The Art of Impossible: A Peak Performance Primer

by Steven Kotler.

The author asks us to work on our weak spots even in the exercise. How cna you do that?

In one exercise, the coach said that when we work at the gyn, we only work in one plane and dont do lateral exercises much. Now I try to do jump rope side to side, as well as all around jumping-jacks some times. Mobius is one way to hang-around in your weak spots for a bit and imagine doing the all-directional squat.

Steven Kotler shows us how he trains his cognitive abilities. he practises a speech when he is burnt out or doing strenuous activities like hiking. Suneel Gupta in his book Backable, introduces the Rule of 21 where he suggests that to get comfortable with your speech or pitch, practise it 21 tmes in different settings. He practised it with his child. Similar concept that if you can do something in a non-ideal situation, you will be better prepared if things dont go as planned on the big day or if there is an interruption in your trian of thought.

How to learn anything in 5 books.

This should be good

An exercise article inspired from the book.

Poincare's creativity and 5 steps in creativity

Everything You Need to Ace

 

Everything You Need to Ace Math in One Big Fat Notebook: The Complete Middle School Study Guide (Big Fat Notebooks)

During this pandemic when instruction has changed a lot compared to class in person days, middle schoolers seem to be depending on this book for math. There is a similar one for science. There are spectrum books too.

Female Management Gurus

Yesterday on the walk, I dont know the train of thought, but I suddenly considered if I knew any female management gurus. I could think of few professors. I asked another professor about her role models.

The Dearth of female management. Thomas Davenport noticed this in 2008.

I have new authors to read now.

Rosabeth Moss Kanter

Mary Parker Follett

Mary Uhl Bien and LMX theory

Carol Dweck - Growth Mindset

Future of Management

The Attributes: 25 Hidden Drivers of Optimal Performance

 

The Attributes: 25 Hidden Drivers of Optimal Performance by Rich Diviney

Navy SEAL books are easy to devour. 

Overcome by Jason Redman.

Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink.

In this book, Diviney starts off with how Attributes came about. In their training program with high attrition, he wanted to theorize why those who didnt make it, didnt.

He goes on to show the importance of Attributes over Skills with how the 5 step plan when things go wrong needs 20% skill and 80% attributes.

Then it makes sense how some say that you can teach the skill, its the attributes that are innate.

Talking of looking for a lawyer with winning records, which is how we chose if we need one, but there are movies of small time lawyers disrupting names. The pitfalls of a team selected for only skills is all too familiar. Google in Aristotle project, found out what makes the best team. 

"Train for certainty, Educate for Uncertainty" - Military

Its in those uncertain cases, that your attributes come to life.

Formula-1 racers practice in foul weather too.

Imagine a scary lab where fear is studied.

The characterization of fear phases- before the event, during the event and after (PTSD) is neat. It reminds me of Do you know burnout when you see it article by Joan Brett of ASU, where Brunout could be intrinsic or extrinsic. This brings us back to the authors yawning to get more air in those stressful situations. The body's response to those stressful situation is what the scary lab is all about. Amazing that VR can help with it.

                "Courage cannot exist in the absence of fear" - Rich Diviney

Liking the definitions of persistence, tenacity, perseverance, fortitude. This is the situation I faced while reading overcoem and trying to understand some traits it seemed more like a spectrum of things.

Passport to Freedom: Courage and Resilience on your Cancer Journey by Sandy Travis.

Everybody Matters: The Extraordinary Power of Caring for Your People Like Family by Bob Chapman.

Navy SEALS, Innovation and Flow

The benefit of measuring

 I have just started logging food into an app.

I see a difference already.

Some times we front load things a lot in name of healthy. Walnuts and peanut butter are what I have removed when I found them to be additional calories.

Knowing the calories, its easy to make the right choices. Apples over some other empty calorie snack. 

I have combine dthis with the activity calories and am now maintaining a sheet. I think all those theories of food being a bigger factor in weight loss will come to be proven.

Listen to their cues

 Kids weight during pandemic

Reminds me of my journey

 

I just dropped the next post in my fitness series - this time moving from food to workout routines. I hope this helps with the mind game 💪😅https://t.co/4pf0DlR8cr

— Mark Suster (@msuster) January 13, 2021

Like the greedy woodcutter, keep going a few more steps.

