Erich Stauffer

Category: Self Development

  • How to be Intentional about Capturing Ideas

    You may have been to meeting with your boss that requires you to write something down or record meeting minutes or minutes from the meeting. You may have been driving to work and had a great idea or been in the shower and wanted to write something down, but couldn’t. These are all typical times when you might want to capture an idea.

    The Idea Capture Method

    Epiphanies, Bright Ideas, Moment of Inspiration, and Flashes of Brilliance

    It’s kind of the opposite of writers block where you’re sitting down in front of a computer screen or looking at a blank screen or a blank sheet of paper and having to figure out new ideas. What we’re talking about here is capturing ideas when they come. We’re talking about being intentional about that idea capturing process.

    Being Prepared to Capture Ideas When they Come

    In order to be intentional about capturing ideas, you need to be prepared for when ideas need to be captured. For example, let’s say you are in a meeting at work. What materials are you bringing to capture that material? For those ideas you typically would have a notepad and pen and you’re jotting down ideas as they are spoken. But if you’re really intentional about idea capture you might have a notepad in the car and a marker system on a suction cup in your shower. I recorded this blog post using voice recognition on my phone while driving, for example.

    A Repeatable Method for Capturing Ideas

    What I’d like to propose is a repeatable method for capturing ideas in any environment using a variety of tools. For example, you may find that for a work meeting it is better to record ideas on Post-it notes instead of lines on a paper or you might find that it’s better to use Evernote or to record the audio on your phone while driving rather than using the voice recognition function in a Note. However you might find that the voice recognition software built into modern smartphones can help you record ideas while driving, but you might find that the crayon in the shower is the best technology for that environment.

    How to Process New Ideas Once You Have Them?

    This prompts the question: What do you do with the ideas once you have them written down or recorded in some fashion? That brings us to the next part of the method: organizing the ideas that you’ve captured. Captured ideas can be organized using an even wider variety of tools than the ones used to capture them. Typical tools to organize ideas include:

    • pen and paper
    • software like word processors or spreadsheets
    • apps like Evernote
    • Post-it notes

    What matters is that you create a system that’s useful to you to turn the ideas into action.

    Turning Ideas into Action: Execution

    The third phase of the method is to turn ideas into reality. After a meeting, typically what happens is you’ll come back to your desk and you’ll type up the notes from the pen and paper into a Word document or an email and you’ll send those out to the attendees of the meeting. They might store the document on the file server or Dropbox and then it may or may not be referenced sometime before the next meeting to remember what you did at the previous meeting. What if instead each idea was treated as an individual object instead of a line in a document? This is similar to how a database works and a simple database creation tool called “Trello” works. It’s similar to creating bulletin boards and a bunch of white note cards that go on those bulletin boards. Since every idea is an object, it can easily have an owner and a next-action step. From there, it’s all about accountability.

    The 3 Step Method from Idea Capture to Execution

    1. Capture the ideas however you can
    2. Treat each idea as an individual object
    3. Assign each idea a next step

  • 10 Online Learning Courses and Class Resources

    We live in a unique time where information is free (or nearly free) and the problem is no longer access to information, but organizing it and finding it in the form we need it. Many organizations are taking up this challenge by curating online learning courses for public consumption.

    Some are geared towards a particular industry, while others are general. Some are “pay monthly for full access” and others are “pay for each course individually”, while still others are totally free.

    The following is a list of links to resources where you can search for online learning classes and courses:

    General Courses

    Red Hoop – a search engine for online learning courses. It searches sites like Udemy, Lynda, PluralSight, Skillfeed, Tuts+, Learnable, Treehouse, Code School, TrainSimple, Udacity, Digital-Tutors, SkillShare, creativeLIVE, edX, Coursera, General Assembly, Khan Academy, Craftsy, CreatorUp, Grovo, MIT OCW, NovoEd, Open2Study, and creativebug.

    iTunes U – you can’t actually search iTunes from the web – you’ll have to download and install the app on your computer – but it’s a great resource for free classes from Stanford, Harvard, MIT, UC Berkely, and Oxford. Mashable has their list of the top 10 classes on iTunes.

    itunes-u

    Indiana Career Connect Education Resources – contains links to Training Providers and Schools, Training and Education Programs, Education Program Completers, Financial Assistance Links, Online Learning Resources, and Education Profile Informer.

