Tidbits
- The transformation I didn’t expect to have while riding a chairlift
- My worst, but actually my best DailyV
- First day skiing at Steamboat Springs!
January 2023
| Su | M | T | W | Th | F | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1/1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
| 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 |
| 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 |
| 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 |
| 29 | 30 | 31 | 2/1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
Where In The World Was I?
- Denver, CO
- ⛷️ Breckenridge Ski Resort
- Frisco, CO
- Steamboat Springs, CO
- ⛷️ Steamboat Ski Resort
Re-Prioritization
Last Sunday I decided to prioritize getting back on track with weekly blog posts and newsletters. It was a bit of extra work to catch up, but I think it was worth it.
I talked about my thought process in this DailyV. It’s interesting how when you skip a habit, there becomes a new question (“should I continue to do this habit?”) that was never there before (where I prioritized my day around getting it done).
It also felt good to get back into the gym I frequent in Denver.
Getting there… 💪
A Transformation ⛷️ Day
Drove up to Breckenridge for a little pow day.
I basically lapped Horseshoe Bowl the whole day. The snow was great, the wind and vis was rough. But what I want to remember about this day was less about the skiing and more about the conversations I had with people on the lifts.
Something felt good about my mindset (first day back at Breck in a while, pow day, good snow). So, I ended up taking some of the typical lift conversations a bit further. The mental barrier felt drastically reduced. I asked follow ups, threw out my own hooks, had some jokes and laughs.
As I was driving up the night before, I was listening to a video from Masculine Theory talking about his experience with social anxiety and how he got over it. He talked about self-talk and using identity change (another point of validation for Full Consistency Guide – The One Tweak That Changed Everything!).
I couldn’t help but think, “man, I do the same thing.”
I keep hearing these phrases in my head after social situations like “I’m just not good in social situations” and “I’m just not prioritizing being social right now.”
It’s like dude, listen to how you speak to yourself.
On the chairlifts, I remember what he shared, about telling himself “I am the instigator of social conversations.”
I thought about that positive identity statement and immediately felt more confident.
My baseline mindset that day set up the conditions for me to get out of this.
Maybe it’s truly not a priority right now, but that doesn’t mean I can’t change my identity to something that actually supports my long term goals.
So I added “I am confident and capable in social situations” to my affirmations. It’ll develop more in the future but this is a good start.
Why Didn’t I Start This Earlier?
After being absolutely toasted from skiing, I took a couple days to grind out some work in Frisco.
I finished up Deep Work by Cal Newport this week and two of the things I took away were:
- Get rid of the temptation to do shallow work during my deep work sessions.
- I frequently have a nice list of “captured ideas” that I intend to add to my journal by creating a new note and fleshing out the idea a little bit. This takes just a couple minutes per idea, but I realized most times it doesn’t take “deep work” (focused effort) to do this… That said, many times I’ll “spend” my deep work energy doing this transfer of ideas.
- Recognizing this, I started taking a couple minutes in the evening to transfer these ideas and man has that helped.
- Sitting down to a clean slate with no open loops captivating my attention has made it a lot easier to focus on what matters.
- (Speaking of focusing on what matters) I started making “Daily Plan” notes to ground the focus on my sessions.
- This feels like the natural next step given my first step from The #1 Thing I’m Changing From An Honest Audit Of My Own “Deep Work”
- My process: What are my goals? What are the 20% actions that get me there? What are the actions I can take today to help get me closer? Then I list out ~3 tasks to accomplish.
- Did I hit all of them? No. But were the things I did accomplish the things that move the needle? Yep.
So Much To Learn…
I had an interesting two days of DailyVs while here.
- On my first day, I felt like I had an epiphany and atomic message to share. I thought back to telling effective stories with the Epiphany Bridge Script (from Expert Secrets by Russell Brunson) and tried to think of how I’d speak through my DailyV by incorporating that structure.
