Mindset

39 things I know at 39

chanman · Jul 29, 2018 · Leave a Comment

1. Manage your testosterone

Testosterone for men is essential and the defining hormone that makes a man a man. High levels make you feel confident and rambunctious and aggressive. It makes you lean and muscular and gives you a strong sex drive. What’s not to like? In terms of testosterone, we’re supposed to be half the men our fathers and grandfathers were. Testosterone is produced at night and your body needs sleep and dietary fat to produce it. So eat red meat, nuts, butter and oil and get your sleep. And stay away from stress as well as stress produces cortisol, the stress hormone, and the testosterone killer.

2. The mind and body are inextricably linked

When you have problems with your body, you will have problems with your mind. When you’re ill with the flu, you have nothing to give with your mind. When you’re sad and depressed, your energy levels plummet. Don’t just focus on either your mind or your body. Focus on both. Eat well, sleep well, exercise well. Relax well, think well and read well.

3. Strive for there to be no disconnect between what you think and feel and what you present to the outside world

If you’re always filtering what you say to other people and not articulating what you really think, then there’s literally no integrity between your inner life and your outer life. You’re presenting a different person. If the real you is your inner world, then the one you presenting to the outside world is not real. Fake. How exhausting that must be. To constantly filter and watch what you say. Tell people what you really think What’s the worst that could happen? What’s the best that could happen in terms of feeling congruous between your inner world and your outer world? Strive for self-integrity and congruence.

4. Work your levers

When you’re feeling low or depressed, I always say to watch your levers. The levers are my words for the foundations of a good mental state. If you’re not sleeping well and enough, if you’re not eating well, then you’re going to be much more susceptible to being stressed and anxious. So work those levers. Do the foundations well. Eat decent food. Get sufficient sleep. Exercise well. Get some sunshine. Look after yourself.

5. Don’t put women on pedestals

I made this mistake for most of my post-pubescent life. At least until I was 30. Treat women like equals or even better, as bros, and see how much better you do with women.

6. Saving is a good thing

If I had saved just 5% of my paychecks each month, I’d have £50,000 more in savings by now. And that’s without investing that further. 5% of £2,000 per month is £100 per month. We could all definitely save that. In fact, the advice from The Richest Man in Babylon is to save 10% of your income before anything else. Like the book says, “Pay yourself first”.

7. Most conventional wisdom should be taken with a pinch of salt

Think about it. Most people know and follow conventional wisdom, and with that, most people do averagely.

8. Being positive is a superpower

When you’re young, people try very hard to appear world-weary and jaded. This just hurts them. Go against the grain and be relentlessly positive and optimistic.

9. We know very little for sure

A priori truths such as 2+2=4 is a certainty but democracy being superior than autocracy is much less certain, as is whether abortion or euthanasia is wrong. Yet people fight and protest about these things. As the Oracle said to Socrates, “Wisest is he who knows that he does not know”.

10. Exercise daily

Walk everywhere. Run when you can. Lift weights. Do pull-ups and push-ups. Feeling physically fit and strong will enhance your life every single day.

11. Seek adventure

I will never forget cycling from Land’s End to London or canoeing the length of The Thames or climbing Mount Kilimanjaro or backpacking around the world or doing the Three Peaks Challenge. Although I’ve not done any challenges for a few years now, it’s time to get back on that horse.

12. Read more great books

Victor Niederhoffer said that he never reads books less than 100 years old. You don’t have to go that far, but surely there’s more in it for you to be acquainted with War and Peace, The Fountainhead, The Odyssey and The Iliad than in Booker Prize winners like Wolf Hall.

13. Invest in your friendships

I’m lucky to have circles of very good friends. Look after your friendships and nurture them. Because of my friends and the quality of those friendships, I count myself a very lucky man.