    Coursera – Take the world’s best courses, online, for free. Coursera has a lot of business, science, and technical classes.

    Udemy – Your place to learn real world skills online. A mix of general, business, and technical classes – some are free, some are paid. When paid, you pay per course. You can also get paid to make your own class.

    Skillshare – Online classes and inspiring projects that fit your schedule. Enjoy unlimited access to hundreds of classes for $9.95 a month – includes a 7-day free trial. Classes range from business to technical.

    Khan Academy – Math, science, computer programming, history, art, economics, and more. For free. For everyone. Forever. No ads, no subscriptions. They are a not‑for‑profit because they believe in a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere.

    Lynda – Online video tutorials to help you learn software, creative, and business skills. Starts at $25 a month.

    YouTube – despite the large amount of information, courses can be hard to find on Youtube unless you use some filtering. After doing an initial search for your keyword, click the “Filters” dropdown and then click “Playlist” to see curated content.

    youtube-course-search

    Technology Courses

    Treehouse – learn to make websites, apps, and code. Learn as much as you want for $25 a month.

    Codecademy – Learn to code interactively, for free.

  • Woodworking

    This morning I visited Purposeful Design in Indianapolis, a furniture-manufacturing facility that helps train workers with job skills while giving them a job. David Palmer, one of the founders, uses it as an opportunity to not only help people find work, but also teach them about God. They start and ending each shift in a huddle, reading Bible scripture and offering prayer.

    woodworking-3

    Walking around the facility, as Dave was pointing out the table saw, buzz saw, jointer, planer, sander, nail guns, and piles of wood, I started to remember that I too used to be a woodworker. There was a time around 2004 when I wanted to know how to make furniture. This blog post is to help me remember.

    woodworking-1

    One of my first woodworking projects was making wooden flags for a corporate client. It required me to buy a drill press, which took all of the money from doing the job. After that I began experimenting with making wood shelves. Eventually I realized I needed a router to help make the shelves more secure.

    woodworking-2

    Once I had a router I got a woodworking job making custom trim around some old doors for an old home in Greenfield. I started looking into how to do mortis and tenon joints and how to make table-tops. My woodworking experience culminated with me giving everyone wood furniture gifts for Christmas.

    Everyone hated them.

    One person took the table I made and placed it in the woods under some white pines. Another person briefly displayed the small cabinet I made in their living room. A bench I made was donated to Goodwill. The corporate flags are no longer in use. Coincidentally I was the one who ended up throwing them in the trash when I later worked there full time doing business analysis work. It’s a small world.

  • What it’s Like to Lose Your Job

    When you get laid off, you’re in a strange kind of phase where all of a sudden you have a lot of time, but your brain is scattered. Days prior you may have wished you could have some time off. Now that you have it, you wish you could be back at work. The trick is to enjoy this season. Spend time with family that you wouldn’t have otherwise. Watch your kids grow up a little. Teach them something. Learn something new. And yes, do those other things to: apply for jobs, outreach to your network, and check your finances.

    Before I was laid off I was quick to give others advice. I’d send them a blog article (10 Things You Need to Do if You were Fired Yesterday) or recommend they attend a networking group or meetup. What I didn’t realize was a) the effect of pride and b) the strain on mental bandwidth. When things aren’t good, pride doesn’t want to “reach out”. It wants to hide that problem. And when money is not coming in regularly, a higher percentage of the brain is allocated to thought about ‘how to get more money’, burning bandwidth (1,2).

    Even job applications require eliminating a little bit of hubris. Yes, you must fill out all of these boxes regardless of your business acumen or professional experience. Yes, you must convince us to hire you even if you are completely qualified for the job. You have to sell yourself, but as time goes on, the ability to sell yourself gets questioned. Confidence begins to wane. The no’s begin to pile up. You start to second-guess yourself. The bills start getting behind. Your ability to buy basic essentials begins to come into question.

