Ideas and Execution

June 24, 2012

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I asked my friend Chance what his best advice would be for me in writing a book. He said, “The best advice I can give you is the one piece you don’t want to hear… JUST WRITE IT… One idea fully executed is worlds better than a thousand great ideas that go nowhere.”

 

Quickly thereafter I would write 5 pages a day, and then locked myself in for 4 days to do nothing but writing. And now I have a working copy of my thoughts on creating a great place to work, called The Culture Blueprint.

 

While Chance’s advice was key, here is what I consider to be the leverage point:

 

Separate your idea versus execution time. 

 

In other words, consider these as two different people. When you are in a wild storm of ideas, take them all down. But when you execute do NOT let the idea person in the room. That person is not welcome. That person will mess up the process. They have good intentions, but they will derail your inner executer.

The Prescription of the Big Cleanse

March 23, 2012

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Okay, here’s the prescription, as discussed in previous posts.

I recommend first reading Mastin’s original story behind the cleanse (Part 1, Part2, Part 3), and he’s is also available as a mentor through this.

Then here’s the plan. For 30 Days…

ELIMINATE:

  • Sugar
  • Wheat
  • Dairy
  • Alcohol / Drugs
  • Caffeine
  • Sex
  • Dating
  • Flirting
  • Masturbation
  • Facebook
  • TV
  • Talking to Ex’s or Crushes

START:

I have found that myself and others question the Kundalini Yoga part, but it was really quite essential in processing all the emotion that comes up. Mastin did it twice a day on the cleanse so he believes 3x a week is the minimum.

As you can see, it’s no small deal to do this. But two of my friends dived in instantly. One is almost complete and the other just started, and both are loving the experience of really getting into what emotions have been pushed down for years.

Consider it like a re-boot, for your life.

The Big Cleanse – Finale

March 15, 2012

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“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.” 
― Joseph Campbell

 

The first two weeks were quite challenging, as I mentioned in the first big cleanse post. All the emotions, and not a single vice to suppress it.  I found that a lot of thoughts came through that I didn’t like. I found myself to be an incredibly judgmental person. It was like I was sitting back and watching myself, because if I took action on those thoughts I believed to be true, I would have said a lot of things I’d regret.

 

What was also hard was the social detox. The prescription included no contact with crushes or ex’s, even if they were from high school! I thought that would be no bid deal, but a close friend of mine was going through a challenging situation and I couldn’t reach out. I prayed for her each night, and I was often upset with myself for the pure selfishness of this cleanse. But I also knew I had to do this to find my inner peace.

 

You see, most of my life I’ve been obsessed with “doing the right thing.” And I’ve found this to be a terrible compass. It has created more stress and anxiety than anything else. The difference between what I believe is the right thing to do vs what actually feels good has created a sense of guilt so strong that I have often felt like ending it all. (I now realize it was an internal conflict of values so unresolvable, that action action in either direction would cause me pain).

 

As a life long learner, I became aware of this on an intellectual level. But mere awareness never seemed to change anything (not for long at least).  And as I went through the first few weeks of the cleanse, what I feared most was going through it for 30 days and seeing nothing really change. As I mentioned this, my healer laughed and said, “The one constant in the Universe is change. So don’t worry about that!”

 

And then something shifted after the second week. It started when I began going to bed earlier. I found that I loved spending time alone. I cleaned, I read, I wrote, I meditated, I exercised. I was creating a new lifestyle for myself. Emotionally I felt like there were no big highs or lows. Just a constant peaceful foundation that couldn’t be rocked.

 

I was taking Kundalini yoga classes 3x a week, and on the 30th day I had my final class. After two weeks of pure peace, I began to feel very scared. When I started the cleanse I couldn’t wait for it to end. And now I didn’t want it to stop. I had entered my innermost cave, made a home for myself, and I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t want to change my militant diet. I didn’t want to be social, or be in a relationship, or even have sex.  And the guilt ensued. I literally felt crazy – like I had experimented with being homeless for a month and didn’t want to come back.

