 Hey YouTube Sorry about the glare on the glasses. I'm trying to figure this out. Um, I just got off the phone with a client of mine who's been He's constantly stuck in this How can I optimize what I'm doing? How can I what is the what is the best? Course of action that I can take right now to accomplish all the goals that I'm trying to accomplish The reason that I really want to talk about this. I think primarily is because this is Probably the biggest thing that I have struggled with in my life and in my career and in Trying to figure out what I should do next so things were simpler when I you know was living with my parents and it just got out of high school and Going to college because I knew that all I had to do was go to college and train and all I was doing was You know trying to chase powerlifting dreams, and I wanted to be the strongest dude I could be and I Didn't really care about school. I it was just a place. I had to be And and you know I didn't have to think about optimizing things quite as much But then later on when I started to think you know, okay Well, if I if I really want to be better at powerlifting, what's the best way to lift? That was one of that one of the worst workouts. I've ever written was like an eight by three snatch eight by three back squat eight by three bench press and I was just Exhausted using out like not getting stronger at all just getting worn out Just getting weaker And it's counterintuitive right because you're lifting heavy, but you're not lifting heavy enough to actually put more strength gains on and all you're doing is just beating down your nervous system. So it was a terrible idea and The reason that it was terrible was because I took I knew a little bit I knew just enough to be dangerous That's that's a phrase that we like to use at I fast and you know people in general You can use it in all sorts of different situations. Let's say so my new project is programming. So if somebody is Knows just enough programming to be dangerous, which is probably me right now You can start to throw in a bunch of code that doesn't run very efficiently and doesn't make very much sense when somebody's reading it and Maybe, you know, maybe is actually slow Maybe barely gets the job done, but doesn't work in every browser that somebody looks at it in There's there's a lot of and all that does is when you pass that project on You give that that person who's receiving the workload you give them extra workload because maybe you're not commenting in your Your program and so nobody knows what the hell you're trying to do You know same kind of thing with with training like I knew that lifting for triples doubles and singles That's what it was. I said eight by three, but it was like three three Two two two one one one or something like that Lifting for one to three reps is supposed to get me stronger, right? So more is better and that's where knowing that lifting for one to three reps is challenging for strength, but Doing it ad nauseam is not always the greatest idea You're not accumulating any sort of musculoskeletal fatigue It's purely nervous system and and in my case with the technique that I was using was purely joints Supporting me and then waiting until my muscle could shorten underneath them So that's a bit of a ramble. So The topic today is what is the best way to do Blank so we talked about optimizing and I talked with my client recently about this We just got off the phone and and he's he you know He's he's frustrated because he's trying to accomplish stuff But he's doing the opposite things and I'm not writing his programs and I don't want to you know step on anyone's toes who who might be writing his programs, but For him with with my experience with him it's You know, there's a lot of time and energy and focus spent on What is the best way to do? blank But not a lot of energy spent on doing that thing right, so Optimizing can be very distracting for people and and this is this is why I feel like I can talk about this because I've I've spent I just made it when one of the first big website projects that I had I spent six months planning it out because I didn't know anything about it and it made me feel more comfortable with it and now I understand what's going on, but Six months is way too long now. I can make a website in like five minutes And I'm not even kidding right if as long as everything selected like WordPress does everything for you all I was doing was was you know Prolonging the inevitable in the startup tech culture They talk about a minimum viable product. So Minimum meaning it's not as good as it could be but realizing that it never really will be There's there's no such thing as perfection. You're always chasing perfection, right? There's no such thing as being done You just give up so keeping that in mind I still want to Optimize what I'm doing, right? I don't want to just do a bunch of Shit Essentially, I don't want to waste everyone else's time. I don't want to waste my time I don't want to put something out there that's not helpful for anyone, but it doesn't need to be perfect From the training standpoint, so what's the best way to? Put on me put on mass put on muscle mass So I need to be a certain amount of lean so that I can have enough insulin sensitivity to really use it to my advantage when I'm starting to gain weight and in my caloric surplus and that was this specific scenario here and What I will say is that Yeah, kind of if you got all your stuff together that works but Don't put too much of a priority on that We talked about adaptive thermogenesis, so when somebody loses a lot of weight This is the best example I had when somebody loses a lot of weight and they They they you know, maybe two months they've lost 20 pounds and then they pretty much stop losing weight So the body adapts to this new set point that they've been giving themselves So and you just think from a physics standpoint, there's fewer calories to burn, right? It takes fewer calories to live now that I'm 20 pounds lighter So now what I was doing the last two months is not enough so Taking that in consideration we can we can just kind of push forward. Maybe we need that instead of backing off Maybe we need to turn it up. Maybe we need to steer into the skid a little bit That way and that's kind of like the the main point that I want to make here is Don't like you don't have to think. Oh, well now it now it's not working. So maybe I need to fix it What you were doing was working Just keep doing it or if something Hasn't been working. Maybe you need to do it harder, you know, so that is that is a completely different physiologic stimulus It seems counterintuitive because you're kind of in that direction already So it's really easy to steer away from it and think oh, well, maybe I was off base here but I would I would encourage some people by saying, you know One of the quotes from my my good friend Jay Chung that has always stuck with me is people aren't as fragile as you think and that's that's the pot calling the kettle black, but I love you Jay, but You know, you you see some seal training or whatever for the Navy That stuff is really really difficult and really really taxing But those people are alive. Like they they make it through it PT stuff You know people people survive people thrive and they get better and they get more resilient from it You know, sometimes you just need to try a little bit harder. There's this podcast that Tim Ferriss did with Dorian Yates. Dorian Yates is a famous bodybuilder from a couple decades ago now And he just said I'll link to it below But he just said man my legs were sore for 15 years Because he's just busting his balls like you could you could talk about Drugs you could talk about, you know, not having alienating the rest of his life But he decided that this is my purpose. This is what I need to do This is what I was meant to do and he just went for it You know, can you imagine like I've had sore legs before but not for 15 years That's I mean that is prioritizing something. So, you know, if I if I want to learn how to program I'm gonna spend eight hours a day programming eight hours a day of dedicated work dedicated deep focus work Great book on deep focus and deep work is called deep work spoiler alert Deep work and it's from Cal Newport. I'm reading it right now. I'll link to that below to really really good Then on this topic so so another another side tribe Cal Newport has another books called so good. They can't ignore you which is after a quote from Steve Martin who somebody asked him how How did you get noticed? He just said be so good. They can't ignore you His his point is that You know, you know for me growing up. I've been trying to optimize like what is the I could do anything with my life what is it that I should be doing with my life and People would say follow your passion, you know, what are you passionate about? Just just go to school for that and then you can you can dedicate yourself primarily to that and Like it's it makes a lot of sense But only if you know what your passion is and the big point that Cal Newport makes in this this so good. I can't ignore you so good. They can't ignore your book is You don't know like how are you supposed to know what you're passionate about so Do more deep work learn more skills create what he calls career capital and then you can focus on things, right? And then you can then you can think man I am really good at this and I enjoy being successful at this I enjoy doing it now and then you just you've selected yourself to doing that If you think you want to be a writer, just start writing. Don't worry about Scrivener or what sort of note put notepad paper you should be writing on just whatever is next to you open up notepad in your Computer, which you know if you don't have a computer just write it on piece of paper Just write if you don't like writing. You're not gonna be a good writer. I Hope that isn't a facetious over simplification, but What is the best way to do X think of a good way don't think of the best way What is a Good way to do X and then do it