#to me would require unfathomable amounts of self confidence

[prettyboysdontlookatexplosions]

the “don’t perceive me / stop posting absolutely inane shit” tweet is sometimes (not always) me at rejectiom sensitive dysphoria twitter like a part of me doesn’t understand how you can say you are ruled by anxieties related to the approval of others and also go around in public proclaiming you believe yourself to have scientifically proven more intense feelings than almost the entire rest of the world. my personal niche and to be clear INSANE version of this is that if you claim low self esteem but also have birthday parties for yourself a part of me does not believe you

#actually in general a lot of times people who have talked about self esteem or other related problems do things that like #to me would require unfathomable amounts of self confidence #less so these days / less each year etc etc but #people really take for granted being normal about stuff i have definitely been too Fucking Nuts to even contemplate #although if i am forcing myself to be mature and wise #i guess there may be things about me other people would feel similarly about #like. ummmmmm #i have zero anxiety about cover letters and generally job hunting is not like #emotionally fraught for me #and job interviews are fine and can even be fun #i am also totally impervious to the opinions of genuine strangers #i don’t get embarrassed in front of random people i don’t know and don’t understand why anyone would #i also don’t really do the thing where i lie awake at night thinking about embarrassing stuff i’ve done #or overthinking interactions i had #ok. i think that’s my roster of reasons i could be accused of faking low self esteem #oh i also think i’m a good writer and don’t cringe reading my old writing. that’s a good one

[ohblackdiamond]

little t&a (gene/paul, nc-17) (part 29 of 29)

part 1   part 2   part 3   part 4   part 5   part 6   part 7   part 8   part 9   part 10   part 11   part 12   part 13   part 14   part 15   part 16   part 17   part 18   part 19   part 20   part 21  part 22   part 23   part 24    part 25   part 26   part 27   part 28   part 29

Four weeks before KISS gets back on tour, Gene discovers that Paul’s been cursed by a groupie. For the sake of KISS’ finances, Paul’s comfort levels, and Gene’s libido, this crisis must be resolved. Sexswap fic. In this chapter: One last temptation, and one last conclusion.

Notes: As this story draws to a close, I wanted to go ahead and thank everyone who's reviewed or even just read for their support. It makes my day, every day. 

I would like to thank a couple people in particular:  @baycitystygian, who read/commented over an early draft of the last chapter, @tanookikiss, who read/commented over several chapters, sometimes multiple times, and finally, most particularly, @planet-neun, who offered suggestions and advice (particularly on the final sex scene) on nearly all drafts from chapter six onward, and endured my various complaints and concerns over this story with an unfathomable amount of patience.I would also like to thank helena_s_renn over on Rockfic for her sticking with this story this entire time and providing amazing feedback every single chapter and step of the way.

         He was back at his parents’ old apartment, watching T.V. Same station, different airing. Hollywood Squares instead of Neil Armstrong. Paul Lynde rattling out some campy zinger. Beyond, in the next room, he could hear his mother on the phone, her tone low and worried, but he couldn’t tell what she was saying.

         Marbas was sitting next to him again on the couch, languid, nearly casual. No pretenses, no masks of Julia or Carol or any of the dozens of other girls who’d wandered in and out of his life. Paul tried to focus on the T.V. set, only daring to look at Marbas in fleeting, sideways glances, as though full acknowledgement would be too much to bear.

         “You took your time,” the demon said simply.

         (i guess it’s done now)

         “If that’s what you’d like.”

         (carol said—)

         “My powers are hardly dependent on a child’s understanding. You performed the ritual. But the end result is up to you, Stan.”

          (i’m going back to normal)

          (i’ve got to)

         “Why?” Marbas didn’t look surprised. Those yellow eyes were glinting with nothing but mild interest. “You took to the curse readily enough, once you saw what it brought you.”

         (i—)

         “I said you’d have been no different if you’d always been this way. I said you’d never have given yourself up to him. But I was wrong. You did all that was required.” His teeth glistened with spit. “You enjoyed it. You could keep enjoying it.”

         (i don’t—)

         “What’s a body to you, Stan? Something imperfect. Something to despise.” Marbas’ fingers reached over and lifted a curly lock of Paul’s hair, right at his temple. He felt the air on the remnant of his right ear, and cringed, trying to pull back. “Your insecurity makes you so malleable. What ties you to that other form? Nothing but familiarity. You’d be anyone at all as long as it gained you favor.”

         (you’re wrong)

         (i’m not like that—i’m myself, i have a self, i—)

           “You hate yourself.”

           Paul didn’t answer.

           “I could give you less to hate.” Marbas’ human hand cupped the stub of his ear without actually touching the cartilage, just the surrounding skin, pushing against the side of Paul’s face, easing his line of sight completely towards the screen. Paul inhaled sharply, unable to turn his head away from where Marbas was tilting it. His eyes were fixed to the television screen in front of him, the image fuzzing out, becoming his own. His face smiling at him. Only his teeth onscreen were straight and white. The longer he stared, the more changes he noticed. Subtle ones. Nothing that made him unrecognizable, just pushed him past sort of attractive and maybe almost into beautiful. More delicate, symmetrical facial features than he really had. A better figure, one with an actual waist and ass to go along with the tits, and a thinner frame overall. The kind of girl that Gene would want to have on his arm. The kind of girl that Gene was used to having on his arm.

             (gene said he didn’t want a playboy playmate)

             (gene said he wanted me)

           “Are you so sure about what he wants?”

          (he proved it)

           “He slept with you once.” Marbas’ voice was low and strange. “Would he have done that in your old body? Would he have ever considered it?”

           (no)

           “What makes you think he’ll consider it now?”

            (because he)

           (because he said there might be something after, that’s why)

           “He couldn’t make a guarantee.” The words seeped thick as honey, sticky against his soul. Nothing he wasn’t aware of. Nothing he could fault Gene for. “I could make it for him.”

            (we completed the ritual. y-you said so.)

           “Take a closer look, Stan. You might find something that appeals to you.”

           The girl on the T.V. tugged a hand through her curly dark hair without hesitation, pushing it away from her face, back behind a perfectly normal right ear. Better than any result he’d ever seen in those cosmetic surgery leaflets. Confident. So confident. The way everyone else was. The way everyone else must feel, all the time, with nothing to hide, nothing— and part of Paul was horrified at his own aching desire.

             (but—)

             (you can’t, there’s no way—)

           “Do you want to try it?” Marbas didn’t wait on an answer. His fingers, still curved around the remnant of Paul’s right ear, began to stroke it. Paul’s breaths were coming in short, sharp bursts, and this time was different, this time the stub of cartilage was shot through with sensation. It felt like far too much, the tingling, prickling feeling radiating outward, across his face, slipping in deeper, past his skin, all the way to his bones. The sensation traveled down his neck, spreading all the way through his chest and limbs, leaving him gasping, crying out.

             (what are you doing?!)

             (please, please stop, it hurts, it hurts!)

           Marbas let go of him, hand returning to rest on the back of the couch. Paul could move again, and he reached with shaking, disbelieving fingers to his ear. The folded-over stub was gone. It felt just like his left ear. And there was sound, clearer than he’d ever heard before in his life, more encompassing, more surrounding. Almost too intense and vivid to be believed. The whir of the fan on the floor, the buzz of the T.V., even his mother on the phone in the kitchen sounded so much more distinct— he could hear what she was saying, though her voice was strange and low—

           (are you okay)

           as tears started to sting his eyes and drip down his cheeks. Oh. Oh.

   He wanted to get up, to play every record in his collection and find out what he’d missed, what subtleties he’d lost out on. Catch all those intricate melodies and sound layerings in a way he’d never, ever been able to before. He wanted to go to all the parties he’d been too afraid to attend because he couldn’t distinguish the conversations. He wanted to play his guitar. He wanted to go onstage and fully hear that crowd for the first time in his life. He wanted to tell Gene—

           (paul?)

           His mother was still calling out from the kitchen, oddly questioning. Couldn’t have been speaking to him. She never called him anything but Stanley. He ignored her, stumbling off the couch, one hand still on his ear. A glance down at his breasts only briefly dampened his excitement.

             (what about my family? what about my career?)

           Marbas didn’t answer, but Paul knew it in his heart. They’d be forfeit, or altered so heavily they might as well be forfeit. He’d never be able to see Ericka again as her uncle. He’d never be able to reconcile with Julia. Never even be a son to his parents.

           Then there was KISS. But a price had to be paid for everything, didn’t it? He didn’t think Ace would fault him over it, once he knew why. Peter, either, not really. And— and besides, if he made the choice, he wouldn’t just be getting a normal body. He’d get a normal relationship with Gene. Nothing under wraps, no open secrets. He could really be with Gene the way he knew Gene had to want him. Comfortable. Happy.

           His parents’ old apartment spun and dissolved to nothing, Marbas disappearing with it. He was lying on his side on a bed. It wasn’t his own, but it smelled faintly of his cologne. It smelled like Gene, too— Gene, who was beside him, a little worry on his face.

           Paul tried to say his name, but couldn’t quite get the word out, throat thick and heavy. His face was still wet, he realized.

           “What’s the matter?”

           His head felt like concrete, almost impossible to shake. He managed it, just barely. His fingers tightened around his right ear, hiding it from view, tracing helplessly across the cartilage. Gene reached over, touching his wrist.

           “Does it hurt?”

           Paul shook his head one more time. 

           “You sound… you sound so good, Gene.”

           There was nothing to hide anymore. He knew it. Nothing wrong with that ear at all, and yet Paul dug his fingers into his scalp anyway, tugging a couple curls forward to cover it before wiping at his eyes with the back of his hand. Gene’s expression softened.

           “I’m glad.” His lips met Paul’s, brief but warm. “You look even better.”

           Paul glanced down reflexively. He was in a black, lace-encrusted teddy. He’d barely glanced at those when he’d looked through the lingerie section of the boutique. Not just because of the uncomfortable-looking clasp at the crotch, either; he knew a teddy was all wrong for the way he was built. Even as a girl, he had a certain boxiness to his figure, his breasts the only thing of consequence really breaking up his torso. Now it was different. He filled the lingerie out properly, the thin fabric clinging to every newly-pronounced curve. His waist was smaller, and the bit of stomach fat that had carried over so hatefully from his male body had evaporated entirely. 

           He ran his tongue across his teeth. They were straight, perfectly even. His hand shifted from his hair to feel around his face. He couldn’t really tell a difference there without a mirror, but that didn’t matter much. The rest of his body had given him a damn good idea. He looked like the girl on the T.V. 

           Beautiful. Whole. He’d never been either of those things before, not in his entire life. 

           “You haven’t gotten used to it yet.”

           “I—no. I-I guess not.”

           “Does it bother you?” Gene didn’t elaborate, and Paul wasn’t sure how to answer. 

           “Being like this?” Paul hesitated. He didn’t know how to put it into words at all. He didn’t feel badly about it; he couldn’t possibly. This had to be the ticket, more bafflingly generous than he’d ever be granted otherwise. He’d—he’d gotten elevated. He’d be someone else entirely now. Not just physically. He’d throw off all the insecurities and neuroticism that had plagued Stanley Eisen and Paul Stanley, because all the reasons for them had disappeared. He’d be the person Gene had to want him to be, in and out of bed. He’d be better to everyone this way, even to himself, especially to himself. He’d be happy.

           “Yeah.”

           “No. It doesn’t bother me.”

           Gene started to smile.

           “Okay.” He snapped one of the drooping straps of the teddy. “Might wanna get dressed sometime. We’re supposed to be negotiating your advance from Casablanca today.”

           An advance from Casablanca. So Gene had gotten him in somehow. Gene and all the guys, probably. A solo deal. He’d still be able to sing. He’d still have an audience, even if he never got the crowds he had with KISS. Even if none of them ever did. Paul’s stomach cartwheeled with his own selfishness.

           “You’d… you’ve done all that for me?”

           “It wasn’t that hard. We got all the songs you’d started, made some demos… Bill thought you were great.”

           “He always has.” Paul watched Gene start to skirt a hand across his thigh, and he batted it lightly away before Gene’s hand could get between his legs. “Hey, I thought you said I should get dressed sometime.”