 

Always getting back on track

 Strength and conditioning

Midnight musings

Let your ink overflow

like the sake

Creativity Faucet

 

The most interesting thing I learned this year is this mental model for generating world-class writing. pic.twitter.com/RE0Rahk3ng

— Julian Shapiro (@Julian) November 15, 2020

Creativity constraints

 Scientists wrote better with a limited writing time.

An artist applied for a contest which required 75% of the painting to be black or white.

Kids

 What kids can learn from losing?

The Joy of winning.

Art of Looking

 Art of Looking

While noticing a bike, I saw the pink spokes and the darker parts of hs shadows of spokes on each other revelaing the web it is.

Seeing like a story teller

 

I’d really like to read a book titled “seeing like a storyteller.” How do you walk around with an eye open for story fodder? Like Douglas Adam’s’ biscuits story. How do you sensitize yourself to this kind of dramatic potential in milder instances? https://t.co/eRTOjePI3F

— Venkatesh Rao (@vgr) January 9, 2021

Some one suggested Maps of Meaning  by Jordan peterson. 

Another Henry James Notebooks

I attended a Melody Owen story tellign workshop. I liekd how she started with a timeline and showed how to pick some highlights for each of an independent story line. She shared examples of the elements of the story. Knowing your why, Story Shift, Tension Makes the story are some of her upcoming workshops with fee. She has written books The Devil's Daughter on farm life. She also runs a large meetup of Vancouver Storytellers.

In Elementary school, during recess we would catch dragonflies. Since it was only few rooms, it was easy to go outside and play with nature and be back soon into the class. As the school building gets bigger, kids get cut off from nature unless care is taken to preseve the green areas for their interaction. There is the PT ground but that is all just sand or hard ground. Later in college, sky lawns with greenery and a pond around was a welcome break from stressful studies. Think back to all the times you studied and the surroundings you had and their impact on you. Two years before college, I was in a hostel that comprised o two buildings. You can imagine how that kind of stifled life can make a person indifferent. It was fun studying but some interaction or third space as it is called helps. And here even a second would have helped. The dichotomy of attention and distraction during the formative years of a human. After college, I saw a bit of myself J M Coetzee's story of being an engineer in a place he didnt know much.

Storytelling program

Student organizations

 I am so proud of these youth and student led organizations.

Bitproject 

Have you experienced the catch-22 of having to have work experience, before you get your first job? At Bitproject, you will be taught technology skills and get involved in projects along with mentoring to kickoff your technology career.

Express to Destress

Art in the Pandemic. This is something that we all need this year as the incertainty prolongs. 

How to make Black

 Making black from scratch

Recently we had an artist show us how to mix colors from primary. It is amazing. I had to ask my kid how to make green and then I realised I could use the VIBGYOR nmemoic to remember

that blue + yellow = green

yellow + red = orange

Paint by numbers.

Art reflections

 This gathering painting of flowers made me look up poetry on gathering.

Gathering leaves in grade school wnated me to visualise the tracing of leaves on paper.

 The overlapped leaf rubbings make you wonder if they were traced overlapped at once. 

In the poem, you are grounded to the tree in the beginning but short of blowing in the wind, you feel the lost connection.

Watercolour flowers step by step from Izabella Orzelski.

Happiness in a Glass by Bianca Romani matches the green stems of  carnations in the flower vase that I have for the last week, that have been begging to paint.

I started on the flowers. Younger one wanted to paint the blue vase and then moved on to a melon and then added a sun and a flower.

Newyork art fair

Breathing

 Have you heard of Buteyko breathing?

Sumo breathing

Box breathing

Barriers

 This Barriers group show is a collection of art display on barriers of various kinds.

Starting off with the Great Barrier Reef, which is a physical one where the reefs can be barrier, fringing or atoll. 

Ideals that can break through iron, Barricade.

Holding Flight is that second before the bird goes aflight.

Pre internet and post.

In underwater looking up, Water is another barrier like the sky. Placing the sound barrier flight right after this makes it meaningful at crossing two barriers - ground vs flight (which loops back to the bird holding flight) and the sound barrier.

This takes us back to the Golden Barrier reef that we started with. Good callbacks.

Raymond Carver

In Creative Writing, there is a mention of Carver's Fires Essay.

Imagine race course announcements serving as your pomodoro timer.

pari mutuel

Its a nice reveal in the end of what the fire is. This seems to be a pro trick.

