Kaizen Hour -Challenge #3: Read and Share

Antti is digital detoxing again (means apparently spamming the s*it out of LinkedIn), so he asked me to post this up:

“””

If there is one thing that my grandmom taught me, it is this. You become what you consume.

For decades I assumed she was tryhing to get me eat an apple a day.

Turns out I was dead wrong.

She has a curious habit of brewing a boatload of coffee in the morning. And then sitting alone in her kitchen just sipping away. ’Why don’t you take the paper and read the news? Or turn on that TV?’, I asked on my last visit.

’You become what you consume’ she replied and let it sink in ’…If you’re not on an information diet, make sure you consume some quality stuff my boy’. I got the message.

The challenge next week is simple.

Instead of your daily dose of the news and online attraction, I challenge you to consume a good book. You get to choose yours. I chose Factfulness by Hans Rosling.

After you’re done reading, share 1-3 things that you learned on the Kaizenhour Discord -channel.

I’ll meet you there!

“””

So, I guess books it is!

Read a book, share your insights with us at http://kaizenhour.com/chat

Do this before July 12. Let’s see who’s in!

Simo

PS. My book will be We Were Soldiers Once…and Young.

End of Challenge #2

A couple of weeks ago we did our second ever joint challenge: The Study Challenge.

Personally, I started to pick up my Hiragana skills again, using the free version of Duolingo as well as a paid version of Human Japanese. Someone else did a successful comeback to non-fiction audiobooks, which is an amazing way to feed your brains something useful while e.g. exercising.

Yet another member practiced piano: “I learned what is diminished chord, I learned some chord patterns. I learned some keying patterns for Cmaj and minor, for D, just a little bit of rhythm for two hand playing. I managed to learn how to record from drum machine with “mic-in” to Digital Audio wizard, I learned how to map drum samples to a pad controller. I Learned some music theory about power chords and created some short practice songs which make use of polyrhythms. I celebrated Ice Hockey world championship, got drunk and recovered.“

Huh, that sounds like proper success to me, for just one week of extra fun.

Finally, Antti committed to learn juggling! How that went? Actually, I’m not sure yet — I’m hoping to get his update in the comments below!

Overall, this is a good way for sure to add some communal aspects and that accountability that we all long for. Going forward, we just need more members to do this together! So, join our server at http://kaizenhour.com/chat and let’s do it!

More More More no More!

So recently I stumbled upon someone bashing the culture of more, higher, improve, elevate, awaken your motherfookin BADASS inside you -culture.

There’s a point there, which of course led me to think this from the point of Kaizen Hour — and the system we’re building/advocating. Granted, “more more more” is easier to sell, given the right audience. But that’s not necessarily what I want to offer to you.

Less can totally be more. Anyone with small kids can most likely understand this: peace is golden. A silent moment with absolutely zero “drive” to push higher and do better – now that’s where it’s at!

The way we have built Kaizen Hour is not, of course, limited to achieving more and more of meaningless shit in your life. Rather, we use the buffet-metaphor quite often: you make it yours.

So, even if you’re like me…if you just want to be in peace, we might help you achieve that serenity and inner peace. If you just want to meditate daily and stick to the habit… we can help you. Because all we really want to do is help you get what you want.

With just 10 minutes per day.

Kaizen Hour -Challenge #2: Hone Your Craft

TLDR; From today, one week, study/practice something, literally anything. Hosted at our Discord. 

—

Here we are. Again.

Initiated by @Tyrafel at our community hangaround, we’re heading toward our second challenge: The Study Challenge.

Study what? Whatever. Read. Practice. Learn something new. Get back on track with something you dropped earlier.

Just do something.

I’ll be studying Japanese for a week. I’m not a beginner, but I’ve forgotten almost all I learned ealier.

But next week, a week from now, I’ll be a bit better at it again. And will feel a bit better about it.

Will you be better at something?

The rules are simple:
– Choose what you want to study/practice, every single day, for a week
– You choose how much you do it. Minutes? Iterations? Reps? Your call.
– We go from Wednesday (May 22) to next Wed / May 29
– We do it together.

You do this to hone your craft. To become better.  Because it’s fulfilling. And it’s fun. It’s worth every damn second. 

Once again, join our Discord at http://kaizenhour.com/chat where you’ll find a dedicated channel for this challenge.
I look forward to seeing you there,
Simo

PS. Here’s Jocko telling you if you don’t believe me:

Kaizen Hour -Challenge #1: Destroy the doubt and start

TLDR; A quick 7-day intermittent fasting experiment (May 13 – May 19). Join the challenge at our Discord at http://kaizenhour.com/chat

We’ll keep it super simple: you do it, your style, and we just share the experience/results.

—

Like the Trojan horse, doubt sneaks in every single time just when you’re about to get to it.