           “Sometime has about two hours of leeway. And you’ve got to get undressed first.” Gene’s hand wandered back like an unrepentant puppy, and this time, Paul let him get a grope in. Gene cupped his ass, not even half-contained within the teddy, fondling and squeezing it lightly. “... You sure you’re okay there, Paul?”

           “Yeah. I’m fine.” He hesitated. “Gene, things are good, aren’t they?”

           “Things are good.”

           “Things with us, I mean. I mean— you’re happy, aren’t you? You don’t resent—”

           “There’s nothing to resent.”

           Gene slid his hand up from his ass, slowly stroking his way up Paul’s back through the thin fabric. Paul closed his eyes, trying to relax into the touch.

           “But the band. I know I cost everyone so much money, not… not going back, you can’t say there’s nothing to resent when I pulled that kind of stunt—”

           “I know why you did it.” Warm, steady fingers massaging his shoulders, then urging him closer in. Paul found himself closing the rest of the gap between them willingly, helplessly, pressing himself against Gene’s chest. “It’s all right, Paul.”

           The words didn’t ease his mind as much as he’d hoped. Paul opened his eyes, shifting slightly, pushing a kiss to Gene’s mouth. Gene didn’t deepen the kiss immediately, a surprise, given how he’d been fondling him earlier. His hand just coursed up past his shoulders and neck, tangling through Paul’s hair. Not just stroking it the way he had before. He was trying to smooth and push it back, fingers inching towards his right ear. Paul jerked away with a start before Gene’s fingers so much as brushed against it. 

           Sorry was on his lips, but he couldn’t manage it. His face was burning. Gene didn’t look surprised at all, only resigned.

           “You always worry so much. You don’t need to anymore.”

           Paul didn’t say anything. Gene reached for him again after a bit, arm draping over his back. It should have been soothing, but it wasn’t. He knew too much. He understood too much. Paul’s gaze drooped down to the lace edging the bottom of the teddy, down further, to the long, tanned legs that were and weren’t his, and then he finally managed to speak again.

           “I haven’t changed at all, have I?”

           “Paul, what do you mean?”

           “Just what I said. I-I thought that… I thought I’d be better.”

           “You’ll get better. This is still new for you.” 

           Paul shook his head.

           “I got it all fixed.” His heart felt like it was being tugged and twisted, warped out of recognition. “I got everything fixed up and I’m… I’m still myself.”

           “Paul—”

           “It’s no good. I’m the same. Don’t you get it?” The pressure of Gene’s arm around him seemed lighter with every word out of Paul’s mouth, though he hadn’t moved at all. “It’s no good at all.”

           “Paul, wait—”

           “I don’t want it.”

           The last faint touch of Gene’s skin against his back faded into nothing. The whole scene melted out in front of him, Gene’s bedroom replaced again by his parents’ apartment, Marbas sitting beside him on the couch. His expression hadn’t shifted.

             (i’d be no different)

             (i’d be no good)

           “Would you have to be good for him?”

             (you don’t understand, this isn’t all about him)

           All his life trying to belong. All his life, knowing there was something he was missing, that he couldn’t hope to achieve but tried to snatch at anyway. Self-confidence he’d only been able to mimic onstage, draped in leather and feathers, done up in high heels and lipstick. Brightness he’d only been able to reflect, never possess on his own.

           None of that would come from just having this body. All the old foibles and fears wouldn’t be banished. They might even be magnified. A girl had a whole other set of worries, one he’d mostly been protected from. A whole other set of expectations he couldn’t meet. He wouldn’t be any more at peace with himself; he’d be struggling to put on in a dozen new ways and still find himself lacking.

           No magic pill. No wish upon a star, no becoming a real girl for him; it would still be skin-deep at best. He couldn’t erase the parts of himself he despised. There wouldn’t be any  inherent reinvention in getting a better body and guaranteeing Gene’s interest. Guaranteeing Gene’s love. And even that was only according to Marbas himself. No guarantees anywhere, that was what Ace had said. It didn’t matter. He couldn’t run away from himself.

           (that’s okay, stan)

           The words seemed to come out of nowhere at all. Not the T.V. screen, not Marbas, not his mother on the phone. That familiar, clear voice that enunciated everything so carefully. Gene. 

           Paul actually turned around on the couch, expecting to see Gene there. He felt stupid as he stood up, bare toes digging into the thin carpet, and started to look around the room, as if anyone but the demon was there with him.

             (gene?)

           (you’re okay)

           Gene had said that seven years ago, on a cold wintery afternoon, to some shy, fat teenage boy he must have brought along out of pity. He’d said it, and Paul had never stopped craving that reassurance, never stopped wanting Gene for it, the longing warm and heavy in his heart. He’d said that when Paul had nothing at all to offer him, not talent or money or a pretty face or a body he could’ve wanted. He’d said it, already knowing the worst of Paul, already knowing all the parts of himself he’d tried to keep hidden. All the parts he’d wanted to be rid of. All that, and Gene had still found something to accept.

           (you’re okay)

           The sentence draped over him like a boxer’s medallion, empowering as a mantra. There was a fullness in his chest, in his throat, that for once, even his own neuroses couldn’t break through. Though he wasn’t enough for himself, he’d been enough for Gene all that time ago. He’d be enough for Gene now, even if they never slept together again.

            The demon finally spoke up from the couch, lifting his head to look at Paul. His amber eyes were unreadable.

           “He’d take care of you if you stayed this way,” Marbas said quietly. “He’d take care of you the rest of your life.”

           The air in the room was suddenly swelteringly thick. Like those dirt cheap hotels and motels down South, from before they could afford places with air conditioning. For a brief moment, he thought he felt Gene’s hand brush against his face.

             (he already does)

           (he already will)

  --

           Gene lay there with Paul’s head resting on his chest. Paul didn’t move at all for a long time. His breaths were so rhythmic and perfectly even that it was eerie. An enchanted sleep.

           Gene remembered the old monster movies he used to watch on T.V. as a teenager. The Wolfman, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, all that. The frame-by-frame shifts from human to creature and back again. It was probably going to be profoundly bizarre, and in a way, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to watch—but on the same token, he didn’t want to leave Paul alone, in case the transformation ended up hurting him.

           So still. After half an hour without any change, Gene gingerly sat up. Paul’s head lolled back; his whole body seemed boneless. Gene rustled a bit, struggling to pull some of the covers they’d been laying on over them both, deciding Paul’s dignity was more important than his own curiosity. Gene wrapped an arm back around Paul, and kept waiting.

           Almost over. Gene wasn’t sure how he’d feel. No. No, that wasn’t quite true anymore, if it ever had really been. Drawing the contours of Paul’s face had solidified what he’d already known, deep down. Paul didn’t resemble his sister nearly so much as he resembled himself. 

           Paul shifted, finally. Those fidgety movements he had always been prone to in his sleep, like those nerves of his never really got a moment to ease up. He’d nudged his knee against Gene’s thigh. He was mumbling under his breath, something Gene couldn’t decipher. His eyes opened.

           Gene’s stomach felt like it was dropping to the floor. God, Paul’d woken up without turning back at all.

           “Are you okay?” But then, staring at the blank look in Paul’s expression, the total lack of response, Gene realized he wasn’t awake, for all his eyes were watering up. “Paul?”

           He started tapping Paul on the shoulder, then squeezing his hand. No response. Paul’s eyes shut just as quickly as they’d opened—Gene wiped at them with the back of his hand—head slouching to the side, face pressed against Gene’s shoulder, the pressure burning hot and suddenly strange. For a second, Gene almost swore he could feel the shift of bones against his arm, the gradual, weird sensation of stubble scratching against his shoulder, before he fell asleep himself, into a nap as short and dreamless as any other.

  --

           He woke up to exactly what he’d expected. Paul was still lying there beside him. His breaths against Gene’s skin were natural now, not that almost metronomic regularity. Gene didn’t even have to move the sheets to know he was back to normal. He still had an arm around Paul; he could feel the difference just in the width of his shoulders. Paul had moved more in his sleep, too, facedown against Gene’s chest again, the scruff on his chin and jawline insinuating itself there, all smoothness gone. He thought he’d mind that much more than he did.

           Instead, he just reached over with his free hand, tentatively stroking his fingers through Paul’s curls. He was going to have to dye his hair again before the tour, Gene realized mundanely; the jet-black had started to fade out around the roots to his natural dark brown. He’d probably been meaning to get a touch-up right around the time he’d been cursed. Paul was like that, noticing flaws way before anyone else did.

           Paul was like that.

           He started to stir right around the time Gene’s fingers caught and tugged against a tangle a little too hard. Slowly, with a small grunt, Paul raised his head off Gene’s chest, turning to look at him, eyes half-shut and squinty. The slightly softer, more delicate female face Gene had woken up to for the last several days was gone. In its place was Paul’s face as he’d known it for eight years now. Paul as he really was.

           “Welcome back.”

         Paul opened his eyes fully. For a second he didn’t quite seem to react. Gene watched as he threw off the covers and looked down at himself, tracing a trembling hand down the right side of his face, then his flat, hairy chest, breaths hitching as his fingers coursed over one hip, to his stomach, finally to his cock, confirming it was all there. Everything restored.

         He didn’t quite expect Paul’s arms around him, tugging him in tight, inadvertently pinning him against the bed. Broader, stronger arms than what he’d gotten used to lately. No softness to his chest. Less give overall. The pressure was so different, different but familiar. The scent of him, too. He wrapped his arms around Paul in return, almost on automatic, his fingers making small, brief circles against Paul’s skin. The side of Paul’s face was buried against Gene’s neck, and he was still breathing hard as he spoke.

         “Gene, Gene, w-we did it. We did it!”

         “We did it.”

         “We—we can go on tour. I can go see Ericka, Gene, I… you don’t know how much this—I don’t know how to… how to thank you.”

         “Nothing to thank me for.”

         “There is. You’ve got no idea. You wouldn’t believe it. I can’t…” Paul shook his head rapidly, his hair brushing Gene’s lips. Guileless in his own relief. Like it still hadn’t quite occurred to him that he was straddling him naked. “I couldn’t have gotten back without you.”

         “You could’ve.” Gene smiled despite himself. “Give yourself more credit than that.”

         “But it would’ve been awful.” Paul seemed like he was struggling for the right words. “You don’t understand. You made me feel… like I was all right. You always have. Nobody’s ever…” Paul stopped, shaking his head again. “You’ve been so good to me.”

         “I really haven’t—”

         Paul kissed him. The motion was quick, almost apologetic. Two seconds at best of Paul’s mouth pressed against his, the slight scrape of his stubble against Gene’s skin as he pulled back. It didn’t feel the same, being kissed by him. It wouldn’t be the same.

         “I’m sorry.” Paul seemed to realize it, too, abruptly climbing off of him and sitting up on the bed. Gene sat up, too, back against the headboard. “I know you couldn’t promise anything.”

           “Paul.”

           “I’ll just get dressed. I’ll call the guys up in a minute.” Paul hesitated, then swung his legs off the side of the bed. He didn’t get up, just sat there, running his fingers down his own arms and chest, as if he were cold or something, or else getting his bearings. Maybe he was just trying to feel around for himself, make positive there wasn’t any residual trace of that female body left—but Gene didn’t think that was all of it. 

         “Are you really going to leave it at that?”

         Paul stiffened. His eyes darted towards him, then back towards the covers. His teeth were sunk into his lower lip. Gene had seen that mannerism so many times. The fragility and insecurity that were a part of him, regardless of his body. No faith in himself. That was all right. Gene had enough faith for the both of them.

           “Leave it at what?”

           Gene scooted over until he was sitting next to him on the bed, bare feet on the shag carpet. He reached over, resting a hand on Paul’s thigh. Paul glanced at him again, quickly, hesitantly, before finally placing his own hand on top of Gene’s. The way he’d done in the car, on the way to Central Park. His hand was broader, larger, but just as warm, and just as much his as he laced his fingers between Gene’s. It still seemed to belong there. Even more when Gene turned up his wrist, to hold Paul’s hand properly in his, squeezing it tight.

