Sebastian, what's with you and leather boots? Do you have a fetish for them or something?
95%+ of the time, I'm wearing leather boots. Why? Because they're absolutely the most versatile and durable type of footwear. In a well-constructed pair of boots, you can go hiking, clean them up a little bit, go to a board room, and then go ballroom dancing. They work with everything from high fashion to staid business to rugged adventuring. They last forever, and are wearable in deserts, jungles, tundras, and -- of course -- cities and suburbs. You tend to accumulate memories in boots if you've got a good pair of them, because they outlast all other pieces of clothing. You can get them re-soled and repaired numerous times and keep wearing them. I can't say enough things about having a great pair of leather boots you love. The sweet spot if your budget is tight is getting a pair of boots that would normally retail in the $500 to $700 range on sale in the $120 to $180 range. You've got to look for them, but Saks Fifth Avenue and similar places will often discount boots heavily when leaving the winter season and entering summer. DSW Shoe Warehouse is also a good place to check out -- usually everything they have is terrible, but sometimes, very rarely, they'll have something amazing.
I don't want to drink, but I feel it's socially required. How did you do it?
Well, one day after a particularly disastrously enjoyable month in Amsterdam, I decided to quit drinking, recreational drugs, cigarettes, and drinking soda. (I also quit caffeine, though after more research I've gone on and off of it at different times. There's pros and cons of caffeine; there's definitely a place for it in a healthy lifestyle, but there's tradeoffs involved.)
How I did it? That's less important than why I did it. I did it because there's no profit in drinking. It ruins your health, makes you fat, makes you stupid, dulls your senses that night, dulls your senses the next day, and it isn't even that enjoyable. I much preferred, for instance, smoking hashish -- which at least doesn't make you fat -- and that was the harder one to give up.
But, I digress. You want to quit drinking. The rule is, people will let you not drink as long as you don't have the first one around them, ever. If you're the guy who doesn't drink and doesn't judge others, you'll still get invited to parties.
What should you say? Nowdays, I just say, "No, thanks." If pressed, I'll say, "No, really, I'm good. No thanks." I'm comfortable not being overly assertive about it. If someone says, "Hey! You don't drink!" (it happens verbatim like that, literally, sometimes) -- then I'll say, "That's true, I quit drinking in 2006."
But let's say you're just barely quitting, and people used to know you as a drinker. That's tough. In this case, you'll want to be more assertive, at least for a while. I'd recommend being quite firm about it, and stating your reasons clearly. Something like: "No, I quit drinking and don't plan on ever drinking again. I did it because..." and then fill in: "...I'm really seriously committed to getting perfect health", "...I think it gets in the way of being a good parent for me", "...alcoholism runs in my family, and I don't want to go there", "...I don't like myself when I drink", "...drinking gets in the way of my goals, for me." -- or whatever your reason is.
Be very honest and candid. Will you put people off? In my experience, just the opposite. I lost no friends, acquaintances, or contacts of note by quitting drinking, and I connected with a few people on a much closer level who said they were really grateful for my honesty on the topic. Nowdays, I'm more casual. But be strong early on.
A couple other questions I've gotten -- "What about in dating?" I'd recommend saying to your prospective beau or belle, "Let's not drink, I'd prefer we're both totally sober while we get to know each other the first time" -- it tends to be endearing and classy, actually.
And, finally, "What do I order at a bar to not look stupid?" To this, I'd say no one is paying attention to you at the bar anyways, and get over yourself. Really, no one cares. Really. People are so self-conscious, but no one is looking at your drink or lack thereof. But, you can always order a juice, soda water, or black coffee. I won't usually order a bottled water because it risks flaunting the non-drinking (I'm no fan of aggressive unsolicited moralizing...), and I usually don't drink juice, so it's usually soda water or black coffee for me. Diet Coke seems to work well for people, too.
Who is your favorite underrated strategist?
I'm interested in learning about history. Where should I start?
It depends on what you like. But generally speaking, it's easier to "follow people around" when learning about history. So, pick up a biography or historical fiction to start, and you'll learn about the era and times through the lens of the person as they go about their life. Abstract history is harder to get into and requires a higher baseline of knowledge to enjoy.
Scipio Africanus, Miyamoto Musashi, Charlemagne, Meyer Rothschild, or John Rockefeller would all be fine choices.
Some historians are able to capture the feeling of a diverse era by picking out people and following them around in disparate parts of the world. Jan Morris immediately comes to mind, with the absolutely brilliant "Heaven's Command" about Victorian Britain. (He showcases the good and bad quite fairly, and it's outstandingly researched and written... it seems to be crazy-expensive at Amazon with no Kindle edition, so maybe get the audiobook version from Audible, which is why I did -- the narrator on it was quite good.)