    The Blame Game

    The first person I blamed was myself. “What did I do wrong?” In Christopher Avery’s Responsibility Process™ he says that when a problem occurs, our default response is, “What should we do about it?” The problem is that words like “should” map to “shame” and “blame” in our minds. Instead, Avery says, we can say, “What do I want from this?” Asking yourself what you “want” maps the question to “responsibility” in your brain. Avery defines responsibility as, “Owning your ability and power to create, choose, and attract.”

    What Do I Want?

    Before I was laid off I thought I wanted to be an independent consultant. But after I became an independent consultant by default, I suddenly found myself wanting to be employed. Actually, what I wanted was “income”. And that may be part of the problem. I know from experience that top entrepreneurs (or employees) seek to “add value” as their primary goal. But “adding value” requires “being valuable” and that in-turn requires work. The real question was, “Do I want to do the work required to be valuable in today’s economy?”

    How Much am I Worth?

    Tai Lopez, a serial investor who reads a book a day, says something like, ‘Your bank account is exactly how much you are worth.’ What he means is that those who invest in their skills and work hard, and have good financial principles (like paying yourself first, spending less than you make, and investing) are more likely to have a higher bank account than people who expect things to come without working towards them or making any changes. “The safest way to try to get what you want is to try to deserve what you want.” –Charlie Munger

    A Skills Gap

    I’m an IT generalist with some skills in web development, web analytics, project management, and business analysis. The jobs I’ve been applying for have highlighted the need for more specialization (and skills). For example, to be a web developer, knowing HTML and CSS is not enough; I’d have to become proficient in JavaScript and HTML5 as a baseline. Many “web analytics” jobs require knowing Adobe Omniture (now called Adobe Analytics) and many project management jobs require project management certifications.

    Going Forward

    Right now my full-time job is finding a job using my current skillset while still maintaining the client work I have ‘on the side’. I am widening my job search outside of my current geographic region and applying for jobs ‘edge to edge’ on my current breadth of skills. For the last two days I have wrote a personal blog post. This is to keep my brain sharp and to practice writing. This post in particular is helping me figure out what to do next. I think I’ll pick a new skill to learn and start learning it. I have the time.

    Update:

    When I got back from the Storyline conference in November, poetically I assumed that because I lost my last full-time job just after attending the MixWest conference that I would get a new one just after attending Storyline. That didn’t happen. However, I did continue getting more interviews and from those interviews I learned what employers wanted from me. On November 19th I got my first job offer for a position that would start on December 1.

    In the week before I started work I began digitally cleaning house after realizing I was spending mental energy thinking about businesses I didn’t want to run just because I had the domain names. I shut down ‘brands without businesses’: Webories, Managing Actions, Outure, Seektivity, Bold Salsa, Deliver Town, Content Market Fit, AB Insights, Marketype and Watershawl. When you delete an account on Instagram, it’s permanent. No one can get that account back – even me – so I had to be sure. I was. I set the domains to auto-expire, deleted the Twitter accounts, and updated my records.

  • Business Thinker and Rational Architect

    I just took a new career finder test at Shobia after reading about it on Hacker News. I had my wife take it first as a control. She got “Business Interactor”, which means she may, “like interacting with other people, especially when it is in a professional work setting like in a company,” and she probably wants, “a job where you’re talking to people in order to make things happen. You might enjoy being a business development associate or political campaign manager.”

    Business ThinkerWhen I took it I got, “Business Thinker,” which means I, “like work dealing with companies and financial topics that involve thinking and coming up with ideas. You want to deal with questions like how a company can become more efficient. Careers you might enjoy include business consulting or being a corporate attorney.” Well they were almost right. They asked for feedback so I told them, “I wouldn’t like to be a corporate attorney”.

    Back in January I took the DiSC Personality Profile. The feedback it gave was very long, but in short, I’m an “SC” (Submission and Compliance), which means I’m analytical, systematic, even-tempered, and patient. I “show steadiness and consistency, and I tend to be conscientious and reliable. Overall I probably want to be known as someone people can count on. Compared to others, I have more patience for routine projects. Most likely, I plan ahead, allowing enough time to complete my responsibilities at the pace I prefer.”

