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The #1 Productivity Hack In The World

February 12, 2013 By 17 Comments

productivity

Everyone wants to be more productive and get more stuff done. Productivity advice comes in droves and it seems everyone has their little piece to add. A popular video has been circulating the past year or so with Richard Branson on how he doubles his productivity.

Richard Branson’s Take on Productivity

[click to watch video]

Richard Branson is one of my favorite entrepreneurs in the world and I love that answer, but it’s not quite there. Obviously, I love fitness, and sure you might make even more happen if you’re already started and you add in exercise. However, if you’re like most people and struggling to get started, you’ll still be stuck at zero.

The #1 Productivity Hack In The World

The #1 reason why most people aren’t productive, isn’t that they’re not exercising – it’s that they don’t know what to do.

They don’t know what to do because they haven’t decided what they’re going to do.

They’re either waiting for a cue from someone or simply mulling over the pros and cons of the decisions over and over and over. You can only do that so many times until you start finding that you’re surfing the internet aimlessly, playing video games or generally being unproductive.

That’s why decision is so important.

Decision Leads To Action

Without decisions you just have potential options. You might have 2 or 3 or 10 potential options, but because you haven’t made a decision, you work a little here and a little there, but you never really make any progress because you’ve never actually made a decision.

Personal Note: I’ve been working on this the past 6 months and really focusing on where & how I spend my time. Being able to DECIDE means you’re able to eliminate things that aren’t important, focus and execute on the ones that are.

The reason why decision works so well, is that decision leads directly into action. If you decide you’re going to do something and commit to doing it, all that’s left is the doing. You already know what needs to be done, so you set aside the motivation, and become disciplined to do it.

The outcome has already been decided. You’re just waiting for reality to catch up.

Good Or Bad – It Matters Less Than You Think

The main reason people waver on decisions is that one is good and one is bad.

But, it’s often the case that most things aren’t . Some are good and some are better. There might even be a “best” decision at the time, but it can be hard to always know ahead of time with the information you have. Sometimes it’s impossible (unless you have time traveling capabilities).

So you can either sit still, suffer from paralysis by analysis and never do anything or you can can decide, take action, learn from the outcome and repeat and get closer to what you want to accomplish.

The Most Important Decision

No matter whether your decisions are good or bad, the most important decision you can make is to keep going.

Sometimes you’re going to make bad decisions. Keep going. Make better ones in the future. Sometimes you’ll make good decisions. Keep going. Make them better. Sometimes you have no idea if what you just decided to do was good or not.

Keep moving forward anyways.

You can do your homework, learn all you want, but at some point you just have to decide and take action. If (or better yet: WHEN), something goes wrong, decide to keep going and endure.

Decide. Act. Repeat and keep going.

Want to be more productive? Work on making decisions. Then execute.

The #1 Productivity Hack In The World Video

[click to watch video]

I’m doing 28 days of videos on YouTube. Catch up and ask your questions here.

photo credit: Paul Worthington
photo credit: Stuck in Customs

Filed Under: Adventures, Life, Strategies, The Impossible Tagged With: , ,

We’re Building A School In Guatemala ≠ Impossible

January 4, 2013 By 18 Comments

We did it.

We freaking did it.

Impossible School

I remember shooting this video in LA back in July and wondering “What the heck amI getting myself into?” Apparently the answer was: An Awesome Adventure.

The goal was $25,000. We smashed that a week early (on Christmas no less), and raised $26,406

Because of you guys, 1,000 kids in Guatemala are literally going to have the chance to do something they thought might be impossible – get an education. I really can’t accurately describe how that makes me feel. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

The Breakdown

A large quantity of consistent small actions can produce incredible things.

An interesting thing happened as our campaign developed.

Most campaigns are dominated by the 80/20 rule. They’ll have big, generous, flagship donors who contribute anywhere from 25% – 50% or even 75% of the goal. We didn’t have that.

That’s probably something I can work on doing as I learn more and get better at fundraising, but personally I think it’s pretty freaking awesome that we raised over $25,000 with mostly small donations.

Now small is relative, of course, we had some very generous donors, but I think the biggest overal donations were a touch over $1,000. The majority were made up of $100, $50, and $25 donations. That means a ton of people got involved and took action.

That’s pretty cool.

Things I Learned

Clarity 

Clarity is huge. Stating exactly what you want to achieve by an exact date is really important. It can be tempting to be vague when talking about doing something impossible because vagueness gives you safety. When you’re vague, you give yourself some cushion in the future in case you fail – you have a built in alibi.

Specificity makes it a hard landing. Interestingly enough, the bolder you are, the more precise your goals are, the easier it is to achieve them. Be clear. Be precise.

Deadlines

Goals without deadlines are nothing but dreams.

Always have a deadline. They have a way of creating an urgency and focused around.

Have a deadline. Make it shorter than you think you need. You might be surprised at how fast you can actually accomplish it (for more on this, see Parkinson’s Law).

The Origin of Service

Service (like most things) is more about mindset than capability.

It’s less about the amount of money than it is the idea of generosity. For some people, donating $5 takes way more than it does for other people to give $1,000. It’s not about the quantity as much as it is about the attitude of the person giving.

Anybody can donate $5. Few people will actually do it.