While we're on the audio kick, Dan Carlin's "Hardcore History" podcast is the best podcast I ever listened to. Start with "Death Throes of the Roman Republic" which is just utterly outstanding, and likewise follows people around Rome and contextualizes things well.
Last thought on history: if you're looking for an era to study, pick one that has a balance of interesting and sympathetic winners and losers. It gives you a more honest picture of history. To best learn personal and organizational lessons from history, you want eras that have multi-sided conflicts and with ambiguous and diverse morality among the many factions and players, so you can mine out insights from sympathetic and good people who were defeated despite their virtues (or sometimes, worse yet, because of them).
Thus, Sengoku Japan, the Renaissance, and the late Roman Republic -- for instance -- are all very good eras to study. There were some amazingly talented and brilliant people in those eras who are sympathetic, and wind up losing in the end. All these eras had multi-sided conflicts that have basically zero political significance now, so there's plenty of differing honestly discussed viewpoints on the key figures.
While I think the current era has immense historical lessons, it's tricky to sort fact from propaganda. I think anything that's happened in the last 300 years or so probably does not have enough objective unpolitical perspectives written on them -- or at least, they're hard to sort out. If you really must study recent figures though, both Mustafa Ataturk and Lee Kuan Yew are profitable company to take up.
What do you think about money?
I think it's terrific, but it's absolutely crucial to not be a slave to it. You need enough capital and cashflow to be able to turn down work you don't want.
I see there being three levels of really critical development on accepting and rejecting work:
Level 0: You take any work you can get.
Okay, you're hustling. That's something. Still, this can be pretty miserable, so getting up to...
Level 1: You refuse work from people you dislike or don't respect.
Once you hit this level, life gets a lot better. It's very hard to do brilliant inspired work for people you don't like or don't respect. Almost every sane professional adopts this rule relatively quickly, and their life gets much better. But many stop there, thus missing the tremendous gains from...
Level 1 Trillion: You only accept work from people you really like and admire.
This was one of the biggest shifts in my life. I only work with people I really like and admire. Everything changes when you adopt this rule. Everything. When you have immense respect and goodwill for everyone you work with, life becomes a joy and floating on a breeze.
This is made possible far more rapidly by not being a slave to money. Bank as much cash as you can, until you have adequate reserves of capital and cashflows. So, get a lot of money, and don't spend a lot of money until you're able to comfortably turn down perfectly fine work from people you don't love. You'll have major breakthroughs once you do this. (And you'll earn much, much more. Ironically. Because cranking out world class work is far easier when you love everyone you're working with.)
Do you have any thoughts on fitness?
Sure. The only kind of cardio I like -- seriously, the only one -- is the row machine. The row machine takes some learning of the form and is a little intimidating at first, but it's really enjoyable and I find I can get really into it, in a way that I can't with running, swimming, or biking. I pretty much hate cardio, except for the row machine. Try it out.
As for lifting, Mark Ripptoe's Starting Strength is, hands-down, the gold standard on the topic. I've yet to find anyone suggest a serious competitor for the book; it's the bible of weight training. No one who has read it and another book, and tried both rigorously, has ever recommended anything else as better. Seriously, it's amazing.
Final thought: women should lift weights and do strength training. No, you won't get bulky. Bulk requires high levels of testosterone and eating immense amounts. Plenty of men struggle brutally hard to put muscle mass on. You won't do it by accident. Try lifting weights with compound exercises -- real, heavy weight -- for a couple months and observe the difference in your physique, health, and energy.
Everyone should lift weights. Women, too. Get off the stupid ball and doing worthless little wrist twirls of nothing. Lift weights. It's a terrific quality-of-life improver.
How do I improve my diet?
It varies. You know yourself better than me. Do whatever works for you.
That said, I'm a big believer in scouting out new foods and introducing them to your diet before quitting other stuff. Lots of times, people quit a staple junkfood of their diet, but they don't replace it. You need to find new things to eat and drink, and acclimate to those. Introducing new foods makes quitting junk much easier. Start buying and trying lots of new kinds of healthy food and getting used to eating them.
Also, you probably already know the basics of good diet as we currently understand it, but I'll say that I was surprised that one of the biggest energy gains I got was from quitting deep fried food. I used to love fried chicken, but no more. I was surprised at just quite how bad the energy dip from deep fried stuff is, once I did a controlled test on and off of it.
I'm failing at implementing new habits. Why? Help!
