Adam Kayce

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I love these shoes. I love ‘em so much, I have to share them with you. And, in the same vein as recommending eye exercises to rid yourself of glasses and/or contacts, I totally recommend you get yourself a pair.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit they do look a bit odd at first…

http://www.vimeo.com/7920232

… but they feel amazing, and you get used to them really quick.

You may have heard of Vibram Five Fingers before; they’re definitely making the rounds among the kind of people who know a good thing when they see it (heck, there’s even a site completely devoted to them!). But if you haven’t, I highly encourage you to try them. Why?

Because they’re ultra-comfy.

I’ve always loved being barefoot, from being a kid at the beach to playing grass volleyball in college. I always take my shoes off indoors, and I love the warm seasons because it means I can get away with flip-flops most days. Wearing shoes is like wearing a tie; in some situations you have to do it, but if I had my druthers, those days would be few and far between.

With VFF’s, though, you can go anywhere you need to, and it feels like you’re barefoot. And because they’re so light, even after a day of walking everywhere, your feet feel great. No more tired ol’ dogs.

You feel more connected to your environment.

When I walk on any surface, I can feel it intimately. Seriously: the second day I had them we went to the movies, and I got grossed out because I could feel the stickiness of the carpet. (But, even on sharp gravel, the sole is enough to protect you from feeling any pain, so you can walk around relaxed.)

Your feet get stronger.

Think about it: for millions of years, we’ve been barefoot. How were we able to run after mastodons, trek over mountains, and still survive if we hobbled along, muttering, “Ouch! Ooch! Oaff!” every time we stepped on a rock? Because we didn’t, that’s why. When you go barefoot, your feet adapt. The ligaments, tendons, and musculature of your feet are strengthened by walking and running barefoot. It’s the wearing of shoes that weakens your feet, by doing the work that your feet should be doing for themselves.

I hike in the mountains wearing these shoes, and four days a week, I do my CrossFit workouts in them. Whether I’m Olympic lifting, sprinting, or doing any of the myriad of exercises I do in CF and the M.E.B.B. protocol I follow, I haven’t had any problems doing them in my VFF’s.

If you’re planning to run in them, I highly recommend easing into it. I started learning POSE running while wearing other shoes, and it took some time to strengthen my feet and calves to the point where I could run without a lot of soreness. When I switched over to the Five Fingers, the technique was much easier, but I was glad I had built up my strength as much as I had. And now, running in them is a joy. My feet/calves almost never get sore, and I can’t explain how great it feels to run without big, clompy shoes weighing me down.

Now, it’s not all sunshine and roses…

The only complaint I have about them is that, well, they stink. After all, I don’t wear socks with them, and after all that exercise, they can get pretty funky. I’ve scoured many online forums where people talk about them, looking for a good solution, and this is what I’ve come up with:

• Clean them after every use. It only takes a couple of minutes, and it’s well worth it.
• I spray them with Trader Joe’s Cedarwood & Sage All-Purpose Cleaner, and Earth Day Products’ “Everyday Stain & Odor Remover”, letting each one sit for a few minutes before rinsing them out and spraying the other. When the weather is warm, they’ll dry on their own pretty quickly, but in the winter, I prop them up against a fan and let them “blow dry” that way.

(If you’re a VFF wearer, and you’ve found something that cleans them well, please leave a comment and share your secret!)

They’re not for going incognito in.

The first time I got asked about my bizarre shoes was within ten minutes of buying them, and the interest hasn’t slowed much (just imagine when I get the red ones!). When people see these shoes, they almost often stare, and the more adventurous ones will strike up a conversation, asking me where I got them, what the story is behind them, and if I love them.

And of course, the answer is always yes.

I am thoroughly and utterly convinced that fear is the driving force behind every bad decision we ever make.

Now, don’t be afraid of fear—that’s a scary thought!—just learn to recognize it for what it is.

And now, on with our story.

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Once upon a time, there was an idealistic youth (let’s call him John) who believed that perfection existed, and to seek it was the best use of one’s life. He was sure that the attainment of perfection would result in happiness. He quickly learned, of course, that perfection was an impossible ideal (not to mention a miserable one). So, instead of seeking perfection, he saught inner peace, believing it would bring him happiness.

The search for inner peace led John to a group of other like-minded people who also saught the same thing, all rallied around a teacher who demonstrated some very successful techniques to help his students find and experience that peace. As the group grew, the teacher realized that he must establish a “method”, so others could teach the work as well. After all, what good would it do unless a means could be identified? And so, this method became concretized, shared, and taught to many more seekers of peace.

John, who believed the methods and the community around it to be the best thing he’d ever seen, became a teacher of this system. He taught others the methods, used them himself, and his life got better.