How will you know? How can you be certain that it works?! Maybe there is something better just around the corner?

…And soon you find yourself wasting yet another chance on researching tactics and strategies on the Google or the Tube.

The truth is that you can never know. No matter how convincing tactics you find, you can never be certain that it works for you. You are not them and there is no such thing as one size fits all. In reality, there is only one size fits one.

The only thing you can do is to see for yourself. To switch a futile attempt to know into a move to experience the results first hand.

Give the finger to the doubt and crush that procrastination which always lurks behind.

But what does it mean in practice?

It’s simple really. You commit to an experiment and see how it works out for you. Because it just might.

Me and Simo decided to make our move right now. We chose something easy to start with. Something that requires only once decision daily. Is this the time to eat or not?

We decided to make our move by a challenge of intermittent fasting for one week. If you’ve never done it we suggest starting with a simple script. After eating your dinner, you consume only water until lunch next day.

…And repeat the same routine from Monday to Monday. No difficult decision making, no weighing in the food you consume, no fancy dietary restriction. You simply eat or don’t.

Why intermittent fasting?

Here is a little something for you to educate yourself more: https://blog.bulletproof.com/intermittent-fasting-guide/

Need words from a more…scienc-y source? Here: https://chriskresser.com/intermittent-fasting-the-science-behind-the-trend/

It’s good. I promise.

To join our tribe and share your experiences this week, join our Discord-channel now!

With inspiration and energy!

Antti from Kaizenhour.

PS. you can find our discord channel at: http://kaizenhour.com/chat

We’re in Discord!

Oh yes we are!

And it’s free for all. Forever.

Here’s a quick link: http://kaizenhour.com/chat

But why?!

To try something new.

To have a community. Some folks are asking how to connect with other Kaizen Hour -subscribers… With us.

And Antti and me are going to host some type of challenges there. Wake up 5am for a week. Go keto for two.

Write a blog post per day for three weeks.

You know.

Simple things. Functional things. Projects and experiments. That’s where the gold is. Outside the ordinary path of your life.

That’s where you’ll find satisfaction. And fun.

Join us: http://kaizenhour.com/chat 

Your Biggest Challenge

Search inside yourself. Are you open to new ideas? Is your openness – curiosity, if you will – boosting you or is the lack of it actually hindering your progress?

“There is no wilder system to observe and work with than the human mind.”

(Taken from the podcast below…where a Google exec shares some of their insights on using mindfulness to boost productivity.)

Google leverages mindfulness programs to boost productivity and wellbeing at the workplace. And it’s a very data-based company, they’re not making this up.

Can you think of something similar?

Are you open enough to start exploring and developing your mind?

How do we make everyone open enough for this journey? We don’t need to, of course. We want to make just you open enough.

That’s our biggest challenge. That’s one of your biggest challenges. And it certainly should be your goal, if you’re not experimenting with your mind already.

The human mind is not understood well enough for someone to justify with science all that the practical communities know is true. And that’s why we need to listen to experiences from individuals, communities as well as companies that are successfully implementing programs to develop the mind toward some bigger shared goals.

“Humans are walking variables.” As an engineer, I find this notion extremely compelling to work with.

You’re a living lab. Start experimenting already.

The Vision

Happy 2018, everyone!

So…It’s been slow. And it will always be slow. That’s the way I like it.

It’s the long game that matters most.

Kaizen Hour was born (and is being developed to be) a toolkit that you can pick up and assemble to fit your own unique needs. We’re not aiming for a constantly bubbling online community. The more I think about this, the more I’m sure this is the way to go. Sure, we’ve got “profiles” on Twitter and Fb… but we’ll see what the future brings in regard to those.. no plans currently.

And I’m happy with the way it’s developing. Steady as she goes.

But, brothers and sisters, it’s time to move on, to pump up the volume.

This year, we’ll open the floodgates. I’ve finished a few new modules that will be available to all paying members. With Antti we’ve been busy designing and testing a few funnels to start bringing in more users.

More people equals more members and more revenue. More revenue equals more development. And more development equals a better self-help dashboard for you.

In a couple of weeks, we’re permanently closing free sign-ups. Revoking coupons, no more “email Simo” to get your free pass.

The biggest thing for people who have gone through the Fundamentals-course will be a Kaizen Hour Discord server. Yes, that thing that’s popular among teenage gamers. During the past 2-3 months, I’ve tried them all (Slack, Telegram, WhatsApp, etc.) and Discord is a clear winner.

There, you can share tips, content, dreams and worries (and just shoot the shit). Completely anonymously.

Buckle up, this year we’ll go to the moon.

Simo

PS Oh and I forgot, I’m about to bolt a rudimentary affiliate mechanism to Kaizen Hour. So, if you like it, why not promote it? We’ll give you 75% of the revenues when somebody signs up to the paid plans via you!

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