14. Tell the truth

Lying is bad for the soul. Even little lies hurt you. If you lie to others, then there is a disconnect between you and them. Why would you want to put a barrier between yourself and others around you. That’s the opposite of integrity. Don’t we all strive for integrity and authenticity? Well then, stop lying.

15. Be kind to people

You know how good it feels when someone is kind to you? That warm, fuzzy feeling? Feels good doesn’t it? Why not be the person who gives that feeling to someone else? Giving other people that feeling feels pretty good too. Make others feel good and make yourself feel good as well in the process.

16. Don’t be too nice a guy

You’re too nice if you put someone else’s self-interest above your own self-interest. Why would you do that? You’re at least as important as other people. At least. And probably more. So don’t be too nice and subsume yourself to other people.

17. Make the first move

Most people are afraid to make the move. Whether that’s saying something in a meeting, or asking for someone’s number or going first in a large training exercise. Show the way and go first. You’ll feel good for doing so and you’ll get more respect for doing so. Win win. Make the first move.

18. Keep going. The mind is often weak whilst the body is willing.

You know when you’re on a 5 mile run and you go for a fast finish from a mile out from the end. On a day when you’re not feeling it, you might get really tired with half a mile left to go. You don’t think you can go on, so you slow down and stop. You quit. However, the body could have kept going. It was your mind that was weak.

19. The power of 80/20

There’s so many applications of this principle. For example, 80% of a result comes from just 20% of the inputs. This means that we should focus on the 20% of inputs that really matter and that have an outsized bang for buck. It also means that it takes 20% of the total time to do something to get to 80% complete, and it will take you 80% of the time to finish the final 20%. So in lots of situations, just try to get to 80% done and move on.

20. You have the ability to always change your state of mind

Say you wake up in a bad mood and you let this bad mood pervade your whole day. What was the point of letting it ruin your whole day? Instead, take a deep breath, breathe out slowly, take another deep breath, exhale slowly. Put on your headphones and listen to your favourite tune, something uplifting to you. Try a few power poses like Amy Cuddy talks about and reset yourself. You are not a slave to your emotions. You control your mind and your mental state.

21. Know that what you consume is who you are

If you read comics all day long or binge watch zombie box sets on Netflix, know that this is who you are. You’re not developing skills, learning new things, gaining interesting new experiences, you’re a comic reader and a TV watcher. On the other hand, if you’re reading Milton and listening to jazz and opera, then you’re a poetry fan and an opera buff. Which would you rather be?

22. Create content every single day

Don’t just be a consumer all day. Whether that’s reading news in print or online, or scrolling through social media for hours on end. Consuming all the time doesn’t let you grow. Instead produce some content, whether that’s writing a blog (easy to do and set up), taking photos and uploading to Instagram with some interesting caption, making a vlog or even just doing a daily Facebook Live. Even if it’s just in a small, small way, be a creator and producer.

23. Keep learning every single day

Ancora Imparo or I am still learning. You leave school at 18 and you probably die around 75 or 80. That’s about 60 years that you have outside of formal education. Do you still carry on learning or do you remain static in learning from 18 onwards? For most people, the latter is the case. Don’t be like that. Everyday, try to learn something new. Google the blockchain, enroll on a free computer science course from Harvard or MIT, pick up a book on MBA skills, read some classic philosophy or poetry. Keep on learning, a bit every day.

24. Don’t read most newspapers. Most news is pointless to consume

It might be about celebrity gossip, sports, immigration, Brexit. It’s mostly pointless. Do you need to consume this? Even if you did need to consume this, can you trust the source? What is the spin that’s being put onto the story? Even newspapers of record like The Times of London have a spin or slant on their reporting of events. The only paper I trust is The Financial Times followed closely by The New York Times. Be careful with the news you consume.

25. Appearance matters

Dress well and look good. Think about a time you went in for a bank appointment and think about the bank staff who served you. Did they look like they’d just come out of school with a suit that didn’t fit them properly or dd they look like an experienced professional who should be taken seriously? We see interactions play out like this multiple times on a daily basis. Think about the flipside. What impressions are you throwing out there?

