thought has a tangible action. It may sound woo but there is research to back it up.
A study reported in the New Scientist entitled Mental Gymnastics Increase Bicep Strength took ten volunteers and asked them to imagine flexing one of their biceps as hard as they could for five times a week. The researchers recorded electrical brain activity during the participants sessions and assessed their muscular strength every two weeks. Those who only imagined flexing, increased their biceps strength by 13.5% in just a few weeks, compared to the control group.1
The power of thought can go a long way. Take a look at another study published in the Journal of Neurophysiology that had subjects divided into three groups. The first was asked to exercise by contracting and relaxing one finger on their hand for five sixty-minute training sessions a week for four weeks. A second group, following the same training schedule, was instructed to only mentally rehearse the same exercises, without physically activating any muscle in their finger. The control group neither thought about, nor exercised their finger outside of their daily routines. At the end of the study, researchers found that the group who actually did the the physical exercises exhibited a 30% gain in strength over the control group. No shit, right?! Well, the crazy part is that the second group, who only mentally rehearsed the exercises, demonstrated a 22% increase in muscle strength over the control group!2 The mind produced a quantifiable affect on the body.
None of this is meant to say that simply thinking about an outcome is going to be a substitute for doing the work, but that if you combine both intent and physical effort you can create the best outcome.
healthspan > lifespan
As a society we’re living longer, but at what cost. There are more years to our life, but less life in our years. We need to understand that there is a difference between lifespan and healthspan. Lifespan is how many years you’re able to accumulate, whereas healthspan is how long you’re able to live with vibrant health and without limitations.
One way to achieve a significant healthspan is to focus on acquiring and maintaining muscle mass as you age.
Muscle is the organ of longevity. It provides you with the strength to do the things you want — walk, hike, climb, lift weights, swim, bike, and get up off the ground when you fall or better yet, save you from falling. It is largely responsible for your metabolic rate — the more muscle mass you’re able to maintain throughout your life the greater amount of calories you’re able to burn at rest, and because of this there is a greater likelihood of staving off the metabolic pathologies of obesity, Type 2 Diabetes, Alzheimer’s (Type 3 Diabetes), and cardiovascular disease. And, lastly, muscle serves as a reservoir of amino acids that the body can utilized to repair the body in times of need — e.g., when you’re laid up in the hospital.
None of this is meant to say that you need to look like a body builder to live a long and vibrant life. The point is that we need to change the conversation. It has always been about adiposity and losing weight. Never has it been about the importance of muscle. The problem with this, is that when you go on a diet in an effort to lose weight, yes you burn some fat but you’re actually losing muscle at the same time (unless you’re actively resistance training concurrently). By making the conversation fat centric and only focused on losing, we are exacerbating the problem of muscle loss.
There are only two way to stimulate muscle building, the first is prioritizing dietary protein (which is a big deal). Eating high quality protein OF ANIMAL ORIGIN will be the best option from a nutritional perspective. Adversely trying to achieve the same protein intake via plant sources is calorically devastating because you need 2 to 5 times more to elicit the same response for muscle building — e.g., 6 cups of Quinoa at 1300 calories holds the same amount of protein as 8oz of Chicken Breast at 300 calories. And that is not even going into the difference in amino acid profiles between the two (we’ll save that for another time).
The other way to stimulate muscle building is actually using your muscles. While, I am way less strict than I used to be, I think it would benefit everyone to incorporate some type of resistance training into their life. You can never go wrong with learning how to properly deadlift, squat, pull-up and overhead press. But at the end of the day, find something you love to do and keep doing it. Your body will thank you down the road for not forgetting about your muscles.
Stay strong.