Colin R. Stuckert's Blog, page 21

5 Rules For Finding Your “Secret” To Success

Do you agree with Mr. Powell?

Personally, I agree and disagree.

He’s got it right with the latter part of his quote: success requires preparation, hard work, and learning from failure, but he’s wrong about there being no secrets to success.

There are secrets. More on that in a bit.

This makes me think of Socrates. If poised with this statement, I bet he would ask me, “What are secrets?”

Then I would have to define the word “secret” to support my statement about there being secrets to success.

I would probably answer his question with something like: “A secret is something not known to others.” Then I would have to defend my point of view, to which Socrates may or may not agree (or leave me with another question).

Excuse me, I’m getting caught up in visualizing a discussion with Socrates…

So, how can there be secrets to success when achieving success is not a secret?

Let me explain…

I believe there are secrets to success for the individual, and that each individual has their own set of “secrets” that they must uncover to find success in life. But. The way you discover these secrets is to apply the “not secret” parts of success–preparation, hard work and learning from failure.

By following the ways to success that so many others have show for us—like preparation, hard work and learning from failure—you will discover the “secrets” to success for you, the individual.

You see, you and I, and everyone else, posses the “secrets” to achieving success. Like Mr. Powell, most of us know that we must work hard and keep going to reach success. The thing is, not all of us truly understand what this looks like, or we might not be using this information to reach success. Perhaps we don’t realize that these secrets, the ones in plain sight, have to be combined in a way that will produce success and will need a bit of finagling to figure out the proper dose that’s going to work for you.

Mr. Powell was right: preparation, hard work and failure are integral to success, but the “how” of applying for you You/I/Me is the big secret that lingers over us all.

In a massive, dumbed-down nutshell: The secret to success is different in what it looks like but the same in how to reveal it.

What it comes down to is, you must figure out your secrets to success by working your freaking ass of and learning and improving from your failures.

How do you figure out your secrets to success?

By working your freaking ass of and learning and improving from your failures. I just said that, damn it!

That’s because it bears repeating.

Now let’s look at some specific of what this looks like in practice. Real quick, before we get to that, I want to add one more thing. It’s this: If you don’t build the intense inner world that compels you… freaking compels you… to get your ass moving every day because you know you have found your life mission and purpose, then none of what you are going to read below is going to matter.

Here are some fundamentals for reaching success. These are universal to all and neglecting one or more is going to severely handicap your results.

The Fundamentals of Becoming

A Successful Human Being



1. Health must come first.

You will never become the best version of yourself or reach your greatest results if you neglect your health.

Simple. As. That.

When you are healthy, you focus and your work is more productive. You get more done in less time, which means you get way more done. Then, you get to freaking enjoy your success!

This part always baffled me. So many want to forge health by eating shitty, missing sleep, doing drugs and skipping on the many things that go into a healthy human life in exchange for what they perceive as more productivity.

“I don’t have time,” is a common myth these individuals tell themselves.

Why, please tell me, would anyone to be a millionaire that is sick, feeble, overweight and unable to enjoy his or her wealth?

“Man surprised me most about humanity. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money.

Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”

― James J. Lachard

Make health your first priority and success will come easier and more abundant. Do this: avoid processed foods, exercise regularly, get sunlight and 8 hours of sleep daily, invest in your relationships, practice gratitude, negative visualization and do something not work-related you enjoy each day.

Health is first and foremost. If you don’t have health, you have nothing.

2. You must pursue knowledge… a.k.a you must read a lot.

Reading is the habit of the successful. There is no substitute for it. To be successful, you must develop a curious mind that is always absorbing information.

It’s like Will said in Good Will Hunting, “You dropped a hundred and fifty grand on a fuckin education you coulda got for a dollah fifty in late chahges at the public library.”

After dropping out of college, I soon learned the power of this quote. Reading is the reason I’ve reached any level of success in my life. I attribute it to every single thing I’ve ever done that has brought me money, joy and happiness. Reading has always been the epicenter of these efforts. Always.

(I’m not suggesting college is bad–it can be bad for some people, good for others–I’m just highlighting the power of reading.)

If you don’t already own one of these, get the paper white and use it all the time. You won’t believe how much reading you get done.

3. You have to start and finish.

To be successful, you must not just know how to take action and finish what you start, but you have to be doing it all the time as your standard operating system. While there are times you should quit a project, the majority you should finish even if the prospect of financial reward or acclaim isn’t there. Finishing is reward enough.

The more you start and finish, the easier it becomes to do both because you develop confidence in each act. Some people are great at starting because they subconsciously know that they aren’t likely to finish, and since finishing is always the hard part, starting is easy, even fun.

Here’s the thing about life: it’s all about starting and finishing things.

If you cannot finish what you start, you will never become the best you can be.

Taking action is integral to figuring out the “secret” that is your path to success. It’s how you learn from our failures so you can iterate and get better. How can you learn from you mistakes if you never make any?! (That was rhetorical.)

What real life actually looks like: act, fail, act, fail, act, fail, act, fail, act, fail, act, fail, succeed, fail, act, fail, succeed, act, fail, succeed, succeed.

This is what most paths to success look like. It is an ugly mess of ups, downs and uncertainty. Only the persons that are devoted and numb to the sting of this harsh process will see it through.

Your path to success will be different from everyone else, and no matter what you do, you can never be fully prepared. That’s why the only thing you can do is journey through.

The journey prepares you. It unveils your secrets.

4. You must learn… then apply.

The thing about failure is it is only useful if you learn from it and apply what you learned to get better results the next time. The same is true of any knowledge; you must use it for it to have value.

Never blame others, or the economy, or whatever. Take full responsibility for the results you get in life, and then learn from them with a ruthlessly objective analysis.

Blame is excuse.

You cannot learn if you cannot accept the results of your actions or inactions. You are the reason you have, or don’t have, what you have or don’t have in life. No one, I repeat, no one else is responsible.

5. Use money well… or fail.

To be successful, you must learn how to use money… well.

I don’t mean just stuffing it under the mattress or in some low-yield savings account. I’m talking about how you spend it, invest it, save it, everything.

Money is a tool that will work for or against you. When it works for you, it will bring you wealth and prosperity. When it works against you, it will suck you dry of every last penny and then some.

If you don’t learn the principles of money, and the Science of Getting Rich, you will never be able to be truly successful and financially free.

You could make a million dollars a month and still not able to pay for your house, toys and employees. Making money isn’t the only thing. You have to make profit. You have to make investments that use your money effectively. And you have to avoid losing it.

Money is more important than people realize, or are willing to admit.

Never apologize for the getting of money. The greatest thing you can do as a human being is acquire as much wealth as possible so you can use it to make the world a better place.

I remember a quote but I forget who said it. It went something like this: “Having more money brings out more of who you are.”

If you are a miserable, selfish prick, you are going to be more of a miserable, selfish prick when you have more money.

If you are a caring, kind person who enjoys helping people, you are going to be able to care and help more people when you have more money.

And really, anyone that does not desire to attain more resources for their family should be ashamed. To me, this is selfish and self-serving. To criticize money is to center the universe around you, the individual.

News flash: life is a group effort.

Your loved ones deserve your full effort in attaining as much money as possible so you can better protect and provide for them and so they all can benefit from the safety and opportunity that more money provides.

Earn your money honestly and spend it honestly. Then never apologize or feel guilty for getting and having it.

Don’t let anyone, or yourself, shame you for acquiring money. Lack of money is the root (think about that for a second, then write it down).
Learn the principles of investing, business, and personal finance.
Invest and save as much of your money as possible. The richest men in the world got rich by buying and holding, not by buying and selling.

5. Consistency.

You must stay consist with the principles above, including this one.

You must consistently stay consistent.

The thing about consistency is if you stay consistent long enough, you always reach some form of success.

This is why consistently is the most rewarding, and necessary, of all the attributes for success. It’s also the thing that holds back most people from realizing their dreams.

The times you feel like giving up, when your motivation is waning and the future is unclear, are the times you must plow through until you find yourself in a better position. That’s consistency.

In life and success, it’s the tortoise that wins the race, not the hare.

Back to Socrates

Earlier, I claimed that Mr. Powell was wrong about there being no secrets to success but right about what it takes to reach success.

So where does that leave us?

Well, the principles above are not secrets or ground-breaking by any means. I’m sure you’ve “heard” all of them at some point, and you probably agree with each one.

The secret you must discover for you is how all these principles will apply to your life. The only way you figure this out is to get in the trenches as fast and often as possible. From there, your secrets to success will unveil themselves over time as you work, learn, work, fail, work and iterate.

No one ever knows how they will get rich before they get rich. Even if they have an idea, it will never be exactly as you envision it. Most pivot their business or product multiple times before finding their breakthrough success.

The same holds true for you and I. We all have a “secret” to success that will only reveal itself when we do the work and apply the principles listed in this essay.

To unlock your “secret,” you must go unlock it. Each time you take action you will be a little bit closer to your secret.

Apply the principles of health, knowledge, starting and finishing, learning and applying, using money well, and staying consistent with it all and you will discover your ultimate secret to success.

And that, Socrates, is my explanation to how there are secrets to success.

Yours in Success,

-Colin

P.S. Follow me on instagram.

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50 Ways to Lose Weight

50 ways to Lose weight intelligently without the use of drugs or unhealthy protocols.

Please share this one with anyone that you know will benefit! Let’s keep fighting the good fight… Here is a snazzy click-to-tweet link.

