A friend of mine asked me to outline my diet.

You see, I had been raving about a diet I recently got onto. I had shed some weight (bad weight) and increased my energy (as well as quality of sleep).

I follow the ‘Slow Carb Diet’. I found this diet through Tim Ferris and his book ‘The 4 Hour Body‘. It is a diet that does not feel like a diet (I have never been hungry so far).

I won’t bore you with the science (if you want the science, get the book). The diet basically boils down to “don’t eat rubbish food”.

The second I read the details of the diet it appealed to me. Its principles intuitively made sense.

Basically the diet is 6 days on and 1 day off a week (my day off is Saturday… but you can pick any day of the week as long as it’s the same day each week).

During an off day you can eat whatever you want to eat (actually anything).

During an on day there are certain foods you can eat and certain foods you can’t eat. You can find a detailed list here. However basically:

Not allowed:

• dairy
• starchy foods (bread, potatoes etc)
• sugary foods (sweets, cakes)
• fruit
• grains/oats

Allowed:

• meat
• vegetables (ones not excluded)
• eggs
• beans

That is all you really need to know. You should have 30g of protein within 30 minutes of waking up. Apart from that just eat to keep yourself full.

I intuitively knew this diet was a good bet since the foods on the banned list would make me feel sick or bloated every time I ate them.

Cutting them out (except on Saturdays) has been a brilliant move.

Here is a typical day for me in terms of meals (note: I eat pretty much the same thing every day for simplicity and ease).

Wake up: 30g of protein via protein powder

I then shower and get ready for the day.

1 hour later: Eat 3-4 eggs with a bowl of broccoli + cauliflower + spinach

3 hours later: Breast chicken + vegetables

3 hours later: Breast chicken + vegetbales

3 hours later: steak + vegetables

Just before sleep: 30g protein via protein powder.

You can have a variety of vegetables if you like (I have cauliflower, broccoli, spinach and carrots)

Protein can be mixed and matched. So if I wanted to just eat chicken, I could. If I wanted steak instead, I could. If I wanted fish, I could have it. I just keep it to 2 chicken or steak because it’s easier.

My protein powder is chocolate flavored. I shouldn’t have it flavored but I do. When results begin to plateau then I will cut that out.

There were a few exercises that are recommended, but I haven’t done these yet. Again, when results begin to plateau then I will get into them.

A note on commitment

I have been doing this for 6 weeks now. I have been 100% committed.

The first time I cheated on this diet was tonight (as I type this). I deemed the social awkwardness too much to bear in order to refuse a few chocolate biscuits. However it won’t see me falling off the wagon.

This started 6 weeks ago after a night out with friends. I was in bed late at night and lying on my side. I noticed my belly weighing me down.

My eyes shot open. I felt a motivation never felt by me before. Tim Ferris (of ‘The 4 Hour Body‘) calls this the “Harajuku Moment”. A point of absolute motivation. I felt the fat drowning by body. I felt 4 of the best years of my youth flushed down the toilet in fatness.

The next day me an a group of about 30 guys had a fitness test for pre-season soccer training. I came last in 2 of the 5 tests that we had. It was a highly embarrassing day, but perfect timing as I will be able to test myself next year to see my progress.

I began getting fat in 2008 (during the Bejing Olympics, but that’s another story entirely). Wasted that entire time with a ring of fat around my belly.

That was my motivation.

Ferris recommends not starting the diet (or any workout routine) without your Harajuku Moment.

I also do not recommend starting without it either. If this is the same feeling you’re having after making a new years resolution then I suggest not wasting your time even beginning the diet. Just accept the physical state you are in now and be happy.

Regards

-Simon

This is Joel Bauer talking about his business card.

I’ve watched quite a few videos of Joel Bauer in the past. He tends to ramble. But he seems to genuinely be concerned about the success of the person who he is talking to.

This above video is what I call: “hustle”.

Note: when I talk about “hustle” I view it as a positive. Most people have a negative connotation surrounding the word.

They view a hustler as someone who rips someone off.

Wrong.

You’re thinking of a con artist.

