#052 - Monday Minutes: Discussing Strategies to Bring Out Your BEST Self

In this episode of the Decoding Excellence Show, we're returning to our Monday Minute theme and discussing some of the strategies I'm returning to in the New 2020 Year. I talk about meditation, bullet journaling, creating new things, and finding a "third place".

As a reminder, our Monday Minutes shows are a quick 10-15 minute episode where I discuss current industry trends, research reads, current events, and occasionally offer my insights into the training process that we're undertaking each week. I believe with conviction, you'll take away something interesting from this show and I hope it delivers you a little bit of value in your day.

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Key Takeaways

• Meditation is one of the strategies for bringing out your best self in the new year.
• Bullet journaling is another: a simple system for organizing thoughts and tracking what matters.
• Creating new things and finding a "third place" round out the personal strategies discussed.

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Episode Transcript

This transcript was automatically generated. While we strive for accuracy, some words or phrases may be misheard.

[00:00:00] Sport science, strength conditioning, high performance coaching, welcome to the Decoding Excellence show. Hey everybody, it is Adam. I want to remind you of one thing, rather than spamming the show with herbal tea advertisements or, you know, performance technology companies coming on trying to sell their latest gizmos, I have opted not to have an advertisement over the last, probably 20 shows or so, 20, 25

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[00:01:07] About once a month, I'll send you an email and it will be chocked full of really interesting things, research articles, fascinating things I found online, books I'm reading, podcasts that I've enjoyed, articles that I'm writing, things and people that I'm interviewing and exploring, I think you're going to get a lot out of it. I promise I won't spam you and it will be something that would deliver a lot of value to your day.

[00:01:28] Check it out at admringler.com forward slash newsletter. Hey everybody, welcome to this week's episode of the decoding excellence show, the Ademringless show. On this episode, I wanted to talk about the new year, right? We just celebrated, rang in, the brand new year, it's early January, and here we are, we're talking about, hey, new year, new me, and I just wanted to take a moment, pause and reflect,

[00:01:55] And think about some of the strategies that I'm going to utilize and employ throughout 2020, to really try to center myself, to bring out some of my best productivity, and to also really focus on creating the conditions, the environment for myself, to harness and do my very best work in this 2020 year. So hang tight, I think you'll get a lot out of this episode, and I want to challenge you to think about some of the strategies and think about some of the things that you can also do

[00:02:26] To bring out the very best work in what you do. So if you're interested in this type of show, a reflection type show, hang in there, listen to the show, and I think you'll get a lot out of it. Hey everybody, welcome to the decoding excellence show, as always, I'm your host, Ademringler. In this episode, I thought we would chat not about the industry, not about the current events that are happening around strength conditioning, as it relates to the year 2020,

[00:02:55] But more so about some of the personal things that I am undertaking to try to have a better 2020, not to suggest that 2019 or 18 wasn't great by any means, but as you sit down, you reflect as a new year comes by, that's come and gone, I was trying to think about what are some of the things that I need to do in my own day, not only to be productive, but to really set the year up to 2020 to be a very successful and fruitful year. So some of the things that I thought I would talk about would be just some of the things

[00:03:32] That I currently have done throughout my past, some of the changes I'm looking to make, and some of the, I guess, developments from a personal continuing education standpoint, some of the things that I'm wanting to do to get more out of my day and out of my year. So without further ado, let's get into some of these things. I think it would be well worth having the conversation about it. So one of the things that have been a cornerstone of things that I have done throughout my entire

[00:04:06] Career has been, I know this sounds can't be, so I don't want to necessarily berate this, berate this point over and over again, but I need to get back to regular meditation. So, you know, a couple of things that I'm looking into is, while there is a free app called Oak Meditation, it is out of that or working or making enough, you know, a financial investment into utilizing an app like Headspace, so that, you know, again, I could have regular, regular meditation sessions.

