I will admit, when the cloud moved away just in time, all of nature grew silent, and the shadow of the moon arrived, I secretly wished someone had cued Also sprach Zarathustra.
The eclipse was magnificent and moving. Planning a year in advance, so that we could be standing directly in the path of the shadow cast by a celestial body 220,000 miles away… I can’t describe it. Moving. Exciting. Awe-inspiring. Fun! Getting to see and do cool science experiments you only read about. Sure, in celestial terms, our little moon’s shadow flits across our blue mote many MANY times. But I count myself among the lucky ones who took the time to align my life — even if ever so briefly — with these majestic orbs.
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People who are able to make an impact on the world →
The self-limiting beliefs infect all of us because all of us like being competent, we like being respected, we like being successful. When something shows up that threatens to undo all of those things, well then it’s really easy to avoid it. What goes hand-in-hand with that is the sour mindset. The mindset of, “We are not getting what we deserve.” The mindset of, “The world is not fair.” The mindset of, “Why should I even bother, it’s probably not going to work.”
One thing those of us who are lucky enough to live in the world where we have enough — we have a roof and we have food — is we find ourselves caught in this cycle of keeping track of the wrong things. Keeping track of how many time we’ve been rejected. Keeping track of how many times it didn’t work. Keeping track of all the times someone has broken our heart, or double-crossed us, or let us down. Of course we can keep track of those things, but why, why keep track of them? Are they making us better?
Wouldn’t it make more sense to keep track of the other suttf? To keep track of all the times it worked? All the times we took a risk? All the times we were able to brighten someone else’s day? That when we start doing that we can redefine ourselves as people who are able to make an impact on the world.
Seth Godin has a lot of unusual (as in, high-fidelity, clear, insightful, meaningful, useful) things to say. This bit of insight made me stop in my tracks — literally made me stop walking and fumble for my podcast player controls to capture the time code so I could dig this out.
“We can redefine ourselves as people who are able to make an impact on the world,” indeed.
Now it may turn out that what a junior employee sees as a problem that they don’t have an answer to really isn’t a problem. On the other hand, some problems are much easier to identify than they are to fix. This is particularly true with ethical and cultural problems.
This piece is short, so my pull-quote may not make complete sense. I don’t like to pull-quote so much that you can get away with NOT reading the source because, in general, if I’m linking to it then I think the source is important enough to be read entirely.
I digress.
Ben raises a point here that jumped out at me once I saw it. I’ve been hearing and saying that same piece of advice and, yeah… it’s wrong. Yes, if you can bring a solution (or solutions, or even a half-baked first attempt at a solution) with the problem report, great! …but do not—never under any circumstances—refrain from speaking up when you see a problem. It’s either not a problem and you’ll level up when someone explains it, or it is a problem, or it’s a system in-built blind spot that is a problem… or… you know what? Just speak up.
Tyranny is our capacity to rationalize exceptions to rights for our enemies. Tyranny is our willingness to dismiss violation of rights as unimportant or minimal.
What motivates and shapes individual approaches to physical training, risk management, and personal growth?
Elet Hall takes time out from a motorcycle engine rebuild to discuss his approach to training (and not training), challenge, risk, danger, consequences, and why he walked away from American Ninja Warrior. Along the way, we talk about Lyme disease, and his work with the Bay Area Lyme Foundation, before he shares his four words to describe his practice.
Strength of character is what I’m looking for in almost everything that I do.
~ Elet Hall (30:00)
The conversation begins with reflections on Elet’s experiences in Ninja Warrior and parkour, emphasizing the importance of meeting people where they are in their personal journeys. It touches on how perceptions of these activities differ and how they can be bridges rather than barriers for people seeking self-improvement.
Further, the discussion moves to Elet’s personal training philosophy, rooted in nature and holistic approaches. Topics like the subjective and objective impacts of training, footwear choices for outdoor activities, and the biological and psychological effects of connecting with natural environments are explored. He highlights the value of understanding one’s own body and tailoring training to personal goals and limitations.
The latter part delves into a life-threatening incident that prompted Elet to reassess motivations and commitments. This leads to discussions on Lyme disease, its impact on energy levels, and the necessity of intentional training. The conversation ends with a reflection on building strength of character through thoughtful engagement with challenges, whether in parkour, life, or other pursuits.
Dr. Hans Selye called it the General Adaption Syndrome. You are going to try to adapt to the new situation that is presented to you. If you don’t, your body goes through first alarm, “How do I make this work?!” and then resistence.
You realize you’re not going to bridge that gap and you resist that fact. “It’s ok!”, “It’s ok that I’m in an unhappy marriage!”, “I’m gonna make it work!”, “It’s ok that I’m in a bad job!”, or “I’ve still got seven hours to drive to new york!”, or whatever it is…
That’s the resistence phase. Then your body goes into exhaustion. And I meet more and more of my clients, more and more people in the world, are facing this exhaustion. They’re showing up with what we would call diseases of the autonomic nervous system– that I think include lupus, arthritus, fibromyalgia… Very many of the autoimmune diseases are the body turning on itself because it has reached a stage of exhaustion because we cannot make the gap between how they’re supposed to be in the world and how they are in the world.
This is a wide-ranging podcast (you may want to skip over a bit of Daniel-specific Q-and-A up front) with the creator of the Anatomy Trains system of looking at anatomy as an integrated whole. They start on the basics and origin of Anatomony Trains but their dicussion travels VERY far afield discussing human domestication, parkour, birth, death and the future of our species. Two and a half hours well-spent in my book.
Humans are the most communicative species on the planet, but we’ve come increasingly to rely on the very cheapest signals: words. The problem with words is that they aren’t a scarce resource. Which is a more honest signal of your value to a company: when your boss says, “Great job!” or when she gives you a raise?
I’m not sure I have a take-away from this. I don’t mean, “I’m not sure I have a take-away to share“, I mean I’m not sure I have a take-away, for me personally.
This is a superlative question-and-answer session where Dr. Dagostino answers questions collected from Tim Ferris’s listeners.
It’s not so much a pitch about why you should do it (ketosis / the diet), but rather, it’s a deep discussion of all the details. What exactly is ketosis, how does it work, how do the systems in your body interact (at the various levels of organ, glands, hormones, cells, biochemics, and molecules.) Dr. Dagostino is obviously very much in favor of ketosis, but there’s a ton of useful information here.
I always think back: We were in these small foraging groups of 30-to-50 people who were part of a larger tribe, who were part of a larger language group, and we were very connected to these people. We carved that 30-to-50 up, down to nuclear families, and we carved them up into neighborhoods, and now we’ve carved that up into even smaller units, and broken families, and now individuals, and everybody’s plugged into the internet with everybody, but they’re all alone.
Daniel’s guest, Amanda Archibald, discusses what Centenarians (persons 100 years of age and beyond) eat. It’s a fun and wiiiiiiide ranging discussion about food, human civilization and society.