26. Find a woman who treats you well

Assuming you’re going to get married, you’re going to be married for a very long time. You’re going to be spending more time with them than anyone else, and for decades. This one then is a no-brainer.

27. Treat yourself kindly

Time and time again, I see people put huge burdens and expectations on themselves. They beat themselves up for not being productive and castigate themselves for not being perfect. Go easy on yourself. You wouldn’t let your kids or your friends and family be like this. Why do you do it to yourself? Treat yourself well and with kindness.

28. Negative self-talk is toxic

I hear people I know say on a daily basis stuff like, “I’m an idiot.” or “I could never understand that”. or “I’m fat” or “I’m the worst”. This is terrible self-talk. You’d never talk to your friends like that. Why would you talk to yourself like that? Language is so incredibly important. It leaves a psychological mark or impression as soon as you say it. If you say, “I’m worried about…”, even if you not worried about it, guess what? You’re going to feel slightly worried, just because you said the word ‘worried’. Watch the language you use to talk to yourself. It’s crucial. Replace it with power words, kind self-talk, and positivity.

29. Language and precision of language matters

We’ve seen how bad self-talk infects you. That is the power of language. We can use it for good and for our own well-being. Think about whether you’re over-exaggerating your illness, your stress-ness and ask yourself what would be a more accurate way of describing your circumstances. I bet it would be less over-egged than you intially described it as. And guess what, I bet you’d feel better too.

30. Don’t watch too much Netflix

One hour a day is 7 hours a week or 365 hours per year. 365 hours a year!! That’s the same as 15 solid full days of watching Netflix! 15 solid days. Think about what you could have done in that time. Watch the hours. How you spend your hours is how you spend your years.

31. Smile and laugh all the time

Life is too short to be miserable or even to be restrained and measured all the time. Smile whenever you find something funny or amusing. Watch comedies. Hang out with funny people. Don’t be a grump unless you have very good reason to be so, and even then, don’t stay grumpy for long.

32. Life is too short to hold grudges

Grudges shackle you to the past. You’re holding onto to something that other person in all likelihood does even know about. The negativity of a grudge is hurting you. No one ever said, give me more negativity, it’s awesome. Let it go, and move on. You’ll find you more space in your mind and your heart for other more positive and beneficial things.

33. Seek some balance

If you’re spending too much time in the city, go and find some peace in the countryside or the beach. If you’re partying too much, take a few weeks off the partying. If you’re eating too much junk food, eat clean for a few weeks. Don’t go to the other extreme, just find a balance.

34. Be generous

Be generous with your time, your praise, your money, your kindness, your energy and your zest for life. It’s good for you. It will make you feel good. For those of you who think that the above resources are finite and that therefore they should be preserved, you couldn’t be further from the truth. How can you give too much time, too much praise? Think from a position of abundance. Would you rather live in a world where people were mean and penny-pinching? Of course not. Don’t be that guy. Be generous.

35. Know that you can always change your mental state

If you’ve had an argument in the morning, does this negative mood continue for the whole day? If so, why do you let it do so? Park it, compartmentalise it, move on. It’s already ruined your morning, why let it ruin your afternoon too? Slow down, take a deep breath and focus on the next thing you have to do. Read more in this previous article on how to become more positive.

36. Realise just how fucking lucky you are

Every day I think about what a lucky bastard I am. I think about how lucky I am to have two legs, a good brain, all my senses intact, some skills and knowledge, how lucky I was to have great parents and a great sister who cared for me and gave me a great education or how lucky I am to have a great wife who looks after me and loves me, or to have great friends who I’ve known all my life, or have a good job or to have the ability to travel and to be free of mental and physical illness. Think about what you have gratitude for and smile about that every single day. Trust me, this shit works.