A hustler is someone who is a go getter willing to make as many advantageous business deals as possible, providing value to both parties.

This world needs more hustle and less of people complaining about how the rich are trying to screw them over or how the government isn’t giving them enough.

Anyways.

Bauer brings up a brilliant point regarding business cards. Most business cards do not make the promise of a benefit to the recipient.

Bauer’s business card does (‘crowds guaranteed’). He’s a speaker and is guaranteeing (another thing most business cards miss is the guarantee) that he will bring the crowds in.

Most business cards are either white or cream. Boring colours. People should differentiate their business card by giving it a colour.

Last point, most people give a business card that talks solely about the giver of the card (guy/girl who got it printed off) and not about the receiver.

Here’s a question to ask yourself:

Who cares?

Who cares about you?

I know you do, and your family and friends do. But a fellow business person does not care in the slightest (nor should they).

You should offer a benefit to that person in your business card. A reason to call you.

Cleaned my room a few days ago and threw out a heap of business cards. I didn’t use any of them. I would have kept Joel Bauer’s business card and used it if I needed someone to speak at my business seminar (or whatever business speaking gig I needed to fill).

Regards

-Simon

The weighted average decision matrix (WADM to make it short) is a tool everyone should use to choose between 2 or more options. If you have a big decision to make, and all your options (let’s keep it to 2 for simplicity) are so similar (in terms of cost and benefit) that you are having trouble to decide, then this is the tool for you.

For this we are going to use www.HelpMyDecision.com.

Let’s go through a theoretical example.

I am walking along the harbour bridge in my home town of Sydney.

I ask myself: “should I jump off the harbour bridge?”

Not being able to decide, I whip out my laptop computer (did I mention I had it in my bag?) and log onto the above mentioned site.

I click ‘start now’ near the top of the page.I enter my name (Simon), my decision (bridge jump?).

And how many choices I want (2).

Hit the next button and come up with choices. I enter ‘yes’ for choice #1 and ‘no’ for choice #2.

Hit next.

We come up to the decision factors. These are the factors that are important to us in making our decision. So for example, if we were to pick between 2 jobs a factor might be ‘pay/compensation’.

We must also give each factor a weighting (10 being important and 1 being less important). So with our above example, if you regarded pay as of the up-most importance, you would have it as a 10. If you didn’t think it was so important then it may be a 5. If you really didn’t care then it would be a 1.

For our harbour bridge example, we will have the factors of ‘Life’, ‘Liberty’ and ‘The Pursuit of Happiness’. These 3 factors will be given a 10 rating as they are very important to me.

We will have 2 other factors. They are: not having to get up early the next morning (‘morning’) and not having to pay for a train ticket home (‘ticket’). They will be given weightings of 1 each since they are not so important to me.

(Note: the site allows you to take into consideration as many factors as you want, we are just limiting to 5 for convenience).

and…

Now I need to rate (1 to 10) each decision. So for example, if I jump off the bridge, that would not be so good for my life (I would die). Therefore it gets a rating of 1 for the ‘yes’ decision.

However, the factor of ‘life’ gets a rating of ’10′ for the decision ‘no’ since my life would be preserved.

You basically take the decision, and look at how it affects the factor. The more positively it affects the factor, the closer to 10 you give the rating.

Going back to our work example. If you have a factor of ‘pay’ and one job pays millions while the other pays minimum wage, then you would give the high paying job a score of 10 while you would give the low paying job a score of 1.

Notice above that there are 2 tabs (one for each decision). You should go through both tabs and enter ratings for each factor (e.g. Life, Liberty etc etc).

For the ‘Yes’ decision I gave the ratings as follows:

• Life (1)
• Liberty (1)
• Pursuit of Happiness (1)
• Morning (10)
• Ticket (10)

I figured that jumping off wouldn’t be so good for me living, but at least I wouldn’t have to get up early or pay for a train ticket.

For the decision ‘No’ I gave the following ratings:

• Life (10)
• Liberty (10)
• Pursuit of Happiness (10)
• Morning (1)
• Ticket (1)

I would live, but would have to get up early in the morning and buy a train ticket home.