But then, a shadow began to grow…

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You know I’m a die-hard coconut fan, right? I mean, I named my webdesign company Bright Coconut, I’ve won recipe contests for coconut-laden recipes, we use coconut oil in our cooking, and I honestly eat something with coconut in it each and every day, no exceptions.

So, you can imagine that I’m always on the lookout for ways to sneak coconut into all kinds of recipes… and I found one recently. It was good to start with, but a little coconut took it over the edge.

“Fauxtatoes” are the name I came up with for these yummy puppies after we made them a few times, because the consistency is pretty much exactly like mashed potatoes. And, they’re the closest I’ll get to eating ‘taters, since I’m a Primal guy, through and through.

Here’s the recipe:

• 1 head o’ cauliflower, chopped however
• 32oz chicken stock
• 4-5 garlic cloves, peeled

… all in a big pot, adding water to just about cover the cauli, boil for about 15 minutes until it softens up a bit. Depending on how thick your pieces are, it may take 20-25 minutes. It’s all good, though.

Drain off the liquid, and mash it all up—if you have a hand blender, by all means use it—adding:

• a splash of coconut milk
• butter (no, you do not measure this. trust me… just add butter, and then add some more)
• salt & pepper to taste

Yum!

Now, these are tasty, with or without the coconut milk. But what kind of coconut addict would I be if I didn’t add some?

I’d love to hear what you think if you try these, especially if you play around with the spices some… I’m more than happy with how these have come out, but I’d be open to experimentation (curry? herbs de provence? ginger?)

Bon appetit!

It lies within you, thirsting.

Like a baby bird chirping desperately for its mother’s return to the nest to bring the food that will keep it alive, there is a yearning that lives within you, and it calls incessantly. It can be satiated with the smallest of moments, and it has a camel’s resistance to thirst, but if you ignore it too long, it will shrivel and die.

And as it does, color will fade from your world. Meaning will ebb away, enjoyment will wither, and you’ll sit around trying to remember a time in your life when richness existed. You’ll get dry, stiff… and when you hardly recognize the crusty you that you’ve become, you’ll chalk it up to being busy. Or being a parent. Or being a professional. Or getting older.

But it has nothing to do with any of those things.

The Urgent Call is your spirit’s need for connection. Like the migrating herds of the plains of Africa, who travel thousands of miles every year in search of life-giving food and water, your spirit has an essential drive to feel its connection to all around it. It’s the reason we seek community. It’s the reason we search for purpose and meaning in life. It’s the reason we feel better when we’re on a spiritual path, and it’s the reason that it doesn’t really matter what path that ends up being.

What matters is that you connect.
What matters is the Urgent Call gets listened to.
It doesn’t matter how your Urgent Call gets fulfilled, only that it does.

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Evernote rocks. Let me just sum it all up, right here, right now.

I’ve mentioned this before, but I still have conversations with people all the time where I mention Evernote, and they say, “Huh?” And that just blows my mind.

And the latest reason why I love them? Because not only have they produced the most awesome, flexible, useful piece of organizational software around, they also have a great sense of humor. That’s rare, people.

What I use Evernote for, just to give you a heads-up:

• managing all my client projects
• storing any and all info I find while out searching the interwebs
• recording all my recipes
• brainstorm-rain collection
• notes about places we’re thinking of moving to or visiting
• read the second one again, and let it sink in. Seriously.
• essentially everything I want to remember/record/store for the future, on subjects like WordPress, web design, CrossFit, nutrition, spirituality, personal development, family stuff, marketing, copywriting, and more.

Seriously, if you haven’t checked out Evernote, you’re bonkers. It’s awesome. It’s life-transforming. And—hello?—it’s free! Come on, now, people! Go get you some.

Ever notice how certain times of the year have a certain “energy” to them? I’m not just talking about the obvious seasonal changes, either; my auspicious rhythms tend to revolve around birthdays (I just had one), school vacation times, tax season, and New Year’s. Maybe it’s just the whole “collective consciousness” thing, even though that can sound like it’s on the fringes between common sense and froo-froo philosophy. Wherever the meaning comes from, I sure notice the effects in my life, and I’m guessing a lot of you do, too.

And as much as “cleaning” has been associated with the Spring, I tend to do a big cleanup and realignment of priorities in the Autumn. Maybe it’s the product of going to school every Fall from age 5 to 35 (K-college, then grad school and teaching seminars). Or maybe I’m getting ready for hibernation; who knows.

On my docket now are reviews of two products I’ve promised to do, but let slide in the face of busy-ness and upheaval. That’s not to diminish the value of the products, by any means; I thought they were great, each in their own way, and in their own intended use. (Okay, enough jabbering – on with the show!)

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I watched The Ramen Girl last night. I know, I know… not exactly the kind of movie you’d expect from a carnivorous, Olympic-lifting male, but I did. And you know what? I enjoyed it. Truth be told, I actually like romantic comedies as a genre—call me a sensitive, new-age guy, if you must—but what I enjoyed most from The Ramen Girl wasn’t the trials and tribulations of Brittany Murphy, or even the food (and I love food movies).

