Fit Rich Life

Newsletter #22

Weekly Tips, Tools & Strategies to alchemize your Fitness, Money & Life
Newsletter Archive

"Absorb what is useful. Discard what is not. Add what is uniquely your own." 
— Bruce Lee, Martial Artist & Actor

Greetings my fellow Life Alchemists!

I love the quote above because it really gets at what I think all of us should be doing. Namely, constantly learning, testing out new learnings, keeping what works & adding our own twist to it.

Through this iterative process, we can not only optimize our own path, but we can also develop our own life philosophy.

Without further ado, let's proactively build your Fit Rich Life—FRL! Your weekly dose of actionable tips, tools & strategies to alchemize your Fitness, Money & Life to the Next Level.

FITNESS: The nuance of optimal training intensity.
I believe most people do not train with enough intensity. This is one of the biggest reasons their fitness goals are not being achieved. If you want to create muscle growth you must signal to your muscles that they need to grow & this happens through the intensity of your training, both in the selection of the weight you use & number of reps you perform. My general recommendation is that for anyone who is in good health and in their 20s & 30s, you should be taking a majority if not all of your sets to failure. Meaning if you are going to perform 8-10 reps of a given exercise set you should be choosing a weight that only allows you to achieve the maximum of 10 reps and not a single rep more without seriously compromising form. This is called training to failure. This is one of the key ways to signal your muscles to grow bigger & stronger. The nuance comes in as you age along with how much you have on your plate at any given time. Now in my early 40s if I train to failure on every single set I will be so fried the next day that I will be unable to perform a good workout.  Now I target training to failure for 30-80% of the workout and always save a little in the tank for the next day. If my total bandwidth being utilized for my work and/or family is significantly higher in any given week I will have to dial my total workout intensity back a bit more. I talk about this more in Episode 52 of the Fit Rich Life Podcast.

MONEY: How to lower the cost of your rideshare when staying in an Airbnb.
When you land at your travel destination airport instead of immediately booking an Uber hop on any of the free hotel airport shuttles then when you arrive at the hotel book your Uber to your actual place of stay. There are additional rideshare fees that you (the end-user) have to pay when you get picked up at the airport. These do not go to the driver, they go directly to the rideshare company. You can easily save $10-$20+ with this little trick. [Hat tip to my friend James Lowery for this one.]

LIFE: Extend your success time horizon (and get help).
Many of us suffer from some form of "I should be more successful by now." When I turned 30 I felt like a total failure as it seemed like all my peers had figured out their money, careers, fitness & life while I felt like I had nothing to show. I was deep in debt, I did not like my job anymore, my career was killing me, I was unhappy with my fitness & I felt so behind in life. Fortunately, I went on to change careers, find meaningful work, pay off that debt, become wealthy & get in the best shape of my life. It took a lot of proactive work & I utilized a lot of coaching to get where I'm at but now at 41 I am further along than I ever thought possible. I now realize that if I could have just told my 30-year-old self to extend the time horizon from which he viewed his success & to get help he could have saved himself from years of pain, depression, anxiety, angst & self-flagellation. So, if you're not where you want to be in life, whether it be in your career, with your money, in your fitness or any area of life extend the time period over which you are evaluating yourself & get help to get where you want to go.

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Sending you all lots of Energy & plenty of Dragon Magic!

Your Fitness, Money & Life Coach,

Justin "Dragon" Carl

P.S. Below is the Full Video Production of Episode 52 of the Fit Rich Life Podcast on YouTube. Also available on Spotify, Apple & wherever you enjoy your podcast entertainment.