         “I missed you,” Gene said. “I really missed you.”

         Paul shook his head, made a sound like a laugh. Trying to protect himself even now. It hurt to hear it. But his hand stayed clasped in Gene’s. He wasn’t pulling back. Gene would never give him a reason to, not now.

           “C’mon, I know you liked me better…”

         “I like you better happy.”

         “But I—” Paul swallowed. His expression was open, vulnerable. He looked like he wanted so badly to believe. He looked a little afraid. “I’m not what you want anymore.”

         “That’s not true.”

           “It’s true. I know it. I-I figured all along it wouldn’t turn out. I really did.” Paul took a breath. “I don’t blame you. I mean, look at me, I’m not—”

           “I’m looking at you. I’ve been looking at you this whole time. ” Those same big brown eyes, same slightly crooked chin and full lips greeted him as all those days ago on the front porch. The same soul. Gene let go of Paul’s hand, reaching out and cupping the left side of his face, tracing his fingers down from his temple to his jaw, to the pulse of his neck, all the way down to his flat, hairy chest. Everything he’d explored before. Every touch was different now, but the same warmth and want was spreading through him. It hadn’t gone away. Hadn’t faded. “I’m looking at someone I wanna be with.”

           “Gene—it’s just not gonna be like it was, you know that.”

           “I know that.” Gene moved his hand, tracing one nipple before sliding his palm directly above it. Paul’s heartbeat was pounding beneath his hand. “It’s gonna be better.”

           “I’m a lot less cute to wake up to this way.” Paul started to try and smile, mouth wavering. His brows were furrowed. For a second, he raised his hand like he was going to push Gene’s hand away, but instead it rested on top of it again, Paul’s fingers pressing down against the back of Gene’s hand. No full, heavy breast to squeeze and toy with anymore. “I-it’s a real bad trade-off. I’ll wear out all your razors.”

           “You’ll have to do better than that to talk me out of you.”

           Paul faltered, and he looked away. Gene let his own gaze shift from Paul’s face to his bare shoulder. No dress strap to fix anymore, either. But the same handful of small moles were still there, the rose tattoo just as sharp and clear as ever against his skin.

           “I’d… you couldn’t be seen with me, not… not like in the Park—you like that, don’t you, showing some pretty girl off, I couldn’t—”

           “I love you, Paul.”

           Four words. Four words he hadn’t managed before. Not in the basement, dancing to that old record. Not when he’d first kissed him at Studio 54. Not when he’d taken him home from CBGB. Not in the rowboat, and not those few hours ago when Paul himself had finally said it. But it had been true even then. He realized that now. Paul had his heart all along. 

           Paul was staring at him, eyes wide, color spreading on his face. Gene leaned in, fingers curving around his chin, meeting Paul’s parted lips with his own, nothing brief or cautious, but full. Trying to impart all he couldn’t manage to say, all that would spill over and be meaningless if he tried to give it words.

           At first, Paul only seemed to yield to the touch. But then his mouth pressed back against Gene’s, warm and wet, as his arms found their way around Gene’s waist.

           Each kiss felt more certain and firm than the last, each movement more fluid, their bodies fitting and molding against each other just as easily and naturally as before. Gene was swept up in it, almost overcome, every touch its own affirmation as he explored the contours of Paul’s body with his hands and mouth. So much to discover, now that he had more than that single chance to be with him. Everything that was and wasn’t new at all, there for both of them. Paul seemed braver now, too, steadier than he’d ever been. Far more sure of himself now that he was himself again. That physical disconnect Gene had only ever noticed in passing was gone.

           Paul tugged Gene back down with him to the mattress, both of them on their sides. Paul didn’t straddle him. He just held him there for a long time. Long enough that the cadences of their heartbeats almost seemed to match up; long enough that Gene could fully catch the scent of him, how it had changed. Still Aramis and the remnants of hairspray, but the musky scent of his sweat and body was markedly different, stronger and maybe a little earthier, almost, but plenty intoxicating. He breathed it in eagerly, letting himself get enveloped in Paul as readily as Paul was getting enveloped in him.

           The only other sound was the dull tick of the clock on the nightstand, until even that was interrupted by the phone ringing. Gene just made a grunting noise, too comfortable to want to move. Paul, though, scooted a bit, murmuring quietly.

           “It’s probably Ace. I told him I’d call him back.”

           “Let the machine get it.”

           “Nah.” Paul unraveled himself from Gene, reaching over him to grab the phone. The cord ended up draped along Gene’s chest. “Figure I’ve got plenty of good news for him. No tour delays, no summoning up demons or paying off witches…”

           “And no putting you in a cute costume.” Gene paused, amused glint in his eyes, pushing the phone cord behind him.. “Well, not onstage, at least…”

           “Not offstage, either.” Paul tapped him on the shoulder with the back of the receiver, His cheeks were going pink as he put the phone to his ear. “Hello? Ace? Yeah, I’m all fixed up. Yeah. No—shit, Ace, I just got back, I haven’t made sure everything’s…”

           As the conversation trailed, Gene shifted, one arm around Paul’s waist.  Paul smiled, and Gene felt Paul’s ankle catching his leg, tangling them back together, secure and warm in the shape of each other.

#kiss the band #kiss fanfiction #gene simmons x paul stanley #gene simmons #paul stanley

[teatimewithtess]

My Experience at a 4 Week Summer School

Arkansas Governor’s School is a 4 week summer program where the 400 most gifted and talented students meet to discuss the future of the worlds’ current mindset while also gaining new insight from experienced college professors and top high school teachers. The daily schedule is divided into three areas: Area I, an assigned class focused on one specific education (i.e. English, math, social science, natural science, instrumental music, etc.), area II, a philosophy based course focused on critical thinking skills, and area III, the class where we used the critical thinking techniques from area II to apply them to the social issues of today, such as racism, school shootings, climate change, etc. In order to become a student of AGS, one must fill out the simple application process which includes the following: an essay regarding the provided prompt, 2 recommendation letters, a list of achievements/accomplishments in high school, a writing assignment about your reasoning for choosing your desired area I subject, and another essay about why you want to attend AGS. After completing all required materials in the admission process, you then wait until you receive an email granting your secured spot in attending AGS. Receiving that specific email was a step towards the road of change, and I was completely unaware.

Now, let me post a slight disclaimer: I might use the same type of wording in order to express how AGS went for me, but I simply cannot help it. I will not over hype nor will I under exaggerate the experience as a whole. I will speak of my time, what I did, who I met, and how I felt. Let us begin.

First, I wrote in a black leather bound journal every day. I titled each day “AGS Day -- July --” in order to keep my days straight because I honestly did not ever have an idea of what day it was, or what time it was. The first two weeks we were not allowed to have our phones and it was one of the most refreshing times, mentally. I was glad I never knew what time it was; I was going through each day with no worry. I never had a thought about who I need to text, what other people were up to, or what was happening in the news. Having met so many new, different people at one time without having my cellphone was an oasis for my mind. I could openly connect with other different ways of thinking, which overall affected me in a positive way because I forced myself to listen purely- not listen to speak. By speaking less and observing more, I was able to do so much more. For me, it was writing. Now, the writing in this journal was not for feelings and “he loves me, he loves me not” ideas, it was simply to physically document everything that happened that day because if I did not, I would forget them. Time shows no mercy for our memories, and I wanted to make sure that they lived forever.

Secondly, I took notes on EVERYTHING. When lectures occurred at 4:00pm and 6:00pm, I would go to as many as I could and gain as much knowledge as I could. With that, I now have many pages filled in my journal and many other notebooks of what experienced professors had to say. The topics ranged from food psychology to life beyond Earth, the ending of a story to the psychology of self talk in sports, and the debate between science and god to the dissection of short films. If you can think it, there was a lecture on it. Of course I did not want to forget any of those talks either, especially when they were delivering valuable information that is not even mentioned in high school, so I documented the ones that were most interesting to me. The memories of knowledge can be refreshed.

Next, one of the most impactful habits I began was writing down questions. Whenever I started to read philosophy about a year ago, I developed a new, open way of thinking. With this new way of thinking, I started to have more and more questions about everything, which eventually led me to discover the psychological side of it in philosophy via research papers. However, I never thought about writing these down because I thought they were ridiculous or other people would quickly dismiss them; but, as soon as I sat through the first day of area II realizing I had already written down a full page of questions, I knew I needed to continue this practice. Luckily, I met a few very impactful people that allowed me to ask these questions and actually nurtured the methodology I had. 

With that, I prepare for the most important part of my AGS experience: the professors.

I met approximately 5 people that influenced me in the greatest of ways. The first one is a satirical, yet highly intelligent English professor that taught my afternoon area I class, English. He was the first person that noticed my reading of philosophy and became ecstatic at the idea of a student my age reading these works this early. I continued to converse with him occasionally after class and during lunch, where he introduced me to the process of acquiring a PhD in English, and English in college as a whole. He gave me many book titles, notes he took in college, and most importantly a confidence in sharing my ideas. Unfortunately, in my English area I class specifically, I encountered many roadblocks regarding peoples’ way of thinking that forced me to refrain from expressing my ideas/logic. This professor however witnessed I was occurring this phenomenon and later wrote to me that my ideas need to be spread. Since we are on the topic of English professors, there was another mentor that encouraged me to do more creative writing. This old fellow was a master of poetry, but somehow adored my work and pursued me to write a novel after reading one of my pieces. He also endorsed my reading of philosophy, and will also stay in touch post AGS. The instrumental music teacher and I became great friends after attending one of his many Jazz classes. He was a quirky professor of jazz that truly represented the epitome of what a musician is. You could see his love for music in his performing, and I respect and praise that from a student perspective, being a musician myself. He noticed how much I supported my fellow musicians and loved the idea of me doing so. He inspired me to keep smiling as much as I do, and that simple gesture stuck with me. No one has ever told me to continue ‘being happy’, they only question why I do smile. Coming from an older, loving musician, it meant a lot to me. I also met with a library technician that informed me on the world of publishing and writing for the public. She gave me tremendous advice that will help me as soon as I begin writing research articles in college, and I am forever grateful for her insight. Finally, there is one professor that influenced me the greatest. He is an optimistic psychologist that taught my area II class of philosophy/critical thinking. After talking to him several times post class, it gradually became a regular thing after lectures and movies, and even during dinner or lunch. After one  specific talk, he helped me gain traction on what my career goals were. He introduced me to psychology, which I had never even thought about before, and unconsciously opened this academic door that will help me as I complete my final year of college and begin my long journey of becoming an academic. Each conversation posed new questions I immediately needed to document or write about later, and it all eventually led to my reading list reach an unfathomable amount. He nurtured my constant need of questions, unlike other teachers that quickly dismiss them to junk since I am still a teenager, which means it is irrational for me to ask such questions even though they themselves cannot likely define what irrationality is. I cannot praise in written word anymore how impactful this professor was. I will forever be in his debt.

The best part of AGS was the professors because they volunteered to work with these 400 kids. They helped shape me into me. They helped guide me into the right area of assessing who I am and what do I know, and who are the others and what do they know. The atmosphere they created was unlike any other; it was comforting, yet challenging, welcoming, but serious. Even in just the small time I had with these mentors, I believed I could trust them with any thought I had. In some ways, it felt as if they were trying to figure me out, which made the camp even more entertaining. They welcomed my thoughts and ideas with open arms which allowed me to grow exponentially. 

Because of this whole experience, I resulted in developing particular habits that might not make much sense to many people but I know it makes sense to these mentors and fellow students of the camp.

1) Every time I have a memory, flashback, dream, nightmare, vision, or daydream, I write it down. I came to the conclusion that if I do not write down these events then I will forget them, and I need them to use as inspiration.

2) When I have a question, I write it down as well. I hope in the future I can answer some of them, but not all of them.

3) I read some type of research paper and/or listen to a podcast related to my future field of study.

4) I take a heavy amount of notes on everything I hear/read. I did not realize until after this camp how much I enjoy taking notes, especially when it is just verbal, so I have to exercise my comprehension skills. I also, depending on the importance of the talk, will record certain lectures given it is relevant information that I need later on.

