Introduction

Instinct is the opposite of science: research tells you what others have learned, and instinct tells you what you have learned. – Tim Grover

This book does not contain the answers you are looking for. No book does. There are seven billion people alive on this planet at this very moment and seven billion different correct answers. However, this book shows you the principles of living a balanced life. With those principles, you can allow your instinct to take over and confidently make decisions that drive you toward your goals. No longer will you actively scour the Internet for the latest trend or fad, promising to solve “Problem X” in 10 easy steps. I can show you the way, but you must forge the path on your own.

You can stop reading here if you are looking for a guru-authored guide on creating a balanced, happy, fulfilling life. If, on the other hand, you want the tools to cast your own perfect life… keep reading.

In the following pages, we will address some complex issues, some taboo issues, and some solutions to those that fall outside the mainstream, politically correct narrative. Think of it this way: in your hands, you are holding the owner’s manual to the human body you didn’t get from the dealership. An owner’s manual won’t teach you how to overhaul the engine but instead explains the day-to-day operation of the vehicle and describes the warning indicators letting you know it’s time to seek out a mechanic. This book includes physical and nutritional components. Only you and your doctor know your health situation. Consult your doctor before beginning to address any concerns or risk factors.

There’s nothing magical here. I have no “super secret formula” suppressed by the Government and Big Pharma. This is all stuff we should have known all along. But we don’t, so let’s get started changing that.

In addition to learning how to operate your new human body, you’ll be presented with challenges and tasks to complete. These are designed to reinforce the concepts presented in this book and to shift your mindset from focusing on winning a distant goal to winning the day. Distant goals are recipes for disaster. If you miss the goal, you’ve likely spent much of the time leading up to it, off-course as well. Winning the day, however, is short enough to be measurable and long enough to be effective. You create a winning streak if you win several days in a row. This creates motivation. Wins start stacking up, creating a winning week. Those turn into winning months that lead to winning years, ultimately leading to a winning life. One day at a time. And that’s all we have anyway, right? One day. There are no guarantees for a tomorrow.

Five Spinning Plates

I have a philosophy best summarized by imagining five spinning plates. You know the ones: the plates spinning on a stick by a circus performer. Each plate requires attention, or it will fall and break. Think about a plate that reflects a marriage. When fighting with your spouse, the plate is starting to wobble. If you get a divorce, the plate has fallen and broken. If you decide to get back together and work things out, it is equivalent to gluing the plate together. But guess what?

The plate will not spin like it used to.

The problem lies with focusing on one plate too much. Doing so results in the other plates starting to wobble. You may have seen this in yourself or friends in the past: someone so focused on one aspect of their life while other areas are in shambles: that person who works 70 hours per week, that friend who no longer has time for a beer because they are training for a race, that buddy who completely wraps their life up in their latest romantic pursuit. The plates representing a balanced life are (in no particular order): physical fitness, nutrition, mental toughness, community, and money.

Physical fitness is characterized by not only strength, but mobility, endurance, body composition, and other internal metrics such as blood pressure, heart rate, and lung capacity.

Nutrition is the foundation of the other plates. You get out of your body what you put into it.

Mental toughness represents having a vision and goal for your life and the discipline to strive for it daily. This doesn’t have to come from internally produced discipline, either. For many, their religion is a source of mental toughness.

Community represents the people in our lives. Ranging from spouses to children to friends, neighbors, and online acquaintances, it’s everyone we interact with and all the work that goes into maintaining relationships in that community.

Money, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Aside from being a monk in solitude, it’s a problem we must face. It’s not just about #makingmoremoney, though; it’s about how you want your relationship with money to be. There’s a quote I like (though I can’t remember who said it) if a man with $10 feels rich, he is.

As we dig deeper into these five areas, I encourage you to think about how that area relates to a spinning plate. Consider the impact of focusing on one particular area on other areas. You probably have some real-life examples from your past: the last time you went hard on a diet: sacrificing time with friends and family to avoid cheating on your diet. Over time you started to miss your friends and family, so you gave up on your diet to spend time with them. Then what happened?

The nutrition plate starts slowly wobbling…

So that’s my goal here. It’s not about perfection in any single area but balance in many.