I write a lot about cold showers. They may sound crazy, but bear with me and you may find them more helpful than you could have imagined. After taking a few in Shanghai because the water took five minutes to warm up that I couldn’t stand wasting, in December of 2013, I took thirty days of cold showers. I can’t tell you how much the discipline, dedication, and so on[…] Keep reading →

I can’t believe I didn’t think of saying the phrase until the other day: I do more burpees before 9am than most people do all day. It’s satisfying to write. I could have said it years ago. Friends are surprises I haven’t said it. When I said it to someone out loud, he pointed out I could say: I do more burpees before 9am than most people do in their[…] Keep reading →

EDIT (May 2020): I gave my most comprehensive talk on sidchas. Here is the recording Most people seem to want improve themselves, personally or professionally. Reading, watching, and listening to people tell you how you can develop yourself professionally or personally doesn’t change anything beyond give you a bit of information. People don’t succeed because they have more information. They succeed because they act. Even if you know you should[…] Keep reading →

I couldn’t help share Jia Jiang’s sidcha. I’ve favored fitness sidchas like my burpee-based calisthenics, a mindfulness one in cold showers, and the expressive one of writing here. I’ve also described business ones like cold-calling five of sales leads daily or writing a business idea every day. There are aesthetic ones like drawing a picture every day or dancing every day. I also describe social ones like talking to a[…] Keep reading →

I found some great examples of success through sidchas you’ll enjoy seeing. Through Seth Godin, who posts to his blog daily, I learned of Abbey Ryan, who paints a painting a day. I hope she doesn’t mind my showing her ten most recent paintings, to show their beauty and so people don’t confuse a painting a day with skimping. According to Wikipedia, A recognized leader in the “Painting-A-Day” movement, Ryan’s[…] Keep reading →

My publisher recommended an exercise to help write concisely, which she found at a page called Very Good Copy in an article called This exercise will train you to write more concisely. It says, “If your goal is to write tighter copy — copy that says more in fewer words — try this 15-minute exercise. . . rewrite a Wikipedia paragraph to a third of its original length (e.g., edit[…] Keep reading →

It turns out some people or advertisers decided to make October 12 World Burpee Day. Given my thing with burpees, I decided to play the game and post about it to see if my more than 110,000 burpees over 2,487 consecutive day wins me something. I found a few articles with headlines suggesting people barely getting started: I Did 30 Burpees For 15 Days and Here’s What Happened This Is[…] Keep reading →