This essay is about losing weight but it also doubles as a guide on how to live a healthy lifestyle. Overall, you will lead a better life if you make your lifestyle look something like 1 through 20.

1. Eat a Grain-Free Paleo/Primal diet

Health and longevity are centered around eating  a Paleo or Primal diet (meat, leaves, berries). If you can’t go 100% grain-free Paleo (you can, BTW), you should, at the very least, be focusing on eating only unprocessed whole foods from nature. Eat real food in its real state.

Food is fuel. Only ingest the highest quality fuel you can find. Weight loss becomes effortless when you are eating real food.

2. Get lots of Sleep

I have clients that look at me sideways when I tell them they need to sleep 8+ hours a night. If you are one of these sleep-deprived zombies, I challenge you to try it for a week. You will be amazed by how you feel and where your body composition goes with this little experiment. You may realize that you have been in a chronic state of sleep deprivation your entire life.

3. Practice Intermittent Fasting (IF): Eat Less Often

I follow the leangains approach: a daily 8-hour feeding window followed by a 16-hour fast. Check it out: Leangains.com. Whether you follow a strict fasting protocol or not, you can definitely benefit by skipping meals on a regular basis. Contrary to popular belief, skipping meals can help you you build muscle (it also provides a ton of other health-related benefit).

Further Reading: MarksDailyApple, EatSTOPEat

4. Eat Slow and Chew Your Food Thoroughly

This has done WONDERS for me. I used to inhale food like a whale gobbling up plankton. I would just swim right through the food until it was gone in a matter of minutes. Eating slow enables some important triggers for weight loss:

1. You reduce the insulin spike by slowing the release of glucose into your blood stream. This prevents insulin, a storage hormone, from storing calories in your fat cells–more insulin = more fat storage.

2. You eat less. Eating slow lets you feel full faster while also reducing how many calories you eat. We all hate that full, bloated feeling. That is the result of eating too fast and not allowing the full trigger enough time to tell your brain to PUT DOWN THE DAMN FORK.

5. Cook Your Food at Home

Restaurant food is just bad. Restaurants use cheap salt, sugar, sauces, thickeners, stabilizers and all kinds of other unnatural crap to reduce costs, stay profitable, and keep the food addictive.

The average restaurant margin is well under 5%. You better believe they do everything they can to cut corners and save on food costs. When this happens, the customer is the one that gets stuck with the health bill.

6. Don’t Drink Calories

When clients cut out soda/juices/beer they usually see 5+ pound weight-loss results within the first week. Drinking calories elicits a similar negative response on insulin levels that eating your food too fast does. The calories enter your blood stream too quickly and cause an overload of insulin. We are made to chew our food. Avoid drinking calories in any form.

7. Go Completely Gluten-Free

This can be life changing. Clean out your pantry and be super picky when eating out (say no to the free bread). This could be the missing link to that lean body you’ve been trying to achieve.

8. Don’t Snack. Snacking is The Bane of Weight Loss

One of the reasons Intermittent fasting is so effective is because it regulates your hormone levels through balancing your body between the fasted and fed states. Your body is made to burn fat when in the ‘fasted’ state and made to store calories when in the ‘fed’ state. Every time you put calories in your mouth you are entering the ‘fed’ state and thus shutting off your bodies ability to burn fat by introducing insulin into your blood stream.

Next time you grab that bag of almonds thinking it’s a healthy snack, you should think again; you are actually doing your body a disservice. Eat only during your meal times.

9. Take High Quality Fish Oil With Every Meal And/Or Eat Sardines

Fish oil contains omega-3’s that help to balance out the omega-6’s that are prevalent throughout our modern diets (especially processed foods). Correcting this balance provides a major benefit to the body, especially weight loss. My favorite brand is Carlson. Further Reading: Read Robb Wolf’s post if you are interested in the science.

A better way to get your daily omega-3 intake is to eat sardines. My favorite brand is Season Sarines. 

10. Take Vitamin D or Get Sunlight Every day

This could be the missing link in your weight loss efforts. Vitamin D is a hormone that is integral to many processes in your body. Take a vitamin D soft-gel or get 20 minutes of sunlight every day.

Further Reading: MarksDailyApple

11. Reduce Stress at All Costs

Do everything you can to reduce and avoid stress. Every time you get angry, stressed, or freak-out about something it is like taking a bite out of a candy bar. Stress releases cortisol and insulin into your blood stream just like taking a bite of your favorite candy bar.

As we discussed earlier, the extra release of insulin halts fat-loss and promotes fat-gain (cortisol also messes shit up). That’s a bad combination don’t you think? Take a chill pill and BREATHE.

12. Practice Mindfulness

Mindfulness is the act of focusing on a single object or task and turning off the rest of the noise (thoughts, worry, stress) going through your head. This helps with number 11 in lowering and preventing chronically raised cortisol and insulin levels. Our hormones get all out of whack as a result of our mind tormenting us with worry, stress, anger, resentment, jealously, and all kinds of other shit we shouldn’t be worrying about.

Techniques for being mindful: Counting your breath (breath meditation), sitting in a quiet place and emptying the mind (meditation), going outdoors and focusing on the sights and sounds (a form of meditation). I’m not a pro here, just a student, so I suggest you do some more research on your own. A little practice goes a long way.

Recommended book:  The Power of Now

13. Eliminate Sugar

It’s the absolute worst thing you can eat. Remember, fat doesn’t make you fat; sugar, seed oils, and processed grains are what make you fat.

14. Eat lots of High-Quality Fat

Fatty fish, grass-fed beef, lamb, bison, coconut oil, olive oil (I prefer it unheated), Kerrygold butter, avocado oil, macadamia oil, ghee, lard (make your own), tallow (make your own).

Fat is the most neglected nutrient for most people because of all the misinformation and anti-fat dogma that started in the 60’s. As a result, the majority of people still don’t understand how important fat is to the human body (especially for women and their wacky hormones).

Let me tell you something that is going to blow your mind: YOU SHOULD BE GETTING MOST OF YOUR CALORIES FROM FAT. Yes, this means 40%, 50%, and up to 60% of your total calories should come from quality fat sources.

Next time you sit down to eat, look at your plate. Are half or more of the total calories from fat? If not, go in the kitchen and grab more.

15. Eat lots of High-quality Animal Products

Keywords include: grass-fed, free range, pastured, organic, all-natural, hormone-free, humanely raised, family farms, local.

Your diet should look something like this:  

Protein 30-35% of calories or more

Fat 35-60% of calories or more

Carbs in the form of starches/veggies = ~25% or less

Remember, these are just averages. Everyone is different and some will prefer lower carbs while others will do well on higher carbs. Tweak and experiment to find what works for you.

16. Perform Resistance Training ~3 times a week

You probably already know why this is beneficial. Just do it.

17. Perform High-Intensity Conditioning ~3x Week

Think intervals; short, fast, and hard. Avoid long distance and moderately paced exercise as the bulk of your training.

18. Walk Everywhere

Take the stairs, park at the end of the parking lot, walk the long way. We are made to move at a slow pace often. Get up and get moving.

19. Play Sports

Great for overall health, mental relief, muscle building, mobility, social development, etc. We have been playing games since the dawn of man.

20. Get Outdoors as Much as Possible

It just works

Check out the book based off of this article with more tips and expanded explanations of protocols!

The first 20 are the fundamentals to living a healthy life. As you adopt more and more of this list, you will notice that you become a fat-burning machine, and you’ll soon realize how easy it is to tweak your weight based on what you do or don’t do. I recommend you incorporate these habits a little at a time until they become routine. Don’t try to adopt them all at once or you will probably get frustrated and fail.

More Tips For Weight Loss:
21. Drink a full glass of water before each meal

You will feel full faster and eat less as a result.

22. Eat your protein before your carbs and fat

Protein is very satiating and will fill you up fast.

23. Eat a bit of  healthy fat 15 minutes before each meal

Fat triggers the release of hormones that signal your brain that you are full. You can kickstart these hormones by nibbling on some nuts or dark chocolate before your meals.

24. Eat hot and hearty soups and stews

Soups and stews are filling. Eat them HOT and slow (prevents overeating).

25. Sprint

Fast, intense, full-body exercise like sprinting has insane thermogenic and EPOC effects on the body. Basically, it turns your body into a calorie-burning furnace. Sprinting also builds massive muscle (compare a pic of a sprinter to a marathon runner…scary).

26. Make things difficult for yourself (on purpose)

Why would you ever do this? So you can move more, DUH!

The more movement you perform, the more calories you burn. Instead of always taking the easiest route, try this: grit your pussy willow lip and get moving.

27. Buy some Chuck Taylors or Reebok Olys

The more weight you move, the more calories you burn and more muscle you build.

28. Drink green tea

Green tea is full of antioxidants and a bit of caffeine–both good for fat burning.

29. Chew More

Chewing has been linked to improvement in digestion and breakdown of food through the release of the saliva enzymes amylase (starch breakdown) and lipase (fat breakdown).

30. Drink black coffee (in moderation)

Coffee offers many benefits to the body, one of which is fat burning, but there are some caveats. You should drink black and organic if possible (or try Bulletproof coffee, it’s amazing). Only buy the best Coffee beans as they are one of the most heavily sprayed crops in the world.

31. Take a digestive enzyme, probiotic, and/or eat fermented food regularly

These products improve gut health and digestion. The better you digest your food, the better it is utilized in the body and the less likely it is to be converted into adipose tissue. Adipose tissue is FAT ladies and gentlemen, the jiggly, cellulitely, unpleasant kind of fat.