[00:04:44] Sam Harris has a great waking up course, have the audio files for that, and I think maybe should probably go down that route as well, but again, I think a lot of what I've done in the past have been, you know, on a cornerstone of really having a good Headspace and having that mental aspect in the game as much as the physical aspect, so that is something I'm looking really forward to making that small little change and really prioritizing that. Second change that I also am making that, just seeing with the hustle and bustle of everything

[00:05:20] Trying to build some of the initiatives that we're doing out here at University of Colorado, Boulder is that I've gotten away from bullet journaling or journaling, you know, in almost all respects. So why I think that is so crucial, at least over the course of the last decade for me doing it, is it allows me to have a moment to reflect on some of the wins and some of the losses throughout my day. And even when I would write down some of the things that I didn't think went really well in my day, it gives me a moment of reflection so that I can potentially when I come

[00:05:51] Across that event or that circumstance again in the future, which is arguably going to happen, that I can do so in a way that's a little bit more conducive to the producing the conditions that I'm, you know, looking forward to having. So I think journaling has always been not only as a way of documenting sort of my day to day and some of the events, even some of the small ones or the big ones, it is just the momentary reflection and pause that we all probably desperately need throughout our days to reflect and to think about the things that we're grateful for,

[00:06:28] But also to highlight the wins to create further momentum and then to also identify the losses so that we can re-approach those circumstances, you know, differently when they come up in our day. So meditation need to get back to it, journaling need to again begin it. And what a great time to do it, you know, New Year January. This is always the time that Ryan Carroll, who is the, I guess, the inventor of the bullet journal system always advocates for a new journal in the beginning of the year. And you can find a lot of this on like Ryan Carroll's website or bullet journaling.

[00:07:06] There's a dedicated website. Maybe I'll include that link in the show notes, but you can find all of this material online. And so I will probably be looking forward to picking up a new journal. There's been a number of them that I've, you know, utilized throughout my career, I suppose, in journaling is, you know, I think I first started out with a typical moleskin. And then I looked at better self had a journal as well that looked like it was going to be very promising. So I've used that before. I think it's like the best self for the better self journal. It's kind of

[00:07:45] Interesting as far as the default setup of it, which I really liked, although in some respects are some restrictiveness to not having just a blank page to write and to create the construct and the system that you like, which is why I favor so much of using the bullet journaling system is that it allows enough structure if you adopt the system. But it also gives you enough flexibility to if you want to dedicate two to three pages in your journal for brainstorming sessions or something else, you can sort of ad hoc throw that in anywhere throughout it. So that's something

[00:08:21] I want to get back into. A third thing that I have attempted to do and it's been challenging in all respects is to edit this book, right? I've talked about it on other episodes of the Decoding Excellence Show and it is and for a lot of you guys, you've also reached out in DM, me, hey, where can I pick up this book, the Decoding Excellence book that I feature on my website, AdamRingler.com forward slash book. And the reality is you can't pick it up because it is in its second edit of the manuscript and it is brutal to edit these things. I talked about this on my last

[00:09:00] Episode, but I just need to carve out more time. I remember when I was actually writing this book, I tried to write anywhere from 750 to 1,000 words a day. I typically would wake up an hour earlier than I would need to. Let's just say if it takes you an hour to get ready for work, coffee, breakfast, meditation, changing, commuting, all that, then it would wake up an additional hour so that the very first hour of the day, I could focus on crafting and creating something. And that creation was those 750 to 1,000 words a day. And I would sit down at the computer,

[00:09:35] Groggy-eyed, and I would write 750 bad and terrible combinations of words that I guess form sentences and those sentences for paragraphs. And hopefully the idea was those paragraphs would be coherent material and modules in this book. And what I have found throughout the editing process is that is not the case. The words that I wrote down as seemingly have and make zero sense. And if you've ever edited maybe a dissertation or any sort of long form media, you will easily relate to how challenging sometimes editing materials and resources are that you wrote two, three, four years ago.

[00:10:20] And that's the case that I am undertaking right now with the Decoding Excellence book. Absolutely miserable to edit. I think another thing, and this is again, this is just another form of me having a little therapy session behind the microphone. Is that? Yes, I want to continue to work on this book. I also, at the same point in time, recognize that what I'm really looking forward to in this 2020 years is getting outside again and getting back into the mountains and embracing some of the nature aspects that that Boulder Colorado offers. And that's been something that, you know,

[00:10:59] I've seen from time to time on Instagram and Twitter and elsewhere is, you know, coaches, especially in high-stress coaching environments that we all work within talking about what is your outlet? What do you do to relax to recuperate away from sport and coaching? And there's a number of people that have a third place. And this is something I always advocate for our junior coaches is that really trying to find a third location that you can go to. And what I mean by this is that for most of us, we have our home life and we have our work life. And this is that work,