If you can see yourself doing something, you can do it. If you can’t see yourself doing it, usually you can’t achieve it. – David Goggins

Similarly, if you tink you can make an impact, you probably will.  If you don’t think you can, you probably won’t.

Interestingly enough, this is exactly what happens when you want to do something impossible.

If you always say “I’ll start being generous when I have X amount of dollars”, chances are you’ll never learn how to be generous in the first place – even if you have a million, billion, trillion dollars (or whatever the number is for you).

Similarly, if you always say “I’ll start doing something impossible when [insert your reason here] (ex. I know more / I’m less scared / I’m more prepared), chances are you’ll never learn how to do things that require you being ignorant, scared and unprepared and you’ll never do much of anything.

You’re probably not ready to do the things you need to be doing. Do them anyways.

Special Thank Yous

Special Thanks to the following people for stepping up big throughout the campaign.

All of them stepped up to raise more than $1500 towards the campaign.

Also, thank you to everyone else who donated or rallied their own friends & family to raise money for this.

For those of you who donated throughout the campaign, I’ve fulfilled my promise. I ran the race with a camera and shot videos throughout it giving shoutouts along the way. It’s a little on the long side (it was a long run), but if you make it through past mile 20, I start to get a little loopy and the shout outs get a little more convoluted/entertaining :) . You can click through to youtube you can skip directly to different parts. There’s a special thank you to EVERYONE (over 300 of you) who contributed in some way at the end of the video as well.

Ultramarathoning

(click on my face to watch the video in email)

What’s Next

I learned a ton from this project and it’s not done yet. We’re still finalizing all the details, but we’ll be heading to Guatemala later this year to check out the school and add some final touches.

To everyone who’s been involved with the campaign in any way: thank you. You made this happen.

This is just the beginning.

Thanks for being a part of it.

- Joel

(If you’d still like to give, you can do so here – these guys will appreciate it).

 

Impossible Ones School

 

Filed Under: Adventures, BIT Updates, Good Stories, Impossible Things, Kicking A**, Life, Story, The Impossible Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Why Physical Fitness Is A Terrible Goal

December 22, 2012 By 11 Comments

Physical fitness is a terrible goal.

I might ruffle some feathers with this post but it really is. Sure, it sounds like a great goal, but it’s a terribly misleading.

Lets break it down.

Mike Impossible HQ

Why Physical Fitness is a TERRIBLE Goal

There’s a whole bunch of reasons.

It’s Not Defined

Physical fitness is a state of being, but it’s not a goal. It sounds nice if you could just magically float around in a state of fitness on a cloud while eating “healthy” foods and being fit, but it’s not a goal.

Physical fitness is not a definite goal.

It’s Not Measurable

Because it’s not defined, it’s not measurable. Physical fitness has no benchmark. You can never know if you’re actually there. There’s no metric.

Look at the following list. One of these things is not like the other:

  • Deadlift 300lbs.
  • Do 20 pull-ups.
  • Run a mile in less than 6 minutes.
  • Run 26.2 miles consecutively.
  • Be physically fit.

All of these (except one) are incredibly specific. You can either do them or you can’t.

  • Deadlift 300lbs: You either can do it or you can’t.
  • Do 20 pull-ups: You can either do it or you can’t.
  • Run a mile in less than 6 minutes: You can either do it or you can’t.
  • Run 26.2 miles consecutively. You can either do it or you can’t.
  • Be physically fit……….

The problem with being “physically fit” is it has no definition – it’s just is (whatever that means). It changes for different people.

Some people think it’s a certain weight, some think it’s a certain BMI or body composition. Others will think it’s the ability to do a certain distance race. For some people it’s to finally not being exhausted walking up the stairs, but until you define it for yourself, it provides no actual metric

But being “physically fit”, provides no actual metric for knowing how far you’ve come or if you ever get there. There’s no benchmark, so while it’s a nice ideal, it’s not really attainable.

You Learn Nothing

Most people try to be physically fit, but because they’re not measureable, and not attainable, they never properly orient their actions around their goal (because one doesn’t really exist). Instead of making concerted efforts in a choreographed manner, they do a little here, and a littler there, but they never actually improve or learn anything.

They try a few exercises for a few weeks, but they essentially stay the same person with the same knowledge when they started out.

Impossible Challenge

Why Challenges

They’re Attainable
Set a challenge, something you might think is impossible, then go do it.
Don’t wait around.
If you want to do it, you can go out and try, try, try until it’s done.
They’re Measurable

Because challenges are measurable  you’ll either complete a challenge or fail it. There’s no middle ground. You can either run the distance or you can’t. You can either lift the weight or you can’t. You can either succeed or fail. If you succeed, you set a new challenge and keep going. If you fail, you can recalibrate and make a new attempt at it.

If that sounds daunting, it’s much better than staying in no-man’s-land and never knowing. Failing sucks, but it isn’t fatal. At the very least it gives you feedback in one way/shape/form.

With challenges, you can either do it or you can’t. There’s no “maybe.” There’s no more questions of whether of not it’s possible. It either is or isn’t.

They’re Learnable.

The best part about challenges is you can learn from them. You can do anything for 30 days. You should be able to do anything for 8 weeks.

