#I’d like to rework this at some point if i get better at structuring. I���m not satisfied by the level of clarity

[calligraphist-artemisia]

Soul of a Lion

Sequel to The Smallest Blade.

Summary: After the Red Lion steals them away from the Marmora base and takes them through a wormhole, Shiro, Keith, Katla, and Lance find themselves in front of a majestic castle with nowhere to go but inside. The events that unfold while they're there will change the fate of the universe.

Also posted on AO3 under the username “kishirokitsune”.

Happy New Year, everyone! I figured there was no better way to start out 2021 than by posting the first chapter of a new fic! I hope everyone enjoys it.

☆ - ☆ - ☆ - ☆ - ☆ 

1 | The Red Lion

Keith tightly gripped the controls, trying his best to redirect the Red Lion away from the glowing vortex, but she didn't respond no matter what he tried. He sent up a silent prayer that they weren't being dragged into immediate danger and then had to tightly shut his eyes against the intensity of the light. It only took a second and then they broke through the other side and he was able to open his eyes again.

“Where are we?” Katla asked, her voice close to him. He glanced to his left as she released her grasp on the back of his seat so she could step forward and get a better look at the navigation system. “Wait... but this is the Javeeno Star System. It should have taken us movements to get here!”

“Instantaneous transport. I know some of our brightest scientists and engineers have been working on it, but none of them have even come close. Not even the empire has been able to replicate the technology that allowed Alteans to travel so quickly, so how did we manage it?” Shiro asked, mostly to himself.

Katla was quick with a suggestion. “The Lion?”

“You think it could have been storing the energy until the right moment?”

While Shiro and Katla debated exactly how they were able to travel so quickly, Keith took his hands off of the controls and turned his attention to Lance instead. The Altean stood off by himself, his arms crossed over his chest as he stared at the floor, clearly upset about something. Keith assumed it had something to do with the fact that he tried to take off with the Lion on his own.

He wanted to be angry. Furious. But the fire in his veins ebbed away the longer Keith watched Lance. Even after the years the Altean had spent with them, there were still times when he didn't know what to make of Lance. There was something about him that rubbed Keith the wrong way. He was just... obnoxious.

But Keith couldn't deny that he was a good friend and whatever was happening with the Red Lion wasn't his fault, no matter how much Keith wanted to place the blame on him.

“What do you think about all of this, Lance?” he asked.

Lance looked surprised to be addressed, especially by Keith. “Me? I- I don't know about any of this! I swear, Keith!”

“I wasn't accusing you of anything, I just wanted to know what you think!” Keith snapped back.

“Well, you're the one who bonded with this thing! You'd know better than any of us!” Lance exclaimed.

“Forget it!” Keith grit his teeth and turned away from the Altean. Why did he even bother? He focused instead on the screen and the readouts the Lion was giving them. They were rapidly approaching a small, blue-and-green planet which had breathable air and a plethora of plant and animal life. According to what he read, the name of the planet was Arus and the beings who lived there were simply known as the Arusians.

The only thing that made him worry was the fact that the Javeeno Star System was the territory of a fearsome Galra general named Sendak, who was as ruthless as he was loyal to Emperor Zarkon. If they were caught by him or any of his men, he wasn't sure they would make it out alive.

They would have to tread carefully.

“Why have you brought us here?” Keith quietly asked the Lion.

The Red Lion answered with a roar as they broke the atmosphere, rapidly coming in for a landing on top of some cliffs bordering one of the oceans. As they grew closer, the air rippled in front of them and Keith could make out a grid-like pattern resembling a particle barrier. Before he could shout a warning, the barrier split open and revealed a massive white castle perched on the highest plateau. They easily passed through and it closed behind them.

“They've reworked their particle barrier into adaptive camouflage! How cool is that!” Katla squealed in excitement. “I've always wondered if it would be possible to use the electromagnetic radiation emitted by a barrier in conjunction with metamaterials built into the foundation of a ship in order to achieve some sort of invisibility in flight and this might prove that theory! I have to know how it works!”

“You just might get that chance,” Shiro told her as they landed just outside the massive main door.

The lighting in the cockpit went dim as the Red Lion landed and then went perfectly still, clearly indicating that they should all disembark and go into the castle. Shiro reached out and grabbed Katla's arm when she attempted to be the first one off, gently guiding her back into Keith's arms so he could take her place and lead the younger cubs (plus Lance) out of the Lion and into unfamiliar territory.

Katla calmed once they were on solid ground, her excitement over new tech tempered by the fact that they had no idea what they were about to face once they were inside. She easily fell into step alongside Keith, one hand in his while the other was loose at her side, ready to grab her blade if the situation called for it. Keith was much the same, though he was less subtle about the way his hand kept straying towards his knife.

Lance fell somewhere in the middle of their group, weaponless but no less alert to the potential of danger. He stuck a little closer to Shiro as they walked towards the massive main door. They all slowed as they drew close, unsure of how they would get in.

The Red Lion let out a roar that shook the ground with its intensity, which caused all of them to flinch and look around in suspicion. The only thing that happened was that the door opened to allow them inside.

“What is this place?” Katla wondered out loud, craning her head back to try and take in the entire structure. “The architecture... I've never seen anything like it! I wonder who built it.”

“Alteans,” Lance muttered in a surprisingly bitter tone. As if in response to his emotions, the purple of his disguised appearance shifted to a shade closer to blue, serving to better hide the markings high on his cheeks.

Shiro chanced one curious glance back at the only non-Galra of their group. “Anything we need to worry about?”

Lance shrugged.

“Maybe the Lion disabled any sort of security when it brought us here?” Katla suggested.

“Stay alert anyway,” Shiro instructed. “Basic infiltration protocol. Anything happens, find your way back to the Lion. Lance, stay with me.”

Everyone agreed to his commands and then they walked inside. The tick they stepped through the door, the lights of the grand entryway lit up around them, illuminating white floors and walls, all of which had a thin layer of dust coating it and turning it gray. As they walked farther into the castle, the blue lights of a hallway to the left began to flicker to life as though the castle was trying to guide them to where they were needed.

Shiro followed the lights.

There was no sign of life that any of them could tell, though they passed by a number of closed doors along the way.

“It's strange that there isn't more security,” Keith mentioned.

“I guess they're counting on the barrier to keep out any intruders. And like I said before, it could be that the Lion was able to disable whatever security they did have in place,” Katla said.

Keith vaguely gestured down the long hallway with his free hand. “There aren't any cameras. Nothing to suggest any type of surveillance or space for drones to hide until they're activated. None of the doors are reinforced with pin codes. If we wanted to detour, I bet they'd open just by one of us pressing our hands to the panel.”

“I'd rather not test that theory,” Shiro spoke up.

Keith dropped his hand back to his side. “My point is this ship isn't fortified for battle. I'd argue that the barrier is its sole defense.”

“It must have a way of quickly getting out of range of any attack. Maybe it's really fast?” Katla suggested. “Or... Well, the Red Lion brought us here. Maybe that's part of the castle defense as well.”

“If that were the case, then she should have been here and not back on Venadh,” Keith argued.

Katla inclined her head, conceding to his point. “Okay, so the barrier is the primary defense and there doesn't appear to be any internal security. This definitely isn't an Altean warship, which means it must have been used for exploration or maybe as a headquarters of some sort? I just don't see why the Red Lion brought us here if it wasn't important.”

Lance kept his silence throughout their discussion, adding none of his own thoughts or opinions. No one tried to force him to speak when it was clear there was something about the castle that was bothering him.

The debate ended abruptly when they arrived at the end of the hall and the doors slid open to admit them into a strange round room. There was a podium near the center and six circular indents in the ground.

Shiro took a single step into the room and there was a hissing sound as three of the indents cracked down the middle and then opened. Slowly, three cylindrical pods rose from their hiding spot in the floor until they clicked into place. Through the semi-translucent glass, they could make out three bipedal figures.

“Healing pods,” Keith murmured in recognition. “They're different from the ones back on base.”

Katla tried to walk closer to the pods for a better look, but Keith tugged her back to his side.

“We don't know who's in there,” he admonished.

Katla rolled her eyes but didn't make a second attempt. “We won't find out anything if we don't investigate. Besides, this is an Altean castle which means they're probably Altean.” She paused a moment as her brain caught up with her mouth and she quickly turned to Lance, a new question poised on her lips.

Her words died as Lance stepped forward with an unreadable expression on his face and pressed one palm against the tank.

There was a hissing sound as the pod farthest from them suddenly released a frigid fog, the doors peeling open to reveal a young woman with silvery-white hair. She remained upright for a moment before she lurched forward with a harsh gasp.

“Father!”

She stretched out one hand and stepped down jarringly hard with her right leg, managing to stand for less than a tick before her knees gave out and she folded weakly to the floor.

Shiro, despite all of his warnings of caution to the others, was unable to resist walking over to help someone who was in need of it. He stopped a short distance away from her and held out his hand. “Miss, are you alright?”

The Altean woman tensed and slowly turned to face Shiro, her apparent shock rapidly giving way to fear and then anger. Shiro barely had time to react before she was on her feet and unsheathing a small dagger from the folds of her dress, which she held protectively in front of her.

“Who are you?” she demanded. “How did you get on this ship? What have you done with my father?”

Shiro held up both hands placatingly and took a step back, doing his best to appear as non-threatening as possible. “I'm Shiro and we were all brought here by a Red Lion. We haven't seen anyone else on your ship, but your father could be in one of these pods.”

She didn't take her eyes off of Shiro. “Why should I trust a word that you say? You're Galra!”

“You asked,” Keith muttered barely loud enough for Katla to hear.

And then a second pod cracked open and released a cloud of freezing fog and the mustachioed Altean who sprang forth only added to the tension by attempting to attack Shiro with a loud battle-cry. Shiro side-stepped him with a bemused expression.

When Keith tried to jump in and help, it was Katla's turn to hold him back and stop him from getting into trouble.

“Enough!” Shiro commanded. “We're not any happier to be here than you are in having us here, so if you could stop for a tick maybe we can figure out why the Red Lion brought us here and how we're meant to leave.”

The male Altean froze in the middle of preparing for another attack, his face rapidly paling. “The Red...? You're lying!”

Keith bristled in Shiro's defense. “Why would we lie about that?”

“You're trying to trick us into letting our guard down! Well, I won't fall for it this time!”

“No one is trying to trick anyone,” Shiro loudly cut in, giving Keith a look warning him not to speak again. “Just calm down so we can talk this through. No more arguing. No trying to attack one another. None of us are happy about this situation, so lets take a moment to calm down and try to tackle this reasonably.”

Silence followed in the wake of Shiro's words.

The Altean woman glared at him for a moment, conveying her continued anger without saying a word, before turning so quickly on her heel that her hair fanned out around her and brushed against Shiro's closest arm. She strode over to a podium and began pressing keys on the surface, causing a holographic screen to rise up and illuminate with data in an unfamiliar script.

Shiro could see Katla trying to move so she could get a better look at the tech and was relieved when Keith kept her in place. A quick glanced at Lance let him know that their disguised Altean was behaving himself and appeared to be doing whatever he could to avoid drawing unwanted attention.

The less they aggravated theirs hosts, the better.

It was as the Altean woman let out a loud gasp of shock that the third and final pod opened. The Altean within was heavyset, with dark skin and nearly golden markings painting his upper cheeks. He lurched forward and caught himself on the sides of the pod, closing his eyes as he took a moment to reorient himself.

“...Princess, what is it?” asked the mustachioed Altean after a moment of hesitation, his attention torn between his two companions.

“Coran, I...” She trailed off, her voice trembling as she stared in horror at the screen. “We've been in there for nearly ten-thousand decaphoebs. We've missed so much! Everything... everything is gone! I don't understand how this is possible. What happened to the fail-safes? How were we in the cryo-pods for that long?”

Coran looked uneasy as he joined her at the podium, sharp blue eyes scanning the screen. “I wish I could say, Princess.” He turned his head towards the Altean who was still standing in one of the pods. “Hunk, could you take a look?”

Shiro recognized the exact moment the Altean – evidently named “Hunk” – fully took note of the people around him. Eyes widened, his grip tightened, and breathing quickened.

And then, miraculously, he visibily relaxed.

“You found a Lion?” Hunk asked, his voice a curious whisper.

The Princess whipped her head up. “Impossible. They must be lying.”

“We're not-!” Keith's heated words came to a swift end thanks to Katla's elbow to his side.

Hunk seemed perfectly okay with ignoring his princess and instead continued to speak to Shiro, who was the closest to him. “We wouldn't be awake if you weren't brought here by one of the Lions. It's the only possible way you could have gotten through the barrier without breaking it and setting off a full lockdown. His Majesty made sure of that.”

It was a simple explanation, but more importantly it told Shiro that there was at least one of them who would be willing to hear them out instead of outright dismissing their words.

Shiro figured the best place to start was with introductions.

“I'm Shirotak,” he said, giving Hunk a slight bow. “Those two are Katla and Keith. Behind me is Lance.”

Hunk offered up a tremulous smile and a bow in return, quickly stumbling through his own introductions and finally giving up the name of the princess, who was called Allura. It was to her that he turned when he finished speaking. “Princess, maybe we should go somewhere and talk about this?”

“Yes...” she agreed, clearly reluctant. “I think that would be for the best.”

[pennyfynotes]

8.2.18 // 4:30pm // school subjects and AP exams oh my

so i recently (ok not so recently i’m sorry super busy rn) got an ask from an anon about subject specific tips and ap exams. this is the masterpost i told you to look out for ;). there are no ap exams in college, but some of the stuff is still applicable. i did my best to be as comprehensive as possible and dump everything in one place. hope this is helpful! xoxo, m ps. guess where the actual tips are?    if you said “under the cut” then you’re right bc i’m predicable af

tips by subject:

languages (i took spanish): 1. flashcards are your friend. i don’t care if they’re digital (would recommend quizlet or studyblue) or paper, but they help immensely with either vocab or things like remembering literature.

2. charts are also your friend. conjugations giving you a hard time? write out a chart of the different tenses and the conjugations for each subject. put down some of the irregulars too.

3. acronyms/pnemonics are also also your friend. a lot of these already exist, you just have to go find them. i’m pretty sure i still remember what “wedding” stands for for the spanish subjunctive.

4. it’s ok to start over. it’s easy to start a sentence based on what you’d say in english. you’re doing fine until *bam* you hit that word/phrase you really need but you have no clue how to say it. whether it’s an oral or written exam, take a few seconds to think about it and, if you can’t figure it out, just back track. restart the sentence and rework it. better to do that than to lose all your time thinking of one word you may or may not know.

5. skirt around things. if you can’t remember how to say fridge but you really need to say it for something, just say “machine that keeps food cold” or something. it might sound silly,  but it gets the point across and removes the road block.

6. make a list. no, not a to do list. if there’s phrases you find yourself reaching for all the time, but you can never remember, make a list of them and their translations. it might be because its a phrase/part of a sentence structure you use a lot in your native language or whatever. make that list and drill just those few phrases into your head. it’s helpful

english/language arts: 1. proofread. i guarantee you’ll find a mistake, a sentence that makes no sense, or one that just sounds cringy. thank me later.

2. have a damn thesis. its ok if you just need to write and spit words/ideas out for a while to figure it out. but figure it out.

3. conclusion ~= introduction. for those of you who didn’t get the tilde, it means not. yes, they both tie your points to your thesis but they are not to same. do not just reword the same information in the conclusion. push your ideas just a little further. i usually like the push them a little bit outside the realm of what i talked about in my paper. for example, if i focused on the first 5 chapters of the book in the rest of my paper, i’ll expand the ideas to the rest of the book. or if i’m talking about female characters and focus on just one or two, i’ll use the conclusion to potentially connect it to another.

4. have favorites. pick a few fav transitions, sentence structures, and fancy vocab words. basically build a toolbox. this way you won’t have to think as hard when you want to “spice up” your work.

5. summaries only go so far. once you get to higher level english classes, there will be a lot of analysis of specific imagery, or wording, or dialogue. reading cliff notes is only going to give you the plot and none of this. if you don’t have time to read and you’ve been assigned a pretty standard english novel/play/whatever, take the time to look up some famous quotes or symbols. they’ll probably come up in discussion and this will help you look less unprepared.

6. have on question/comment ready. if your teacher/prof is into discussions and grades on participation, it’s handy to write down one (or a few) things. it’s easy to forget what you were going to say while you follow the discussion and it sucks to get docked points for not saying anything. even if it’s just a thoughtful question, jot it down.

history: 1. lol prob my weakest subject, just go see the apush (ap us history) section bc i don’t have much more for you than that.

science: 1. back to basics. i say it all the time, i’ll say it again. really understand basic concepts. they will come back. i’m serious.

2. pattern recognition. science problems are often times about recognizing patterns. once you identify the type of problem it is, even if you’ve never seen the exact one/something similar before, solving it becomes way easier.

3. make a recipe book. tied to the last one, but once you recognize a type of problem, you need steps to solve it. go through any practice problems you’re given to determine all the “types” of problems. once you’ve categorized them, make yourself a step-by-step guide on how to solve.

4. flashcards. you’ll have to know polyatomic ions or random biology facts. see languages tip #1 for more.

5. note your errors in lab. if you do something wrong, don’t just try to brush it under the table and forget about it. not that it’s a big deal, because its not, so don’t freak out. they’re just great opportunities to note sources of error. i mean obviously dont write in your lab report that you weren’t paying attention and mixed the wrong chemicals, but something like “we may not have waited sufficient time for the product to dry” can explain why you got 800% yield.

6. have a toolkit. kinda like a recipe book, but just a collection of straight facts that come up often. knowing common molecular weights and chemical properties (is ammonia acidic or basic?) will make things go faster. like i said earlier, polyatomic ions are also great.

7. brush up on some simple arithmetic. similar to the tool kit, this will just make things go faster. being able to quickly add things and calculate easy percentages (ex: 30%) will make things like hw and exams go faster. i’m of the opinion it’s always good to know how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide w/o a calculator (on paper, not all in your head)

bonus: math #5 and #7

math: 1. see science #1

2. see science #2

3. see science #3

4. see science #4. see a pattern here? you might wonder why you need to flashcard math, but it’s good for learning equations or the names of certain techniques. if the prof asks you to solve something using X technique and you don’t know what that is, that’s gonna pose a problem. also good for the unit circle (don’t get me started)

5. figure out your speed. this is applicable to most everything, but i find it most relevant for math. is it better for you to speed through the whole exam and then do it all again/check it over 2x? or for you to take it slow so you know you got everything right the first time? personally i use the first approach, but i’m a fast taker and prefer to have time to process between repeating problems instead of staring at it forever once and never looking again.

6. science #7. a lot of teachers will expect you to be able to do this.

7. go over the material a couple times. also applicable to everything. i find it’s easier to remember things when i know that concepts are connected. you might have learned X 3 weeks before Y, but if you go back over, you might realize they’re closely related. this will help you if you’re not sure on a test because you can reason through things using the connections you’ve drawn

tips by ap course (obv look at the subject above bc i will be giving *really specific stuff* here that i’ve gathered from experience. they’re also ordered by when i took them, sorry it’s not super logical but i didn’t want to forget one)

general ap course/exam tips: 1. practice exams. you need to be familiar with what will/will not show up. you don’t always need to simulate and real testing situation, but i’d recommend doing at least 1-2 that way. also *know how many questions they’re are you so can pace yourself!!!!*

2. college board is pretty good about giving topic breakdowns. use those. go through and figure out what topics you’re solid on and which need more work. the above tip is to help decipher what the topics actually mean bc it can be confusing.

3. give the free response a quick flip through. do the ones you’re confident on first.

4. make sure you know the policies/what you can bring. don’t want to forget something. also once our test administrator tried to stop us 10 minutes early, but we were on top of our shit and all gave her a death glare bc we knew when we were supposed to finish.

ap chemistry: 1. polyatomic ions and molecular weights. know them

2. chapter/section reviews (in addition to class notes) and how-to guides. my teacher made us make them and let’s just say your girl did *really* well (and i’m damn proud of that one)

3. do a quick skim of the free response. applicable to most exams but, the year i took it, they’d just remade and re-curved the exam and put *way* too many free response. like no one finished them. if that’s still the case, make sure you do the one’s you’re confident on. also, i did not get to like 3 questions and still got a 5. they may have fixed this idk. (sorry this is redundant but i wanted to give this ap chem exam specific info)

ap environmental science: 1. there is a lot of damn information here. i would use chapter outlines and pick out key terms, policies, and events etc. treat this like a history class.

2. for the exam, use common sense. most of the time, the most environmentally friendly answer is the right one. if you just have a general gist of the course and its topics, but don’t know a lot of details, go with your intuition and you should be fine. i didn’t have a lot of time to study for this one and this method worked for me.

ap calc bc: 1. memorize standard derivatives. power rule, sin and cos, chain rule. that’s important.

2. similarly, memorize standard integrals.

3. don’t forget +c for indefinite integrals. just don’t.

4. similarly, if it’s definite, don’t forget to evaluate at the end! super easy thing to do, but also super easy way to lose points if you forget.

5. if the integral looks complicated, that probably means there’s a “trick” involved. u substitution, integration by parts, trig substitution. something like that.

6. memorize some standard series’, operations, and types (arithmetic, geometric etc)

7. if you’re looking at a word problem, understand what is dependent on your variable and what isn’t (in other words, what’s a constant). for example, if it says the water flows into the barrel at 50 mL/s and flows out at 1/5 times the volume, that translate to F = 50 - (1/5)V. don’t make things more complicated by trying to write everything in terms of V (in this example). also, your equation might just be a constant term or just a variable term doesn’t have to be both.

8. know what your derivative is with respect to/what it really means. aka if your problem is talking about flow and volume, how are they related to each other? flow is the change in volume *with respect to time*. so if i differentiate volume with respect to time, i get flow. if i integrate flow with respect to time, i get volume. this also helps you make sense of word problems.

*disclaimer*: it is been 5 years since i took this class and i have taken quite a few math classes after. i apologize if i introduce anything that is a little irrelevant.

ap spanish language: 1. flashcard. like seriously. there’s gonna be vocab involved.

2. understand what’s asked. for the persuasive email. *be persuasive*

3. toolkit. i mentioned this before but this was probably the most useful for this class. our teacher gave us a bunch of fancier words to use instead of causar (to cause) because that was a word we’d need a lot. the one that still sticks with me 4 years later is fomentar. have a few alternatives for these kinds of super common words, a good greeting and closing for your email, and a set of good transitions. *make sure you know how to use them properly*

4. write stuff down during listening. you can either answer questions during the first listen, then take notes the second to catch stuff you missed or vice versa.

5. it’s ok to backtrack in the speaking. don’t let yourself get stuck and just not say anything. it’ll freak you out for the rest of the exam and will rob you from showing off what you know. also take notes of things you want to mention based off cultural knowledge of the situation related to the dialogue.

6. don’t zone out. with everything going on and all the stress, it’s easy to zone out (esp during the conversation). don’t do it or you’ll have a hard time responding and freak yourself out (again)

7. don’t lose your place in the convo! they give you a sheet that shows you how many times the other “person” will talk. i lost track and said goodbye one segment early. it was bad ok. all these conversation tips are from personal experience.

ap statistics: 1. know the different kinds of tests inside and out. know the differences and the conditions. if you’ve got that, you’re like 75% the way there.

2. be familiar with sample vs population. it’s a bit confusing, but take the time to understand.

3. ok sorry i really don’t remember anything else. this exam really isn’t that difficult (in my opinion), you’ll be ok.

ap physics c: 1. free body diagrams. understand how to draw them *and draw them*. they will carry you through mechanics. draw gravitational force, normal if there’s a surface, and then any other given forces.

2. basic equations. you get an equation sheet, but knowing the equations means you know the concepts and the relations between them. big ones are f=ma and the equations relating position (x), velocity (v), and acceleration (a). also friction f=uN.

3. *normal isn’t always the opposite direction of gravity!!!!* gravity is straight down. normal is perpendicular to the surface.

4. vector components. please don’t just add vectors. break them down into components and then add or you are so fucked.

5. get familiar with triangles. this will help with the whole component thing.

6. kirchoffs rules are so helpful. know them.

7. understand the relations between voltage/potential and current in terms of the properties of circuit elements. that means the equations for resistors, capacitors, and inductors.

8. know how to add in parallel and series. it’s important. also! if the circuit is drawn “weird” a good way to know series vs parallel is that parallel elements share two nodes and that series circuits only share 1.

9. sorry i kinda blocked out E+M bc i didn’t know what i was doing (or so i thought). i still got a 4 tho so that curve is generous.

ap us history: 1. chapter outlines. pretty self explanatory.

2. make a timeline. put important events, sentiments, policies, and presidents. if you can associate these things together into time periods it will be easier. most of the time, any one question (esp long response or whatever they’re called) will only focus on 1 time period.

3. sentiments are important. if you know nothing else, know these bc they will help guide you through questions by reasoning even if you know nothing else.

4. gilder lehrman (or similar us history summaries). these are tailor specifically to apush bc they are organized by period (i think that’s what they were called?). i actually fell asleep listening to these bc i didn’t have time to study. they were mildly helpful, but every little bit helps right?

ap psychology: 1. chapter outlines/flashcards. this course is based heavily on key terms and less so on larger concepts.

2. ok sorry i took this online i remember literally nothing except how annoying my teacher was and that the exam was easy. if you know terminology i think you should do fine.

ap biology: 1. there is a lot. go through all the topics and make sure you’re solid. start with the big picture, then think about narrowing down.

2. know how charts work. things like pedigrees, punnet squares, and evolution trees (that’s def not the right term). some of the exam will just be interpretation of this.

3. i am so sorry i remember nothing else.

ap spanish literature: 1. flashcards. title, author, time period, short summary, key elements (a line, character, symbol). this is *so helpful*

2. think about the works in relation to each other. you might be asked to compare them. even if they ask you to compare something on the reading list with something new, you’ll be familiar with the points you might talk about.

3. know the lit terms. more flashcards. associate them with a particular work if you can/need to.

4. don’t freak on the listening. a lot of the recordings are old and shitty quality. take a deep breath and try your best. know that the rest of the test takers (excepting maybe natives) are experiencing the same thing.

5. use that tool box. see general spanish and ap spanish lang.

this is so freaking long and i think the moral of the story is that i blocked out my senior year ap exams. i hope this was helpful and, if you have more questions, or want more stuff like this, let me know!

[kierongillen]

Writer Notes: The Wicked + the Divine 26

Spoilers, obv.

This felt like a big issue to us. I mean, in a literal sense it was a big issue. We normally are 20 pages of art (plus cheats). This is 23 pages of art, due to me completely fucking up and writing a 22 page script extremely early, thinking I'd go back to it and work out a way to compress it to 20. Except I forgot I had extra work to do on the script, so didn't leave enough time to rework it before Jamie had to get it. And then Jamie insisted on expanding a sequence by a page, because he loves you guys, or at least loves the comic.

I don't really think I could have compressed it without hurting the comic either. I compress the action at the start, and it leaves a reader cheated. I talked about false drama of cliffhangers last time, and if you don't have at least some manner of satisfying that promise, it's a cheat, and not in an interesting way people would thank us for. However, at the same time, that's not what we're really doing here. Equally, losing stuff from the back of the issue would move it into the next issue... and that is also sub-optimum, for reasons you'll see next time.

Put it like this: Jamie joked “can we split this issue in two?” and I took it entirely seriously, and started doing the math on making this a seven issue arc.

But no.

There's also one change which should be mentioned – we've gone up to $3.99 from $3.50. Why? Image suggested we should. There are very few Image books that are $3.50 now. The vast majority are $3.99. We've had our price set at $3.50 ever since 2006, with the exception of Immaterial Girl. We figured we should listen to our publisher. 50 cents across a decade seems reasonable, especially in an industry where $3.99 seems standard.

Anyway, let's do this thing...

Jamie/Matt's Cover The Norns, and they are kind of core to this issue, so more of a connection between cover and contents than for most of the issue. For reasons that become clear this issue, The Norns and Baal step forward as alternative protagonists for the story structure. They are key.

There was considerable EEEK! Over the wearing of masks.

Nicola Scott's Cover

Nicola's wonderful. I've wanted a candid photo cover for most of WicDiv, and I'm surprised it's only turned up now. It's also delineating Sakhmet and Persephone, which is a key note towards the end of the issue.

The Image 25th Anniversary Cover

It should be stressed, this was Eric Stephenson's idea.

You may wonder how we did it.

This is how we did it.

In short: we did it like an episode of Playschool. The lighting being a lamp, gaffataped to a wall is a particular highpoint.

And then Katie-west worked her magic.

All the good jokes on the covers are Jamie's, which is very annoying, but makes me feel better when I laugh at it, as at least I’m not laughing at my own crap.

Page 1

I love the first panel. I almost put it in the newsletter, but decided we should save that thrill for context. It's very much in the establishing shot mode, and a promise. Jamie and Matt executing things like Minervas concussive wind blasts out of the swirling body is lovely detail too.