    That’s also true. Nice job, tests! Ready for one more? Back in 2010 I took the Keirsey Temperament Sorter and found I was an ENTJ (The Executive), but after taking it today I found I was a INTP (Rational Architect – I’ve always wanted to be an architect!). The primary difference between the two is the movement from thinking “extroverted” to thinking “introverted” and from “judging” to “perceiving”. If this interests you, see my other online career tests and what I found out about myself.

  • 50 Things I Learned from over 600 Hours of Business Podcasts

    In the past six months I’ve listened to over 600 hours of business podcasts. That’s equivalent to sitting through a 15-credit semester of lectures in college. How did I do it? My drive to work each day is one hour, one way – and I listen to podcasts at 1.5x speed so each day I’m listening to at least 3 hours of business podcasts. If I have to travel to a client at night or on the weekends, I’m listening to more podcasts on the way.

    5 Benefits of Podcasts

    • On-demand learning – you can browse and download a podcast about almost any topic at any time
    • Location-independent learning – you don’t need to be sitting at a desk or in front of a computer – you can listen anywhere
    • Free to listen – books, audio books, and learning courses almost always cost money, but podcasts are fre
    • Multiple distribution channels – you can listen to podcasts via iTunes on your computer, the Podcast app on your iPhone, or through Stitcher Radio (stitcher.com or app)
    • Free mentorship – you normally would have to pay a coach, mentor, or mastermind group to get the kind of one-on-one advice podcasts provide

    600 Hours of Business PodcastsWhat business podcasts did I listen to?

    50 Things I learned from listening to over 600 hours of business podcasts:

    1. Take massive action
    2. Avoid the imposter syndrome
    3. Wake up early
    4. Network
    5. Seek a mentor
    6. Follow up
    7. Go to conferences
    8. Guest blog post
    9. Turn off distractions
    10. Listen to your intuition (hunches)
    11. Focus on the product
    12. Focus on a niche
    13. Focus on the customer
    14. Just start. You’ll never feel ready.
    15. Don’t listen to the naysayers.
    16. Don’t watch TV.
    17. No doesn’t always mean no.
    18. Help others first.
    19. Mindset matters.
    20. Clear the emotional blockages.
    21. Be thankful.
    22. Have an attitude of gratitude.
    23. Define what makes you happy.
    24. Work hard.
    25. Passion is important, but it should be for solving a problem, not a passion for the product.
    26. People buy products not markets.
    27. Build an audience then sell them something.
    28. PR can help, but PR agents aren’t always helpful.
    29. Celebrities can help.
    30. Backup your hard drive.
    31. Begin with the end in mind.
    32. Envision your future.
    33. Self affirmations.
    34. Use vision boards.
    35. Vehicle for goal. Make sure it matches.
    36. Multiple streams of income.
    37. Multiple sources of traffic.
    38. Figure out how many things it takes and work backwards.
    39. “Dollarization” of a problem.
    40. Don’t compare yourself to others.
    41. Success takes 9 months (to 5 years). There are no overnight successes.
    42. Double your price.
    43. If you get a no, ask why.
    44. All of your ideas are wrong.
    45. Start.
    46. Progress, not perfection
    47. Create systems and procedures.
    48. Know your avatar, or target market.
    49. Email marketing works.
    50. Podcasting works.

    Books most mentioned:

    Updates:

    Comment on Hacker News:

    a3voices commented:

    > Success takes 9 months (to 5 years). There are no overnight successes.

    From what starting point? The decision to try to be successful, when you come up with an idea, or when you start implementing it?

    To which I replied:

    Every person’s starting point is really the culmination of everything in their past so every starting point is different, but this statement is born from two trends I noticed while listening:

    1. “The Baby Effect” – a term coined by John Lee Dumas of Entrepreneur on Fire, a 7-day a week business podcast that interviews entrepreneurs, which evolved from John Lee noticing that successful launches tended to take 9 months from first action to the point of sustainability. He called it that because it usually coincided with the founder finding out they had a baby coming, but it also worked that way for BeardBrand, for example.
    2. Most of the “successful” interviewees on podcasts state they started back in 2009, so 5 years later is now (2014). 5 years seems to be the point at which entrepreneurs have been steady long enough that they start to either a) look for the next thing or b) start sharing with other people what they know. It’s also a sign that the ‘wave’ that they were currently riding (their business model) may have crested and they are in search of the next thing, hoping for a second win(d).