Alongside these habits I also developed lasting friendships with fellow students all across the state. Our wavelengths are compatible, which presents positive signs for a lasting relationship with one another. I know I will see them in the near future. 

I will never forget this meta strophic event that planted itself in my teenage years, and I hope my search for the same atmosphere I was in for 4 weeks is successful.

#philosophy #philosophical #writing #writer #creative wrting #my wrting #mentor #experimental #Thoughts #spilled thoughts #new blog #blogger #personal blogging #consciousliving #science #neuroscience

[publishingsolo]

HOW CAN YOU MAKE MONEY PUBLISHING A BOOK YOURSELF? 12 GREAT IDEAS—PT 1

How Print-on-Demand Can Fulfill the Dream to Publish Your Own Book

“I’ve always wanted to publish my own book!” As a book coach, that was sad to hear–knowing their dream to publish was likely to stay unfulfilled. A dream to publish a book is one of the most common unfulfilled dreams.

Yet, as a published author, my life has taken a whole new direction. I want writers to know with on-demand book printing, those unfilled publishing dreams can be fulfilled! The exhilaration, honor, and privilege of self-publishing a dozen of my own books have been the greatest thrill of my life!

Now, do not misunderstand, learning on-demand book printing was no picnic. Mastering skills to self-publish a book demands blood, sweat, and tears. However, I can easily teach you how to publish your own book.

I worked in the printing, book publishing, and advertising industries for decades. While on “the inside” of a traditional book publishing house for years, I learned some surprising truths. As the “mean one” who speed-read hundreds of want-to-be-book manuscripts, I sent the rejection letters as well.

Since I received dozens of submissions daily, I created a form letter to respond to the submissions! As a writer, this part of my job affected me deeply. My heart fell, feeling that I played a part in causing unfulfilled publishing dreams. Therefore, when I saw that the publishing industry following the photography and music industries in “going digital,” I jumped right in!

Short Run Book Printing and the On-Demand Book Printing Digital System!

Have you heard of on-demand publishing, often called POD and also known as “on-demand book printing?” I discovered POD 16 years ago when I received a request for a quote on a short-run book project in my small marketing business.

I knew the traditional offset printing required would be far too expensive for this client. So, I called a colleague, who handled short-run book printing for a regular client. She kindly shared a new digital printing press, and on-demand book printing equipment in Denver, which used a digital file to print a completed book. Unlike offset printing, smaller runs were affordable. This was the first “digital printing press” of the time!

At this time, the printing industry had transitioned to using digital art files; making digital printing the next logical step. They completed the printing, binding, and four-color cover in one place. Impressive!

Normal book printing prior to digital printing took at least 7 steps. To those of us in the printing business, this printing press was like an espresso book machine. Plus, the cost was 25% of offset printing! Immediately impressed, I joined the digital printing revolution. I quickly learned to use on-demand book printing and never looked back.

Traditional Book Publishing vs. Digital Book Publishing

When trying to land a deal with traditional publishing in the old days, we wrote a book or book proposal … sent by snail mail to a publishing house. We were also commanded to include a self-addressed self-stamped manila envelope for the manuscript’s return. Consider that this entire process consumed from 1-3 years, and always included rejection letters. Then, if accepted, the book would require another 1-2 years to publish. In all, 3-5 years will go by until you could see your book in print!

It is possible to publish an edited & proofread manuscript, and for sale at Amazon.com in a matter of months. Instead of frequenting bookstores for book signings, your books are sold online, In fact, more than half of books are purchased online, with a small percentage bought in brick and mortar book stores.

Top on Demand Book Printing Companies–Amazon and Lulu Self-Publishing

Printing a large number of books, like with traditional printing, is not necessary with off-set printing. With print-on-demand, your book resides on a digital file and once a reader places an order, the book is qued up for printing. The basic model of print-on-demand printing is that your book is only printed when someone makes a purchase!

I recommend on-demand book printing with Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing or Lulu self-publishing for your book project. However, if require on-demand photo book printing in four-color, try Blurb books. As a self-publisher, you also have the choice to use off-set print companies that specialize in short-run, four-color printing. With on-demand printing, once an order is placed, the book will print and ship within a few days. The retail price in your online store, less a commission, is your profit.

12 Profit Motives to Publish Your Own Book with on Demand Book Printing

1. Internal Self Confidence

You may expect a surge of self-confidence when you become a publishing author. This is a different type of confidence that we normal—not the “fake it until you make it,” self-confidence, but well-earned and genuinely real. Your circle of influence has seen you articulate your truth, expertise, and even your heart. Just think how genuine self-confidence can stimulate a boring social life; or give a stalled career new momentum, or heal injured self-esteem. Plus organizing your expertise, skills, and personal story lights up your personal and professional image with a new brand!

2. Want a Big Raise?

How about giving yourself a raise once you become published? Let me suggest a few ways to give yourself a raise! Include a free autographed copy of your book when you provide a product or service to clients. For example, a published book entitled: “Do it Yourself Wiring for Room Additions,” is given to new electrician’s new clients. Another way to give yourself a raise is to increase your rates by 10-20%. The timing of this is important. Wait a few months after most of your clients own a copy of your book. Or, invite all your big-time clients to a book signing event, and ask them to bring a friend! Be prepared with books, business cards, and brochures to sell extra services at that event.

3. Offer Consulting and Speaking Services

Once you become a published author, in the eyes of the world and business you become an authority. Therefore, you may earn extra when you offer consultation services For your experience, guidance, expertise, clients will pay up to $200 an hour to save time, money, and a learning curve. With a published book in your field, your knowledge can save clients and novices thousands of dollars and frustration.

4. Speaking Engagements

The Best-selling author achievement is not always the goal post to reach in the realm of self-publishing. Considering that speaking engagements call for fees from a small amount per hour to unfathomable fees. However, when you speak for free at a local event, ask the host to offer your books for sale at the event. Depending on the size of the event, you could earn a few hundred dollars in a short amount of time. The important thing to know is that most speaking agencies require published authors as their speakers. Now you can be a speaker, and create an extra income stream.

TO BE CONTINUED.

Increase self-publishing profits with eight more great ways through on-demand book printing.  Click on the link below:

PART TWO: Points 5-12 of Twelve Great Ideas for Ramping up Self Publishing Profits

For additional information on self-publishing, read Deborah S. Nelson's article, The Day My Writing Became Real, and Wikipedia's description of print on demand.

[glitterghost]

Andreil & Baking

Yesterday I posted about craving chocolate chip cookies, which lead me to crave an andreil baking hc and thought of how nice it would be. Sooo I wrote one? Just for my own self indulgence. That and I'm not sure if I've seen many andreil & baking scenarios? Anyway enjoy and sorry if it's a bit shitty. 

Confession: Originally it was just Andrew & Neil. Until I remembered Neil doesn’t like sweets & I cursed myself wildly at my ignorance.

🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪

"Are you sure this is right?" Neil asks Andrew, cocking his head at the mixture of flour and egg inside the bright fluorescent orange bowl. Neil isn't used to baking. Most meals he had were cold slices of left over pizza or burgers from whatever restaurant was the most convenient. So the idea of taking all these base ingredients to actually create something that should turn out to be as Nicky said "Unfathomably delicious", was entirely a foreign concept, especially to someone who more or less didn't harbor or tolerate sweets of any sort. But Andrew sat atop the counter a few feet away, legs dangling over the wooden cabinet doors, his nose buried in the cookbook they were using.

Andrew flicks a chocolate chip from the bag next to him, into his mouth before looking unconcerned at Neil.

"Well it's certainly not wrong. I mean," Andrew flips the book towards Neil and points to the title. "..not like it says auto repair manual." He answers matter of fact.

Neil huffs out an annoyed breath and stops stirring the wooden spoon in his hand before addressing Andrew again.

"You know that's not what I meant." Neil says, more frustrated than anything else. Andrew had to understand his unease with this newness of baking. This uncharted territory in Neil's ever expanding world voyage of things he's already done and things he never had a chance to enjoy. Something as simple as baking cookies like this was not common in the Wesninski household. He was too busy mixing hair dye and assuming new identities than he was busy with mixing eggs and sugar and flour together to create a taste of comfort, of warmth and sweetness that tasted of safety and reassurance. There had never been time for those intangible feelings. If there had, perhaps his sweet tooth would be as insatiable as Andrew's.

"No? Then what did you mean?" Andrew stares, his legs swinging still, the gap between his legs to the ground makes Neil smile.

"Stop it." Andrews golden gaze levels his. "What did you mean?" Andrews eyes focus on him like a cat catching sight of movement in a patch of tall grass. Focused. Insistent.

Neil's smile doesn't fall when he answers Andrew. "I don't know what I'm doing. I'm going to mess this up." Neil remembers the honesty they agreed upon. Truth for truth. He figures it's the best path to take right now.

Andrew folds the book face down in his lap. Reaching over, he grabs a few more chocolate chips from the bag, popping them in his mouth again before addressing Neil's confession.

"There's nothing to mess up. I'm reading off every step required. You'd have to be truly incompetent to think that it's possible to mess up, all things considered. Unless you don't trust my directions." Andrews voice curls into a tone usually reserved for the other foxes, his walls slowly sliding up, his eyes slit to harden hues of topaz.

Neil back peddles, tripping over the right words to stop Andrews wall from locking into place.

" No.." Neil closes his eyes, gripping the bridge of his nose with his right hand that is covered in flour after one too many zealous strokes of the mix.

"No you don't trust-" Andrew starts but Neil cuts him off before he can continue to interpret his unfinished comment.

"No. That isn't what I meant. I just, I'm nervous, okay? You say this is simple and I truly want to believe that but nothing is ever as black and white as it seems and even in it's simplicity, there's room for error." Neil admits.

There's a thunk sound, the shuffle of feet heading closer to him. Neil turns his head and finds the 5ft blonde beside him, staring into the mix. He sets the cookbook face up on the counter, visible to both Andrew and Neil.

"Okay." Andrew tells him. "Hand me that measuring cup there." Andrew flicks his head over to the pile of measuring cups to his right. Neil grabs the nearest one and offers it to Andrew.

The roll of Andrews eyes eludes Neil to the realization of having already messed up again. "What is that?" Andrew asks him.

"Um. The measuring cup you asked for?" is the only answer Neil has because it was the only answer it could be.

"Wrong. I swear, I'd be afraid too if I were you. You are oblivious."

Neil's brows furrow, confusion twisting into his face. "But you asked me for the measuring cup?" Neil defends.

"This is a 1/3 cup. I need the 1 cup. But you'd know that if you'd look at the instructions in front of you. That's step 1." So Neil leans over the counter, scouring the page for the step they were currently on. Finding that in fact it did say 1 cup and not 1/3. But could it have hurt Andrew to specify for once in his life?

"I'm not psychic." Neil spits back. Using Andrews own words he'd once used against Neil.

"Clearly not, other wise you'd realize I have about 2% patience left with you. You're clearly not a very avid reader either, otherwise you'd know to look at the directions before freely reaching for whatever measuring utensil is available first.

Neil plucks back the incorrect measuring cup from Andrews hand, his fingers barely brush Andrews but the roughness of them eases some of the uncertainty in his chest.

Tossing the cup back onto the pile, Neil grabs the matching orange measuring cup that is clearly marked 1cup and hands it to Andrew. It takes less than 2 minutes as Neil watches Andrew step in and fill the cup with sugar, pouring it into the bowl. Neil reaches for the spoon again to start mixing but then Andrew is repeating his last step of filling the cup again and dumping a second cup of sugar into the mix.

Neil feels flabbergasted, why would he intentionally try to sabotage these? They were for a Foxes fundraiser that Renee helped set up with a few of her acquaintances from a local church. It had been a good idea. Getting their name out there, not to mention the publicity that the notoriously delinquent Foxes were partaking in a charity fundraiser.

"I can read your face Josten. Trust me, I didn't mess it up. You'll see." Andrew tells him confidently.

"But you just doubled the required amount of sugar? Isn't that going to mess up the rest of the ingredients in the recipe??" Neil asks him, honestly curious.

"I said trust me."

