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!

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