37. Have a growth mindset and not a fixed mindset

We’ve talked about growth mindset vs fixed mindsets before. A fixed mindset thinks that you can’t learn or develop new skills, and that your abilities and potential are fixed at birth. A growth mindset on the other hand believes that even if they can’t do something now, they can learn how to do that thing and make that happen. Which do you think you have right now? If it’s a fixed mindset, know that you can start cultivating a growth mindset right now.

38. Talk to strangers

We’re social creatures at our core. Talking to just a few people each day is anti-social and bad for you as you’re not scratching this essential itch. Talking to new people will scratch one of our fundamental needs: to be social. Get out of your anti-social comfort zone and talk to new people. Start small if this is uncomfortable. Say hi to your neighbours, to the person at the train station, the barista at the coffee shop, the bus driver, someone you recognise from your commute, anyone! Watch the positive impact that this has on your day.

39. Diminishing returns

This principle applies to much more than just economics. One example of it is that a £10 burger often tastes much better than a £5 burger, but the difference between the £10 burger and a £15 burger is often not as great as the difference between the £10 burger and the £5 burger. Apply this to cars, watches, clothes, eating out, wine, everything! It’ll make you think twice about buying a £60 bottle of wine. How much better really is it than a £20 bottle? Try to find the sweetspot of returns. Eg. do you really need to spend more than £300 on a good watch. Or £200 on a really good pair of shoes? Or £9 on a good burger (check out Bleeker Burger’s double cheese)

And one more for luck…..Stop complaining! There’s always someone alive in the world who is much worse off than you. There’s likely billions of people who have it worse than you. Imagine that guy in a Brazilian prison, or that person who has to walk 6 miles just to drink some water than may kill them, or that person who’s been homeless for 10 years with mental illness. Simply put, your situation doesn’t warrant complaining about. As Gary Vaynerchuck consistently says, you being alive was a 400 trillion to one shot. 400 trillion!! You’re ridiculously lucky to be alive. Stop whining!

What would you add to this list? Let me know in the comments below!

To paraphrase Jocko Willink, Decisiveness Equals Freedom

chanman · Apr 1, 2018 · Leave a Comment

The legendary Jocko Willink says that Discipline Equals Freedom. I take this to mean that accepting and embracing discipline and structure in your life will take away the need for willpower as well as paralysis by analysis and procrastination.

In recent days, I’ve been feeling good and I think it’s down to making decisions, quick decisions and good decisions about things big and small.

Deciding yesterday in a Waterloo pub that I’d book us in for lunch in 25 minutes in St. John and Uber it there was pretty good. (Angelique seemed to like the decisiveness)

And today, we took inspiration from my sister and decided to sell our flat and buy a bigger one. It’s a decision we’ve put off and off, but having made it in 5 minutes of discussion in the car on the way to dim sum with my Dad, was decisive for sure.

Of course, it’s nothing like an Obama-sized decision but for me, someone is probably quite indecisive (although I wouldn’t like to call myself that, who would?!), making decisions quickly has been liberating.

If you’re not decisive, you’re probably weighing up all your options before making a decision.

But, paradoxically and counter-intuitively, umming and ahhing is the wrong thing to do.

Think about an easy decision, one where the options are just so obviously imbalanced, where one is great and the other is bad. In that case, you just pick the great one in no time at all.

But where the options are more balanced like on a wine list or menu, then you might um and ah, taking your time over the decision and weighing up the lost pleasures of the option you pass over. In cases where the options are finely balanced, then there’s not much to choose between the options and you should just plump for one. Don’t waste time and mental energy faffing over the decision.

Where the decisions are much bigger like should you move house, change careers, end a relationship, move countries, the pros and cons feel so complex that you don’t make any decision at all. Hopefully, the decision gets made for you or you happen to end up with the right outcome just by having not made any decision at all.

That’s pretty shit though isn’t it? Passively bumbling through, feeling paralysed by the options. No wonder you don’t feel liberated most of the time. Like me, you’re not captaining the ship. That ship is the most important ship of all: you.