32. Perform heavy, complex, functional movements

Anything that trains the body as a whole is going to eat up calories for fuel. If you are stuck in isolation-land, I implore you to start picking up, carrying, and moving heavy shit on a regular basis. Go big and compound, or go home.

33. Avoid liquid food

And yes, that includes protein shakes. You should avoid liquid calories in any form if you are trying to lose weight. We know that drinking calories produce a large insulin spike and we also know that insulin is a storage hormone that signals our body to store calories. Well, do you know where those calories get stored? Yup, as fat.

Disclaimer: If you drink a shake in lieu of eating a meal, then I say it’s not that bad as long as you keep it simple and low-carb. Avoid those 500-calorie oat, peanut butter, and fruit smoothie concoctions (those are for weight gain). If it keeps you from eating shit and you want to drink a shake, then stick with water and whey and drink it slow.

34. Skip the condiments

How did I lose 10 pounds and finally carve out my abs after many years of frustration? Dropping ketchup. I used to drown my chicken breasts in ketchup; they were swimming. Eliminating this single product allowed me to bust through a stubborn plateau.

Store bought condiments are filled with sugar and other processed crap. There is no reason to include them in your diet, especially considering how easy it is to substitute them with a homemade or organic option. These seemingly small tweaks are what separate those that have abs from those that don’t.

Stick with organic mustard or homemade ketchup.

35. Drink lots of water

You don’t need to drink as much water as the pundits would have you believe, but for reducing cravings and making you feel full more often, water is useful. Listen to your thirst; it’s there for a reason.

36. Think hard – Use your brain

Your brain’s primary fuel source is glucose, so obviously it is beneficial to use up as much of it as possible so there isn’t any leftover to be stored as fat.

37. Perform Tabata intervals

A Tabata interval is 20 seconds of work followed by 10 seconds of rest. Pick a movement—Air squat for example—and start a timer. Perform as many air squats in 20 seconds as possible, and then rest. Go after 10 seconds of rest. Repeat until 4 minutes is up and 8 rounds have been completed. The Tabata Interval is a brutal, effective, and simple exercise protocol that you can do with any exercise or movement.

38. Replace soda, juice, sweet tea with a soda water and lime (sparkling and seltzer also work)

This is how my sister and I weaned off soda (a long time ago). It allowed us to satisfy our craving for carbonation without the calories or sugar. You can even fake it at the club with a soda water and lime—you will still look super-cool and no one will know you are just sipping bubbly water.

39. Do NOTHING

Relieve stress by turning off your brain and laying around like a fat-lazy Jabba the Hutt. This is something some of us do well (or too much) and others do terribly (never relax).

Examples of doing nothing include: watching mindless TV, movies, people watching, lying on the beach, napping.

40. Take naps

Sleep is one of the top 5 techniques for living a healthy life. Naps consist of sleep. Thus naps do a body good (milk does not).

41. Get social

Humans are social animals that have survived for thousands of by staying together. The benefits of enjoying time with friends and family are enormous. Anything that improves happiness and makes us feel good will help us lose weight by reducing stress.

42. Fast before you train and/or after you train

The longer you go without food in your body the more you will burn stored fat. Training increases your body’s need for fuel. Your body will utilize fat stores for fuel if there is a lack of glucose in your blood stream. Fasting helps keep glucose out of your bloodstream so your body can burn off fat instead.

43. Watch your carb intake

This includes sugar, rice, potatoes, fruit, and grains (hopefully no grains). Even good carbs can become bad if you eat too much of them.

44. Take ZMA before bed (Zinc, Magnesium & Vitamin B-6)

ZMA is hands down my favorite supplement. Not only does magnesium aid in weight loss and a host of other bodily functions, it improves sleep as well. You will sleep deeper, fuller, and longer. This should be a standard supplement in everyone’s program.

Recommended product: Natural Stacks MagTech

45. Do HIIT Training 

Seriously, everyone can and should do some form of high-intensity interval training. You can do more WODs, Less WODs, strength-bias, endurance-bias, gymnastics-bias, powerlifting-bias, etc. It is great for GPP (general Physical Preparedness) and it results in a sexy bod.

46. Utilize active-rest days

Those days where you can barely walk and your back feels like a giant bruise (I heart that feeling) are days that you should avoid training. This is the perfect time for an active-rest day.

An active rest day looks like this: Work mobility, do some light rowing or jogging, work on Oly technique with an empty barbell, foam roll, stretch, etc.

Go at a slow and easy, yet deliberate, pace. This will improve recovery, reduce stress on your body, help recover your CNS, and get your body moving. This also improves fat burning and muscle building.

47. Opt for gluten-free hard cider over gluten-filled beer, and opt for liquor+soda water over sugar-filled mix drinks

Beer and mixed drinks are the Antichrist to your abs. A long island ice tea has 780 calories and about 40 grams of sugar.  I used to drink those [Smacks forehead]. Try this drink recipe by Robb Wolf.

48. Avoid artificial sweeteners

This includes Splenda, aspartame, and other ‘naturally flavored’ sweeteners.  Sweeteners spike your insulin levels because your brain can’t tell the difference between them and sugar.  Thus the body response ends up being the same. They also might cause cancer. It just makes sense to avoid them.  *Stevia is ok but I would still go light with it.

49. Don’t overtrain

Avoid overtraining at all costs. It saps weight-loss efforts and promotes fat-gain via the huge amount of cortisol release you release into your body. Read “8 Signs You Are Overtraining”

50. Plan ahead/pack a lunch

The best way to avoid falling off the wagon and eating junk is to be prepared.  Always have something healthy with you. One-pot meals, the crockpot, and large roasts are great for making meals ahead of time.

How to Implement

Step 1: Be patient

Your new habits will take time to implement, and to show results. The people who get shit done in life are the one’s who stay the course. Stay the damn course.

Step 2: Test, Tweak, Test, Tweak

You must test and tweak regularly to find what works for you. All of these techniques will work for everyone to varying degrees if implemented in their purest forms, however, the dose and result can be vary wildly from person to person.

No matter what, we will always be learning, growing, and improving if we put in the effort.

Now get your ass in gear and get to work! Download the Printable PDF of this post.

Do you have any tips for weight-loss? Post below…

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The Moment Manifesto

“Life isn’t a matter of milestones, but of moments.”

–Rose Kennedy

Each moment is a milestone of your life: it is the furthest moment you have ever lived.

Did you feel that? That was the sound your mind being blown. (Haha.) No, but really, life is a series of moments strung together.

I want you to let that sink in for a moment. (Lucky pun right there.)

Let’s say you want these moments to be as awesome as possible and so you decide to spend some (or many) of your moments working hard so you can enjoy future moments filled with abundance. If you were to do this, I would give you my seal of approval and full support.

The problem, though, is it’s easy to get caught up chasing future moments so much that you end up missing all the current moments that are available free of charge. And when that happens, that’s a bloody shame, and is totally not necessary.

Two of the primary schools of ancient Greek philosophy were the Stoics and the Epicureans. In a way, they are in contrast to each other in their ideals. The Epicureans believed that one should pursue pleasure because tomorrow may never come. The Epicureans believed that the path to happiness is found in the pleasures of sex, companionship, acceptance, shelter, nourishment from food and water, and love. Epicureans believed one should withdrawal from public life to reside with close, like-minded individuals.

On the other hand, the Stoics believed that happiness was derived from within an individual and not from externals such as pleasure. The Stoics believed in self-preservation and that virtue and wisdom are the paths to satisfaction. They also believed that humans possess the spirit to help his fellow man, and so all men should engage in civic duty.

If I had to choose from the two, I would identify myself more as a Stoic than an Epicurean. That said, I do believe in the fundamental tenants of the Epicureans, although maybe not exactly in their ideas of how one should live. As with all things in life, the best is found somewhere in the middle. Because of this, I take what works for me from both the Stoics and the Epicureans.

So, what does ancient Greek philosophy have to do with moments? Well, it has everything to do with them. Let me explain: Each moment gives you the chance to pursue pleasure or practice restraint. And neither is the answer, while, at the same time, both are the answer. Yes, it can be a paradox.

The answer to this paradox is balance. Pleasure and restraint should be embraced at the right time, in the right dose, and for the right reasons. This might seem like an easy answer, but it is the answer. What’s not easy about this answer is the doing of it; we are notoriously terrible at restraining ourselves one way or another. We prefer to be “all or nothing” about things because it simplifies life and reduces the amount of choices we have to make. Unfortunately, all or nothing rarely works for any extended period of time.

Life and everything in it is a balance. Balance is the root of everything sustainable and good. Always seek balance.

There’s one more point I want to make about moments. This point is based on research that states that most people in life spend only about 12% of their time doing things they enjoy.

Think about that for a second. It is only 12% of the time that most people are enjoying their moments.

That means that if one lives to be 100 years old, she would have only spent 12 years of her life enjoying what she did. That’s sad. Forget that. That hardly seems like a balance.

The reason this statistic is so overwhelmingly skewed to things we don’t enjoy is because of one thing: money. It’s so often we trade time doing things we don’t like for the money and resources we need to pay our bills and maintain our lifestyle. That’s why 88% of the time most people aren’t doing what they enjoy. If that’s not motivation enough to find work you love then I don’t know what is.

You need to find work you love.

I didn’t want to spend a bunch of time trying on this point as I’ve said it many (many) times before. So, I’ll just say it again: You must find work you love.

