Living a Life in Full: Revolution over Resolutions 2.0

Living a life in full is a conversation you always wanted to have with that person who gave an amazing TED Talk or the author of one of your favorite books, or that inspirational Olympian you always wanted to know more about. It's graduate level conversations with those making a difference in the world and in the lives of others. This show brings you new ideas and approaches so that you can live a life in full. I'm your host, Dr. Chris Stout and I hope you enjoy this episode. This episode is brought to you by the new fellowship and certificate programs now being offered by the center for Global Initiatives. As you may know, the center is an all volunteer organization and the same is true for the faculty in these programs. So all the tuition goes to support the work of the center. It has always been our ethos to open source humanitarian intervention and these programs use the same approach in that all the materials we use are freely available all the time to anyone, everywhere, even if you don't take a course. We have built a world class faculty and contracts with other universities, medical schools and partnered NGOs. There are two fellowship tracks, one for those wishing to start their own nonprofit or non governmental organization and one for those seeking mentorship for career development and advancement humanitarian work. Our initial certificate programs include humanitarian intervention, social entrepreneurship and global health practice. Please consider taking a world class masterclass with us. Visit alifeinfull.org and click on the CourseWorks tab to learn more. Thanks welcome to another episode of Living a Life in Full. I'm your host, Dr. Chris Stout. In this episode, I want to do a follow up to last year's January 1, 2020 plans and consider how to approach 2021. The idea is to share my N of 1 trials, be a bit autobiographical in results from this past year, and to share tools and approaches that you may want to give a go yourself depending upon your personal goals and in living your life in full. As for context, on One One 2019, I devoted that episode to being a one person show and reviewed a prior long form influe post titled what yout need to Know to have an Optimized Health Biohacking for Beginners. That article was born from an experience I had had concerning someone's curiosity about my dietary choices, health status, athletic abilities, and the results. That episode garnered a lot of kind support and now I'm experimenting with each new year as a similar kind of exploration and sharing. This past January I wrote epic ideas for 2020 revolution over resolutions and this is the follow up and look forward. While I'm not trying to plagiarize myself. There are some aspects that I'll cover again as they are approaches and disciplines that I'm still using. Interested readers can click and go through the original posts with all the additional topics and concomitant links. I hope you enjoy it and find it of use. Also, there'll be a companion LinkedIn influencer piece to this that will basically work as a very detail, very linked filled set of show notes. So if there's anything that you have a greater interest in or want to do a deeper dive, I really encourage that. Just go to my LinkedIn influencer post and you'll find it. I've also used the following categories to organize things Lifestyle, Athletic, Health, Span, Intellectual and Creative Work and finances and 2021 plans and at the end of each I'll give a verdict. Let's start with some notes and disclaimers. In making this public and being transparent, I hope to perhaps inform or inspire you to think about your life and what experiences you may want to add. By involving others, it helps to not only motivate me, but also holds me accountable. Doing this is a little scary to put oneself out there in a pretty transparent way, but also I'm being mindful that it's hard to give advice. We are all different in a myriad of different ways. There's a lot of intervening variables in our own lives. I don't always keep doing the same things or do it the same way as I age or my circumstances change. If you try any of what follows, please do so as an experiment. Lab coat on and clipboard optional Kick the tires, test drive and keep in mind your mileage may vary. Please please do your research of the links that I have in here and determine what's good for test and retest, rinse and repeat. My job is to expose you to what I've experienced, perhaps save you some time and hassle by doing so, and provide you with the resources so that you can decide for yourself. In what follows, I reference a lot of companies and products. I do so only as a user. I have no advertising, compensation or affiliate marketing with any of the things noted herein. I have not been provided with any paid endorsements, kickbacks, or commercial payments. I have personally bought and paid for all the products and services discussed herein. I also want to start with a reminder of what's in the show's outro, and that is that this podcast is for general information uses only. It does not constitute the practice of psychology or medicine, nutrition or any other professional healthcare service, including the giving of medical or psychological advice and as a warning label for listeners, do not try to recreate or reenact any of the activities that have any risk to your health or well being without proper training or medical clearance. If you're dealing with a serious medical condition, please consult with a healthcare professional before engaging in any of the health and athletic activities discussed in this episode. Don't be a knucklehead Lifestyle Minimalism during this last year with