 On Carver's essay

Carver's Writing Process/Style

making up conversations in stories because he has bad memory. He puts in things as needed and hence his style borders on minimalist.

Prompt

In Carver's case, the sound track from a racecourse made him finish the race course story he was trying to write. What sound track could situate you in your next creative writing situation?

Mini inspiration

 Nest of Hands

A place to rest

not just a ledge

to lie on

but fingertips

that surround you

and nestle you

prompt

What do you do when you have extra?

Art bug

 While listening to a presentation with news from 2017.. I thought of a joke..

If any of you have been around that time... 

I showed my miniature sketches and poems to an artist. She said that I should consider mixing them into a 4"x4". If you know me from the beginning... I moved from too artistic a side to the MBA. And right when i should be using that knowledge.. I might be bitten by the art bug again.

Judi Betts

This is perfect

 Hemp seed oatmeal

I was considering adding 3 tbsp of hemp seeds to my breakfast. I saw a hemp seed chocolate smoothie. But this is even closer to how I would love to ahve it, as a replacement of oats for a brief time. Mediterranean keto is palatable.

10 min of HIIT and a mile walk.

TRANSCEND Day 2

 upper body

TRANSCEND begins

 Legs Level 1

Great team motivation.

Wonder whats tomorrow's programme

 Strength and Conditioning

We went for this wonderful walk over the weekend. I didnt realise the swath of private park running along the mile. It is a different world out there. I loved the feeling of being lost a bit. We did have our GPS but trying to make intuitive calls. It was funny how we could see the landmark, but couldnt get there because of a row of houses. We had to traverse the inner streets. Finally closed the gap of a small pathway that I always wondered where it led. I have wanted to do a square of 4 mile around where we live, but because of a winding road, we took, inner roads and thus chanced upon this beautiful rectangular park.

Today's exercise

 40 minute HIIT

In the second round of ski exercising, I was able to not touch the ground.

When the going does not get going

Where to focus:

For the beginner, execution.

For the intermediate, strategy.

For the expert, mindset.

— James Clear (@JamesClear) November 19, 2020

I was able to do only half of the Syndey cummings full body workout. Lately have been putting exercise on the back burner. And when it stays there for long, there s a renewed energy to make it a higher priority, so better luck for tomorrow. I love this power program which is definitely needed for the holidays when food is going to be plenty and the exercisable hours few. 

I have been thinking about the James Clear's approach on focusing. If you go back into the early stages of the blog, you wills ee that I was focused on writing, creative writing especially. I need to go back to the beginner mindset of execution, when it comes to exercise.

Conditioning

 40 Minute Strength and Conditioning

Easing ina fter a haitus. there were lunch walks.

WK 14

 Welcome to WK14.

I wondered how this was ging to be different. It moved from 2 days Leg work to 3 days Leg work of the 5 days.

I have to figure out the right combination of cardio to strength ratio. 50-50 or 60-40.

10/26

Legs - 30 min Elliptical and

30 min Legs & Abs

10/27

30 min Elliptical and 

chest & biceps

Flew into the next week.

11/3

30 min Legs & abs + 10 min elliptical

11/4

Shoulders, Triceps and Chest

11/5

Legs workout

WK 13

 According to the plan .. its  a rest week.

Going to give the elliptical a spin.. hopefully an hour a day...

Bob Dylan

teenage doggy poem by Bob Dylan. If you are findign it hard to read the writing, here's a typed up version.

WK 12

Pushing to 60 min whenever possible.

 Day 1

10/13

 Chest & Triceps workout

some HIIT too.

Day 2 10/14 - cold

10/15

Legs Workout

50 min legs, abs & cardio. Missed the last 10 mins.

Day 3 10/16

50 min Back & Biceps

with Sydney Cummings

Missed the last 7 mins.

Day 4 10/17

50 min Sydney's legs workout

Day 5 10/18

60 min Shoulder & Abs

 workout with Sydney Cummings

core the remaining 2 days

When you come again

 After reading The air you have polluted, I imagined when Lucille comes back.. the world would have changed ... lines in italics are from Lucille Clifton's poem...

When you come again

and you will come again

the air you have polluted

you will clean

you are a tree born to breathe the bad air

the water you have poiseoned

you will clean

you are the draff that filters the water

When you come again

and you will come again

WK 11

Day 1

10/5

 Chest & Triceps workout HASfit

Day 2 10/6

Legs Workout with HASfit.