I did have something akin to a NOT AGAIN! As a line of dialogue from Minerva here, but was obviously killed for breaking tone. See later in the notes for other thoughts on that whole sequence.

And by the end of the page, we've changed direction entirely. No, this isn't going to be a straight fight. We have other narrative fish to fry.

Page 2-3

RISING ACTION was basically four issues of straight punchy, with a middle act of woe. We're not the sort to do that again, and immediately try and make this feel different. That first panel where we get a very human observation of a superhero event. A glance out the window, and shit is going down out there. There is a lot to try and ground this as we go on, even as it escalates...

I suspect Amaterasu's realisation is one of the cruellest lines I've written for her.

Heh. Okay – want to hear another example of me messing up? I knew I needed Amaterasu here, ASAP. But I had also set the scene at night, so her long-range-teleportation doesn't work. This led to a rewrite to bring in the Woden-designed-arm-piece from Rising Action. And it helps in other ways – we get the interaction with her mum, which says a lot about Amaterasu. I do like the idea of Amaterasu having left this piece of fancy armour lying around on her bedroom floor and her mum tidied it up.

Jamie pushed a panel from page 3 onto page 2, which is obviously a smarter call, letting him keep a steady angle on the three teleportation panels, which nails the effect. The breaking up dialogue to show that things are instantaneous is obviously one of our tropes.

The lettering on this sequence involved some messing around with layers to get work, and to make the fade in operate. Nice work, Clayton. This is also an area where my suspicion of sound-effects was entirely over-ruled.

Page 4

And hulllllo Baal's family.

This strikes me as a very WicDiv take on a reveal. It could have worked with just a reveal of his family – we'd want to see that. But to reveal that, and juxtapose it to the creeping monsters, so mixing the excitement of meeting new people with the fear of losing them? That's WicDiv, innit? Sigh.

This was also the page which went through the most colouring notes. Getting the exact level of reveal on the Great Darkness creatures, of how much they're in the light or not took quite a few takes. We're very happy.

Page 5

We are totally not rated PG.

Page 6-7

If you follow me on twitter, you'd see me doing a crowdsurfed suggestion for a line of dialogue for someone to say when they're pulling someone out of the way. That was this page, and Persephone pulling the tentacles. I decided that any dialogue was too much. It even makes it jokey (clearly not the intent) or slows down the action. Even a “NO!” felt too much for me.

We're heading more towards action here, and doing a beautifully rendered fight-scene in someone's garden. This feels a very us thing to do.

I believe I described the Amaterasu laser beam shot in the mode of a Quietly moment, that sense of a still moment in time. Jamie and Quitely don't have a huge amount of overlap as artists for me – Quitely is all about the 3D space of a shot, which Jamie simply isn't – but this captures something really furious. The colouring from Matt on the heat vision is particularly A+.

The push and pull of Amaterasu is very much her thing. Her bravery is an open question, as is her capacity for anger and violence. From Persey-Poo to incinerating her foes in a couple of pages doesn't exactly make me feel comfortable about her. So nice work, J ane M.

Also Good Job Baal's Brother on spotting the baddies.

Page 8

Jamie and my debate on exactly how to (er) Biggify the Darkness creature was quite a thing. Of course, the creatures are granular. We can't just make the grains bigger.

We were a little worried that Persephone firing red thorns being a little confusing, when red is Amaterasu's signature. We may end up tweaking them green in the trade. Not that we've seen anyone complain about it.

I think Amaterasu's living-Darkseid-stary-beam is my favourite regular power signature in this book.

Lots of careful unpacking on what is said on the phone, to ensure clear storytelling. That we never actually show the Great Darkness Creature back at the shard defeated is an unsusual choice... but we need to make sure that people know it HAS been defeated and Minerva rescued. Equally, we come back to the nature of cliffhangers we mentioned earlier. We've promised a fight against the Great Darkness, but are much more interested in introducing Baal's family, showing Amaterasu's complicity in this, Persephone's powers, etc. So you DO get a great darkness fight, just not the one you were expecting, which is hopefully okay as the one you were expecting is a lot less interesting than this. Hopefully.

The Phone is a Woden design, as referenced later in the issue. Baal can't just go down any phone. You'll see one on his living room table in last issue.

Page 9

This is the sort of page I'd have ended up cutting if I tried to reduce the issue... and why would I want to do a thing like this?

There was a discussion of whether ALL I DO IS WIN was too much. It eventually worked around to obviously it's too much, but WicDiv is too much, so that's all fine.

This is a lovely set of colouring from Matt here. The white and purple is just a delight.

Notice tiny Scarab-esque thing shooting off in the top right panel. In a moving medium the Great Darkness' nature would be a lot cleaner, but we do stuff like this.

Page 10

And we're back to grounded colours. Just turn this page and see how things change. Isn't that a delight? Matt Wilson For Eisner, etc.

Yes, Baal's name is Valentine Campbell. Obviously we chewed it over a bunch. Valentine has so many connotations seemed to be useful.

I find myself thinking that in the first half of the issue Persephone is almost back to volume 2 Laura. She's primarily an observer, one who is taken places and sees thing. That does tend to make Amaterasu's final line particularly pointed.

Lovely pair of expressions in that final panel.

Page 11

The title for this was originally ONCE MORE, leading directly into Baal's first line, and hitting the beat again. That changed when I realised I wanted to do the whole sequence as a nine panel grid.

This is the first time all the surviving gods have been in a scene together, and it's a circular table. Luckily, when I mapped the gods to the seats, the ones who are most important to interact are actually sitting beside each other – imagine how difficult it would have been if Baal and the Norns weren't seated by each other.

(We'd have done something else, clearly, and had the Norns standing like Persephone is.)

So I was trying to work out how to panel all this political-meeting style chat, and hit the bit where the gods vote. And I realised that as there were nine gods voting, it'd work really well as a nine-panel grid. That rapidly expanded to... wait, especially with Baal/Norns sitting by each other (so minimising the need for wide shots) I could do the whole thing in a nine panel grid. That allows you to cut between individual characters speaking, and not have to worry about the interactions for most of it.

That unlocked the way to best dramatically sell the Persepone's final line. If we build a structure, we can get an aesthetic effect by demolishing it.

It's not the first time we've done a Nine Panel Grid in our work, but its' certainly the longest. And if we're doing Nine Panel, it brings it back to Watchmen, which means that we should highlight that. Hence, the title altering to THE WATCH, which obviously has all kinds of connotations.

I go through this to primarily show how much fun this job can be. Stuff builds on top of other stuff, and you eventually end up with something much more full than the original idea. For me, pretty much nothing is as good as writing is when it's going right.

Which is the sort of thing I'll get depressed about if I think too much about it, so let's not for now, eh?

Page 12

If we're going to do the nine panel thing, we need to establish the scene properly. Two panels, built on a nine-panel grid superstructure.

Obviously this was a heavy described panel, as we had to cram in all the character beats for all the people. Baph's slouch is particularly on point. The coffee that Dio is hanging onto for dear life another. The Norns not getting a seat.

One thing I particularly like about this page? It forefronts the visual element of the table with twelve gods around which people may not have noted. This, on a page after a big title saying THE WATCH is more obviously a clock face.

Yes, Watchmen was a big influence on me as a writer. Did I mention it? I may have mentioned it.

Page 13

Oh man – look at Matt's use of shadow here. Baal in the darkness on last page was great, but passing from the shadow to light in the first panel.

When I first saw Jamie had put Minerva in plaid I worried for him. “Er... Jamie. Drawing Plaid is a lot of work.” He noted that as there was only a few panels with her in, it'll be fine. Jamie is not entirely foolish.

The page does show one of the things about the nine panel – as in, you get more beats... but you have to be pretty particular to choose those beats. 9 panel is good for a writer, for certain things (most important: timing), but you can do less with any one panel. On the plus side your beats are more deliberate, more delineated.

In this case, showing Persephone's is relatively “expensive” in page space, but clearly necessary – Baal is saying the stuff he's never said before. We need to see her response.

And yeah... Baal finally lays out his main motivation. I suspect for close readers or re-readers, things make a lot more sense.

The seventh panel is one of four two shots I can see in this whole sequence, to get an idea of how sparsely we tried to use them. Maybe 5 if you include the one with Woden asking “Does she get a vote.” Though I say this having only skimmed quickly, and am sure I must have missed one..

The non sequitur panel of the 8th is one of my fave things you can do with a rigid panel like this. Drop a silent panel and break it up.

Page 14-15-16

Honestly, this kind of shit is stuff I love. Just lock characters in a room and let them argue. Political dramas. Legal dramas. It's just a fascinating writing challenge – who speaks next and why. How to delineate the information, how to lampshade information is questionable, etc, etc.

I mean, in some ways this sort of debate is pure exposition – here are some statements – but the fact that each is immediately interrogated turns it into something else.

Basically, if left to my own devices, I'd have just done a 40 issue series in the style of 12 ANGRY MEN called 12 ANGRY GODS.

In terms of my outline, I knew that the pantheon would have a schism at this point. Until Brexit happened, I didn't realise that it would be by something as clear and true as a simple democratic vote.

The hand on Cass' shoulders is the sort of thing I'd have only done in a nine panel grid.

Yes, Baphomet, there was a time for jokes, and it was in the first arc.

PAGE 17

This issue, for reasons which we'll get to shortly, had some consultants' eyes on. That bit was fine. The thing which was tweaked then, and tweaked time and time over is trying to delineate the sides. The first draft simply hadn't sufficiently. Hell, the second or third lettering tweaks didn't do the trick completely. At least from the comments we've seen, no-one seems lost, so the effort seems worth it.

The problem is that each member of the debate wants to phrase their position in the best way possible and their enemies in the worst way, which actually leaves it hard to say what's actually go on. This led to Baal in the final panel actually bringing it together – the PRIORTISE THE GREAT DARKNESS vs STUDY is the key thing. ANARCHY had to be introduced explicitly by cass to describe someone else's position as a label before it could be used here too.

In terms of minor fact drops? One of the things people always ask is what's going on with the skulls. Here we just let people know they're ornaments.

In terms of the nine panel grid, I think the single hardest decision was letting go of showing the Norn's response to Sakhmet's threat. Alas, everything else is more important.

The second one would be Baal doing something like counting people around the room, to ensure that the reader knows that Baal thinks he's won. In the end, we highlight that later, and with the ellipsis  in the eighth panel. And, of course, as always a Jamie McKelvie expression goes a long way.

Er... I'm writing too much about this stuff, but I hope it's useful for people who think about comic craft. And to double-triple stress, as always in these notes, I really am just telling the surface level storytelling basics.

Page 18

And the vote page. As said earlier, was where the 9 panel grid came as possible.

These lines were especially tweaked to sell the positions and why.

And Dionysus, for the first time in the scene, speaks. Obviously a key issue for Dio, where we move him into an explicit new position in the plot.

Page 19

Man, I don't even want to unpack this page.

But I can easily imagine how both Baal and Cass are feeling in the last panel. Uh... wait...

Page 20

Formalism doing its formalism thing.

This was written in a nine panel grid, but with descriptions of which panels are covered by Persephone's hair.

Page 21

And then we go into our quick cuts to move to the new status quo, the nine panel.

It's very much our aesthetic that we show the break-up but don't show the getting-together.

I suspect it's the sort of scene I'd like to talk about further down the line, but not now.

The gold prize for Jamie here are panels 3 and 4. For me, that's comic, and that's why I love comics.

Well, one of the reasons, anyway.

Page 22-23

Cass continues to be a gift for those who like reaction images.

The strangest rewrite of the issue for me was the “What's the saying about stopped clocks?” line, which was originally a lot more suggestive and less explicit. But 2 of the first 4 people to read it didn't get it in its more suggestive form, which meant that I was always going to dial back for clarity's sake.

So, yes, this is a Cass/Dio/Woden team-up for the Study side. Splitting your cast into smaller narrative units is a good tactic in a team book (I sort of learned it properly when I was writing my 9-core-person Uncanny X-men team). You also see it all over the place – if you listen to Community notes, you'll see how they split their cast into different arrangements and see how the characters interact. Having three characters who, on the surface, appear to have very different priorties come together under a larger banner is an interesting one.

In terms of the explicitly delineating at least part of the sexualities, this has been considered for a while. Let's start with Cassandra.

Early on in WicDiv, I saw a random comment of someone annoyed with something I'd said. Specifically me saying something akin to “I sometimes need room to discover a character's sexuality.” Her response – and one I completely get – was annoyance with suggesting people don't know their own sexualities. The “No, I know I'm Bi – don't say it's a phase. Don't say it's something I'm discovering.”

As I said, I get it, but that's not what I meant. I meant characters. Writing often feels like excavation. Not always, but sometimes, and especially in a book like WicDiv. You get to know them by writing them, sometimes in actually fundamental ways, ways which were always there but now come to the surface. For all my planning in WicDiv, it's also a living creature.

So when starting off, I always had a few feelings about Cassandra. There was the possibility that she was actually asexual. It would fit with her for a few ways, and the evidence for a reading of that was certainly there. However, I rapidly realised it caused huge problems inside the narrative in terms of what it was saying about asexuality. One of Cassandra's primary traits is that she doesn't experience the performances. If she's asexual, that implies that it's linked to that – especially when the performances have been linked so strongly to sex at various places in the narrative. I thought that'd be true even if we had another asexual character in the primary cast to show the contrary. I continued writing her and thinking, and having an awareness of the various potentials I saw in her. I didn't have to make a choice yet.

The flashpoint was issue 20, where I realised that it just was untenable for her to be asexual. Because if performances are linked in the readers' mind to sex, that eventually Cassandra does response to a performance is a sign that asexuals just haven't met the right person yet.

No. I'm not writing a book that suggests that.

There is also the real world thing that trans women are viewed through a hypersexual lens or an asexual one, which is certainly one feeds into the final dialogue on the page.

So everything re-arranged and solidified in the other way I saw them – a stable lesbian polyamarous triad. I saw with Imperial Phase ahead, that felt more and more necessary. WicDiv is... not a book where relationships are healthy. Every single romantic relationship in the book is openly dysfunctional. Relevantly, there is a lot of people doing polyamory very badly. It comes to a point where it looks like the book saying this behaviour is bad rather than this specific practise is bad. The Norns would be the counter-argument. In this issue, we show them in an private, loving supportive relationship that's arguably more unconventional than any other in the book.

We don't get to see any of the sex, of course, as it's none of our business and they're not there for the readers' pleasure. But with them in our story, it shows there's nothing implicitly wrong with kink, or polyamory or anything else... as long as you don't act like sentient burning trashcans.

That was the thinking. Some of it, anyway.

Oh – on the note of discovery, I only realised that she'd lean submissive as I wrote the page. It was a surprise to me as well, but seemed to align with everything else and make a lot of things make more sense.

In Dio's case, it was there as a possibility even as I first wrote him into the bible. I see myself writing around it in my notes, saying that I just didn't feel like sex was a big drive for him in the way it was for so much of the cast. The problem eventually came for the place to introduce it, and how, and in the same action where we move Dio towards the centre stage (or at least primary supporting characters) seemed to be it.

We've had a lot of supportive messages about both of these, so thank you. And thanks again to our consultants, who we will continue to high five at the slightest encouragement.

Page 24-25

This was originally written as a page, but Jamie insisted on MOTORBIKE DRAMA!

And how could we resist that?

I actually wrote a first draft of this, and wondered if it was too much, and then did a completely different end scene based on Persephone leaving the Shard. Arguing it over with Chrissy, we came down strongly on this. It's WicDiv. We crash motorbikes into walls for the sake of it.

Worth noting: this is a return to a non-cliffhanger ending structure. The “read the next issue” comes from the whole of the issue rather than a specific beat. This is about leaving it with a mood.

Favourite thing in colour – the circle of light on the wall, a half second before impact.

I'll give you one for free: Persephone is on the phone to one of her people, probably an agent. I could have put an explicit call in that to the dialogue, but it was too crass and fake, and the specific identity doesn't really matter that much. It's just someone who's clearly going to get her a new bike.

Also: the main reason why I wondered whether this scene wasn't too much, is because it is literally the lyrics to Icona Pop's I LOVE IT.

Page 26

“Hey, C, is referencing Kesha too much on the interstitial? It sort of is a trashy pop take on Watchmen's encroaching apocalypse feel.”

“No, that sounds like exactly the sort of thing you do.”

“Cool.”

See you next month, where we reach the penultimate part of IMPERIAL PHASE (I). It's just being put to bed, and we like it a lot.

Thanks for reading.

[funface2]

Gary Gulman Explains His Best Joke – Slate Magazine

Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Neilson Barnard/Getty Images for Hilarity For Charity.

Comedian Gary Gulman has a new HBO special out now, The Great Depresh, but earlier this year he talked to How To! about the joke he is perhaps best known for, on state abbreviations. Gulman also shared his comedy advice with host Charles Duhigg to help a pastor in Oklahoma give funnier sermons. Some highlights of their conversation, condensed and edited for clarity, are below.

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Gary Gulman: I just wanted to recommend a documentary to everyone, and then I’m going to go. It’s about the men and one woman who abbreviated all 50 states down to two letters. All you have to know for this is that we have 50 states in America, and they each have a two-capital-letter abbreviation, but that wasn’t always the case, up until, I want to say, 1973. And so I will. Up until 1973, every state had its own length of abbreviation, and it was chaos. Like, Massachusetts was M-A-S-S-period. Florida was F-L-A. Utah was “Uta.” They just dropped the H, not much of an abbreviation.

Charles Duhigg: How did you come up with that joke?

Gulman: I first had the premise, which is “Gee, a lot of states start off with the same first two letters.”

Duhigg: That just comes into your mind one day?

Gulman: Yes, yes. And the first part of it was the guys trying to abbreviate the states and they immediately come into trouble after the first state.

They thought it was going to be easy because Alabama lulled them into a false sense of security. They said: “Alabama—AL. Holy crap, this is easy. We’re going to finish before they stop serving breakfast in the hotel restaurant.”

And then there was nothing. There was nothing. Every once in a while, I’d pull [the joke] off the shelf and rework it and add a line. But I could never find an ending or structure to that joke. And then, maybe 18 years later, all of a sudden, documentaries were about small things. They were only about Hitler forever, and then, all of a sudden, I saw this documentary about Helvetica, and I wrote a joke about the documentary about Helvetica.

Focus on the small things.

Duhigg: Novices like me, we tend to look for these big, exaggerated topics to joke about, but the funniest stuff often comes from the most mundane parts of life.

Gulman: One night I said: “What if I did this thing that never works? The abbreviation thing. What if I try this and tell the people it was a documentary? In between the first time I got onstage and that night, I had learned an important thing in comedy, which is it’s OK to lie.

It’s OK to lie.

Duhigg: You can lie about anything as long as it helps the joke.

Gulman: There’s something called artistic license, which I had never understood and had never heard it applied to jokes, and that changed everything. And so I said, “I’m going to lie and tell them that this is a documentary,” thinking that part of the funny would be them figuring out that this isn’t real. But I still get emails and tweets, “Hey, where can I find that documentary about the abbreviation?”

Duhigg: And then you go into this long ministory about the omelet chef.

Gulman: And then one guy said, “Oh, I hope they have an omelet station.” Just for context, the omelet station had just been invented. … And this other guy said: “You know what? I’m not comfortable with the omelet station, because I feel like the omelet chef resents you. Like, he didn’t want to be the omelet chef. Nobody dreams of being an omelet chef. He wanted to be the chef chef. Now, instead of giving the orders, he’s taking the orders from your stupid wife and your ugly kids. I think one day he’s going to snap, and I don’t want to be there when it happens.” And then the boss said: “Guys, I hate to be a noodge, but could we get back to abbreviating the states? We still have 49 left.” And apologies were made, and understanding was reached, and they got back to abbreviating, and they said, “What’s next?” He said, “Alaska. Everybody cool with AL?” But somebody caught it.

You have to make people forget that Alabama was AL and then remind them that Alabama was AL. But the interesting thing about the joke in between is that it was from 20 notebooks prior to that. I could never make a joke about the disgruntled, hostile omelet chef I had on vacation one time that I totally identified with and totally got it, why she was so miserable, to the point where I loved omelets and I wouldn’t go to the omelet chef because she was so surly.

Start with a mundane idea and push it to an extreme. And then get it in front of an audience as fast as you can to see if it’s actually funny.

Gulman: I always tell comedians at every level: Don’t spend two hours writing this joke that you’ve never tried out onstage before. Write down two or three sentences that you have confidence that you think may get a laugh tonight. And then if that premise works, then I’m off to the races. Because it’s so hard to get a new joke to work. It’s the hardest thing in stand-up comedy. It literally drove me mad for years.

Duhigg: That’s interesting.

Gulman: Yeah, I think it really contributed to my eventual hospitalization for it. I was in the hospital for depression and anxiety, and part of it was writer’s block. Absolutely. Yeah. There are chemicals involved as well. But I know that part of the thing when I was going through that was just despair over not being able to—it was almost right after that abbreviations joke too, which may have been coincidence. But it was also like, I’m never going to write another good joke. It took me 20 years to write that one.

Duhigg: That’s fascinating.

Gulman: That I went crazy. Yes.

Duhigg: Because you felt like that joke was so good?

Gulman: No, because I also thought it was really, really flawed, and I also felt that I had blown it, and I cringe when I watch it. So that really bummed me out. It was the best joke I had. I kind of choked, I felt, and how am I going to come up with another one?

It’s OK to bomb. Just be self-deprecating and honest.

Gulman: I’ll never forget, for my bar mitzvah, my mom took me to see Johnny Carson, and he stumbled through a joke. He made fun of it in the moment, and then at the commercial break, he talked about it again, and it humanized him. Just by acknowledging the fact that a joke bombed, you can get laughs. And you can make everybody really, really comfortable with you by taking a moment to say, “Wow, that sounded much better in my head,” or whatever it is that you want to want to say. It’s an honest moment, and it’s so endearing.

Find an easy crowd, like a wedding or some other kind of ceremony.

Gulman: I killed at my father’s funeral. And then the rabbi went on after me and tried to do some time. And I said, “Rabbi, you never want to follow the headliner.” And that got another laugh. I destroyed at my father’s funeral, and it was a nice tribute and everything like that. But I always say, a funeral, you can really—there’s so much tension.

Duhigg: So the No. 1 rule I’m hearing you say is find funerals to try and practice your stand-up on.

Gulman: [Laughs.] Yes.

To listen to the entire interview with Gary Gulman, click the player below or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

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(This can be a private publish so if that isn’t your factor then it is best to move on.)

2017 was lots like 2016, but on steroids. That meant a 40% improve in the enterprise, which sadly came with much more stress and angst. I did figure some things out and managed to make some selections that I plan to place into apply in 2018.

Nothing Succeeds Like Success

Last yr I was lastly snug calling Blind 5 Yr Previous a hit. I’d made it. But that got here with a number of unusual baggage that I wasn’t totally positive the right way to deal with.

It was uncomfortable to put in writing about how success may be troublesome when you realize that others are struggling. But I can solely write about my own experience and acknowledge that some would take my words the flawed method.

Trust me, I perceive that these are good problems. But they’re issues nonetheless. In 2017 those problems grew. The very healthy revenue I had maintained for the past 4 years rose by 40%.

I stared at the run price all year long type of dumbfounded. For actual? That a lot! It’s not that I lacked confidence and didn’t assume I’d make it. The number was just past what I anticipated.

Cash and Happiness

Cash is a wierd beast. One among my favourite items final yr was When life changing cash, isn’t by Wil Reynolds. He captured a substantial amount of what I’ve struggled with over the past few years.

I’m at a spot the place bills aren’t an issue and I can primarily do what I need to do. My daughter needs a brand new tennis racquet, I buy one. Ought to we exit for dinner tonight? Why not. Need to vacation on the seashore in Maui? E-book it!

The power to do this stuff makes me very totally different from a majority of individuals and that scares me.

The factor is, I don’t want an entire lot extra. I’m not trying to get a better house or a greater automotive. I don’t have a need to purchase crazy costly clothes. Hell, I spend most of my days in sweats behind this pc.

Extra money isn’t inherently dangerous. I imply, I do stay in some of the costly areas in the country and I am all about putting more in the direction of retirement and school. However both of those at the moment are on monitor so the additional cash doesn’t truly do that rather more.

Extra money hasn’t made me happier.

Time and Stress

The additional work created a lot more strain. There’s less time and extra expectations. That mixture doesn’t translate into more happiness. Under no circumstances.

It’d if I simply needed to coast on fame and churn out regardless of the minimal quantity that was required to maintain the cash rolling in. However I’m not wired like that.

I’m not trying to mollify and appease, I’m trying to rework and build. Each shopper is totally different and requires research and due diligence to find out the best way to greatest deal with their search and enterprise points.

I really feel the obligation of being a great associate and in delivering outcomes. I don’t like cashing checks when a shopper’s business isn’t shifting in the appropriate course.

Communication

I find it onerous to respond shortly to something I consider requires larger thought. Meaning I’m sluggish and often don’t communicate nicely. I’ve come to the conclusion that this can be a function and not a bug.

Can I get higher at telling individuals when I’m taking more time than they need? Yes. But I comprehend it gained’t go away utterly. I’ll typically slip right into a cycle of not responding and then pushing aside responding till I have one thing more materials and when I don’t the guilt increases and the response then have to be that a lot better so I delay … once more.

I do this much less now than I used to. But I comprehend it’ll still happen occasionally and I’m uninterested in feeling dangerous about that. Some shoppers simply aren’t a match for my work type. And that’s okay.

Referrals and Aid

Much of what I describe above is why I continue to obtain referrals. Good work gets observed and in an business rife with pretenders individuals happily promote those who really get the work finished.

I love referrals. However additionally they come loaded with further stress. Because you don’t need to let the individual referring you down. It’s not misplaced on me that they have sufficient confidence in me to belief them with one among their very own connections.

What I’ve discovered in the last yr is that more of these individuals perceive the bind I’m in. I have solely a lot time and I’m not all the time the suitable individual for a business. I specialize in giant scale B2C sites like Pinterest and Genius. It’s not that I can’t do B2B. I simply don’t take pleasure in it as much.

In order that they inform me up entrance that it won’t be a match or they could even ask if further referrals are serving to me or not. I inform you, it’s an unimaginable aid when referrals are put in this context.

I often still take these calls although. I discovered that just having a conversation with a referred lead is effective. I don’t need to be the solution. I might help decide what they actually need and may typically join them with colleagues who I trust will do a very good job on their behalf.

I grow to be a link on a sequence of expertise and belief. This can be a highly beneficial and scarce commodity.

Professional or Prima Donna

The crux for me was in understanding my value. Not solely understanding it however believing in it. Do I deserve that lawyer-like hourly price? I don’t do lots of hourly work now but I find it a great way to help extra people without the overhead of stress.

Legal professionals have an outlined set of experience that many others don’t. Hopefully additionally they have a monitor document of success. So how does that examine to my enterprise? The regulation is relatively secure and transparent. However search is the other. It modifications and it isn’t clear in the slightest.

In fact two legal professionals can interpret the regulation in a different way, simply as two SEOs can interpret search in another way. But extra so at this time than ever, the ignorance in our business – or pure disinformation – places a premium on connecting with true specialists.

It’s not just discovering somebody who will help you figure out your search points. It’s stopping them from following dangerous advice and throwing good money after dangerous.

My default is to say that I’m fortunate to be in a position the place I have extra business than I can deal with. However it’s not likely luck. I put in the time and I get the outcomes. I work arduous and am always trying to hold my edge. What is it that I’m not seeing?

I use this as context to elucidate why I’m not prepared to relinquish my work type. And I’m making an attempt to acknowledge that it doesn’t make me a prima donna. It simply acknowledges that I’m an skilled in my area and that I need to be glad.

It’s uncomfortable to cost a high price and dictate particular terms of engagement. It’s like the Van Halen rider the place they demanded M&Ms however no brown ones. I guess you are able to do worse than being the search equal of David Lee Roth. Notably if you understand the historical past around that famous rider.

Letting Angst Go

2017 was about embracing my worth and believing in my experience. It was about letting my own misgivings and angst go so that I can do the work I take pleasure in and be completely satisfied doing it.

Perhaps this sounds straightforward to some. Nevertheless it hasn’t come easily for me. Whereas I don’t achieve validation from others, I don’t need to be a type of people who are out of contact and troublesome to work with.

I absolutely dropped the ball on some leads and a few shoppers in 2017. Never to the point the place it harm their business. But individuals have been irritated. I am really sorry for that however … I not feel (overly) responsible about it.

I needed to do the most effective work. I took on an excessive amount of. I tried my greatest. I’ll get up and check out my greatest tomorrow.

I’ve discovered to say no more typically and not really feel responsible about it or feel prefer it’s a missed opportunity. I’m not trying to build an company and scale up. I’m a high-touch marketing consultant with restricted time constraints.