COVID and everything else, we sold our house and moved ourselves. We also moved our daughter to her new apartment and we also moved our son out of his old apartment. My wife and I were particularly proud of being able to flex our minimalist muscle and winnow down all the flotsam and Jetsam From a 4,000 square foot home to the footprint of one car's spot in the garage. For our movers, we gave away various belongings and books and whatnot to friends and to friends, adult children via Craigslist donation sites that were still open and to the buyers of our house. Most of our furnishings. My wife and I, and our adult children for that matter, seemed to be much more enthusiastic about embracing the concept of minimalism. Part of it was experiencing a refreshing downsizing from a very big house to to a big house and now to living full time in what was our former second home. I'm continuing to work on downsizing more of my paper files. Donating the vast majority of my books felt a little sad. I felt like I was saying goodbye to old friends who had taught me a lot or who had been there for me when I needed them. I also threw away most of my awards plaques, nicely framed and matted biographical newspaper articles and magazine spreads. And doing that seemed kind of weird. It's if I were diminishing the honor. But the physical artifact is more symbol than totem. I have to admit I did take photographs of them and now I keep those in a digital file for no great logical reason. More so emotional I suppose, but it helped me with my disposing of them. There is a certain luxury of feeling lighter with doing these kinds of things. Verdict Keep it up. Athletic if you know me, you know fitness is an important factor as obesity and early childhood physical issues conspire to make for some misery. My general protocol is a rotation of exercises that involve strength training, bodyweight and free weights on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays are running and or cycling road and gravel on hills, trails, etc. Sundays are kettlebells and hikes with my wife are sprinkled liberally throughout each week. Daily I do yoga planks, core and wim hof breathing. More on that in just a second. I have what I need at home for most all of my needs. Trails to run and ride, easy access to nature and forest preserves and parks, chin up bar, dumbbell dumbbells, adjustable bench, kettlebells, yoga mat and block Bosu ball balance board, barbell plates with hand grips and a spin bike. Thus, the pandemic didn't really impact my routine. Last year I did the wacky 29029 or Everest Everesting as an homage to the height of Everest. If you read my LinkedIn companion piece, which I hope you do, you'll see in the show notes a shot of me and Lewis Howes at the top. If you if you know who Louis is, shout out to Louis Jesse Itzler rents a mountain and builds a base camp village with bands, bonfires, glamping tents, food and drink, and you hike up the mountain as many times as you can with the goal of hitting a cumulative total of 29,029ft. Jesse calls it Burning man meets Iron Man. This year. My runner daughter sent me a link about the Everest Challenge 2020, which was to hike, run or cycle the height of Everest's 29,029 vertical feet between the 1st of September and the tail end of October. I found a great hill near my house that was perfect and found that it was a great running routine. Spoiler alert. I did complete the challenge. Although it was one pretty simple activity, it yielded what I found to be many benefits. I found hill running was both easier on my joints while also getting a higher aerobic and cardio benefit rather than running flats for the same distance. I found that I could do it and listen to a podcast, which for me is less likely for me to be able to do on a typical running route. For some reason, that simple addition gave me something to look forward to as well. During the course of it, I was also able to combine runs with other activities like time restricted eating that I'll also be discussing shortly, and decreased processed sugar intake and that altogether conspired to help me drop about 10 pounds that had been nagging me for a while. It was also a wonderful way to do my nature bathing as well, and it was a fundraiser to boot. It's this kind of activity stacking that can be synergistic for mind, body and spirit and be very efficient. I also joined the local YMCA once it was okay to do so and I wanted to experiment with rowing sauna once it's open again because the Y is open but the sauna is not. There's a variety of reasons for that that I have in the show notes, however, you really need to have a physician's clearance before experimenting with heat, as it seems that longer duration at higher temperatures is the secret sauce in its effectiveness. But there are obviously risks, more so for some folks. So be safe and be smart. In lieu of the sauna's availability, currently I've been experimenting with a whirlpool as a bit of a proxy for heat exposure if you will. I'm doing 45 minutes followed by a two minute pool plunge and tracking my rate via my Trusty and versatile Sun 2. 