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.

The tendency to cross disciplines and underestimate difficulties

The tendency to cross disciplines and underestimate difficulties

I had the most irritating interaction with Dave yesterday. He was intruding on my conversation with Charles, but that was only the beginning. So not only was he being rude, but he brought two more insidious irritants to the moment.

When he found out that I was an avid biker (read insane) he went on and on and on about how his husband Shaun who was piddling around Chiang Mai on his granny bike, was looking for something more challenging. He firmly believed that the jump from a three times a week one mile ride in his flat neighborhood, to a 53.5 mile ride up and down some of the steepest mountains in SE Asia was a small jump. He. Is. So. Wrong. 

It took me 10 years to get to the fitness level to ride these mountains, and I am carrying 70 pounds less weight, and workout every single day. Just another Westerner dismissing expertise and experience. But if this 53 year old man, thinks he is gonna make this 53 mile loop with me, while 70 pounds overweight, I don't care how much his bicycle costs!, then he is a lunatic.

And then he spent the next 45 minutes trying to convince me that practicing Yoga and that holding my breath would increase my VO2 rates. Here we are in public and he is showing me how to breath, or not to breath, so that I could build my optimal red cell counts and oxygen rates while biking. Just another Westerner dismissing expertise and experience. While I don't mind him being a fanboi of Yoga, validating his chosen joy by forcing it onto others is not necessary. And how the hell does he think I can hold my breath when I am making a climb of 11% grade in 100 degree heat??? Yoga is probably a perfectly valid exercise and activity, but it will not cross wholly into the discipline of cycling. No way.

When Dave finally gave Charles and me a moment alone, Charles said, "please don't take him biking with you. He will die, no doubt about it." And I told him "no worries, not a chance". Why is it that we think everything we might be interested in, applies to everything someone else is interested in? Why do we even have to tell everyone else what we are passionate about (unless invited to do so)? I have had one steady stream of foreigners imposing themselves onto my life this week, trying to convince me of various things, from appearing as a guest on TV, to converting to JW's, to changing from cycling to yoga. Not a single one of these people asked me what I was interested in. Not one of these people were interested in me, only what they perceived that I might could give to them, or add to their lives. 

I don't mind this in my clients nor my friends, but I will think less of you if you make our introduction transactional in these ways. You don't know everything, and what you are interested in doesn't apply to everything someone else might be interested in. 

1141

1141

1141 beautiful miles this last month on the bike up the grueling mountains of SE Asia in the heat and humidity. Sweating out the toxins and bad stuff of a Western diet. It's been great and revealing in a humbling sort of manner. I am not a young man, but I feel much younger (after a few weeks) when I give myself these kinds of limited challenges in short intense periods each year. If you want to get stronger and more flexible, you must push yourself into new areas of accomplishment, no matter how long it takes you. The worst thing you can do to your body is not use it and feed it poorly with calorie-intense-nutrient-deficient food.

I can't duplicate the intensity of these mountains and the temps anywhere else I generally go in the world, and so I can't see the immediate benefits of such rides when I am not in SE Asia. But it sets the standard for the rest of the year. It gives me a peek into what top fitness feels like, what my body experiences when I work it like this day in and day out. It is a pretty spectacular experience for a 57 year old grandpa. Combine those levels of effort, with an Asian diet and the results are astonishing. This is why I keep telling myself that I want to move to Chiang Mai. It's difficult to live astonishing in Eastern Europe,and darn impossible in the USA.

Buckets and buckets

Buckets and buckets

I have unearthed a disturbing trend in my clients. And it probably has its roots in our Evangelical background, where the super devoted never tire and never quit and never are frivolous. The trend is that it seems we are still trying to burn ourselves out for Jesus or the kingdom or whatever. 

This trend is one of the most deadly pieces of awfulness that I have to carefully work against in almost every single one of them. Deconstructing this whole conceptual idea that you can sleep when you are dead, that God loves best those who work the hardest and sacrifice the most, that there is merit in weary exhaustion that leaves you weak and defenseless in too many ways, that crushes energy and excitement and creativity.

Here is what I mean in very technical speech ... the “very tool we need to prosper in today’s environment: our cognition. So, when we require mental acuity, we experience diminished recall. When we need sharp thinking and problem-solving, our minds are full.” From "The 24 hour rule" by Charles Fred.

Even in myself, I am still discovering that I need buckets and buckets of self care to find optimal balance of input and outputs. In the past I laughed at this idea. But I can remember so vividly the day in 1993 when I read a quote from Bill Hybels who was the pastor of the largest church in the USA at that time, that he needed to spend 50% of his time in developing (PTA essentially) himself, in order to pastor that huge mega-church, when I was working 80 hours a week and barely getting everything accomplished for a small growing church of 125 people.

Eventually I got what Hybels was preaching, and now I preach it myself. We need far more and better buckets of caring for our own souls, bodies and minds than we ever thought was necessary. I only wish that I could package up all the energy and power that I got from 9 hours of sleep last night for today's opportunities, and show it to my clients. Buckets and buckets of care people. Stop cheating yourself or cheating all the people in the world that your life affects.

95 is perfect . . . for me

95 is perfect

I spend most of the year being cold and less productive than I could be, were I warm. But here in Asia, at this moment sitting in the shade of the patio, its 95 degrees, humid, slight breeze moving to keep things just under the sweating point, and its perfect, wonderful, excellent. My brain is jumping with possibilities and relief. No wasted energy going to the effort of staying warm!

Of course everyone's perfect is gonna be different, because there is only one perfect for each person. And that applies to all the pieces you need/want to be the most powerful version of yourself. One of the primary tasks of crafting the right PTA for yourself, is understanding what you need in order for it to take place in an optimum manner. I find far too many of my high capacity clients pushing this back down the priority list - mistake!

One of my peeps, likes it really cold. He is basically a polar bear. He would melt and only suffer here. Another one needs regular appointments with a fishing pole in order to be the most powerful version of himself. Another needs longs daily connects with her hound and husband. As you can see, this can be most anything. My perfect is Asia and 95. Know yours and make it a priority to get it often!

If I let my mind wander . . .

If I let my mind wander

In this cramped small seat next to the largest person on the aircraft who is crowding my small space even more, then this might be an exercise in smallness and constraints.

But if I look out the window on the other side of my small seat, and see all the puffy clouds, and tiny roads and twists below and let my imagination soar, this might be an exercise in bigness and freedom and possibilities.

Both are true, the big man and the window, but I get to choose where to focus my thoughts and attitude.