  • 10,000 Hours

    Have you ever heard that it takes “10,000 hours” to become good at something or that you should “follow your passion” and “do what you love”? If you’re still wondering What Color is Your Parachute? and you still don’t know what you want to be when you grow up, it may be time to take stock of your current skillsets and strengths to see how close you are to being an expert and whether or not that field is a vehicle that can economically provide a reliable income into your future.

    In 2013, Cal Newport wrote Don’t Follow Your Passion, Follow Your Effort, where he talked about how becoming an expert in something makes you passionate about it, not the other way around. But what if you could have both? In 2001, Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton wrote a book called Now, Discover Your Strengths and developed a test called the Clifton Strengths Finder to help you identify your strengths. What if there was a way to test for your “10,000 hours”?

    Becoming an expert at something doesn’t mean it’s the only thing you’ve worked on for the last 5-10 years. The accumulation of all of your experiences has led you to the position you’re in today. There is no one else who has had the exact same experience as you. No one else has the exact same perspective as you. There is already something you are an expert in that you can do better than anyone else in your area, if not the world. This experience is your “10,000 hours.”

    What do you do that's better than anyone else?
    What do you do that’s better than anyone else?

    Andy Johns, who was on the user growth team for Facebook, Twitter and Quora, recently wrote about Finding Your Career Economy, in which he says, “Everyone has their inherent strengths and weaknesses. I’m of the camp that believes that people should focus most on playing to their strengths and to align their strengths with a role that requires them to use their strengths regularly.” Shortly thereafter he spoke on Eric Siu’s Growth Everywhere podcast something similar:

    When I thought about my career, the mental model I used was an economics one. Where I thought that, “If I go and try and learn be a developer at this point and try and write code just as good as some of the Facebook developers,” like – just a huge fail, it just wasn’t going to happen. And frankly I just wasn’t interested in that. I didn’t think that’s where my heart was, nor was it where my sort of intrinsic abilities were.

    Instead I was like, “Well I’ve got to find this thing that I’m interested in that aligns with my strengths, but that also has an economy around it in the sense that someday there is going to be tremendous demand for this skillset – with very little real supply of that – and I wanna own that supply. That’s a position of leverage.

    For me the thing that I settled on – the position of leverage that made the most sense for my future potential – was “How can I be one of the best people on the planet in terms of understanding end-to-end, comprehensively from either one million to a billion users, ‘How do you grow something?’” – team building, analytics, experimentation, organization…the whole thing.

    That seemed like a tremendously powerful thing because the thesis or the hypothesis I had was that: more consumer Internet companies needed to have growth teams and no one was stepping up to the plate to do that. That’s what I wanted to do…and that’s been my sole objective since then – since I made up my mind about that in 2009.

    One thing I’ve noticed from listening to over 600 hours of business podcasts is that a lot of the people who are successful now started in 2009. It took them about 5 years to get from “go” to “grow” to “show”. Coincidentally, people work about 2000 hours a year so 5 years is about 10,000 hours. I read the same business books these guys listened to. I started blogs the same time they did, but somehow the result was different? Why was my 10,000 hours different than theirs? Because the vehicle I chose was different.

    The choices we make in life matter. Life is a game and not everybody wins, but everyone who can keep moving forward is capable of learning from their mistakes and doing better the next time. This is what startup culture calls “failing forward” and what normal people call “persistence” or “grit”. Those who are able to leverage their experience, focus on their strengths, and continue to improve will see return on their investments provided they select an economic vehicle capable of sustaining that activity.

     

  • Possibilities

    James Altucher used to email every single one of his web design clients everyday 10 things to improve their site. It’s about over-delivering and making your clients more successful. Imagine if I just did the things that it would take to make my clients more successful. Imagine if I just did those things and they became more successful. Would they pay me more because of it or would they think that they just became more successful without really trying?

