My 97 Things I've wanted to count and document all of my things for some time now. I remember reading Colin's site almost four years ago and seeing his All 72 Things I Own post and thinking, "I want to do that at some point." A few days ago I packed my entire life into about six bags. Since then, I've pared it down even further and I now have exactly 97 things. This is what it looks like when all my bags are packed. Minimalism Goals On the ...
Life’s No Good In Draft
Posts In Draft I've got a running joke with my friend Michael. He has a blog which he's been writing for a bit. In an effort to hold him accountable, I ask him every now and again, when it's been a while since he last posted something, how it's going. I usually get this response: Oh, I've got a lot of stuff I'm working on. I've got a couple posts in draft. Oh, I didn't know those counted. Fortunately, Michael is the type of person who dishes it right ...
How To Run An Obstacle Race
I've done quite a few obstacle races at this point in time (including a GORUCK Challenge, which is a whole other monstrosity of a challenge). They're one of the best ways to break into running, or fitness in general, if you need a good way to get out of the house and have fun with some friends and you're not quite ready for a marathon (or ultra) yet. However, a couple weeks ago I ran my first Tough Mudder. It's billed as "probably the toughest event ...
We Built A School (And I Have Proof!)
We built a school! Here's a glimpse: I just got back from Guatemala a few weeks ago to see the school and have been putting together the story & photos over the past few days and as I'm going over the images & stories, it still blows my mind that we actually built a school. However, there's a lot more to the story than just the visit - let’s start from the beginning. --- How It All Started Almost exactly a year ago, I got an email from ...
How To Impose Your Will On A Situation
This Saturday, I crossed another thing off my list and did a century ride for the first time (technically it was 112.5 miles). I thought it'd be a nice relaxing ride in flat, midwest Indiana where I could take my time, relax and finish at my own pace with a few friends. Of course, I've never done done anything close to 100 before and this was my first time on the bike this year, so this seemed like a great idea, but I'll get to the full story in a ...
My One Focus For 2012
No, that's not a typo and I didn't mean 2013. Most people are thinking about setting lots of goals for 2013 and what they want to do over the next year. I'll get to that in a bit, but first I have some unfinished business to finish up with 2012 first. Building An #IMPOSSIBLE School In August, we committed to building an #impossible school in 2012 with Pencils of Promise – an organization dedicated to equal education for all. We are really close. If ...
How To Kill A Project
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 ...
25 Things To Do With 25 Dollars
Greetings from NYC. I'm here meeting with the crew from Pencils of Promise for a few days and visiting the city for the first time in over a decade before coming back to Chicago tomorrow and running the 50k ultramarathon this weekend. Things are busy! --- If you're like me, you rarely use cash anymore. Nevertheless, I probably have about $25 on me at all times for random purchases, cash fare, or in case of emergency, etc. Here's 25 things to do with the ...
All About 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" ...
Impossible Ones: A Brand New Impossible Thing (or Two) And How You Can Help
In case you haven't noticed, we've got a lot of things in the works around Impossible HQ and the blog lately. We're releasing a fitness program in a few weeks, and over the weekend we murdered our servers from last week's post (thanks to Jeff for un-murdering them), but that's not all. Today we're announcing 2 new impossible things: you ready? This is going to be fun. --- The BackStory A key thread throughout everything we do here an HQ is focused on ...