  • If you want to run a marathon, you don’t have to dedicate your life to running marathons, you just have to spend 3 months training.
  • If you have want to run a triathlon, you don’t need to become the top triathlete in the world. You just have to run your first one ever.
  • You dont’ have to set a world record in deadlifting, you just have to set your own goal and then hit it.

Not only is this effective, but it’s a lot more fun.

It’s really hard to learn something while trying to be physically fit because your next course of action is blurry.

You might try a few different things, eat a few different foods and head to the gym a couple times a week, but you most likely won’t create focused routines, form habits, or make lasting changes. You can spend tons of time learning to get fit while never actually learning anything.

Because the goal is vague, your immediate next steps aren’t clear. Challenges change that.

  • If you want to run a marathon, you practice until you understand running and are capable of running a marathon.
  • If you want to lose 20 pounds, you get a framework and learn what you need to do to burn fat.
  • If you want to add weight to your deadlift, you start learning how to deadlift until you get good enough to hit your weight goals.

You might be completely ignorant when you start, but by the time you cross that finish line/lift that weight/lose that weight, you’ll know infinitely more about yourself and the subject area than if you started from scratch.

The Real Problem With “Fitness” as a Goal

It’s Lazy. No, it’s not necessarily lazy with your workouts – it’s lazy goal setting. ”Being fit” is a lazy goal. It’s easy to say and most everyone will accept it, but no one will call you out on it.

No one will hold you accountable to whether or not you do it, because there’s nothing to actually hold you accountable to.

  • If you want a six pack, say it.
  • If you want to be able to run a 3 hour marathon, say it.
  • If you want to deadlift 400 pounds, say it.
  • If you want to do a planche pushup, say it.
  • If you want to do a firefly pose in yoga, say it.

Then go do it.

But, don’t cop out and pick a vague goal like “fitness” and wonder why you don’t achieve it. Be concrete.

The less specific you are with a goal, the less likely you are to achieve it. If you don’t say it or at the very least, write it down, you won’t do it. Have the courage to say what you really want. This goes for fitness. This goes for life.

The Real Power Of Challenges

The real power of challenges is they give you focus. They give you something to orient your behavior around. Fitness is a great concept, but its an unfocused goal and incredibly difficult to measure your progress. Set a challenge, then go do it and learn a ton of things along the way

If you want to set better goals, set more challenges.

Set impossible challenges, and then catch up with them! - Richard Branson

How do we do that? Simple. Follow this formula:

–> Pick a challenge. Pick a date.

Accomplish [specific challenge here] by [insert specific date here].

A few concrete examples of this include:

Do _____________ challenge by _______________ date.

Be specific about the thing you want to accomplish and the time frame you want to accomplish it in.

Don’t be lazy and set terrible goals. Be specific and set impossible challenges. Then catch up to them.

We’ll take an even deeper look at this in an upcoming post. Stay tuned.

—

Big props to Mike for killing it in his Impossible Shirt

Filed Under: Fitness, Physical Challenges, The Impossible Tagged With: , , , ,

How To Kill A Project

December 7, 2012 By 10 Comments

I’m a big proponent of starting lots of things. I think it’s a really good exercise in learning to become a doer. But there comes some times when you have to admit that some things fail (or even just didn’t go the way you wanted them to go).

Chris called this “letting go of a project.” Letting go sounds really nice, but I’ve found it to be much more difficult than simply “letting go.” The truth is that “letting go” often means a project dies, and you’re the one responsible for killing it.

Muderer!

And that means you have to be a little heartless. When you start a lot of projects, you have to get okay with killing a project (your baby) now and then. In the past 6 months alone, I’ve had to kill at least a half-dozen projects that simply didn’t pan out, were distracting or taking up too much mental space.

A few notable ones you may have noticed

  • I’m no longer a part of Nerve Rush
  • I took the forums down (they’re not coming back up).
  • I closed down an e-commerce store I ran.
  • I shuttered several niche-type sites that were taking too much anecdotal energy.
  • I’ve closed down multiple other side projects & turned down a lot of ancillary opportunities.
  • I’ve fired a few marketing clients.

Sometimes you have to kill a project and when that time comes, here’s how you can kill your project and focus on what really matters.

How To Kill A Project

Figure Out What You Want

Figure out what you want.

When you start something, you often have no idea what you want. That’s not a big deal when you start because the hardest part of everything is starting. When you’re starting out, simply starting trumps all.

However, down the line, once you get the hang of starting things, you might find that one or two of the projects aren’t what you thought they would be or don’t quite fit into your future plans. You’ll need to get rid of those projects.

Spend some time figuring out what you really want and the rest of this will be a lot easier.

Take Inventory of Your Projects

Before you kill your different projects, you’ll want to take inventory of all of them by asking a few important questions.

Time Investment
How much time is this taking me on a monthly basis? How much time am I investing in this every week? Multiply that by 4.

Monetary Investment
How much money is this costing me on a monthly basis?

Unseen/Intangible Investment
Some projects don’t take a lot of capital investment or even a lot of your time, but they do take a ton of your energy. They sap your energy and enthusiasm from what you really should be spending your time on.

You’ll find yourself dreading doing some projects and simply not interested in other.