    PossibilitiesIn his post about 9 ways to guarantee success James talks about how doubt, laziness, carelessness, vacillating, and not making progress are all things that will stop your business in it’s tracks. When I used to read this stuff I’d think to myself, “MAN! WHAT IS MY PROBLEM? I can easily write about all of this, but I can’t seem to DO any of it! Maybe I should just go work for someone else because I’m too lazy to run my own business, can’t make a decision, and don’t have a product. The world needs employees too. I know I have to provide for my family, it just seems like there has GOT to be another way.” That’s what I wrote my wife back in January of 2013. I did end up getting a job later on that month and I’ve had one ever since (however, I still do client work on the side).

    An Abundance Mindset

    The world is HUGE and full of possibilities. That is both a good thing and a bad thing. It means there are lots of problems to solve and lots of things to experience and lots of little niches to serve. But it also means it’s really hard for someone like me with their head in the clouds to actually stop, choose, and commit to any one thing. Is it because of risk? (I want to cry.) Is it because of desire and happiness? (I am a grown man.) When backed against a wall, I always come to the same conclusion: I’d like to build something. I’d like it to use the skills I already have. I’d like to have autonomy. And I’d like it to provide for my family. So far, the only thing that fits most of that bill is affiliate marketing, but it just occurred to me that writing books on a subject would also fit that bill.

    What if I went forward with my Content Motors idea where what I do is write “market-desired content” for my own site and for-hire for other sites with the intent of turning the material into books? It seems too simple and it doesn’t motivate me. In the book, Drive, Daniel Pink talked about the “Goldilocks tasks” which are neither overly difficult (such as app design or e-commerce) or overly simple (like business analyst or IT work). The question is how I can have both autonomy, mastery, and purpose in a job/career? Checkside has done a great job of summarizing Daniel Pink’s theory of what motivates us.

    Autonomy

    Autonomy – provide employees with autonomy over some (or all) of the four main aspects of work:

    • When they do it (time) – Consider switching to a ROWE (results-only work environment) which focuses more on the output (result) rather than the time/schedule, allowing employees to have flexibility over when they complete tasks.
    • How they do it (technique) – Don’t dictate how employees should complete their tasks. Provide initial guidance and then allow them to tackle the project in the way they see fit rather than having to follow a strict procedure.
    • Whom they do it with (team) – Although this can be the hardest form of autonomy to embrace, allow employees some choice over who they work with. If it would be inappropriate to involve them in the recruitment/selection process, instead allow employees to work on open-source projects where they have the ability to assemble their own teams.
    • What they do (task) – Allow employees to have regular ‘creative’ days where they can work on any project/problem they wish – there is empirical evidence which shows that many new initiatives are often generated during this ‘creative free time’.

    Mastery – allow employees to become better at something that matters to them:

    • Provide “Goldilocks tasks” – Pink uses the term “Goldilocks tasks” to describe those tasks which are neither overly difficult nor overly simple – these tasks allow employees to extend themselves and develop their skills further. The risk of providing tasks that fall short of an employee’s capabilities is boredom, and the risk of providing tasks that exceed their capabilities is anxiety.
    • Create an environment where mastery is possible – to foster an environment of learning and development, four essentials are required – autonomy, clear goals, immediate feedback and Goldilocks tasks.

    Purpose – take steps to fulfill employees’ natural desire to contribute to a cause greater and more enduring than themselves:

    • Communicate the purpose – make sure employees know and understand the organization purpose goals not just its profit goals. Employees, who understand the purpose and vision of their organization and how their individual roles contribute to this purpose, are more likely to be satisfied in their work.
    • Place equal emphasis on purpose maximization as you do on profit maximization – research shows that the attainment of profit goals has no impact on a person’s well-being and actually contributes to their ill-being. Organizational and individual goals should focus on purpose as well as profit. Many successful companies are now using profit as the catalyst to pursuing purpose, rather than the objective.
    • Use purpose-oriented words – talk about the organization as a united team by using words such as “us” and “we”, this will inspire employees to talk about the organization in the same way and feel a part of the greater cause.”