You're failing at implementing new habits because changing your habits is hard. You should expect difficulty early on, and expect struggles, and mentally budget energy and time for things not to go well.
If you come in accepting that, you can change a lot and move your life towards your ideal life reasonably quickly. You probably can't have you want painlessly tomorrow, but you can have more than you ever thought possible within 3-5 years if you're diligent.
A few points:
*Don't beat yourself up or "self-prosecute" for trying and failing. Trying should always be celebrated.
*Never feel bad for showing up and doing poor work in a new area: a poor workout, a poor creative writing session, a poor planning session, etc, is a huge win. The early sessions are often frustrating, but celebrate anyways. Seriously, this is very important because the early sessions often go poorly or are embarrassing while you're finding your groove, and you need to keep praising yourself and celebrating.
*You should ideally design your habits to be robust enough to not completely fall apart if you miss the habit once-off.
*That said, never let yourself miss one. Stick religiously to it.
*That said, if you do miss one, then absolutely critically get right back on the horse. Really never miss two in a row, that's the beginning of the end right there.
*And with all of that said, you'll probably implement a habit, or try and implement it, and then have it not stick. As soon as you notice down the road that it didn't stick, try again. If it happens again, try again. Ideally, the time you spend "off-track" gets shorter and you start noticing more frequently that you're off-track and trying again. If you were totally unconscious about the importance of fitness, tried a workout regime, and then it didn't stick and a year passed... and you tried again, it didn't stick, but then you noticed and re-started after seven months... it sounds silly, stupid, and small, but it's progress. Ideally you get to the frustrating-but-almost-there point of falling off the horse and getting back on within a month. You've almost got a habit down pat once you hit that point. I've had habits that took me four years to put into place of repeatedly trying and failing, and trying some more. I've abandoned the notion of being frustrated at failing, I've (mostly) gotten rid of judging myself and self-prosecuting, and I just restart once I notice that the habit didn't stick that I wanted (if it still seems relevant). Not sexy, but it works. You keep at it, and you get there eventually.
Why don't people get what they want out of life?
Lots of reasons.
But I strongly suspect that one of the biggest impediments to your own success is an unhealthy ego. I see the ego not as a single solitary thing, but as a collection of different thought patterns and emotions operating in/through different parts of the brain that blend together.
That's important, because "more ego" or "less ego" or "stronger ego" are somewhat nonsensical statements. We understand what they mean in a short-hand sense, but they're not precise enough to be highly actionable.
Rather, one's ego must be fine-tuned. In some places, you need to build yourself up and be more assertive. Frequently, you'll assert yourself in the wrong ways and at the wrong times. Ironically, ego will often choke a person back from expressing what they're really good at, simultaneously with asserting they're good/competent/virtuous in an area they're weak. This is a huge problem. Asserting and owning one's competencies is important, and building self-esteem and a healthy ego lets you claim the rewards and do great works. Likewise, tearing down defense mechanisms and exploring areas you feel bad about and vulnerable is also important.
I'm being brief here not to be cryptic, but because the topic is quite hard to tackle. But the best way I've found to explore where my ego is helping and hurting me is this process:
(1) Spend plenty of time and be ruthlessly honest in soul-searching to figure out what you really want.
(Note: It has to be what you really want, not a lie you're telling yourself you want because it sounds good, or your parents want you to do it, or you think it's "the right thing to want." Is has to be something you really want. There's probably multiple things along these lines; do feel free to pick the one that's most societally acceptable if that's convenient to you, but make that a final bonus criteria instead of the first criteria. Ruthless self-honesty is key here.)
(2) Set goals around getting some of those deeply held desires.
(3) Observe where you fail and fall short, and then ask with a mix of being gentle to yourself and ruthless honesty (a tough combination, to be sure) why you did things the way you did and generated the results you did.
If it's a one-off thing due to lack of skill, experience, or not understanding the problemspace... well, maybe that's what it is. But as soon as you see anything happen a second or third time, there's quite possibly some ego, identity, and self-esteem stuff blended in.
It's a tough process, but a very important one. Those three steps are the ones I do and evaluate by, and use to figure out my weaknesses. If should hurt quite badly the first moment you realize you had an ego-problem holding you back from expressing your gifts or asserting you're good in an area you're not.
It's like the moment with the Detective and Kaiser Soze in The Usual Suspects. If it feels really, really terrible when you realize the root cause of a huge overarching problem theme throughout your life, you're doing it right.
Of course, it becomes liberating later. And you get to have what you really want out of life.
Oh, yeah, and go get a good pair of leather boots. Huge quality of life boost, there.