If your life is a series of moments, and most people only get to enjoy 12% of these moments, then finding work you enjoy should be the most important thing in your life. Finding work you love will give you more moments to enjoy. It will destroy the idea of “work life balance,” and it will provide for a more fulfilling existence.

To find work you love, first you must find what you love. Then pursue ways to make money within that realm. Instead of trying to get a promotion, make more money, or get a degree because you’ll get a “high-paying job,” scrap all that and focus on how you like to spend your moments. Then build the way you make money around those moments.

At first, you may not know how to turn these moments into an income, but if you keep at it, you’ll figure it out. When you do, you’ll get to spend a much greater percent of your time alive doing things you enjoy. This is supremely important stuff here.

It’s time we stop glorifying dollars and cents and instead glorify purpose and passion. Seek purpose and passion, not cash. Seek to balance your better moments over polarizing to blind pleasure or restraint. Enjoy each moment fully.

Yours in The Moment,

-Colin Stuckert

Authors note:

If you are “stuck” because of bills and lifestyle, cut back. You’d be amazed what you can live without while still being happy. And if worse comes worst, file for bankruptcy and start over or move out of the country. Yes: I completely recommend this if it means you’ll live a better life. What is more tragic than spending years and years doing shit you don’t love so you pay for things you don’t need? To me, this is murder; you are killing yourself. Don’t let fear keep you from living the life you want. Fear of credit, debt collectors, what your friends and family will think, blablablablala. Forget all that. Do what you need to do to live the life you want and don’t fucking apologize for it.

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Will Money Buy You Happiness?

This essay was originally featured in my  free Sunday newsletter .

Preface: The following piece does not come from a place of judgement—I am as much a perpetrator as the next guy. It is meant as an observation of humans (and myself) living in modern society. In fact, writing this is as much a reminder for myself as it is, hopefully, one for you.

From the 48 laws of power by Robert Greene: “Fyodor Dostoyevsky, similarly, whenever he wrote a successful novel, would feel that the financial security he had gained made the act of creation unnecessary. He would take his entire savings to the casino and would not leave until he had gambled away his last penny. Once reduced to poverty he would write again.”

The vast majority of people spend most of their time pursuing externals—money, fame, power, resources, approval—with the idea (assumption maybe?) that gaining such things will solve their problems and/or make them happy. The thing is, it’s rare when people take a moment to think about whether this is actually going to work. Further, it’s even rarer when an individual that reaches said goals takes the time to express genuine and lasting gratitude for what they have achieved because they are usually already on to the next thing they are after.

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The Hedonic Treadmill: a constant chasing for more, better and best.

People think I’m a bit crazy—or at least their eyes say it—when I tell them I often worry if I will be happy when I reach my goals. I try explain to them that I worry because when I think about my life, and how the pursuit of accomplishment is so integral to it, I’m forced to wonder what life will be like when I no longer have to pursue accomplishment. Will I then wake up each day without a driving purpose, like I do now? And if that happens, where will I derive my purpose? Will I still be fired up? After all, I’ve long since learned that I’m a builder and creator, and that much of my happiness is rooted in the act of creating and building and not as much in the end result.

Will I still build and create even though I won’t need to from a financial point? Will life then bore me? Will this boredom then lead to discontent, and eventually, to misery? Perhaps I chase more “success” in the hopes of recreating the ‘struggle’ that was part of pursing success in the first place—the way many successful entrepreneurs do? And, if I do this, at what point is enough enough? I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I think it’s smart to always be thinking about them.

Ultimately, this is what I fear: that success will remove the luster from life because it will remove the struggle.

Struggle is what gives the opposite of struggle meaning. I’ve long since accepted this, and try to appreciate it in my life on a daily basis.

A rule of life: The greater you struggle, the greater you appreciate the times you don’t struggling.

I’ve long since understood the laws of positive and negative as it pertains to the duality of life. This understanding has made me aware of how important struggle and not struggling is to the human condition. It’s also the reason I ponder what life will be like when I find myself with success. When I read a quote like above, it brings me back to these thoughts.

Of course, most people won’t be able to understand how I think this way, or how Dostoyevsky would have to gamble his money away. Without being Dostoyevsky, it’s near impossible to full understand the internal battles he faced and why he would need to be broke to be able to write and to maintain his identity as an artist. Sure, you and I know (think) we wouldn’t do that. We know (think) we would be different. We know (think) he is just a crazy outlier and probably off his rocker. We know (think) we would be happy and content with fortune, fame, success and power.

Of course, the fact is, we don’t know jack.

We don’t know anything until we are in the situation ourselves.

::break::

I just spent 20 minutes trying to find a quote I’m remembering. I think it was by one of the great Stoics—Aurelius, Seneca, Epictetus—but I’m not sure and my search was fruitless. The quote I’m thinking of pertained to how living a comfortable life is not noble. This quote was going to support my point about struggle and comfort. It spoke to the importance of living a life of struggle, how a hard life is integral for happiness and purpose, as well as the pitfalls of an easy life. Instead, here’s a quote I heard on one of my favorite podcasts, The Tai Lopez Show. It goes like this: Proverbs 27:17: “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.”

Having it all, yet lacking it all

There are around 12 million millionaires in the world, more than ever before. Plenty of these individuals are happy, I’m sure, but plenty are also depressed and struggle with being happy even though they have all the things that the rest of the world spends the majority of their lives trying to achieve—security, power, freedom and money.

Why, then, do these individuals struggle with happiness when they have all the things that the rest of the world is trying to pursue through their pursuit of happiness? It’s this: purpose.

To anyone who still invests the majority of their life into producing an income to support themselves and their family, it’s hard to understand how someone can be rich and miserable. That just doesn’t compute in our minds. For us, having money would solve so many of our problems (we think) and so we just know (think) we would be happy if we were rich. Of course, like I said before, we don’t know anything until we are in that position.

It really comes down to this: The problems the middle and lower classes face are not the same problems the rich and privileged face.

Problems are problems and we all have them. As Biggie Smalls said, “Mo money mo problems.”

One of the most pervading problems of the upper classes is, in my opinions, this: their success has removed the “struggle” they faced when they struggled as a part of the lower class making their way on up. When an individual has enough money to provide for his or her family forever, there is a lack of struggle, and thus, purpose that comes as a result. This lack of struggle/purpose creates a kind of inertia and causes existential angst.

This is, according to happiness research, a big problem. Human beings need purpose and forward movement towards a better future to feel fulfilled and happy. And this is why they say it’s about the journey and not the destination, of which I wholeheartedly agree and try to remind myself of.

Don’t get me wrong. Success does solve many problems, specifically the ones that the lower classes face on a daily basis, but in return it brings with it its own set of problems—inertia, lack of purpose and hope, lack of excitement, fear of loss, inability to find true friends or partners and so on.

A critic to my theory might say that since the rich now have new struggles to overcome, my point about a lack of struggle would be invalid. I disagree. The thing is, the struggles brought to the upper classes are insidious and not easily recognized because they are not as common nor recognized as actual problems. Think about it: who would feel bad for a depressed rich person? Aside from another rich, depressed person, I doubt many.

Another thing about the problems of success is they require a lot of self-awareness and soul searching to figure out and combat.

Sometimes the pursuit for accomplishment—and the hope in that pursuit—is the perfect antidote to the pitfalls of the human mind. Working towards tangible accomplishment aligns perfectly with the human genetic imperative of acquiring resources, which we are genetically predisposed to do as the result of our ancestors living in the harsh wild for hundreds of thousands of years. In a nutshell, human beings are not adapted to have everything we want or need, and so we find ourselves faced with an existential crisis when we reach a point where we no longer have to work or struggle for survival. This is very much a paradox: we have so much desire for acquiring more resources built into our psyche that we become miserable when we acquire them for long periods of time because we are not programmed to have them for long because, in the wild, we would use up our acquired resource to survive and then have to go out and get them again.

Why do empires want to get bigger? Why do companies always want to grow huge? Why do we want more and better to no end? Above is why. Now, do you now see how Dostoyevsky would need to gamble away his fortune so he could recreate the struggle again, and thus, write?

Happiness

Happiness research shows us that a key to happiness for human beings is rooted in forward motion. Striving for something in the future gives one hope and purpose, and as research shows, is necessary for living a healthy and happy life.

We all have to move forward in life; it’s a survival instinct that our ancestors, who had to survive in the harsh wild without modern advancements in the form of refrigeration, farming or a consistent food system, have passed down to us. Because our ancestors had to fight every day of their lives to survive, acquiring more and more resources gave our ancestors a better chance of survival, and this has been built into our DNA.

When one has abundance, he or she loses the struggle that was a part of acquiring that abundance. When one loses that struggle, he or she loses the forward momentum that has been a natural part of human life for millions of years. Finally, when one loses forward movement towards something—like what happens when you have massive wealth—he or she runs into big problems. Again, the bizarre paradox of the human species: we all want more and better until we actually get it.

It’s the wanting and getting that we need, not the having. We really only need enough to survive and feel somewhat secure. Our brains aren’t programmed to handle anymore than that.

Again, to drive the point home, it’s the struggle that makes us happy,  not the having.

In a nutshell, human beings are a part of nature, and being so, are designed to struggle the way the rest of nature struggles. We are made to have a lot sometimes, not enough sometimes, and everything in between. Since society has granted us an overabundance of many things we once had to struggle for, we find ourselves struggling with a new set of problems, ones nature has not prepared us for (and that we will have to evolve through).

