I owe a “Thank You” to each and every person reading this right now. We like to listen to experts in our fields of interest. The people who have made it - who have already walked the path.

I am far from the end of the path professionally, personally, and mentally - but I see an opportunity to create value in this trial-and-error loop I have come to love.

The harsh yet exciting truth of our current time is that it’s never been easier to separate yourself from the masses. We are encouraged at every stop to fit in. My hope is that through small increments - we can all work together to reverse the curve and separate, so we can experience the things we individually desire, not that the world desires for us.

A simple forward to a friend can be an easy way to help propel this ride. Thanks, again!

Brain - Stress Management - Do You Need a Non-Binding Exit Strategy?

Over the last 5 years (especially post-pandemic), all signs point to rapidly increasing levels of stress and anxiety, especially in the younger generations. There is no single contributing factor to this, so it’s hard to pinpoint trends and reasons to fix it. We are all inherently individual, at different points of life, with different goals and different circumstances, so the one-size fit’s all approach cannot be taken. That doesn’t mean other measures can’t.

I think about stress, it’s causes, and its effects a lot. I operate in a high-pressure line of work in a high-pressure economy, as many of you do as well. It wasn’t until about 3 years ago where I realized I needed a sounding board to bounce ideas off so I wasn’t overanalyzing every emotion I was experiencing as they came in waves.

I’m going to attempt to share many of the ideas and practices that my business coach/therapist has shared with me that have had a profound impact on the way I have been able to handle stress when it comes. The first one - A non-binding Exit Strategy.

My coach Tim once said “Your brain is a processor, not a storage device. Much of the anxiety / stress you internalize is due to the fact you are storing your perceived options in any number of scenarios in your head, without relieving those options somewhere besides in-between your ears.”

One thing I have struggled with that maybe someone reading can relate to is a self-inflicted pressure to know what is next in my career (life), and to feel like I can assert some kind of control over that outcome. I am motivated by identifying where I would like to end up, and working backwards to figure out a way to get there. The issue arises when you approach career growth and don’t cede to the fact that you might not control the timing of when said next benchmark occurs.

This can be the same baseline issue as being in a job where you don’t feel fulfilled, are constantly stressed over your to-do’s, etc. Yet it’s a job that you know and is a major slice of your current comfort zone.

Tim would always reinforce that the stress from being in a situation where we don’t feel like we have control over the outcome is that we have never stopped to REALLY consider all of our potential options. Primarily to reframe what the best case scenario is, and that the worst case probably isn’t as bad as we’ve made it out to be. His recommended action was a non-binding Exit Strategy.

A non-binding Exit strategy is an exercise where you sit down and work out all of the potential options you have for yourself in your career/life:

• If you stay the course at your current employer, what does that look like over the next 5 years? What advancement options are available? Would you like to be in those spots? What do you need to do to get there?

• Explore the job market for browsing purposes only - What jobs are out there in your field? What’s the going pay for your line of work? Remote, in-office - what are the potential trade-offs?

• What if you made a complete career change? What would that look like? What line of work would you explore?

There are many other angles too long for this email, but I have shared a link to a template below that helped me. Part of getting over the stress of your current environment or reinforcing how fortunate you actually are is simply sitting down and stopping using your brain as the storage place for all of these what-ifs.

Maybe you do some research and realize there’s a plethora of options out there that line up with your desires. Maybe the research reinforces your current spot. At minimum, it can give you peace that you DO have options, and should you ever need to exercise them, you are ahead of the game.

This isn’t just for business - if you are stressing over an unknown or lack of control over any situation, use this rubric to explore the plethora of options that are out there.

A link to the Exit Strategy doc: Click Here

Body - The Perimeter Diet / Outside of the Grocery Store

Some recent reading and favorite follows have inclined me to try what is now being labeled in fitness circles as “The Perimeter Diet.” At it’s simplest form, it is just that - a diet comprised of foods you would find on the perimeter of the grocery store. In even more layman terms - single ingredient whole foods.