[00:11:30] Life, balance that everybody talks about. But a healthy approach to that is having a third location that you can go that's not work, that's not home, it's something else. And for most sort of corporate nine to five jobs, this might be a gym. So you would have your, you know, you have your home life, you go to work. And the third place might be the gym, right? You're working out. You know, in the past, I could go to, you know, Jiu-Jitsu. And that would be a third place, a healthy third place, something where you can get into your body. But I think over the last three years,

[00:12:00] What I'm recognizing is that, you know, between the hustle and bustle, the gym is very much our working environment. That is our third place. But the third place is actually blended and molded into our second location, which is work. So what is our true third place? And for you or for somebody else listening to that, that might be, I've heard people talk about sitting around the campfire, and that's what they really enjoy. And that's a healthy third place. And for me, I'm recognizing that outside of work and outside of home, right now, currently where I'm at, I really don't have a third

[00:12:31] Place. And it gets exceptionally harder in the winter. Just because of my children's ages, six and four, we really can't just go up into the mountains and go snowboarding or skiing or anything like that. So what is the third place throughout the winter time? And I can say, there isn't one for me. And what I look really forward to is in the summertime. That third place is the, the flat irons. It's the mountains. It's the front range of Colorado that I really enjoy. And it allows me to get lost away from, you know, thinking about work or thinking about home.

[00:13:04] And I can really get into my body and get into nature and sort of just enjoy some of the recuperation and the recovery and the mental distraction that the beautiful front range of Colorado seems to offer. So that's another thing that I really want to try to prioritize as well in 2020 is not only getting my headspace in the right spot through meditation, through journaling, through creating and working on the decoding excellence book and conjunction with this show. But it's also getting out and enjoying the beautiful sights and sounds that Colorado has to offer. So this is the time,

[00:13:41] I think, you know, where we're maybe midway through this is that I would ask you what, what are some of the strategies that you employ to get out of your own head? What is your third place? Right? So if you are working in, you know, let's just say high performance sport or coaching, collegiate coaching or professional coaching, what do you do to get away from the sporting context? How do you balance that work life balance on your own? And what are some of the strategies that you're adopting come this new year 2020 to either adopting or re-adopting, revisiting,

[00:14:17] Getting back into that you might have done in the beginning of the year that has seemed to fade away. I would love to hear about that. So if you're listening to this at Adam Ringler, let me know on Twitter and I will share your response and I'll also give, you know, a small little

[00:14:34] Comment about that as well, because I think we all need to continue to try to find avenues of being a better self's, right? If we're not trying to improve, we're not getting better and if we're not getting better, then we're growing stagnant. And I think that's the hallmark of elite performers is constantly trying to find avenues and ways of self-improvement. So that is some of the small tips. I think if I also were to be honest, one of the things that I have revisited over the last several weeks that I want to make sure that I continue into the new year is, and I've talked about

[00:15:08] This in other shows as well, is just really getting back into coding and programming, especially when it comes to our statistical analysis. And when I say R, I'm not meaning like O-U-R, like R, belonging to us, but R as a statistical software package, I want to get back into doing that and I also want to maybe lean a little bit into exploring Python a little bit more. And that's something that, you know, I have a greater understanding and base foundation when it comes to getting the job done via R. But, you know, one of the analogies I've heard is that, you know, if you've learned something like

[00:15:50] The French language, right, and you are going to undertake learning Spanish, it would be sort of difficult. Yeah, there's some constructual sort of formulations of sentences and things like that that are potentially similar, but words are going to be different and the way that you combine them might be a little bit different. And it's a little bit more challenging to learn two different languages or three different languages, but the analogy that I've heard, and if you are listening to this and you can chime in and have a comment about this, maybe this is wrong and I would love to

[00:16:21] Be educated and to not be led astray, but I've heard that, you know, if you've learned R that, you know, learning Python isn't as challenging as learning a brand new language, like learning French or learning German or learning Spanish. So I think in this 2020, I'd like to kind of dive down the Python rabbit hole a little bit more than what I've done in the past, which is very little Python direct programming. And just sort of having a play with that and sort of exploring that programming language a little bit more because I find that cognitively stimulating. And I think

[00:16:55] That's ultimately with all of this things, the things I've been chatting about, whether it's journaling or meditation, if it is a third place, you know, away from working home, it's really about creating conditions, the environmental conditions to get the mind in the right place. Because I guess over the last three years, I'll say that without being in a great headspace or mind space, then you could be in the most beautiful place in the world, whatever that might be for you. You're still going to be trapped and locked by the mentality and the mindset that you have. So, you know, that's