This can be the most dangerous of all these investments, because you’re not always aware that it’s happening.

The Return

Once you’ve figured out what your inputs are, it’s important to figure out what you’re getting from each project.

Am I getting any additional time from this? Is my time being utilized correctly?

How much money is this bringing me every month? Is this substantial/sustainable/worth it?

What additional opportunities is this bringing me that may not be immediately obvious (relationships, opportunities, curiosity, enjoyment).

Opportunity Costs
If you kill this the project, what will it allow you to do in the future.

  • What additional things can you do with your time?
  • What can you do with your additional resources?
  • What parts of your business/life can you focus on now that you’ve cleared your mental space?

Ask The Hard Question

Once you’ve gathered all the info above, you have to ask yourself the hard question:

Is it worth it?

Is whatever return you’re getting on the project, worth whatever you’re putting into it?

At this point in the game, it’s important to keep in mind the answer to the first question of this whole process: what do you really want?

Decide Which One To Kill

You may have one. You may have 3. If you have a bunch of different projects, some with more success you’ll probably have to kill a couple of them.

Weigh what you want with the inputs & outputs of each project.

Pick which one to kill and decide.

Walk Away

This is the hard part.

Walk away.

You keep telling yourself, just six months. Just six more month. Six more. S-I-X. Walking away seems like quitting, but eventually you just need to do it

If something is a side project, you need to treat it like a side project. If something is a business, it needs to be a business.

The worst thing you can do is drag things out and slowly bleed yourself out and let the project die a slow terribly death while taking your other projects with you and slowly sapping your enthusiasm through the whole process.

What About When A Project Isn’t Necessarily Bad?

This is the worst scenario to be in.

If a project hasn’t succeeded and hasn’t failed, it’s in danger of settling into solid mediocrity – which unlike failure, can go on for eternity.

Ask yourself a few questions:

  • Am I really set on completing this project?
  • Can I get this project out of mediocrity in 3-6 months?
  • Do I want to put the effort into getting this out of mediocrity

Set a Time Bomb
Set a time bomb for this. Essentially an exploding deadline that makes you kill your project if it doesn’t get to the level of success you want by a specified time.

If _______________ (project name) doesn’t achieve  _______________ (directly measurable metric of success) by __/__/____ (specific date less than 6 months in the future), _______________ (project name) automatically shuts down. I’ll cease future work on it and the automatic consequence of goes into effect and I have to shoot my project in the face (figuratively) and walk away.

This is extra tough, when you have a project that’s not necessarily bad, but may not be the best project.

***

It’s worth nothing that this isn’t advocating simply quitting when things get hard. Things will get hard, but you’ll have much more energy to allocate to fight through the truly hard things if you’ learn to quit the projects that aren’t really strategic in your overall master plan.

***

TLDR

Launching multiple projects is great. Throw something against the wall and see if it sticks. But…if lots of things stick, you’ll probably have to pick one or two of the “most successful” projects and kill the rest.

It’ll be hard, but if you don’t do, somebody else will do it for you (or worse, it’ll die a slow, painful death).

[photo credit]

Filed Under: Blogging, Business, Good Stories, Life, The Impossible, The List Tagged With: , , , , , ,

An Update On The #Impossible School Campaign

September 14, 2012 By 4 Comments

At the beginning of last month, we launched our first every charity intiative with Pencils of Promise. You can read the full announcement here, but here’s the gist:

We going to raise $25,000 to build an #impossible school in Guatemala and make education possible for 1,000 students.

Since then, we’ve raised $7,184.31 of $25,000 – almost 30% BOOM! Nicely done team!

But there’s still a ways to go and still few months to make things happen. Here’s an update on everything that’s going on.

What I’m Doing

I’m running an ultramarathon in Chicago to raise money & awareness for our #impossible school project. I’ll be running a 50k – farther than I’ve ever gone before (in fact, before this initiative, an ultra marathon wasn’t even on my impossible list). This involves a lot of long weekend runs. Fun!

We also prodcued a video with PoP while out in Portland at our Bungee Jump adventure. You can watch it below (and if you did the bungee jump, you might even see your face in the video). You should share this with everyone you know :) .

[click to watch video in email]

Other Things We’re Doing

–> We’re running a limited edition run of IMPOSSIBLE cycling jerseys. They look incredible and we’re donating 10% of the revenue to the #Impossible School Initiative. This is the final week to pre-order them if you want one. Pre-order them here.

–> We are donating a portion of all the proceeds from Impossible Abs towards the initiative.

–> Blogging, tweeting and generally getting the word out as best I can about this cause and the effort – all while running 50k to help get the word out.

There’s also quite a few of readers and league community members that decided to get in on it as well.

What Others Are Doing

People are doing all sorts of interesting/crazy/strange ways to raise funds. They’re all unique, interesting and ambitious. They’re all unique.

Theres quite few more as well. You can see all of the campaigns here. (On a non-competitive/very-competitive gender comparison side note, the ladies are absolutely killing the guys in taking on their own challenges. Lets go guys!)

What You Can Do

If you want to be a part of something bigger, help build a school and get involved, help build Here are a few practical ways to help.