Struggle and happiness are intertwined; you can’t have one without the other. Without struggle, difficulty and hardship, life becomes a lifeless gray and we find ourselves searching for “better” as a means of bringing the color back into our lives. The problem is, when we start thinking the grass is greener, we don’t realize that we aren’t actually going after the greener grass because we want that better grass. In fact, we are actually chasing the struggle that comes with our seeking of better. And after we struggle and get what we want, we have to find something else to chase to recreate the struggle again or we will become unhappy.

When you chase bigger and better, you are chasing struggle, not bigger and better.

Understanding this, and using it to your advantage, will save you a lot of problems along the way.

I’m afraid of greener grass.

Initially I thought my fears were rooted in the constant seeking of greener grass, but what I’ve now realized after writing this is it’s rooted in a lack of understanding of why I’m chasing that grass. Sure, with certain things, greener grass can be dangerous, and that’s why I’m a big practitioner of gratitude and self-awareness.

Some things in life need greener grass, like purpose, personal growth, knowledge and wisdom, and some things don’t, like relationships, money, power and security.

In the former, you want to always be growing and chasing better and more while in the latter you want to learn how to express gratitude for what you have and aim to be aware of when enough is enough.

The reason I think about these topics before they become huge problems is, I want to better pursue happiness while also preparing myself for the pitfalls that future success has waiting for me.

Now, this isn’t all theoretical. I actually have a few ways I’m preemptively planing for these problems. One is through nonprofit work. By incorporating nonprofit work into my business, life and future goals as much as possible, I think I will have the purpose part covered. After all, no amount of success will ever make nonprofit work a solved problem. Through nonprofit work, I’ll always have something to find purpose in, and there will always be countless ways I can challenge myself personally and professionally.

The more I think about this, the more I understand why Fyodor Dostoyevsky would need to gamble away his last penny. He was a novelist, and since being a novelist was probably integral to his identity, the only way he was able to maintain his identity was to make himself broke so he could write again. I get it.

So, what’s the point to all this?

After reading this, you still might think it’s a bit audacious to be afraid of something that isn’t a guarantee to happen in the first place. Well, to that I say: “I’m different.” I come form the “Think and Grow Rich” school of thought in which I know I’m going to be successful. One way or another, I know I’m going to figure this success thing out. To me, this is a perfectly reasonable, even necessary, problem to ponder.

There are a few lessons here, but it’s up to you to take from it what you will. For me, this was a wonderful piece to write as it helped put some of these thoughts down on paper. I hope these words will give you some things to think about—and plan for—in your life and future.

Yours in Life,

-Colin

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32 Ways to Build More Muscle

We all want to build more muscle. And for good reason: Muscle is the most metabolically-active tissue in one’s body.

It feeds on the stored calories in your body fat.

Want to build your body into a machine that gobbles up calories all day long?

Build more muscle.

Muscle also protects us, makes us more functional, and makes us more attractive to the opposite sex (men and women alike).

But not all of us are willing to go the “unnatural” route to build more muscle. Building muscle naturally takes a delicate balance of many factors.

The 32 tips below will provide you with what you need to know to get the job done in the healthiest, safest and most natural way possible.

32 Ways To Build More Muscle

1. Lift to failure. For some of you, this is a no-brainer. For others, you might not know what it’s like to struggle through a “failure” rep. Lifting to failure is a learned practice. I’ve seen new trainees think they were going to failure when really they had plenty of reps left in the tank.

To reach failure you have to push yourself until you physically cannot do another rep. This is true failure. And it’s not as simple as just lifting until you can’t lift anymore. It takes real skill to learn what your true failure is.

To reach your full muscle-building potential, you must be going to failure regularly.

2. Avoid failure. Sometimes you should lift to failure and sometimes you shouldn’t. I would say about 80% of the time you should be training to failure… or very close to it. The other 20% of the time, you can utilize weight ranges of 60-80% of your 1RM and focus on lots and lots of quality reps.

3. Sprint. Sprinting is one of the most hormone-inducing activities the human body can perform. These hormones help build your entire body, not just your legs. Sprinting also helps burn fat and improves the hell outta your general fitness. Do sprints at least once a week.

4. Follow a weightlifting program. For general strength gain and muscle building, I recommend Mark Rippetoe’s Starting Strength or Jim Wendler’s 5/3/1 program. Follow these programs as your basic strength template then add in your conditioning and GPP training.

5. Take water and whey immediately post-workout. Avoid the cheap and crappy shake ingredients that most use (peanut butter, cheap whey, milk) and stick with a simple brew of high-quality protein and water. (If you are trying to gain weight + muscle, check out this post.)

6. Use the highest quality protein you can afford. Better protein means more nutrition, absorption and muscle-building effect. These are my favorites: Upgraded Self, Progenex, SFH.

7. Eat a ton of sweet potatoes. Sweet potatoes are the preferred “Paleo Starch” because they are loaded with nutrition and sport a lower glycemic load than white starches. Yams and sweet potatoes should be the “go-to” carb source for all weight training athletes.

8. Use white rice and white potatoes (strategically). White rice and potatoes can be useful for getting carbs into your system post-workout. They are also useful for those “bulking.” Just be careful with the amounts–a cup of cooked white rice is about 50g of carbs–as the glycemic load of the white starches will cause a large spike in insulin levels.

I recommend sticking with sweet potatoes the majority of the time and only using white starches if you are trying to gain weight and muscle.

9. Eat a Gluten-Free, Real Food Paleo-Style Diet. Proper nutrition will forever be the main ingredient (pun intended) in your muscle building program. The Natural Human Diet of Real Food will provide you with everything your body needs to produce more muscle.

Eating real food will produce the most anabolic state that, when used in conjunction with your weight training efforts, will elicit the most muscle building physically possible.

If you are serious about building real muscle, you need to be serious about eating real food.

10. Eat nutrient-dense foods full of vitamins, minerals, amino acids, omega-3s, and saturated fat.  You will find this in nutrient dense foods like: fatty fish, grass-fed beef, game, organ meat, pastured dairy, coconut, and the bulk of fruits, veggies, and natural starches.

11. Do 30-50 Push-ups first thing each morning. This will get your blood flowing and a nice little uptick in those beneficial “exercise hormones.” Plus, you’ll be 30-50 pushups stronger than before.

12. Do full reps. Ladies and gentlemen, those half-reps, quarter-reps, third-reps, wtf-reps, aren’t doing jack for your results.

Now-a-days, when I walk into a “traditional globo-style gym” I cringe at the lack of proper movement I see. And it’s so easily avoidable: DO THE FULL FREAKING REP. It’s only a couple more inches. (BTW, this is a great reason to go to a Box.)

13. Use proper supplementation. Supplements can play an integral role in providing your body with the vitamins and minerals that our body is lacking from the food we eat. Because our food supply sucks in general, it’s best to cover all your “nutrition bases” with a few hand-picked supplements.

Note: This is my new favorite “Fundamentals Stack” by one of my new favorite companies: Natural Stacks–The Performance Essentials Stack – Vitamin D, Krill oil, and a Magnesium supplement (ZMA). Before switching to this stack, I would buy three different products from three different companies. Now, I just grab this stack. And yes, I’m truly impressed with the quality. The founders are great guys who have a passion for their product. I couldn’t recommend them more.

14. Do an “extra” set. Try this at the end of your next workout: Choose one of your weakest exercises—dips, strict pull-up, pistol, etc.—and do one max-effort set until failure. Then go home.

15. Sleep 8 hours a night. You. Have. No. Choice. Here’s why.

16. Put a pull-up bar in your closest/room doorway and do 10 reps every time you walk under it. This works.

17. Stretch and work mobility. Not only does this reduce the risk of injury, but it also helps you lift more as the result of your muscles working more efficiently… and we all know that lifting more = building more muscle.

18. Keep your workouts under an hour. You build muscle through rest, recovery, and nutrition. Most people think the way to get more muscle is to do more work. Sorry bra… your body doesn’t work that way.

There is a certain dose that will produce muscle and there is a certain dose that will reduce muscle. The key is finding the “sweet spot” between these two ends of the spectrum.

The “sweet spot” for most people is about an hour of work. Get in, go hard, get out. Then let your body rest, recover and GROW.

There are studies that show the negative effects on your hormones when training longer than an hour–(Remember, hormones are responsible for muscle building, fat-gain, fat-loss, and nearly everything else pertaining to your health).

*Of course, if you are training for a sport or endurance, you will have to invest a lot of training hours. Just know that you will be trading muscle in exchange for improving in these other areas. Everything comes with a cost.

19. Utilize calorie-dense, nutrient-filled, post-workout shakes of the finest ingredients. When I say “the finest ingredients,” it means you DON’T fill your blender with skim milk, peanut butter, and Wal-Mart protein.

By sticking with awesome ingredients–like almond butter, coconut milk, water, grass-fed whey, etc.– you are going to mitigate fat gain and give yourself the best chance at building quality muscle mass by shuttling in plenty of nutrition into your body. See this post for more on Gaining Clean Weight.

20. Do less “conditioning” or “cardio.” This might be the hard for some of you to hear, but it also might be one of the greatest “tweaks” you can make in your program to induce more muscle growth.

More training equals more cortisol. Cortisol is a stress hormone that eats away muscle. The longer you train, the more stress you inflict on your body and the more cortisol you release into your system.