Neil nods, closes his mouth to hold in any more comments. Andrew asked, no told him to trust him. He had yet to fail Neil but he began to seriously doubt how well these cookies would turn out.

After 45 minutes & 375° later, a rack of 16 moist and chewy chocolate chip cookies sit, cooling off. They wait a few minutes before Andrew grabs one of the cookies, the middle slightly buckling from the weight of the chocolate chips (also doubled thanks to Andrew).

Andrew hands the cookie over to Neil with a "here eat this." As if Neil were Andrew's personal royal food tester, searching for any poisons.

"You know I don't like sweets." Neil reminds him. An irritated sigh escapes Andrew lips.

"That's right. Pity." Andrew tells him. Just then, as if on cue, Matt walks around the corner into the kitchen. Last Neil knew, Matt had gone over to the girls room to help Dan and Renee since Allison had refused to get dirty the $200 manicure she'd just gotten done.

"Matt will try it. Ask him." Neil suggests, gesturing to him as he walks closer.

"I asked you. I didn't ask him." Andrew retorts.

"Yeah, and I told you no. Sugary sweet things do not tempt me in the slightest."

Andrew looks at him a beat before returning with "You like kissing me." A fact, no question behind it.

"I don't see the relevancy to that in this situation." Neil lies. Clearly Andrew was referring to the kisses they shared and how Neil never turned those down. And yeah, he didn't.  Andrews kisses were sweet but it wasn't the same kind of sweetness. They were welcomed. That sweetness didn't turn and twist unpleasantly in his stomach later.

"Hey Matt, will you try this?" Neil calls over his shoulder. Matt, who hadn't said anything, trying to keep off Andrew’s radar even just in passing, looks up beaming when Neil asks.

"Oh totally. Is this your contribution for the fundraiser?" Matt looks to Neil and then to Andrew, whose eyes were still lingering on Neil.

Neil nods his head yes, taking the cookie from Andrew before turning toward Matt, cookie outstretched.

Matt accepts it, lifting it to his mouth wrapping his lips around it. Neil braces for the worst after Andrew's impromptu and hastily doubled ingredients but Neil is shocked when Matt's face lights up excitedly before taking another large bite.

"This is amazing." Matt's jumbled words spill out of his mouth, along with a few cookie crumbs, staring at Andrew & Neil in awe. Visibly taken aback that they could create something so unbelievably good.

"Dude, I need the girls to try these. These are going to be so dope at the the fundriasier. You might want to make an extra batch!" Matt tells them. "Do you care if I grab another to take next door?" He asks.

A "No" and a "Yes" simultaneously fill the air. Matt freezes because the "Yes" came from Andrew.

"It's fine Matt. Go ahead, you helped us so you have earned another." Neil tells him. Andrew stays silent, which Matt takes as permission to do as Neil said. He pockets another cookie and heads out the same way he came in.

"Seriously, these are fantastic. They'll be a hit tomorrow." Are Matt's last words before he vanishes back outside.

"I told you to trust me." Andrew tells Neil. His face as stoic as ever, it's only the flicker of a lightness in his eye that Neil can tell Andrew is pleased with Matt's reaction.

"But. How did you.. You didn't follow the directions though. You improvised, how did you know they would turn out so great?" Neil asks

"Sometimes the best things in life call for new plans of direction." Is Andrews only reply.

Neil knows Andrew is talking about more than just baking. Their whole lives were built on forming plan A's, plan B’s and plan C's. Sometimes D's & E's, sometimes more.

Andrew turns to leave but Neil calls out a "where are you going?" before Andrew stops, turns and walks back up to Neil. "I've got some things to take care of. Box those up and start another batch, but this time follow the directions exactly as they're written." Andrew reaches behind Neil, grabbing a cookie for himself and taking a bite of it.

Neil stares at Andrew, perplexed.

A fraction of a smirk slips onto Andrews mouth, invisible to the untrained eye. But Neil's eye had been trained, fixated on Andrews mouth for long enough to spot each time one of these almost smiles appears.

"This batch is mine. I trust you can handle the rest from here on out. You completed your first real baking challenge Josten. Congratualtions, you didn't fuck it up. Now prove you can repeat this success." Andrew's hand lifts to the corner of Neil's mouth and wipes away what must be a smudge of chocolate that he inevitably smeared on himself. Without hesitating, Andrew brings his thumb up and slips it into his mouth. Neil sees a flicker of his tongue swirl around it, cleaning it off successfully.

"See you later, maybe. Don't forget, Renee said to bring two dozen of them."

And with that, Neil watches Andrew exit out the door, leaving him with a new fondness for baking and a secret plan to "accidentally" share Andrew's batch of cookies with the other Foxes once he finishes the next two. Batches he was already planning on using those improvised two cups of sugar on, going against Andrew's instructions .

Neil was aware that Andrew liked to play these little games of his but Neil was getting better and better at playing them too.

#andreil #andrew minyard #neil josten #matt boyd #all for the game #aftg #tfc #the foxhole court #sorry for errors #i didn't know what i was doing omg

[andrewdburton]

How to encourage someone in 3 steps

Knowing how to encourage someone is key for:

Fostering lasting relationships

Developing crucial leadership skills

Helping struggling loved ones improve their lives.

… BUT if you do it wrong, it’s an easy way to frustrate everyone, or worse, come across as a know-it-all.

I’m not going to let that happen to you though. I want to show you a great system to help you learn how to encourage someone today.

How to encourage someone

Here’s the secret to encouraging people you won’t hear from 99.9% of life coaches and self-help books:

You can only encourage someone if they want it.

Think back to high school. I’d be willing to bet that the majority of you have forgotten things from your math classes like the quadratic formula or whatever the heck a protractor does. BUT if I asked you all the words to a song you loved in high school — the one you blasted in the car with your friends and every morning on the way to school — you’d be able to sing it to me perfectly (vocal skills depending).

The same idea applies to encouragement; it’s only effective and ingrained in us when we want it. It’s human nature.

So if you try to encourage someone who doesn’t want it you’re just wasting your time.

This might seem callous but it’s actually very freeing. When you’re able to recognize who’s ready to be encouraged, you’ll know where to focus your energy when it comes to helping people who need it.

I’ve developed a three-step system to help you identify these moments to help you encourage anyone willing to improve themselves.

Step 1: Stop and listen

I got this email from a reader a while back:

From: “J.”

Subject: My question is your next blog topic.

My mother is a hot mess. In a sense, I arose from the ashes of poverty while she still hangs her hat there. She came to visit for Thanksgiving and asked me how I “made my millions” (slight exaggeration) so she could too. I don’t know how to tell her she sucks with money and that she needs to get her shit straight before she can dream of island vacations, or even owning a new car on her own.

Thoughts on how to tell a single mom who raised a half a dozen children who’s 60+ years old that she doesn’t know what the hell she’s doing and needs to get her shit in gear?

You’re the man. If you have questions, I’m available on my cell or by email.

All the Best,

J.

Notice what is going on here. This reader wants to encourage his mother — but is being very judgemental. His moral righteousness is preventing him from realizing a key thing: His mother is starting in the same place he did.

He even acknowledges it saying, “I arose from the ashes of poverty while she still hangs her hat there.” But he still goes into a judgemental tirade about how his mother is screwing up.

His first step should have been to step back and acknowledge where she is in the journey. Like him, she also started from poverty. Unlike him, there were probably different potentially bigger barriers in her way, like raising children.

The worst people in the world are people who just learned enough to be dangerous (typically, people who just learned about paleo, weightlifting, or personal finance). They’ve gone through the journey of deciding to change their life, so now they believe everyone needs to join them … without realizing that three months before, they wouldn’t have wanted to hear any of that!

So if someone comes to you who needs encouragement, your first step should always be to stop and listen. Empathize with where they are in their journey.

Two other key points:

Spend time building rapport. It’s easy to launch into how “simple” or “easy” the solution to someone’s problems is. Instead, spend the majority of your time just listening. The conversation should be 90% them 10% you.

Acknowledge their feelings. There’s no better way to discourage someone than by telling them their feelings aren’t legitimate. If someone who needs encouragement comes to you, acknowledge and address their emotions — even if you don’t quite agree with them.

Step 2: Measure how serious they are

Your next step is to discern if they’re ready to be encouraged.

Say a friend comes to you and is telling you about how he’s really struggling with his credit card debt. He also knows you recently got out of debt yourself.

You’ve listened to him talk, empathized with him, and now you’re going to ask him one simple question:

“How serious are you?”

This is key. If your friend’s answer is anything other than, “I’m very serious. I’m ready to do anything to get out of debt,” they don’t want your encouragement and probably just wanted to just complain or feel validated.

In that case, just smile and say, “You’re doing great. I’m sure you’ll figure things out.” Anything more than that would be a waste of time and energy for you.

However, if they communicate that they’re ready for genuine encouragement, move onto the next step.

Step 3: Give them genuine encouragement

Like giving a good compliment, encouraging someone requires authenticity. That’s why you should avoid giving meaningless platitudes like:

“Where there’s a will, there’s a way!”

“The universe never gives you more than you can handle!”

“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger!”

In fact, NEVER utter any of the phrases above out loud to anyone. The world will be better for it.

Instead, a genuine encouragement acknowledges their struggles and offers a potential solution to their problems.

Let’s take your friend who’s talking to you about debt. After listening you ask, “How serious are you?”

SCENARIO 1: I want to get out of debt! I’m just awful with numbers and this economy is so lame and—

Stop. They don’t really want to know a great system to get out of debt. They just want to complain and for you to listen to them.

YOUR ANSWER: Yeah, it’s tough. I just make sure I’m paying my bills each month.

Another scenario:

SCENARIO 2: Yeah, I’d really like to get out of debt. I’m trying this new thing where I’m cutting out lattes each month and skipping every other meal.

They’re not looking for technical advice. They just want to feel better about what they’re doing. In this case, validate them.

YOUR ANSWER: Good job. That sounds difficult.

Final scenario:

SCENARIO 3: I’m serious. I’ve been reading a few blogs about budgeting. I’ve been contributing X% of my paycheck towards my debt. How did you do it? You got out of debt so fast last year, I want to know how. I’ll do whatever you did.

Now your friend is ready for helpful, genuine encouragement. They’re showing that they’re ready to accept what you have to say and are eager to hear it.

YOUR ANSWER: Great! It sounds like you’re already doing a great job with the research and paying down your debt. Tell you what, send me an email with the amount of your debt and income and we’ll talk about what else you could be doing to crush your debt.

Notice two things with the last example — these are important:

It seems unfathomably rare that anyone would actually say, “I’m serious. I’ll do whatever you tell me to.” Almost nobody ever says this, because almost nobody really wants advice to the level of following through. They want to complain, they want to feel validated, but fewer than 1 in 1,000 actually want to change their behavior. It took me 10 years to truly internalize this. Once you do, you’ll start to be more understanding and empathetic, instead of frustrated.

Even though they say they are 100% serious, I still didn’t dive into the deep, technical “how to” because they are not ready. You’re doing them a favor by parceling out your advice — and you’re giving them a minor barrier to see how serious they really are. Anyone can “say” they’re serious. This is an example of using barriers strategically.

Once you offer your advice, close with an authentic compliment for the person you’re talking to. This helps reaffirm to them that they are capable of handling the situation and ends your encouragement on a high note.

Here’s a great example of one:

You: “John, you’re going to do great. You’re one of the most motivated people I know.”

Them: “Why’s that?”

You: “After talking with you, I noticed you genuinely want to get out of your bad situation. Not only that, but you’re actively doing something about it. That’s something I couldn’t say for the majority of people out there.”

Look at how this compliment is authentic and observational. You noticed something about them and responded authentically to it. Not only will this encourage the person you’re talking to, but they’ll appreciate you all the more for it.

In his book “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” Dale Carnegie put it best:

“The difference between appreciation and flattery? That is simple. One is sincere and the other insincere. One comes from the heart out; the other from the teeth out. One is unselfish; the other selfish. One is universally admired; the other universally condemned.”

People aren’t stupid. They know a weak compliment (or “flattery” as Carnegie called it) when they hear it. They also know the value of a good authentic compliment and appreciate it.