What’s exhilarating about making a decision is that you are saying to yourself that YOU are in control. YOU are committing to this course of action. That there’s nothing more to be said.

Decisiveness equals freedom.

Should we self-censor what we consume?

chanman · Mar 26, 2018 · Leave a Comment

When I was at uni, I took an Aesthetics class. The Philosophy of Art. I don’t remember much from that course except for a couple of essays on Plato and Tolstoy.

Plato was keen that when educating the young men of his Republic that their art be censored and that the youth should only consume art that promoted nobility. So poetry shouldn’t be about loucheness and hedonism, rather they should be about promoting bravery in battle and moral uprightness.

I was reminded of this recently after binge watching a series of Mindhunter on Netflix, a show about the FBI’s profiling of serial killers in the 1970s. This is show that goes deep into the minds and motivations of deeply disturbed people, and it’s very entertaining and very compelling. We watched this off the back of Unabomber, another Netflix show, this time about the hunt for another serial killer, Ted Kaczynski. Again very entertaining and compelling.

The question I had was: “is this type of show good for me? Is it making me a better human?”

You might say “lighten up mate, it’s just a show”.

But is it just a show? Say that you watch 2 of these series. That’s nearly 20 hours of dark subject matter. Are we really saying that this has no effect on your brain, on your neural pathways? By exposing yourself to the fetishes of psychopaths, is your own mind becoming corrupted or infected? What are you consuming to offset this? What positive, elevating content are you consuming to counteract this negativity?

Let’s look at what Plato might recommend for our viewing consumption.

Say you watch one hour of TV a day after work. Instead of Netflix, imagine that for one month you watched TED Talks. A TED Talk is around 15 mins, so that’s 4 TED Talks a day. That’s 120 TED Talks a month. How much more elevated do you think you’d be on this diet as opposed to on just consuming Netflix?

We can do the same with our other channels of consumption. Take Instagram. If you wanted to lose weight, replace the photos of burgers and huge pizzas with buddha bowls and salads. Make your feed one that is congruent with your overall goals.

Maybe Plato was right. Censor what you consume for the better.

WTF does it really mean to “be yourself”?

chanman · Mar 8, 2018 · Leave a Comment

Everyone agrees that you should be yourself. Just be yourself, they say. In all situations. but wtf does this actually mean?

Possible meanings:

Don’t try to be someone else or something else other than you are.
Live and act with no difference between the actual you and the you that you present to the world

How can we achieve this?

Tell people what you really think about everything – okay now this is really hard. If you’re a liberal and identify as such, having the odd racist, sexist, homophobic thought is going to be hard to articulate.

Wear what you want, read what you want, listen to what you want – don’t give a fuck about what you think others might think of you

Don’t try and be cool on social media – present warts and all

Rinse and repeat, everyday.

How can we improve mental health?

chanman · Dec 27, 2017 · 1 Comment

I go through low periods. For those who know me, this might sound surprising. I’m normally bouncing off the walls with positivity. And this is true for the most part. There are times however where I make myself positive, because I want to and I know that to some extent, you can control your mental state.

Mental health is one of those things that we don’t really discuss. Which is strange given how much time we devote to physical health. We sign up to gym memberships, we go running, we watch what we eat and look for the latest superfoods. Instagram is full of accounts dedicated to inspiring us to exercise better and eat better.

But what about mental health? Shouldn’t we also work on that? How do we improve mental health?

It’s becoming better known that the biggest killer of men under 45 in the UK is suicide. This is a shocking fact. According to this article in the Independent, of the 6,000 suicides in the UK per year, 75% of those are male. That is a shocking fact.

What can we draw from this fact?

Firstly, men are more likely to kill themselves than women. Why?

