Forty, Fit(ter), and Fired up!
... These are some lessons from the book, but also things that I learned in my past few months of reform, and now I’m happy to report that I’m forty, fit(ter), and fired up!
In the past few months, I’ve lost approximately 20 lbs!
About a year before the pandemic lockdown, I picked up a sports related knee injury. It was a blow to my fitness because in the few years before that I had recovered from the extra pounds I picked up at the end of my PhD, and I was regularly doing a couple of half marathon races every year. This injury was the last straw after some emerging issues though. I had gained weight and was generally not doing great emotionally. I was unhappy with my job and in a search for what would be the next move, and kinda sorta playing around with the idea of the startup.
I finally got over myself and started doing pilates every day, and continued for about 6-7 months. And finally made the decision that I was done with my search and I wanted to be a full time founder. So, I quit my corporate job and went full time on aggregate intellect. Everything was great, right? Well, yes… except that this all was happening in early 2020! So, the pandemic lockdown completely fucked up my progress!
The next few years became a mix of anxiety, stress, lack of sleep, and isolation. I went to the brink of giving up on the company, and severely damaged many personal relationships, and the only thing I got very good at was overeating.
Just over two years ago, I started the “founders hike” group that you might have seen in an attempt to control this unwieldy situation. In many ways this initiative did wonders for me (and apparently all the other people who have since joined). The weekly physical and emotional vent, and the lockdown winding up finally started to really help me recover mentally and emotionally. But physically, I continued being a mess: sleep problems, anxiety driven eating, lack of activity due to knees not keeping up, … you name it!
This continued until my 40th birthday earlier this year. I don’t know if it was a mid-life crisis or what, but I spent a lot of time thinking about my choices, and especially noticing many of the everyday choices like yelling at the poor bastard who cut me off on the street as I was biking on the bike lane. Or the time that I stepped into the intersection late at night and a stupid driver almost ran me over. It was very clear that what I was doing was not sustainable.
I started talking about having a group of founders who meet every week and we would talk about our health: social, mental, cognitive, and physical. I was convinced that working on any of these alone would not suffice and I had to think and adjust all of these. I made many adjustments to how I lived and worked and I will write about those soon. But one of the favors I did to myself was picking up this book that was on my reading list for a few years!
In this book, Nigel Marsh writes about a similar period of time in his life where he chooses to go from a cushy corporate job to being a house husband for a year while he writes the book. I do strongly recommend that you read this book yourself, but in order to spoil the ending for you, here are the 12 lessons he wraps up the book with:
One year is a surprisingly short amount of time to get the dominant mindset you have out of your system and change your ways. But it would be a good opportunity if you could use a year to get closer to the fact that “not having to pretend is a huge blessing”.
You don’t have a lot of time to spend with people you love, so if you’re not present during the limited time you have, then you’re missing out.
If you want to make meaningful permanent change in your life, you have to be careful about where your motivation comes from (eg. internal vs external).
The only change that matters is the long-term, sustainable, changes. “Any buffoon can effect short-term ephemeral change.”
Setting goals and reaching them only buys you a moment of happiness. Meaningful change is an ongoing process.
Change with the goal of reaching perfection is a fool’s errand. Meaningful sustainable progress is the only relevant benchmark.
Once you are old enough, you probably know all the right answers. The trick is implementing them properly.
Working out how to live a more balanced authentic life is a complex, slow, and nonlinear process. Buckle up for some hard work.
It is ok not to chase mainstream society values, and instead look for what genuinely makes you happy and allows you to be yourself.
Finding a place where you can work and live as your authentic self is the greatest privilege in the world.
Real life is lived in the gray areas.
It is ok to take a break from the hamster wheel, reflect, and use that to decide how you want to be in the hamster wheel if you ever go back to it.
These are some lessons from the book, but also things that I learned in my past few months of reform, and now I’m happy to report that I’m forty, fit(ter), and fired up!
