Author Archives: Coach Panda

It is clear from the recent presidential election that the Country is in terrible shape. The media is running wild. People are up in arms about the state of our Country. It is important, not just in times like these, to sequester yourself every day. Hide away not because you cannot handle what is going on in the World. You most certainly can handle it. Hide away because you need a place to recharge your battery and grow stronger. You need your own Bat Cave.

Surround yourself with family, friend and loved ones or just be by yourself a little bit every day. Take some time to reflect on what you love, take care of your needs, do things that strengthen, empower and fortify you so you can go out and confront the World and all the people that seek to lead you off your path. The media, social and otherwise, will inundate you from the moment you wake until the moment you sleep unless you actively seek to get away from it.

Sometimes I practice sequestering by listening to or watching things that have a positive message. Other times I simply do it by taking a nap, playing guitar, playing with my son or meditating. In any of these activities I am free from the negativity of the outside world and working to make myself a little better.

“Listen to your body,” “take care of yourself,” “honor your body,” “be kind to yourself,” and so on. I come from the yoga space, so I hear stuff like this all the time. How should we interpret it? Does honoring yourself mean that you should never challenge yourself? Does listening to your body mean never pushing past your comfort zone? Does taking care of yourself mean bubble wrapping yourself in hopes of protecting yourself from any possible damage? I don’t think so.

Living organisms benefit from stress. We adapt. We strive to be what Nicolas Nassim Taleb calls “Antifragile.” Something that is fragile breaks when forces are applied to it. Something that is merely robust is unchanged when forces are applied to it. But the antifragile gets stronger and improves from the stresses placed upon it. That is what we should all strive to do.

Taking care of ourselves should include regular doses of stress: physical, mental and emotional. That which does not kill us makes us stronger, means the stress should be significant but not life-threatening. A good workout in my mind, is an ordeal; a task that I fear might be too much for me to bear. Before it begins I’m nervous and when it’s done I am relieved. Many of my yoga friends would look at a workout that arduous and wonder why someone would do that. I would respond that I am honoring my body.

The hyperbole surrounding self-improvement books is vast. We are all attracted to the idea of greatness, the chance to really strike out and make a name for ourselves. So we throw good money after bad buying books, products and seminars that promise to make us great. However, the truth is, we are not all going to be gold medalists in life.

Just because you will not go to the Olympics and win gold for swimming does not mean you can’t go swimming every day and love it and benefit from it and improve at it. If we tie our actions to grandiose end results we will, more often than not, fall short and become frustrated and disappointed. If we focus on the process and tiny, incremental improvements we will find great success and fulfillment.

My process is to focus on the aggregation of marginal gains. My goal is not to be the best at any one thing. My goal is to have an awesome life. To me that means so many different aspects of my life have to keep improving: not just my fitness, but my income, my relationships, my peace of mind and more. So the plan, as far as I have found, is to make small, 1% improvements to each area of my life over time. The aggregation or sum of all these improvements leads to a better life with less things to complain about and more happiness.

Each day I try to do something positive in the areas of nutrition, fitness, hygiene, finances, mindfulness, relationships, gratitude, generosity, and more. If I put pressure on myself to do something epic in each area, I will fail. If I merely try to make a positive action with regards to all these areas it not that hard but the cumulative effect is that I have created a better day and feel good about myself.

Create a list of 5 or 10 things that would positively effect your life and try to do make a small impact each day on that list.

I’m not a morning person, yet I’ve been up for an hour now and it’s only 6:30am. I would much prefer staying up until 2 or 3am and then sleeping until I wake up to the smell of coffee and bacon wafting through the house. Unfortunately, that is not going to happen. Now in order to be productive, I must set my alarm to 5am so I can journal, use the bathroom, neti, brush my teeth, meditate, blog, put on coffee, do dishes, cook breakfast, stretch and check social media before my little one wakes up and demands my attention.

I have contemplated and even attempted to use the time after he goes to bed to do many of those things but it’s just not the same. By the time the evening rolls around I’m doing mobility in front of the tv. In order to have solitary time I would have to wait until my wife falls asleep and then there is simply no fuel left in the tank. Also the dark hours at the end of the day is when the cravings start. If I am left alone in the middle of the night it’s all too tempting to make grilled cheese sandwiches and raid the cupboard for snacks.

After years of fighting it, I am convinced that there is something worthwhile to waking up before the Sun. My body and mind fight me every day but I winning the battle so far. I don’t know that I will ever be a “morning person,” but I am content to be getting things done. The momentum created by being productive first thing in the morning is tremendous and the reward for waking up. I see now why so many people do it even though it would seem preferable to sleep.