1. Share the video. This is really easy, but I’ll make it even easier for you. Use the following examples below:

Twitter –> I’m helping to build an #impossible school w/ @joelrunyon & @pencilsofpromis . Want to help? http://bit.ly/Ou0gET [click to tweet this]
Facebook –> Want to help me provide access to education for 1,000 students and build a school in Guatemala? http://pencil.li/NwSsvn
Feel free to use those quotes specifically or make up your own and be creative if you like.
2. Donate to The Campaign – This is pretty simple. Even if you don’t have much, a little bit from a few thousand people can make a big difference. It’s amazing how fast just a few “small” donations can add up. To put things in perspective, just $25 helps one kid get an education.
3. Create your own Impossible Challenge This is the single bigest thing you can do to help the project. The exponential reach of the network effect is huge. Pick an impossible challenge, commit to doing it and set a fundraising goal to do in conjunction with the challenge. Even if you can’t donate a massive amount yourself, you probably know people, and can pass the vision on to them about what we’re up to.
You can share the videos below as well.

Impossible Ones Campaign Trailer - http://impossiblehq.com/impossible-ones-trailer

Impossible Ones Impossible HQ Trailer - http://impossiblehq.com/impossible-ones-hq

As a reminder, the person who raises the most is going to come with me to Guatemala and help with the school construction with our own two hands. I told you we’re serious about doing! If you decide to take this on and need anything from me, let me know.
4. Help get the word out – If you run a blog, newspaper, magazine, or other type of media outlet, I’d love to talk to you about the campaign. Email me at joel [at] impossiblehq [dot] com or just say hi on twitter and let me know.
5. Get your business involved - If you run a small or large business or would like to help contribute in some bigger way, please let me know at joel [at] impossiblehq [dot] com.

$25,000 is still a big goal, but when a lot of people, take a small action, we can do really big things.

$25,000. Education for 1,000 kids. Not impossible.

Lets do this :)

Filed Under: Business, Good Stories, Impossible Things, Kicking A**, Life, Physical Challenges, The Impossible Tagged With: , , , , , ,

30 Pounds In 2 Months: Meet Justin, The First Impossible Abs Success Story

September 11, 2012 By 16 Comments

Impossible Abs hasn’t even been out a full week and there’s already an Impossible Abs success story?

Dang straight. Here’s how it happened.

I finished my challenge in June and did a photo shoot to celebrate. Throughout the program, my friends and family started to notice my actions and transformation and their reactions changed over time accordingly.

When I started this whole thing, they were asking:

What are you doing again?

As I kept doing it and they saw the behavior changes and sacrifices I would make, they started to ask

Why are you doing that again?

When they started to see my body change and actually see the results I was getting, they began to ask:

How did you do that again?

After the photo shoot, I got a lot of questions from a lot of people wanting to know exactly what trickery I did to pull it off (spoiler alert: there’s zero tricker involved). About 50% of the people actually took what I said and did exactly nothing with it. The other 50% took what I said and decided to implement it and do something about it.

One of the people that decided to do something about it was Justin, my little brother. I should just refer refer to him as my younger brother, considering he’s about an inch taller than me and has about 20 pounds on me (which doesn’t matter too much since I can still beat him up :) ).

Over the past few months, Justin had thrown himself into his work, running his own business. He was working 6-7 day weeks, with multiple back-to-back 12+ hour days. Work was booming, but he ended up coming home exhausted and tired and letting his fitness routines fall away. He was getting soft.

He wanted to change things. Having seen my transformation first hand, he wanted in.

It worked out well. As I said, Justin had been feeling out of shape and lazy and wanted someone to kick his butt and I needed a guinea pig beta tester to test out my program before releasing it to the public. Also, as a bonus, I’m always looking for a good reason to kick his butt :) .

So I laid it out for him.

80% of the work would be changing his diet. 20% would be his workouts. He agreed and decided to do it.

Here’s Justin when we started out.

Justin Before Impossible Abs

6’3″ and 198 pounds. Not overweight by most American standards, but definitely not in the kind of shape he wanted to be in. The definition of skinny/fat. Soft, heavy and weak (sorry man, you know it’s true). He was ready to change.

I told him, it’s not going to be easy, but it’s going to be worth it. He jumped right in and was determined to get it done.

No excuses. No whining. Just action.

So he went to work. Day after day after day after day for the next 2 1/2 months, he got after it. Not missing a day of his workouts, despite being on a 5 1/2 week road trip, having a 2 week stopover in Portland for WDS, and having some unhealthy food and less rigid dieting. Overall, he stuck to the basics of the plan and kept at it. As a result, over the 2 1/2 months that he was following the plan, Justin went from 199 pounds to 169 pounds. Yup, he lost 30 pounds, all while somehow managing to come out looking bigger, stronger and leaner than before. Beast!

Justin Impossible Abs Case Study

199lbs to 169lbs and 5.8% body fat. Boom.

Seriously, he weighs 30 pounds less in the photo on the right than he does on the left. Sorcery? No. A lot of hard work? Yes.

Why Was Justin Successful?

There were a few very specific reasons Justin was successful.

Compliance

If there’s one thing Justin’s good at it’s listening (seriously, he’s an audio engineer – it’s his job). But Justin does more than just listen, he actually does what you tell him to do. Once I laid out the plan and showed him how to do things properly, he just did it. No complaining. No whining. Just doing. He had a plan and he stuck to it.