9 Watch Geek Heaven in addition, and in general I'm trying to trying out the above, I plan to increase my Everesty hill repeats. There's some articles that I want to make a reference to, but I couldn't find links. So there's a great article by Becky WADE in the November 2020 issue of Outside magazine, page 33 called It's All Uphill from here about the benefits of doing hill repeats and also being a little less hard on myself if something's a bit tweaked. I have a link in the show Notes called In Defense of Walking More Than Running, which is actually a great article on how to support your running goals but dramatically decrease injury risk and to speed up my shorter distance runs as a goal for 2021, I read a paper version, the Mile is the New Marathon in Men's Health, September 20, 2020, page 26 and I highly recommend it. I still couldn't find it digitally. Sorry about that. As I had planned last year, I have indeed hung up my ultra distance running shoes, so to speak. It seems that there's a dose titration issue with running and ultras seem to be not good for one's heart. Ironically and sadly to me, a bit surprisingly, there was a study that involved over 52,600 people. They were followed for an amazing three decades and runners in the group had a 19% lower death rate than non runners, which kind of is what we had hoped for and maybe intuitively expect. But the interesting thing is that among the running cohort, those who ran a lot, which they defined as more than 20 to 25 miles a week, lost that mortality advantage. And again, I've got a link in the show notes for that if you want to geek out on that as well. It's a fascinating study. And in the show notes I also have a section on some of my best fitness tips and findings, which is a curated set, so Verdict Keep it All up Health Span Metrics Tracking I started keeping a daily accounting of various physical goals that are important to me. I've dedicated a specific moleskin little small journal for that. I found that doing this can be very motivating for the times I'd prefer not to do my planks or other good habits that I'm working on establishing. The things I keep track of are various nutritional and physical activities such as yoga planks, Core work Tracking the quality of my sleep getting full workouts in exposure to heat via sauna or whirlpool like I was just talking about for at least 45 minutes protein shakes using tart cherry juice, etc. Verdict Keep it up Eating not just what, but perhaps more importantly when 18 six time restricted eating for me, some dietary tweaks are very easy like time restricted eating. I'm currently fasting for 18 hours of the day and restrict my eating to a six hour window. As for mornings, I've never really had any kind of appetite and I do my workouts in the morning so it's an easy way for me to delay eating and not really feel hungry. Also, I try to do at least a 24 hour fast one day a week and that's more of a challenge. I really have to plan around what else is going on that day to be able to pull those off. I have found the Kevin Rose's Zero app to be a big motivator, helpful metrics tracker and digital accountability buddy. I use the free version and find it to be plenty. Verdict Keep it up Protein Type and Timing after my workout, I break my fast with a shot of tart cherry dude juice. Say that three times real fast for inflammation, fighting and joint health. I also take my vitamins and vinegar caps with mother, a vegan protein shake and a varied lunch menu. After that. Quick side note, vis a vis the vinegar, I transitioned from drinking shots out of concern for tooth enamel erosion and digestive system irritation. Now I take 12x protein ultra high strength non GMO apple cider vinegar capsules with mother 210 milligram formula pills with cayenne pepper 20% acetic acid and I am a big fan. And they're also easier to take than they are to pronounce. As for constants, conventional wisdom is that a dose of protein after a workout is beneficial. I've got links for that and it's supposed to be helpful for muscle development and recovery. The idea being that doing so decreases muscle protein breakdown increases muscle growth, restores glycogen and enhances recovery. I'm somewhat nerdy as to my protein consumption. Big surprise as I'm plant based. Lately I've been experimenting with soy. My formula per serving is try to get at least 20 grams of protein at less than 200 calories and a price point less than a dollar. My son recently introduced me to True Nutrition Protein. Their differentiator is that they allow you to custom blend various types of protein powders from a variety of vegan sources to actually even crickets to a variety of carnivore sources. It's just really amazingly comprehensive. They have a pretty slick interface too. You can select flavors, sweeteners and sizes, mix and match should you so desire. I also like that the protein powder comes in a bag to minimize waste. Proper dosing can be confusing so the brain trust over@examine.com developed an optimal protein intake guide which I have a link for in the show Notes that may be of help for you. If this is a conundrum, one of my big goals has been to minimize eating any kind of added sugar. In the evenings. That tends to be harder, but as part of my routine I take 1 tablespoon of inulin just as a powder. I take it straight and that very much satisfies my sweet tooth. Plus it's good for my microbiome. A curious phenomenon I've noticed is that my cravings for desserts have diminished a great deal. I don't know if it's the combination of time restricted eating and the inulin, but I'm hoping it will continue. As for sugar and sweets, be sure to keep an eye out for added sugars and some of the things that may be commonly eaten like peanut butter or ketchup. Verdict Keep it up Hydration Last year I did the Gallon a Day challenge and that helped boost my habit of increased water consumption and generally I still get close to a near gallon a day. I'm also a big fan of lemon water and I find that it's very satisfying in the evening, especially if I get hungry or just simply thirsty. Some folks swear by starting their day with a glass of lemon water, but you should know the pros and cons of doing so before adopting it. And of course I've got a link for that in the show Notes. Verdict for me Keep it up Breathing There are a number of breathwork exercises, from athletics to meditation. Here's a sampler of two of my favorites. 