Raising Charges and Changing Retainers

Based mostly on this I raised my charges. It’s the second time I’ve completed that in the last three years. And I did it as a result of one in every of my shoppers informed me I ought to. It’s good when shoppers are searching for you as much as you’re for them.

I additionally determined to take away the hourly most in my retainer agreements. Up to now, I had a clause that primarily ensured that a shopper wouldn’t monopolize my time beneath a retainer settlement. I built in a hourly most simply in case.

The problem was that by having that hourly maximum they have been all the time considering of the retainer in phrases of the variety of hours worked. That wasn’t what I was about. It isn’t about time. It’s about experience and outcomes.

This video on How To Worth Design Providers spoke to me so clearly.

I didn’t watch your complete video. I imply, who has 36 minutes! However that one phase was sufficient for me to know that it wasn’t the hours individuals must be paying for however the expertise.

This made an enormous difference because I not have dreary conversations about whether I devoted enough hours to help the retainer. I hate those conversations. They make me indignant. So now I don’t have them.

Advisor Gigs

I also sought out extra advisor positions in 2017. I didn’t quite nail down easy methods to greatest structure these engagements. And I did a awful job of juggling those relationships versus my conventional relationships.

But that’s how you work these things out. You stub your toe and transfer on making an attempt to not make those same errors again. 2018 already appears good on this entrance with quite a lot of fascinating relationships where I can leverage my experience in search and advertising.

I constructed most of my long term shopper relationships on trust and including business value beyond conventional search. And while I might take advising positions based mostly on my main experience I’m in search of people who value my bigger information set and insight from scores of shoppers over the previous ten years.

I’ve discovered quite a bit about what makes one start-up succeed the place others fail.

Continuous Schooling

Change is all the time a continuing in search. And I’d say that the speed of change is growing. I’m lucky to work with some unimaginable technical groups. So once they say something I don’t fairly understand I don’t just nod alongside.

I ask them to elucidate it. I tell individuals when I don’t know one thing. I’ll tell individuals I know sufficient to know something is off however not sufficient to inform them precisely what’s mistaken. This is the way you build experience and achieve belief.

And in 2018 I’ve requested a number of builders I belief to take an afternoon to speak to me like a five yr previous about JavaScript frameworks and how they deliver content to the page. Now, I understand the subject. However I need to study more.

One among my belongings has been to have sufficient technical information to know when someone is blowing smoke up my nether regions. A variety of what I ask individuals to do (instrumentation) is boring. As such, many builders inflate the complexity of these tasks. Asking a number of pointed questions shortly reduces that inflation and will get the work achieved.

I don’t feel like I have that degree of confidence on JavaScript frameworks. I can inform half of the builders I work with have an analogous degree of data to my very own. And when a developer admits as a lot we will simply collaborate, debate troublesome questions and figure issues out. However many developers aren’t going to confess to ‘good enough’ information.

Studying more is all the time a priority.

Outsourcing

Then again, I can’t do every part. I typically need to but there’s simply not enough time in the day. This weblog wants a makeover and I’ll should get another person to do it. I need to let my tinkering ways go so I can develop and give attention to different tasks.

And there are different tasks in the works. Prior to now I’ve had concepts, purchased domains and considered constructing one factor or one other. Nice ideas! However they never went anyplace. A continuing movement of renewing domain e-mail notices remind me of the missed alternatives.

The most important obstacle in these tasks was … me. I needed to do all of it. I needed to build the precise website, which could require studying a brand new programming and database language. After which I’d want to truly write all the content material after which do all the advertising and promotion.

Ain’t no one acquired time for that.

Properly, perhaps some individuals do however I’m not one among them. Regardless that I might, and part of me thinks it might be fun if I did, I shouldn’t spend my time that approach. So I’m working with people to spin up two sites and one potential device.

Danger and Danger

I anticipate that it is going to be troublesome for me to let go of some particulars. I’m guessing the tasks can be messy, complicated, aggravating and hopefully rewarding in by some means. But truthfully, there are specific lyrics from Contrails by Astronautalis that remain my guiding star.

The actual danger isn’t a slipped grip at the fringe of the height The actual danger is simply to linger at the base of the factor

Every time I take a danger I am comfortable I did so. I can’t inform you that it all the time labored out. However in some methods … it did, with enough time and perspective.

In each failure, I can select how that helped get me to the place I am in the present day. I’m not saying things couldn’t have been simpler. They might have. I simply determine to seek out the constructive out of those conditions.

That’s not some saccharine ‘everything happens for a reason’ tripe. Screw that. I can just tell a story the place the ending is … pleased. I have most cancers however it’s one which’s simply treatable. That’s a win in my guide.

Telling myself these stories and deciding that I’d quite dwell on what turned out proper as an alternative of flawed helps me take the subsequent danger. It’s my job to take heed to that stressed itch and move my story ahead figuring out I might have to do some modifying in submit production.

Observations

There have been loads of business modifications final yr that had a meaningful influence on my business. I made a decision to criticize less so I wavered in adding these observations because they’re not notably rosy.

However the following issues formed my yr from how I strategy search evaluation, to how I achieve further information to how I educate shoppers.

The Google we knew is just not the Google we’re coping with in the present day

I’ve been lucky to satisfy and speak with various Googlers all through the years. They’re overwhelmingly good individuals making an attempt to do the best factor by customers. The power and keenness they’ve around search is … inspiring.

But Matt Cutts left and Amit Singhal was replaced by John Giannandrea as the top of search. That doesn’t appear to be quite a bit. But for those who put your ear to the tracks and skim the tea leaves you acknowledge that this was an enormous change in path for Google.

Machine studying is front and middle and it’s a vital a part of Google’s algorithm.

It’s not that good, passionate individuals aren’t nonetheless at Google. They are. However the setting is definitely totally different. We’re talking about individuals, specialists in their subject, given new course from a brand new boss. How do you assume you’d feel?

I consider understanding the people who work on search is an asset to understanding search. That’s extra true immediately than ever.

Business Content Is Lacking

I wrestle to seek out good content to learn nowadays. We lost our greatest investigative journalist last yr along with one other passionate and sensible editor. Danny Sullivan and Matt McGee are sorely missed.

I used to take great satisfaction in curating the business and Tweeting out the most effective I might find every day. It was a gentle stream of 2 or three Tweets a day. Now … it’s perhaps twice every week. Perhaps I’m just over-the-hill and not finding the brand new voices? Perhaps I’m not dedicating sufficient time to combing Feedly?

But I’m discouraged when I open up a prime tendencies of 2018 publish (which I know is a mistake) and see ‘water is wet’ statements like ‘featured snippets will be important’ and ‘voice search is on the rise’.

As an alternative of bemoaning the dangerous, I want to point out people like Paul Shapiro for nice technical content and Cyrus Shepard who appears to have taken up the mantle of curating our business. There are other nice specialists like Bill Slawski and Bartosz Goralweicz on the market contributing however … there are too few of them for my taste.

And there are others who clearly have information but aren’t sharing proper now. I’m not going to name them out. Hell, I’d be calling myself out too. I assume they’re all busy with work and life. Being business well-known doesn’t make their lives better. The truth is, it causes extra problems. I get it, however I wish we all had extra time to move the conversation forward.

Extra knowledge isn’t the problem, it’s the shortage of interpretation and evaluation.

The conversations I see occurring in the business are often masturbatory and ego driven. Somebody needs to be right and someone needs to be incorrect. Actual debate and true exploration look like an endangered species.

As an example, figuring out that Google is relying closely on machine studying, shouldn’t the business be taking a look at analyzing algorithmic modifications in a unique approach.

Right now, modifications in rank are typically tied to an update in the mapping of vectors to intent that renders a special mix of content on outcomes. One can watch over many months as they check, study and adapt on query courses in pursuit of optimal time to lengthy click metrics.

I find the calcification of search fact to be harmful given the speed of modifications inherent in our vertical. On the similar time, the most recent things don’t substitute the tried and true. It’s these contradictions that make our business fascinating!

Past that, many are working off of a very restricted knowledge set. The truth that one thing labored for you on the one website that you simply tried it on won’t mean much. In fact, we’ve also seen individuals with a lot bigger knowledge units make errors in interpretation.

And that’s where things seem to have gone off the tracks. I don’t mind correlation studies. They provide another level of knowledge for me to think about amongst numerous other knowledge factors. I assign the findings from each correlation research a weight based mostly on all of my other information.

That signifies that some will receive little or no weight and others extra based mostly on my understanding of how they have been carried out and what I see in apply across my shopper base. We don’t need much less knowledge, much less content or fewer techniques. We have to higher perceive the worth of every and the way they mix to assist achieve search success.

In consequence I see much more appetite for hiring progress engineers over SEOs largely as a result of they’re prepared to check and adapt as an alternative of proselytize.

The Issues That Matter

I’m most cancers free! It’s been almost three years now. And in 2017 I couldn’t use recovery as an excuse for my eating habits. So I misplaced 25 kilos.

For those , there’s no actual magic to dropping pounds. Journal your food and take in fewer calories than you burn. It’s not all the time enjoyable or straightforward however it works.

I gained 10 of that back in the previous few months of the yr. This was partly because I lost my tennis partners, which meant no calorie burning exercise cushion that allowed me a number of days of indulgence each week.

Fortunately, my daughter is now lastly getting back to tennis after bodily remedy for a patellar subluxation, which is a dislocation of the kneecap. Her second in two years.

It turns out her thigh bone doesn’t have as deep a divot for her kneecap. It’s almost flat, which suggests she’s vulnerable to dislocations. The orthopedist talked about that this additionally meant that when it did slip out it wouldn’t harm almost as much. Seems I’m not the one one who can inform a narrative that depends on the constructive versus the destructive. #callback

My wife, then again, has tennis elbow, which is way extra painful than she or I realized. She’ll be present process a process soon in hopes that it helps her tendon to bounce again and heal absolutely.

Things are literally fairly good regardless of all this and the fact that my daughter is a youngster (yikes) and my wife just had sinus surgical procedure. I’m around and I’m happier, which I hope is as infectious as this yr’s flu.

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The Next Publish: Monitoring Hidden Long-Tail Search Visitors The Earlier Submit: Google Index Protection Report

The post What I Learned in 2017 appeared first on Tactics Socks.

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(This can be a private publish so if that isn’t your factor then it is best to move on.)

2017 was lots like 2016, but on steroids. That meant a 40% improve in the enterprise, which sadly came with much more stress and angst. I did figure some things out and managed to make some selections that I plan to place into apply in 2018.

Nothing Succeeds Like Success

Last yr I was lastly snug calling Blind 5 Yr Previous a hit. I’d made it. But that got here with a number of unusual baggage that I wasn’t totally positive the right way to deal with.

It was uncomfortable to put in writing about how success may be troublesome when you realize that others are struggling. But I can solely write about my own experience and acknowledge that some would take my words the flawed method.

Trust me, I perceive that these are good problems. But they’re issues nonetheless. In 2017 those problems grew. The very healthy revenue I had maintained for the past 4 years rose by 40%.

I stared at the run price all year long type of dumbfounded. For actual? That a lot! It’s not that I lacked confidence and didn’t assume I’d make it. The number was just past what I anticipated.

Cash and Happiness

Cash is a wierd beast. One among my favourite items final yr was When life changing cash, isn’t by Wil Reynolds. He captured a substantial amount of what I’ve struggled with over the past few years.

I’m at a spot the place bills aren’t an issue and I can primarily do what I need to do. My daughter needs a brand new tennis racquet, I buy one. Ought to we exit for dinner tonight? Why not. Need to vacation on the seashore in Maui? E-book it!

The power to do this stuff makes me very totally different from a majority of individuals and that scares me.

The factor is, I don’t want an entire lot extra. I’m not trying to get a better house or a greater automotive. I don’t have a need to purchase crazy costly clothes. Hell, I spend most of my days in sweats behind this pc.

Extra money isn’t inherently dangerous. I imply, I do stay in some of the costly areas in the country and I am all about putting more in the direction of retirement and school. However both of those at the moment are on monitor so the additional cash doesn’t truly do that rather more.

Extra money hasn’t made me happier.

Time and Stress

The additional work created a lot more strain. There’s less time and extra expectations. That mixture doesn’t translate into more happiness. Under no circumstances.

It’d if I simply needed to coast on fame and churn out regardless of the minimal quantity that was required to maintain the cash rolling in. However I’m not wired like that.

I’m not trying to mollify and appease, I’m trying to rework and build. Each shopper is totally different and requires research and due diligence to find out the best way to greatest deal with their search and enterprise points.

I really feel the obligation of being a great associate and in delivering outcomes. I don’t like cashing checks when a shopper’s business isn’t shifting in the appropriate course.

Communication

I find it onerous to respond shortly to something I consider requires larger thought. Meaning I’m sluggish and often don’t communicate nicely. I’ve come to the conclusion that this can be a function and not a bug.

Can I get higher at telling individuals when I’m taking more time than they need? Yes. But I comprehend it gained’t go away utterly. I’ll typically slip right into a cycle of not responding and then pushing aside responding till I have one thing more materials and when I don’t the guilt increases and the response then have to be that a lot better so I delay … once more.

I do this much less now than I used to. But I comprehend it’ll still happen occasionally and I’m uninterested in feeling dangerous about that. Some shoppers simply aren’t a match for my work type. And that’s okay.

Referrals and Aid

Much of what I describe above is why I continue to obtain referrals. Good work gets observed and in an business rife with pretenders individuals happily promote those who really get the work finished.

I love referrals. However additionally they come loaded with further stress. Because you don’t need to let the individual referring you down. It’s not misplaced on me that they have sufficient confidence in me to belief them with one among their very own connections.

What I’ve discovered in the last yr is that more of these individuals perceive the bind I’m in. I have solely a lot time and I’m not all the time the suitable individual for a business. I specialize in giant scale B2C sites like Pinterest and Genius. It’s not that I can’t do B2B. I simply don’t take pleasure in it as much.

In order that they inform me up entrance that it won’t be a match or they could even ask if further referrals are serving to me or not. I inform you, it’s an unimaginable aid when referrals are put in this context.

I often still take these calls although. I discovered that just having a conversation with a referred lead is effective. I don’t need to be the solution. I might help decide what they actually need and may typically join them with colleagues who I trust will do a very good job on their behalf.

I grow to be a link on a sequence of expertise and belief. This can be a highly beneficial and scarce commodity.

Professional or Prima Donna

The crux for me was in understanding my value. Not solely understanding it however believing in it. Do I deserve that lawyer-like hourly price? I don’t do lots of hourly work now but I find it a great way to help extra people without the overhead of stress.

Legal professionals have an outlined set of experience that many others don’t. Hopefully additionally they have a monitor document of success. So how does that examine to my enterprise? The regulation is relatively secure and transparent. However search is the other. It modifications and it isn’t clear in the slightest.

In fact two legal professionals can interpret the regulation in a different way, simply as two SEOs can interpret search in another way. But extra so at this time than ever, the ignorance in our business – or pure disinformation – places a premium on connecting with true specialists.

It’s not just discovering somebody who will help you figure out your search points. It’s stopping them from following dangerous advice and throwing good money after dangerous.

My default is to say that I’m fortunate to be in a position the place I have extra business than I can deal with. However it’s not likely luck. I put in the time and I get the outcomes. I work arduous and am always trying to hold my edge. What is it that I’m not seeing?

I use this as context to elucidate why I’m not prepared to relinquish my work type. And I’m making an attempt to acknowledge that it doesn’t make me a prima donna. It simply acknowledges that I’m an skilled in my area and that I need to be glad.

It’s uncomfortable to cost a high price and dictate particular terms of engagement. It’s like the Van Halen rider the place they demanded M&Ms however no brown ones. I guess you are able to do worse than being the search equal of David Lee Roth. Notably if you understand the historical past around that famous rider.

Letting Angst Go

2017 was about embracing my worth and believing in my experience. It was about letting my own misgivings and angst go so that I can do the work I take pleasure in and be completely satisfied doing it.

Perhaps this sounds straightforward to some. Nevertheless it hasn’t come easily for me. Whereas I don’t achieve validation from others, I don’t need to be a type of people who are out of contact and troublesome to work with.

I absolutely dropped the ball on some leads and a few shoppers in 2017. Never to the point the place it harm their business. But individuals have been irritated. I am really sorry for that however … I not feel (overly) responsible about it.

I needed to do the most effective work. I took on an excessive amount of. I tried my greatest. I’ll get up and check out my greatest tomorrow.

I’ve discovered to say no more typically and not really feel responsible about it or feel prefer it’s a missed opportunity. I’m not trying to build an company and scale up. I’m a high-touch marketing consultant with restricted time constraints.

Raising Charges and Changing Retainers

Based mostly on this I raised my charges. It’s the second time I’ve completed that in the last three years. And I did it as a result of one in every of my shoppers informed me I ought to. It’s good when shoppers are searching for you as much as you’re for them.

I additionally determined to take away the hourly most in my retainer agreements. Up to now, I had a clause that primarily ensured that a shopper wouldn’t monopolize my time beneath a retainer settlement. I built in a hourly most simply in case.

The problem was that by having that hourly maximum they have been all the time considering of the retainer in phrases of the variety of hours worked. That wasn’t what I was about. It isn’t about time. It’s about experience and outcomes.

This video on How To Worth Design Providers spoke to me so clearly.

I didn’t watch your complete video. I imply, who has 36 minutes! However that one phase was sufficient for me to know that it wasn’t the hours individuals must be paying for however the expertise.

This made an enormous difference because I not have dreary conversations about whether I devoted enough hours to help the retainer. I hate those conversations. They make me indignant. So now I don’t have them.

Advisor Gigs

I also sought out extra advisor positions in 2017. I didn’t quite nail down easy methods to greatest structure these engagements. And I did a awful job of juggling those relationships versus my conventional relationships.

But that’s how you work these things out. You stub your toe and transfer on making an attempt to not make those same errors again. 2018 already appears good on this entrance with quite a lot of fascinating relationships where I can leverage my experience in search and advertising.

I constructed most of my long term shopper relationships on trust and including business value beyond conventional search. And while I might take advising positions based mostly on my main experience I’m in search of people who value my bigger information set and insight from scores of shoppers over the previous ten years.

I’ve discovered quite a bit about what makes one start-up succeed the place others fail.

Continuous Schooling

Change is all the time a continuing in search. And I’d say that the speed of change is growing. I’m lucky to work with some unimaginable technical groups. So once they say something I don’t fairly understand I don’t just nod alongside.

I ask them to elucidate it. I tell individuals when I don’t know one thing. I’ll tell individuals I know sufficient to know something is off however not sufficient to inform them precisely what’s mistaken. This is the way you build experience and achieve belief.

And in 2018 I’ve requested a number of builders I belief to take an afternoon to speak to me like a five yr previous about JavaScript frameworks and how they deliver content to the page. Now, I understand the subject. However I need to study more.

One among my belongings has been to have sufficient technical information to know when someone is blowing smoke up my nether regions. A variety of what I ask individuals to do (instrumentation) is boring. As such, many builders inflate the complexity of these tasks. Asking a number of pointed questions shortly reduces that inflation and will get the work achieved.

I don’t feel like I have that degree of confidence on JavaScript frameworks. I can inform half of the builders I work with have an analogous degree of data to my very own. And when a developer admits as a lot we will simply collaborate, debate troublesome questions and figure issues out. However many developers aren’t going to confess to ‘good enough’ information.

Studying more is all the time a priority.

Outsourcing

Then again, I can’t do every part. I typically need to but there’s simply not enough time in the day. This weblog wants a makeover and I’ll should get another person to do it. I need to let my tinkering ways go so I can develop and give attention to different tasks.

And there are different tasks in the works. Prior to now I’ve had concepts, purchased domains and considered constructing one factor or one other. Nice ideas! However they never went anyplace. A continuing movement of renewing domain e-mail notices remind me of the missed alternatives.

The most important obstacle in these tasks was … me. I needed to do all of it. I needed to build the precise website, which could require studying a brand new programming and database language. After which I’d want to truly write all the content material after which do all the advertising and promotion.

Ain’t no one acquired time for that.

Properly, perhaps some individuals do however I’m not one among them. Regardless that I might, and part of me thinks it might be fun if I did, I shouldn’t spend my time that approach. So I’m working with people to spin up two sites and one potential device.

Danger and Danger

I anticipate that it is going to be troublesome for me to let go of some particulars. I’m guessing the tasks can be messy, complicated, aggravating and hopefully rewarding in by some means. But truthfully, there are specific lyrics from Contrails by Astronautalis that remain my guiding star.

The actual danger isn’t a slipped grip at the fringe of the height The actual danger is simply to linger at the base of the factor

Every time I take a danger I am comfortable I did so. I can’t inform you that it all the time labored out. However in some methods … it did, with enough time and perspective.

In each failure, I can select how that helped get me to the place I am in the present day. I’m not saying things couldn’t have been simpler. They might have. I simply determine to seek out the constructive out of those conditions.

That’s not some saccharine ‘everything happens for a reason’ tripe. Screw that. I can just tell a story the place the ending is … pleased. I have most cancers however it’s one which’s simply treatable. That’s a win in my guide.

Telling myself these stories and deciding that I’d quite dwell on what turned out proper as an alternative of flawed helps me take the subsequent danger. It’s my job to take heed to that stressed itch and move my story ahead figuring out I might have to do some modifying in submit production.

Observations

There have been loads of business modifications final yr that had a meaningful influence on my business. I made a decision to criticize less so I wavered in adding these observations because they’re not notably rosy.

However the following issues formed my yr from how I strategy search evaluation, to how I achieve further information to how I educate shoppers.

The Google we knew is just not the Google we’re coping with in the present day

I’ve been lucky to satisfy and speak with various Googlers all through the years. They’re overwhelmingly good individuals making an attempt to do the best factor by customers. The power and keenness they’ve around search is … inspiring.

But Matt Cutts left and Amit Singhal was replaced by John Giannandrea as the top of search. That doesn’t appear to be quite a bit. But for those who put your ear to the tracks and skim the tea leaves you acknowledge that this was an enormous change in path for Google.

Machine studying is front and middle and it’s a vital a part of Google’s algorithm.

It’s not that good, passionate individuals aren’t nonetheless at Google. They are. However the setting is definitely totally different. We’re talking about individuals, specialists in their subject, given new course from a brand new boss. How do you assume you’d feel?

I consider understanding the people who work on search is an asset to understanding search. That’s extra true immediately than ever.

Business Content Is Lacking

I wrestle to seek out good content to learn nowadays. We lost our greatest investigative journalist last yr along with one other passionate and sensible editor. Danny Sullivan and Matt McGee are sorely missed.

I used to take great satisfaction in curating the business and Tweeting out the most effective I might find every day. It was a gentle stream of 2 or three Tweets a day. Now … it’s perhaps twice every week. Perhaps I’m just over-the-hill and not finding the brand new voices? Perhaps I’m not dedicating sufficient time to combing Feedly?

But I’m discouraged when I open up a prime tendencies of 2018 publish (which I know is a mistake) and see ‘water is wet’ statements like ‘featured snippets will be important’ and ‘voice search is on the rise’.

As an alternative of bemoaning the dangerous, I want to point out people like Paul Shapiro for nice technical content and Cyrus Shepard who appears to have taken up the mantle of curating our business. There are other nice specialists like Bill Slawski and Bartosz Goralweicz on the market contributing however … there are too few of them for my taste.

And there are others who clearly have information but aren’t sharing proper now. I’m not going to name them out. Hell, I’d be calling myself out too. I assume they’re all busy with work and life. Being business well-known doesn’t make their lives better. The truth is, it causes extra problems. I get it, however I wish we all had extra time to move the conversation forward.

Extra knowledge isn’t the problem, it’s the shortage of interpretation and evaluation.

The conversations I see occurring in the business are often masturbatory and ego driven. Somebody needs to be right and someone needs to be incorrect. Actual debate and true exploration look like an endangered species.

As an example, figuring out that Google is relying closely on machine studying, shouldn’t the business be taking a look at analyzing algorithmic modifications in a unique approach.

Right now, modifications in rank are typically tied to an update in the mapping of vectors to intent that renders a special mix of content on outcomes. One can watch over many months as they check, study and adapt on query courses in pursuit of optimal time to lengthy click metrics.

I find the calcification of search fact to be harmful given the speed of modifications inherent in our vertical. On the similar time, the most recent things don’t substitute the tried and true. It’s these contradictions that make our business fascinating!

Past that, many are working off of a very restricted knowledge set. The truth that one thing labored for you on the one website that you simply tried it on won’t mean much. In fact, we’ve also seen individuals with a lot bigger knowledge units make errors in interpretation.

And that’s where things seem to have gone off the tracks. I don’t mind correlation studies. They provide another level of knowledge for me to think about amongst numerous other knowledge factors. I assign the findings from each correlation research a weight based mostly on all of my other information.

That signifies that some will receive little or no weight and others extra based mostly on my understanding of how they have been carried out and what I see in apply across my shopper base. We don’t need much less knowledge, much less content or fewer techniques. We have to higher perceive the worth of every and the way they mix to assist achieve search success.

In consequence I see much more appetite for hiring progress engineers over SEOs largely as a result of they’re prepared to check and adapt as an alternative of proselytize.

The Issues That Matter

I’m most cancers free! It’s been almost three years now. And in 2017 I couldn’t use recovery as an excuse for my eating habits. So I misplaced 25 kilos.

For those , there’s no actual magic to dropping pounds. Journal your food and take in fewer calories than you burn. It’s not all the time enjoyable or straightforward however it works.

I gained 10 of that back in the previous few months of the yr. This was partly because I lost my tennis partners, which meant no calorie burning exercise cushion that allowed me a number of days of indulgence each week.

Fortunately, my daughter is now lastly getting back to tennis after bodily remedy for a patellar subluxation, which is a dislocation of the kneecap. Her second in two years.

It turns out her thigh bone doesn’t have as deep a divot for her kneecap. It’s almost flat, which suggests she’s vulnerable to dislocations. The orthopedist talked about that this additionally meant that when it did slip out it wouldn’t harm almost as much. Seems I’m not the one one who can inform a narrative that depends on the constructive versus the destructive. #callback

My wife, then again, has tennis elbow, which is way extra painful than she or I realized. She’ll be present process a process soon in hopes that it helps her tendon to bounce again and heal absolutely.

Things are literally fairly good regardless of all this and the fact that my daughter is a youngster (yikes) and my wife just had sinus surgical procedure. I’m around and I’m happier, which I hope is as infectious as this yr’s flu.

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The Next Publish: Monitoring Hidden Long-Tail Search Visitors The Earlier Submit: Google Index Protection Report

The post What I Learned in 2017 appeared first on Tactics Socks.

[badgerrose-blog]

(This can be a private publish so if that isn’t your factor then it is best to move on.)

2017 was lots like 2016, but on steroids. That meant a 40% improve in the enterprise, which sadly came with much more stress and angst. I did figure some things out and managed to make some selections that I plan to place into apply in 2018.

Nothing Succeeds Like Success

Last yr I was lastly snug calling Blind 5 Yr Previous a hit. I’d made it. But that got here with a number of unusual baggage that I wasn’t totally positive the right way to deal with.

It was uncomfortable to put in writing about how success may be troublesome when you realize that others are struggling. But I can solely write about my own experience and acknowledge that some would take my words the flawed method.

Trust me, I perceive that these are good problems. But they’re issues nonetheless. In 2017 those problems grew. The very healthy revenue I had maintained for the past 4 years rose by 40%.

I stared at the run price all year long type of dumbfounded. For actual? That a lot! It’s not that I lacked confidence and didn’t assume I’d make it. The number was just past what I anticipated.

Cash and Happiness

Cash is a wierd beast. One among my favourite items final yr was When life changing cash, isn’t by Wil Reynolds. He captured a substantial amount of what I’ve struggled with over the past few years.

I’m at a spot the place bills aren’t an issue and I can primarily do what I need to do. My daughter needs a brand new tennis racquet, I buy one. Ought to we exit for dinner tonight? Why not. Need to vacation on the seashore in Maui? E-book it!

The power to do this stuff makes me very totally different from a majority of individuals and that scares me.

The factor is, I don’t want an entire lot extra. I’m not trying to get a better house or a greater automotive. I don’t have a need to purchase crazy costly clothes. Hell, I spend most of my days in sweats behind this pc.

Extra money isn’t inherently dangerous. I imply, I do stay in some of the costly areas in the country and I am all about putting more in the direction of retirement and school. However both of those at the moment are on monitor so the additional cash doesn’t truly do that rather more.

Extra money hasn’t made me happier.

Time and Stress

The additional work created a lot more strain. There’s less time and extra expectations. That mixture doesn’t translate into more happiness. Under no circumstances.

It’d if I simply needed to coast on fame and churn out regardless of the minimal quantity that was required to maintain the cash rolling in. However I’m not wired like that.

