Reflections on parenting, health, finance, and travel. Because optimizing a workflow is useless if you don’t have a life to enjoy with the time you saved.
I was on MacVoices this week as part of their annual Holiday Gift Guide series. Chuck Joiner and I talked through some of my favorite gift recommendations for the Mac users/Explorers in your life.
The episodes also feature recommendations from Bart Busschots and Kirschen Seah, so check out the full conversation for their gift ideas. You can watch the full conversation here:
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In the summer of 2007, my girlfriend (now wife) and I went on a Globus bus tour through Italy. You know the type: the bus drops you off at a museum, you wear an earpiece while the tour guide talks into their microphone and holds a little stick in the air so you can follow them around, then back on the bus to a restaurant; back on the bus to a hotel; back on the bus and back on the road.
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As a kid, I was never far from my children’s encyclopedia; I was a voracious reader and especially loved non-fiction. However, as an adult, I do most of my learning through audiobooks, podcasts, and YouTube. That is until a few years ago when I started rebuilding my reading habit by switching from scrolling social media to reading ebooks.
Even more recently, I have come full circle back to physical books. Mainly because I realized that reading on a phone just looks the same as scrolling social media and doesn’t help me model the reading habit I want my son to build. As a bonus, I got to experience these five books, which have significantly shaped my thinking. Perhaps one will resonate with you too.
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Growing up, I was a jock who was secretly a nerd. I played sports year-round and even conned my way into having an independent study gym class my senior year.
That level of physical activity plus a teenage metabolism meant that there would be no consequences for having a three-course cheesecake meal at The Cheesecake Factory with my friends.
Unfortunately, after my athletic career ended and my metabolism changed, my eating habits didn’t, and I gained approximately 50 pounds over the next 15-ish years.
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You hear stories about people performing heroic feats in life-and-death scenarios: lifting a car off of a child, swimming for miles to get back to shore from a shipwreck, etc. Like most middle-aged guys, some part of my brain assumes that I would be able to do the same. A lifetime of living vicariously through action movies and video games leads me to believe that my body is just waiting to be unleashed for its superhero moment, like a Manchurian Candidate of fitness.
But, historically, I have not had many of those experiences in my life, so there is no need for an alter ego, yet. Even if I did, building a heart-healthy lifestyle around life-or-death adventures does not seem sustainable. Unless you fake it.
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