478 I have a link in the show notes for a demo which is the best way to do that on a podcast, but the 4 7, 8 breathing technique has been credited with being a tool for transformative relaxation. You can do it in the car, at work, in a meeting, in the middle of the night, anytime and place, basically with no risk. Dr. Andrew Weil is a big advocate for this exercise and he advises doing it twice a day, every day for a cumulative overall health benefit. Wim HOF Method I have Wim Hof on as a guest in an upcoming episode and it's a hoot on the podcast. I think it's going to be coming out in February, so be sure to tune in if you'd like to learn more about that. In the meantime, he has a new book out on his method and a very helpful website and app which is all in the show. Notes his method is not something you should do while active, and certainly not while in water. Wim is also a proponent of hormesis and cold exposure in combination with his breathing approach. I finish off all my showers with the faucet turned to full blast cold. The thinking is that cold water exposure can help your body's immune system, lymphatic, circulatory and digestive systems, as well as help in the weight loss department, presumably because it helps boost your metabolism. Keep them up Heat Exposure One of my treats is to soak in a hot tub or be in a sauna for 45 minutes for heat exposure. As I've talked about earlier. Links to the science behind this are in the LinkedIn companion piece via the show Notes Verdict Keep it up. Binaural tones in the March 2020 issue of Men's Health magazine, I read a piece on the claims of various applications and benefits of binaural beats at different wavelengths to help relax, meditate, sleep, or even concentrate. I've used the Binaural app for pure binaural beats on my phone, but it really kind of wasn't for me. I didn't like it, so I didn't use it that much because it wasn't a good fit. A better fit that I found is a much more enjoyable experience is using or listening to gentle, deep, pardon me, gentle sleep music, ASMR Sleep Sounds, Binaural Delta Waves or Lavender Hill binaural beats sleep music that I stumbled upon on YouTube. They're free there There are many other differing wavelengths. Currently I'm trying out the 3Hz and the 4-6Hz for relaxing, lucid dreaming, creative thinking on a project, and for sleep. And here's an associated little hack. If you go to YouTube and you find these videos and companion ones as well. They run like six to eight hours in length. I don't want my phone to be playing those that long if I'm trying to go to sleep. So I've played them on my computer over an external JBL speaker, which is a good high quality speaker at a low low price and recorded a 45 minute version and a 60 minute version via the memo recorder on my phone. Very straightforward and simple. Then I don't need to rely on any kind of wi fi connectivity if I want to listen while I'm away, like at a sauna or whirlpool with my waterproof Jaybird Vista earbuds in. Or I don't need to worry about a timer or having things run for six to eight hours if I'm laying down at home. And at home I use Bose 35 wireless headphones as playback. It just simply they stop when the 45 or 60 minutes is up. So big, big fan of those and continuing to experiment. It's my verdict. Keep it up. Sleep so I just spoke of binaural tones and music. I also take two magnesium tablets daily, one at the end of my fast with my other vitamins and the other just before bed to increase sleep quality and decrease cramping risks on an as need be basis, which thankfully has gotten to be pretty episodic. These days I take Natural Calm a mix with water drink and my wife and I continue to be big fans of our chilipet. As for my nightstand, I will also read before bed. I'll review notes that I want to think about before drifting off. I keep water easily available and I have my recorder and chiliped controller at the ready for the majority of my tracked metrics. All is working well for the vast majority of nights. Bonus is being able to wake up without an alarm clock every day. Verdict Keep it up. Nature Baths since our move up north, I've had the opportunity to start visiting a number of nature preserves, forest preserves, and state and county parks. Some hikes are led by a naturalist, which has been really enlightening to better understand what it is that I'm actually seeing biologically, ecologically, geologically, historically and climactically. My wife and I actually had the opportunity to participate in an archaeological dig at one of the preserves and it was fascinating. These also allow for opportunities for trail runs, hikes, and my beloved nature baths. Research shows that time spent in nature can improve our mental health and sharpen our cognition. Dr. Sam Ze explains how getting outside is especially important during the heightened stress of anxiety of the pandemic. And of course that's in the link is in the show Notes Verdict Keep them up Meditation. Sorta. I have a free subscription to the premium version of Calm via benefit of my American Express Card paid membership. I've been a passive user of it with the free version for a while on an as need be basis. I very much enjoy some of the specific offerings and periodically would use one of their approaches. When I was having a rough time, I experimented with some of the additional features, but actually I found that I didn't need to use it as much in response to anxiety and stress because it seemed like those stresses and anxieties had been diminishing. Of course, I think that's a result of