Put these elements together and you can encourage anyone who’s ready for it.

Build the skills to encourage anyone

You can give people the best encouragement in the world, hand them the best tactics, techniques, and strategies, but it still won’t work until the pain of staying the same outweighs the pain of putting in the work and making a change.

That means having the intuition to recognize those moments and the confidence to jump right into those social situations.

If you need help getting there, I want to give you something to help.

First, here’s a video I made to help you improve your social skills in 30 minutes. It’ll help you better position yourself to give advice anyone will listen to.

Second, my team and I have worked on something to help you take your social skills to the next level:

The Ultimate Guide to Social Skills

This is my FREE guide to help you navigate any confusing social situation. You’ll learn how to:

Make small talk. I reveal the common mistakes most people make and show you some simple ways to make small talk with anyone. 

Overcome shyness and build confidence. These are my best strategies on overcoming anxiety and being confident in group settings.

Be more likable. Transform yourself into that person who can walk into any bar or party and talk to anyone with ease.

Enter your information below and get started building amazing social skills today.

How to encourage someone in 3 steps is a post from: I Will Teach You To Be Rich.

from Finance https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/how-to-encourage-someone/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[paulckrueger]

How to encourage someone in 3 steps

Knowing how to encourage someone is key for:

Fostering lasting relationships

Developing crucial leadership skills

Helping struggling loved ones improve their lives.

… BUT if you do it wrong, it’s an easy way to frustrate everyone, or worse, come across as a know-it-all.

I’m not going to let that happen to you though. I want to show you a great system to help you learn how to encourage someone today.

How to encourage someone

Here’s the secret to encouraging people you won’t hear from 99.9% of life coaches and self-help books:

You can only encourage someone if they want it.

Think back to high school. I’d be willing to bet that the majority of you have forgotten things from your math classes like the quadratic formula or whatever the heck a protractor does. BUT if I asked you all the words to a song you loved in high school — the one you blasted in the car with your friends and every morning on the way to school — you’d be able to sing it to me perfectly (vocal skills depending).

The same idea applies to encouragement; it’s only effective and ingrained in us when we want it. It’s human nature.

So if you try to encourage someone who doesn’t want it you’re just wasting your time.

This might seem callous but it’s actually very freeing. When you’re able to recognize who’s ready to be encouraged, you’ll know where to focus your energy when it comes to helping people who need it.

I’ve developed a three-step system to help you identify these moments to help you encourage anyone willing to improve themselves.

Step 1: Stop and listen

I got this email from a reader a while back:

From: “J.”

Subject: My question is your next blog topic.

My mother is a hot mess. In a sense, I arose from the ashes of poverty while she still hangs her hat there. She came to visit for Thanksgiving and asked me how I “made my millions” (slight exaggeration) so she could too. I don’t know how to tell her she sucks with money and that she needs to get her shit straight before she can dream of island vacations, or even owning a new car on her own.

Thoughts on how to tell a single mom who raised a half a dozen children who’s 60+ years old that she doesn’t know what the hell she’s doing and needs to get her shit in gear?

You’re the man. If you have questions, I’m available on my cell or by email.

All the Best,

J.

Notice what is going on here. This reader wants to encourage his mother — but is being very judgemental. His moral righteousness is preventing him from realizing a key thing: His mother is starting in the same place he did.

He even acknowledges it saying, “I arose from the ashes of poverty while she still hangs her hat there.” But he still goes into a judgemental tirade about how his mother is screwing up.

His first step should have been to step back and acknowledge where she is in the journey. Like him, she also started from poverty. Unlike him, there were probably different potentially bigger barriers in her way, like raising children.

The worst people in the world are people who just learned enough to be dangerous (typically, people who just learned about paleo, weightlifting, or personal finance). They’ve gone through the journey of deciding to change their life, so now they believe everyone needs to join them … without realizing that three months before, they wouldn’t have wanted to hear any of that!

So if someone comes to you who needs encouragement, your first step should always be to stop and listen. Empathize with where they are in their journey.

Two other key points:

Spend time building rapport. It’s easy to launch into how “simple” or “easy” the solution to someone’s problems is. Instead, spend the majority of your time just listening. The conversation should be 90% them 10% you.

Acknowledge their feelings. There’s no better way to discourage someone than by telling them their feelings aren’t legitimate. If someone who needs encouragement comes to you, acknowledge and address their emotions — even if you don’t quite agree with them.

Step 2: Measure how serious they are

Your next step is to discern if they’re ready to be encouraged.

Say a friend comes to you and is telling you about how he’s really struggling with his credit card debt. He also knows you recently got out of debt yourself.

You’ve listened to him talk, empathized with him, and now you’re going to ask him one simple question:

“How serious are you?”

This is key. If your friend’s answer is anything other than, “I’m very serious. I’m ready to do anything to get out of debt,” they don’t want your encouragement and probably just wanted to just complain or feel validated.

In that case, just smile and say, “You’re doing great. I’m sure you’ll figure things out.” Anything more than that would be a waste of time and energy for you.

However, if they communicate that they’re ready for genuine encouragement, move onto the next step.

Step 3: Give them genuine encouragement

Like giving a good compliment, encouraging someone requires authenticity. That’s why you should avoid giving meaningless platitudes like:

“Where there’s a will, there’s a way!”

“The universe never gives you more than you can handle!”

“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger!”

In fact, NEVER utter any of the phrases above out loud to anyone. The world will be better for it.

Instead, a genuine encouragement acknowledges their struggles and offers a potential solution to their problems.

Let’s take your friend who’s talking to you about debt. After listening you ask, “How serious are you?”

SCENARIO 1: I want to get out of debt! I’m just awful with numbers and this economy is so lame and—

Stop. They don’t really want to know a great system to get out of debt. They just want to complain and for you to listen to them.

YOUR ANSWER: Yeah, it’s tough. I just make sure I’m paying my bills each month.

Another scenario:

SCENARIO 2: Yeah, I’d really like to get out of debt. I’m trying this new thing where I’m cutting out lattes each month and skipping every other meal.

They’re not looking for technical advice. They just want to feel better about what they’re doing. In this case, validate them.

YOUR ANSWER: Good job. That sounds difficult.

Final scenario:

SCENARIO 3: I’m serious. I’ve been reading a few blogs about budgeting. I’ve been contributing X% of my paycheck towards my debt. How did you do it? You got out of debt so fast last year, I want to know how. I’ll do whatever you did.

Now your friend is ready for helpful, genuine encouragement. They’re showing that they’re ready to accept what you have to say and are eager to hear it.

YOUR ANSWER: Great! It sounds like you’re already doing a great job with the research and paying down your debt. Tell you what, send me an email with the amount of your debt and income and we’ll talk about what else you could be doing to crush your debt.

Notice two things with the last example — these are important:

It seems unfathomably rare that anyone would actually say, “I’m serious. I’ll do whatever you tell me to.” Almost nobody ever says this, because almost nobody really wants advice to the level of following through. They want to complain, they want to feel validated, but fewer than 1 in 1,000 actually want to change their behavior. It took me 10 years to truly internalize this. Once you do, you’ll start to be more understanding and empathetic, instead of frustrated.

Even though they say they are 100% serious, I still didn’t dive into the deep, technical “how to” because they are not ready. You’re doing them a favor by parceling out your advice — and you’re giving them a minor barrier to see how serious they really are. Anyone can “say” they’re serious. This is an example of using barriers strategically.

Once you offer your advice, close with an authentic compliment for the person you’re talking to. This helps reaffirm to them that they are capable of handling the situation and ends your encouragement on a high note.

Here’s a great example of one:

You: “John, you’re going to do great. You’re one of the most motivated people I know.”

Them: “Why’s that?”

You: “After talking with you, I noticed you genuinely want to get out of your bad situation. Not only that, but you’re actively doing something about it. That’s something I couldn’t say for the majority of people out there.”

Look at how this compliment is authentic and observational. You noticed something about them and responded authentically to it. Not only will this encourage the person you’re talking to, but they’ll appreciate you all the more for it.

In his book “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” Dale Carnegie put it best:

“The difference between appreciation and flattery? That is simple. One is sincere and the other insincere. One comes from the heart out; the other from the teeth out. One is unselfish; the other selfish. One is universally admired; the other universally condemned.”

People aren’t stupid. They know a weak compliment (or “flattery” as Carnegie called it) when they hear it. They also know the value of a good authentic compliment and appreciate it.

Put these elements together and you can encourage anyone who’s ready for it.

Build the skills to encourage anyone

You can give people the best encouragement in the world, hand them the best tactics, techniques, and strategies, but it still won’t work until the pain of staying the same outweighs the pain of putting in the work and making a change.

That means having the intuition to recognize those moments and the confidence to jump right into those social situations.

If you need help getting there, I want to give you something to help.

First, here’s a video I made to help you improve your social skills in 30 minutes. It’ll help you better position yourself to give advice anyone will listen to.

Second, my team and I have worked on something to help you take your social skills to the next level:

The Ultimate Guide to Social Skills

This is my FREE guide to help you navigate any confusing social situation. You’ll learn how to:

Make small talk. I reveal the common mistakes most people make and show you some simple ways to make small talk with anyone. 

Overcome shyness and build confidence. These are my best strategies on overcoming anxiety and being confident in group settings.

Be more likable. Transform yourself into that person who can walk into any bar or party and talk to anyone with ease.

Enter your information below and get started building amazing social skills today.

How to encourage someone in 3 steps is a post from: I Will Teach You To Be Rich.

from Surety Bond Brokers? Business https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/how-to-encourage-someone/

[apartmentdiet]

How to encourage someone in 3 steps

Knowing how to encourage someone is key for:

Fostering lasting relationships

Developing crucial leadership skills

Helping struggling loved ones improve their lives.

… BUT if you do it wrong, it’s an easy way to frustrate everyone, or worse, come across as a know-it-all.

I’m not going to let that happen to you though. I want to show you a great system to help you learn how to encourage someone today.

How to encourage someone

Here’s the secret to encouraging people you won’t hear from 99.9% of life coaches and self-help books:

You can only encourage someone if they want it.

Think back to high school. I’d be willing to bet that the majority of you have forgotten things from your math classes like the quadratic formula or whatever the heck a protractor does. BUT if I asked you all the words to a song you loved in high school — the one you blasted in the car with your friends and every morning on the way to school — you’d be able to sing it to me perfectly (vocal skills depending).

The same idea applies to encouragement; it’s only effective and ingrained in us when we want it. It’s human nature.

So if you try to encourage someone who doesn’t want it you’re just wasting your time.

This might seem callous but it’s actually very freeing. When you’re able to recognize who’s ready to be encouraged, you’ll know where to focus your energy when it comes to helping people who need it.

I’ve developed a three-step system to help you identify these moments to help you encourage anyone willing to improve themselves.

Step 1: Stop and listen

I got this email from a reader a while back:

From: “J.”

Subject: My question is your next blog topic.

My mother is a hot mess. In a sense, I arose from the ashes of poverty while she still hangs her hat there. She came to visit for Thanksgiving and asked me how I “made my millions” (slight exaggeration) so she could too. I don’t know how to tell her she sucks with money and that she needs to get her shit straight before she can dream of island vacations, or even owning a new car on her own.

Thoughts on how to tell a single mom who raised a half a dozen children who’s 60+ years old that she doesn’t know what the hell she’s doing and needs to get her shit in gear?

You’re the man. If you have questions, I’m available on my cell or by email.

All the Best,

J.

Notice what is going on here. This reader wants to encourage his mother — but is being very judgemental. His moral righteousness is preventing him from realizing a key thing: His mother is starting in the same place he did.

He even acknowledges it saying, “I arose from the ashes of poverty while she still hangs her hat there.” But he still goes into a judgemental tirade about how his mother is screwing up.

His first step should have been to step back and acknowledge where she is in the journey. Like him, she also started from poverty. Unlike him, there were probably different potentially bigger barriers in her way, like raising children.