 

It’s been two weeks since the cleanse officially ended, and to be honest… I don’t know if I’m back. I don’t know where I am. I’m continuing almost all of the new habits, but I’m not tied to them.  I find I have very few judgments. I have a much deeper acceptance of people and myself. I’ve also noticed that the emotion of embarrassment is largely gone. I didn’t really notice it till now, but I used to walk around with this constant chatter in my head, wondering what people think of me, trying to take care of people and not upset anyone. Most of that is gone.

 

It’s been really nice to reconnect with people. They say I feel more a lot more authentic. And it amazes me how intrigued people are by the cleanse. It definitely gets a strong reaction (in one way or another). A friend of mine noticed a difference so great that he immediately started the cleanse and now I’m coaching him through it. He’s two weeks into it and loving it.

 

I highly recommend trying it. I’ll post the exact prescription in case anyone is interested in doing it. But even if you don’t, I want to leave you with a question.  How are you distracting yourself? What is it you’re doing now to avoid a feeling you don’t want to feel?  These things are the guards of the innermost cave. They seem benevolent because all they want to do is protect you from pain. They don’t believe you can handle it. They think you’ll die.

 

But I’m here to tell you, there’s gold in that cave behind the dragon… And God knows we don’t appreciate things that simply land in our lap.

Hyper Sleep

February 21, 2012

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“Early to bed and early to rise, makes one healthy, wealthy and wise.” – Benjamin Franklin

In my previous post about the Big Cleanse, I mentioned that I had been waking up every night at about 3am.  I would be up for hours before finally catching an hour or two of sleep before work. At first, this brought up a lot of fear in me… “What if I’m so tired I can’t work?  What if something is wrong with me?”

 

And then I thought, what if I just went with this?

 

I quickly recalled a fascinating conversation with my friend Dahyu Patel (an amazing coach, entrepreneur and life hacker). He studies the habits of interesting sects of society such as the Navy Seals, or in this case, native american tribes. “They (the tribe) told me that every hour you sleep before midnight, counts as two hours of sleep if they were after midnight.”  And so he sleeps from 8:30pm – 2:30am and by that math, he gets 8 hours of sleep every night.

 

When I first heard it, I was totally intrigued but thought there’s no way I could do it. What kind of life could I have that ends every day at 8pm!?  But now that I’ve eliminated every vice possible, I though, “Shit, what have I got to lose?” So I tried it out for a week.  Everyday I get into bed by 8:30pm and drift off to sleep. Some nights I wake up at 3am and start my day. Other nights I sleep all the way through to 6am. Or other nights I rise from 2am to 5am and then go back to sleep.
And I have to say, it feels like a luxurious indulgence.

 

I find that I am getting more done than ever. My dreams are longer and more vivid. I am no longer waking up with pain all over my body. I am no longer cranky in the morning. And I don’t miss the late nights.

 

My old pattern was to go home, feel like I could fall asleep around 8, push through it to work on my passion projects, find that I had no energy to do so, and instead watch TV or mess around on Facebook.

 

I looked around the web for any supporting evidence of how this might be beneficial and found this:
“It seems the liver is involved in a good night’s sleep. It regulates our energy level for the next day. The liver follows the cycle of the sun. Around six in the evening it wants to go to sleep and starts to store up the sugars (glycogen) to be used for the next day. When we stay up late at night we affect the liver’s metabolism. It can no longer simply store sugar. Our body, by being awake and active, needs sugar in the blood stream, and so we force the liver to reverse its process and break down glycogen to provide this sugar. We get a second wind, a burst of sugar in our blood stream, and yet we are really depleting our energy for the next day. Our liver can’t store up the glycogen it needs for the next day and so the next day we have a liver that is depleted of glycogen.”

I’m sure many people think I’m weird or crazy for doing this, but if there’s anything I’m learning doing this cleanse (and growing up) it’s that I’m the only one living my life, so I’m the one who lives with my choices and ultimately decides what works best.  

 

So… If this intrigues you at all. I hope you’ll stop thinking about it intellectually and try it out and decide for yourself! 

 

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