a variety of different kinds of things, not one specific approach or technique. So again, just as a reminder, this is an inherent problem with giving any kind of advice as there's so many additional intervening and extraneous variables that may or may not have been a causal influence in an outcome, but nevertheless it's there. It's a tool. And the verdict is I'm going to keep it up. Plant Based Eating I will remain plant based. As to my diet, I know it's not for everyone and while I'm not an evangelist, I am a big fan. I enjoy Dr. Michael Greger's work, his book how not to Die and his great Google talk as a topic on the topic as a primer. If you're new to this and the links are in the show notes, I'm doing a pretty good job of eating cleaner. Also eating less processed food. There's more farm to table options where we live now. Also for canned goods like various beans, I only buy them in non BPA coated cans. I provide links to some of my favorite vegan resources and my first integrative article on healthspan in the show. Notes from my experience, in spite of all my workouts and physical challenges, I have not taken ibuprofen, what I used to call Vitamin I actually, in years. I'm thinking this may be the result of more yoga eating, plant based, taking turmeric in my food, improved hydration, and those daily tart cherry shots. Verdict keep it up. P.S. what I'm now doing also seems to be working from some other metrics. I have a BMI of 28.1. I'm 170 at 6 foot 2. And in terms of other biometrics and measuring the results of the above, I just had my annual labs done and all is looking a okay. Intellectual and Creative Podcast Hosting and Producing I continue to be very proud and engaged with doing this podcast. It gives me a chance to learn about a new area or go deeper into a familiar area. Being afforded the opportunity to read a guest's newest book or be able to learn more about their work and how it is they go about what they do is exciting, albeit a little intimidating. Getting to spend time and converse with such amazing people is also a humbling honor. The journalistic aspect of doing background research, scripting the questions, etc. Is also very stimulating and yields a side effect of an enjoyable creative process that goes into developing an episode as well. This past year there's been an increase in the number of sharp folks requesting to be on the show, so I'm taking that as evidence of the show's popularity. Along with growth of our audience, producing the show is also an opportunity for me to learn new technical tools and platforms, which the nerd in me very much enjoys. Verdict Keep it up. Reading I also read other nonfiction that's not show related and of course I keep a list. If you want to check out the link that's in the show notes of my past reading lists. Feel free if you're interested. That's certainly available to you. If you want to geek out on what I've been consuming that way. Keep it up. Stoic Philosophy in my inbox I've always been a fan of Stoic philosophy and Seneca in particular. I just recently started listening to the Stoic Podcast by Ryan Holiday and started getting his daily Stoic post. It's a helpful philosophical reminder that works to mitigate some of my anxiety and better focus and give me a better focus and perspective on the day. Verdict Keep it up Things that help keep me sharp, happy, and intellectually challenged and growing. I plan to make more time for my son and I have started our own weekly film club to watch a specific director's work together and to discuss it. We've started with Tarantino and next up will be Hitchcock and it's a kick Chess on Demand via a nice little app that I have. I'm a big fan of Jeopardy. I've got the app, I watch it on Hulu. You can do it on Alexa. We have the family board game version of it. I just very much enjoy that humor and laughing. I'm a big fan of Conan and watch a lot of standup on streaming channels. I very much enjoy podcasts as a consumer. Music and curated playlists are great, especially with a lot of my lifting workouts and really reading everything. Curating for LinkedIn is fun and having authors as guests on my show, writing original content for LinkedIn and for Medium and for Geekly as well as invited book reviews and working on meeting the needs of those that we work through at the center for Global Initiatives. Verdict Keep Them up Work and Finances Financial Independence Retire early or Fire as now being a part of the financially independent retired early crowd, it's even more important for me to keep on top of all things financial. I'd like to avoid an epic fail in the financial area of our lives. Part of what got us to where we are today was grinding out the first 10 post doctoral years which coincided with the first 10 years of our marriage. In that time we were able to buy our first home, a one bedroom condo and pay off dual graduate school loan debt that was almost $200,000 adjusted for today's dollars in adjusted to inflation. And to do some long haul international trips, I had a private in and outpatient practice and administrative position in a healthcare facility. I taught at various graduate school programs and I worked on book deals and consulting gigs. My wife likewise worked 50 plus hours a week in various clinical assessment and supervisory roles that all helped create our nest egg. Plus living very frugally. I had a $500 used pickup truck was huge for me. Next we started investing and for a period of time I even ran a website on Finance called smartwealth.com. i was registered as a principal from the SEC for a period of time period of time as well. Doing that work helped me learn about momentum investing, valuation and macroeconomics. I traded