The worst people in the world are people who just learned enough to be dangerous (typically, people who just learned about paleo, weightlifting, or personal finance). They’ve gone through the journey of deciding to change their life, so now they believe everyone needs to join them … without realizing that three months before, they wouldn’t have wanted to hear any of that!

So if someone comes to you who needs encouragement, your first step should always be to stop and listen. Empathize with where they are in their journey.

Two other key points:

Spend time building rapport. It’s easy to launch into how “simple” or “easy” the solution to someone’s problems is. Instead, spend the majority of your time just listening. The conversation should be 90% them 10% you.

Acknowledge their feelings. There’s no better way to discourage someone than by telling them their feelings aren’t legitimate. If someone who needs encouragement comes to you, acknowledge and address their emotions — even if you don’t quite agree with them.

Step 2: Measure how serious they are

Your next step is to discern if they’re ready to be encouraged.

Say a friend comes to you and is telling you about how he’s really struggling with his credit card debt. He also knows you recently got out of debt yourself.

You’ve listened to him talk, empathized with him, and now you’re going to ask him one simple question:

“How serious are you?”

This is key. If your friend’s answer is anything other than, “I’m very serious. I’m ready to do anything to get out of debt,” they don’t want your encouragement and probably just wanted to just complain or feel validated.

In that case, just smile and say, “You’re doing great. I’m sure you’ll figure things out.” Anything more than that would be a waste of time and energy for you.

However, if they communicate that they’re ready for genuine encouragement, move onto the next step.

Step 3: Give them genuine encouragement

Like giving a good compliment, encouraging someone requires authenticity. That’s why you should avoid giving meaningless platitudes like:

“Where there’s a will, there’s a way!”

“The universe never gives you more than you can handle!”

“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger!”

In fact, NEVER utter any of the phrases above out loud to anyone. The world will be better for it.

Instead, a genuine encouragement acknowledges their struggles and offers a potential solution to their problems.

Let’s take your friend who’s talking to you about debt. After listening you ask, “How serious are you?”

SCENARIO 1: I want to get out of debt! I’m just awful with numbers and this economy is so lame and—

Stop. They don’t really want to know a great system to get out of debt. They just want to complain and for you to listen to them.

YOUR ANSWER: Yeah, it’s tough. I just make sure I’m paying my bills each month.

Another scenario:

SCENARIO 2: Yeah, I’d really like to get out of debt. I’m trying this new thing where I’m cutting out lattes each month and skipping every other meal.

They’re not looking for technical advice. They just want to feel better about what they’re doing. In this case, validate them.

YOUR ANSWER: Good job. That sounds difficult.

Final scenario:

SCENARIO 3: I’m serious. I’ve been reading a few blogs about budgeting. I’ve been contributing X% of my paycheck towards my debt. How did you do it? You got out of debt so fast last year, I want to know how. I’ll do whatever you did.

Now your friend is ready for helpful, genuine encouragement. They’re showing that they’re ready to accept what you have to say and are eager to hear it.

YOUR ANSWER: Great! It sounds like you’re already doing a great job with the research and paying down your debt. Tell you what, send me an email with the amount of your debt and income and we’ll talk about what else you could be doing to crush your debt.

Notice two things with the last example — these are important:

It seems unfathomably rare that anyone would actually say, “I’m serious. I’ll do whatever you tell me to.” Almost nobody ever says this, because almost nobody really wants advice to the level of following through. They want to complain, they want to feel validated, but fewer than 1 in 1,000 actually want to change their behavior. It took me 10 years to truly internalize this. Once you do, you’ll start to be more understanding and empathetic, instead of frustrated.

Even though they say they are 100% serious, I still didn’t dive into the deep, technical “how to” because they are not ready. You’re doing them a favor by parceling out your advice — and you’re giving them a minor barrier to see how serious they really are. Anyone can “say” they’re serious. This is an example of using barriers strategically.

Once you offer your advice, close with an authentic compliment for the person you’re talking to. This helps reaffirm to them that they are capable of handling the situation and ends your encouragement on a high note.

Here’s a great example of one:

You: “John, you’re going to do great. You’re one of the most motivated people I know.”

Them: “Why’s that?”

You: “After talking with you, I noticed you genuinely want to get out of your bad situation. Not only that, but you’re actively doing something about it. That’s something I couldn’t say for the majority of people out there.”

Look at how this compliment is authentic and observational. You noticed something about them and responded authentically to it. Not only will this encourage the person you’re talking to, but they’ll appreciate you all the more for it.

In his book “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” Dale Carnegie put it best:

“The difference between appreciation and flattery? That is simple. One is sincere and the other insincere. One comes from the heart out; the other from the teeth out. One is unselfish; the other selfish. One is universally admired; the other universally condemned.”

People aren’t stupid. They know a weak compliment (or “flattery” as Carnegie called it) when they hear it. They also know the value of a good authentic compliment and appreciate it.

Put these elements together and you can encourage anyone who’s ready for it.

Build the skills to encourage anyone

You can give people the best encouragement in the world, hand them the best tactics, techniques, and strategies, but it still won’t work until the pain of staying the same outweighs the pain of putting in the work and making a change.

That means having the intuition to recognize those moments and the confidence to jump right into those social situations.

If you need help getting there, I want to give you something to help.

First, here’s a video I made to help you improve your social skills in 30 minutes. It’ll help you better position yourself to give advice anyone will listen to.

Second, my team and I have worked on something to help you take your social skills to the next level:

The Ultimate Guide to Social Skills

This is my FREE guide to help you navigate any confusing social situation. You’ll learn how to:

Make small talk. I reveal the common mistakes most people make and show you some simple ways to make small talk with anyone. 

Overcome shyness and build confidence. These are my best strategies on overcoming anxiety and being confident in group settings.

Be more likable. Transform yourself into that person who can walk into any bar or party and talk to anyone with ease.

Enter your information below and get started building amazing social skills today.

How to encourage someone in 3 steps is a post from: I Will Teach You To Be Rich.

#Vanessa Napier

[watsonrodriquezie]

Finally Getting Lean and Feeling Excellent!

It’s Friday, everyone! And that means another Primal Blueprint Real Life Story from a Mark’s Daily Apple reader. If you have your own success story and would like to share it with me and the Mark’s Daily Apple community please contact me here. In fact, I have a contest going right now. So if you have a story to share, no matter how big or how small, you’ll be in the running to win a big prize. Read more here.

Big-boned. That’s what I told myself I was when I was growing up. I put down to genetics a tendency to gain fat with unnerving ease but what else could I blame? Armed with the conventional wisdom of Australia in the 1980s and 90s, we were simply fed the way we were taught to eat: some meat and vegetables but otherwise plenty of white bread, cereals, skimmed milk, margarine, and other ‘healthy carbs’ like potatoes and pasta. Having something of a sweet tooth myself, I was no stranger to unloading a tablespoon of sugar into my bowl of Weetbix or Rice Bubbles. I didn’t like water (admittedly, the tap water in Adelaide is still the worst I’ve tasted to this day) so anytime I drank fluids, they were enhanced with the sugary goodness of cordial. I often got sick when I was young, generally in the form of lingering colds, but my stomach often played up, too; nausea was a given for me for long periods of time, and if there was a stomach bug going around, I’d be the first to get it. (It would later turn out via a blood test in my 20s that I was borderline coeliac so I’d be surprised if that isn’t connected!). I was a reasonably active child, spending a lot of time on my BMX at the bike track, out waterskiing on the river, swimming in our pool, rowing, and playing weekly games of hockey, so I’m lucky not to have been really seriously out of shape. I was most definitely very soft around the edges though.

It was around the time I left school in 2000 at the age of 18 that friends and I started to take an interest in lifting weights, but we really had no idea what we were doing at that stage, especially as far as nutrition was concerned. We were far more likely to be downing post-training beers than anything remotely helpful like a protein shake or, god forbid, actual food. For the next couple of years I left the weights, and my only exercise was the daily 30-minute ride to and from my job at an award-winning bakery. I can only thank having youth on my side for the fact that the unfathomable number of pies, sausage rolls, cakes, buns and Red Bulls I consumed didn’t go straight to my fat stores and stay there!

The next decade or so contained a variety of approaches to training, nutrition and wellbeing, some more successful or long-lasting than others. I discovered my love of a style of kung fu which I’ve now kept up for 13 years; I dabbled in Ori Hoffmeckler’s Warrior Diet for a few months; I fell in love with kettlebell training and have grown a pretty nice collection of them which I use religiously; I fell out of love with a vegetarian-pasta-obsessed girlfriend (this stuff contained pasta, tinned tomatoes, a couple of carrots and some celery – talk about a malnourished period of my life!); whey protein took its place in my diet and, like an epiphany, crystallized for me the importance protein plays in the healthy functioning of the body; I completed a personal training qualification but ended up not working as a PT after learning the statistic about the very high number of PTs who contract vocal nodules – I was (and still am) a classical singer who relied on his vocal health!

I’d always admired Arnold Schwarzenegger (his dedication and his physique, anyway) so at the time I was doing the PT course, I started training with traditional weights again to get as big and strong as I possibly could. And I did. I got very big and very strong. And fat. I got so fat you could barely tell I’d gained a notable amount of muscle too. Conventional Lifting Wisdom, as I was interpreting it, had been telling me to eat as much as I could fit in my belly, multiple times a day. I was loading up on fantastic meat (my sister managed one of the best butcher shops in Australia), but I was also gorging on peanut butter right out of the jar just to keep my calories up. I really ran with the concept and completely overshot the mark, going from 77kgs to 94kgs (169lbs to 207lbs) at a height of just shy of 6ft in a matter of months, and I did not look or feel healthy or especially happy by this point. It was a real eye-opener in terms of my caloric requirements, too – I’d significantly overestimated how much energy I was burning and how much of which foods I needed to eat for recovery. I have no regrets because self-experimentation has taught me a lot, but I realise in hindsight that this phase may well have created the insulin resistance that stayed with me for quite a few of the ensuing years.

Six months later. New wonderful girlfriend (soon-to-be-wonderful-wife), moved to a smaller place that didn’t fit my weights gear (power cage, Olympic bar and the rest) which was a real problem for my lifting as the introvert in me makes me very much a solo trainee – I’m completely self-conscious in a gym, and I need silence to train effectively – so I got lazy and happy. I was still using my kettlebells every so often and training kung fu but not with the dedication I had been. I lost some fat, but I also lost some muscle so for the next couple of years I was strong but kind of out of shape again with my training in flux without a clear goal. In 2011 we moved our whole lives over to the UK to try our hands at fully freelance classical music careers (my wife is a violinist). Things began well but building a freelance career where you don’t know anyone inevitably means pinching pennies so our eating suffered somewhat. It was never hideous but it was definitely still conventional in the sense that we didn’t really think much about what we ate. Lots of carbs but lots of fat to go with it, plus healthy volumes of heavy British ales. I kept up the kung fu and I bought some cheap kettle bells, but my commitment was somewhat intermittent given our entire living space was one room for two years. Still didn’t look great at somewhere between 87kg and 91kg (190-200lbs). For most of this time though, because we were poor, we walked a hell of a lot to avoid paying for transport!

Still in the UK and careers going from strength to strength, we had our first beautiful boy, Tobias, in 2015 and despite ramping up my training and healthier eating in the months beforehand, I REALLY let myself go once he appeared in our lives. I was sleep-deprived so I constantly fell for comfort foods and beer and wine, and within nine months I was up to 95kg (209lbs). I’d never been heavier or felt worse. They say it takes 28 days to build a habit and three days to break one and during this period, any time I tried to train, I couldn’t create enough momentum to take me to the next session; I couldn’t get anywhere near enough to the ‘28 days’ to establish the pattern I needed to be consistent again. Of course, I was weaker and more unfit than I had been and I found this very depressing so I coped by avoiding it altogether – and I’d always hated avoidance as a coping tactic. I was becoming someone whose choices I couldn’t respect and that was heartbreaking to me. I’d always been confident but that was now diminishing to the point that friends and colleagues commented on it. I even started to get ever-increasing bouts of performance anxiety on stage – scary stuff because I’d seen it end careers. The final straw was a photo that was taken of a group of friends and me on a visit back home to Australia; despite knowing inside that I’d gained a lot of fat, it was seeing my body stretching my t-shirt in all directions and having the photo shared far and wide that was my ‘ugh’ moment.