What I enjoyed most about the movie, without giving away too many details, was the main ingredient that Brittany Murphey’s character, Abby, learned to infuse into her ramen that made it special: spirit. Because in the end, this was not a movie about ramen, or romance. It was about finding one’s place in the world by focusing on the how more than the what.

“How” comes from within

The fact that Abby learned to make a great bowl of ramen is secondary to what it required of her to do it. She got the recipe right long before she was able to make a meal that was worthy of being served to her customers, because she was taught that making soup isn’t just about getting a bunch of ingredients and assembling them. It’s about heart. Unless your soup has spirit, it hasn’t got anything.

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You probably know I’m a CrossFit addict by now. It’s more fun than a cooler full of coconut milk, more effective than erosion, and anyone can do it just about anywhere. However, done on it’s own, with no regard to your nutrition, isn’t going to get you nearly as far or as fast as if you pay really good attention to what you’re eating and why.

Enter: Primal.

It’s not that CrossFit doesn’t have a nutritional recommendation: it does. And it’s about as simple and clear as it can get: Meat and veggies, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch, no sugar. And any CrossFitter worth his/her salt is going to be able to rattle that off like a well-grooved mantra. And, at the same time, knowing what to do and actually doing it are often not the same thing at all.

I’ve read all kinds of fantastic nutritional information before, and have for years, but never have I been able to make it a lifestyle like I have since adopting the “Primal Blueprint Eating Plan” like I have with Mark Sisson, at Mark’s Daily Apple.

Primal living is, in my own words, a prescription for eating the way we’ve evolved to. Our genome has honed itself for over 2 million years, adapting to a particular style of eating that didn’t really fluctuate until about 10,000 years ago. And, since that “recent” shift, we’ve done nothing but go downhill, health-wise, except for the hygienic changes that have increased our average lifespan. It’s pretty clear if you look at how we’ve evolved to eat that it makes a lot of sense to stick close to our own internal genetic recipe. After all, you wouldn’t pour rocket fuel in your car’s gas tank, right? It’s just not designed for it.

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Do you have a goal? Professional, personal, or otherwise? I bet you do, whether it’s to get a certain number of clients per month, to stop eating grains, or to learn to juggle.

Now, let me guess: You’ve got a system worked out to get you there, don’t you? You’re going to attend networking meetings, write blog posts, and update your LinkedIn profile. You’re going to only eat at home so you can control your meals, and throw all your old grains into the compost heap. You’re going to watch that Juggling For Fools video, and practice your juggling fifteen minutes every night after dinner.

No matter what the goal is, you’ve got a system, I’m sure. How am I so sure? Because systems are said to be the key to achieving everything these days. Just think about productivity… there’s GTD , ZTD , and Hipster PDA’s; Blackberries, Franklin Planners, and 37 Signals. What’s best? That’s like asking, “What’s the best kind of music?” It all depends on you, what you’re doing, and what works for you.

The point, in any instance, is not what system you use… it’s that you stick with it.

If you’ve dabbled in productivity systems for any length of time, you know what I’m saying is true, because everyone has discovered, researched, and spent time on setting up some kind of system, only to have the thing gather dust and fall by the wayside.

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Blogging is arguably one of the best, most fundamental actions you can take to further your business, your self-expression, and deepen your understanding of your place in the world. Don’t just take my word for it; ask Seth Godin & Tom Peters…

But there’s a big difference between writing for the heck of it, and actually expecting to get some positive return out of it. There’s also a big difference between writing a five-post boom-and-crash, and blogging for a lifetime.

Hoping to get some help both of those points, I recently watched an excellent video by Mr. 4HWW, Tim Ferriss, and I thought it was fantastic. He calls it “How to Blog without Killing Yourself”, and says, “one of my favorite presentations I’ve given in 2009.” After watching it, and taking notes of the highlights for myself, I’d have to agree.

Now, for anyone reading this who’s anti-Tim, just let me say this: On one hand, that’s cool. Like who you want, and don’t who you don’t. I’ve got no beef with you. But, if you’re thinking to leave me a trollish comment because you’ve got an issue with him, then answer this: Who are you? What have you done with your life so far? How many people have you impacted? Smile on your brother, y’know?

What I’ve written below is my own personal commentary on the notes I took from the above talk. He covers a lot more than what I took notes on, which is why I recommend you watch it – my takeaways are going to be different from your takeaways, by necessity and design. My hope in adding my notes is that it’ll help add some context to quotes taken entirely out of context, and lend some insight from my own personal perspective, for what it’s worth (and hey, if you’ve read this far, then maybe it’s worth enough to you to keep reading…).

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