I’m not trying to mollify and appease, I’m trying to rework and build. Each shopper is totally different and requires research and due diligence to find out the best way to greatest deal with their search and enterprise points.

I really feel the obligation of being a great associate and in delivering outcomes. I don’t like cashing checks when a shopper’s business isn’t shifting in the appropriate course.

Communication

I find it onerous to respond shortly to something I consider requires larger thought. Meaning I’m sluggish and often don’t communicate nicely. I’ve come to the conclusion that this can be a function and not a bug.

Can I get higher at telling individuals when I’m taking more time than they need? Yes. But I comprehend it gained’t go away utterly. I’ll typically slip right into a cycle of not responding and then pushing aside responding till I have one thing more materials and when I don’t the guilt increases and the response then have to be that a lot better so I delay … once more.

I do this much less now than I used to. But I comprehend it’ll still happen occasionally and I’m uninterested in feeling dangerous about that. Some shoppers simply aren’t a match for my work type. And that’s okay.

Referrals and Aid

Much of what I describe above is why I continue to obtain referrals. Good work gets observed and in an business rife with pretenders individuals happily promote those who really get the work finished.

I love referrals. However additionally they come loaded with further stress. Because you don’t need to let the individual referring you down. It’s not misplaced on me that they have sufficient confidence in me to belief them with one among their very own connections.

What I’ve discovered in the last yr is that more of these individuals perceive the bind I’m in. I have solely a lot time and I’m not all the time the suitable individual for a business. I specialize in giant scale B2C sites like Pinterest and Genius. It’s not that I can’t do B2B. I simply don’t take pleasure in it as much.

In order that they inform me up entrance that it won’t be a match or they could even ask if further referrals are serving to me or not. I inform you, it’s an unimaginable aid when referrals are put in this context.

I often still take these calls although. I discovered that just having a conversation with a referred lead is effective. I don’t need to be the solution. I might help decide what they actually need and may typically join them with colleagues who I trust will do a very good job on their behalf.

I grow to be a link on a sequence of expertise and belief. This can be a highly beneficial and scarce commodity.

Professional or Prima Donna

The crux for me was in understanding my value. Not solely understanding it however believing in it. Do I deserve that lawyer-like hourly price? I don’t do lots of hourly work now but I find it a great way to help extra people without the overhead of stress.

Legal professionals have an outlined set of experience that many others don’t. Hopefully additionally they have a monitor document of success. So how does that examine to my enterprise? The regulation is relatively secure and transparent. However search is the other. It modifications and it isn’t clear in the slightest.

In fact two legal professionals can interpret the regulation in a different way, simply as two SEOs can interpret search in another way. But extra so at this time than ever, the ignorance in our business – or pure disinformation – places a premium on connecting with true specialists.

It’s not just discovering somebody who will help you figure out your search points. It’s stopping them from following dangerous advice and throwing good money after dangerous.

My default is to say that I’m fortunate to be in a position the place I have extra business than I can deal with. However it’s not likely luck. I put in the time and I get the outcomes. I work arduous and am always trying to hold my edge. What is it that I’m not seeing?

I use this as context to elucidate why I’m not prepared to relinquish my work type. And I’m making an attempt to acknowledge that it doesn’t make me a prima donna. It simply acknowledges that I’m an skilled in my area and that I need to be glad.

It’s uncomfortable to cost a high price and dictate particular terms of engagement. It’s like the Van Halen rider the place they demanded M&Ms however no brown ones. I guess you are able to do worse than being the search equal of David Lee Roth. Notably if you understand the historical past around that famous rider.

Letting Angst Go

2017 was about embracing my worth and believing in my experience. It was about letting my own misgivings and angst go so that I can do the work I take pleasure in and be completely satisfied doing it.

Perhaps this sounds straightforward to some. Nevertheless it hasn’t come easily for me. Whereas I don’t achieve validation from others, I don’t need to be a type of people who are out of contact and troublesome to work with.

I absolutely dropped the ball on some leads and a few shoppers in 2017. Never to the point the place it harm their business. But individuals have been irritated. I am really sorry for that however … I not feel (overly) responsible about it.

I needed to do the most effective work. I took on an excessive amount of. I tried my greatest. I’ll get up and check out my greatest tomorrow.

I’ve discovered to say no more typically and not really feel responsible about it or feel prefer it’s a missed opportunity. I’m not trying to build an company and scale up. I’m a high-touch marketing consultant with restricted time constraints.

Raising Charges and Changing Retainers

Based mostly on this I raised my charges. It’s the second time I’ve completed that in the last three years. And I did it as a result of one in every of my shoppers informed me I ought to. It’s good when shoppers are searching for you as much as you’re for them.

I additionally determined to take away the hourly most in my retainer agreements. Up to now, I had a clause that primarily ensured that a shopper wouldn’t monopolize my time beneath a retainer settlement. I built in a hourly most simply in case.

The problem was that by having that hourly maximum they have been all the time considering of the retainer in phrases of the variety of hours worked. That wasn’t what I was about. It isn’t about time. It’s about experience and outcomes.

This video on How To Worth Design Providers spoke to me so clearly.

I didn’t watch your complete video. I imply, who has 36 minutes! However that one phase was sufficient for me to know that it wasn’t the hours individuals must be paying for however the expertise.

This made an enormous difference because I not have dreary conversations about whether I devoted enough hours to help the retainer. I hate those conversations. They make me indignant. So now I don’t have them.

Advisor Gigs

I also sought out extra advisor positions in 2017. I didn’t quite nail down easy methods to greatest structure these engagements. And I did a awful job of juggling those relationships versus my conventional relationships.

But that’s how you work these things out. You stub your toe and transfer on making an attempt to not make those same errors again. 2018 already appears good on this entrance with quite a lot of fascinating relationships where I can leverage my experience in search and advertising.

I constructed most of my long term shopper relationships on trust and including business value beyond conventional search. And while I might take advising positions based mostly on my main experience I’m in search of people who value my bigger information set and insight from scores of shoppers over the previous ten years.

I’ve discovered quite a bit about what makes one start-up succeed the place others fail.

Continuous Schooling

Change is all the time a continuing in search. And I’d say that the speed of change is growing. I’m lucky to work with some unimaginable technical groups. So once they say something I don’t fairly understand I don’t just nod alongside.

I ask them to elucidate it. I tell individuals when I don’t know one thing. I’ll tell individuals I know sufficient to know something is off however not sufficient to inform them precisely what’s mistaken. This is the way you build experience and achieve belief.

And in 2018 I’ve requested a number of builders I belief to take an afternoon to speak to me like a five yr previous about JavaScript frameworks and how they deliver content to the page. Now, I understand the subject. However I need to study more.

One among my belongings has been to have sufficient technical information to know when someone is blowing smoke up my nether regions. A variety of what I ask individuals to do (instrumentation) is boring. As such, many builders inflate the complexity of these tasks. Asking a number of pointed questions shortly reduces that inflation and will get the work achieved.

I don’t feel like I have that degree of confidence on JavaScript frameworks. I can inform half of the builders I work with have an analogous degree of data to my very own. And when a developer admits as a lot we will simply collaborate, debate troublesome questions and figure issues out. However many developers aren’t going to confess to ‘good enough’ information.

Studying more is all the time a priority.

Outsourcing

Then again, I can’t do every part. I typically need to but there’s simply not enough time in the day. This weblog wants a makeover and I’ll should get another person to do it. I need to let my tinkering ways go so I can develop and give attention to different tasks.

And there are different tasks in the works. Prior to now I’ve had concepts, purchased domains and considered constructing one factor or one other. Nice ideas! However they never went anyplace. A continuing movement of renewing domain e-mail notices remind me of the missed alternatives.

The most important obstacle in these tasks was … me. I needed to do all of it. I needed to build the precise website, which could require studying a brand new programming and database language. After which I’d want to truly write all the content material after which do all the advertising and promotion.

Ain’t no one acquired time for that.

Properly, perhaps some individuals do however I’m not one among them. Regardless that I might, and part of me thinks it might be fun if I did, I shouldn’t spend my time that approach. So I’m working with people to spin up two sites and one potential device.

Danger and Danger

I anticipate that it is going to be troublesome for me to let go of some particulars. I’m guessing the tasks can be messy, complicated, aggravating and hopefully rewarding in by some means. But truthfully, there are specific lyrics from Contrails by Astronautalis that remain my guiding star.

The actual danger isn’t a slipped grip at the fringe of the height The actual danger is simply to linger at the base of the factor

Every time I take a danger I am comfortable I did so. I can’t inform you that it all the time labored out. However in some methods … it did, with enough time and perspective.

In each failure, I can select how that helped get me to the place I am in the present day. I’m not saying things couldn’t have been simpler. They might have. I simply determine to seek out the constructive out of those conditions.

That’s not some saccharine ‘everything happens for a reason’ tripe. Screw that. I can just tell a story the place the ending is … pleased. I have most cancers however it’s one which’s simply treatable. That’s a win in my guide.

Telling myself these stories and deciding that I’d quite dwell on what turned out proper as an alternative of flawed helps me take the subsequent danger. It’s my job to take heed to that stressed itch and move my story ahead figuring out I might have to do some modifying in submit production.

Observations

There have been loads of business modifications final yr that had a meaningful influence on my business. I made a decision to criticize less so I wavered in adding these observations because they’re not notably rosy.

However the following issues formed my yr from how I strategy search evaluation, to how I achieve further information to how I educate shoppers.

The Google we knew is just not the Google we’re coping with in the present day

I’ve been lucky to satisfy and speak with various Googlers all through the years. They’re overwhelmingly good individuals making an attempt to do the best factor by customers. The power and keenness they’ve around search is … inspiring.

But Matt Cutts left and Amit Singhal was replaced by John Giannandrea as the top of search. That doesn’t appear to be quite a bit. But for those who put your ear to the tracks and skim the tea leaves you acknowledge that this was an enormous change in path for Google.

Machine studying is front and middle and it’s a vital a part of Google’s algorithm.

It’s not that good, passionate individuals aren’t nonetheless at Google. They are. However the setting is definitely totally different. We’re talking about individuals, specialists in their subject, given new course from a brand new boss. How do you assume you’d feel?

I consider understanding the people who work on search is an asset to understanding search. That’s extra true immediately than ever.

Business Content Is Lacking

I wrestle to seek out good content to learn nowadays. We lost our greatest investigative journalist last yr along with one other passionate and sensible editor. Danny Sullivan and Matt McGee are sorely missed.

I used to take great satisfaction in curating the business and Tweeting out the most effective I might find every day. It was a gentle stream of 2 or three Tweets a day. Now … it’s perhaps twice every week. Perhaps I’m just over-the-hill and not finding the brand new voices? Perhaps I’m not dedicating sufficient time to combing Feedly?

But I’m discouraged when I open up a prime tendencies of 2018 publish (which I know is a mistake) and see ‘water is wet’ statements like ‘featured snippets will be important’ and ‘voice search is on the rise’.

As an alternative of bemoaning the dangerous, I want to point out people like Paul Shapiro for nice technical content and Cyrus Shepard who appears to have taken up the mantle of curating our business. There are other nice specialists like Bill Slawski and Bartosz Goralweicz on the market contributing however … there are too few of them for my taste.

And there are others who clearly have information but aren’t sharing proper now. I’m not going to name them out. Hell, I’d be calling myself out too. I assume they’re all busy with work and life. Being business well-known doesn’t make their lives better. The truth is, it causes extra problems. I get it, however I wish we all had extra time to move the conversation forward.

Extra knowledge isn’t the problem, it’s the shortage of interpretation and evaluation.

The conversations I see occurring in the business are often masturbatory and ego driven. Somebody needs to be right and someone needs to be incorrect. Actual debate and true exploration look like an endangered species.

As an example, figuring out that Google is relying closely on machine studying, shouldn’t the business be taking a look at analyzing algorithmic modifications in a unique approach.

Right now, modifications in rank are typically tied to an update in the mapping of vectors to intent that renders a special mix of content on outcomes. One can watch over many months as they check, study and adapt on query courses in pursuit of optimal time to lengthy click metrics.

I find the calcification of search fact to be harmful given the speed of modifications inherent in our vertical. On the similar time, the most recent things don’t substitute the tried and true. It’s these contradictions that make our business fascinating!

Past that, many are working off of a very restricted knowledge set. The truth that one thing labored for you on the one website that you simply tried it on won’t mean much. In fact, we’ve also seen individuals with a lot bigger knowledge units make errors in interpretation.

And that’s where things seem to have gone off the tracks. I don’t mind correlation studies. They provide another level of knowledge for me to think about amongst numerous other knowledge factors. I assign the findings from each correlation research a weight based mostly on all of my other information.

That signifies that some will receive little or no weight and others extra based mostly on my understanding of how they have been carried out and what I see in apply across my shopper base. We don’t need much less knowledge, much less content or fewer techniques. We have to higher perceive the worth of every and the way they mix to assist achieve search success.

In consequence I see much more appetite for hiring progress engineers over SEOs largely as a result of they’re prepared to check and adapt as an alternative of proselytize.

The Issues That Matter

I’m most cancers free! It’s been almost three years now. And in 2017 I couldn’t use recovery as an excuse for my eating habits. So I misplaced 25 kilos.

For those , there’s no actual magic to dropping pounds. Journal your food and take in fewer calories than you burn. It’s not all the time enjoyable or straightforward however it works.

I gained 10 of that back in the previous few months of the yr. This was partly because I lost my tennis partners, which meant no calorie burning exercise cushion that allowed me a number of days of indulgence each week.

Fortunately, my daughter is now lastly getting back to tennis after bodily remedy for a patellar subluxation, which is a dislocation of the kneecap. Her second in two years.

It turns out her thigh bone doesn’t have as deep a divot for her kneecap. It’s almost flat, which suggests she’s vulnerable to dislocations. The orthopedist talked about that this additionally meant that when it did slip out it wouldn’t harm almost as much. Seems I’m not the one one who can inform a narrative that depends on the constructive versus the destructive. #callback

My wife, then again, has tennis elbow, which is way extra painful than she or I realized. She’ll be present process a process soon in hopes that it helps her tendon to bounce again and heal absolutely.

Things are literally fairly good regardless of all this and the fact that my daughter is a youngster (yikes) and my wife just had sinus surgical procedure. I’m around and I’m happier, which I hope is as infectious as this yr’s flu.

Postscript: Depart A Remark // Subscribe (RSS Feed)

The Next Publish: Monitoring Hidden Long-Tail Search Visitors The Earlier Submit: Google Index Protection Report

The post What I Learned in 2017 appeared first on Tactics Socks.

[goglinwen]

(This can be a private publish so if that isn’t your factor then it is best to move on.)

2017 was lots like 2016, but on steroids. That meant a 40% improve in the enterprise, which sadly came with much more stress and angst. I did figure some things out and managed to make some selections that I plan to place into apply in 2018.

Nothing Succeeds Like Success

Last yr I was lastly snug calling Blind 5 Yr Previous a hit. I’d made it. But that got here with a number of unusual baggage that I wasn’t totally positive the right way to deal with.

It was uncomfortable to put in writing about how success may be troublesome when you realize that others are struggling. But I can solely write about my own experience and acknowledge that some would take my words the flawed method.

Trust me, I perceive that these are good problems. But they’re issues nonetheless. In 2017 those problems grew. The very healthy revenue I had maintained for the past 4 years rose by 40%.

I stared at the run price all year long type of dumbfounded. For actual? That a lot! It’s not that I lacked confidence and didn’t assume I’d make it. The number was just past what I anticipated.

Cash and Happiness

Cash is a wierd beast. One among my favourite items final yr was When life changing cash, isn’t by Wil Reynolds. He captured a substantial amount of what I’ve struggled with over the past few years.

I’m at a spot the place bills aren’t an issue and I can primarily do what I need to do. My daughter needs a brand new tennis racquet, I buy one. Ought to we exit for dinner tonight? Why not. Need to vacation on the seashore in Maui? E-book it!

The power to do this stuff makes me very totally different from a majority of individuals and that scares me.

The factor is, I don’t want an entire lot extra. I’m not trying to get a better house or a greater automotive. I don’t have a need to purchase crazy costly clothes. Hell, I spend most of my days in sweats behind this pc.

Extra money isn’t inherently dangerous. I imply, I do stay in some of the costly areas in the country and I am all about putting more in the direction of retirement and school. However both of those at the moment are on monitor so the additional cash doesn’t truly do that rather more.

Extra money hasn’t made me happier.

Time and Stress

The additional work created a lot more strain. There’s less time and extra expectations. That mixture doesn’t translate into more happiness. Under no circumstances.

It’d if I simply needed to coast on fame and churn out regardless of the minimal quantity that was required to maintain the cash rolling in. However I’m not wired like that.

I’m not trying to mollify and appease, I’m trying to rework and build. Each shopper is totally different and requires research and due diligence to find out the best way to greatest deal with their search and enterprise points.

I really feel the obligation of being a great associate and in delivering outcomes. I don’t like cashing checks when a shopper’s business isn’t shifting in the appropriate course.

Communication

I find it onerous to respond shortly to something I consider requires larger thought. Meaning I’m sluggish and often don’t communicate nicely. I’ve come to the conclusion that this can be a function and not a bug.

Can I get higher at telling individuals when I’m taking more time than they need? Yes. But I comprehend it gained’t go away utterly. I’ll typically slip right into a cycle of not responding and then pushing aside responding till I have one thing more materials and when I don’t the guilt increases and the response then have to be that a lot better so I delay … once more.

I do this much less now than I used to. But I comprehend it’ll still happen occasionally and I’m uninterested in feeling dangerous about that. Some shoppers simply aren’t a match for my work type. And that’s okay.

Referrals and Aid

Much of what I describe above is why I continue to obtain referrals. Good work gets observed and in an business rife with pretenders individuals happily promote those who really get the work finished.

I love referrals. However additionally they come loaded with further stress. Because you don’t need to let the individual referring you down. It’s not misplaced on me that they have sufficient confidence in me to belief them with one among their very own connections.

What I’ve discovered in the last yr is that more of these individuals perceive the bind I’m in. I have solely a lot time and I’m not all the time the suitable individual for a business. I specialize in giant scale B2C sites like Pinterest and Genius. It’s not that I can’t do B2B. I simply don’t take pleasure in it as much.

In order that they inform me up entrance that it won’t be a match or they could even ask if further referrals are serving to me or not. I inform you, it’s an unimaginable aid when referrals are put in this context.

I often still take these calls although. I discovered that just having a conversation with a referred lead is effective. I don’t need to be the solution. I might help decide what they actually need and may typically join them with colleagues who I trust will do a very good job on their behalf.

I grow to be a link on a sequence of expertise and belief. This can be a highly beneficial and scarce commodity.

Professional or Prima Donna

The crux for me was in understanding my value. Not solely understanding it however believing in it. Do I deserve that lawyer-like hourly price? I don’t do lots of hourly work now but I find it a great way to help extra people without the overhead of stress.

Legal professionals have an outlined set of experience that many others don’t. Hopefully additionally they have a monitor document of success. So how does that examine to my enterprise? The regulation is relatively secure and transparent. However search is the other. It modifications and it isn’t clear in the slightest.

In fact two legal professionals can interpret the regulation in a different way, simply as two SEOs can interpret search in another way. But extra so at this time than ever, the ignorance in our business – or pure disinformation – places a premium on connecting with true specialists.

It’s not just discovering somebody who will help you figure out your search points. It’s stopping them from following dangerous advice and throwing good money after dangerous.

My default is to say that I’m fortunate to be in a position the place I have extra business than I can deal with. However it’s not likely luck. I put in the time and I get the outcomes. I work arduous and am always trying to hold my edge. What is it that I’m not seeing?

I use this as context to elucidate why I’m not prepared to relinquish my work type. And I’m making an attempt to acknowledge that it doesn’t make me a prima donna. It simply acknowledges that I’m an skilled in my area and that I need to be glad.

It’s uncomfortable to cost a high price and dictate particular terms of engagement. It’s like the Van Halen rider the place they demanded M&Ms however no brown ones. I guess you are able to do worse than being the search equal of David Lee Roth. Notably if you understand the historical past around that famous rider.

Letting Angst Go

2017 was about embracing my worth and believing in my experience. It was about letting my own misgivings and angst go so that I can do the work I take pleasure in and be completely satisfied doing it.

Perhaps this sounds straightforward to some. Nevertheless it hasn’t come easily for me. Whereas I don’t achieve validation from others, I don’t need to be a type of people who are out of contact and troublesome to work with.

I absolutely dropped the ball on some leads and a few shoppers in 2017. Never to the point the place it harm their business. But individuals have been irritated. I am really sorry for that however … I not feel (overly) responsible about it.

I needed to do the most effective work. I took on an excessive amount of. I tried my greatest. I’ll get up and check out my greatest tomorrow.

I’ve discovered to say no more typically and not really feel responsible about it or feel prefer it’s a missed opportunity. I’m not trying to build an company and scale up. I’m a high-touch marketing consultant with restricted time constraints.

Raising Charges and Changing Retainers

Based mostly on this I raised my charges. It’s the second time I’ve completed that in the last three years. And I did it as a result of one in every of my shoppers informed me I ought to. It’s good when shoppers are searching for you as much as you’re for them.

I additionally determined to take away the hourly most in my retainer agreements. Up to now, I had a clause that primarily ensured that a shopper wouldn’t monopolize my time beneath a retainer settlement. I built in a hourly most simply in case.

The problem was that by having that hourly maximum they have been all the time considering of the retainer in phrases of the variety of hours worked. That wasn’t what I was about. It isn’t about time. It’s about experience and outcomes.

This video on How To Worth Design Providers spoke to me so clearly.

I didn’t watch your complete video. I imply, who has 36 minutes! However that one phase was sufficient for me to know that it wasn’t the hours individuals must be paying for however the expertise.

This made an enormous difference because I not have dreary conversations about whether I devoted enough hours to help the retainer. I hate those conversations. They make me indignant. So now I don’t have them.

Advisor Gigs

I also sought out extra advisor positions in 2017. I didn’t quite nail down easy methods to greatest structure these engagements. And I did a awful job of juggling those relationships versus my conventional relationships.

But that’s how you work these things out. You stub your toe and transfer on making an attempt to not make those same errors again. 2018 already appears good on this entrance with quite a lot of fascinating relationships where I can leverage my experience in search and advertising.

I constructed most of my long term shopper relationships on trust and including business value beyond conventional search. And while I might take advising positions based mostly on my main experience I’m in search of people who value my bigger information set and insight from scores of shoppers over the previous ten years.

I’ve discovered quite a bit about what makes one start-up succeed the place others fail.

Continuous Schooling

Change is all the time a continuing in search. And I’d say that the speed of change is growing. I’m lucky to work with some unimaginable technical groups. So once they say something I don’t fairly understand I don’t just nod alongside.

I ask them to elucidate it. I tell individuals when I don’t know one thing. I’ll tell individuals I know sufficient to know something is off however not sufficient to inform them precisely what’s mistaken. This is the way you build experience and achieve belief.

And in 2018 I’ve requested a number of builders I belief to take an afternoon to speak to me like a five yr previous about JavaScript frameworks and how they deliver content to the page. Now, I understand the subject. However I need to study more.

One among my belongings has been to have sufficient technical information to know when someone is blowing smoke up my nether regions. A variety of what I ask individuals to do (instrumentation) is boring. As such, many builders inflate the complexity of these tasks. Asking a number of pointed questions shortly reduces that inflation and will get the work achieved.

I don’t feel like I have that degree of confidence on JavaScript frameworks. I can inform half of the builders I work with have an analogous degree of data to my very own. And when a developer admits as a lot we will simply collaborate, debate troublesome questions and figure issues out. However many developers aren’t going to confess to ‘good enough’ information.

Studying more is all the time a priority.

Outsourcing

Then again, I can’t do every part. I typically need to but there’s simply not enough time in the day. This weblog wants a makeover and I’ll should get another person to do it. I need to let my tinkering ways go so I can develop and give attention to different tasks.

And there are different tasks in the works. Prior to now I’ve had concepts, purchased domains and considered constructing one factor or one other. Nice ideas! However they never went anyplace. A continuing movement of renewing domain e-mail notices remind me of the missed alternatives.

The most important obstacle in these tasks was … me. I needed to do all of it. I needed to build the precise website, which could require studying a brand new programming and database language. After which I’d want to truly write all the content material after which do all the advertising and promotion.

Ain’t no one acquired time for that.

Properly, perhaps some individuals do however I’m not one among them. Regardless that I might, and part of me thinks it might be fun if I did, I shouldn’t spend my time that approach. So I’m working with people to spin up two sites and one potential device.

Danger and Danger

I anticipate that it is going to be troublesome for me to let go of some particulars. I’m guessing the tasks can be messy, complicated, aggravating and hopefully rewarding in by some means. But truthfully, there are specific lyrics from Contrails by Astronautalis that remain my guiding star.

The actual danger isn’t a slipped grip at the fringe of the height The actual danger is simply to linger at the base of the factor

Every time I take a danger I am comfortable I did so. I can’t inform you that it all the time labored out. However in some methods … it did, with enough time and perspective.

In each failure, I can select how that helped get me to the place I am in the present day. I’m not saying things couldn’t have been simpler. They might have. I simply determine to seek out the constructive out of those conditions.

That’s not some saccharine ‘everything happens for a reason’ tripe. Screw that. I can just tell a story the place the ending is … pleased. I have most cancers however it’s one which’s simply treatable. That’s a win in my guide.

Telling myself these stories and deciding that I’d quite dwell on what turned out proper as an alternative of flawed helps me take the subsequent danger. It’s my job to take heed to that stressed itch and move my story ahead figuring out I might have to do some modifying in submit production.

Observations

There have been loads of business modifications final yr that had a meaningful influence on my business. I made a decision to criticize less so I wavered in adding these observations because they’re not notably rosy.

However the following issues formed my yr from how I strategy search evaluation, to how I achieve further information to how I educate shoppers.

The Google we knew is just not the Google we’re coping with in the present day

I’ve been lucky to satisfy and speak with various Googlers all through the years. They’re overwhelmingly good individuals making an attempt to do the best factor by customers. The power and keenness they’ve around search is … inspiring.

But Matt Cutts left and Amit Singhal was replaced by John Giannandrea as the top of search. That doesn’t appear to be quite a bit. But for those who put your ear to the tracks and skim the tea leaves you acknowledge that this was an enormous change in path for Google.

Machine studying is front and middle and it’s a vital a part of Google’s algorithm.

It’s not that good, passionate individuals aren’t nonetheless at Google. They are. However the setting is definitely totally different. We’re talking about individuals, specialists in their subject, given new course from a brand new boss. How do you assume you’d feel?

I consider understanding the people who work on search is an asset to understanding search. That’s extra true immediately than ever.

Business Content Is Lacking

I wrestle to seek out good content to learn nowadays. We lost our greatest investigative journalist last yr along with one other passionate and sensible editor. Danny Sullivan and Matt McGee are sorely missed.

I used to take great satisfaction in curating the business and Tweeting out the most effective I might find every day. It was a gentle stream of 2 or three Tweets a day. Now … it’s perhaps twice every week. Perhaps I’m just over-the-hill and not finding the brand new voices? Perhaps I’m not dedicating sufficient time to combing Feedly?

But I’m discouraged when I open up a prime tendencies of 2018 publish (which I know is a mistake) and see ‘water is wet’ statements like ‘featured snippets will be important’ and ‘voice search is on the rise’.

As an alternative of bemoaning the dangerous, I want to point out people like Paul Shapiro for nice technical content and Cyrus Shepard who appears to have taken up the mantle of curating our business. There are other nice specialists like Bill Slawski and Bartosz Goralweicz on the market contributing however … there are too few of them for my taste.

And there are others who clearly have information but aren’t sharing proper now. I’m not going to name them out. Hell, I’d be calling myself out too. I assume they’re all busy with work and life. Being business well-known doesn’t make their lives better. The truth is, it causes extra problems. I get it, however I wish we all had extra time to move the conversation forward.

Extra knowledge isn’t the problem, it’s the shortage of interpretation and evaluation.

The conversations I see occurring in the business are often masturbatory and ego driven. Somebody needs to be right and someone needs to be incorrect. Actual debate and true exploration look like an endangered species.

As an example, figuring out that Google is relying closely on machine studying, shouldn’t the business be taking a look at analyzing algorithmic modifications in a unique approach.

Right now, modifications in rank are typically tied to an update in the mapping of vectors to intent that renders a special mix of content on outcomes. One can watch over many months as they check, study and adapt on query courses in pursuit of optimal time to lengthy click metrics.

I find the calcification of search fact to be harmful given the speed of modifications inherent in our vertical. On the similar time, the most recent things don’t substitute the tried and true. It’s these contradictions that make our business fascinating!

Past that, many are working off of a very restricted knowledge set. The truth that one thing labored for you on the one website that you simply tried it on won’t mean much. In fact, we’ve also seen individuals with a lot bigger knowledge units make errors in interpretation.

