Weight Room PRs #1

Today was a strange day: the best, most productive two hours of my day were the first two, from about 5:30-7:30 am. We had team lift, and today we tested Hang Clean and Back Squat.

I currently weight around 155 lbs. Here are my results from today:

Hang Clean PR – 245 lbs

Back Squat (tied PR) – 335 lbs

It felt pretty great hitting those numbers. I celebrated with some yoga with a few teammates. Then the rest of my day was pretty mediocre, except for home made dinner with my girlfriend. My energy was zapped after the morning and I’m still recovering from an illness.

But it’s okay. Sometimes all it takes is a couple of hours to be grateful for. That was the case today.

Here’s for another adventure tomorrow.

Jasper the Dog

Sometimes going to a dog adoption center puts everything in perspective.

Today my girlfriend and I went to go pet and walk dogs. We met Jasper. In 30 minutes, I fell in love with Jasper and Jasper fell in love with me. He was a light brown dog, still a puppy. His face was tan and pitbull-esque and his eyes were marbles. He was a good walker and sniffer. He even likes to run a little.

Then, after a magical 30 minutes, we had to get on with our day. After a belly rub and some kisses we said goodbye to Jasper. He cried as we left and so did I. I left full of love and sadness. I am in no place in my life to adopt a dog. I hope Jasper finds a home very soon.

It’s the loving that makes it worth it. What happens after doesn’t matter. The love matters. Jasper may not be mine to keep but he will always be in my heart.

You’re not Sick; You’re Healing

After 2 weeks of being back at school, I came down with a GI bug and a sore throat. It’s temping to give in to the “sick” bug and claim that I am sick. I could be the victim to this illness and allow it to win, altering my identity along the way. The worst part is that everybody would support this choice. They would be okay with me taking a few days off to be sick.

But I choose wellness over illness. See, sickness is a state of mind. So is healing. I am Aaron, and I will not allow a virus or bacteria or parasite to change who I am. I may have an illness, but I am not sick. I am Aaron, and I am healing.

I wasn’t able to do much today. I could’ve taken this opportunity to have people care for me and—to the delight of my subconscious—feel bad for me. Instead I chose to rest, recover, replenish, and heal. I can already feel the illness subsiding. My mind told my body to fight back, and my soul jumped on board. My whole being is winning the fight.

As cold and flu season dawns on us, remember the choice you have: you can choose to be sick or you can choose to be healing. In harmony with belief, this choice will change everything.

Strategic Dreaming

Want to change the world? I don’t know how to do that, but one day I’ll probably have an idea.

Though I don’t yet know my path, I’m sure I’ll need money to learn and have meaningful experiences. So I should work.

And I’m not sure who will be my teammates will be in this game, but there will be some. So I should work on my relationships.

There will be new ideas and perspectives. I should practice opening my mind.

And I know I’ll be spending time with myself. So I better get to know myself now.

Find your Medicine and use it

I really dove into Nahko & Medicine for the People’s musical medicine this summer.  I learned a lot, I felt a lot, I smiled a lot, and I cried a lot.  The song in my heart of late has been Manifesto, especially the following verse:

“They sang, ‘Don’t waste your hate,

Rather, gather and create.

Be of service,

Be a sensible person,

Use your words and don’t be nervous.

You can do this—you’ve got purpose.

Find your medicine and use it.'”

from Manifesto

And so I’ve been trying to find my medicine.  I’ve come to believe that medicine isn’t something only certain people have access to. It’s not necessarily a pill or a plant or a cure or a good meal; it is all of these things and more.  Medicine is what works.  Everything can be medicine at the appropriate time.  Some medicines will work better than others, but it’s set, setting, and internal state dependent.  It’s not one philosophy of medicine vs. another. Medicine is more.

Blood Sugar Crash Course

Though blood sugar has a dramatic impact on your life, you may be one of the people that doesn’t understand it at all. If this is you, be not afraid. I’m going to give you a simple explanation of blood sugar, insulin, and its effect on your behavior in a few paragraphs. No scientific jargon or necessary data. A basic, plain-spoken blood sugar crash course.

You take a bite of chicken and rice. As your stomach begins digestion, signals are sent to your pancreas telling it to produce insulin. Insulin is a hormone necessary to allow cells to use glucose—the simple sugar that makes up carbohydrates—for energy. Insulin ensures that blood glucose / sugar levels don’t rise too rapidly. As food digests and blood sugar levels rise, so does insulin. Eventually, insulin causes blood sugar to fall.

Have you ever just had orange juice for breakfast? You were probably hungry in 10 minutes. Orange juice is full of easily-digestible simple sugars. These spike blood sugar levels, making the pancreas work hard to rapidly produce insulin (blood sugar this high isn’t safe for your body). Insulin is produced and blood sugar, quite dramatically, crashes. You begin to feel hunger—food will surely raise your low blood sugar back up again. You grab a snack, like a bagel. And so the roller coaster continues, keeping your body in this never-ending, stressful cycle.

Is it any wonder why Type II Diabetes is at epidemic levels in America? Our breakfast staples are pancakes with syrup and cereal with milk—food containing massive levels of simple sugars. The insulin roller coaster of the Standard American Diet (which tells you carbohydrates are good and fats are bad) is devastating Americans every day.