The best secret to fat loss and six pack abs, is simple consistency. Day after day after day.

Continual Progress Monitoring & Journaling

I don’t think Justin kept a journal throughout the program, but I did get an email or a text every week or two with a progress update or another shirtless photo (I have way too many shirtless photos of him in my inbox now and no you can’t have them). He consistently tracked his progress and when he saw his weight dropping, his strength improving and his shirtless photos looking better and better, that was motivation enough for him to keep going.

At one point I mentioned to him, “Man, you’ve gone kind of nuts on this haven’t you? I mean you’re going all out!”

He responded, “It’s easy to get excited about something when you see results. It just keeps you going.”

Yes it does.

Accountability

There were days when Justin wanted to cheat or give up on a work out, but I got the privilege to kick his butt and push him when he didn’t want to be pushed. Justin’s not the most competitive person in our family, but there’s nothing quite like having your older brother (me) challenging you, to make you want get out there and do your workout, regardless of whether or not you “feel” like it.

—-

While I would never say that Justin actually had a better transformation than me (what sort of older brother would I be if I did that?), but I will say it’s pretty freaking impressive.

30 pounds. 5.8% body fat. Just over 2 months. BOOM.

Impossible Abs – Zero excuses. No B.S. Just results.

Good job little bro.

——

Have you picked up your copy of Impossible Abs yet? What are you waiting for? Vic and I will be having a special webinar for anyone who buys (or has bought) the program before midnight tonight. No holds barred, any question you want. Impossible Abs.

Filed Under: Case Studies, Fitness, Nutrition, Six Pack Abs, The Impossible, Weight Loss Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Get Disciplined, Not Motivated

September 6, 2012 By 69 Comments

Discipline

There’s a lot of problems with simple motivation:

Motivation is fleeting

Motivation comes and goes however it wants. It might not last to the end of the week, end of the day, or even the end of blog post you just read. It’s fleeting.

Motivation is situational

Motivation is based on your current situation. How do you feel? If you don’t feel like doing it, then you’re off the hook. You don’t have to do it – because you don’t feel like it!

But then you don’t do it and you just feel worse and more stuck than ever.

Motivation is everywhere.

Everywhere you go, you see people trying to get motivated to do something, to make a change. They’ll go read something, watch something or attend a conference and come away “motivated.” But that only leaves them “motivated”,  it doesn’t move them to action.

“I’m motivated to do this”. “I’m motivated to do that”. Stop being motivated and just do it already! You don’t need more motivation – you need discipline.

See discipline is a whole different animal.

Discipline is Consistent

The consistency of discipline is what makes it discipline. You go out and do it, day after day.

Discipline Is Habitual

Discipline doesn’t just “happen.” It’s intentional and it’s repeated. Every. Single. Day.

Discipline Is Rare

Discipline doesn’t sound like fun, but it’s how you see results.

Motivation is the start, but if it’s not solidified into a discipline,  it usually fades away into regret pretty quickly once you realize you never acted on it.

How To Be More Disciplined

Get Rid Of Your Excuses

Your excuses suck. Every single one. Get rid of them.

Create Routines

Don’t leave it to chance. When you discipline yourself, it’s like programming as a robot. There’s no more emotion involved. It’s simply “if this…then that.”

That’s why a plan of attack is so crucial. You don’t have to decide what you want to do every single day when you wake up. You don’t have 100 different decisions points. You decide once to follow the plan and then wake up every morning and reference said plan.

You’ve already decided you’re going to do it. You don’t have to decide anymore, you just have to do it..

Decide if it’s Worth It

Of course, making that initial decision will be tough.

Ask yourself, how bad do you want it? You will have to sacrifice something at some point. If you want it bad enough, it’ll be worth it. If you decide that it is worth it, then…

Invest In It

Literally. Money has a way of routing your priorities. Want to look at where you spend most of your time? Look to where you’re spending most of your money. There’s probably a correlation.

Get yourself personally invested in whatever you want to do. Make NOT achieving what you want painful.

When I was beginning my six pack challenge, I told Vic I’d give $500 to the absolute worst person I could imagine – my arch-nemesis.

Sure enough, I woke up every morning thinking about how pissed I’d be if I had to give Steve $500.

After the first two weeks, I had enough momentum that I didn’t even need that as motivation anymore, but the first few weeks you can be sure that that investment was enough to make sure I made my disciplines a priority.

Invest in your goal. Make a bet, hire a trainer, but invest it in a way that actually means something to you and will help route your priorities in the way you want to.

Keep Going

When you really, really, really want to give up, don’t stop. Keep going. Discipline doesn’t depend on your feelings. It happens whether or not you “feel” like it.

When you think you are done, you’re only 40% of what your body is capable of doing. That’s just the limit that we put on ourselves. – David Goggins

Keep going.

Get A Lobotomy

Remove your brain from your equation. Your mind sucks. It will tell you all of the things you’re not capable of doing because it wants to protect itself. It wants to play it safe. It wants to be comfortable.

Meanwhile, your body will sit there and not say anything to the contrary even though it knows it can run triathlons, marathons, climb mountains, and get a six pack if you just give it the chance.

