I’ve gone back and forth in my head on how to kick this off, what to focus on, what to say. The more I think about it, the more I come back to quotes on just starting. That’s the point of this whole exercise anyway, and really any new venture in life. “You simply start to walk the way, and the way appears.”

I will look back on this edition of The Superset one day and cringe at some parts, some looks, some words - and that’s okay. This will evolve, with input from everyone reading, into something better. But it will never get the chance to do so if these first imperfect ones don’t go out so the lessons can be learned. So while maybe one day I cringe - I’ll never regret having started. I think we can all refocus our approach similarly in other corners of life.

Brain - 23 Controversial Truths About Life

Have you ever listened/read something that the first time through you quickly know will be one you revisit? And then find yourself constantly thinking about ideas and the parts that struck you? My 2024 has been a revolving door of listening to Chris Williamson’s Modern Wisdom episode with Alex Hormozi, “23 Controversial Truths About Life.” Link Here

I can assure you Volume 001 of this newsletter will not be the last time this episode pops back up. It’s an engaging listen, has a rapid fire of statements and ideas that challenge your thought process, and best of all - it’s actionable. It’s straight to the point - some would even consider it harsh - but in a solo space, I think we would all agree that most of the ideas are areas we simply need work on in ourselves. Some quick hitters:

• “Regrets are inevitable - the key is choosing the ones we can tolerate to live with”

• “Think about your 85-year old self, waking up as the 30-year old version of you. Enjoy the mundane, because your 85-year old self would do anything to enjoy it again”

• “You’ve already achieved goals you said would make you happy”

• “The heaviest burdens in life are unmade decisions…Anxiety cost is analogous to opportunity cost, where every moment spent worrying could have been gained back by making the decision.”

Body - It’s February…How bout those New Years Resolutions?

Forbes recently published a study that stated only 8% of the population stick to their new year’s goals for just a month. With those odds in mind, chances are many of you reading right now are in the 92%. The typical chain of events for New Year’s goals look like this:

Set Goal → Execute for a week, maybe two → Miss a day → Get back on the wagon quick → Miss another day → That day turns into two, then three → Now it’s February 12th and we’ve completely lost focus on the goal to begin with.

The challenge now is to not let a couple of missed weeks and feeling of defeat affect the 11 remaining months of the year. The good news - you can start again today. A few quick prompts to ensure success on round 2 of the 2024 Better You:

• Why did you fall off the wagon the first time? How can the goal/action be altered to where missing a day doesn’t spiral into more?

• Does your goal have room for error? Break it down to your daily actions to provide some if not. If you want to lose 30 pounds this year, that’s 2.5 pounds a month. Focus on 12 blocks of losing 2.5 pounds. To lose 2.5 pounds, you need to go to the gym “x” number of times and eat a clean diet “x” number days of the week. Give yourself a cheat meal or two. Make your goal 3-4 days a week working out, not 6-7 to start.

• James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, presented an idea to challenge yourself to set goals, not thinking of what you can commit to on your best day, but what you can commit to on your worst. Progress, not perfection. A 20-minute workout 2 days of the week when you fail to make it to the gym for a full session is better than no workout at all.

I too have slipped on days in my tracking habit I am looking to install in 2024 (will talk more on this in a later letter), but I have gotten better at not letting one bad day turn into a bad week, bad month, and missed goal for the year. If you need an accountability partner - I would be ecstatic to be that for you.

Book - Read More, No Matter Your Goal

This section will evolve week to week and will mostly focus on a book I either have read and am coming back to for inspiration, or my current read and things I want to share from it. To kick things off though, I want to just focus on reading in general.

In 2018, 28% of Americans did not finish a single book in the calendar year. The most common things I hear are “I just can’t focus that long”, or “I don’t have the time.”

If 28% of Americans didn’t read ONE book in 2018, then if you had simply read one page a day of a 180 page book, you would have read 2 more books than 28% of the adult population. If you read 1 book a month, or between 6-8 pages a day, you would read 12 more books than ¼ of the population. 2 books a month? 3 books a month? Now we are talking exponential separation - but you can’t achieve it if you don’t start.

A question was asked once that changed my perspective on reading. It was “How much would you pay to have lunch with your role model?” Say it’s Warren Buffet, Tiger Woods, Steve Jobs? The answer is what, probably in the thousands to be conservative? Yet the local Barnes & Noble has a biography for $25 and 10 minutes of your day you can get their insights from…and you’re not?

Reading is the ultimate separator. While you amass knowledge from the pages, you get better at focusing on the task and blocking out distraction. You become a better communicator. You are more interesting because you have more interesting things to talk about.

It is a prerequisite for success at the highest level, and you can start TODAY. Commit to this month reading 1 page a day, every single day. There will be days you read more, but every day, commit to one page. See where you end up at the end of the month.