A Life’s Work

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Last week, I was on retreat, cycling daily in the mountains. Getting outside my normal life, offers me an opportunity to reflect on three questions.

  1. What will be my life’s work?
  2. How did I do, today?
  3. Am I aligned?

As a young person, my first realizations were not-to-dos. I’m still best at telling myself what to avoid (excess booze, sloth, late afternoon naps, overeating, anger, holding my breath, fatigue). It is easier to see where I don’t want to take myself than to consider my purpose and what I want to leave behind.

Various lightning bolts from my past…

  • Not to be unhealthy (mid-20s)
  • Not to be inactive (late-20s)
  • Not to gain satisfaction from a lifetime of accumulation of wealth (early-30s)
  • Not to spend my life dragging boxes across a screen (early-40s)

Each realization struck me quickly, and powerfully. It was obvious that my current life didn’t fit. Following that realization, I would redirect myself.

When we think about “legacy”, most of us consider financial wealth. I’ve considered my family tree.

I’m the first-born of the first-born of the first-born – everyone upstream being quite young when they had kids. So I have been fortunate to watch, and learn about, many generations. In looking up my own family tree, there have been a few members that hit-it-big over the last century. Regardless of their financial success, nothing material passed more than two generations. When I die, everything in my family tree from the last 150 years will pass. This brings context to my question, how did I do today?

Being 40+ years older than my kids, they are an obvious target for having an impact or, at least, building a relationship so I might be able to have an impact. I ask myself, “what can I do that might prove useful to my great-grand kids?”

Have you considered what continues?

The Blink of an Eye

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Last week was my seventh wedding anniversary and the guy in my wedding pictures is starting to look considerably younger than the man I see in the mirror each morning!

With the last seven years flying past, I cast my eye forward, seven years from now.

If I make it then where will I be?

  • 50 years old
  • Three kids (10,8,6)
  • Two cats (11, 11)

The cats and I will be getting up there but the kids will be young. My wife will be the age that I am right now, and I’ve assured her that it remains quite enjoyable to be 43!

The way I experience time isn’t balanced. Looking backwards, everything flew by. Thinking forward, I feel that plenty of time remains.

In three more “blinks” I’ll be 64, not far off my parents’ age.

Six “blinks” will take me to my grandparents’ age.

The speed that life passes me by is a strong motivator for kindness and making sure that I use each day wisely.

What To Keep

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When I decided to move, I had a hunch that we wouldn’t change unless we removed our alternatives. While we made progress with streamlining ahead of the move, our two shipping containers worth of gear show that we didn’t change the way we lived.

Reducing the family’s available space by over 50% has resulted in automatic adjustments – there simply isn’t any space. To help us let go, we opted for a furnished rental. The idea was to break our attachment to our furnishings and not be reminded of the old place.

When I started this process, I was unsure what to keep. What helped was a decision to knock out 50%. I sorted everything and kept the best half of everything (suits, bike clothes, socks, underwear…). While I was doing that, I paid attention to:

  • what I wear
  • what I use 
  • what I eat

Between clothes, assets and ingredients, a list of 20 items covered the bulk of each category. 

For example with food… eggs, quinoa, coconut oil, lettuce, peppers, olives, olive oil, avocados, mixed nuts, salad dressing, wraps, turkey, coffee, soy milk, clif bars, INfinit, cucumbers, fruit salad, non-fat dairy // that covers most of my calories. Some of the items have their own ingredients but you get my drift. I can live off a simple list of items that I can easily remember. I spend ZERO energy thinking about the food I buy, prepare or eat. Find what works, make it a habit, repeat.

When I decided to simplify, I felt pain each time I had to let go of something. A tactic I used to soothe the pain was to give myself treats as I downsized. I bought a new Garmin out of the proceeds from selling two pick-up trucks worth of sports equipment. 

Another tactic was to tell myself that I could always add back something that I removed. That’s a trick that I learned when I made a decision to leave private equity in my early 30s. I’ve often told myself that the worst that will happen is I get my old life back. Perhaps with less money, or status, (!) but you’ll be able to get back there if you change slowly, with compassion.