I have maintained what I would consider a relatively clean diet for the last 3 years, definitely since my stint in completing a bodybuilding show. Even so, there have been windows where the food I have been eating would be considered “clean” to most, yet I haven’t experienced the physique changes I would expect, or have felt lack luster on the energy front experienced.

I’m a constant tinkerer - there isn’t much I won’t try. The thought process behind the perimeter diet is that by shopping whole ingredient foods, you eliminate the food choices that can have hidden consequences. The ultra-processed “low calorie” snacks, the hundreds of added calories from tablespoons of condiments, etc.

Two weeks in (with 2 cheat meals a week), and I have already begun to notice some positive changes. My physique is certainly responding - the increased miles could be the contributor to that - but I definitely notice an improvement in my gut health, cravings, and hunger levels.

I am sticking to the following sources for most of my meals:

• Proteins: Eggs, Egg Whites, Chicken Breast & Thighs, Steak, Lean Ground Beef, Fish

• Carbs: Rice & Sweet Potatoes

• Veggies: All of them!

• Condiments: Sriracha!

It’s hard to over eat chicken, rice and vegetables. It’s aggravatingly easy to consume 500 calories of peanut butter in 3.1 seconds.

I’ll recap at the end of the month, but here’s a great resource if it intrigues you to try. We have an abundance of options for our calories these days, and convenient ones at that. We slowly take back control of our cravings and diet by simply eating like our ancestors used to - before food was packaged to last for months on end.

Book - Scarcity Brain by Michael Easter

Part of the motivation behind the Perimeter Diet actually came from a portion of this book, “Scarcity Brain” by Michael Easter. The whole concept of the book is this:

• Since our earliest days as humans, we have been wired to “crave” more. Questions like - Why do we binge-eat? Why do we gamble? Drink to excess? Work too much? They can all be traced back to our primitive desires as humans to acquire more.

Hundreds of years ago, humans operated with the same instincts we do today. Yet food was scarce, and felt scarce, and so our ancestors were always hunting. Never satisfied with their current storage of food. Status was survival - those with it lived the best version of life in their civilization. Information was power - the smartest survived.

And as time has progressed along, those hardwired desires remain firmly implanted in our DNA, yet they have not scaled with the ease at which all of these original essentials have become to acquire.

In essence, the “Scarcity Loop” as he describes it, is a place we find ourselves involuntarily stuck in, because it’s in our genetics as humans to want more. Your brain responds to these loops with associations of actions and feelings:

• Get home from work stressed, have a glass of wine - Oooh that feels good, I am relaxed. Your brain files that feeling, and reminds you of the action next time you experience similar cause feelings.

• Social Media: Posting offers an opportunity for us to enhance our social standing and each notification feels like the unpredictability of a slot machine. Scrolling sends us in the loop too - a search for something that might make us happy, sad, outraged, envious, or surprised, all in endless repetition.

• Email: Refreshing our inbox or receiving a notification creates an unpredictable moment of suspense when we may receive good, bad, or just ok news.

• Shopping: Amazon Prime - The Everything without leaving your couch store that removes many of the boundaries to accumulating MORE

• Television: Autoplay algorithm at the end of videos on Netflix and Youtube to keep you watching more

• News: Media analysts believe that media has become so fixated on ratings and profits in the post-2016 era that it will create a feedback loop. Politicians behave more unpredictably to get more media attention. The media, in turn, will run stories differently to grab more eyes. The most unpredictable and contentious politicians on both sides got the most engagement and news

I’ll follow up with more points from this book in next week’s letter, and potentially the next too, as it is packed full of intriguing thoughts. What I have been left thinking about though, and encourage you to do, is the parts of my life where I tend to fall into a loop of excess, and what better routines I can practice to help escape them. More to come -

“The great human tragedy is the more we consume, the hungrier we get. More and faster and stronger. What was an unexpected pleasure yesterday is what we feel entitled to today, and what won’t be enough tomorrow.”