Secondly, what about the number of men who are near-suicidal but don’t actually go on to kill themselves? I’m going to speculate that this figure is bigger than the 4,500 that commit suicide. For the sake of this post, let’s say that figure is 25,000. That’s 25,000 near-suicidal men in the UK every year.

Thirdly, what about the number of men that aren’t near-suicidal, but instead are severely depressed? I’m going to speculate that this figure is 100,000.

Fourthly, what about the number of men that aren’t severely depressed, but instead aren’t as happy and flourishing as they might be? I’m going to speculate that this figure is in the millions. And that’s just in the UK.

Now for the benefit of those reading this that know me, I want to emphasise that I’m not suicidal. But in my life, I have had the thought about throwing myself off my balcony, imagining what that would be like. Or throwing myself in front of an oncoming train.

However, whilst I’ve never been suicidal, I have been low in my life. It doesn’t happen that often, maybe once or twice a year. This past week, I’ve had some low moments.

For me, this feels like when everything’s getting on top of me. Things that I would normally take in my stride, are suddenly obstacles. Obstacles stacked on top of more obstacles. I get frustrated much faster. My OCD goes into overdrive. I have trouble sleeping. My patience is thinner. I want to just lie in bed under the duvet for hours. I’ll stop writing and I’ll stop reading. I’ll eat more junk food. I won’t want to exercise. I won’t want to socialise. I wonder if I’ll ever get out of this funk. I wonder if I’ll ever get back to my normal highs.

So what can we do to get out of our lows, our ruts, our funks?

My wife and my sister had some good advice last week when I was feeling low.

They identified that I’d been out a lot in the past month. Three or four serious booze ups and regular drinking during the week. My sleeping was patchy. This probably led to the knock-on effects of the above symptoms.

It was time to get back to basics. I’m a big believer that the body and the mind are way more connected than we think. Things that are going on in the body can have a profound impact on the mind. We’ve seen in previous articles how hormones such as testosterone and cortisol impact mental states. There’s likely to be chemical imbalances in the brain when we’re feeling down.

I’m focused now on reducing my levels of angst and anxiety. To that end, I’m:

Reducing caffeine intake

I drink a lot of coffee. People watch me make instant coffee and always say that it looks like tar. I drink less than I have done in previous years. These days, I don’t drink any coffee after 12pm otherwise it affects my sleep. At the very least, caffeine raises your heart rate and makes your mind race. I’m hoping that reducing my intake by half will reduce my anxiety and help me sleep better.

Reducing alcohol

I don’t know what it is, but alcohol affects me much more than it did when I was younger. I get hangovers after 4 pints the night before. I’m sluggish in the morning. My brain is foggier than it should be. I feel more tired. I’m hoping that reducing my intake will leave me with a clearer head and feeling clearer and more energised.

Eating as well as I can

Dieting is a bad idea when you’re feeling low. Restricting calories or carbohydrates is not going to encourage feel-good hormones in your body. You’re going to feel tired and cranky. When you’re hungry, you’re more likely to feel frustrated more easily.

I also try to eat more nutritious food. So out goes the junk food for a bit. In come the soups, steaks, and loads of vegetables. I try to remember to drink lots of water and stay hydrated.

Exercise

When I’m feeling low, the last thing I want to do is get down the gym. But that’s exactly what you need to do. Lift heavy and go at least twice a week. Allow your body to recover and eat plenty in your days of rest.

Talk to someone about this

It’s sound cliched but a problem shared is a problem halved. Often, the anxiety and angst that you’re feeling isn’t anything near as bad as you think it is. The person you confide in will probably think that it’s not that bad and this will make you feel better. They will also support you at this tie when you need the support the most.

Eventually…after a few weeks….

You’ll start to feel better. You’ll be back to your normal levels of positivity (which are different for everyone). You’ll be ready to try some of these ways to increase your positivity levels.

Let me know in the comment below if you ever feel low and or if any of the above has affected you. What do you do to help yourself out of your ruts?