I’ve been using the 50% tactic throughout my life. Earlier this year, I wrote about my desire to take a sabbatical. However, in looking deeply, I realized that getting away from everything wasn’t my true driver.

I looked at my life, specifically where I spend my time; as writer, father, husband, coach, athlete, competitor, business owner, gardener, home owner, garbage mover, driver, plant watering specialist, light bulb changer, cat poop scooper…

Similar to my clothes and athletic equipment, I was attached to where I was spending my time – I even enjoyed litterbox duty. However, I wanted to create space so I needed to free up time.

While not easy, the following changes are simple to execute:

A – reduce your stuff by 50%, wait two months, repeat

B – create a time log for your workweek and eliminate the bottom 50% of your hours when sorted on financial return – focus on your best opportunities and eliminate work situations that are an emotional drain

C – live in a place that is 50% smaller – gardening, trash, light bulbs, compost — even if you keep doing everything, you’ll be pleasantly surprised by how much time you save when everything is compressed

D – move to a location that reduces your weekly drive time by 50% – I moved 1.7 miles and added 100 hours (!) to my year

E – figure out three things you want to prioritize – get in the habit of saying no to everything else

F – wake up one hour earlier, don’t check email, spend 15 minutes of quiet time then do one household chore

So those are my six changes in the first six months of 2012. 

It’s not all about “less.” What I’m seeking to achieve is getting out in the world, more often, with the people I love.

The hardest part is the first step. 

Take one good idea and do it now.

 

Moving Day

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I’m typing this piece from a large, empty house in Boulder. Downstairs a couple of guys are repainting the interior and we should go live on the MLS in a little over two weeks. From concept-to-reality, it took me eight months to arrive at this position. I’m on track for changing my life situation.

Despite living in nine countries, this is the first move where I’ve been an active participant. Typically, I use money and other people’s time to insulate myself from the move.

Given that I was the only person that wanted to move in the first place, I figured that I would step up. Besides, the first quote from the moving company gave me a meaningful financial incentive to get organized.

Three tips to save you money:

  • get all your packing supplies from U-Haul and sort all the prep yourself – that saved us $1500
  • label all box destinations with black marker and use wide masking tape to mark up your furniture delivery locations – that saved $250
  • take everything apart in advance – I had a couple items that I could have broken down further and that cost me a couple hundred in time costs. Taking apart a commercial-grade treadmill was an exercise!

Despite my efforts at downsizing we have the equivalent of two 40-foot containers worth of stuff spread between two properties.

Nz_awards

During the move, I came across the photo above. It’s a picture taken at the Award’s Dinner at Ironman New Zealand many years ago. I might be the only guy without an Ironman victory in the shot. It was a strong field that year!

In the picture, you can see Steve Larsen. Steve’s not with us anymore and he’s survived by five kids. When I came across the photo, I thought of Steve’s kids and wondered if he would have lived differently knowing that he would die young. The answer to that question isn’t important but it drew my mind to my own childhood.

Growing up, one of the houses I live in was an honest-to-God mansion. The house was purchased in an estate sale and my parents didn’t have enough furniture to fill it so part of it was closed off and only used for parties or fashion shoots. From the top of the mansion (it had three floors) you could look north and see snow on the local mountains.

I thought about all the different places that I’d lived as a kid and whether one was “better” than another. Considering each place, what stands out was the mood of the family, rather than the splendor of the property. In fact, some of the happiest times of my life have been spent living in tents, cabins and the spare bedrooms of friends. 

Thinking deeply, convenience trumps capital value and what I remember is the mood of the people around me.

If we get an acceptable offer and sell, then it will be interesting to watch how I spend my time. I’m chipping away at removing all my excuses for the duration of my kids’ pre-school years!

At any age, the death of a parent is a traumatic event. Reflecting on my own mortality helps me appreciate each day.

Choose wisely.

 

Moms and Dads

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I thought I finish this series on parenthood with observations on the differences between the approach moms and dads have to their kids. As parents, Monica and I benefit from accepting, and respecting, the approach of the other parent.

Daddy Day Care – below is a flowchart for how I manage the kids.

Intervene

As you can imagine, a trip to the bike park with Daddy involves a lot more action than swimming with Mom. I’ve managed to train Lex to laugh at the majority of her crashes.

