[This post is part of a series on Cold Showers. If you don’t see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view that series, where you’ll get more value than reading just this post.] Today is my twenty-second of thirty taking deliberate cold showers. It’s an amazing experience I would never have guessed as valuable as I’ve found it. I’ll write more on it after day thirty.[…] Keep reading →

Start a Sidcha! Resolutions and short-term thinking create short-term results and long-term failure. Start a Sidcha to last a lifetime. I just read yet another thread of people pledging resolutions, suspiciously many being ones they failed last year. This year they really meant it, though. Right. I had to comment on what works and doesn’t. Habits that work The day Nelson Mandela walked free for the first time in 27 years–a day of global importance[…] Keep reading →

I meant just to list all my sidchas in my post Freedom exists in structure; it’s not chaos, randomness, or luck. Here’s my structure and freedom, but I made a mistake. I included standard operating procedures with sidchas. I didn’t think of the distinction. One is habits. The other is the best way to do something. I’ve written about sidchas. What about operating procedures? If there’s a better way and[…] Keep reading →

Freedom exists in structure. It’s not chaos, randomness, or luck. When I find something works in my life, I make it automatic. For many people, diet and exercise seem horror shows, or mysteries, wondering what they should do, how often, how much, and so on. When the most important bases of my life are automatic, I don’t have to think about them. I can focus on everything else. People might[…] Keep reading →

For those keeping track, I unplugged my fridge on November 22—not to save power, though it did. Listen to my podcast episode Why Unplug? to learn my motivation, but briefly, it’s to practice resilience and reduce my entitlement and dependence. I’m reporting after receiving my latest electric bill. My results Here’s my power use over the past year. Last winter I unplugged my fridge in late December, so this winter[…] Keep reading →

If you’ve heard about avoiding straws or if you’ve avoided straws yourself, Dune Ives and the Lonely Whale, the organization she’s the executive director of have influenced you. If you ask yourself “Why straws?” or “What the point was?”, that’s what you wanted for people actually to talk about things on a human scale as opposed to things that are so big that people can’t really figure out how to[…] Keep reading →

I recently interviewed Olympic gold medalist and Crossfit Games champion Anna Tunnicliffe Tobias, whom I met through America’s Cup winner and podcast guest Dawn Riley. Given Anna’s achievements, she’s remarkably down to Earth (as is Dawn). In researching her, I found that last year’s Crossfit Games included a rowing marathon—that is, rowing 42,195 meters. The athletes learn what events they’ll do only hours before competing, so they just had to[…] Keep reading →