    Sharing The Vision

    I am moving towards a location-independent lifestyle that involves travel and running a business online. Outure and Webories are the primary organizations I’m setting up to help achieve that goal.

    Outure

    Outure is currently an affiliate marketing store, but is more of a brand, is being treated as a brand, and may one day become an ecommerce store. It has an active Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, and Facebook presence. It doesn’t have an active website, but I’ve hired a VA to help me build it out. Outure’s tagline is “Outdoor Adventure. Urban Exploration.” It covers the urban/city things you can do to play outside in an area like Indiana. It has two sections: Gear and Wear. Gear is stuff like foldable bikes, kayaks, camping, and equipment. Wear is stuff like jackets, boots, and clothing.

    Webories

    Webories is an organization that exists solely to support other organizations. Some of those organizations are what we would traditionally call clients. Other organizations are affiliate marketing sites that do not have their own brand, per se, but are make money off of keyword searches. Again, the VA will be a large part of getting Webories going again by creating shareable content for Webories organizations (including Outure). If it helps you to categorize things in your mind, think of it as one organization (Webories) of which we have our favorite organizations underneath.

    What I’m Not Going to Do

    Sometimes it helps to also define what I am not doing. I am not renting an office. I am not building a software company. I am not building information products. I am not going to promote Webories as a company.

    What I’m Going to Continue to Do

    Blog. Tweet. Tumble. Facebook. Use Aggie. Client work. Day job.

    What I am Going to Do that I’m Not Doing Now

    Here’s what I’m going to start doing that I’m not doing now: podcast. video. email marketing.

  • How I Lost 40 Pounds in 4 Months Using Slow-Carb Ideas from The 4-Hour Body

    4 months ago my weight was hovering around 270 pounds with a high of 275. Today it’s down around 230 with a low of 228. Here’s what I changed.

    Before and After 4 Hour Body

    While The 4-Hour Body came out on December 14, 2010, I didn’t start applying it’s principals until April of 2013. The first thing I did was to stop drinking coke (Coca Cola, Cherry Coke, and Mountain Dew). This alone helped me drop 10 pounds. I initially switched to sweet tea, then half sweet/half unsweetened, and then to only unsweetened tea. When I go to Starbucks, which is often, I get either a plain black iced coffee or a plain black Americano (espresso with water) for a hot drink. All other drinks are water. I drink a cold glass of water every morning, which is discussed in the book as a way to kick start your metabolism (along with using coconut oil).

    One of the hardest things I found was knowing what to eat at any given time. I really just wanted someone to hand me a menu and tell me what to eat so I didn’t have to think about it all the time. Before I started this diet food was very important to me. I thought about it all the time. I was always wondering what I’d be eating for the next meal. I’d fantasize about it. I even dreamed of owning my own restaurant so that I could serve myself anything I wanted at any time. I was fat.

    One of the things Tim Ferriss (author) talks about in The Four-Hour Body is that in order to lose weight we need to break the emotional connection we have to food. We need to stop looking forward to it and start getting it over with as fast as possible. Ferriss recommends eating the same things over and over and being very utilitarian about the eating experience. This idea helped propel me forward.

    Slow Carb vs. No Carb

    The diet in 4-Hour Body is a low-carb diet for 6 days a week followed by 1 “carb day” of eating as many carbs as you want. There are many foods that contain carbs, but what Ferriss is really talking about is breads, potatoes, corn, and rice, which all contain simple carbohydrates (sugars) that prevent your body from burning fat (by burning sugar instead).

    What to Eat

    This is a menu I used and continue to use today. It involves eating low-carb meals for 6 days a week followed by 1 day of eating whatever you want.