my own funds but freely advised others on my approach via the site. While it was a very public and nerve wracking way to work in the markets, I I also learned a great deal that I still use to this day. Being a metrics and performance nerd, I've switched to having most of our investments with personal capital for their aggregating dashboard, built in spending tools and tax efficiency that I cannot parallel. And great advice. This coupled with our frighteningly smart accountants makes for a better night's sleep. Here's what I still find helpful and enjoyable. I read and love the Wall Street Journal. I watch and love CNBC and Bloomberg tv. Minimalism as noted at the start in regards to lifestyle, we have evolved into the less is more perspective of life. Use it or appreciate it and value it or donate it. We also tend to value experiences over possessions. We're not evangelistic or kooks about it. And again to each is his own as is befitting Ramit Sethi to the rescue. I love his point that one should be unrelenting on saving, on the things that don't matter to you, and with the counterbalance of splurging on what does. His book is fantastic, especially for younger folks. I bought my son and daughter their own copies and gifted 17 more for my son's friends as high school graduation gifts. I even bought the second edition that came out for my new graduate daughter. Keep it up why I Think Retirement Is a four Letter Word I have a strong aversion to being called retired. I read a simple little note in a call out box in the April Pardon Me March April 2020 issue of Inc. Magazine about return on life rather than the familiar return on investment or roi. They noted it as a noun and defined it as the novel idea that the value of wealth lies in the rich life that we can create with it, not in the status that comes with exorbitant displays of Reminded me of the overarching philosophy of Morgan Housel's new book that I have so enjoyed and will be gifting the Psychology of Money. This next excerpt is from the Mad Fientist podcast with an interview with Morgan and it nails how I feel about retirement being a four letter word and financial freedom at whatever age is what is important. And I quote to me the level that really matters is when you can, for various reasons just wake up and virtually any day say I can do whatever I want. Today you can work really hard at work that you're really passionate about if that's what you want to do. But you can take time off, you can do that too. You can hang out with your family, you can do that. It's maintaining control over your schedule and there's a lot of different ways to do that. That roughly falls into the FIRE framework, which is something that I like in the sense of financial independence. But retire early is almost this idea that you're committing yourself not to working again. Which is where it gets a little rough for me. Because most people, even if they have full control over what they do, most able bodied, smart people who are under the age of 65 would say that they're going to wake up most days and say, I want to do good work today. I want to go to work. I want to put my brain to work, I want to put my muscles to work. I want to be productive in society. That's what most people want to do. But I think as long as you can do it on your own terms, doing the projects you like when you want to do them with, who you want to do them with for as long as you want to do them, then you can stop whenever you want. And to me this is the high addivity, highest dividend that money pays. Here, here. My feelings exactly. Morgan. Thanks. Verdict Keep it up. I also think that Scott Galloway's wonderful talk about the algebra of happiness offers a very helpful observation that echo many of these aspects and it's a treat to watch. So I've got a link to it in the show Notes. There's also a luxury, pardon me, of feeling unrushed. While I still have deadlines for various writing projects, the podcast, and various advisory meetings, it's not the same as when I working 45 plus hour work weeks. Keep it up. Advisory Services now that I have more bandwidth to provide advisory services to new tech and healthcare startups and nonprofits, as well as consult with established entities in need of a hand, I have operationalized this more so as well and I curate a vast set of resources that you can see in the show Notes. I've also found that in 2020, startups did not seem to have a decrease. In fact, I've become much more active in the startups that I've already been a part of, and I've been getting other invitations and requests for advisory or consultative roles to help promising nascent companies. I've continued to develop my advisor toolkit and look forward to doing more. Verdict Keep it up Documentary Executive Producer I was excited to be an Executive producer for the documentary film Somewhere Else, together with two creative and adventuresome friends of mine and to be able to be of modest help behind the scenes, as it were. Covid unfortunately has thrown a wrench into submissions to film festivals in the United States and its public theatrical release. Nevertheless, it's available on IMDb and in Europe and on DVD after a limited cinema run there. I'm looking forward to 2021 and being able to get a wider distribution of it in the United States. In the meantime, please check out our trailer. There's a link in the show Notes after the US Public release, I'll be done. That's the verdict. Nonprofit Humanitarian Intervention, the nonprofit I founded, center for Global Initiatives, was recognized for its eighth consecutive year as a top ranked healthcare nonprofit and achieved platinum level recognition by guidestar. One of our talented