Monthly Archives: May 2012

Did you know your a monkey? We’re all a bunch of silly monkeys! Well, not quite, but still related in a sense. From our humble ancestral beginnings to now, we’ve come a long way. We have a space program, they still through their own shit at each other.

But something still resonates from them to us today, and it does so nearly identically. Can you guess what it is before I tell you?

Actually there’s 2 that come to mind immediately for me. I almost forgot this one, but fighting and violent behavior amongst our own species is no different than from our primal ancestors. Humans get fighting, we just get it. Letting go and opening up a can of whoop ass is something that can come naturally to all of us. But that isn’t the main genetic imprint left on us from our ancestors that I’m getting at today.

Look at the title, have you ever heard that expression before. Expressions aren’t just made up willy nilly for fun or without any significant underlying reason behind them.

We tend to copy one another. And I would say for the most part, its usually a good thing. When you really break this idea down, we all learn everything we know from birth by imitation and repetition. We try to mirror others actions and abilities.

Along the way you can pick up bad habits from others, but that’s 99% of the time your fault for hanging around someone frequently enough to pick up on these negative actions and behaviors.

Today’s Tip: Try copying someone else and how they perform an exercise that you think could really benefit you. Secondly, copy a healthy meal recipe that you’ve seen or heard about that sounds healthy and satisfying all the same to you.

I’ve had multiple people copy me with certain exercises that I’ve performed in the gym I currently go to. I know this becuase I’ve never seen them do it before and then suddenly add it to their workout routine when I’m present. This leads me to believe that they’ve watched me perform the exercise and simply copied it.

But the beauty behind it is I don’t mind or care really if someone copies me. I mean ask yourself, would you care if someone copied a great recipe of yours, or an exercise technique that you’re especially good at. Of course not. You’d probably feel the exact opposite.

You’d think, “Wow, its good to know I helped someone without even lifting a finger”. Simply by demonstration, or presentation of an idea, you can give someone else an idea that maybe they’d never think up of on their own.

And that my friends, is what makes humanity such a beautiful thing at the end of the day. Helping each other without intentionally, or even knowingly doing so.

So today is a bit of an odd post. Although the majority of posts on here could be generally considered odd (excluding my guest authors of course).

I was thinking about thinking the other day.

That’s right, no typo there. I thought about thinking and how thinking about thinking could actually improve ones um, thinking. Let me just cut to the chase here.

I feel like everyone could potentially have one or even several specific environments where they collect and organize there thoughts better than anywhere else.

Like when your in your living room with the TV on, have a friend on speaker phone on your cell, fiddling with your Ipod or netbook, and all while looking through Us Weekly isn’t the place nor time to delve deeply into personal reflection.

See I think that’s a huge setback with today’s modern man (and woman). We all have so many distractions and like to keep it that way. The reality of our actual lives is interpreted or ignored through some sort of electronic interface or electronic medium. I know, I know, we’re all not like this, and especially not 24/7. But still, technology today does play a huge role in all are lives. I mean there’s nothing wrong with it, after all it does make our lives a hell of a lot easier.

Hey I’m a bit of a tech junkie myself.

But even still, I always acknowledge when enough’s enough. Put it down, and go rest your brain, your mind, and your whole self for a moment. Try to find time in the day to disconnect yourself from it. That’s all I’m trying to say about this.

Now onto the actual point of the post. (Sorry, had to bring that point to light because technology is undoubtedly the biggest or most common distraction in today’s modern world)

What is a think tank? Its really just a place where one can think in total solitary silence. I think everybody has one (or should), but maybe some of you just don’t know it. The most common think tank is the bathroom I’d say. Like when your taking a shit. That’s also probably the most prime time in the day to collect and organize your thoughts. After a long hard days work, whether things went well or didn’t, sitting on the pot and squeezing out a good ol’ fudge dragon is always a good time for some deep personal reflection.

But hold the phone. I don’t think this is the only key or prime place to make your own think tank if you haven’t acknowledged this yet, or just haven’t figured it out.

For me, I’ve found that the car in a familiar place parked is a good one too. A lot of useful thoughts have come to me also in the great outdoors. Whether its a park, on a walk in the neighborhood, or even deep in the thick of it out it the wilderness.

So these 3 I guess are mine (bathroom, car, outside). But again I don’t think it stops there. Maybe something as simple as just in your bed on a quiet rainy night, or something else like your home office. Start now trying to notice where good ideas hit you because you might just be surprised. I have firmly always believed that having a place where you can just be alone with your thoughts and reflect on different aspects of your life and how to improve upon them (your health cough* cough*) could be super beneficial to anyone. There is a funny contrast to the think tank theory of course that we know and have experienced I’m sure.

Some of our best ideas come in the strangest of places and times. And there’s not a pen or paper in sight, and your phone is nowhere close by.

Regardless, give this some thought. Try to somehow rationalize where you tick best.

Hey like I said, you might be surprised…

I think I promised myself before I started this blog not to post anything directly not related to dieting or exercise (especially a video). I actually had a couple of rules or guidelines written out that would help keep me on track and on topic with the sites general theme.

But sure enough I lost that list. And now here I am going against the lost rule book and posting a video that is completely off topic.

Or is it?

Well I don’t just post up stuff here for fun. This isn’t a personal site, its for you guys, you know that. But there is a message in the video that I think translates over here to our side and my little corner of the internet.

This kid is 1 and a million. I mean let’s face it, he’s 1 in a billion the more you think of it. The one African native described him as a warrior. When he went to Uganda and all these other countries what impresses me the most is that he funded the whole thing.

It would appear that he intially saved money and took that money out of his own pocket to finance the well foundation. Eventually it spread like wildfire, but in the beginning it was all his original idea and plan.

I’m sure he eventually got lots of support from outside investors from humanitarian organizations and this company and that one, but he was the one who started the whole show. He didn’t have to take it this far, he could have stopped at building 12 wells, and called it a job well done, and probably still felt very good about the whole thing.

But instead he took it to a world wide scale and is now most definitely recognized as an international hero and an iconic youth of this era. Now that’s a damn fine way to have people look at you wouldn’t you say?

So now let’s make the connection to health, enough praise even though I’m still in awe by this story personally. So he saved hundreds of thousands of lives by building wells and giving communities clean water, but why?

The why doesn’t matter really, its the action that was taken. He felt something inside of him and took insane massive action. And he did not stop until the world was a better place, literally.

Now what if he felt this very same level a passion towards bettering his physical self?

Well by the looks of things, the way in which he does things combined with the distance that he takes them would lead me to believe only one thing.

He would be the perfect physical specimen.

Let’s say a close relative of his ate poorly their whole life and died because of it. And let’s also say he knew someone who because of lack of exercise suffered a fatal accident because they couldn’t physically pull themselves out of harms way.

Crappy examples like these would motivate him I think in the same way when he found out from his grade school teacher that many places in the world don’t have access to clean water.

An by the time he was in his teens, if diet and exercise was hypothetically his primary passion, he’d probably have a perfect all natural form by a very young age.

Today’s tip is simple, let a story like this into your heart. Let it motivate you to do whatever it is you know will make you better, and in becoming the absolute best you can be. Whether its bettering the lives of others, your own, or both.

And don’t stop like this kid until you are 100% sure, enough’s enough, and your mission is entirely complete in your eyes.