While the goal of training is to induce a “healthy” stress, there is still a delicate balance between too much and just enough. If you want to train for a marathon by running everyday, you are going to have to “give up” some muscle as the cost. And if you want to be as anabolic and “jacked” as possible, you are going to have to minimize how much time you spend training.

You can’t have it all. The key is knowing what you are wiling to give up in exchange for what you want.

21. Do big, compound movements. Aim for 25-50 reps per exercise over a few sets (3×10, 5×5, 5×7, etc.). The bigger the movement, the more muscles that are activated and the more beneficial hormones you trigger with each rep.

22. Focus on the “Big Three” lifts. Squat, Deadlift, Press (and Bench press for the dudes). These three lifts should comprise the “core” of your strength program. Aim to tackle each one at least once a week.

You wanna know how weightlifters got big in the ol’ days? They squatted, deadlifted, and pressed as much weight as they could, as often as they could.

23. Practice Intermittent Fasting. I practice IF every day. Check out Leangains.com for the protocol I follow–a 16-hour fast followed by an 8-hour feeding window. I skip breakfast in the morning and eat my first meal post-workout usually 4-8 hours after waking.

IF has many health benefits—increased insulin sensitivity, reduced inflammation, etc.—all of which help you build more muscle.

It might seem like a paradox: skip food and build muscle. But the most commonly misunderstood aspect of fasting is the confusion between fasting and calorie restriction. Practicing IF is about meal timing and not calorie intake. Typically, when one practice’s IF, you consume the same amount of calories you normally would, you just consume them on a certain schedule.

For example, after I break my fast with my first meal of the day–usually around 4-5pm–I will eat my last meal approximately eight hours from that time. This creates a “feeding window” of 8-hours and a “fasting window” of 16-hours. I still get the same amount of calories I normally would, I just get them during the “feeding window.”

You should definitely try it. It could change your life.

24. Lose body fat. The more fat you have, the lower your testosterone levels (among a bunch of other negatives) . If you make it your goal to lose the fat first, you can then focus on building muscle when your body is in the most muscle-promoting state possible.

Unnecessary fat on your frame will severely limit your body’s ability to build muscle (among other things).

25. Walk a lot. Walking improves digestion, burns calories, and does a bunch of other healthy things for your body. (Check out 17 ways it makes you better here).

26. Take a nap. Sleep is the most anabolic and muscle-building state you can be in. The more you are in this state, the more muscle you will build. (Further reading)

27. Utilize a quality Fish Oil. Fish oil improves a million things in your body–one being the reduction of cortisol levels. Reducing cortisol and inflammation will promote more muscle building. These are my two favorite brands: Natural Stacks and Carlson Cod Liver Oil.

*An even better alternative to taking fish oil caps is eating fatty fish! my favorite brand is Season Products. I buy them in bulk and try to eat a can a day with some mustard and/or hot sauce. This is the fastest, easiest and most nutritious food you’ll ever eat.

I buy the 12 pack of their mackerel.. it’s one of the best tasting canned fish products I’ve ever found.

28. Limit alcohol. Alcohol lowers your testosterone levels and promotes fat gain. Both of these are to the determent of your muscle building efforts.

29. Improve gut health. Digestion is the “gateway” to your nutritional health. Everything you eat passes this way first. If you have gut issues, you are less likely to absorb the vitamins and minerals you are eating. And if this is in conjunction with an already less-than-stellar diet, you could be in big “nutritional” trouble.

When you are lacking in necessary nutrition, your body will not function the way it should. As a result, everything will suffer, especially muscle building.

30. Eat more egg yolks. Contrary to popular misbelief, eating egg yolks does not raise your cholesterol. You can eat as many as you want—in fact, they are the best freaking part of the egg. (Debunking the “Yolk Myth”)

31. Eat saturated fat from healthy animals. Grass-fed beef, bison, and game have oodles of nutrition that increase testosterone levels. Fat also blunts insulin secretion and increases testosterone production.

32. Eat more “clean” fat. Avocado, fatty fish, egg yolks, pastured butter, coconut oil/milk, raw nuts/seeds, pastured beef/game, organ meat. A diet higher in fat has been shown to raise testosterone levels (Higher fat diets raise testosterone levels). (In case you didn’t know, I recommend 30-60% of your calories come from fat.)

The fundamentals of building muscle are the same for developing overall fitness and health.

Check out “50 Ways To Lose Weight,” “How To Gain Clean Weight: A Hardgainers Guide” and “Why You Don’t Get Results” for some of the basic nutrition and lifestyle protocols.

Muscle building is rooted in the fundamentals. Once you have them down, you can make small tweaks to increase the amount of time you are in the anabolic state.

The most important parts of muscle building are sleep, nutrition, and recovery. If you have fat to lose, you should be focusing on losing the fat before trying “gaining” or “bulking” strategies.

Remember, the best way to build muscle is to take a balanced approach by treating your body like the temple it is. Treat it gently and nurse it into growth.

If you think you can plow your way to more muscle by overtraining, eating junk food, and never taking a break, you are in for a rude awakening.

Yours in Fitness,

-Colin Stuckert

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Be Weary of Talking To Others

“A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”

― Mark Twain

How many times have you told someone something that was later retold to you by someone else?

And how often did it sound compltely different from what you remember telling?

Probably a lot.

There is a game called Telephone (or Chinese Whispers) that you can play in a group that perfectly illustrates this effect in real time.

This is how you place: someone starts the game by whispering something to a player on their right. Each subsequent player on the right repeats this until it gets back around to the first person.

What makes this game interesting is how different the initial message ends up being. Nearly every time, it morphs into something barely resembling the original message.

Try it sometime, you might flabbergasted by this effect.

Then remember this the next time someone something that may have a propensity to be passed around to others.

This is how gossip can become gossip when it wasn’t gossip in the first place. It’s how a joke can morph into an attack. It’s how constructive criticism can be construed as backstabbing and “talking crap” behind someone’s back.

And so on.

The definition of hearsay is this: Information heard by one person about another.

Hearsay is usually not admissible in court, and that’s probably because of the powerful effect demonstrated by a game of Telephone.

If you’ve lived any amount of time as a human adult, you know how what you say and what others here are not the same thing.

Like ever….

The same goes for what you write.

The human brain isn’t neatly organized and ubiquitously accessible the way Google is. For most of the things we try to speak intelligently on, we invariably forget bits which force our mind to fill in the gaps.

That’s why scientists say that memory is a constantly changing thing. What you remember a month ago is not what you remember now nor what you’ll remember in a year.

This is universal to the human mind, and it doesn’t matter how smart you are.

We all do it. Better yet, we are all victim to it.

So what’s the answer?

Well, it’s not an easy one by any means.

The lesson/answer here is this: be far more careful with what you say, and, in general, opt to say less over more.

Furthermore, avoid offering opinions on other people.

Try to do both, but if you struggle with the first recommendation, at least work on the second. You’ll save yourself a ton of life grief if you can implement this in your life.

Plus, a benefit of taking this approach is you end up being a better listener, which is good for your relationships and career.

Armed with this  knowledge should also remind you that the next time someone tells you something about something, especially someone else, take it with a grain of salt. And never try to repeat what they said to someone else… because no matter how well you think your memory works, you’ll mess something up.

Lastly, do the research yourself. And be weary of experts.

Experts can be wrong, and often are. In fact, studies have shown that experts are wrong quite often, one study stating that the typical expert was about as accurate as a monkey throwing darts at a dartboard. (Link)

Get multiple opinions then come to your own conclusion. This applies to all of life. Be weary of getting your information from only one or two sources, and forever be weary of offering up your  opinions of others to others.

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The Bad Is Your Friend

Today I feel great. Things are going well and so I feel pretty awesome.

Do you have days like this?

I do, but not all the time.

And you might think I’m crazy to suggest what I’m going to suggest because of that…

Here goes.

Since I feel great and things are great, now is the perfect time to practice negative visualization.

Now is the perfect time to think about losing it all… even my own life.

What the hell?

I’m totally serious, and it’s not depressing or morbid at all. In fact, it’s the perfect way to feel more happy and more grateful.

Again, the technique is called Negative Visualization.

It’s a Stoic technique of visualizing the worst thing that could happen as a means of reminding yourself how lucky you are so you can be grateful.

And while it’s most often used in bad situations that could be worse, it’s a powerful tool you can use during the good times as well.

The basic goal of negative visualization is to move your mind to a place of gratitude.

By thinking of how your current situation could be worse, you are forced to be grateful for what you have in the moment, whatever that happens to be.

Through negative visualization, I can appreciate this moment while also training myself for the future when inevitable hard times show up.

This is because gratitude is a skill. It’s a muscle that needs to be conditioned.

And that’s why I use, and recommend, negative visualization during good times and bad.

But most people will be resistant to using it during the good times.

Just try it. You’ll be surprised.

You see, as important as it is to be grateful during the worst times of your life so you can grow stronger and overcome, it’s equally important to be grateful for the good times.

The good times can fade… fast. And if you are too attached to them in an unhealthy way, you’ll find that you start spending so much time focusing on losing the good times that you can’t fully enjoy them.

A minute or two considering how it could be worse can help combat the fear of loss because gratitude is more powerful than fear.

And this forms the basis of a healthy mindset that promotes happiness; gratitude over fear; abundance over scarcity; positive over negative.

This is how you practice negative visualization:

First, imagine how you would feel if everything was taken away from you.

Second, imagine all the things that are making you happy are gone, stolen from you.

Finally, imagine your life is taken away. Imagine you are dead.