And that’s where things seem to have gone off the tracks. I don’t mind correlation studies. They provide another level of knowledge for me to think about amongst numerous other knowledge factors. I assign the findings from each correlation research a weight based mostly on all of my other information.

That signifies that some will receive little or no weight and others extra based mostly on my understanding of how they have been carried out and what I see in apply across my shopper base. We don’t need much less knowledge, much less content or fewer techniques. We have to higher perceive the worth of every and the way they mix to assist achieve search success.

In consequence I see much more appetite for hiring progress engineers over SEOs largely as a result of they’re prepared to check and adapt as an alternative of proselytize.

The Issues That Matter

I’m most cancers free! It’s been almost three years now. And in 2017 I couldn’t use recovery as an excuse for my eating habits. So I misplaced 25 kilos.

For those , there’s no actual magic to dropping pounds. Journal your food and take in fewer calories than you burn. It’s not all the time enjoyable or straightforward however it works.

I gained 10 of that back in the previous few months of the yr. This was partly because I lost my tennis partners, which meant no calorie burning exercise cushion that allowed me a number of days of indulgence each week.

Fortunately, my daughter is now lastly getting back to tennis after bodily remedy for a patellar subluxation, which is a dislocation of the kneecap. Her second in two years.

It turns out her thigh bone doesn’t have as deep a divot for her kneecap. It’s almost flat, which suggests she’s vulnerable to dislocations. The orthopedist talked about that this additionally meant that when it did slip out it wouldn’t harm almost as much. Seems I’m not the one one who can inform a narrative that depends on the constructive versus the destructive. #callback

My wife, then again, has tennis elbow, which is way extra painful than she or I realized. She’ll be present process a process soon in hopes that it helps her tendon to bounce again and heal absolutely.

Things are literally fairly good regardless of all this and the fact that my daughter is a youngster (yikes) and my wife just had sinus surgical procedure. I’m around and I’m happier, which I hope is as infectious as this yr’s flu.

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The Next Publish: Monitoring Hidden Long-Tail Search Visitors The Earlier Submit: Google Index Protection Report

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(This can be a private publish so if that isn’t your factor then it is best to move on.)

2017 was lots like 2016, but on steroids. That meant a 40% improve in the enterprise, which sadly came with much more stress and angst. I did figure some things out and managed to make some selections that I plan to place into apply in 2018.

Nothing Succeeds Like Success

Last yr I was lastly snug calling Blind 5 Yr Previous a hit. I’d made it. But that got here with a number of unusual baggage that I wasn’t totally positive the right way to deal with.

It was uncomfortable to put in writing about how success may be troublesome when you realize that others are struggling. But I can solely write about my own experience and acknowledge that some would take my words the flawed method.

Trust me, I perceive that these are good problems. But they’re issues nonetheless. In 2017 those problems grew. The very healthy revenue I had maintained for the past 4 years rose by 40%.

I stared at the run price all year long type of dumbfounded. For actual? That a lot! It’s not that I lacked confidence and didn’t assume I’d make it. The number was just past what I anticipated.

Cash and Happiness

Cash is a wierd beast. One among my favourite items final yr was When life changing cash, isn’t by Wil Reynolds. He captured a substantial amount of what I’ve struggled with over the past few years.

I’m at a spot the place bills aren’t an issue and I can primarily do what I need to do. My daughter needs a brand new tennis racquet, I buy one. Ought to we exit for dinner tonight? Why not. Need to vacation on the seashore in Maui? E-book it!

The power to do this stuff makes me very totally different from a majority of individuals and that scares me.

The factor is, I don’t want an entire lot extra. I’m not trying to get a better house or a greater automotive. I don’t have a need to purchase crazy costly clothes. Hell, I spend most of my days in sweats behind this pc.

Extra money isn’t inherently dangerous. I imply, I do stay in some of the costly areas in the country and I am all about putting more in the direction of retirement and school. However both of those at the moment are on monitor so the additional cash doesn’t truly do that rather more.

Extra money hasn’t made me happier.

Time and Stress

The additional work created a lot more strain. There’s less time and extra expectations. That mixture doesn’t translate into more happiness. Under no circumstances.

It’d if I simply needed to coast on fame and churn out regardless of the minimal quantity that was required to maintain the cash rolling in. However I’m not wired like that.

I’m not trying to mollify and appease, I’m trying to rework and build. Each shopper is totally different and requires research and due diligence to find out the best way to greatest deal with their search and enterprise points.

I really feel the obligation of being a great associate and in delivering outcomes. I don’t like cashing checks when a shopper’s business isn’t shifting in the appropriate course.

Communication

I find it onerous to respond shortly to something I consider requires larger thought. Meaning I’m sluggish and often don’t communicate nicely. I’ve come to the conclusion that this can be a function and not a bug.

Can I get higher at telling individuals when I’m taking more time than they need? Yes. But I comprehend it gained’t go away utterly. I’ll typically slip right into a cycle of not responding and then pushing aside responding till I have one thing more materials and when I don’t the guilt increases and the response then have to be that a lot better so I delay … once more.

I do this much less now than I used to. But I comprehend it’ll still happen occasionally and I’m uninterested in feeling dangerous about that. Some shoppers simply aren’t a match for my work type. And that’s okay.

Referrals and Aid

Much of what I describe above is why I continue to obtain referrals. Good work gets observed and in an business rife with pretenders individuals happily promote those who really get the work finished.

I love referrals. However additionally they come loaded with further stress. Because you don’t need to let the individual referring you down. It’s not misplaced on me that they have sufficient confidence in me to belief them with one among their very own connections.

What I’ve discovered in the last yr is that more of these individuals perceive the bind I’m in. I have solely a lot time and I’m not all the time the suitable individual for a business. I specialize in giant scale B2C sites like Pinterest and Genius. It’s not that I can’t do B2B. I simply don’t take pleasure in it as much.

In order that they inform me up entrance that it won’t be a match or they could even ask if further referrals are serving to me or not. I inform you, it’s an unimaginable aid when referrals are put in this context.

I often still take these calls although. I discovered that just having a conversation with a referred lead is effective. I don’t need to be the solution. I might help decide what they actually need and may typically join them with colleagues who I trust will do a very good job on their behalf.

I grow to be a link on a sequence of expertise and belief. This can be a highly beneficial and scarce commodity.

Professional or Prima Donna

The crux for me was in understanding my value. Not solely understanding it however believing in it. Do I deserve that lawyer-like hourly price? I don’t do lots of hourly work now but I find it a great way to help extra people without the overhead of stress.

Legal professionals have an outlined set of experience that many others don’t. Hopefully additionally they have a monitor document of success. So how does that examine to my enterprise? The regulation is relatively secure and transparent. However search is the other. It modifications and it isn’t clear in the slightest.

In fact two legal professionals can interpret the regulation in a different way, simply as two SEOs can interpret search in another way. But extra so at this time than ever, the ignorance in our business – or pure disinformation – places a premium on connecting with true specialists.

It’s not just discovering somebody who will help you figure out your search points. It’s stopping them from following dangerous advice and throwing good money after dangerous.

My default is to say that I’m fortunate to be in a position the place I have extra business than I can deal with. However it’s not likely luck. I put in the time and I get the outcomes. I work arduous and am always trying to hold my edge. What is it that I’m not seeing?

I use this as context to elucidate why I’m not prepared to relinquish my work type. And I’m making an attempt to acknowledge that it doesn’t make me a prima donna. It simply acknowledges that I’m an skilled in my area and that I need to be glad.

It’s uncomfortable to cost a high price and dictate particular terms of engagement. It’s like the Van Halen rider the place they demanded M&Ms however no brown ones. I guess you are able to do worse than being the search equal of David Lee Roth. Notably if you understand the historical past around that famous rider.

Letting Angst Go

2017 was about embracing my worth and believing in my experience. It was about letting my own misgivings and angst go so that I can do the work I take pleasure in and be completely satisfied doing it.

Perhaps this sounds straightforward to some. Nevertheless it hasn’t come easily for me. Whereas I don’t achieve validation from others, I don’t need to be a type of people who are out of contact and troublesome to work with.

I absolutely dropped the ball on some leads and a few shoppers in 2017. Never to the point the place it harm their business. But individuals have been irritated. I am really sorry for that however … I not feel (overly) responsible about it.

I needed to do the most effective work. I took on an excessive amount of. I tried my greatest. I’ll get up and check out my greatest tomorrow.

I’ve discovered to say no more typically and not really feel responsible about it or feel prefer it’s a missed opportunity. I’m not trying to build an company and scale up. I’m a high-touch marketing consultant with restricted time constraints.

Raising Charges and Changing Retainers

Based mostly on this I raised my charges. It’s the second time I’ve completed that in the last three years. And I did it as a result of one in every of my shoppers informed me I ought to. It’s good when shoppers are searching for you as much as you’re for them.

I additionally determined to take away the hourly most in my retainer agreements. Up to now, I had a clause that primarily ensured that a shopper wouldn’t monopolize my time beneath a retainer settlement. I built in a hourly most simply in case.

The problem was that by having that hourly maximum they have been all the time considering of the retainer in phrases of the variety of hours worked. That wasn’t what I was about. It isn’t about time. It’s about experience and outcomes.

This video on How To Worth Design Providers spoke to me so clearly.

I didn’t watch your complete video. I imply, who has 36 minutes! However that one phase was sufficient for me to know that it wasn’t the hours individuals must be paying for however the expertise.

This made an enormous difference because I not have dreary conversations about whether I devoted enough hours to help the retainer. I hate those conversations. They make me indignant. So now I don’t have them.

Advisor Gigs

I also sought out extra advisor positions in 2017. I didn’t quite nail down easy methods to greatest structure these engagements. And I did a awful job of juggling those relationships versus my conventional relationships.

But that’s how you work these things out. You stub your toe and transfer on making an attempt to not make those same errors again. 2018 already appears good on this entrance with quite a lot of fascinating relationships where I can leverage my experience in search and advertising.

I constructed most of my long term shopper relationships on trust and including business value beyond conventional search. And while I might take advising positions based mostly on my main experience I’m in search of people who value my bigger information set and insight from scores of shoppers over the previous ten years.

I’ve discovered quite a bit about what makes one start-up succeed the place others fail.

Continuous Schooling

Change is all the time a continuing in search. And I’d say that the speed of change is growing. I’m lucky to work with some unimaginable technical groups. So once they say something I don’t fairly understand I don’t just nod alongside.

I ask them to elucidate it. I tell individuals when I don’t know one thing. I’ll tell individuals I know sufficient to know something is off however not sufficient to inform them precisely what’s mistaken. This is the way you build experience and achieve belief.

And in 2018 I’ve requested a number of builders I belief to take an afternoon to speak to me like a five yr previous about JavaScript frameworks and how they deliver content to the page. Now, I understand the subject. However I need to study more.

One among my belongings has been to have sufficient technical information to know when someone is blowing smoke up my nether regions. A variety of what I ask individuals to do (instrumentation) is boring. As such, many builders inflate the complexity of these tasks. Asking a number of pointed questions shortly reduces that inflation and will get the work achieved.

I don’t feel like I have that degree of confidence on JavaScript frameworks. I can inform half of the builders I work with have an analogous degree of data to my very own. And when a developer admits as a lot we will simply collaborate, debate troublesome questions and figure issues out. However many developers aren’t going to confess to ‘good enough’ information.

Studying more is all the time a priority.

Outsourcing

Then again, I can’t do every part. I typically need to but there’s simply not enough time in the day. This weblog wants a makeover and I’ll should get another person to do it. I need to let my tinkering ways go so I can develop and give attention to different tasks.

And there are different tasks in the works. Prior to now I’ve had concepts, purchased domains and considered constructing one factor or one other. Nice ideas! However they never went anyplace. A continuing movement of renewing domain e-mail notices remind me of the missed alternatives.

The most important obstacle in these tasks was … me. I needed to do all of it. I needed to build the precise website, which could require studying a brand new programming and database language. After which I’d want to truly write all the content material after which do all the advertising and promotion.

Ain’t no one acquired time for that.

Properly, perhaps some individuals do however I’m not one among them. Regardless that I might, and part of me thinks it might be fun if I did, I shouldn’t spend my time that approach. So I’m working with people to spin up two sites and one potential device.

Danger and Danger

I anticipate that it is going to be troublesome for me to let go of some particulars. I’m guessing the tasks can be messy, complicated, aggravating and hopefully rewarding in by some means. But truthfully, there are specific lyrics from Contrails by Astronautalis that remain my guiding star.

The actual danger isn’t a slipped grip at the fringe of the height The actual danger is simply to linger at the base of the factor

Every time I take a danger I am comfortable I did so. I can’t inform you that it all the time labored out. However in some methods … it did, with enough time and perspective.

In each failure, I can select how that helped get me to the place I am in the present day. I’m not saying things couldn’t have been simpler. They might have. I simply determine to seek out the constructive out of those conditions.

That’s not some saccharine ‘everything happens for a reason’ tripe. Screw that. I can just tell a story the place the ending is … pleased. I have most cancers however it’s one which’s simply treatable. That’s a win in my guide.

Telling myself these stories and deciding that I’d quite dwell on what turned out proper as an alternative of flawed helps me take the subsequent danger. It’s my job to take heed to that stressed itch and move my story ahead figuring out I might have to do some modifying in submit production.

Observations

There have been loads of business modifications final yr that had a meaningful influence on my business. I made a decision to criticize less so I wavered in adding these observations because they’re not notably rosy.

However the following issues formed my yr from how I strategy search evaluation, to how I achieve further information to how I educate shoppers.

The Google we knew is just not the Google we’re coping with in the present day

I’ve been lucky to satisfy and speak with various Googlers all through the years. They’re overwhelmingly good individuals making an attempt to do the best factor by customers. The power and keenness they’ve around search is … inspiring.

But Matt Cutts left and Amit Singhal was replaced by John Giannandrea as the top of search. That doesn’t appear to be quite a bit. But for those who put your ear to the tracks and skim the tea leaves you acknowledge that this was an enormous change in path for Google.

Machine studying is front and middle and it’s a vital a part of Google’s algorithm.

It’s not that good, passionate individuals aren’t nonetheless at Google. They are. However the setting is definitely totally different. We’re talking about individuals, specialists in their subject, given new course from a brand new boss. How do you assume you’d feel?

I consider understanding the people who work on search is an asset to understanding search. That’s extra true immediately than ever.

Business Content Is Lacking

I wrestle to seek out good content to learn nowadays. We lost our greatest investigative journalist last yr along with one other passionate and sensible editor. Danny Sullivan and Matt McGee are sorely missed.

I used to take great satisfaction in curating the business and Tweeting out the most effective I might find every day. It was a gentle stream of 2 or three Tweets a day. Now … it’s perhaps twice every week. Perhaps I’m just over-the-hill and not finding the brand new voices? Perhaps I’m not dedicating sufficient time to combing Feedly?

But I’m discouraged when I open up a prime tendencies of 2018 publish (which I know is a mistake) and see ‘water is wet’ statements like ‘featured snippets will be important’ and ‘voice search is on the rise’.

As an alternative of bemoaning the dangerous, I want to point out people like Paul Shapiro for nice technical content and Cyrus Shepard who appears to have taken up the mantle of curating our business. There are other nice specialists like Bill Slawski and Bartosz Goralweicz on the market contributing however … there are too few of them for my taste.

And there are others who clearly have information but aren’t sharing proper now. I’m not going to name them out. Hell, I’d be calling myself out too. I assume they’re all busy with work and life. Being business well-known doesn’t make their lives better. The truth is, it causes extra problems. I get it, however I wish we all had extra time to move the conversation forward.

Extra knowledge isn’t the problem, it’s the shortage of interpretation and evaluation.

The conversations I see occurring in the business are often masturbatory and ego driven. Somebody needs to be right and someone needs to be incorrect. Actual debate and true exploration look like an endangered species.

As an example, figuring out that Google is relying closely on machine studying, shouldn’t the business be taking a look at analyzing algorithmic modifications in a unique approach.

Right now, modifications in rank are typically tied to an update in the mapping of vectors to intent that renders a special mix of content on outcomes. One can watch over many months as they check, study and adapt on query courses in pursuit of optimal time to lengthy click metrics.

I find the calcification of search fact to be harmful given the speed of modifications inherent in our vertical. On the similar time, the most recent things don’t substitute the tried and true. It’s these contradictions that make our business fascinating!

Past that, many are working off of a very restricted knowledge set. The truth that one thing labored for you on the one website that you simply tried it on won’t mean much. In fact, we’ve also seen individuals with a lot bigger knowledge units make errors in interpretation.

And that’s where things seem to have gone off the tracks. I don’t mind correlation studies. They provide another level of knowledge for me to think about amongst numerous other knowledge factors. I assign the findings from each correlation research a weight based mostly on all of my other information.

That signifies that some will receive little or no weight and others extra based mostly on my understanding of how they have been carried out and what I see in apply across my shopper base. We don’t need much less knowledge, much less content or fewer techniques. We have to higher perceive the worth of every and the way they mix to assist achieve search success.

In consequence I see much more appetite for hiring progress engineers over SEOs largely as a result of they’re prepared to check and adapt as an alternative of proselytize.

The Issues That Matter

I’m most cancers free! It’s been almost three years now. And in 2017 I couldn’t use recovery as an excuse for my eating habits. So I misplaced 25 kilos.

For those , there’s no actual magic to dropping pounds. Journal your food and take in fewer calories than you burn. It’s not all the time enjoyable or straightforward however it works.

I gained 10 of that back in the previous few months of the yr. This was partly because I lost my tennis partners, which meant no calorie burning exercise cushion that allowed me a number of days of indulgence each week.

Fortunately, my daughter is now lastly getting back to tennis after bodily remedy for a patellar subluxation, which is a dislocation of the kneecap. Her second in two years.

It turns out her thigh bone doesn’t have as deep a divot for her kneecap. It’s almost flat, which suggests she’s vulnerable to dislocations. The orthopedist talked about that this additionally meant that when it did slip out it wouldn’t harm almost as much. Seems I’m not the one one who can inform a narrative that depends on the constructive versus the destructive. #callback

My wife, then again, has tennis elbow, which is way extra painful than she or I realized. She’ll be present process a process soon in hopes that it helps her tendon to bounce again and heal absolutely.

Things are literally fairly good regardless of all this and the fact that my daughter is a youngster (yikes) and my wife just had sinus surgical procedure. I’m around and I’m happier, which I hope is as infectious as this yr’s flu.

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The Next Publish: Monitoring Hidden Long-Tail Search Visitors The Earlier Submit: Google Index Protection Report

The post What I Learned in 2017 appeared first on Tactics Socks.

[lindafrancois]

5 Lessons learned from a skinny nerd deadlifting 420 pounds

I did it.

I proved somebody wrong on the internet!

I assume the internet will be mailing me a gold medal at any point this week, but until then, let me share the story.

I gave a TedX talk years ago, and I mentioned one of my long-term goals was being able to lift 400 pounds:

My first thought: “Ouch.”

My second thought: “Why am I reading YouTube comments!? No good can come of this.”

My third thought: “I’m gonna prove this person wrong.”

As a skinny nerd with chicken legs that couldn’t build muscle to save my life, this far-off goal suddenly seemed even further off.

Fast forward to last week: not only did I FINALLY reach my 10 year goal of deadlifting 400 pounds, I blew right past it. No straps, no belt. Just some chalk and “internet justice” rage:

For my final rep, I picked up 420 pounds at a bodyweight of 172 pounds. And it came up pretty quickly!

Now, I’ve internalized 5 big lessons on this journey to a deadlift I’m really proud of, especially considering all of those setbacks.

I wanted to share my lessons learned, and show you how you can apply this to your own life.

#1: Screw Your Genetics.

I have the genes of an elf, without the immortality.

If you’re familiar with body types, I’m an endomorph.

I’m naturally very thin and bony, have very thin wrists and ankles, and will forever have chicken legs.

This would be great, if I wanted to be a runner. Not great when you despise running, and you want to pick up heavy things.

Determined to overcome that fate, I began my journey to heavy lifting, only to get knocked back.

6 years ago, I discovered my genes also contain a super fun condition called “spondylolisthesis.”

Don’t bother trying to pronounce it, I still can’t.

It means my vertebrae don’t line up. Essentially, my L5 and S1 are less structurally aligned than a deep-game Jenga tower (Read how I used the “Iron Man Technique” when I got diagnosed).

Jenga: fun for game night, not for spinal metaphors.

When I first learned this, I initially assumed it meant my short lived career as a powerlifter was over, and threw myself one HELL of a pity party.

After that party ended, I got back on the horse.

(Not literally. I don’t have a horse.)

I started working on my deadlift form and core strength. I checked my ego, established a new “square one,” and essentially started over.

Thank god I refused to accept my fate.

Now, obviously I’m not a doctor – I don’t even have pants on right now – so you’re going to need to work with trained professionals if you have a serious medical condition you’re working to overcome.

In my instance, I decided that I didn’t want my genetics to decide my fate: that chicken legs and a crooked spine could be managed. While I might never reach my 10-year goal of a 400 pound deadlift, I’d get started and adjust along the way.

Yup, I know plenty of people can lift WAY more than I can. That’s cool! I’m competing against the ghost of my former self (like a Mario Kart time trial), and that’s all I can do.

I know I’m fighting an uphill battle when I focus on powerlifting when I’m much more likely to be good at running or another endurance activity. That sounds like my personal hell, so I’m gonna play THIS version of life on expert difficulty.

LESSON LEARNED: If you don’t like the game you’re playing, pick a different one! Who cares what your genetics are. You can’t do anything about them. All you can do is play the hand you’re dealt.

If you are a big-boned endomorph (you gain fat easily), and you want to be a marathon runner, GREAT! Start training for a 5k today. Who cares if you’re slow as molasses!

If you are built to run and want to strength train because that’s what brings you joy, go pick up heavy shit! Who cares if the person next to you can lift more? Are YOU lifting more than you did the day before?

We can only blame our parents for so much. Thanks for the crooked spine and acne, DAD.

(Kidding, my dad is cool as hell. He taught me to play poker when I was 5).

#2: Fail You Will. Learn, You Must.

After figuring out my spine sucked, I decided to hire my friend Anthony to coach me via email.

Because I couldn’t lift heavy to start, I had to reallllly focus on my form. It gave all of my muscles and tendons a chance to get caught up to speed.

So I spent two years making steady progress, which was awesome.

And then I went on vacation, where I severely strained my conjoint tendon. 

Lesson learned: never go on vacation again.

My injury was so brutal that I was convinced I had a hernia. I ended up getting an ultrasound on my crotch from two female ultrasound technicians, which was in no way at all awkward.

Kidding. It was aggressively awkward.

Anyways.

After taking multiple weeks off from lifting anything heavy, I started rehab, checked my ego (again), and had to rebuild my form (again), going back 250+ pounds and starting over again.

I felt like Sysphysis, rolling a rock up a hill only to have it roll all the way back down.

Or Charlie Brown trying to kick a football:

But I kept at it. I learned to improve my form. I changed my breathing technique for lifting. And I accepted that I had to go backward in order to eventually break through.

For reference, click through these images and videos below. The “Before” took place before my injury, while the “After” is just a month or two back:

  View this post on Instagram

  A post shared by Steve Kamb (@stevekamb) on Aug 15, 2018 at 1:32pm PDT

LESSON LEARNED: Always be learning, when you win or when you lose. Setbacks can be crippling, or they can be painful lessons learned that make you more powerful. I really didn’t have a choice.

You’re gonna get shin splints or plantar fasciitis when you start training for your 5k. Literally everybody does. Take it as a sign you need to fix your running form!

You’re gonna screw up on a lift. Take it as a chance to scale back and rework your form. Video tape your form and check with somebody

You’re gonna get sick and screw up and miss a lift or a hold or a thing. It happens. You can’t change the past (yet), so might as well learn from it and move forward. Rafiki gets me:

#3) Want to Reach a Far Off Goal? Use the Minecraft Strategy.

10 years ago, I had a goal I was racing towards: a 400 pound deadlift.

I’d get marginally closer and then have to back way off. This happened at least half a dozen times.

I believe the reason I finally achieved that goal is because I stopped focusing on rushing to get there! Instead, I just focused on the next workout, the next exercise, the next rep.

In other words: Don’t worry about the building you’re trying to construct. Instead, focus on putting the next brick in the right place, and then repeat. The building will take care of itself.

I call this the Minecraft Strategy.

As for my workouts, I train 4 days per week: Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday. One hour per workout. Each day has a big boring lift attached to it that doesn’t change much at all from week to week.

For the past four years, here’s the deadlift portion of a training day (after many warm-up sets):

Week 1: Sets of 2, 2, 2 for 220 pounds.

Week 2: Sets of 3, 2, 2, for 220 pounds.

Week 3: Sets of 3, 3, 2, for 220 pounds.

Week 4: Sets of 3, 3, 3, for 220 pounds.

Week 5: Sets of 2, 2, 2 for 225 pounds.

And repeat. Every week. Every month. For 5 years. Notice that each week I added just ONE rep. And once I hit 3 sets of 3, I’d go up by 5 pounds, and start back at 2, 2, 2.

That is boring as hell. And effective too. Every single week I’d be setting a personal best! I didn’t care about the far-off goal of a 400-lb deadlift, I instead put all of my focus into “Can I crush this next rep?”

This is also EXACTLY how one simply walks into Mordor: one step at a time.

Two weeks ago, my “slow cook” deadlifting workout had me doing 3 sets of 3 reps at 385 pounds.

Anthony told me: “Let’s go heavy next week. And I won’t accept anything less than 415 pounds.”

This was a goal I’d have forever, and Anthony had already set my sights 15 pounds heavier to calm my nerves on the psychological challenge of seeing that much weight on the bar.

So after picking up 405 for a warmup, I went for 420 pounds:

  View this post on Instagram

  A post shared by Steve Kamb (@stevekamb) on Nov 21, 2018 at 10:43am PST

No belt, no straps. Just some chalk and Walk the Moon’s “Portugal” on my headphones. Honestly, it was almost a letdown because it came up so quickly…but I was so damn proud to reach a powerful milestone, banish the monkey on my back, and actually feel strong.

Hence the quick fist pump to myself.

This week? It’s back to the boring stuff. Boring, consistent, progress where I just get epic results and feel really good about myself.

I’m okay with that. I jokingly talk about how I went from Steve Rogers to Captain America with this slow, small tactic.

LESSON LEARNED: Are you a shiny-object chasing “I need to be entertained and I change workouts every 3 weeks but I can never seem to get results” type of person?

Fall in love with the process and incremental progress, and you’re gonna go places kid.

Each week, just focus on being better than you did the week before. If you ONLY worry about this, you’ll look back at the end of the year and realize you’re a changed person.

Note: This means you need to show up each week, with few exceptions. Even when life is busy.

#4 – Track the Problem to Crack the Problem.

Fun fact: I currently have a folder in Evernote called “Kambsformation” (Anthony came up with it, and it just stuck).

In that folder I have 1 note for every workout or progress photo from the past 5 years.

I now have 1159 notes in that folder:

As my friend Nick says, “You gotta track the problem to track the problem.”

I have tracked every single workout I’ve done since 2013 in this folder. I have them all in the same place, so I can quickly scan back to any date and time and see where I was, how I trained, and so on.

I know every week exactly what I need to do to be better than the week before. Using the Minecraft Strategy here, it just means I need to focus on ONE single rep heavier.

In addition to tracking my workouts, I’ve become diligent about tracking my calories too. I am not Paleo, or Keto, or Mediterranean.

Instead, I employ a “mental model” diet, with specific rules I follow:

Skip breakfast. I cover this in our guide on Intermittent Fasting.

Eat big after a workout. Adjust the rest of my calories based on goals.

Protein with every meal. Usually chicken.

Veggies with every meal. Brussel sprouts or broccoli.

Adjust carbs and fat to fit macro profile for that day.

A powerbomb shake to hit calorie goals. Water, oats, frozen berries, frozen spinach, and whey protein (I use Optimum Nutrition Vanilla).

Over the past 2 months, I’ve actually leaned out, from 185 pounds down to 172 pounds. I did that by adjusting my caloric intake very simply:

2600 calories on training days

2200 calories on non training days.

For the first few weeks, I actually didn’t lose any weight despite “tracking my calories.” I still believed in thermodynamics, so I started weighing my portions (I like this one) and discovered a few key things.

Namely, that I was overeating without realizing it:

I was underestimating my oats portion by 20% when using a measuring cup instead of a scale

My chipotle lunch contained 1.5 servings of rice by weight, not 1.

As soon as I made those small adjustments, my weight started to drop consistently.

In addition to tracking my food, I take progress photos weekly, and weigh myself each morning.

I don’t freak out if the scale goes up or down. Instead I take a 7-day rolling average and make sure the TREND is in the right direction.

Think of this like the bumper lanes in a bowling alley: As long as the ball is moving towards the pins, that’s good enough.