Pushed it to to 45 min.

Day 3 10/7

40 min Back & Biceps

with Sydney Cummings

Day 4 10/10

45 min Sydney's legs workout

Felt good.

Day 5 10/12

50 min Shoulder & Abs workout with Sydney Cummings

This felt good.  Any doubts I had of today's workout were all quashed by one look at 

I

Image: amazon.com

10/8

1 mile walk.

WK 10

 Day 1

9/27

WK10 - Day 1 - Another chest & Triceps workout with Sydney Cummings. Lets push it to 40 min, if we are going to take rest days when needed.

Very creative. Using one arm as the marker to reach the other arm with weight.wide and close.

Day 2 9/28

Legs workout with HASfit.

Loved this especially for the creative single side raises, frog raises, calve raises. Heart rate too went way high for strength taining.

Day 3 9/29

Back & Biceps with Sydney Cummings

Wonderful slide/side curls. Could feel it in the arms, halfway.

Day 4 9/30

Sydney's legs workout

Day 5 10/1

Shoulder & Abs workout with Sydney Cummings

10/2

Core workout - 

Core workouts in the remaining 2 days of the week.

Weekly reflection 10

"The choices facing leaders in setting strategy, deploying capital, building capabilities, optimizing execution, and creating a winning team are dynamic and complex and offer greater risks and returns"  

- Rich Lesser, CEO, BCG in Foreword of Beyond Great: : Nine Strategies for Thriving in an Era of Social Tension, Economic Nationalism, and Technological Revolution

Staying fit too involves these choices.

1. Setting Strategy 

   Calories in, Calories out. Exercise, diet or both. Cardio or Strength training or both. There are so many choices. Without reaching impatience for results fatigue, if you can try out which is sustainable for you in the long run, you will enjoy the process of experimenting

2. Deploying Capital

You might chose to spend some money on gym, euipment, motivating active wear or all of them. You might go in the other direction and say, I can do it lean and get creative that way by doing home workouts with bodyweight. Other capital are time and willpower or motivation.

3. Building Capabilities

Sometimes more tougher moves need you to be in a certain shape. for example you need preparation for pullups, which might take about a month. Depending on your starting fitness, you might not be able to run as much longer or faster as you want to. But you can build up to it - miles, endurance, strength, pace - whatever your marker is.

4. Optimization Execution

This ties back to setting strategy and experimentation. Along the way, you will find some small hacks that make your journey lot more fun of just figuring out those hacks. Maybe its a tip like - get your protein in first or modifications that you have to do to your exercises to get stronger faster. Most of all, you get very mindful by being alert and alive in this process that everything seems under your control. That means you see the ship moving 6 degrees away and know how to reign it in.

5. Winning Team

Who is your winning team? You the leader are a big part of it, but your friends, family, community whoever is out there helping you. Remember when you enlist the village, you are having an impact on your team too, who are as much spirited as you from your results. Have you seen how brisker your walk gets when you have company, each pushign the other and what of the social interaction especially during these covid times.

6. Risks and Returns

Be safe. be mindful of injuries. Take it step by step. When you can help out others too. Have you heard of Hawkins County artist Kim Ward's daily Highway Hula dance, which she does to inspire others to be active?

weekly reflection 9

 Upping the protein even by 10g is helping with weight loss. Ofcourse this is the border requirement meetign.

Eat protein source foods in which protein is primary and not secondary.

Body Weight progression

 

This from the reddit user shellerik.

Body weight progression workout

weekly reflection - 8

 Why do I gain weight when I eat less protein

I added some Jarrow Organic protein pea powder and this seems to do the trick. For the last two to three weeks or so I stopped having the dairy protein powder as I wanted to go off it at some point. That got my protein consumption to 0.6g per pound for half of my weight. With this increase, its up to the recommended 0.8g per pound for half of my weight. The rest of the sources - dairy, lentils, yogurt. 

Fitness wise I am feeling great, ready to push myself more. Loving the whole foods concept. 

There is so much to staying fit, losing weight. So many paradigms the exercise-food ratio of effectiveness, scale or measurements as your motivator or progress guide. And ofcourse when you get strong and healthy, your energy levels as well as the weight in the strength training that you cna lift is another indicator.

I am getting leaner.

WK 13

 WK 13 is special because it is off but ofcourse I will be doing some exercise...