Of course, you might think this will ruin the moment, but it won’t. It’s actually going to make it better.

Your mind is going to use these thoughts to remind you just how lucky you are. It will promote gratitude.

Here’s the thing about life for us all: No matter where we are, we are always fortune to be alive. We could always be gone, like so many that have lived and perished.

(Those of you that have lost loved ones will understand what it means to appreciate the moment regardless of how good or bad that moment is.)

The Duality Of Life

We all know that life is a series of ups and downs, and since we’ve all dealt with this ebb and flow in our lives, you’d think we were better prepared to deal with the good and bad times as they come.

But we aren’t.

If fact, we’re pretty bad.

We kick and scream and feel sorry for ourselves the second something doesn’t go our way because we get so used to our “comfortable” lives.

This comfort skews our perception of reality. As a result, we find ourselves pursuing pleasure while doing everything we can to avoid pain, which leads us further down the path of comfort.

And we get addicted to comfort.

Most of us are used to doing what we want and controlling our world. We are not held against our will. We can do what we want, buy what we want and live how we want.

We usually feel in control.

But it’s this control that can ruin our perception. It can move us to all kinds of cognitive biases that sap our happiness and promote feelings of fear and scarcity and unhealthy desire.

So when the good comes our way—which the good can also be defined as “comfortable” or “status quo”—we cling to it while subconsciously fearing that it might leave us or that someone might come to threaten it.

This fear then manifests itself in all kinds of disastrous human emotions—jealously, greed, theft, racism, etc.

We fight change because we know with change comes uncertainty, and we don’t want to be uncertain with our comfort.

Ultimately, though, all this effort we put into trying to make life appease us just ends up causing us more suffering because of the unhealthy attachment we form with these externals. And because nothing is permanent, these things we have are going to eventually leave us.

And so we fight the current of life, clinging like a barnacle to whatever reality we think we can best control.

As any sailor or surfer will tell you, the ocean always wins.

Instead, we should, as any sailor or surfer will also tell you, ride the waves.

This is why we must embrace the good and the bad equally. The good will pass, but it will serve a purpose. The bad will pass, but it will serve a purpose.

The good is enjoyable and will us happy while it’s around. It will be a strong motivator for fighting through the inevitable bad that’s going to come next.

Gratitude and negative visualization help promote feelings of good while grounding your mind in the reality that it won’t last forever

The bad should be embraced for what it is; a motivation for learning and evolving. A pitstop on the trek back to the good. Motivation for working again towards the good, and a reminder of just how good the good is.

The good and the bad each serve a purpose that is tied the other—the duality of life.

Good is necessary for bad and bad is necessary for good. Embrace them each when they come and each will be better (or less worse) as a result.

Back to Negative Thoughts

This duality of life is why negative visualization is so useful: It prepares us for the inevitable change while promoting enjoyment of the present.

The thing is, if you tell the average person to imagine themselves losing a good moment—or a person or thing they value—they won’t want to do it.

After all, most people blindly pursue the good as much as they can, completing oblivious to the inner workings of their mind.

Ask an individual that is blindly chasing fulfillment in “pursuit of happiness” to purposely consider bad things and you’re undoubtedly going to get resistance.

Don’t be the average person. Be the self-aware, enlightened person.

Change in life is necessary and inevitable. Your good times are only good because you have the bad to compare them to. And vice versa.

Be fluid, like water, and do not fight change.

Surf the wave.

Life is a series of destinations and journeys, ups and downs, nights and days, good and bad. Remember this during the good and the bad times and you you’ll be grateful you did.

-Colin Stuckert

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It All Starts With The ?

“The object of knowing is constantly changing. Feeling, tasting, sensational experiment, etc., are dogmas and not true knowledge as they can be wrong. Objects of perception, therefore, are ruled out of true knowledge.”

-Bruce Lee

Lately I’ve been talking with friends and family about their personal goals.

A common thing I hear from them is they don’t know which path to take, and because they don’t know this, they don’t act… at all.

It’s like they think the act of “not knowing” is equal to theca of “thinking,” and since thinking feels like work, they feel they are making progress.

Keep in mind this is just my mostly uninformed observation.

I just read a perfectly applicable quote on this matter. It was written by Gary Halbert, the greatest copywriter of all time. It’s this:

More Answers Will Be Found

Through Movement Than

Will Ever Be Found Through  Meditation

Back to friends and family…

Usually, in situations like this, I avoid giving direct answers the best I can.

I know that if I want to really help them, I should be asking them questions so they can give me answers. After all, giving me answers is the only way they can give themselves answers. Of course, this is a hard thing to do because it is our natural inclination to offer up our opinions.

But that is the power of the socratic method—of asking questions.

It’s hard for you to ask questions of yourself. And it’s even harder to get truly objective answers that aren’t influenced by your currently held beliefs.

Human beings are built to cling to personally held beliefs because beliefs kept our ancestors safe—beliefs about poisonous berries, plants and dangerous snakes, spiders and insects would have increased the likelihood our ancestors would survive in the harsh wild, and thus pass on their genes to the next generation.

This is why it’s so damn hard for a human being to change what she thinks. Of course, since we now live in a different world, one that is constantly changing, we need the ability to change our minds.

The genetic belief system that our ancestors gifted us is outdated and we all must do our best to override it.

In fact, if you look at most of the problems with the world, you’ll see that so much stems from human beings trying to force their dogmas onto others and/or being unwilling to change their own to a different point of view.

But let’s save that for another day. Instead, let’s look at an example from everyday life.

Let’s say a friend is comparing two jobs and he asks you which job he should take. He’ll probably list the pros and cons, and you’ll tell him which job you think he should choose.

Look closely and you’ll see that you are choosing which job you would choose. Since you and your friend are different, you aren’t going to value things the same way. And this is why your choice has no guarantee of being the best choice from him.

Let’s say you know him well, and you think you can do your best to objectively choose for him. In this case, there’s still a problem. If you help him make a decision, he’s not going to feel, deep down, that it was his decision. There’s going to be a disconnect. This minute connection to “your choice” is likely to cause discontent and confusion, especially later when he deals with the existential questions of his choice that always come with one’s bigger decisions in life.

These are a couple of the reasons why giving advice, answers or opinions are seldom useful.

If this sounds absurd to you, then I’d ask you this question, “Why do most people so often fail to follow good advice?” and “Why do most people do things so completely stupid that it’s hard to comprehend what the person was even thinking?”

It’s simple, actually: People have to figure shit out for themselves.

And this is fundamentally why questions are so powerful.

Have you ever heard, “Objection; leading the witness”? This is how you want to give advice/persuade.

Use questions to lead them into thinking of it themselves.

This is so powerful a form of persuasion that it’s not allowed in a court of law.

If you combine this with the fact that people need to figure shit out for themselves, you see how it forms the foundation of persuasion.

I just hope you will use it morally…

Questions of The Self

It’s great to use questions with other people, but it’s absolutely necessary to use questions with yourself. And this is the really, really hard one.

It’s natural to hear “questions” and think “answers.” But that’s not the point. The point isn’t to answer questions; it’s to ask more questions. Let me explain.

You want to build the questioning mind, one in which your natural inclination is to ask questions of everything, especially yourself. Then, as you start questioning more in life, you find yourself arriving at more questions. If you are doing right, questions should lead you to more questions the majority of the time. When this starts happening, you know you are on the right path.

Of course, do this enough and your questions will inch you closer to answers. Even then, as you get closer to answers, you’ll realize that they are soon made flimsy by more questions. And on and on this goes.

It’s kind of a mind trip, I know. It might even seem a bit pointless. After all, aren’t answers the point? If they aren’t, then what’s the point of asking questions at all?

Good question. (Pun most definitely intended.. I think?) This is where it gets a bit hard to explain, and it’ll probably end up sounding like an esoteric paradox, but I’ll do my best still.

While it’s true that questions lead you to more questions, throughout this process, you will start building a collection of insights and beliefs about things.

You could call these “answers,” and they kinda are, but not really. Again, hard to explain.

You see, since questions beget more questions—if you do it right—you’ll start realizing how few answers there really are in life. You’ll realize that everything is a “best guess,” and that there really isn’t anything that is 100% right. This is a hard pill to shallow for most people because of the human need to belief and want answers.

The fact is, there are not facts. We think we know things but we really don’t, and the closest we can get is a collection of “most likely” and “probably.”

Instead of going dow that rabbit hole, I’ll provide a quote by one of my favorite scientists,Richard Feynman:

“I think it’s much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of uncertainty about different things, but I am not absolutely sure of anything and there are many things I don’t know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we’re here. I don’t have to know an answer. I don’t feel frightened not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without any purpose, which is the way it really is as far as I can tell.”

Back to questions. Here’s an example that just popped in my head:

Imagine the grandmaster teaching the grasshopper. The grandmaster never directly answers the pupil’s question, but instead replies with another question. This leads the pupil to answering the question himself. Even then, the master doesn’t tell his pupil if the answer is actually the answer. That’s when you’ll see the look of confusion on the pupil’s face, soon replaced by the look of thought, soon replaced by a slow grasping of the answer. And while the master did not confirm or disconfirm the answer, the pupil is left with a place he can keep thinking about it. Years of this and the pupil becomes a grandmaster whom does the same with his pupil; answering questions with questions, and making his pupil work for knowledge and wisdom.

That’s what I mean by all this. It’s the understanding (realization) that there is no such thing as an “answer,” just more questions.

For some of you, this might be hard to comprehend. It might seem pointless or like too much work. My advice to you would be this: just do it.