LESSON LEARNED: We pay attention to the things we track. So track the right stuff! This applies not only to health and fitness, but learning, personal finance, etc. Keep a journal, or an Evernote folder, or a Google Doc. Write down what you did, and what you’re going to do.

It’s valuable as hell. And I don’t care what kind of diet you pick: whichever one leads you to sustainable calorie management in a way that doesn’t make you want to punch a hole in the wall.

If the scale isn’t going down for you, it doesn’t mean that you have a slow metabolism, or that you’re broken. It means you are eating too many calories to induce weight loss. Track your calories more closely.  Use a scale if you need to, until you learn what actual portion sizes are.

Are you taking progress photos? They can be a crucial for making sure you’re losing the right kind of weight!

Are you writing down your workouts or tracking them in an app? How else are you gonna know what you need to do this week to level up!?

#5) “It’s Dangerous to Go Alone. Bring a friend.”

I gotta give a shout out to my friend and coach, Anthony.

He’s been my online coach for the past 5 years and I truly consider him a valuable part of my success. He also has epic hair.

I’d say this is the best money I invest in myself each month – and I’m somebody that tells people how to exercise for a living!

When I’m traveling, or when I have busy weeks, my coach adjusts my schedule to make it work. When I am feeling good, well rested, and amped up, we crank things up. When I’m feeling overwhelmed he slows it down.

And most importantly, he doesn’t put up with my bullshit. You know what I mean – we all have excuses that we feed ourselves daily: too busy, I couldn’t because blah blah blah.

I know Anthony doesn’t want to hear this stuff, so I instead just DO the work! It’s pretty awesome to have somebody else that’s invested in my success, somebody that I can bounce ideas off of, somebody that I know is keeping me accountable, checking my form, etc.

And maybe most importantly, I have the peace of mind to know that I’m actually doing the right stuff, and doing it correctly. I feel confident saying I never would have lifted 420 pounds without my coach.

LESSON LEARNED: If you have the money to invest in yourself, hiring a coach who learns your story can be game changing. If you don’t, having a workout buddy in the trenches with you can be AMAZING too. An accountabilibuddy, if you will.

We’re proud that we have an online coaching program at NF, and we have an online community attached to our course, the NF Academy.

I also know lots of people who work with trainers in person and they can be worth every penny (sometimes!)

If you want to take your fitness more seriously, invest if you can. If you want to take running more seriously, join a running club.

You don’t have to go it alone on this journey, and oftentimes a coach or trusted friend can be an absolute game changer. It was for me.

I hope Anthony lets me keep him as a coach for the next 5 years too.

I proved a troll wrong, now what!?

So I mentioned that I proved somebody wrong on the internet. I mostly say this in jest.

The dude probably didn’t think twice about his comment, and hasn’t thought about it since.

Am I gonna try to right every wrong on the internet? Nope. People say really nasty things about me all the time, that just comes with the territory. It hurts like hell.

And then I get back to helping people and writing about Star Wars and sometimes wearing pants (but today is not that day).

So, although I jokingly say that “I owned that troll,” the reality is that it just. doesn’t. Matter.

I’m really proud of this accomplishment, and I hope my recap can help you crystallize the goals you have floating around your head.

These days, my goals are tighter, and more focused on the process:

Work out 4 days per week, no exception.

Hit my calorie goals 6 days out of 7 each week.

Be better than the last workout.

I’m working on my handstands, mobility, and gymnastic rings stuff…but I’m gonna keep grinding on my deadlifts and squats too.

Considering how quickly that 420 pound deadlift came up, I wonder if I get a 500 pound deadlift…

No way, won’t happen. EVER. Not with these genetics 😛

(I’ll let you know in 5 years).

I’d love to hear from you: do you have a big “dragon slaying” goal you’re working towards in the future?

What can you take from this article and apply to your journey?

For the Rebellion!

-Steve

PS: We are hiring 2-3 certified coaches to join our NF Coaching Program! This is a 100% remote work-from-anywhere position. If you think you’d be a good fit, or know somebody that would, please check out our “work with us” page!

###

All photo credits can be found in this very special footnote[1].

Footnotes    ( returns to text)

Photo Source: Promenade, Mirkwood Elf Archer, Hate leads to suffering, Ready for Scotland, Ready for War

5 Lessons learned from a skinny nerd deadlifting 420 pounds published first on https://dietariouspage.tumblr.com/

[joshuabradleyn]

5 Lessons learned from a skinny nerd deadlifting 420 pounds

I did it.

I proved somebody wrong on the internet!

I assume the internet will be mailing me a gold medal at any point this week, but until then, let me share the story.

I gave a TedX talk years ago, and I mentioned one of my long-term goals was being able to lift 400 pounds:

My first thought: “Ouch.”

My second thought: “Why am I reading YouTube comments!? No good can come of this.”

My third thought: “I’m gonna prove this person wrong.”

As a skinny nerd with chicken legs that couldn’t build muscle to save my life, this far-off goal suddenly seemed even further off.

Fast forward to last week: not only did I FINALLY reach my 10 year goal of deadlifting 400 pounds, I blew right past it. No straps, no belt. Just some chalk and “internet justice” rage:

For my final rep, I picked up 420 pounds at a bodyweight of 172 pounds. And it came up pretty quickly!

Now, I’ve internalized 5 big lessons on this journey to a deadlift I’m really proud of, especially considering all of those setbacks.

I wanted to share my lessons learned, and show you how you can apply this to your own life.

#1: Screw Your Genetics.

I have the genes of an elf, without the immortality.

If you’re familiar with body types, I’m an endomorph.

I’m naturally very thin and bony, have very thin wrists and ankles, and will forever have chicken legs.

This would be great, if I wanted to be a runner. Not great when you despise running, and you want to pick up heavy things.

Determined to overcome that fate, I began my journey to heavy lifting, only to get knocked back.

6 years ago, I discovered my genes also contain a super fun condition called “spondylolisthesis.”

Don’t bother trying to pronounce it, I still can’t.

It means my vertebrae don’t line up. Essentially, my L5 and S1 are less structurally aligned than a deep-game Jenga tower (Read how I used the “Iron Man Technique” when I got diagnosed).

Jenga: fun for game night, not for spinal metaphors.

When I first learned this, I initially assumed it meant my short lived career as a powerlifter was over, and threw myself one HELL of a pity party.

After that party ended, I got back on the horse.

(Not literally. I don’t have a horse.)

I started working on my deadlift form and core strength. I checked my ego, established a new “square one,” and essentially started over.

Thank god I refused to accept my fate.

Now, obviously I’m not a doctor – I don’t even have pants on right now – so you’re going to need to work with trained professionals if you have a serious medical condition you’re working to overcome.

In my instance, I decided that I didn’t want my genetics to decide my fate: that chicken legs and a crooked spine could be managed. While I might never reach my 10-year goal of a 400 pound deadlift, I’d get started and adjust along the way.

Yup, I know plenty of people can lift WAY more than I can. That’s cool! I’m competing against the ghost of my former self (like a Mario Kart time trial), and that’s all I can do.

I know I’m fighting an uphill battle when I focus on powerlifting when I’m much more likely to be good at running or another endurance activity. That sounds like my personal hell, so I’m gonna play THIS version of life on expert difficulty.

LESSON LEARNED: If you don’t like the game you’re playing, pick a different one! Who cares what your genetics are. You can’t do anything about them. All you can do is play the hand you’re dealt.

If you are a big-boned endomorph (you gain fat easily), and you want to be a marathon runner, GREAT! Start training for a 5k today. Who cares if you’re slow as molasses!

If you are built to run and want to strength train because that’s what brings you joy, go pick up heavy shit! Who cares if the person next to you can lift more? Are YOU lifting more than you did the day before?

We can only blame our parents for so much. Thanks for the crooked spine and acne, DAD.

(Kidding, my dad is cool as hell. He taught me to play poker when I was 5).

#2: Fail You Will. Learn, You Must.

After figuring out my spine sucked, I decided to hire my friend Anthony to coach me via email.

Because I couldn’t lift heavy to start, I had to reallllly focus on my form. It gave all of my muscles and tendons a chance to get caught up to speed.

So I spent two years making steady progress, which was awesome.

And then I went on vacation, where I severely strained my conjoint tendon. 

Lesson learned: never go on vacation again.

My injury was so brutal that I was convinced I had a hernia. I ended up getting an ultrasound on my crotch from two female ultrasound technicians, which was in no way at all awkward.

Kidding. It was aggressively awkward.

Anyways.

After taking multiple weeks off from lifting anything heavy, I started rehab, checked my ego (again), and had to rebuild my form (again), going back 250+ pounds and starting over again.

I felt like Sysphysis, rolling a rock up a hill only to have it roll all the way back down.

Or Charlie Brown trying to kick a football:

But I kept at it. I learned to improve my form. I changed my breathing technique for lifting. And I accepted that I had to go backward in order to eventually break through.

For reference, click through these images and videos below. The “Before” took place before my injury, while the “After” is just a month or two back:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Steve Kamb (@stevekamb) on Aug 15, 2018 at 1:32pm PDT

LESSON LEARNED: Always be learning, when you win or when you lose. Setbacks can be crippling, or they can be painful lessons learned that make you more powerful. I really didn’t have a choice.

You’re gonna get shin splints or plantar fasciitis when you start training for your 5k. Literally everybody does. Take it as a sign you need to fix your running form!

You’re gonna screw up on a lift. Take it as a chance to scale back and rework your form. Video tape your form and check with somebody

You’re gonna get sick and screw up and miss a lift or a hold or a thing. It happens. You can’t change the past (yet), so might as well learn from it and move forward. Rafiki gets me:

#3) Want to Reach a Far Off Goal? Use the Minecraft Strategy.

10 years ago, I had a goal I was racing towards: a 400 pound deadlift.

I’d get marginally closer and then have to back way off. This happened at least half a dozen times.

I believe the reason I finally achieved that goal is because I stopped focusing on rushing to get there! Instead, I just focused on the next workout, the next exercise, the next rep.

In other words: Don’t worry about the building you’re trying to construct. Instead, focus on putting the next brick in the right place, and then repeat. The building will take care of itself.

I call this the Minecraft Strategy.

As for my workouts, I train 4 days per week: Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday. One hour per workout. Each day has a big boring lift attached to it that doesn’t change much at all from week to week.

For the past four years, here’s the deadlift portion of a training day (after many warm-up sets):

Week 1: Sets of 2, 2, 2 for 220 pounds.

Week 2: Sets of 3, 2, 2, for 220 pounds.

Week 3: Sets of 3, 3, 2, for 220 pounds.

Week 4: Sets of 3, 3, 3, for 220 pounds.

Week 5: Sets of 2, 2, 2 for 225 pounds.

And repeat. Every week. Every month. For 5 years. Notice that each week I added just ONE rep. And once I hit 3 sets of 3, I’d go up by 5 pounds, and start back at 2, 2, 2.

That is boring as hell. And effective too. Every single week I’d be setting a personal best! I didn’t care about the far-off goal of a 400-lb deadlift, I instead put all of my focus into “Can I crush this next rep?”

This is also EXACTLY how one simply walks into Mordor: one step at a time.

Two weeks ago, my “slow cook” deadlifting workout had me doing 3 sets of 3 reps at 385 pounds.

Anthony told me: “Let’s go heavy next week. And I won’t accept anything less than 415 pounds.”

This was a goal I’d have forever, and Anthony had already set my sights 15 pounds heavier to calm my nerves on the psychological challenge of seeing that much weight on the bar.

So after picking up 405 for a warmup, I went for 420 pounds:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Steve Kamb (@stevekamb) on Nov 21, 2018 at 10:43am PST

No belt, no straps. Just some chalk and Walk the Moon’s “Portugal” on my headphones. Honestly, it was almost a letdown because it came up so quickly…but I was so damn proud to reach a powerful milestone, banish the monkey on my back, and actually feel strong.

Hence the quick fist pump to myself.

This week? It’s back to the boring stuff. Boring, consistent, progress where I just get epic results and feel really good about myself.

I’m okay with that. I jokingly talk about how I went from Steve Rogers to Captain America with this slow, small tactic.

LESSON LEARNED: Are you a shiny-object chasing “I need to be entertained and I change workouts every 3 weeks but I can never seem to get results” type of person?

Fall in love with the process and incremental progress, and you’re gonna go places kid.

Each week, just focus on being better than you did the week before. If you ONLY worry about this, you’ll look back at the end of the year and realize you’re a changed person.

Note: This means you need to show up each week, with few exceptions. Even when life is busy.

#4 – Track the Problem to Crack the Problem.

Fun fact: I currently have a folder in Evernote called “Kambsformation” (Anthony came up with it, and it just stuck).

In that folder I have 1 note for every workout or progress photo from the past 5 years.

I now have 1159 notes in that folder:

As my friend Nick says, “You gotta track the problem to track the problem.”

I have tracked every single workout I’ve done since 2013 in this folder. I have them all in the same place, so I can quickly scan back to any date and time and see where I was, how I trained, and so on.

I know every week exactly what I need to do to be better than the week before. Using the Minecraft Strategy here, it just means I need to focus on ONE single rep heavier.

In addition to tracking my workouts, I’ve become diligent about tracking my calories too. I am not Paleo, or Keto, or Mediterranean.

Instead, I employ a “mental model” diet, with specific rules I follow:

Skip breakfast. I cover this in our guide on Intermittent Fasting.

Eat big after a workout. Adjust the rest of my calories based on goals.

Protein with every meal. Usually chicken.

Veggies with every meal. Brussel sprouts or broccoli.

Adjust carbs and fat to fit macro profile for that day.

A powerbomb shake to hit calorie goals. Water, oats, frozen berries, frozen spinach, and whey protein (I use Optimum Nutrition Vanilla).

Over the past 2 months, I’ve actually leaned out, from 185 pounds down to 172 pounds. I did that by adjusting my caloric intake very simply:

2600 calories on training days

2200 calories on non training days.

For the first few weeks, I actually didn’t lose any weight despite “tracking my calories.” I still believed in thermodynamics, so I started weighing my portions (I like this one) and discovered a few key things.

Namely, that I was overeating without realizing it:

I was underestimating my oats portion by 20% when using a measuring cup instead of a scale

My chipotle lunch contained 1.5 servings of rice by weight, not 1.

As soon as I made those small adjustments, my weight started to drop consistently.

In addition to tracking my food, I take progress photos weekly, and weigh myself each morning.

I don’t freak out if the scale goes up or down. Instead I take a 7-day rolling average and make sure the TREND is in the right direction.

Think of this like the bumper lanes in a bowling alley: As long as the ball is moving towards the pins, that’s good enough.

LESSON LEARNED: We pay attention to the things we track. So track the right stuff! This applies not only to health and fitness, but learning, personal finance, etc. Keep a journal, or an Evernote folder, or a Google Doc. Write down what you did, and what you’re going to do.

It’s valuable as hell. And I don’t care what kind of diet you pick: whichever one leads you to sustainable calorie management in a way that doesn’t make you want to punch a hole in the wall.

If the scale isn’t going down for you, it doesn’t mean that you have a slow metabolism, or that you’re broken. It means you are eating too many calories to induce weight loss. Track your calories more closely.  Use a scale if you need to, until you learn what actual portion sizes are.

Are you taking progress photos? They can be a crucial for making sure you’re losing the right kind of weight!

Are you writing down your workouts or tracking them in an app? How else are you gonna know what you need to do this week to level up!?

#5) “It’s Dangerous to Go Alone. Bring a friend.”

I gotta give a shout out to my friend and coach, Anthony.

He’s been my online coach for the past 5 years and I truly consider him a valuable part of my success. He also has epic hair.

I’d say this is the best money I invest in myself each month – and I’m somebody that tells people how to exercise for a living!

When I’m traveling, or when I have busy weeks, my coach adjusts my schedule to make it work. When I am feeling good, well rested, and amped up, we crank things up. When I’m feeling overwhelmed he slows it down.

And most importantly, he doesn’t put up with my bullshit. You know what I mean – we all have excuses that we feed ourselves daily: too busy, I couldn’t because blah blah blah.

I know Anthony doesn’t want to hear this stuff, so I instead just DO the work! It’s pretty awesome to have somebody else that’s invested in my success, somebody that I can bounce ideas off of, somebody that I know is keeping me accountable, checking my form, etc.

And maybe most importantly, I have the peace of mind to know that I’m actually doing the right stuff, and doing it correctly. I feel confident saying I never would have lifted 420 pounds without my coach.

LESSON LEARNED: If you have the money to invest in yourself, hiring a coach who learns your story can be game changing. If you don’t, having a workout buddy in the trenches with you can be AMAZING too. An accountabilibuddy, if you will.

We’re proud that we have an online coaching program at NF, and we have an online community attached to our course, the NF Academy.

I also know lots of people who work with trainers in person and they can be worth every penny (sometimes!)

If you want to take your fitness more seriously, invest if you can. If you want to take running more seriously, join a running club.

You don’t have to go it alone on this journey, and oftentimes a coach or trusted friend can be an absolute game changer. It was for me.

I hope Anthony lets me keep him as a coach for the next 5 years too.

I proved a troll wrong, now what!?

So I mentioned that I proved somebody wrong on the internet. I mostly say this in jest.

The dude probably didn’t think twice about his comment, and hasn’t thought about it since.

Am I gonna try to right every wrong on the internet? Nope. People say really nasty things about me all the time, that just comes with the territory. It hurts like hell.

And then I get back to helping people and writing about Star Wars and sometimes wearing pants (but today is not that day).

So, although I jokingly say that “I owned that troll,” the reality is that it just. doesn’t. Matter.

I’m really proud of this accomplishment, and I hope my recap can help you crystallize the goals you have floating around your head.

These days, my goals are tighter, and more focused on the process:

Work out 4 days per week, no exception.

Hit my calorie goals 6 days out of 7 each week.

Be better than the last workout.

I’m working on

https://ift.tt/2FMVSlh

[neilmillerne]

5 Lessons learned from a skinny nerd deadlifting 420 pounds

I did it.

I proved somebody wrong on the internet!

I assume the internet will be mailing me a gold medal at any point this week, but until then, let me share the story.

I gave a TedX talk years ago, and I mentioned one of my long-term goals was being able to lift 400 pounds:

My first thought: “Ouch.”

My second thought: “Why am I reading YouTube comments!? No good can come of this.”

My third thought: “I’m gonna prove this person wrong.”

As a skinny nerd with chicken legs that couldn’t build muscle to save my life, this far-off goal suddenly seemed even further off.

Fast forward to last week: not only did I FINALLY reach my 10 year goal of deadlifting 400 pounds, I blew right past it. No straps, no belt. Just some chalk and “internet justice” rage:

For my final rep, I picked up 420 pounds at a bodyweight of 172 pounds. And it came up pretty quickly!

Now, I’ve internalized 5 big lessons on this journey to a deadlift I’m really proud of, especially considering all of those setbacks.

I wanted to share my lessons learned, and show you how you can apply this to your own life.

#1: Screw Your Genetics.

I have the genes of an elf, without the immortality.

If you’re familiar with body types, I’m an endomorph.

I’m naturally very thin and bony, have very thin wrists and ankles, and will forever have chicken legs.

This would be great, if I wanted to be a runner. Not great when you despise running, and you want to pick up heavy things.

Determined to overcome that fate, I began my journey to heavy lifting, only to get knocked back.

6 years ago, I discovered my genes also contain a super fun condition called “spondylolisthesis.”

Don’t bother trying to pronounce it, I still can’t.

It means my vertebrae don’t line up. Essentially, my L5 and S1 are less structurally aligned than a deep-game Jenga tower (Read how I used the “Iron Man Technique” when I got diagnosed).

Jenga: fun for game night, not for spinal metaphors.

When I first learned this, I initially assumed it meant my short lived career as a powerlifter was over, and threw myself one HELL of a pity party.

After that party ended, I got back on the horse.

(Not literally. I don’t have a horse.)

I started working on my deadlift form and core strength. I checked my ego, established a new “square one,” and essentially started over.

Thank god I refused to accept my fate.

Now, obviously I’m not a doctor – I don’t even have pants on right now – so you’re going to need to work with trained professionals if you have a serious medical condition you’re working to overcome.

In my instance, I decided that I didn’t want my genetics to decide my fate: that chicken legs and a crooked spine could be managed. While I might never reach my 10-year goal of a 400 pound deadlift, I’d get started and adjust along the way.

Yup, I know plenty of people can lift WAY more than I can. That’s cool! I’m competing against the ghost of my former self (like a Mario Kart time trial), and that’s all I can do.

I know I’m fighting an uphill battle when I focus on powerlifting when I’m much more likely to be good at running or another endurance activity. That sounds like my personal hell, so I’m gonna play THIS version of life on expert difficulty.

LESSON LEARNED: If you don’t like the game you’re playing, pick a different one! Who cares what your genetics are. You can’t do anything about them. All you can do is play the hand you’re dealt.

If you are a big-boned endomorph (you gain fat easily), and you want to be a marathon runner, GREAT! Start training for a 5k today. Who cares if you’re slow as molasses!

If you are built to run and want to strength train because that’s what brings you joy, go pick up heavy shit! Who cares if the person next to you can lift more? Are YOU lifting more than you did the day before?

We can only blame our parents for so much. Thanks for the crooked spine and acne, DAD.

(Kidding, my dad is cool as hell. He taught me to play poker when I was 5).

#2: Fail You Will. Learn, You Must.

After figuring out my spine sucked, I decided to hire my friend Anthony to coach me via email.

Because I couldn’t lift heavy to start, I had to reallllly focus on my form. It gave all of my muscles and tendons a chance to get caught up to speed.

So I spent two years making steady progress, which was awesome.

And then I went on vacation, where I severely strained my conjoint tendon. 

Lesson learned: never go on vacation again.

My injury was so brutal that I was convinced I had a hernia. I ended up getting an ultrasound on my crotch from two female ultrasound technicians, which was in no way at all awkward.

Kidding. It was aggressively awkward.

Anyways.

After taking multiple weeks off from lifting anything heavy, I started rehab, checked my ego (again), and had to rebuild my form (again), going back 250+ pounds and starting over again.

I felt like Sysphysis, rolling a rock up a hill only to have it roll all the way back down.

Or Charlie Brown trying to kick a football:

But I kept at it. I learned to improve my form. I changed my breathing technique for lifting. And I accepted that I had to go backward in order to eventually break through.

For reference, click through these images and videos below. The “Before” took place before my injury, while the “After” is just a month or two back:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Steve Kamb (@stevekamb) on Aug 15, 2018 at 1:32pm PDT

LESSON LEARNED: Always be learning, when you win or when you lose. Setbacks can be crippling, or they can be painful lessons learned that make you more powerful. I really didn’t have a choice.

You’re gonna get shin splints or plantar fasciitis when you start training for your 5k. Literally everybody does. Take it as a sign you need to fix your running form!

You’re gonna screw up on a lift. Take it as a chance to scale back and rework your form. Video tape your form and check with somebody

You’re gonna get sick and screw up and miss a lift or a hold or a thing. It happens. You can’t change the past (yet), so might as well learn from it and move forward. Rafiki gets me:

#3) Want to Reach a Far Off Goal? Use the Minecraft Strategy.

10 years ago, I had a goal I was racing towards: a 400 pound deadlift.

I’d get marginally closer and then have to back way off. This happened at least half a dozen times.

I believe the reason I finally achieved that goal is because I stopped focusing on rushing to get there! Instead, I just focused on the next workout, the next exercise, the next rep.

In other words: Don’t worry about the building you’re trying to construct. Instead, focus on putting the next brick in the right place, and then repeat. The building will take care of itself.

I call this the Minecraft Strategy.

As for my workouts, I train 4 days per week: Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday. One hour per workout. Each day has a big boring lift attached to it that doesn’t change much at all from week to week.

For the past four years, here’s the deadlift portion of a training day (after many warm-up sets):

Week 1: Sets of 2, 2, 2 for 220 pounds.

Week 2: Sets of 3, 2, 2, for 220 pounds.

Week 3: Sets of 3, 3, 2, for 220 pounds.

Week 4: Sets of 3, 3, 3, for 220 pounds.

Week 5: Sets of 2, 2, 2 for 225 pounds.

And repeat. Every week. Every month. For 5 years. Notice that each week I added just ONE rep. And once I hit 3 sets of 3, I’d go up by 5 pounds, and start back at 2, 2, 2.

That is boring as hell. And effective too. Every single week I’d be setting a personal best! I didn’t care about the far-off goal of a 400-lb deadlift, I instead put all of my focus into “Can I crush this next rep?”

This is also EXACTLY how one simply walks into Mordor: one step at a time.

Two weeks ago, my “slow cook” deadlifting workout had me doing 3 sets of 3 reps at 385 pounds.

Anthony told me: “Let’s go heavy next week. And I won’t accept anything less than 415 pounds.”

This was a goal I’d have forever, and Anthony had already set my sights 15 pounds heavier to calm my nerves on the psychological challenge of seeing that much weight on the bar.

So after picking up 405 for a warmup, I went for 420 pounds:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Steve Kamb (@stevekamb) on Nov 21, 2018 at 10:43am PST

No belt, no straps. Just some chalk and Walk the Moon’s “Portugal” on my headphones. Honestly, it was almost a letdown because it came up so quickly…but I was so damn proud to reach a powerful milestone, banish the monkey on my back, and actually feel strong.

Hence the quick fist pump to myself.

This week? It’s back to the boring stuff. Boring, consistent, progress where I just get epic results and feel really good about myself.

I’m okay with that. I jokingly talk about how I went from Steve Rogers to Captain America with this slow, small tactic.

LESSON LEARNED: Are you a shiny-object chasing “I need to be entertained and I change workouts every 3 weeks but I can never seem to get results” type of person?

Fall in love with the process and incremental progress, and you’re gonna go places kid.

Each week, just focus on being better than you did the week before. If you ONLY worry about this, you’ll look back at the end of the year and realize you’re a changed person.

Note: This means you need to show up each week, with few exceptions. Even when life is busy.

#4 – Track the Problem to Crack the Problem.

Fun fact: I currently have a folder in Evernote called “Kambsformation” (Anthony came up with it, and it just stuck).

In that folder I have 1 note for every workout or progress photo from the past 5 years.

I now have 1159 notes in that folder:

As my friend Nick says, “You gotta track the problem to track the problem.”

I have tracked every single workout I’ve done since 2013 in this folder. I have them all in the same place, so I can quickly scan back to any date and time and see where I was, how I trained, and so on.

I know every week exactly what I need to do to be better than the week before. Using the Minecraft Strategy here, it just means I need to focus on ONE single rep heavier.

In addition to tracking my workouts, I’ve become diligent about tracking my calories too. I am not Paleo, or Keto, or Mediterranean.

Instead, I employ a “mental model” diet, with specific rules I follow:

Skip breakfast. I cover this in our guide on Intermittent Fasting.

Eat big after a workout. Adjust the rest of my calories based on goals.

Protein with every meal. Usually chicken.

Veggies with every meal. Brussel sprouts or broccoli.

Adjust carbs and fat to fit macro profile for that day.

A powerbomb shake to hit calorie goals. Water, oats, frozen berries, frozen spinach, and whey protein (I use Optimum Nutrition Vanilla).

Over the past 2 months, I’ve actually leaned out, from 185 pounds down to 172 pounds. I did that by adjusting my caloric intake very simply:

2600 calories on training days

2200 calories on non training days.

For the first few weeks, I actually didn’t lose any weight despite “tracking my calories.” I still believed in thermodynamics, so I started weighing my portions (I like this one) and discovered a few key things.

Namely, that I was overeating without realizing it:

I was underestimating my oats portion by 20% when using a measuring cup instead of a scale

My chipotle lunch contained 1.5 servings of rice by weight, not 1.

As soon as I made those small adjustments, my weight started to drop consistently.

In addition to tracking my food, I take progress photos weekly, and weigh myself each morning.

I don’t freak out if the scale goes up or down. Instead I take a 7-day rolling average and make sure the TREND is in the right direction.

Think of this like the bumper lanes in a bowling alley: As long as the ball is moving towards the pins, that’s good enough.

LESSON LEARNED: We pay attention to the things we track. So track the right stuff! This applies not only to health and fitness, but learning, personal finance, etc. Keep a journal, or an Evernote folder, or a Google Doc. Write down what you did, and what you’re going to do.

It’s valuable as hell. And I don’t care what kind of diet you pick: whichever one leads you to sustainable calorie management in a way that doesn’t make you want to punch a hole in the wall.

If the scale isn’t going down for you, it doesn’t mean that you have a slow metabolism, or that you’re broken. It means you are eating too many calories to induce weight loss. Track your calories more closely.  Use a scale if you need to, until you learn what actual portion sizes are.

Are you taking progress photos? They can be a crucial for making sure you’re losing the right kind of weight!

Are you writing down your workouts or tracking them in an app? How else are you gonna know what you need to do this week to level up!?