    Breakfast

    Drink a cold glass of water as soon as you wake up and then choose from this menu:

    • Fried eggs in coconut oil
    • Black beans with taco seasoning
    • Scrambled eggs with peppers

    Lunch

    • Salad with vegetables and meat – Wendy’s is great for this – try the BLT Cobb Salad for starters – no fruit salads
    • Mexican restaurant? Get a burrito bowl with only meat and vegetables and/or beans – no chips
    • Steak restaurant? Get a piece of meat or fish with a side of vegetables – no baked potato, bread or fries
    • Mixed nuts as a snack
    • Beef jerky as a snack

    Dinner

    • Black beans or refried beans
    • Lettuce wraps with black beans, refried beans, and chopped tomato with Frank’s red hot sauce
    • Chicken breast, fish, or steak with side of steamed vegetables – avoid breaded meats or BBQ sauce
    • Baked sweet potato, steamed cabbage, or coconut oil kale chips are all nice treats
    • Baked brocoletti with coconut oil, salt, and pepper is delicious as a meal

    Kudos and shout-out to my kid’s mom who used to make these meals for me.

    Other Habits

    It wasn’t just the diet that had to change, there are other contributing factors to weight loss such as exercise and tracking.

    Exercise

    I didn’t join a gym or anything, but I did go on the occasional long walk and the job I had at the time required me to walk up and down stairs a lot carrying computer equipment around. But this wasn’t all the time, maybe once a week. Most other times I was sitting down in the car (I have a one-hour commute – one way, twice a day) or sitting down at a computer chair (much as I’m doing right now). When I get home at least one of my kids will want me to do “big jumps” by repetitively lifting them up in the air or play the “broken crane” where I lift them up making engine noises until the engine gives out and drops them.

    In the beginning of the diet change I felt weak, like I couldn’t exercise if I wanted to. This lasted for about 3 months, but by the fourth month I felt I could start doing things like push ups and running again. Prior to the diet change I would run and do push-ups, but I wouldn’t lose any weight. How could I when I was putting so much sugar into my body? It was much easier to burn the “easy” sugar than for my body to take the time and energy to release and use the fat it had stored up.

    Don’t have time to exercise? Consider exercising at work.

    Goals

    My first goal was to lose 1 pound. I know that may sound silly, but my weight was so consistent that even losing 1 pound would tell me that I was doing something differently. Once I lost 1 pound I set a new goal of losing 5 pounds. After 5 pounds I set a goal weight of 240. After hitting 240 I sat my eyes on 220, which is how much I weighed in college (I weighed 180 in high school – by the way, I’m 6′ 5″). I haven’t reached that goal, but like I said before the closest I’ve came is 228.

    Setbacks

    How are you going to handle setbacks? When you weigh yourself everyday, you’re going to have days where you way more than the day before. This could be because you need to go to the bathroom or because you didn’t drink enough water the day before and are now holding onto it (it could also be from holding water from salt intake). It could also be because you just had a carb-day or because you slipped up or decided to take a break. Whatever the reasons, what matters most is that you keep going and get back on track. Mistakes happen – we’re human – but we don’t have to let our mistakes derail us from our goals of being healthier and looking better for our loved ones.

    Tracking Tools

    I use a normal, tempered glass, bath scale, but some people who practice quantified self or that just like technology like using the Fitbit Aria Wi-Fi Smart Scale because it wirelessly sends the weight recording to a Fitbit One Wireless Activity Plus Sleep Tracker. Fitbit has it’s own tracking software, which also integrates with MyFitnessPal, which I do use. Some people track their weight in Excel, Google Docs, or Evernote. Some people go beyond tracking their weight and also track their body mass index (BMI); their chest, belly, and hip circumference; and their total body fat. There are sports centers and various medical facilities that you can contact about getting these measurements.

    Disclaimers

    I am not a doctor. Consult a medical professional before making any changes to your body or diet. I am not giving advice, but merely telling you of my experiences with a particular type of diet and exercise routine that has worked for me. Every person is different.

    Any links you see to Amazon are affiliate links, which means that if you click on them and buy something I’ll get a small percentage of whatever you buy. This is no increased cost to you and helps you support informative blog posts like this. Thanks for reading.

    Update: if you’re looking for a coconut oil that tastes, smells, and feels like Skinny Coconut Oil from Skinny & Co., check out Dignity Coconut Oil (affiliate link). Like Skinny, their coconut oil is raw and they use glass jars instead of plastic, but the best part is their mission to raise women out of poverty.