Do a manual override. Tell your brain to shut up and just go do it anyways. Turn your brain off.

When you brain tells you it’s impossible, tell your brain,

That’s nice, I’m going to do it anyways.

Yes, this might mean that you’ll end up getting into arguments with yourself. Do it anyways.

Get Your Shoes On, Get Out The Door

If nothing else, put your shoes on, get out the door.

Your room/house/cubicle/wherever is the ultimate bastion of safety. If you stay there, you’ll never want to leave.

Just get started. Figure everything else out on the way. Getting out the door is half the battle.

—-

You don’t need more inspiration. You don’t need more motivation. You need more discipline and you need to start now.

—-

If you want to kill your excuses, and get disciplined while finally getting in shape, Impossible Abs can help.

photo credit: crypto

Filed Under: Fitness, Impossible Things, Life, The Impossible, Weight Loss

All About Impossible Abs

September 3, 2012 By 1 Comment

Impossible Abs

Whew! In the last week, I’ve moved and settled into my apartment downtown Chicago, finalized Impossible Abs and . I’m really excited to make this available to you guys.

Yesterday, we answered a bunch of questions about the program and tomorrow is launch day (9am EST sharp!), so today, I’m going to clear up any remaining questions about the program.

Impossible Abs: What It’s About

When I set out to knock “get six pack abs and do a photo shoot to celebrate” off the Impossible List, I was in the Dominican Republic and had no access to a gym. But, I had already put money down for my photo shoot 8 weeks later, so I realized I had to figure out a workout that I could do anywhere in the world, regardless of gym access or fancy equipment. So that’s exactly what I did – and it worked – spectacularly. Over the next 8 weeks, I lost 34 pounds and dropped to 5.4% body fat and finally got six pack abs. Once I shared my story, I received an onslaught of questions about what program I followed to do it.

Impossible Abs is That Program.

A lot of trainers, programs and websites will promise you “1 easy trick” or some “magic exercise” to lose weight and get ripped.

I won’t.

Impossible Abs is a no secrets, no excuses, no B.S. program.

 

And so, I’m going to do something a little different than most people would do. I’m not going to sit here and promise you that it will be easy – ’cause it won’t be.

I’ll promise you that it will be hard, but it will be worth it.

What’s Inside

Impossible Abs is the most comprehensive resource I’ve put together to date and the results people have been getting are really incredible.

In addition to the Nutrition and Workout Blueprints that show you exactly what to eat and what workouts to do over 8 weeks, you’ll get access to a growing library of over 25+ video tutorials of workouts and exercises in the program. We also give you nutrition, workout and weigh-in logs to track your progress throughout the program.

In the higher-end challenge version, we provide daily emails (56 total and counting) through the 8-week challenge where finishers get a special edition impossible shirt only for challenge finishers (it will never be for sale, you have to EARN it). We take you behind the scenes and show you how to hack the photo shoot to get that “extra lean” look for your photos as well as do exclusive interviews with expert fat loss coaches and fitness model

I also detail out my personal experience as a case study where I include weekly weigh-ins, photographs, workout repetitions and as well as every single thing I ate during the program. I really put back the curtain and even include some personal emails detailing my thought process throughout my transformation – even when things got really rough.

There’s also a personalized one-on-one coaching program level, if you’re interested in that.

A lot of people were curious about what the pricing will be. The average gym membership is between $25-$50 per month and most personal trainers charge anywhere from $60-$120 per hour and I’m very happy that the basic version of Impossible Abs will cost less than a single personal training session in order to allow as many people access to the program as possible. As I mentioned before there are two other tiers for those who want to take the challenge to the next level.

There’s no artificial time or quantity limit on this program, but there will be a special webinar bonus  for those that buy it within the first week, where you can ask Vic and myself anything you like.

I tested this program on myself first and saw amazing results first-hand. We’ve seen some incredible results from the early beta testers and we’ll be sharing those stories throughout the next few weeks. The program simply works and I’m excited to share it with you because I know it can help get you in amazing shape.

There are no more excuses.

And, as always, if you’re already ripped to shreds or simply just not interested, there’s certainly no pressure to purchase it at all. Thanks for reading :) .

****

I’m pretty sure that’s it. Check back tomorrow  at 9am EST when it all goes live!

Filed Under: Blogging, Business, Fitness, Kicking A**, Launches, Nutrition, Physical Challenges, Six Pack Abs, The Impossible, The List, Weight Loss

30 Questions About Six Pack Abs

September 2, 2012 By 13 Comments

Questions

Impossible Abs is coming out in just a few days. Whew.

After working to create a library of 25+ video tutorials for Impossible Abs, I decided that I’m going to be incorporating more video throughout the blog as we move forward. So, when I got a bunch of questions via emails, comments and facebook, I decided to bust out the video camera and answer them all at once. 30 questions total – dang!

You can watch each of the videos or click on the questions that you’re most interested in. Let me know what you think of these videos. Here we go!