Here’s three surefire ways to make your pancreas happy and avoid the insulin rollercoaster:

  1. Eat less often – Suppose you eat 3 meals a day and have only 2 snacks. This means your blood sugar and insulin will only spike 5 times.
  2. Eat balanced meals – Instead of only eating a bagel, maybe you eat a more balanced meal, like avocado last with an egg. Fat and protein eaten with carbohydrates slow down blood sugar levels, so eating healthy fats with carbs is a simple way to regulate blood sugar and produce less insulin.
  3. Try intermittent fasting – Take the concept from number 1, but this time skip breakfast and the snacks. If you finish dinner at 8pm, don’t eat until the next day until 12pm or 2pm. Your body has loads of energy stores it’s just waiting to use. It’s easier than you think.

In the end, the goal is for you to become cognizant of your food choices. Maybe only eating an apple for breakfast may sound “healthy” but isn’t metabolically appropriate. That coffee full of sugar might be a bad first choice of the day.

Start to experiment. See which meals provide you lasting energy. Notice which meals make you feel like crap in an hour. Become your own scientific study. It will help you out in the long run.

Are you Irreplaceable?

So tonight I’m presenting in my Perspectives in Leadership class. My classmate and I were asked to “enhance a discussion” on Trait Theory. This leadership theory says that effective leaders possess similar characteristics, such as intelligence, determination, self-confidence, and integrity. Makes sense. Trait Theory has its flaws, too. One flaw is that good leadership is always developed.

All things considered, we will be talking about being irreplaceable. Like the Beyoncé song. Here’s some guiding questions:

If good leaders have innate qualities, are they considered irreplaceable? Should they be irreplaceable? If a good leader dies and nobody replaces him or her, were they really a good leader? Or is leadership something more profound, something less ego-driven, something that ought to be replicated, replaced, and modeled?

If Bill Belichick died tomorrow, would the Patriots be dominated?

If LeBron couldn’t play on the Lakers, what would the team look like?

If Serena Williams disappeared, what would happen to Women’s Tennis?

Here is my theory: Good leaders are replaceable. They work to set up systems to ensure organizational success and they spend time developing their followers into leaders. Their loss should not be the death of their company.

But this theory is temporal. It doesn’t mean you should strive to be replaced. It means quite the opposite. You should be irreplaceable by becoming a leader and building up those around you; then you may be replaced.

It’s a team approach, an ego-less pursuit. It’s something I will be struggling with my whole life.

I am uniquely irreplaceable. That is why I must be replaced.

Naked iPhone

I’ve been careless with technology in the past. I’ve dropped and broken phones, computers, watches, and Xbox controllers. I recently bought a new iPhone 8 and have been using an old iPhone 6 case to protect it; however, the past few days I’ve been carrying it around without a case. Naked.

Neil deGrasse Tyson doesn’t have a case on his iPhone. His reasoning is metaphoric yet simple: medieval soldiers respected the swords they carried for the weapons they were. They were careful when handling them. They didn’t throw them around or forget them. Without their swords, they would not be soldiers but strategists.

Is an iPhone not more powerful than a weapon? A sword can kill; a phone can create. A sword opens chasms; a phone is a bridge. A sword is a select class; a phone is for everybody.

Imagine how the world would be different if we treated phones for the weapons they were.

Yin or Yang?

I heard a podcast today. This guy said success is only attainable if you push forward against the odds and do difficult things. Makes sense. I typically default to this way of thinking. It’s how I’ve gotten to where I am in life: hard work.

Last week I listened to another podcast where Joe Dispenza talked about quantum energy fields. He says you can enter into these fields in deep meditations and, with a clear intention and an elevated emotion, you can attract what you want towards you. And it comes. I’ve done some of his meditations and can feel what he’s talking about.

So which is it? Should I chase my dreams or attract them towards me?

On the golf course, I always told golfers to stop trying so hard. Sounds funny, but the harder you try to have a good score the worse your score will be. At track practice, my coach often reminds us to run fast, not hard. And then there’s the Daoist principle of Wu Wui, also called Trying not to Try.

But what about David Goggins, Bedros Keullian, and Ed Mylett? What about Gary Vee? Don’t I have to put the work in to get what I desire? How likely is it that it will just come to me and I will be complete?

Yeah. So probably both.

Made with Love

You’ve heard it said a thousand times from mom, grandmom, and that snarky barista: “I made it with love.” But what if the attitude of the chef or creator actually has an impact—biochemically—on the food we eat?

It’s not an unreasonable claim. My anatomy professor says the heart is merely a pump and that all emotions, be it love or anger, come from your head. But there’s millions of people around the world who believe the heart produces electrochemical, magnetic resonances that extend into the space around a one’s body.

What if those people are right? Suppose it’s true. Suppose the aura emitted by your heart is dictated by emotions. Suppose that aura has electric and magnetic charges. All food is made of elements and molecules (like water) that change in structure and behavior if charged. Thus, the aura of the chef changes the meal while it’s being prepared.

Maybe that aura resonates different frequencies for gratitude and distress. Maybe food responds likewise.

Maybe “Made with Love” makes more of a difference than we think.