#5) “It’s Dangerous to Go Alone. Bring a friend.”

I gotta give a shout out to my friend and coach, Anthony.

He’s been my online coach for the past 5 years and I truly consider him a valuable part of my success. He also has epic hair.

I’d say this is the best money I invest in myself each month – and I’m somebody that tells people how to exercise for a living!

When I’m traveling, or when I have busy weeks, my coach adjusts my schedule to make it work. When I am feeling good, well rested, and amped up, we crank things up. When I’m feeling overwhelmed he slows it down.

And most importantly, he doesn’t put up with my bullshit. You know what I mean – we all have excuses that we feed ourselves daily: too busy, I couldn’t because blah blah blah.

I know Anthony doesn’t want to hear this stuff, so I instead just DO the work! It’s pretty awesome to have somebody else that’s invested in my success, somebody that I can bounce ideas off of, somebody that I know is keeping me accountable, checking my form, etc.

And maybe most importantly, I have the peace of mind to know that I’m actually doing the right stuff, and doing it correctly. I feel confident saying I never would have lifted 420 pounds without my coach.

LESSON LEARNED: If you have the money to invest in yourself, hiring a coach who learns your story can be game changing. If you don’t, having a workout buddy in the trenches with you can be AMAZING too. An accountabilibuddy, if you will.

We’re proud that we have an online coaching program at NF, and we have an online community attached to our course, the NF Academy.

I also know lots of people who work with trainers in person and they can be worth every penny (sometimes!)

If you want to take your fitness more seriously, invest if you can. If you want to take running more seriously, join a running club.

You don’t have to go it alone on this journey, and oftentimes a coach or trusted friend can be an absolute game changer. It was for me.

I hope Anthony lets me keep him as a coach for the next 5 years too.

I proved a troll wrong, now what!?

So I mentioned that I proved somebody wrong on the internet. I mostly say this in jest.

The dude probably didn’t think twice about his comment, and hasn’t thought about it since.

Am I gonna try to right every wrong on the internet? Nope. People say really nasty things about me all the time, that just comes with the territory. It hurts like hell.

And then I get back to helping people and writing about Star Wars and sometimes wearing pants (but today is not that day).

So, although I jokingly say that “I owned that troll,” the reality is that it just. doesn’t. Matter.

I’m really proud of this accomplishment, and I hope my recap can help you crystallize the goals you have floating around your head.

These days, my goals are tighter, and more focused on the process:

Work out 4 days per week, no exception.

Hit my calorie goals 6 days out of 7 each week.

Be better than the last workout.

I’m working on

https://ift.tt/2FMVSlh

[almajonesnjna]

5 Lessons learned from a skinny nerd deadlifting 420 pounds

I did it.

I proved somebody wrong on the internet!

I assume the internet will be mailing me a gold medal at any point this week, but until then, let me share the story.

I gave a TedX talk years ago, and I mentioned one of my long-term goals was being able to lift 400 pounds:

My first thought: “Ouch.”

My second thought: “Why am I reading YouTube comments!? No good can come of this.”

My third thought: “I’m gonna prove this person wrong.”

As a skinny nerd with chicken legs that couldn’t build muscle to save my life, this far-off goal suddenly seemed even further off.

Fast forward to last week: not only did I FINALLY reach my 10 year goal of deadlifting 400 pounds, I blew right past it. No straps, no belt. Just some chalk and “internet justice” rage:

For my final rep, I picked up 420 pounds at a bodyweight of 172 pounds. And it came up pretty quickly!

Now, I’ve internalized 5 big lessons on this journey to a deadlift I’m really proud of, especially considering all of those setbacks.

I wanted to share my lessons learned, and show you how you can apply this to your own life.

#1: Screw Your Genetics.

I have the genes of an elf, without the immortality.

If you’re familiar with body types, I’m an endomorph.

I’m naturally very thin and bony, have very thin wrists and ankles, and will forever have chicken legs.

This would be great, if I wanted to be a runner. Not great when you despise running, and you want to pick up heavy things.

Determined to overcome that fate, I began my journey to heavy lifting, only to get knocked back.

6 years ago, I discovered my genes also contain a super fun condition called “spondylolisthesis.”

Don’t bother trying to pronounce it, I still can’t.

It means my vertebrae don’t line up. Essentially, my L5 and S1 are less structurally aligned than a deep-game Jenga tower (Read how I used the “Iron Man Technique” when I got diagnosed).

Jenga: fun for game night, not for spinal metaphors.

When I first learned this, I initially assumed it meant my short lived career as a powerlifter was over, and threw myself one HELL of a pity party.

After that party ended, I got back on the horse.

(Not literally. I don’t have a horse.)

I started working on my deadlift form and core strength. I checked my ego, established a new “square one,” and essentially started over.

Thank god I refused to accept my fate.

Now, obviously I’m not a doctor – I don’t even have pants on right now – so you’re going to need to work with trained professionals if you have a serious medical condition you’re working to overcome.

In my instance, I decided that I didn’t want my genetics to decide my fate: that chicken legs and a crooked spine could be managed. While I might never reach my 10-year goal of a 400 pound deadlift, I’d get started and adjust along the way.

Yup, I know plenty of people can lift WAY more than I can. That’s cool! I’m competing against the ghost of my former self (like a Mario Kart time trial), and that’s all I can do.

I know I’m fighting an uphill battle when I focus on powerlifting when I’m much more likely to be good at running or another endurance activity. That sounds like my personal hell, so I’m gonna play THIS version of life on expert difficulty.

LESSON LEARNED: If you don’t like the game you’re playing, pick a different one! Who cares what your genetics are. You can’t do anything about them. All you can do is play the hand you’re dealt.

If you are a big-boned endomorph (you gain fat easily), and you want to be a marathon runner, GREAT! Start training for a 5k today. Who cares if you’re slow as molasses!

If you are built to run and want to strength train because that’s what brings you joy, go pick up heavy shit! Who cares if the person next to you can lift more? Are YOU lifting more than you did the day before?

We can only blame our parents for so much. Thanks for the crooked spine and acne, DAD.

(Kidding, my dad is cool as hell. He taught me to play poker when I was 5).

#2: Fail You Will. Learn, You Must.

After figuring out my spine sucked, I decided to hire my friend Anthony to coach me via email.

Because I couldn’t lift heavy to start, I had to reallllly focus on my form. It gave all of my muscles and tendons a chance to get caught up to speed.

So I spent two years making steady progress, which was awesome.

And then I went on vacation, where I severely strained my conjoint tendon. 

Lesson learned: never go on vacation again.

My injury was so brutal that I was convinced I had a hernia. I ended up getting an ultrasound on my crotch from two female ultrasound technicians, which was in no way at all awkward.

Kidding. It was aggressively awkward.

Anyways.

After taking multiple weeks off from lifting anything heavy, I started rehab, checked my ego (again), and had to rebuild my form (again), going back 250+ pounds and starting over again.

I felt like Sysphysis, rolling a rock up a hill only to have it roll all the way back down.

Or Charlie Brown trying to kick a football:

But I kept at it. I learned to improve my form. I changed my breathing technique for lifting. And I accepted that I had to go backward in order to eventually break through.

For reference, click through these images and videos below. The “Before” took place before my injury, while the “After” is just a month or two back:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Steve Kamb (@stevekamb) on Aug 15, 2018 at 1:32pm PDT

LESSON LEARNED: Always be learning, when you win or when you lose. Setbacks can be crippling, or they can be painful lessons learned that make you more powerful. I really didn’t have a choice.

You’re gonna get shin splints or plantar fasciitis when you start training for your 5k. Literally everybody does. Take it as a sign you need to fix your running form!

You’re gonna screw up on a lift. Take it as a chance to scale back and rework your form. Video tape your form and check with somebody

You’re gonna get sick and screw up and miss a lift or a hold or a thing. It happens. You can’t change the past (yet), so might as well learn from it and move forward. Rafiki gets me:

#3) Want to Reach a Far Off Goal? Use the Minecraft Strategy.

10 years ago, I had a goal I was racing towards: a 400 pound deadlift.

I’d get marginally closer and then have to back way off. This happened at least half a dozen times.

I believe the reason I finally achieved that goal is because I stopped focusing on rushing to get there! Instead, I just focused on the next workout, the next exercise, the next rep.

In other words: Don’t worry about the building you’re trying to construct. Instead, focus on putting the next brick in the right place, and then repeat. The building will take care of itself.

I call this the Minecraft Strategy.

As for my workouts, I train 4 days per week: Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday. One hour per workout. Each day has a big boring lift attached to it that doesn’t change much at all from week to week.

For the past four years, here’s the deadlift portion of a training day (after many warm-up sets):

Week 1: Sets of 2, 2, 2 for 220 pounds.

Week 2: Sets of 3, 2, 2, for 220 pounds.

Week 3: Sets of 3, 3, 2, for 220 pounds.

Week 4: Sets of 3, 3, 3, for 220 pounds.

Week 5: Sets of 2, 2, 2 for 225 pounds.

And repeat. Every week. Every month. For 5 years. Notice that each week I added just ONE rep. And once I hit 3 sets of 3, I’d go up by 5 pounds, and start back at 2, 2, 2.

That is boring as hell. And effective too. Every single week I’d be setting a personal best! I didn’t care about the far-off goal of a 400-lb deadlift, I instead put all of my focus into “Can I crush this next rep?”

This is also EXACTLY how one simply walks into Mordor: one step at a time.

Two weeks ago, my “slow cook” deadlifting workout had me doing 3 sets of 3 reps at 385 pounds.

Anthony told me: “Let’s go heavy next week. And I won’t accept anything less than 415 pounds.”

This was a goal I’d have forever, and Anthony had already set my sights 15 pounds heavier to calm my nerves on the psychological challenge of seeing that much weight on the bar.

So after picking up 405 for a warmup, I went for 420 pounds:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Steve Kamb (@stevekamb) on Nov 21, 2018 at 10:43am PST

No belt, no straps. Just some chalk and Walk the Moon’s “Portugal” on my headphones. Honestly, it was almost a letdown because it came up so quickly…but I was so damn proud to reach a powerful milestone, banish the monkey on my back, and actually feel strong.

Hence the quick fist pump to myself.

This week? It’s back to the boring stuff. Boring, consistent, progress where I just get epic results and feel really good about myself.

I’m okay with that. I jokingly talk about how I went from Steve Rogers to Captain America with this slow, small tactic.

LESSON LEARNED: Are you a shiny-object chasing “I need to be entertained and I change workouts every 3 weeks but I can never seem to get results” type of person?

Fall in love with the process and incremental progress, and you’re gonna go places kid.

Each week, just focus on being better than you did the week before. If you ONLY worry about this, you’ll look back at the end of the year and realize you’re a changed person.

Note: This means you need to show up each week, with few exceptions. Even when life is busy.

#4 – Track the Problem to Crack the Problem.

Fun fact: I currently have a folder in Evernote called “Kambsformation” (Anthony came up with it, and it just stuck).

In that folder I have 1 note for every workout or progress photo from the past 5 years.

I now have 1159 notes in that folder:

As my friend Nick says, “You gotta track the problem to track the problem.”

I have tracked every single workout I’ve done since 2013 in this folder. I have them all in the same place, so I can quickly scan back to any date and time and see where I was, how I trained, and so on.

I know every week exactly what I need to do to be better than the week before. Using the Minecraft Strategy here, it just means I need to focus on ONE single rep heavier.

In addition to tracking my workouts, I’ve become diligent about tracking my calories too. I am not Paleo, or Keto, or Mediterranean.

Instead, I employ a “mental model” diet, with specific rules I follow:

Skip breakfast. I cover this in our guide on Intermittent Fasting.

Eat big after a workout. Adjust the rest of my calories based on goals.

Protein with every meal. Usually chicken.

Veggies with every meal. Brussel sprouts or broccoli.

Adjust carbs and fat to fit macro profile for that day.

A powerbomb shake to hit calorie goals. Water, oats, frozen berries, frozen spinach, and whey protein (I use Optimum Nutrition Vanilla).

Over the past 2 months, I’ve actually leaned out, from 185 pounds down to 172 pounds. I did that by adjusting my caloric intake very simply:

2600 calories on training days

2200 calories on non training days.

For the first few weeks, I actually didn’t lose any weight despite “tracking my calories.” I still believed in thermodynamics, so I started weighing my portions (I like this one) and discovered a few key things.

Namely, that I was overeating without realizing it:

I was underestimating my oats portion by 20% when using a measuring cup instead of a scale

My chipotle lunch contained 1.5 servings of rice by weight, not 1.

As soon as I made those small adjustments, my weight started to drop consistently.

In addition to tracking my food, I take progress photos weekly, and weigh myself each morning.

I don’t freak out if the scale goes up or down. Instead I take a 7-day rolling average and make sure the TREND is in the right direction.

Think of this like the bumper lanes in a bowling alley: As long as the ball is moving towards the pins, that’s good enough.

LESSON LEARNED: We pay attention to the things we track. So track the right stuff! This applies not only to health and fitness, but learning, personal finance, etc. Keep a journal, or an Evernote folder, or a Google Doc. Write down what you did, and what you’re going to do.

It’s valuable as hell. And I don’t care what kind of diet you pick: whichever one leads you to sustainable calorie management in a way that doesn’t make you want to punch a hole in the wall.

If the scale isn’t going down for you, it doesn’t mean that you have a slow metabolism, or that you’re broken. It means you are eating too many calories to induce weight loss. Track your calories more closely.  Use a scale if you need to, until you learn what actual portion sizes are.

Are you taking progress photos? They can be a crucial for making sure you’re losing the right kind of weight!

Are you writing down your workouts or tracking them in an app? How else are you gonna know what you need to do this week to level up!?

#5) “It’s Dangerous to Go Alone. Bring a friend.”

I gotta give a shout out to my friend and coach, Anthony.

He’s been my online coach for the past 5 years and I truly consider him a valuable part of my success. He also has epic hair.

I’d say this is the best money I invest in myself each month – and I’m somebody that tells people how to exercise for a living!

When I’m traveling, or when I have busy weeks, my coach adjusts my schedule to make it work. When I am feeling good, well rested, and amped up, we crank things up. When I’m feeling overwhelmed he slows it down.

And most importantly, he doesn’t put up with my bullshit. You know what I mean – we all have excuses that we feed ourselves daily: too busy, I couldn’t because blah blah blah.

I know Anthony doesn’t want to hear this stuff, so I instead just DO the work! It’s pretty awesome to have somebody else that’s invested in my success, somebody that I can bounce ideas off of, somebody that I know is keeping me accountable, checking my form, etc.

And maybe most importantly, I have the peace of mind to know that I’m actually doing the right stuff, and doing it correctly. I feel confident saying I never would have lifted 420 pounds without my coach.

LESSON LEARNED: If you have the money to invest in yourself, hiring a coach who learns your story can be game changing. If you don’t, having a workout buddy in the trenches with you can be AMAZING too. An accountabilibuddy, if you will.

We’re proud that we have an online coaching program at NF, and we have an online community attached to our course, the NF Academy.

I also know lots of people who work with trainers in person and they can be worth every penny (sometimes!)

If you want to take your fitness more seriously, invest if you can. If you want to take running more seriously, join a running club.

You don’t have to go it alone on this journey, and oftentimes a coach or trusted friend can be an absolute game changer. It was for me.

I hope Anthony lets me keep him as a coach for the next 5 years too.

I proved a troll wrong, now what!?

So I mentioned that I proved somebody wrong on the internet. I mostly say this in jest.

The dude probably didn’t think twice about his comment, and hasn’t thought about it since.

Am I gonna try to right every wrong on the internet? Nope. People say really nasty things about me all the time, that just comes with the territory. It hurts like hell.

And then I get back to helping people and writing about Star Wars and sometimes wearing pants (but today is not that day).

So, although I jokingly say that “I owned that troll,” the reality is that it just. doesn’t. Matter.

I’m really proud of this accomplishment, and I hope my recap can help you crystallize the goals you have floating around your head.

These days, my goals are tighter, and more focused on the process:

Work out 4 days per week, no exception.

Hit my calorie goals 6 days out of 7 each week.

Be better than the last workout.

I’m working on

https://ift.tt/2FMVSlh

[ruthellisneda]

5 Lessons learned from a skinny nerd deadlifting 420 pounds

I did it.

I proved somebody wrong on the internet!

I assume the internet will be mailing me a gold medal at any point this week, but until then, let me share the story.

I gave a TedX talk years ago, and I mentioned one of my long-term goals was being able to lift 400 pounds:

My first thought: “Ouch.”

My second thought: “Why am I reading YouTube comments!? No good can come of this.”

My third thought: “I’m gonna prove this person wrong.”

As a skinny nerd with chicken legs that couldn’t build muscle to save my life, this far-off goal suddenly seemed even further off.

Fast forward to last week: not only did I FINALLY reach my 10 year goal of deadlifting 400 pounds, I blew right past it. No straps, no belt. Just some chalk and “internet justice” rage:

For my final rep, I picked up 420 pounds at a bodyweight of 172 pounds. And it came up pretty quickly!

Now, I’ve internalized 5 big lessons on this journey to a deadlift I’m really proud of, especially considering all of those setbacks.

I wanted to share my lessons learned, and show you how you can apply this to your own life.

#1: Screw Your Genetics.

I have the genes of an elf, without the immortality.

If you’re familiar with body types, I’m an endomorph.

I’m naturally very thin and bony, have very thin wrists and ankles, and will forever have chicken legs.

This would be great, if I wanted to be a runner. Not great when you despise running, and you want to pick up heavy things.

Determined to overcome that fate, I began my journey to heavy lifting, only to get knocked back.

6 years ago, I discovered my genes also contain a super fun condition called “spondylolisthesis.”

Don’t bother trying to pronounce it, I still can’t.

It means my vertebrae don’t line up. Essentially, my L5 and S1 are less structurally aligned than a deep-game Jenga tower (Read how I used the “Iron Man Technique” when I got diagnosed).

Jenga: fun for game night, not for spinal metaphors.

When I first learned this, I initially assumed it meant my short lived career as a powerlifter was over, and threw myself one HELL of a pity party.

After that party ended, I got back on the horse.

(Not literally. I don’t have a horse.)

I started working on my deadlift form and core strength. I checked my ego, established a new “square one,” and essentially started over.

Thank god I refused to accept my fate.

Now, obviously I’m not a doctor – I don’t even have pants on right now – so you’re going to need to work with trained professionals if you have a serious medical condition you’re working to overcome.

In my instance, I decided that I didn’t want my genetics to decide my fate: that chicken legs and a crooked spine could be managed. While I might never reach my 10-year goal of a 400 pound deadlift, I’d get started and adjust along the way.

Yup, I know plenty of people can lift WAY more than I can. That’s cool! I’m competing against the ghost of my former self (like a Mario Kart time trial), and that’s all I can do.

I know I’m fighting an uphill battle when I focus on powerlifting when I’m much more likely to be good at running or another endurance activity. That sounds like my personal hell, so I’m gonna play THIS version of life on expert difficulty.

LESSON LEARNED: If you don’t like the game you’re playing, pick a different one! Who cares what your genetics are. You can’t do anything about them. All you can do is play the hand you’re dealt.

If you are a big-boned endomorph (you gain fat easily), and you want to be a marathon runner, GREAT! Start training for a 5k today. Who cares if you’re slow as molasses!

If you are built to run and want to strength train because that’s what brings you joy, go pick up heavy shit! Who cares if the person next to you can lift more? Are YOU lifting more than you did the day before?

We can only blame our parents for so much. Thanks for the crooked spine and acne, DAD.

(Kidding, my dad is cool as hell. He taught me to play poker when I was 5).

#2: Fail You Will. Learn, You Must.

After figuring out my spine sucked, I decided to hire my friend Anthony to coach me via email.

Because I couldn’t lift heavy to start, I had to reallllly focus on my form. It gave all of my muscles and tendons a chance to get caught up to speed.

So I spent two years making steady progress, which was awesome.

And then I went on vacation, where I severely strained my conjoint tendon. 

Lesson learned: never go on vacation again.

My injury was so brutal that I was convinced I had a hernia. I ended up getting an ultrasound on my crotch from two female ultrasound technicians, which was in no way at all awkward.

Kidding. It was aggressively awkward.

Anyways.

After taking multiple weeks off from lifting anything heavy, I started rehab, checked my ego (again), and had to rebuild my form (again), going back 250+ pounds and starting over again.

I felt like Sysphysis, rolling a rock up a hill only to have it roll all the way back down.

Or Charlie Brown trying to kick a football:

But I kept at it. I learned to improve my form. I changed my breathing technique for lifting. And I accepted that I had to go backward in order to eventually break through.

For reference, click through these images and videos below. The “Before” took place before my injury, while the “After” is just a month or two back:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Steve Kamb (@stevekamb) on Aug 15, 2018 at 1:32pm PDT

LESSON LEARNED: Always be learning, when you win or when you lose. Setbacks can be crippling, or they can be painful lessons learned that make you more powerful. I really didn’t have a choice.

You’re gonna get shin splints or plantar fasciitis when you start training for your 5k. Literally everybody does. Take it as a sign you need to fix your running form!

You’re gonna screw up on a lift. Take it as a chance to scale back and rework your form. Video tape your form and check with somebody

You’re gonna get sick and screw up and miss a lift or a hold or a thing. It happens. You can’t change the past (yet), so might as well learn from it and move forward. Rafiki gets me:

#3) Want to Reach a Far Off Goal? Use the Minecraft Strategy.

10 years ago, I had a goal I was racing towards: a 400 pound deadlift.

I’d get marginally closer and then have to back way off. This happened at least half a dozen times.

I believe the reason I finally achieved that goal is because I stopped focusing on rushing to get there! Instead, I just focused on the next workout, the next exercise, the next rep.

In other words: Don’t worry about the building you’re trying to construct. Instead, focus on putting the next brick in the right place, and then repeat. The building will take care of itself.

I call this the Minecraft Strategy.

As for my workouts, I train 4 days per week: Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday. One hour per workout. Each day has a big boring lift attached to it that doesn’t change much at all from week to week.

For the past four years, here’s the deadlift portion of a training day (after many warm-up sets):

Week 1: Sets of 2, 2, 2 for 220 pounds.

Week 2: Sets of 3, 2, 2, for 220 pounds.

Week 3: Sets of 3, 3, 2, for 220 pounds.

Week 4: Sets of 3, 3, 3, for 220 pounds.

Week 5: Sets of 2, 2, 2 for 225 pounds.

And repeat. Every week. Every month. For 5 years. Notice that each week I added just ONE rep. And once I hit 3 sets of 3, I’d go up by 5 pounds, and start back at 2, 2, 2.

That is boring as hell. And effective too. Every single week I’d be setting a personal best! I didn’t care about the far-off goal of a 400-lb deadlift, I instead put all of my focus into “Can I crush this next rep?”

This is also EXACTLY how one simply walks into Mordor: one step at a time.

Two weeks ago, my “slow cook” deadlifting workout had me doing 3 sets of 3 reps at 385 pounds.

Anthony told me: “Let’s go heavy next week. And I won’t accept anything less than 415 pounds.”

This was a goal I’d have forever, and Anthony had already set my sights 15 pounds heavier to calm my nerves on the psychological challenge of seeing that much weight on the bar.

So after picking up 405 for a warmup, I went for 420 pounds:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Steve Kamb (@stevekamb) on Nov 21, 2018 at 10:43am PST

No belt, no straps. Just some chalk and Walk the Moon’s “Portugal” on my headphones. Honestly, it was almost a letdown because it came up so quickly…but I was so damn proud to reach a powerful milestone, banish the monkey on my back, and actually feel strong.

Hence the quick fist pump to myself.

This week? It’s back to the boring stuff. Boring, consistent, progress where I just get epic results and feel really good about myself.

I’m okay with that. I jokingly talk about how I went from Steve Rogers to Captain America with this slow, small tactic.

LESSON LEARNED: Are you a shiny-object chasing “I need to be entertained and I change workouts every 3 weeks but I can never seem to get results” type of person?

Fall in love with the process and incremental progress, and you’re gonna go places kid.

Each week, just focus on being better than you did the week before. If you ONLY worry about this, you’ll look back at the end of the year and realize you’re a changed person.

Note: This means you need to show up each week, with few exceptions. Even when life is busy.

#4 – Track the Problem to Crack the Problem.

Fun fact: I currently have a folder in Evernote called “Kambsformation” (Anthony came up with it, and it just stuck).

In that folder I have 1 note for every workout or progress photo from the past 5 years.

I now have 1159 notes in that folder:

As my friend Nick says, “You gotta track the problem to track the problem.”

I have tracked every single workout I’ve done since 2013 in this folder. I have them all in the same place, so I can quickly scan back to any date and time and see where I was, how I trained, and so on.

I know every week exactly what I need to do to be better than the week before. Using the Minecraft Strategy here, it just means I need to focus on ONE single rep heavier.

In addition to tracking my workouts, I’ve become diligent about tracking my calories too. I am not Paleo, or Keto, or Mediterranean.

Instead, I employ a “mental model” diet, with specific rules I follow:

Skip breakfast. I cover this in our guide on Intermittent Fasting.

Eat big after a workout. Adjust the rest of my calories based on goals.

Protein with every meal. Usually chicken.

Veggies with every meal. Brussel sprouts or broccoli.

Adjust carbs and fat to fit macro profile for that day.

A powerbomb shake to hit calorie goals. Water, oats, frozen berries, frozen spinach, and whey protein (I use Optimum Nutrition Vanilla).

Over the past 2 months, I’ve actually leaned out, from 185 pounds down to 172 pounds. I did that by adjusting my caloric intake very simply:

2600 calories on training days

2200 calories on non training days.

For the first few weeks, I actually didn’t lose any weight despite “tracking my calories.” I still believed in thermodynamics, so I started weighing my portions (I like this one) and discovered a few key things.

Namely, that I was overeating without realizing it:

I was underestimating my oats portion by 20% when using a measuring cup instead of a scale

My chipotle lunch contained 1.5 servings of rice by weight, not 1.

As soon as I made those small adjustments, my weight started to drop consistently.

In addition to tracking my food, I take progress photos weekly, and weigh myself each morning.

I don’t freak out if the scale goes up or down. Instead I take a 7-day rolling average and make sure the TREND is in the right direction.

Think of this like the bumper lanes in a bowling alley: As long as the ball is moving towards the pins, that’s good enough.

LESSON LEARNED: We pay attention to the things we track. So track the right stuff! This applies not only to health and fitness, but learning, personal finance, etc. Keep a journal, or an Evernote folder, or a Google Doc. Write down what you did, and what you’re going to do.

It’s valuable as hell. And I don’t care what kind of diet you pick: whichever one leads you to sustainable calorie management in a way that doesn’t make you want to punch a hole in the wall.

If the scale isn’t going down for you, it doesn’t mean that you have a slow metabolism, or that you’re broken. It means you are eating too many calories to induce weight loss. Track your calories more closely.  Use a scale if you need to, until you learn what actual portion sizes are.

Are you taking progress photos? They can be a crucial for making sure you’re losing the right kind of weight!

Are you writing down your workouts or tracking them in an app? How else are you gonna know what you need to do this week to level up!?

#5) “It’s Dangerous to Go Alone. Bring a friend.”

I gotta give a shout out to my friend and coach, Anthony.

He’s been my online coach for the past 5 years and I truly consider him a valuable part of my success. He also has epic hair.

I’d say this is the best money I invest in myself each month – and I’m somebody that tells people how to exercise for a living!

When I’m traveling, or when I have busy weeks, my coach adjusts my schedule to make it work. When I am feeling good, well rested, and amped up, we crank things up. When I’m feeling overwhelmed he slows it down.

And most importantly, he doesn’t put up with my bullshit. You know what I mean – we all have excuses that we feed ourselves daily: too busy, I couldn’t because blah blah blah.

I know Anthony doesn’t want to hear this stuff, so I instead just DO the work! It’s pretty awesome to have somebody else that’s invested in my success, somebody that I can bounce ideas off of, somebody that I know is keeping me accountable, checking my form, etc.

And maybe most importantly, I have the peace of mind to know that I’m actually doing the right stuff, and doing it correctly. I feel confident saying I never would have lifted 420 pounds without my coach.

LESSON LEARNED: If you have the money to invest in yourself, hiring a coach who learns your story can be game changing. If you don’t, having a workout buddy in the trenches with you can be AMAZING too. An accountabilibuddy, if you will.

We’re proud that we have an online coaching program at NF, and we have an online community attached to our course, the NF Academy.

I also know lots of people who work with trainers in person and they can be worth every penny (sometimes!)

If you want to take your fitness more seriously, invest if you can. If you want to take running more seriously, join a running club.

You don’t have to go it alone on this journey, and oftentimes a coach or trusted friend can be an absolute game changer. It was for me.

I hope Anthony lets me keep him as a coach for the next 5 years too.

I proved a troll wrong, now what!?