  1. Introduction & Is This Diet Safe For The Long Term?
  2. How Did You Get Six Pack Abs?
  3. What’s The Secret to Impossible Abs?
  4. How Do You Maintain A Six Pack?
  5. What Are The Food Costs Associated With Impossible Abs?
  6. Why Torture Yourself For A Six Pack? Why Are You So Vain?
  7. How Did The Six Pack Challenge, Challenge You Mentally?
  8. How Do You Create A Meal Plan & Stick To It?
  9. What Is The Impossible Abs Challenge? Does It Have A Set Start Date?
  10. What Types of Results Are Possible With Impossible Abs?
  11. How Long Do You Expect To See Results On a Low-Carb/Paleo Diet?
  12. Did You Really Get Six Pack Abs Or Did You Follow Some YouTuBe Tutorial To Fake It?
  13. Are You Supposed To See Your Six Pack All The Time Or Only When You Flex?
  14. Can Vegetarians/Vegans Do The Paleo Diet Too?
  15. How Tall Are You? Did You Really Get That Light?
  16. How Did You Cut Out Carbs From Your Diet? I Could Never Do That…
  17. How Much Alcohol Did You Consume Throughout The Impossible Abs Program?
  18. How Did You Count Calories Throughout Impossible Abs?
  19. Can I Drink Coffee & Tea On the Paleo Diet?
  20. Can I Run 20 Miles A Day and Still Get A Six Pack?
  21. A Doctor Told Me I Could Never Get Six Pack Abs…Are They Right?
  22. Do I Need A Gym To Get Six Pack Abs?
  23. How Do You Deal With Sugar Cravings While Getting A Six Pack?
  24. Did You Flex Throughout The Photoshoot or is it all Lighting Tricks & Photoshop?
  25. How Do I Make A Bunch of Changes At Once?
  26. Can Women Get Six Pack Abs Too? I Hear It’s Unhealthy For Women To Be Under 25% Body Fat.
  27. Can I still eat dairy? Will that slow down my weight loss? Are eggs still okay? How much fruit/vegetables/meat do you eat per day?
  28. What’s The Best Exercise For Six Pack Abs?
  29. What Are Some Quick & Easy To Make Foods That Won’t Compromise Fat Loss?
  30. How Do You Stay Motivated Throughout The Impossible Abs Program?

You can also watch all the video straight through right here


Introduction & Is This Diet Safe For The Long Term?

 


How Did You Get Six Pack Abs?

 


What’s The Secret to Impossible Abs?

 


How Do You Maintain A Six Pack?

 


What Are The Food Costs Associated With Impossible Abs?

 


Why Torture Yourself For A Six Pack? Why Are You So Vain?

 


How Did The Six Pack Challenge, Challenge You Mentally?

 


How Do You Create A Meal Plan & Stick To It?

 


What Is The Impossible Abs Challenge? Does It Have A Set Start Date?

 


What Types of Results Are Possible With Impossible Abs?

 


How Long Do You Expect To See Results On a Low-Carb/Paleo Diet?

 


Did You Really Get Six Pack Abs Or Did You Follow Some YouTube Tutorial To Fake It?

 


Are You Supposed To See Your Six Pack All The Time Or Only When You Flex?

 


Can Vegetarians/Vegans Do The Paleo Diet Too?

 


How Tall Are You? Did You Really Get That Light?

 


How Did You Cut Out Carbs From Your Diet? I Could Never Do That…

 


How Much Alcohol Did You Consume Throughout The Impossible Abs Program?

 


How Did You Count Calories Throughout Impossible Abs?

 


Can I Drink Coffee & Tea On the Paleo Diet?

 


Can I Run 20 Miles A Day and Still Get A Six Pack?

 


A Doctor Told Me I Could Never Get Six Pack Abs…Are They Right?

 


Do I Need A Gym To Get Six Pack Abs?

 


How Do You Deal With Sugar Cravings While Getting A Six Pack?

 


Did You Flex Throughout The Photoshoot or is it All Lighting Tricks & Photoshop?

 


How Do I Make A Bunch of Changes At Once?

 


Can Women Get Six Pack Abs Too? I Hear It’s Unhealthy For Women To Be Under 25% Body Fat.

 


Can I still eat dairy? Will that slow down my weight loss? Are eggs still okay? How much fruit/vegetables/meat do you eat per day?

 


What’s The Best Exercise For Six Pack Abs?

 


What Are Some Quick & Easy To Make Foods That Won’t Compromise Fat Loss?

 


How Do You Stay Motivated Throughout The Impossible Abs Program?

 

***

#BOOM.

Thanks for all of the questions. Hopefully they helped clear up something you’ve been wondering about.

Now I gotta get back to work! Just a couple more days until Impossible Abs is Live.

photo credit: Oberazzi

Filed Under: Fitness, Impossible Things, Kicking A**, Nutrition, Six Pack Abs, The Impossible, Video Posts, Weight Loss Tagged With: , ,

3 Questions To Kill Every Excuse You’ve Ever Had

August 23, 2012 By 17 Comments

The next time you’re tempted to give up because you came up with a really  good excuse. Ask yourself:

  1. Would I believe this excuse if anyone else besides myself was saying it? (You wouldn’t).
  2. Does this excuse even make any sense? (It doesn’t).
  3. Am I really going to let this excuse stop me? (You shouldn’t).

Then keep going and don’t quit.

Your excuses are invalid 

 

 

Filed Under: Endurance Racing, Fitness, Hustling, Kicking A**, The Impossible
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