Self-Development and Health

I believe in self-development.  I like to read books and watch videos and listen to podcasts that help me be a better person in one way or another.  That’s how I eventually found Tim Ferriss and the book that helped me solve my weight/health problem.  I was referred to Tim by Ramit Sethi, whose book and blog (both titled “I Will Teach You To Be Rich”) have helped me achieve great things financially.  I was aware of Tim, having heard him speak and met him briefly at South by Southwest a few years ago, but I had never read any of his stuff.

One thing I have loved about both Ramit’s stuff and Tim’s, is that the things they teach have broad implications and influence.  When I read Ramit, I am technically reading about finance, but I am learning about psychology and why I do certain things and how I can influence other people and all sorts of good stuff.  With Tim Ferriss, he doesn’t even pretend to be focused on one topic, unless that topic is “being awesome.”  I don’t mind super-focused books, but I love the things that I can implement in any number of ways.

That is all by way of introduction to the book I’m currently reading.  It’s called “The Slight Edge,” by Jeff Olson.  I watched a talk that Olson gave from a few months ago, and the things he said were impressive, but to be honest, the thing that struck me the most was: “Holy cow, this guy is built!”  Here’s a screen capture from a speech he gave:

I mean, he’s no Arnold Schwarzenegger, but you can tell that he takes good care of himself.  So as I listened to him speak, I was impressed by the things I heard, and I could tell that he applies the principles of success to other areas of his life — like his health.  And that is why I hopped on Amazon right then and bought his book.

I have not been disappointed.  Because of where I am in life and what I’ve been doing, I am naturally applying a lot of things to being healthy, and this book is full of principles that apply perfectly.  I just wanted to share a few things I’ve marked as I’ve read.  More of a brain dump than a cohesive blog post, but I hope it will be useful to someone.

When you enter a darkened room, why does your hand reach out for the light switch?  Because you know that when you hit the switch, the light will go on.  You don’t have to give yourself positive self-talk about how you really ought to hit that light switch, or set up a system of rewards and punishments for yourself around whether you follow through or not with hitting the light switch.  You don’t need any rigmarole; you just hit the switch.  Why?  Because you know what will happen.

I read this just a day or two after I posted this, where I talked about how my future health is a foregone conclusion, because I am following the right formula.  That’s pretty much exactly what Olson is saying here — if you do the thing that leads to the light turning on, the light will turn on.  If you do the things that lead to health, you will be healthy.

There is a natural progression in life, which everyone knew intimately back in the days when we were an agrarian society.  You plant, then you cultivate, and finally you harvest.  Plant, cultivate, harvest.

In today’s world, everyone wants to go directly from plant to harvest.  We plant the seed by joining the gym, and then get frustrated when a few days go by and there’s no fitness harvest.  Taking recreational drugs is an effort to go from plant directly to harvest.  So is taking steroids to enhance athletic performance.  So is robbing a bank; so is playing the lottery.

The step we keep overlooking (and overskipping!) is the step of cultivating.  And that, unlike planting and harvesting, takes place only through the patient dimension of time.

I love that.  I mentioned before how in my previous attempts to lose weight, I would always try to lose as much as possible as fast as possible, because I knew I wasn’t going to stick with it for long.  In the terms laid out by Jeff Olson, I was planting and then trying to harvest as much as possible, because I didn’t have what it took to cultivate.  What I’ve really learned over the past ten months is how to cultivate, how to patiently wait on the results that will surely come from the proper efforts.

Believing in the “big break” is worse than simply being futile.  It’s actually dangerous, because it can keep you from taking the actions you need to take to create the results you want.

… Our entire health crisis is nothing but one set of little decisions, made daily and compounded daily, winning out over another set of little decisions, made daily and compounded daily.

We look for the cure, the breakthrough, the magic pill — the medical-scientific quantum leap miracle our press has dubbed the “magic bullet.”  But the solution already exists.  It always did.  Is it magic?  Yes — the same magic that caused the problem: the power of daily actions, compounded over time.

As I read this, it reminded me of something I had just written:

I shouldn’t speak for all overweight people, but I’ve been one long enough and talked to enough of them that I am going to anyway: fat people want a silver bullet or a magic pill.  We’re told all our lives that the key to weight loss is diet and exercise.  Well guess what?  I’m fat because I really like food, and how am I supposed to exercise when I weigh 400 pounds?  So we go along, losing the same 20 pounds over and over again, hoping deep down inside (but never admitting it) that some new breakthrough diet or medicine will come along and allow us to lose weight without having to do anything impossible like diet and exercise.

That’s enough for now.  If you are interested in improving yourself, I highly recommend this book.  Jeff Olson clearly knows his stuff, and he presents it in a pretty straightforward way.  And the best part is, whatever you want to improve, it applies.  I’m applying all these things to getting healthy, but it could be finances or relationships or anything else.  The principles are true regardless of what they are applied to.