Behavioral Modification – not sure if you read the NYT article on the French-style of parenting. I did and it made perfect sense to me. I don’t nag, I don’t raise my voice and I don’t worry about being popular. Here’s what I do…

Discipline

Lex can never call my bluff because I’m never bluffing. As a result, there’s a lot of stuff that I let slide and, frankly, I’m glad that Monica has her approach. We’re a good team.

Quality Time – One of the things that I didn’t understand for my first few years as “dad” was why my wife gets so happy about the time that I spend with the kids. Given my flow chart, you wouldn’t be surprised to learn that my main concern when I’m not with my kids is that they are safe. A mother has an entire range of considerations that she’s making all-the-time about the kids. While I think there’s value in being able to switch off – Monica’s not wired that way.

I’ve come to accept that one of the best things I can do for my marriage is spend time with our kids. Great news that Lex likes to ride!

Related to my point above, I’ve noticed that the only time that Monica doesn’t feel slightly guilty about the amount of time that she spends with the kids is when she’s exhausted from spending time with the kids… 

As a father, I see it as imperative that I keep myself in reserve in case a situation becomes serious and I need to step-up (see flowchart #1). While I don’t experience time-guilt emotions, I’m sensitive to the fact that they are very real for Monica. Recently, I’ve been stepping up with our daughter to get a double-whammy of quality time with her, while Monica spends time with our son.

Be aware, however, that Daddy-Time is a distant second for many kids. I’m only effective with our daughter when her Mommy-Time needs are met and she knows that she’ll get a mommy-top-up later. I’m second in the hierarchy but that’s OK as I don’t need to be #1.

Releasing myself from my need to “be right” has reduced my desire to change my wife and enabled us to find a parenting approach that works for both of us.

I’m pacing myself for the long haul.

The Athletic Parent

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In his first book Lance makes the observation that, in some ways, training to win the Tour de France is easier than being a parent. I’m sure many athletic parents can relate to the honesty of his statement.

Only a few can make a career out of sport but many parents use their careers (or sport) as a haven from the seemingly relentless demands of parenting. With two young children in my house, I have tremendous empathy for people that create an outlet for themselves. 

The lack of sufficient self-expression can lead to mental health complications. I’ve seen angry Dads and depressed Moms, suffering from losing touch with what brings joy to their lives.

In October 2010, I touched on understanding what brings joy to our lives. Today, I’m going to share two techniques that have been helpful with living alongside a demanding, and strong-willed, little girl. At her most challenging, she reminds me exactly of myself!

Regular Breaks – If I spend too much time with my kids then I’m exhausted and appear miserable. I write “appear miserable” because I don’t remember being miserable, or feel particularly unhappy. However, Monica says I look absolutely miserable and it isn’t fun to live with a spouse that appears sad.

I’ve come to realize that misery is removed by regular breaks and ensuring that I’m not exhausted. Limiting exhaustion is challenging (see last week) but simple. Sleep enough and don’t wreck myself.

Between work and personal travel I’m away a week a month. If I go more than a month without some form of exercise-related trip then I feel my mood deteriorate. This realization has led me to race far less often so I can do more of what makes me happy (training trips).

Previously, I had jobs that required a lot of work-related travel. As much as possible, I would underschedule my trips. My travel time (on planes) was left open so I could relax. Getting to a position where you control your own schedule is highly desirable for mental health and high performance.

My wife has told me that she’d rather I stay away for an extra day than come home exhausted. While it’s tempting to extend my trips – learning to moderate my output for a couple days at the end of a trip is more mature, and valuable.

Seize Common Ground – I have a fear that my kids will become skiers and bankrupt the family. The reality is, not surprisingly, they gravitate towards what they see us doing. Our daughter loves to swim with mom and ride her bike with Dad. She also enjoys touring in the bike trailer and I discovered that dragging 60 pounds behind my mountain bike is an outstanding workout!

Do you understand your personal happiness psychology? My psychology is geared towards future pay offs – preparing for a race, working on a consulting project, creating a business, investing and building personal fitness. 