volunteers was able to get an ambulance for our partners in Tanzania, which was just really incredible. This work is very near and dear to me, a very large initiative that we have built in 2020 and will be officially launching in 2021 is the development of two certificate programs and fellowship programs. The center started by working with partners across the globe. We soon found that an all volunteer organization was not scalable for us to be involved in all the projects we wanted. So we pivoted and developed an approach that we refer to as Open source Humanitarian intervention in that we provide tools freely and resources to others to help them do their work. In the humanitarian space. We work to reduce the friction and hassles often associated in the process of helping and working with others. Somewhat of a teach a person to fish ethos. Now we've taken the open source approach and applied it to providing instruction and learning. All the materials that we use in our sifting certificate program are free all the time to anyone everywhere, even if you're not part of the program. All tuition goes to fund the work of the center and its projects. No core faculty are paid, including our program Chair, which is me. What we've done is to open source and curate materials including articles, chapters, videos, talks, lectures, webinars, podcasts, books, websites, apps and any other helpful media into a syllabus. And that syllabus is part of a structured curriculum that when successfully completed, will yield a certification in the area of specialization. From the center, we've developed an education and research consortium and contracted with a number of top universities, medical schools and international NGOs. We have built a world class faculty and agreements in order to provide the tools, network, contacts and support for center scholarship to make a difference in the world and to advance their careers. We've reconfigured our Center's Facebook group to serve as a daily news feed on the COVID pandemic, providing source verified curated information along with other global health matters. In 2020, we continue to focus our financial support in consultation to our primary partner in Tanzania. We will continue to do so. While I'm currently revitalizing our programs and training, I nevertheless think about Schumpeter's creative destruction with our center when the time's right. I think it's important for founders to think about the longevity and the relevance of their organization over the course of time. And I've thought about this at some length and written about it with links of course in the show notes. It also makes me think about a piece that I wrote on Stuart Brand's perspective about five year timelines for projects and to first do the math as to how many more projects you have time for and then choose carefully. Along these lines, I've been in touch with Derek Sivers regarding his coming onto the show and his philosophy of responding to requests that should either be a hell yes or a courteous no. This is particularly helpful in the context that for every yes you give there needs to be a counterbalancing. No thank you as we don't have infinite availability of time. Verdict Keep it up for now. And speaking of time, work and thus productivity, I've been very proud of using systems to get through and organize a backlog of 16,000 emails and now have almost basically a consistent inbox zero. So I've got some links for that and some photos that you should check out in the show notes. Verdict keep it up 2021 since I was a teenager I have been cooking up and doing a bunch of challenging or interesting things of which I keep a running tally that combines the TO with the done. I call mine the Life list or Life Resume. Take a look at what I mean, there's a link for it in the show notes and consider how you could design yours. And I think if this is something that is of interest, I think you might like it as a model that you can mimic from. I'm still working on many of them and the list will continue to evolve as I will add to it. I love the experience of accomplishing a listed goal and the subsequent treat and tweeting about it of checking it off and having the memory so here goes for 2021. Some are new and some remain from 2020 that didn't quite get done. Upcoming goals for our first winter up north will be to get into snowshoeing, winter hiking and back into cross country skiing. I have a set of little mini cleats that I put on my running shoes that help me get a grip on the icy conditions on pavement. They are amazing and I've ordered some pretty high tech heated gloves and socks for longer heights hikes in these colder climbs, sea kayaking once it's summer again. Also, I'm not a great swimmer. I did however get scuba certified. Basically I flailed around for a mile's worth of pool laps to be able to get that certification. So my goal is to become more comfortable in the water. I'm living in an area where there is much more water activities and availability so it makes sense to do that and I'm thinking of trying Tim Ferriss approach of using the late coach Terry Laughlin's Total Immersion method. If any of you have experience with this, you know, please ping me and I'd like to know what how you've done it and what your experience of it was like Also, speaking of water and fear, I want to practice sort of a Laird Hamilton style in our pool with being submerged, holding 25 pound plates and getting comfortable with that and increasing my underwater times. Just because I'm a glutton for punishment. I want to also play a better role and become a better partner in managing various household duties. Now that I have the availability and time for that, I want to become