[00:17:32] Something that I just want to be cognizant of as I continue to approach this new year, is really making sure that I prioritize having my headspace in a great spot. So, finding things that cognitively stimulate my senses, my creativity, my innovation, trying to make sure that as I've also heard recently in a love this quote, that when you come home, you bring your best self, not the rest self. So, what I mean by that is that when you're at home or you're coming back from that second location, IE work, I want to make sure that the person that steps through that front

[00:18:08] Door is the very best version of myself, right? I don't want to just give the last 10% to my family, to my children, to my wife. I want to make sure that the percentage that I give is the very utmost quality. It's the very best portion of me through every day. And anybody that works in sport, I think you guys, or let's just even say stock brokers or analysis analysts, or whomever it might be, where you have sort of a cutthroat, high stressful job, you might find yourself in positions where you're literally coming home and you're just trying to give the very best

[00:18:47] Or whatever you have left. And I think that is the idea of thinking about trying to make sure that you're giving you the very best portion of yourself, you're serving that, you're saving that aspect, you're you're cultivating that when you walk through the door. That's such a powerful comment and something that I want to make sure that I carry with me throughout the weeks, throughout the months of this 2020. So, again, what are some of the strategies that you guys are thinking about? Like, if you're listening to the show right now, I want you to pause for a moment.

[00:19:20] You can either pause this the show right here, or I'll give you just kind of a moment. I want you to think about that, right? I want you to take a moment right now and think about some of the strategies that you might try to utilize this new year.

[00:19:42] Is it something like journaling? Are you going to begin a new workout, regiment? To try to focus on your mind, body, you're going to get back into some type of disconnect. And that's the portion that I'll I'll give you here, but if you thought of any ideas, I want you to go online. I want you to find me on Instagram or Twitter and share those ideas with me. And what we can really try to do is create some accountability for each other. Much of this podcast show and I've talked about this being sort of an outlet, a channel for me to get ideas out of my head and to share

[00:20:26] Them with the world. And if some of it resonates, that's great. If it resonates with nobody, that's fine to because I find this practice of just talking and recording this Decoding Excellence Show, very therapeutic for my own self. But I also want to shed light on to some of the practices that I'm doing, some of the things I'm trying to improve and some of the things that I'm adapting from strategies to really try to bring out the best, right? And that's the whole idea of this podcast show has always been about listening to high performers and fundamentally trying to understand

[00:21:03] Some of the tactics that they use, right? What are the real X's and O's things that you do to bring out the very best quality of work? And we've talked about that in the last 50-some episodes of this show. But then, what are some of the techniques? What are the very sort of sequential A before B before C, C before D sequential steps that people take? And then ultimately, what is the philosophical methodology that somebody might take? Right? What are the mind states that somebody has that are at the very best of their game? And what sort of methods do

[00:21:38] They adopt to really bring out the very best aspects and qualities of themselves throughout their practice? And this is just some of the conversations I ultimately try to have with practitioners, especially when people come through our doors, University of Colorado and pop in for a facility tour, use the questions I ask. I want to distill what makes people tick and from a psychology standpoint, that's absolutely fascinating to me. But then from a distillate, really trying to distill the tactics, the tools, the techniques of these innovators, from these practitioners. And really trying to

[00:22:17] I guess aggregate that information into the philosophy of these are the best practices that it seems these best performers in the world seems to adopt. So I'd like for you to think about these things. And then obviously share them with us. And we can create this sort of accountability pact between us where you know some of the things I'm already working on that I've shared throughout the last 25 minutes of the show. But I also want to help hold you accountable. So if you are trying to write or journal every single day or you want to you know visit a new

[00:22:55] Presumption to suit Jim every month or you wanted to go whitewater rafting or bordering or climbing or whatever, let me know and let's help each other continue to get better because that's what this industry is about. It's about really trying to lift other people up try to help elevate each other to being the very best versions of ourselves. And if we continue to do that and we advocate for each other and we help each other along the way, then we all win in the process.

[00:23:29] Hey everybody, thanks for tuning in to this show. I hope you took something away from it. And as always, there's a number of different ways that you can support the show, right? The first thing is I have a monthly newsletter that goes out. It is located at Adam Ringler dot com forward slash newsletter. And like I said in the intro, it is chocked full of great articles, research papers, sort of daily notes, things I'm finding fascinating and experimenting with and being a human guinea pig with to try to change my own behaviors, my own habits, but ultimately to really try to improve my

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