Creating a plan to help my daughter become a proficient cyclist fits my life psychology perfectly! When I am chasing her around the bike park, I feel that every minute invested will yield a future return (and that makes me happy).

What I recommend is to share what brings you joy. Keep in mind that having your personal pit crew may not be your family’s idea of fun! Odd are, if you prefer to be an active participant than your kids will share that trait.

The alternative from building your family into your life, is living with an increasing longing to leave your life. Being surrounded by people with unmet emotional needs creates a cycle of increasing demands, conflict and disharmony.

Avoidance and divorce can be structured in socially acceptable ways – I have been careful to make sure that life is never my “fault”. However, my issues just followed me around.

Summing up

  • Daily, weekly, monthly create space for yourself. I’ve created a life with a minimum of an hour per day, a day per week and a week per month.
  • When your family gives you an opportunity to share your passion – take it.

So much easier than trying to win races – I wish I figured it out years ago!

 

What Happens In Vegas

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In the book, Raising Cain, the authors note that many boys drink to shut down their capacity to think. As an athlete, being exhausted from exercise is quite similar to being loaded. There’s not a whole lot of quality thought happening!

Whether we’re focusing on parenting, adolescence or our current life situation, it can be tempting to numb ourselves and escape a gnawing sensation that we might not be heading the right direction.

The trouble with numbing ourselves with exercise, alcohol, sex, work, pastries, ice cream or toast… is we might not get anywhere worth going.

By the way, when I wonder about my life, I fall back to my personal mission (share love with Monica, help others with my writing and teach my kids how I experience the world). Have I done something on each point recently? If yes, then relax. If no, then change.

If you’re happy with your life situation then keep on rolling. If you want to make a change then consider the next couple paragraphs.

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When you’re exhausted, loaded or unwatched… who are you?

If there was an invisible friend on your shoulder, what would he see?

Before I met my wife, I came to a realization that I needed to sort myself out, completely. I realized that substantial change needed to occur with my deepest desires. There were three principles that helped.

Be true – I spent twenty years being highly successful at goals that had little meaning to me. While capital generated from external success was, and remains, useful. It didn’t generate lasting satisfaction. The time I’ve spent on self-reflection has proven extremely valuable. Start by stoping what makes you unhappy to create space for more of what makes you happy. Pay attention to things, and people, that make you laugh out loud.

Live openly – I’ve been blogging for a decade and have been working on my skills to be more and more honest with the people in my life. It takes a lot of compassion, and trust, to have an open relationship but it’s deeply rewarding to have a marriage that works.

Avoidance – I have limited willpower so I’ve made a habit of avoidance. I rarely leave the house for social events, skip bachelor parties, don’t frequent bars, and ride my bicycle all day when I go on vacation. It’s been that way for a long, long while.

You might wonder… how the heck did this guy meet his wife?

Well, I spent five days a week training alongside her when I was trying to win an Ironman race. I spent many years living my life the way I wanted and improving my thought patterns. I did this to try and win an Ironman but the spin off benefit was attracting a woman that deeply shared the values that I built within myself.

I just “was” and she was there.

I’m sharing because many young people wonder how, and if, they will ever attract a mate. If you create the life you want to lead and the person you want to be… then you tilt the odds in your favor and your life, while single, is a lot of fun. People might not agree with your decisions but, when they are open and true, any criticism will flow through you more easily.

There is a lot of peer pressure, and sophisticated marketing, that tempts us to drop our standards when we are on holiday, when nobody is looking or when we think we’ve earned a break.

Secret eating, secret sexual relations, secret drinking, even small things like littering… eroded the image of the man that I wanted to be. By teaching myself to create good habits, I became the sort of person I wanted to marry.

What happens in Vegas shapes our lives.

Choose Wisely.

Nine Israelis and a Jet Pilot

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Last week was the first time, in a very long while, that I’ve been able to remove any distractions, agenda or goals from an exercise-focused trip. Normally, I’m guiding and it was a lot of fun to be back on the athlete side of a camp. I’m going to do more of these trips as I missed the freedom they provide.

Earlier in the week, I gave a talk at a camp hosted by Tri-Dynamic. The talk was focused on Mental Skills for Racing and I shared how I train my mind to create my life situation. Daily, each of us lays down emotional imprints that create the way we perceive the world.

I built my mental skills for athletic performance by getting my head straight in daily living. Consistent performance requires:

  • Conditioning the mind – to the way training and racing feel. As we gain experience with the sensations of preparation and racing, the emotional content of pain and fatigue is removed.
  • Calming the mind – so we are able to see the way things are, maintain our technique and conserve energy for the relaxed concentration required to perform. 
  • Restoring the mind – regardless of our physical fitness, we will struggle to perform when emotionally exhausted. Exercise is a source of emotional energy but only up to a point. Be careful of feeding disfunction (via anger, stimulants or fear) to keep yourself going well past what’s required for emotional wellbeing. Disfunction might get you through a season (or a championship) but it’s effects will linger, and impact, your entire life.

As I wrote last week, exercise tires the mind and it’s interesting to see what comes out when we go beyond ordinary levels of fatigue. Extreme training can lay bare what many years of emotional choices have done to our minds.

When tired, I have little tricks that I use to keep myself in check. One technique is to pretend I have an imaginary friend following me around, watching my every move and analyzing how I’m doing. What would this person say about me?

After riding over 1,000 kms this week and climbing more than 50,000 vertical feet – I’m no closer to what drives me to exercise but I had the opportunity to practice emotional control when physically stretched (always good for a parent).

Fatigue strips away the filters that we use to manage ourselves. I spent a lot of this week riding with a group of Israelis and a fighter-jet pilot. They coped very well with fatigue and I contemplated what was different in their approach.

Acceptance – one of the Israelis confided in me that he didn’t enjoy descending at high speed in the rain. However, he wanted to race well. He acknowledged his fear, let it go and accepted what was required to achieve his goal.

Perspective – if you’re an ER doc, a naval aviator or a combat veteran then the implications of a “bad day” are serious. It’s taken me more than a decade but I’ve been able to greatly reduce my mind’s tendency to manufacture drama out of thin air. I credit my three-year old daughter with turbo charging this aspect of my emotional development!

Reality – I’ve seen emotional meltdowns where athletes are overwhelmed by their fears. These situations are emotionally charged and I feel a powerful desire to flee individuals with chaotic minds.  When there is no escape, remember that tiny gestures of assistance can have a calming effect and help someone re-establish their ability to think clearly. At a minimum, showing compassion will give you peace-of-mind that you’re not part of the problem!

Related to the above, our hotel’s owner made the observation that she liked taking care of athletes because we are about more than overindulging. Inside, I smiled because I’m not so sure.

When the filters come off, what do you see?

Are you sure?

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PS – the best part of Italy is the Italians! They have a unique capacity for unreasonable optimism as well as taking joy in being nice to whomever is in front of them. As a guy that tends to detach from people, they are a good influence on me!

 

Running and Meditation

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One of the benefits of shifting my life away from chasing race results, and money, has been increased time for reading great books. The three themes I’ve been enjoying are biography, philosophy (Old Path White Clouds; Beyond Religion) and behavioral psychology (Thinking, Fast and Slow).

When I attended the class on contemplative parenting, the teacher mentioned a book on running and meditation. I’ve often felt that exercise is the closest that I get to prayer – so I bought a copy of the book to see what I could learn.

The book makes an interesting observation that exercise doesn’t settle the mind; it merely exhausts the mind. Specifically, the author notes that exercise is episodic in the nature of the assistance it provides, while meditation is cumulative in the benefits it provides (each session building upon previous work). All the explanations, tips and stories are shared in the context of athletic training, which made it easy for me to relate.

I’ve noticed that my daughter tends to copy me and, at three, the #1 issue she’s facing is learning to direct her energy into feelings other than anxiety. When she gets excited, she is frequently overwhelmed. Given that she likes to copy me, and is educated by folks that meditate daily, I figured that learning about mediation might benefit us both. At a minimum, meditation could become a useful back-up plan in case circumstances limit my ability to exhaust my mind!

I’m approaching it like I was coaching myself to my first ever 10K; daily short-duration sessions with very modest expectations.

If you’re an athlete searching for serenity then the book (Running with the Mind of Meditation) may interest.