- I generally felt okay about how it turned out, but I felt like I was trying too hard. It felt too bland.
- The Little Tweak That Made All The Difference To My Focused Work Session | DailyV 327
- On my second day, I also felt like I had some important things I wanted to share. But this time, I said “f*ck it,” went in with no plan, and rambled off my stream of consciousness.
- This video had way more silence and downtime as I struggled to think of what to say, but when I did have something to say, I felt way more vibrant. It felt more fun. I liked how I felt in that video a lot more.
- See the World Through the Eyes of an Aspiring Creator: Raw and Unfiltered Thoughts | DailyV 328
I don’t want to say one is good and one is bad, but judging by how I felt about these two, I think the ideal here for me is mixing both together.
How can I incorporate the spontaneity and liveliness of the second video along with the storyline structure of the first? If I truly internalize how to tell a good story, I can be spontaneous in my speaking, but tell stories that effectively capture the viewer.
Off To The Next
I hit the road towards Steamboat Springs, CO!
Gratitude.
(It’ll be hard to capture the full situation and context here, but I’ll try to give the best summary I can.)
As I arrived in Steamboat, I stopped to grab gas.
I finished and had waited about a minute to turn left back onto the main road. There were a couple cars behind me, so I felt a bit of the pressure to not wait too long (like until my grandma would’ve pulled out, lol).
This intersection was kind of a mess. Coming from the left is 3 lanes (right turn, straight, left turn) and to the right is 3-ish lanes (right turn, straight, then a center “turn either way” lane). The center “turn either way” lane ended right at this road so basically you have to commit to the gap you find, you can’t turn into the center and wait which is quite common to do.
The light far to my left turns yellow, so there’s a gap of cars to the left behind one last car that turning right into the road I’m on. To the right is another maybe 5 second gap before a line of cars.
So, I start to pull out.
As I press on the gas, my rear tires start to slip from the snow and ice I’m sitting on.
About a quarter second passes before I get a bit of traction and start to edge out past the turn lane and into the left side’s straight lane when I look to the left and a truck appears out of no where from behind the turning car…
I slam on my breaks and the truck swerves out of the way.
At this point I’m sitting in the middle of the left side’s lane, essentially blocking traffic.
I quickly decide, rather than committing, to just slow it down and back up.
I slowly start backing up but the car behind me had moved up right behind me so they start honking (I just LOL after the fact at this).
I make it back out of the way, wait for the next gap (another 30 second), and take it.
This was quite a startling moment. I felt as though I acted on all the information I had at the time, but I still take responsibility. Shoulda, coulda, woulda, but I should’ve waited until I had a guaranteed gap. I probably could’ve seen that truck coming, but I have a feeling that turning car just stayed perfectly aligned to block my sight. Unfortunate situation, but that’s still my responsibility.
All that said, it feels really, really great to be alive right now.
I feel like I’m a pretty safe/defensive driver given I’m driving my literal home around, but I can’t help thinking, “man, it happens quick and it can happen to anyone… It happens really quick.”
I felt like I was gifted a free day the past couple days because frankly, I probably shouldn’t be here right now. My driver side door had a nice big red target on it.
Whoever’s up there looking after me, thank you. Thank you for giving me one more day here.
Skiing Steamboat
On a lighter note…
I skied my first day at Steamboat!
Some mixed conditions… hard packed snow, some small pockets of powder still (from a mega-storm a couple days ago), and a whooooole lot of bumps.
Although frustrating, I did get some practice skiing moguls/bumps.
There are soooooo many open tree runs here. I can see why people say Steamboat has some of the best tree skiing. I’m pumped to ski during a pow day. This place would be legendary.
The Close
I metaphorically ventured out and made a something?-bowl last night (not sure what to call it). Pretty good! Rice, baked cauliflower, and tempeh.
- Message me if you want the recipe… Actually don’t message me because I didn’t measure anything (LOL).
A video about Italians or personal growth? You decide 🤪: