LegendaryLife Blog

I have developed a list of habits and thoughts on healthy life extension over more then half of my life… it’s interesting that only NOW are studies beginning to come out proving the logical conclusions I had come to so long ago.

Fit people stay younger then sedentary ones

Just this week, a study was reported by ABC News that found out that chronological age isn’t related to cellular age. If you abuse your body taking drugs (including tobacco), alcohol (more then one drink every few days) and just live the couch potato lifestyle, the cells within your body are quickly deteriorating. As a result, organs that become “sick” loose their efficiency, kinks begin to form in the bodies armor and voila… a few decades down the line, you are in a wheelchair gasping for every breath. The study reported that people who exercise regularly have cells that are actually younger then their sedentary counterparts by up to 10 years! Yes, the fountain of youth begins at the cellular level! This isn’t news to me, I have observed this all my life.

Why this is true?

Although I have explained this many times, repetition is the mother of retention as, Anthony Robbins often says. Our bodies are MEANT to be active, no, I am not talking about walking from the television to the fridge to get a bear, I mean ACTIVE like walking for HOURS each day, straining your muscles lifting heavy objects and eating incredible amounts of whole food. It’s no secret that our modern lifestyles are killing many humans off, our bodies are optimized for hunter and gatherer type activities. What do hunters and gatherers do all day? Well, they WALK, RUN, FIGHT, CRAWL, BUILD and MONITOR their environment, in other words, they are incredibly active in every sense of the word. The mind is always racing along with the body. The body is incredibly nimble regarding resource allocation… it doesn’t want to waste one ounce of energy towards activities that will not lead towards living another day. For example, your body would far prefer that you sit and wait for prey to come in your sights instead of running for hours on end to capture the same prey. Why? Because out in nature, energy is a very valuable resource, the body doesn’t want you to become a muscleman with 2% fat, it wants you to become a typical couch potato because it guarantees you will have enough energy to get you through the typical abundance / starvation cycles found in nature. The entire purpose of your body and mind is to make you live long enough to pass on your genes, it doesn’t care what you look like or your emotional well being as long as you… PASS ON YOUR GENES!

How to improve the health of your genes

This is rather easy, just think of yourself living 20 000 years ago before modern conveniences existed. I am not saying you need to throw away your toilet and replace it with a hole in the ground anymore then to begin hunting the neighborhood squirrels for you super but there are some things you can do to extend your healthy lifespan.

1) Throw away the Junk!

If you don’t know what you are eating, the ingredients don’t make sense and the packaging says “now lower in xyz”, throw away this junk! You cannot expect a long, healthy life eating garbage. Eat every few hours, small portions and every once in a while, eat everything you see… you want to keep your body guessing and try to mimic what nature built our bodies for… survival.

2) Lift heavy weights!

Get yourself a personal trainer if you must, but you must lift heavy weights throughout your lifespan, not only does this improve your central nervous system but it also increases bone density and muscle strength. You really need to strain your muscles on a continuous basis, if you never worked-out before, you need to educate yourself so that you don’t over-train or injure yourself. You need to be as strong as possible when you are young so that your muscle mass when you are older (when it’s needed the most).

3) Stress your heart and lungs

I am lucky, where I live now, there are mountains up to a kilometer high… I climb up them without taking a break… I can actually HEAR my heart beating loudly while climbing, my legs are mush, it’s difficult to breath and I am sweating profusely but you know what… it feels great afterwards! I am still young so this is fine but it beats any type of treadmill out there in every possible way. You need to optimize your cardiovascular systems (heart, lungs) as much as possible when you are young so that you can stave off common diseases when you are older.

4) Get outside!

We are not meant to live our lives in self-contained static environments (ei: office or home)… get outside every chance you can, if you live in a big city, get out and move to the country (or another country if you can). Everyday, the weather is different, the temperature, humidity etc… this keeps your body optimized so that you keep your internal calibrations constantly guessing. If you live in a place plagued with unhealthy air, you need to move! Your health is worth far more then any high paying job in a polluted environment.

5) Keep thinking

Get lost on purpose, when you realize that you have no clue where you are, the mind instantly focuses on the task at hand… getting you back home! This can be exhausting but it’s well worth it to do every few weeks to keep you sharp! We all have an internal compass that falls into disrepair due to lack of use, you need to get it back into shape. I know for me, it’s getting ever more difficult to get lost because I am starting to memorize, without my knowledge, key points that help me find my way back.

The Bottom Line

Stressful situations are essential to a long, healthy life… as long as they are from within.

Depending on how you look at it, I am either blessed or cursed, you see, I am one of those typical guys who has trouble not only gaining weight but keeping it on. As soon as I stop working out with weights, my accumulated mass begins to go away though, oddly enough, not my strength gains… most women would kill for these genetics, so I guess in that sense, I am very lucky to have them!

Tip #1: Go for Quality, not Quantity

The most I have ever weighed was 200 pounds, being six feet tall and I felt like I was CONSTANTLY eating. Why was this a challenge? Well, I eat only whole foods that I cook myself and I am incredibly active most of the time. When I am not in front of my computer slaving away or running my businesses, I am hiking, working out or going for long extended walks lasting up to 5 hours if not more. Gaining weight is easy if your diet consists of fast food and the only activity you participate in is channel surfing. The first tip I cannot stress enough is you most likely want to have quality gains that come with strength, shape and muscle mass, not becoming the next “Fat Bastard”. The process is slower, the battle much tougher but the end result, if done properly, is a body that looks amazing even before you diet down using carbohydrate reduction techniques.

Tip #2: You don’t need supplements

Supplements make things easier, no doubt about it. Nothing says commitment like swallowing a heaping tablespoon of chalky Creatine in the morning with some grape juice followed by a liter of chocolate cross-filtered whey protein powder but, after many years, I have come to a realization that they are not essential. With all the marketing hype reading though bodybuilding magazines, you can’t help but be sucked into believing that the only way to gain muscle mass is by consuming the latest supplement to hit the market. Let me be straight with you, supplements are very nice things to have but not essential. Nothing is as anabolic as food, not even Steroids is able to replace the power found in eating a fantastic diet. Need proof? Stop eating and just take steroids and Creatine, no matter how much of this stuff you take, you WILL loose weight and feel like shit. Now, just eat a very respectable diet and don’t take Steroids nor Creatine, you will GAIN weight. If you are serious about improving yourself though, stick with the no-name cheap stuff like basic Creatine, a Multi-Vitamin and some decent cross-filtered Protein Powder. As your budget allows, you can then get into more exotic things like cold-pressed flax seed / fish oils, ZMA (Zinc Monomethionine Aspartate plust Magnesium Aspartate), HMB (beta-hydroxy-beta-methylbutyrate), BCAA (branched-chain amino acids) and the list goes on. Once you got your diet down, there is no reason why you cannot achieve significant gains in the weight room without any supplements. As for me, I tend to cycle them, when I hit a plateau and changing exercise or diet doesn’t get me through it, then I use supplements to get me over that mental / physical block then I drop them.

Tip #3: Cycle Weight Loads

If you are in your see-food diet, meaning you eat everything you see, then by all means, go as heavy as you can take and beyond. But as anybody in serious weight training will tell you, simply going HEAVY all the time becomes a game of diminishing returns. If you start to feel sore in your joints or sheering sounds while rotating your arms, it means you are due for an extended break of changing your routine. Cycling, also referred to as Periodization is such a system in which you change not only your routine but your overall weightlifting strategies over an extended period of time. Remember, your body is built to adapt to new circumstances, if you always do the same thing, it stops being challenged and focuses it’s energies elsewhere. Periodization shocks the body repeatedly to get you the most strength and mass gains possible over an extended period of time.

Tip #4: Dumbbells and Barbells RULE!

If you exercise using primarily machines, you will have a problem. You see, machines are great for muscle isolation, that’s why you can lift so much more with them verses free weights but this comes at a cost. When your body is forced to stabilize a weight, many other muscles are recruited to keep things running smoothly. You will see this sometimes when you notice some peoples muscles that seem to go into spasms when doing heavy free weights… it isn’t only because the weight is heavy, it’s because the muscles are being overwhelmed. I can’t really think of a time when I experienced the muscle shaking on a machine but it occurs rather regularly when using free weights. If you want to gain weight and improve your overall strength there is no way around it, you got to get comfortable with free weights.

Tip #5: Track your Progress

Each and every week, weight yourself, if you are up, even a fraction of a pound, then you are well on your way towards gaining weight. If you stay the same or don’t go up, then re-evaluate what you did the previous week, figure out where you went wrong and give it another go the following week. I would say that once a month, take your body measurements and record that as well… with pictures if you need to. Seeing an quarter or half inch increase in a bicep is just about impossible but measurements don’t lie.

The Bottom Line

The body is the ultimate challenge for the mind.

If you run a business or are in charge of one, you know exactly what I mean when I say entrepreneurship is an endless journey of discovery, there is always an area that can use some testing and others some tweeking to maximize potential.

There is always room for improvement

No matter the industry, time of year or revenue projections (or lack thereof) there is always room for improvement, it can easily be said that a business that isn’t on a progressive cycle of improvement is one that is dead. Things change, customers change and challenges always pop-out of nowhere. A good entrepreneur takes things in stride, strives for perfection but knows the goal will never be hit. Panic is fine for contractors, customers and employees but nothing spells trouble like an entrepreneur ripping their hair out as soon as small fire busts into a raging inferno. If you are constantly looking for improvements, these small fires, more often then not, don’t find enough loose litter to explode. Test out new procedures, don’t fear change and don’t procrastinate in trying to find new areas of growth.

There is always room for being away

Whether you decide to take a day or a month off to re-evaluate your business, this is among the least understood but most beneficial things you can do. Getting ideas, at least for me and other entrepreneurs I know, usually come in the middle of the night or when they are outside of the office. When you are in an office, it’s like a war zone, everything is coming at you from all corners and your mind simply doesn’t have time to evaluate things as it’s too busy DOING things. Getting away allows the mind to relax, think about what happened and think of areas where improvements can be made.

Example of what happens with vacation time

For me, I always have ideas jumping out at me, I have to prioritize them and see how they evolve over time. One such idea was that behind one of my sites, WoodMarvels.com in which I wanted to sell wood project building guides electronically that where affordable, extremely high quality and included a 3D animations to help customers through the purchasing / building process. I looked around, suffice it to say, this would cost a fortune if you didn’t already have a server, over a decade of 3D animation experience and a host of projects under your belt… luckily for me, I had all this just sitting there ready to be used. So, I decided with 4 models that I built myself to launch the site in October of 2007. I then had a goal to make 50 by the end of the year… well, I got to 46 then realized that I had spent so much time building that there was a noticeable evolution that needed to be addressed. What did I decide to do? Well, we re-rendered everything at a higher resolution (close to 50 animations over a two week period), re-did ALL the imagery at a higher quality and not only that, launched an e-commerce store dedicated in the field of woodworking including re-doing all our blueprints with an in-layed grid format. The results? Well, we found new streams of revenue, sales are up 300% and a number of new doors have opened up for us with this site. WoodMarvels.com looked good before, the blueprints where fine but now the site is fantastic and the guides we sell for the individual projects are incredible! How did this come about? Well, I was hiking up a mountain one day and realized that WoodMarvels.com needed to be Marvelous… and it’s getting there big time now! The site itself was a small project I undertook for the heck of it after I discovered I had some extra spare time and now it’s evolving into a mighty division within i3DS.

Finding problems before they find you

As my example illustrates, there was nothing really wrong with what WoodMarvels.com was like before but there was room for improvement. If there aren’t any problems with a business, then you are either blind or ignorant in my opinion… there are ALWAYS problems. These problems usually start out as small annoyances, maybe it’s that pump-jack that has a squeeky wheel then eventually leads to a big skid of computers crashing down on a concrete floor or that receptionist that never seems to show up at time which may lead to a customer going to a competitor. Who knows what problems there are… but I guarantee you one thing, there are problems everywhere just waiting to explode… your job, as the boss is to find them ASAP and deal with them in a timely manner. Set-up weekly or monthly meetings depending on the size of your organization looking for waste, have contests to find the best “optimization idea” within your company or even just an “open door policy” can uncover a number of things that should but haven’t caught your attention yet.

The Bottom Line

Problems are opportunities in disguise… find them!

Buzvia: WoodMarvels.com – Create Unique Memories

There are few things that get me going like multi-level marketers, “success coaches” and generally those who prey on the hopes of massive wealthy by those in this world least able to afford expensive programs that teach nothing but prolonged servitude.

The problem with these types of individuals

Not sure where to start but here is my run-down of why these type of people are not only a complete waste of time, but detrimental to your personal success in life.

Shifting the Power Balance

Let’s say you get yourself a success coach and you begin to see some changes in your life as a result, is it due to the success coach or yourself? The reason why I ask is that as soon as you find your “fortress of me”, you no longer need these people. They are like the Weight Watchers of the “success industry”, they tell you just enough to see things improve but don’t tell you everything because, to be quite frank, they need a job at the end of the day. Work on yourself, within yourself and onto yourself and success will come… give this inner power to somebody else to manage and you will always have this noose around your neck of which there is no escape. If you haven’t found this power within you yet… don’t give somebody else the remote control to your life when you are most vulnerable, that will simply create dependence instead of independence.

Waste of Money

These “success coaches” are like the psychics of the 21st century, they can promise absolutely nothing and it will forever be YOUR fault of you do not succeed. What? You didn’t double your income in 90 days or experience the extreme success that their tapes, CDs and books promised you? Well, hey, it isn’t their fault… it’s yours… and they are laughing all the way to the bank. They are in the business of making themselves money, NOT you. If you make money, it’s because you always had it in you, it would have happened without the “success coach”… believe in yourself, save your money, invest into your future and you will be far wealthier and happier. These guys aren’t cheap neither, you can easily spend a thousand dollars within a few months and having nothing more to show for it then a smaller bank account. Ask yourself, why do they all seem “so rich” with huge mansions, yachts and exotic cars? Well, get a few clients paying you a few thousand to teach them “success” and you too can seem successful. These guys are slicker then a used car salesmen of a bygone era… be EXTREMELY cautious.

The industry of “coached wealth and success”

Let’s say your life sucks, you have a job you hate, in debt and many broken relationships… the last thing you need is somebody to motivate you out of your rut. I believe you MUST hit bottom to realize, in the end, how lucky you are and dig your own ass out of the pit you created for yourself. There is an entire industry geared towards making money off your depraved situation, like obese people in the weight loss industry, there is an endless cycle of dependence where one profits off the others continual demise. Don’t get sucked into the hype and promises and you will be fine, otherwise, you will become a statistic.

Nobody cares about you but yourself

I have stated this several times throughout this blog, nobody cares as much about YOU as, well, YOU! If a success coach comes to you offering their services, tell them you have no money and that you where wondering if they could work on you for free. If they say yes, that means, free… meaning they give you the tapes, they phone you weekly to see how you are achieving your milestones… my bet is they will think of some excuse as to why this isn’t possible after a few weeks (if they last that long). If you can’t be bothered to invest in yourself both physically and emotionally, don’t expect paying money to make this happen will provide any better results.

Multi-Level Marketers

If you thought success coaches where scary, I hope you haven’t bumped into multi-level marketers… these guys come from deep under rocks selling you worthless products at “steep discounts” that aren’t worth the ink their contracts are printed on. These are the likes of HerbalLife, Mannatech and AMWAY… they are like flies at many real business networking events, trying to catch their next big fish. If somebody ever approaches you with a “home based” opportunity, please do yourself a favor and run the hell out of their sight. They are what nightmares are made of.

The Bottom Line

If somebody promises you the world, show them the door.

Please check out my confrontation with a Mannatech Representative – the results, they never came back after spewing their lies on my blog.

Montel Williams has accomplished a heck of a lot in his life and continues to be a force to be reckoned with in both the entertainment and health care industries. He doesn’t fear going against convention, fights for what he believes is right and is an incredibly intelligent man willing to debate issues that others wouldn’t ever touch. His live can be summed up using his favorite quote by Winston Churchill:

“We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.”

Montel Williams Early Years

Montel Williams was born in Baltimore, Maryland on July 3rd, 1956. He enlisted into the United States Marine Corps in 1974 and progressed into the United States Naval Academy, graduating with a degree in Engineering and International Security Affairs. He was awarded a number of honors during his 22 years of military service which include the Meritorious Service Medals (2), Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal, Humanitarian Service Medals (2), Naval Achievement Medal, Navy Expeditionary Medals (2) and the Navy Commendation Medals (2). He had a distinguished career and retired as a Lieutenant Commander in the Navy Reserve.

Montel Williams Changes Television

Although he was known for his lack of hair among talk show hosts, he fought incredibly hard to garner the attention and loyal viewers that made him a household name. He began “The Montel Williams Show” in 1992 putting him head-to-head against heavy hitters such as Geraldo, Phil Donahue and the Goddess of talk show hosts, Oprah Winfrey. He successfully mixed the strengths of his competition and thrived. He has also appeared in a number of very popular television shows such as “Jag”, “All My Children”, “Wheel of Fortune”, produced a number of television series, directed and acted through a very broad spectrum of entertainment media. He changed the face of entertainment, as a result, both Montel Williams and “The Montel Williams Show” where nominated for “Outstanding Talk Show Host” by the Daytime Emmy Awards four times, winning them once.

Montel turning challenges into opportunities

Montel has had three wives through his career in an industry known to be extremely difficult on relationships and has four children. By far, the most difficult issue he has had to deal with is his personal bout with Multiple Sclerosis, being diagnosed with MS in 1999. That same year, he was honored with the PRISM Award and Inspiration Award by the Entertainment Industries Council for his incredible leadership and role model status within the entertainment industry. He has, ever since his MS diagnosis, faced this incredibly challenging disease head-on by spreading awareness about this auto-immune disease on country-wide tours, his talk show and creating “The Montel Williams MS Foundation” to help raise funds to fight this horrible disease. His tireless activities garnered “The Montel Williams Show” the “Beacon Award” by the New York State Psychological Association (NYSPA). He was also awarded the AFTRA Disability Awareness Award by News & Broadcasting in 2003. He is also a published author of several books including “Mountain, Get Out Of My Way”, “Life Lessons and Reflections”, A Dozen Ways to Sunday”, “The 21 Day Fitness Program for Changing Your Body and Changing Your Life” and “Climbing Higher” and helps bring influential pieces to life through “Mountain Movers Press”. Montel Williams is also a national spokesman for the “Partnership for Prescription Assistance (PPA)” which helps those who can least afford to be sick an affordable mechanism to get the drugs they need to remain healthy.

The Bottom Line

The doors of new opportunities in life are always opened by the keys of unforeseen challenge.

Buzvia: The Montel Williams MS Foundation, Montel Williams on Wikipedia, The Montel Williams Show