I then agree to the terms of service and click the ‘Get Best Decision!’ button.

The program would then give a score to each decision.

It would multiply the decision weighting by the score you gave that decision for a particular factor.

Example.

For the decision of ‘No’ I gave the factor of ‘Life’ a score of 10. I also gave ‘Life’ a weighting of 10 (very important).

So the total score from that particular factor:

Score for ‘Life’ and ‘No’= 10 x 10

Weighting multiplied by rating. The program adds all these up but you could do this on paper as well.

Now time for the results.

I decide not to jump off the harbour bridge. I put my laptop back into my bag and get a train ticket home… in preparation for the meeting early tomorrow.

That there is the Weighted Average Decision Matrix. Use it to it’s best effect. Also, ignore the rather rubbish example. I couldn’t think of anything better. Obviously in that situation the best decision is to not jump (a decision made in a split second).

Regards

-Simon

I have never regretted a failure. I do, however, regret those times when I didn’t even take a shot.

I am not a fan of birthdays. I view them as a pointless exercise in self celebration. A day when people expect to feel special for no other reason than them happening to be born on that day years ago.

However birthdays do provide a person with another opportunity to evaluate their life and the direction it’s going.

Today such an opportunity was presented to me as I turned 23. This is about the age that I’m beginning to feel old. Exacerbated by the fact that I’m still in university (first day back today for the year) and many of the students are now half a decade younger than me.

I now walk into some clubs at night to find that I am no longer among the youngest there. It only seemed like yesterday that I was eagerly awaiting my 18th birthday to be allowed to go out with my friends.

I also coach my little brothers soccer team (he plays in the 16-18 year comp). I’m spending time with a group of boys and again, it doesn’t seem long ago when I was in their shoes.

Knowing that I’m getting older has given me the impetus to look back at my life to see my achievements. To be frank, the last 6-7 years could have been a lot more productive on my part. Working hard over that time would have seen me in a much better position as I am now.

“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” – Chinese Proverb

 

Keeping the above in mind, I know dwelling on the past isn’t going to make anything better. This is a trap that I have fallen into many times.

I see something I could have done a year ago (e.g. get fit) and kick myself for not doing something about it. I do nothing else and another year later I am still in the same situation.

That is a trap I have fallen into many times before. It won’t be my downfall again.

Now I will finish my blog post with some bad news.

We’re all going to die.

Whether we like it or not each and every one of us will one day die. That day may come when we are 83 or 23, we don’t get to decide.

Many of our fellow human beings do not live past childhood. Many don’t know life beyond misery and squalor.

The window of opportunity and the window of life itself is so short that we really don’t have time to waste messing about.

One thing I am sure of is that in that last moment on this earth we will look back at our lives and on balance see whether we made a decent effort at life.

Which brings me back to the beginning of my post. Taking a shot and risking failure.

The worst question a person can ask themselves is: “what if?”

What if they had quit their job to start that business?

What if they had gone on that holiday?

Those are the sorts of questions that will be gnawing at you at your appointed hour.

Don’t let yourself ask one of those questions again.

Regards

-Simon

Taking responsibility for your own actions is a thing of the past. We are brainwashed from a very early age to believe that the bad things we do are a result of a failure of society to bring us up.

About a year ago I got into a heated debate with a few friends of mine. They argued that we didn’t truly have control over our actions, that free will didn’t truly exist.

I argued the opposite, that what we did was entirely our choice and that we should be held accountable for our actions, as well as take responsibility for the shitty situations we got ourselves into.

For example a fat man may decide to blame the abundance of harmful processed foods for his obesity. He reasons that, since it is so cheap and convenient to purchase this harmful food, that he is compelled forevermore to be overweight.

This notion is ridiculous as there is no shortage of decent and nutritious food out there. The food is cheap and convenient to buy and there is plenty of information on how to cook it.

Contrary to what I have just said, society does play a role in this inefficiency. It is however limited to making people feel justified in their foolish decisions.

The responsibility for a persons actions ultimately rests with themselves.

Regards

-Simon