You’ll see how questions are your best tool for getting answers and making decisions in life. You’ll also develop an open mind and not fall into dogmatic belief systems that most people do that get so much of them and this world into trouble.

Ultimately, questions will lead you on the path to wisdom and contentment. You’ll learn more about yourself, the world and people, all of which will help you live a happier and more effective life.

It’s all starts with the question.

-Colin

P.S. Follow me on instagram.

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Life Is Too Short

You wake up each day. So do I. So does Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Tony Robbins.

We all get the same 24 hours, and we all need about 7-8 to sleep. We all have to shower, eat and go to the bathroom.

After that, there are about 14 hours left each day for us all to do what we want to do.

Are you spending these hours productively, moving towards your goals, dreams and aspirations? Maybe you are content with life and don’t yearn for much more?

Which one is it?

You must answer this question for yourself. Spend some time answering it. Really think about it. To not answer is, is to live a miserable, worried, anxious existence. And the sad fact of our modern world, is many do just that.

Please, for yourself, answer this damn question: Are you deep down unsatisfied and anxious? Or are you content with your life and where you are going and at the pace it is moving there?

There is no right or wrong here. Well, I lied, there is a right and wrong: what’s right is figuring it out for yourself and what’s wrong is floating through life without doing the self-analysis every human being needs to do.

If you don’t answer this question for yourself, you will never find your true passion and purpose, and everything you do in life will be half-assed because you won’t be completely in it.

Not only must you first answer this question, but you also must clearly answer this question and commit to the answer. Meaning, if you are content with the way things are, you have to be vigilant against yearning for more. You can’t just say you are content and then always be thinking about the future or things you want in your life. (This is really hard for humans to do, so be sure this is for you is you decide this is for you.)

On the flip side, if you are not content with your life, you must commit and get working on that commitment.

Bruce Lee said this, “Self-Actualization is the important thing. And my personal message to people is that I hope they will go toward self-actualization rather than self-image actualization. I hope they will search within themselves for honest self-expression.”

He is basically saying that you must be the best you can be. What I’m saying is, you have to be the best you can be in whatever way you choose to be. So, you first decide what your “best” is going to be, then you go and live each day fulfilling that best.    

If you are like me, you want more and so you are always working on getting better. In fact, if you are reading this, you are probably just like me in this respect. And that’s why I want to encourage you to think long and hard about your life, mission, purpose and how you are spending your waking hours of each day.

How are you spending your days? Are you moving toward your goals, away from them, or neither?

I don’t know what is the meaning of death, but I am not afraid to die – and I go on, non-stop, going forward [with life]. Even though I, Bruce Lee, may die some day without fulfilling all of my ambitions, I will have no regrets. I did what I wanted to do and what I’ve done, I’ve done with sincerity and to the best of my ability. You can’t expect much more from life.

Death

Every time I write or think about success, I think about death. The Stoics used a technique called “negative visualization” to visually the worst thing that could happen as a tools for expressing gratitude for the fact that this thing has not happened.

I think about death as a means of spurring me; because in every instance of life, it could always be worse because I could be dead. And since I’m dead, I need to remind myself to be grateful and view life positively and my obstacles as opportunities.

Think about that for a moment. Then start thinking about it in your life often.

Instead of watching Netflix, build something. Instead of going out Friday night, try working on your blog, project or whatever. And so on.

You know, I’m always writing about these topics because I want to motivate and inspire people to do more. Maybe this is selfish because I want the human species to move forward, to solve aging and build new technologies and colonize mars. Or maybe it’s because I know what it feels like to struggle with doubt, worry, loss and the like, and I’ve been fortunate enough to overcome each while turning them into a source of power. 

Actually, it’s probably a combination of both. Whatever. 

The fact is, life is just too damn short for human beings right now. In the future, when we can upload our brains into the cloud and live in a matrix, this might not be the case. But until that time, every passing day is a day you could be fulfilling your potential, living your dreams, seeing the world, connecting and loving and creating. And to not do these things because you’d rather spend your time instead of investing your time, to me, is a waste of this precious thing we call life.

-Colin

P.S. Follow me on instagram.

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The One (Enjoyable) Thing You Can Do To Change Your Life

“There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.”

― Joseph Brodsky

“Many people, myself among them, feel better at the mere sight of a book.”

― Jane Smiley, Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel

“Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world.”

― Voltaire

There are two quotes that I’ve been thinking of lately. (Not the ones above, but those are great too.)

The first one is by Kevin Kelly when he answered a question question on  The Tim Ferriss podcast.

The question was, “What is something (a certain habit/skill/hobby) that you believe can have a life changing impact for most people?”

His answer: 

“I think if you can read 10 books a year, all the way through, beginning to end, books of your choice, it would really change your life. And believe it or not, that’s it. Every year, read ten books, and your life will be changed forever.”

It was a simple answer to a big question.

He didn’t spend more than 20 seconds answering the question. He just instructed that anyone looking to change their life should read 10 books a year. That’s it.

Simple and profound… my favorite combination.

This quote has been on my mind a lot lately. This is likely due to my recently rekindled obsession with audiobooks, which I rediscovered after driving to Florida from Texas this past year.

You won’t believe how much reading you can get done with audiobooks. A chapter here, a chapter there; it adds up fast.

This is why Audible is my new favorite app/tool (and my Echo helps a ton). I’ve tried Audible in the past, but I remember thinking it was too expensive. Of course, I now see that I was thinking about it all wrong.

I’ve always put a high value on books because I know that whatever I learn from them will benefit me the rest of my life. So spending 10 or 20 on some knowledge that will benefit me forever (and compound) seems like a no brainer investment. Considering Audible is helping me get more books finished than ever before, I know see just how valuable it is; a realization that eluded me before.

So, yes, books are an “investment.” The caveat being: if you use them.

Buying books and not actually reading them is something I used to do a lot (still do but to a lessor extent). My backlog of books to read has undoubtedly increased Amazon’s stock price over the past couple years. (Which is sometimes the pitfall you get when there are so many enticing, and cheap, books around.)

A Thing I’ve Learned About Reading

I have a friend that had an aversion to reading because he felt he already “knew” or “understood” the content of most books (nonfiction).

He’s smart, so he probably did.

Hell, I feel the same way most of the time considering I’ve already read so many books over the years and  that most books nowadays are usually just trying to say the same thing with different words.

But that’s missing the point.

Knowing or not knowing the subject you are reading isn’t the point. This is something I realized in the past couple of years as I’ve grown more passionate about reading and books.

I realized this thing about books when I was rereading a book I had already read. It was nonfiction, and I believe it was relating to sales. It might have been The Secret of Selling Anything by Harry Browne, which you should definitely read if this at all relates to what you do.

So, I decided to reread this book because I was working on some marketing and sales stuff in my new business (Wild Foods). Because I had actually read this book twice before, I wasn’t expecting to learn anything new. Instead, I was just looking for a refresher.

That’s when it hit me.

I had an epiphany. It wasn’t a groundbreaking idea or anything like that. It was just a stupid-simple concept that was going to be extremely valuable in my business.

Yet I hadn’t thought of it.

Yet as I read those pages, which I had already read before, I was smacked in the face with the realization.

Then I thought of the line, “Out of sight, out of mind.”

Shit. That’s it!

That’s the number one reason we need to be reading ALL THE TIME whether we think we “know” something or not.

Every time you read a book, whether you’ve read it already or not, two things will happen. First, you are going to pick up something new. Second, you are going to bring other ideas into your consciousness.

You are going to bring stuff to new and old into sight and into mind.

This realization has given me an entirely new appreciate of reading, especially books and topics I’ve read before.

Limited Resources

Another thing I’ve been thinking about lately is the limited human supply of resources. We all only have so many hours in a day, so much energy and so much mental space. And using these resource to bring about productivity, health and happiness is really hard to do.

For example, with my new venture, I’m struggling to find the balance of these three. I’m also torn between so many things I could be doing that it’s hard to know what I choose to do is the best thing.

Because I have a “to do” list that’s longer than Jack’s beanstalk—and ever growing—I have to be ruthless with how I spend my time and energy.

This has gotten me thinking more and more about the “out of sight, out of mind concept.” I wonder what insights/ideas/epiphanies are eluding me simply because I might not be triggering them the way a book, quote or article might.

One way I’ve been combating this is through reading books relating to whatever I’m working on at the time. When I’m working on marketing and sales, I’ll read books on marketing and sales. And so on.

Actually, this really isn’t anything new. It’s what got me into reading in the first place. When I was younger, and I had to deal with some tragic life stuff, I turned to books to seek “answers.”

What about you? What do you do when you are struggling with something?

Some people turn to stimulants or depressants. Some turn to escapism and some attack their struggles head-on. For me, I turn to friends, books, work and movies. These get me through whatever I need to get through.

If I had to rate them, though, books would come first because my brain needs to plan cohesive thoughts around my problems before I can talk about them. Reading helps me identify what I’m struggling with. It helps me put a name to the face. After that, I can turn to friends for advice and feedback. Finally, I let my subconscious get to work by doing something else entirely—movies, exercise, work.

Books Change You… and Always For The Better

I heard a quote recently on Maria Papova’s blog, Brain Pickings, that went like this:

“If librarians were honest, they would say, No one spends time here without being changed…”

So true.

Aim to read 10 books a year and you will become a better person. Better yet, aim for one book a month.

Read them in their entirety, front to back.

–Colin Stuckert

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