So I mentioned that I proved somebody wrong on the internet. I mostly say this in jest.

The dude probably didn’t think twice about his comment, and hasn’t thought about it since.

Am I gonna try to right every wrong on the internet? Nope. People say really nasty things about me all the time, that just comes with the territory. It hurts like hell.

And then I get back to helping people and writing about Star Wars and sometimes wearing pants (but today is not that day).

So, although I jokingly say that “I owned that troll,” the reality is that it just. doesn’t. Matter.

I’m really proud of this accomplishment, and I hope my recap can help you crystallize the goals you have floating around your head.

These days, my goals are tighter, and more focused on the process:

Work out 4 days per week, no exception.

Hit my calorie goals 6 days out of 7 each week.

Be better than the last workout.

I’m working on

https://ift.tt/2FMVSlh

[fitnetpro]

5 Lessons learned from a skinny nerd deadlifting 420 pounds

I did it.

I proved somebody wrong on the internet!

I assume the internet will be mailing me a gold medal at any point this week, but until then, let me share the story.

I gave a TedX talk years ago, and I mentioned one of my long-term goals was being able to lift 400 pounds:

My first thought: “Ouch.”

My second thought: “Why am I reading YouTube comments!? No good can come of this.”

My third thought: “I’m gonna prove this person wrong.”

As a skinny nerd with chicken legs that couldn’t build muscle to save my life, this far-off goal suddenly seemed even further off.

Fast forward to last week: not only did I FINALLY reach my 10 year goal of deadlifting 400 pounds, I blew right past it. No straps, no belt. Just some chalk and “internet justice” rage:

For my final rep, I picked up 420 pounds at a bodyweight of 172 pounds. And it came up pretty quickly!

Now, I’ve internalized 5 big lessons on this journey to a deadlift I’m really proud of, especially considering all of those setbacks.

I wanted to share my lessons learned, and show you how you can apply this to your own life.

#1: Screw Your Genetics.

I have the genes of an elf, without the immortality.

If you’re familiar with body types, I’m an endomorph.

I’m naturally very thin and bony, have very thin wrists and ankles, and will forever have chicken legs.

This would be great, if I wanted to be a runner. Not great when you despise running, and you want to pick up heavy things.

Determined to overcome that fate, I began my journey to heavy lifting, only to get knocked back.

6 years ago, I discovered my genes also contain a super fun condition called “spondylolisthesis.”

Don’t bother trying to pronounce it, I still can’t.

It means my vertebrae don’t line up. Essentially, my L5 and S1 are less structurally aligned than a deep-game Jenga tower (Read how I used the “Iron Man Technique” when I got diagnosed).

Jenga: fun for game night, not for spinal metaphors.

When I first learned this, I initially assumed it meant my short lived career as a powerlifter was over, and threw myself one HELL of a pity party.

After that party ended, I got back on the horse.

(Not literally. I don’t have a horse.)

I started working on my deadlift form and core strength. I checked my ego, established a new “square one,” and essentially started over.

Thank god I refused to accept my fate.

Now, obviously I’m not a doctor – I don’t even have pants on right now – so you’re going to need to work with trained professionals if you have a serious medical condition you’re working to overcome.

In my instance, I decided that I didn’t want my genetics to decide my fate: that chicken legs and a crooked spine could be managed. While I might never reach my 10-year goal of a 400 pound deadlift, I’d get started and adjust along the way.

Yup, I know plenty of people can lift WAY more than I can. That’s cool! I’m competing against the ghost of my former self (like a Mario Kart time trial), and that’s all I can do.

I know I’m fighting an uphill battle when I focus on powerlifting when I’m much more likely to be good at running or another endurance activity. That sounds like my personal hell, so I’m gonna play THIS version of life on expert difficulty.

LESSON LEARNED: If you don’t like the game you’re playing, pick a different one! Who cares what your genetics are. You can’t do anything about them. All you can do is play the hand you’re dealt.

If you are a big-boned endomorph (you gain fat easily), and you want to be a marathon runner, GREAT! Start training for a 5k today. Who cares if you’re slow as molasses!

If you are built to run and want to strength train because that’s what brings you joy, go pick up heavy shit! Who cares if the person next to you can lift more? Are YOU lifting more than you did the day before?

We can only blame our parents for so much. Thanks for the crooked spine and acne, DAD.

(Kidding, my dad is cool as hell. He taught me to play poker when I was 5).

#2: Fail You Will. Learn, You Must.

After figuring out my spine sucked, I decided to hire my friend Anthony to coach me via email.

Because I couldn’t lift heavy to start, I had to reallllly focus on my form. It gave all of my muscles and tendons a chance to get caught up to speed.

So I spent two years making steady progress, which was awesome.

And then I went on vacation, where I severely strained my conjoint tendon. 

Lesson learned: never go on vacation again.

My injury was so brutal that I was convinced I had a hernia. I ended up getting an ultrasound on my crotch from two female ultrasound technicians, which was in no way at all awkward.

Kidding. It was aggressively awkward.

Anyways.

After taking multiple weeks off from lifting anything heavy, I started rehab, checked my ego (again), and had to rebuild my form (again), going back 250+ pounds and starting over again.

I felt like Sysphysis, rolling a rock up a hill only to have it roll all the way back down.

Or Charlie Brown trying to kick a football:

But I kept at it. I learned to improve my form. I changed my breathing technique for lifting. And I accepted that I had to go backward in order to eventually break through.

For reference, click through these images and videos below. The “Before” took place before my injury, while the “After” is just a month or two back:

  View this post on Instagram

  A post shared by Steve Kamb (@stevekamb) on Aug 15, 2018 at 1:32pm PDT

LESSON LEARNED: Always be learning, when you win or when you lose. Setbacks can be crippling, or they can be painful lessons learned that make you more powerful. I really didn’t have a choice.

You’re gonna get shin splints or plantar fasciitis when you start training for your 5k. Literally everybody does. Take it as a sign you need to fix your running form!

You’re gonna screw up on a lift. Take it as a chance to scale back and rework your form. Video tape your form and check with somebody

You’re gonna get sick and screw up and miss a lift or a hold or a thing. It happens. You can’t change the past (yet), so might as well learn from it and move forward. Rafiki gets me:

#3) Want to Reach a Far Off Goal? Use the Minecraft Strategy.

10 years ago, I had a goal I was racing towards: a 400 pound deadlift.

I’d get marginally closer and then have to back way off. This happened at least half a dozen times.

I believe the reason I finally achieved that goal is because I stopped focusing on rushing to get there! Instead, I just focused on the next workout, the next exercise, the next rep.

In other words: Don’t worry about the building you’re trying to construct. Instead, focus on putting the next brick in the right place, and then repeat. The building will take care of itself.

I call this the Minecraft Strategy.

As for my workouts, I train 4 days per week: Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday. One hour per workout. Each day has a big boring lift attached to it that doesn’t change much at all from week to week.

For the past four years, here’s the deadlift portion of a training day (after many warm-up sets):

Week 1: Sets of 2, 2, 2 for 220 pounds.

Week 2: Sets of 3, 2, 2, for 220 pounds.

Week 3: Sets of 3, 3, 2, for 220 pounds.

Week 4: Sets of 3, 3, 3, for 220 pounds.

Week 5: Sets of 2, 2, 2 for 225 pounds.

And repeat. Every week. Every month. For 5 years. Notice that each week I added just ONE rep. And once I hit 3 sets of 3, I’d go up by 5 pounds, and start back at 2, 2, 2.

That is boring as hell. And effective too. Every single week I’d be setting a personal best! I didn’t care about the far-off goal of a 400-lb deadlift, I instead put all of my focus into “Can I crush this next rep?”

This is also EXACTLY how one simply walks into Mordor: one step at a time.

Two weeks ago, my “slow cook” deadlifting workout had me doing 3 sets of 3 reps at 385 pounds.

Anthony told me: “Let’s go heavy next week. And I won’t accept anything less than 415 pounds.”

This was a goal I’d have forever, and Anthony had already set my sights 15 pounds heavier to calm my nerves on the psychological challenge of seeing that much weight on the bar.

So after picking up 405 for a warmup, I went for 420 pounds:

  View this post on Instagram

  A post shared by Steve Kamb (@stevekamb) on Nov 21, 2018 at 10:43am PST

No belt, no straps. Just some chalk and Walk the Moon’s “Portugal” on my headphones. Honestly, it was almost a letdown because it came up so quickly…but I was so damn proud to reach a powerful milestone, banish the monkey on my back, and actually feel strong.

Hence the quick fist pump to myself.

This week? It’s back to the boring stuff. Boring, consistent, progress where I just get epic results and feel really good about myself.

I’m okay with that. I jokingly talk about how I went from Steve Rogers to Captain America with this slow, small tactic.

LESSON LEARNED: Are you a shiny-object chasing “I need to be entertained and I change workouts every 3 weeks but I can never seem to get results” type of person?

Fall in love with the process and incremental progress, and you’re gonna go places kid.

Each week, just focus on being better than you did the week before. If you ONLY worry about this, you’ll look back at the end of the year and realize you’re a changed person.

Note: This means you need to show up each week, with few exceptions. Even when life is busy.

#4 – Track the Problem to Crack the Problem.

Fun fact: I currently have a folder in Evernote called “Kambsformation” (Anthony came up with it, and it just stuck).

In that folder I have 1 note for every workout or progress photo from the past 5 years.

I now have 1159 notes in that folder:

As my friend Nick says, “You gotta track the problem to track the problem.”

I have tracked every single workout I’ve done since 2013 in this folder. I have them all in the same place, so I can quickly scan back to any date and time and see where I was, how I trained, and so on.

I know every week exactly what I need to do to be better than the week before. Using the Minecraft Strategy here, it just means I need to focus on ONE single rep heavier.

In addition to tracking my workouts, I’ve become diligent about tracking my calories too. I am not Paleo, or Keto, or Mediterranean.

Instead, I employ a “mental model” diet, with specific rules I follow:

Skip breakfast. I cover this in our guide on Intermittent Fasting.

Eat big after a workout. Adjust the rest of my calories based on goals.

Protein with every meal. Usually chicken.

Veggies with every meal. Brussel sprouts or broccoli.

Adjust carbs and fat to fit macro profile for that day.

A powerbomb shake to hit calorie goals. Water, oats, frozen berries, frozen spinach, and whey protein (I use Optimum Nutrition Vanilla).

Over the past 2 months, I’ve actually leaned out, from 185 pounds down to 172 pounds. I did that by adjusting my caloric intake very simply:

2600 calories on training days

2200 calories on non training days.

For the first few weeks, I actually didn’t lose any weight despite “tracking my calories.” I still believed in thermodynamics, so I started weighing my portions (I like this one) and discovered a few key things.

Namely, that I was overeating without realizing it:

I was underestimating my oats portion by 20% when using a measuring cup instead of a scale

My chipotle lunch contained 1.5 servings of rice by weight, not 1.

As soon as I made those small adjustments, my weight started to drop consistently.

In addition to tracking my food, I take progress photos weekly, and weigh myself each morning.

I don’t freak out if the scale goes up or down. Instead I take a 7-day rolling average and make sure the TREND is in the right direction.

Think of this like the bumper lanes in a bowling alley: As long as the ball is moving towards the pins, that’s good enough.

LESSON LEARNED: We pay attention to the things we track. So track the right stuff! This applies not only to health and fitness, but learning, personal finance, etc. Keep a journal, or an Evernote folder, or a Google Doc. Write down what you did, and what you’re going to do.

It’s valuable as hell. And I don’t care what kind of diet you pick: whichever one leads you to sustainable calorie management in a way that doesn’t make you want to punch a hole in the wall.

If the scale isn’t going down for you, it doesn’t mean that you have a slow metabolism, or that you’re broken. It means you are eating too many calories to induce weight loss. Track your calories more closely.  Use a scale if you need to, until you learn what actual portion sizes are.

Are you taking progress photos? They can be a crucial for making sure you’re losing the right kind of weight!

Are you writing down your workouts or tracking them in an app? How else are you gonna know what you need to do this week to level up!?

#5) “It’s Dangerous to Go Alone. Bring a friend.”

I gotta give a shout out to my friend and coach, Anthony.

He’s been my online coach for the past 5 years and I truly consider him a valuable part of my success. He also has epic hair.

I’d say this is the best money I invest in myself each month – and I’m somebody that tells people how to exercise for a living!

When I’m traveling, or when I have busy weeks, my coach adjusts my schedule to make it work. When I am feeling good, well rested, and amped up, we crank things up. When I’m feeling overwhelmed he slows it down.

And most importantly, he doesn’t put up with my bullshit. You know what I mean – we all have excuses that we feed ourselves daily: too busy, I couldn’t because blah blah blah.

I know Anthony doesn’t want to hear this stuff, so I instead just DO the work! It’s pretty awesome to have somebody else that’s invested in my success, somebody that I can bounce ideas off of, somebody that I know is keeping me accountable, checking my form, etc.

And maybe most importantly, I have the peace of mind to know that I’m actually doing the right stuff, and doing it correctly. I feel confident saying I never would have lifted 420 pounds without my coach.

LESSON LEARNED: If you have the money to invest in yourself, hiring a coach who learns your story can be game changing. If you don’t, having a workout buddy in the trenches with you can be AMAZING too. An accountabilibuddy, if you will.

We’re proud that we have an online coaching program at NF, and we have an online community attached to our course, the NF Academy.

I also know lots of people who work with trainers in person and they can be worth every penny (sometimes!)

If you want to take your fitness more seriously, invest if you can. If you want to take running more seriously, join a running club.

You don’t have to go it alone on this journey, and oftentimes a coach or trusted friend can be an absolute game changer. It was for me.

I hope Anthony lets me keep him as a coach for the next 5 years too.

I proved a troll wrong, now what!?

So I mentioned that I proved somebody wrong on the internet. I mostly say this in jest.

The dude probably didn’t think twice about his comment, and hasn’t thought about it since.

Am I gonna try to right every wrong on the internet? Nope. People say really nasty things about me all the time, that just comes with the territory. It hurts like hell.

And then I get back to helping people and writing about Star Wars and sometimes wearing pants (but today is not that day).

So, although I jokingly say that “I owned that troll,” the reality is that it just. doesn’t. Matter.

I’m really proud of this accomplishment, and I hope my recap can help you crystallize the goals you have floating around your head.

These days, my goals are tighter, and more focused on the process:

Work out 4 days per week, no exception.

Hit my calorie goals 6 days out of 7 each week.

Be better than the last workout.

I’m working on my handstands, mobility, and gymnastic rings stuff…but I’m gonna keep grinding on my deadlifts and squats too.

Considering how quickly that 420 pound deadlift came up, I wonder if I get a 500 pound deadlift…

No way, won’t happen. EVER. Not with these genetics 😛

(I’ll let you know in 5 years).

I’d love to hear from you: do you have a big “dragon slaying” goal you’re working towards in the future?

What can you take from this article and apply to your journey?

For the Rebellion!

-Steve

PS: We are hiring 2-3 certified coaches to join our NF Coaching Program! This is a 100% remote work-from-anywhere position. If you think you’d be a good fit, or know somebody that would, please check out our “work with us” page!

###

All photo credits can be found in this very special footnote[1].

Footnotes    ( returns to text)

Photo Source: Promenade, Mirkwood Elf Archer, Hate leads to suffering, Ready for Scotland, Ready for War

5 Lessons learned from a skinny nerd deadlifting 420 pounds published first on http://fitnetpro.tumblr.com/

[johnclapperne]

5 Lessons learned from a skinny nerd deadlifting 420 pounds

I did it.

I proved somebody wrong on the internet!

I assume the internet will be mailing me a gold medal at any point this week, but until then, let me share the story.

I gave a TedX talk years ago, and I mentioned one of my long-term goals was being able to lift 400 pounds:

My first thought: “Ouch.”

My second thought: “Why am I reading YouTube comments!? No good can come of this.”

My third thought: “I’m gonna prove this person wrong.”

As a skinny nerd with chicken legs that couldn’t build muscle to save my life, this far-off goal suddenly seemed even further off.

Fast forward to last week: not only did I FINALLY reach my 10 year goal of deadlifting 400 pounds, I blew right past it. No straps, no belt. Just some chalk and “internet justice” rage:

For my final rep, I picked up 420 pounds at a bodyweight of 172 pounds. And it came up pretty quickly!

Now, I’ve internalized 5 big lessons on this journey to a deadlift I’m really proud of, especially considering all of those setbacks.

I wanted to share my lessons learned, and show you how you can apply this to your own life.

#1: Screw Your Genetics.

I have the genes of an elf, without the immortality.

If you’re familiar with body types, I’m an endomorph.

I’m naturally very thin and bony, have very thin wrists and ankles, and will forever have chicken legs.

This would be great, if I wanted to be a runner. Not great when you despise running, and you want to pick up heavy things.

Determined to overcome that fate, I began my journey to heavy lifting, only to get knocked back.

6 years ago, I discovered my genes also contain a super fun condition called “spondylolisthesis.”

Don’t bother trying to pronounce it, I still can’t.

It means my vertebrae don’t line up. Essentially, my L5 and S1 are less structurally aligned than a deep-game Jenga tower (Read how I used the “Iron Man Technique” when I got diagnosed).

Jenga: fun for game night, not for spinal metaphors.

When I first learned this, I initially assumed it meant my short lived career as a powerlifter was over, and threw myself one HELL of a pity party.

After that party ended, I got back on the horse.

(Not literally. I don’t have a horse.)

I started working on my deadlift form and core strength. I checked my ego, established a new “square one,” and essentially started over.

Thank god I refused to accept my fate.

Now, obviously I’m not a doctor – I don’t even have pants on right now – so you’re going to need to work with trained professionals if you have a serious medical condition you’re working to overcome.

In my instance, I decided that I didn’t want my genetics to decide my fate: that chicken legs and a crooked spine could be managed. While I might never reach my 10-year goal of a 400 pound deadlift, I’d get started and adjust along the way.

Yup, I know plenty of people can lift WAY more than I can. That’s cool! I’m competing against the ghost of my former self (like a Mario Kart time trial), and that’s all I can do.

I know I’m fighting an uphill battle when I focus on powerlifting when I’m much more likely to be good at running or another endurance activity. That sounds like my personal hell, so I’m gonna play THIS version of life on expert difficulty.

LESSON LEARNED: If you don’t like the game you’re playing, pick a different one! Who cares what your genetics are. You can’t do anything about them. All you can do is play the hand you’re dealt.

If you are a big-boned endomorph (you gain fat easily), and you want to be a marathon runner, GREAT! Start training for a 5k today. Who cares if you’re slow as molasses!

If you are built to run and want to strength train because that’s what brings you joy, go pick up heavy shit! Who cares if the person next to you can lift more? Are YOU lifting more than you did the day before?

We can only blame our parents for so much. Thanks for the crooked spine and acne, DAD.

(Kidding, my dad is cool as hell. He taught me to play poker when I was 5).

#2: Fail You Will. Learn, You Must.

After figuring out my spine sucked, I decided to hire my friend Anthony to coach me via email.

Because I couldn’t lift heavy to start, I had to reallllly focus on my form. It gave all of my muscles and tendons a chance to get caught up to speed.

So I spent two years making steady progress, which was awesome.

And then I went on vacation, where I severely strained my conjoint tendon. 

Lesson learned: never go on vacation again.

My injury was so brutal that I was convinced I had a hernia. I ended up getting an ultrasound on my crotch from two female ultrasound technicians, which was in no way at all awkward.

Kidding. It was aggressively awkward.

Anyways.

After taking multiple weeks off from lifting anything heavy, I started rehab, checked my ego (again), and had to rebuild my form (again), going back 250+ pounds and starting over again.

I felt like Sysphysis, rolling a rock up a hill only to have it roll all the way back down.

Or Charlie Brown trying to kick a football:

But I kept at it. I learned to improve my form. I changed my breathing technique for lifting. And I accepted that I had to go backward in order to eventually break through.

For reference, click through these images and videos below. The “Before” took place before my injury, while the “After” is just a month or two back:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Steve Kamb (@stevekamb) on Aug 15, 2018 at 1:32pm PDT

LESSON LEARNED: Always be learning, when you win or when you lose. Setbacks can be crippling, or they can be painful lessons learned that make you more powerful. I really didn’t have a choice.

You’re gonna get shin splints or plantar fasciitis when you start training for your 5k. Literally everybody does. Take it as a sign you need to fix your running form!

You’re gonna screw up on a lift. Take it as a chance to scale back and rework your form. Video tape your form and check with somebody

You’re gonna get sick and screw up and miss a lift or a hold or a thing. It happens. You can’t change the past (yet), so might as well learn from it and move forward. Rafiki gets me:

#3) Want to Reach a Far Off Goal? Use the Minecraft Strategy.

10 years ago, I had a goal I was racing towards: a 400 pound deadlift.

I’d get marginally closer and then have to back way off. This happened at least half a dozen times.

I believe the reason I finally achieved that goal is because I stopped focusing on rushing to get there! Instead, I just focused on the next workout, the next exercise, the next rep.

In other words: Don’t worry about the building you’re trying to construct. Instead, focus on putting the next brick in the right place, and then repeat. The building will take care of itself.

I call this the Minecraft Strategy.

As for my workouts, I train 4 days per week: Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday. One hour per workout. Each day has a big boring lift attached to it that doesn’t change much at all from week to week.

For the past four years, here’s the deadlift portion of a training day (after many warm-up sets):

Week 1: Sets of 2, 2, 2 for 220 pounds.

Week 2: Sets of 3, 2, 2, for 220 pounds.

Week 3: Sets of 3, 3, 2, for 220 pounds.

Week 4: Sets of 3, 3, 3, for 220 pounds.

Week 5: Sets of 2, 2, 2 for 225 pounds.

And repeat. Every week. Every month. For 5 years. Notice that each week I added just ONE rep. And once I hit 3 sets of 3, I’d go up by 5 pounds, and start back at 2, 2, 2.

That is boring as hell. And effective too. Every single week I’d be setting a personal best! I didn’t care about the far-off goal of a 400-lb deadlift, I instead put all of my focus into “Can I crush this next rep?”

This is also EXACTLY how one simply walks into Mordor: one step at a time.

Two weeks ago, my “slow cook” deadlifting workout had me doing 3 sets of 3 reps at 385 pounds.

Anthony told me: “Let’s go heavy next week. And I won’t accept anything less than 415 pounds.”

This was a goal I’d have forever, and Anthony had already set my sights 15 pounds heavier to calm my nerves on the psychological challenge of seeing that much weight on the bar.

So after picking up 405 for a warmup, I went for 420 pounds:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Steve Kamb (@stevekamb) on Nov 21, 2018 at 10:43am PST

No belt, no straps. Just some chalk and Walk the Moon’s “Portugal” on my headphones. Honestly, it was almost a letdown because it came up so quickly…but I was so damn proud to reach a powerful milestone, banish the monkey on my back, and actually feel strong.

Hence the quick fist pump to myself.

This week? It’s back to the boring stuff. Boring, consistent, progress where I just get epic results and feel really good about myself.

I’m okay with that. I jokingly talk about how I went from Steve Rogers to Captain America with this slow, small tactic.

LESSON LEARNED: Are you a shiny-object chasing “I need to be entertained and I change workouts every 3 weeks but I can never seem to get results” type of person?

Fall in love with the process and incremental progress, and you’re gonna go places kid.

Each week, just focus on being better than you did the week before. If you ONLY worry about this, you’ll look back at the end of the year and realize you’re a changed person.

Note: This means you need to show up each week, with few exceptions. Even when life is busy.

#4 – Track the Problem to Crack the Problem.

Fun fact: I currently have a folder in Evernote called “Kambsformation” (Anthony came up with it, and it just stuck).

In that folder I have 1 note for every workout or progress photo from the past 5 years.

I now have 1159 notes in that folder:

As my friend Nick says, “You gotta track the problem to track the problem.”

I have tracked every single workout I’ve done since 2013 in this folder. I have them all in the same place, so I can quickly scan back to any date and time and see where I was, how I trained, and so on.

I know every week exactly what I need to do to be better than the week before. Using the Minecraft Strategy here, it just means I need to focus on ONE single rep heavier.

In addition to tracking my workouts, I’ve become diligent about tracking my calories too. I am not Paleo, or Keto, or Mediterranean.

Instead, I employ a “mental model” diet, with specific rules I follow:

Skip breakfast. I cover this in our guide on Intermittent Fasting.

Eat big after a workout. Adjust the rest of my calories based on goals.

Protein with every meal. Usually chicken.

Veggies with every meal. Brussel sprouts or broccoli.

Adjust carbs and fat to fit macro profile for that day.

A powerbomb shake to hit calorie goals. Water, oats, frozen berries, frozen spinach, and whey protein (I use Optimum Nutrition Vanilla).

Over the past 2 months, I’ve actually leaned out, from 185 pounds down to 172 pounds. I did that by adjusting my caloric intake very simply:

2600 calories on training days

2200 calories on non training days.

For the first few weeks, I actually didn’t lose any weight despite “tracking my calories.” I still believed in thermodynamics, so I started weighing my portions (I like this one) and discovered a few key things.

Namely, that I was overeating without realizing it:

I was underestimating my oats portion by 20% when using a measuring cup instead of a scale

My chipotle lunch contained 1.5 servings of rice by weight, not 1.

As soon as I made those small adjustments, my weight started to drop consistently.

In addition to tracking my food, I take progress photos weekly, and weigh myself each morning.

I don’t freak out if the scale goes up or down. Instead I take a 7-day rolling average and make sure the TREND is in the right direction.

Think of this like the bumper lanes in a bowling alley: As long as the ball is moving towards the pins, that’s good enough.

LESSON LEARNED: We pay attention to the things we track. So track the right stuff! This applies not only to health and fitness, but learning, personal finance, etc. Keep a journal, or an Evernote folder, or a Google Doc. Write down what you did, and what you’re going to do.

It’s valuable as hell. And I don’t care what kind of diet you pick: whichever one leads you to sustainable calorie management in a way that doesn’t make you want to punch a hole in the wall.

If the scale isn’t going down for you, it doesn’t mean that you have a slow metabolism, or that you’re broken. It means you are eating too many calories to induce weight loss. Track your calories more closely.  Use a scale if you need to, until you learn what actual portion sizes are.

Are you taking progress photos? They can be a crucial for making sure you’re losing the right kind of weight!

Are you writing down your workouts or tracking them in an app? How else are you gonna know what you need to do this week to level up!?

#5) “It’s Dangerous to Go Alone. Bring a friend.”

I gotta give a shout out to my friend and coach, Anthony.

He’s been my online coach for the past 5 years and I truly consider him a valuable part of my success. He also has epic hair.

I’d say this is the best money I invest in myself each month – and I’m somebody that tells people how to exercise for a living!

When I’m traveling, or when I have busy weeks, my coach adjusts my schedule to make it work. When I am feeling good, well rested, and amped up, we crank things up. When I’m feeling overwhelmed he slows it down.

And most importantly, he doesn’t put up with my bullshit. You know what I mean – we all have excuses that we feed ourselves daily: too busy, I couldn’t because blah blah blah.

I know Anthony doesn’t want to hear this stuff, so I instead just DO the work! It’s pretty awesome to have somebody else that’s invested in my success, somebody that I can bounce ideas off of, somebody that I know is keeping me accountable, checking my form, etc.

And maybe most importantly, I have the peace of mind to know that I’m actually doing the right stuff, and doing it correctly. I feel confident saying I never would have lifted 420 pounds without my coach.

LESSON LEARNED: If you have the money to invest in yourself, hiring a coach who learns your story can be game changing. If you don’t, having a workout buddy in the trenches with you can be AMAZING too. An accountabilibuddy, if you will.

We’re proud that we have an online coaching program at NF, and we have an online community attached to our course, the NF Academy.

I also know lots of people who work with trainers in person and they can be worth every penny (sometimes!)

If you want to take your fitness more seriously, invest if you can. If you want to take running more seriously, join a running club.

You don’t have to go it alone on this journey, and oftentimes a coach or trusted friend can be an absolute game changer. It was for me.

I hope Anthony lets me keep him as a coach for the next 5 years too.

I proved a troll wrong, now what!?

So I mentioned that I proved somebody wrong on the internet. I mostly say this in jest.

The dude probably didn’t think twice about his comment, and hasn’t thought about it since.

Am I gonna try to right every wrong on the internet? Nope. People say really nasty things about me all the time, that just comes with the territory. It hurts like hell.

And then I get back to helping people and writing about Star Wars and sometimes wearing pants (but today is not that day).

So, although I jokingly say that “I owned that troll,” the reality is that it just. doesn’t. Matter.

I’m really proud of this accomplishment, and I hope my recap can help you crystallize the goals you have floating around your head.

These days, my goals are tighter, and more focused on the process:

Work out 4 days per week, no exception.

Hit my calorie goals 6 days out of 7 each week.

Be better than the last workout.

I’m working on

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