10/19

WK 9 to 12

Day 1

9/20

WK 9 is special as the workouts begin to be 5 days out of 7. I have already switched to workout all days of the week by Wk4 itself.

Day 1 -Chest & Triceps. This Sydney Cummings workout is great. I didnt sweat much but I could feel the chest opening, triceps burning. You keep repeating the exercises with count increased each time. I went with low weights in order to contrinue with the increase in reps. Depsite the low weights, I had to push myself and/or take breaks to rest the arms. I look forward to tomorrow's legs workout.

9/28 WK10 - Day 1 - Another chest & Triceps workout with Sydney Cummings. Lets push it to 40 min, if we are going to take rest days when needed.

Day 2 9/21

Legs workout with Sydney Cummings.

Wonderful workout. More calories burned than yesterday. Look forward to Back & Biceps tomorrow.

Day 3 9/22

Back & Biceps workout with HASFit

This is wonderful. always some cute and different exercises like shrugs with weights and that towel exercise.. that was hard... Nice sweat... Look forward to their Legs workout tomorrow.

Day 4 9/23

Legs workout with HASFit

Loved this. The calf varieties in the end. Looking forward to tomorrow's shoulder & abs workout.

9/24 - Turned out to be a rest day. Got in a brisk 1.9mi walk.

Day 5 9/25

Shoulder & Abs workout with Sydney Cummings

This is great. Loved the variations of sitting down and standing up, with and without weights alternating. Now I get what superset means. I wasnt able to do one of the exercises well. Just before that the shoulders were taxed. I got a short phone call. I was able to do it better then. All because of the rest. Arnold press. Pushing it to 40 min now.

9/26

Core workout - Nice workout. squat and twist on the top. Good sweat.

Core workouts in the remaining 2 days of the week.

Windsprints

 

Windsprints

Came across it in Jillian's talk.

Monthly reflection -3

 If you are eating right and moving and still you are gaining weight, it might be muscle.

Go to the tape. Measure yourself.

Check if you are getting enough protein.

WK 8 Day 4

9/18

 sports fitness workout

Loved how the movements were all brought together in the game style of soccer and tennis.

While doing one of the lateral shuffles, when I lost  a step, I realised how you need to be agile in sports world. Never realised that the lunges most easily fit into tennis.

9/19

Looks like its Legs & Shoulders and not Legs & Abs today.

Legs and shoulders fun and sweaty....

Loved the compund lunge bicep curls, squat and side lifts. This was 23 minutes HIIT. Jillian Michaels says 20 min of HIIT is a very effective exercise.

Wk 8 Day 3

 9/16

remaining of Rebecca Kennedy Core workout

9/17

Upper Body Cardio

This is fun. Tough initially to keep up with Sydney's pace. Look forward to her Legs and Abs in 2 days.

weekly reflection - 7

Can feel the strength increasing. Especially with the leg raised pushups.

Losing inches but gaining weight

Body composiiton change

WK 8 Day 2

 9/14

Rebecca Kennedy's core workout

Enjoyed this workout. Especially the plank push throughs which are harder to cotnemplate even in mind. Next goal is to do it with stability as well as be totally flat when up, like in a drawbridge.

Good variety of travelling pushup into star plank.

9/15

remaining of strength workout

The push variations are awesome. squat movements. skaters in squats.

WK 8 Day 1

9/12

Finished remaining core workout of 9/8 which didnt happen.

9/13

Legs & Abs

 Strength workout

This is good. Good balance of standing and lying down fornt and back. All sweaty.. with only 30 min.

Monthly reflection Month 2

The reverse crunches on the back were so good today. 

For the last month, I have added alternate day core and abs workout. I can see the difference. Evolve core workout has lots of balance moves too. Mod 3 exerciser pushes herself and you.

Counting macros is going great too. I feel great energy in sticking to it. Body fat percentage is behaving.

I have stopped taking the protein powder and  looking for alternate sources of protein like pumpkin seeds. 

In the last 8 weeks, I have lost 6 pounds almost close to prepandemic and better body fat percentage. I switched to oats for breakfast. Earlier I used to have waffle, but I would feel light headed very soon. If you need a break from Oats porridge then you can have banan oats muffin . You can bake those over the weekend, if you are going to have  a busy week.

If you are a woman and going to try a diet, also research about its effects. For example keto and vegan might have you worried about irregular periods.

 

Monthly reflection Month 1