Too Close to Burn Out..

I’m going to take a break from the blog for two weeks. The past to months have been really crazy. Not only have I set higher standards for myself than ever before, I have also been sick in reoccuring fevers for 2 months, launched a product I’ve worked on for 3 years, bought an apartment and also learning how to be a dad.

I recognize the signals and I don’t want to hit the wall again. It’s been some tough times and I need to take a step back. I know it sounds like excuses, but it’s the responsible thing to do. I’d rather take a little time off now than needing 6 months off further down the road.

See you soon!

I’m Sexy and I Grow it. Month 3.

It’s the 26th of November and it’s time for some beard progress review for month 3. I have cheated a bit. I did get a trim at the barber to reduce some of the chaos that uncontrolled breard growth creates. The excuse was that I had to do some interviews and a panel at Comic-con/Gamex a couple of weeks ago and I wanted to look proper. We reduced as little as possible but of course it has some impact on the results we see today.

I’m in a state of “beard doubt” at the moment. I feel like the beard does more harm than good for my appearance right now. I have to remember that this is not the final product and that I have to wait a few more months before I’m ready for the barber to properly style it. The goal is a well groomed professional appearance . After that it’s time for a “yay or nay” beard decision.

Here is the post barber version:

 

I Can Do It, Just Watch Me!

How hard can it be? I have been working on this the whole year and still I sat in my sofa with my mouth full of tobacco not even a week ago. I’m not going to fail my goal of being nicotine free in 2015 because of excuses and lack of character. I want my son to have a father that is independent and a role model. Your are not independent if you are dependent on fucking nicotine to function in your daily life. Nuff Said.

I have not taken one snus (swedish type of tobacco) for 7 days today. To ease the transistion to a nicotine free life I have taken nicotine pills when the abstinence is to hard to handle. Which is a couple of times a day. The plan was to get off the pills after a week. Which is tomorrow!

I’m going to prove to myself that I am strong and that I am an independent person. If you want more updates on my progress you can follow the battle on lifestylelabz.

Also, I want to here your stories about changing habits. What is your big battle? Comment and share!

Nerds, Watch in Agony as I Unclutter my Man Cave!

It’s time to let go. Thanks for all the great experiences you have provided over the years! It’s time for another round in my effort to unclutter my life. This one will be harder the the previous ones since it’s about getting rid of my old video games. Seriously, It’s not that hard. I know I won’t replay any of these old games anytime soon. But it’s still has some nostalgic value. I mean Mass Effect 2, Fall Out 3, Dark Souls and Arkam Asylum are games that really connected with me and I sent hundreds of hours exploring those worlds. Banjo-Kazooie: Nut & Bots, wow, that was a hidden gem of the last generation of console games.

Here is what I will get rid of this time around:

• Xbox 360 + 70 games
• Playstation 3 + 10 games
• Wii U + 1 game
• 22 sealed Amiboos

The nerds and collectors reading this might think I’m crazy for getting rid a these fine memories and potential future antiques. But the truth is that since a few years back I noticed that I spend less and less time thinking about the past because the present and future has become way too interesting. And for every day I care less about material things. What I’m really interested in is achieving finacial freedom, full control of my time and life long learning.

It will be interesting to see what kind of money I can get from selling this stuff. My plan is to invest the money in stocks. Starbucks maybe? In 20 years it will be interesting to see what is worth more, my Starbucks stocks or a few old consoles.

“If it rusts, rots, or depreciates, strive to have as little of it as possible”

I like this quote. It kind of frames the mindset one gets when you start to learn about how money actually works.

Why Every Man Should Grow a Beard.

I never get a clean shave. I use a trimmer on 3mm every two weeks usually. A very indecisive approach to facial hair I have to say. Never shaved and never really bearded. Always somewhere in between.

One of my latest experiments here at the lab is growing a manly beard. I bet a lot of men wonder what could have been but never find the courage or have the determination to stick with it for long enough to reach their full beard potential. I am one of them.

There are alot of reasons why I grow a beard:

• I hate to shave.
• I like the way beards look.
• I would have something to stroke when I’m thinking.
• I always wanted to grow a beard.

Now I’m in middle of the third month of beard growing right now and I thought this project would be a great blog series to show the width of lifestyle experiments this site is all about.

I believe every man should grew a beard ones in their lifetime. You owe it to yourself and those who can’t.

Here are some photos of my beard progress. These where originally meant for private tracking but I guess I don’t mind posting these bad hair day shoots.

Falling Off Track and Sucking at Life

I both hate and love to write this post. I hate it because I have ones again surrendered to tobacco. And I love it because this is what Lifestyle Laboratory is all about; documenting a journey. Most journey don’t get straight to the goal. There are bumps in the road, Pirates on the sea and sharks in the water. I want write about those encounters too because that’s how life is.

I have been sick for weeks with fevers that keeps coming back. The doctors don’t know what it is yet, but they suspect some kind of virus infection. Being this weak has really put me into my lower self. I have feasted on cheeze doodles, candy and soda. But worst of all is that I started to buy tobacco (swedish snus) again. Out of pity for my own situation. Now I lay here in my sofa, stuffing my face full of snus, and watch old movies on Netflix.

I’m going to quit this year. But right now I’m far from tobacco free. What makes you lose your willpower? What makes you fall back to old habits?

Stepping up my Game: Mentors

I’m starting to think about new goals for 2016. A big one will be to get mentors. I never really had one, I don’t know where to start looking or how to approach them. What I do know is that I want to cut the learning curve by taking advice from people that already succeeded in what I want to achieve and are at least 10x better than me in whatever subject they are mentoring me in.