more comfortable in the kitchen and putting into play some of my baby super baby beginner easy step methods from Marco Borgia's wonderful Green Print book. I highly recommend it. I'm also going to try and follow Dr. Greger's Daily Dozen that I have not been very consistent with in 2020, so I hope to do better in 2021. My work at being a lyricist has been fits and starts. I have to get my head in a much different place, even differently than when I'm writing. I believe that I have a rough draft of the lyrics, but I'm not quite convinced and I haven't yet paired it properly with the instrumental music. So I'll be continuing to learn and work on that in 2021. I also want to improve my comfort and skills with a GoPro camera that I bought and I have a Nikon DSLR camera for shooting video. So I'm going to get more experience and expertise with that, do more videos. I also started something called Epic 60s when I turned 60. That's now evolved into Epic Living as a lot of those activities aren't living limited to anyone just being over 60. They're kind of all ages. So that's basically been on the shelf for 2020 because of the pandemic and I hope to get back to it once we're a bit past the pandemic. The nerd in me also I'd like to get my ham radio license. I also up here where we are now, I want to become a volunteer first responder, a firefighter. I want to learn how to pick a lock. I want to get back into pencil sketching and watercolor. I want to learn more about the constellations. We have a local astronomical society and astronomy center very nearby. And pardon me, we also have one of the few dark sky parks in the country. I've been there a couple times. It's really outstanding. So I'd love to know more and learn more about what it is that I'm seeing. I'd like to have the opportunity to get my gravel bike out on our trails more. I want to visit all the lighthouses in Door County. I want to visit all the nature preserves in Door County. I want to get back into target shooting, which I used to do a fair amount and try out axe and knife throwing. I know that's weird, but I'm curious about it. I want to work on my bench and deadlift, being more involved at the yoga. I want to reacquaint myself with playing tennis at our courts, which also would be a bonus to do with my wife journaling and reviewing journaling on gratitude in particular. Being in our new place allows me to be outside much more and this has increased my concern for the environment all the more so so I want to be more conscientious as to decrease my negative impact. I was also inspired by my conversation with the amazing Wilfred Welch Wilfred Welch and an episode a while back that I have in the show notes that I think you would like as well. If travel does open back up, then we'd like to complete the El Camino de Santiago de Campostela pilgrimage by running a half marathon a day just so I can make it harder. So hopefully we might be able to do that in the fall of 2021 and hopefully with my wife as well to climb and participate in the Bhutan Wilderness Medicine Conference that also gives continuing medical education credits and stuff. I'm keeping it as an option for 2021. It was something I wanted to do this last year and being a bit of a combination of having fun with travel and a motorcycle nut, it would be fun to do either in 2021 or 2022 the great Mali Rally from the south of England to the tip of northern Scotland on a motorbike. I want to continue content stacking. For example, when I do a podcast, not only do I post it on just about every audio platform, but I also do a write up and that write up shows up in LinkedIn and Medium and Academia Edu as posts. I also save the audio file as an MP4 and post on YouTube and Vimeo with a static image so one conversation, one episode, can be found and consumed in a variety of different preferred ways that an audience member would want. And this year the focus of my work has seemed to also evolve with greater freedom to now write about and work on things that are important to me. I've gotten back into the love of the difficult. So in closing, and to repeat, we are very complex beings biologically and psychologically. In managing our lives. We begin at a point in time and we have some options and choices. I simply recommend that we all experiment, that we try things out and on for size, keep what works, discard what doesn't, tweak, iterate, experiment and have a bit of fun. Our bodies and our psyches change over time and situations, so we always need to monitor and course correct as need be. Please consider this an open invitation to join me on any of my yet to be accomplished activities. Many of you have already done them, so I would warmly welcome any tips, tools, methods, recommendations, leads, hacks, contacts, etc. And the sharing of your experiences and advice. Thanks and until next time. Living a Life in Full is a production of Stout Media, a subsidiary of Gordian Knot, LLC. Assistant Producer Gracie Wong Music Dan O' Brien Executive Producer and Host Dr. Chris Stout to learn more, stop by our website A Lifeinfull for show notes and please recommend us to your friends and subscribe on your favorite platform. And as for the obligatory disclaimer, this podcast is for general information uses only and does not constitute the practice of psychology, medicine, nutrition or other professional healthcare services, including the giving of medical or psychological advice. No doctor patient relationship is formed. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, I take conflicts of interest seriously. For all of my disclosures as well as show notes, please see livingalifeinfull.org podcast and my LinkedIn profile. Thanks and until next time.