It’s scary to reach out to people you admire and being rejected doesn’t always feel great. But most people that do great things have had mentors of their own, and you reaching out to them will remind them of how they ones where in your shoes. At least that’s what I’m trying to convince myself off when I try to contact them.

Today I contacted a Chinese person that wanted to learn Swedish and asked if she could help me with my Mandarin skills and if we could be in person language partners.
This one was not so scary since I have something to offer in return; My Swedish. And she passes the 10x requirement since she is a native Mandarin speaker. It will be much harder to find financial, health and business coaches. I mean, what can I offer in return?
At least I took some action today.
If you have any advice on finding mentors or want to share your experiences on this topic, please write something in the comment section.

Goal Progress: Learning Mandarin Chinese

I Love This Goal! It makes me super excited as its really ambitious and challenging. It’s long term and has to be worked on every day of the year. If I miss a week, I regress. This forces me to be consistent over a long period of time. Another thing with learning languages, which is also true with strength training, is that it never gets easier. If it’s not hard then your are not pushing yourself enough and you will plateau.

Im so passionate about this topic that I could go on forever about how learning languages ties into personal development. But enough of that and let’s take a look at my Mandarin goals for 2015 and where im currently at. Here is what I set out to accomplish this year when I started learing Chinese back in January:

Learning Chinese Year 1:

• Learn 500 Chinese Characters
• Finish Pimsleurs Mandarin I, II & III.
• Being able to read “Little Bear Lived in a Mounatin Cave” Mandarin short story.

These goals where then revised during the year when I learned more about the language and the aim for this year is now:

• Learn 750 Chinese Characters
• Finish pimsleurs mandarin I, II & III
• Learn HSK 3 Vocabulary & Characters
• Learn all Radicals
• Being able to read “Little Bear Lived in a Mounatin Cave” Mandarin short story.

This might not sound very ambious. I mean, if I was a full time student in China I would expect I lot more from one year of studies. The thing is that this is something I do on my sparetime. Having a baby in the beginning of this year made my spare time shrink to almost zero. To find time for studies I had to restructure how I use my time. I had to cut Instagram, video games, Facebook and the news.

So where am I at? Let’s look at each item.

• Learn 750 Chinese Characters

I’m a at about 680 right now, but the progress has slowed down as I mostly learn words with combinations of characters I already know. But this goal will be met this year.

• Finish pimsleurs mandarin I, II & III

Im on the third part of this audio course right now, lesson 10 of 30, and I think I will make this one! This course has been really good for improving prenounciation.

• Learn HSK 1-3 Vocabulary & Characters

HSK is standardized test for chinese proficiancy. My goal is to finish 1,2 and 3 this year which in total is about 600 characters. I have about 80 more to go this year. Hopefully I’ll get there!

• Learn all Radicals

Done! Radicals are the buildingblocks of chinese characters. One or several of this buildingblocks makes up a character and by knowing the meaning of these parts hints on a characters meaning  and how a might be pronounced.

• Being able to read “Little Bear Lived in a Mounatin Cave” Mandarin short story.

This is a weird goal. I guess the reason have this on my list is to don’t forget to practice my reading skills. Naming a certain text like this was just a way to make the goal clear and the definition of completion understandable.

Thats it! I’m pretty happy with my progress so far and it’s been fun. Chinese felt impossible to learn when I started. But I’m breaking it down one piece at the time. My biggest challenge for learning Mandarin will be to stay motivated and keep doing what I’m doing for a few more years.

I would love to hear about your experiences from language learning in the comments below!

Stop Sucking Your Thumb!

People have alot of opinions about Tai Lopez, but when a person that reads one book every day is giving advice, the least you can do is listen.

I watched this video the other day about productivity. In this video he gives the viewer a 5 day challenge. “Everything that people put on you. Shoot it right back!”. Don’t put off for tomorrow anything you can do right now. You get an email, don’t wait to answer it. Do it right away. Got a missed call. Call that person up right away. You don’t want these small thing to stack up in your brain. Get rid of all the small to-do:s immediatly instead of having it linger in the back of your head and eat up you cognitive resources. If a task i not important? Take a executive decision not to do it or delegate it. Right away.

It will not work for everything, all day long. But this 5 day challenge is designed for you to find out, through practice, when it’s beneficial take action immediately. There is alot more information in the video if you want to know more.

Since listening only takes you so far, unless you take action. Therefore I will do this challenge and see where It brings me and I’ll share the results with you next week. These types of experiments is what Lifestyle Laboratory is all about. What action are you taking this week?

Here is the.

 

Do You Work for Money or is Money Working for You?

I’m doing a write up on my Finacial goals progress for this year, which I will post when it’s ready.

Yesterday I listened to a quite famous audiobook, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, by Robert T Kiyosaki. It’s a really excellent book about how differently poor and middle class people think about money compared to the rich. It basically teaches captialism 101, which might sound scary to some people. I have always seen captitalism as the root of all evil during my teenage years and early aduldhood. I have killed this limiting belief. Now I don’t care about left vs. right politics and just want to see as many perspectives as possible. I’m accepting the world as not being black and white. The truth is probably somewhere in the greys. Learning about money and capital the last few years has really been a eye opener for me.

Do you work for money or is money working for you? Please spare 3 hours of your life to listen to this book if you want to improve your economy and escape the rat race. It will change your perspective on money. And if you take action and apply the principles of this book you will be on your way to riches.

The full book is Available on Youtube:

Rich Dad, Poor Dad