Enter Primal. I stumbled on Mark’s Daily Apple after looking at hunter-gatherer-related pages (I’d always had a thirst for knowledge about prehistoric peoples) and, like so many others who write these stories, I was instantly dumbstruck by the sense in everything I read. I’d heard bits and pieces about Paleo and a lower carb lifestyle (I tried the Ketogenic Diet in early 2014 with mixed success) but not like this. I ordered The Primal Blueprint days later and finally I saw what I needed presented in a way that used science, logic and common sense without the sensationalism you see surrounding other ‘diets’. This was so much more than a simple diet; as I saw it, it took care of everything that makes the human body and mind thrive, and with countless studies to back it up.

I wasn’t a super high-carb eater so I didn’t suffer terribly from the ‘carb flu’ the way some do when I dropped the last vestiges of a grainy diet (oats and sandwiches and the like) and upped the fat from sources like avocado, eggs, nuts, bacon, fish, heavy cream in coffee, and more olive oil, but still, the weight just flew off – in a matter of a few weeks I was down 6kg. I’m sure some of that was water but I felt so much better too: I was already getting sick far less often, I was sleeping better, my energy was balanced and I wasn’t getting as hungry. I attempted my first 24 hour fast on a major concert day (much to the bewilderment of my colleagues) and I barely noticed on stage that I hadn’t eaten all day. One of the other great benefits of all this for me has been the ease with which I can retain muscle while eating little enough to lose the fat off the top. 13 months on, I’m down 15.5kg (34lbs) and I can see my abs for the first time in my ENTIRE LIFE – and I still have most of the muscle I worked so hard for.

Day-to-day, I tend to cycle through the regular components of my diet according to what I’m in the mood for. Every morning I have the juice of half a lemon in hot water before anything else. If I’m having breakfast (I often fast till lunch), I’ll either have a protein shake or some full-fat natural Greek yoghurt and some ricotta with berries, a couple of Brazil nuts and milled flax, pumpkin and sunflower seeds, plus a double espresso with a splash of heavy cream. Lunch is generally a big tin of salmon (bones included, though I take the skin out – I’ve been squeamish about fish skin since I worked in a seafood factory at the age of 19) mixed with a bit of yoghurt, capers, cucumber, lemon juice, olive oil, apple cider vinegar, and seaweed salt. Dinners are a mix! It’s always meat and vegetables in some combination (curry, tagine, roast, summer salad, etc), generally without much in the way of carbs. Lamb shanks are my all-time favourite meal, however they’re prepared, and I’ll have some potato with them. I’ll have a spoon or two of rice with a curry.

Post-training I’ll always have a protein shake with creatine and a spoonful of blackstrap molasses or an occasional banana. I was eating a lot of eggs but I’ve largely dropped them of late due to some bloating – which I hope passes as they’re so convenient and tasty! I could certainly improve on my base level Primal diet, though. I really need to eat more vegetables throughout the day, and I need to eat more collagen due to my taste for muscle meat. That said, every day I feel I learn more about how I can best make it work for me so food decisions become easier and more instinctive.

My training schedule varies according to how I feel, but my average week will contain four or five days with some form of training. These will either be heavy kettlebell work (overhead mostly – clean and presses, snatches, and some rows and swings), or weighted dips, chin-ups, pistols and Turkish Get-ups, or a 15-minute farmers’ walk with my heaviest ‘bells, kung fu training, or (lately) some sprints. None of these sessions will exceed an hour – I’m generally done between 30 and 45 minutes. I’ll also knock out a set of pushups or chin-ups or dips when I’m near my doorway chin-up bar or a pair of kitchen chairs!

I travel a lot for work, often for a couple of weeks at a time staying in various hotels touring around the USA. Lots of the tour days will contain two flights (when I’m already jetlagged and having to be out of bed by 5 a.m. after a late concert the night before), and this can add a little guesswork into the equation as far as not knowing what type of meal an airport will have or a promoter will provide – I’ll sometimes simply have to be a little less strict. Same thing with frequent 24-hour trips to spots all over Europe like that great Mecca of beer, Belgium. I’m extremely lucky to have a career that takes me to these wonderful places – as a great food and drink lover, I feel I owe it to myself to make the most of what these cultures have to offer so I might indulge a little. In any case, as long as I get back in the saddle on my return, nothing negative lasts very long at all. The 80/20 principle works very well for me – I’ve proven to myself that loosening the reins every so often doesn’t have to end the game for me, at least once my body and I knew the ropes. I’ve learned that I can get away with a couple of beers here, some wine and chocolate there, or an almond croissant on a special morning out with my wife and son. I don’t always feel great afterwards but it’s good for the soul.

If there’s hope I have to offer to anyone in particular who is contemplating taking the plunge, it’s to new parents. Our respective families live on the other side of the world, so we’re essentially raising our son alone – life is therefore far from easy, and a day’s planned physical activity can often go out the window at a moment’s notice – but the Primal approach is so adaptable that it needn’t ever be derailed. If Tobias woke early from his nap, my kettlebell session would be halved; if I was completely destroyed by a night with him refusing to sleep for more than 30 minutes at a time, I did a handful of chin-ups and chair dips and called it a day on training till I’d caught up a bit; if I was stressed by his unwillingness to play on his own for an entire day and felt like falling into a packet of sweet biscuits or chips, I was thankfully armed with the knowledge that I was just going to feel awful afterwards. And if I did succumb? I’d appreciate the moment for what it was and move on because I’d be back to craving what my body now instinctively knew what was good for it. This is all still relevant, but now that Tobias is nearly two, the challenge has changed a bit. Now he insists on lifting kettlebells with me (well, he deadlifts the 8kg one at least!), he gets me to help him with dips, he planks with me, he copies one-arm push-ups, and he now enjoys using a foam roller to work out all that tension created by the incredibly demanding situation of being a 23-month-old with his every whim taken care of.

As an aside, growing up in Australia, we took the sun for granted so we never considered taking vitamin D supplements – we simply didn’t need to – but it took me five years here in the UK to realise that it’s a really good idea in winter! Two months ago I was feeling especially drained, I had a constant headache, my sleep was sporadic, I was getting sick a lot again, and my fat loss had stalled. I re-read Mark’s article about vitamin D and checked all my symptoms against a few other websites and realised that was it. I’m now taking 5,000-10,000IU a day and all of the symptoms have gone, including my fat loss plateau – and that’s the only thing I’ve changed. If you’re not getting much sun for a long period of time, it’s definitely worth checking your vitamin D levels.

So that’s my Primal journey so far! I have to commend and thank my wife, Julia. Despite some reluctance at the beginning – she was raised with a more progressive and holistic attitude towards food, and as a result hasn’t struggled with the same fat gain or health issues – she is completely onboard and has been really supportive with all this (useful because she loves cooking and does nearly all of it). I’m also very glad to be able to give our boy the healthy head start not many get at the same age. We’re expecting our second baby in a couple of months so we’ll be back to square one with the sleep issues, but I now know I don’t have to drop everything as a result!

I have so much gratitude to Mark for the wealth of reliable and verifiable information he makes available in a world which is only just starting to shift in the right direction. He’s had the most profound influence on our health and well-being that it’s hard to know where to begin. So thank you, Mark!

Tom

[fishermariawo]

Finally Getting Lean and Feeling Excellent!

It’s Friday, everyone! And that means another Primal Blueprint Real Life Story from a Mark’s Daily Apple reader. If you have your own success story and would like to share it with me and the Mark’s Daily Apple community please contact me here. In fact, I have a contest going right now. So if you have a story to share, no matter how big or how small, you’ll be in the running to win a big prize. Read more here.

Big-boned. That’s what I told myself I was when I was growing up. I put down to genetics a tendency to gain fat with unnerving ease but what else could I blame? Armed with the conventional wisdom of Australia in the 1980s and 90s, we were simply fed the way we were taught to eat: some meat and vegetables but otherwise plenty of white bread, cereals, skimmed milk, margarine, and other ‘healthy carbs’ like potatoes and pasta. Having something of a sweet tooth myself, I was no stranger to unloading a tablespoon of sugar into my bowl of Weetbix or Rice Bubbles. I didn’t like water (admittedly, the tap water in Adelaide is still the worst I’ve tasted to this day) so anytime I drank fluids, they were enhanced with the sugary goodness of cordial. I often got sick when I was young, generally in the form of lingering colds, but my stomach often played up, too; nausea was a given for me for long periods of time, and if there was a stomach bug going around, I’d be the first to get it. (It would later turn out via a blood test in my 20s that I was borderline coeliac so I’d be surprised if that isn’t connected!). I was a reasonably active child, spending a lot of time on my BMX at the bike track, out waterskiing on the river, swimming in our pool, rowing, and playing weekly games of hockey, so I’m lucky not to have been really seriously out of shape. I was most definitely very soft around the edges though.

It was around the time I left school in 2000 at the age of 18 that friends and I started to take an interest in lifting weights, but we really had no idea what we were doing at that stage, especially as far as nutrition was concerned. We were far more likely to be downing post-training beers than anything remotely helpful like a protein shake or, god forbid, actual food. For the next couple of years I left the weights, and my only exercise was the daily 30-minute ride to and from my job at an award-winning bakery. I can only thank having youth on my side for the fact that the unfathomable number of pies, sausage rolls, cakes, buns and Red Bulls I consumed didn’t go straight to my fat stores and stay there!

The next decade or so contained a variety of approaches to training, nutrition and wellbeing, some more successful or long-lasting than others. I discovered my love of a style of kung fu which I’ve now kept up for 13 years; I dabbled in Ori Hoffmeckler’s Warrior Diet for a few months; I fell in love with kettlebell training and have grown a pretty nice collection of them which I use religiously; I fell out of love with a vegetarian-pasta-obsessed girlfriend (this stuff contained pasta, tinned tomatoes, a couple of carrots and some celery – talk about a malnourished period of my life!); whey protein took its place in my diet and, like an epiphany, crystallized for me the importance protein plays in the healthy functioning of the body; I completed a personal training qualification but ended up not working as a PT after learning the statistic about the very high number of PTs who contract vocal nodules – I was (and still am) a classical singer who relied on his vocal health!

I’d always admired Arnold Schwarzenegger (his dedication and his physique, anyway) so at the time I was doing the PT course, I started training with traditional weights again to get as big and strong as I possibly could. And I did. I got very big and very strong. And fat. I got so fat you could barely tell I’d gained a notable amount of muscle too. Conventional Lifting Wisdom, as I was interpreting it, had been telling me to eat as much as I could fit in my belly, multiple times a day. I was loading up on fantastic meat (my sister managed one of the best butcher shops in Australia), but I was also gorging on peanut butter right out of the jar just to keep my calories up. I really ran with the concept and completely overshot the mark, going from 77kgs to 94kgs (169lbs to 207lbs) at a height of just shy of 6ft in a matter of months, and I did not look or feel healthy or especially happy by this point. It was a real eye-opener in terms of my caloric requirements, too – I’d significantly overestimated how much energy I was burning and how much of which foods I needed to eat for recovery. I have no regrets because self-experimentation has taught me a lot, but I realise in hindsight that this phase may well have created the insulin resistance that stayed with me for quite a few of the ensuing years.

Six months later. New wonderful girlfriend (soon-to-be-wonderful-wife), moved to a smaller place that didn’t fit my weights gear (power cage, Olympic bar and the rest) which was a real problem for my lifting as the introvert in me makes me very much a solo trainee – I’m completely self-conscious in a gym, and I need silence to train effectively – so I got lazy and happy. I was still using my kettlebells every so often and training kung fu but not with the dedication I had been. I lost some fat, but I also lost some muscle so for the next couple of years I was strong but kind of out of shape again with my training in flux without a clear goal. In 2011 we moved our whole lives over to the UK to try our hands at fully freelance classical music careers (my wife is a violinist). Things began well but building a freelance career where you don’t know anyone inevitably means pinching pennies so our eating suffered somewhat. It was never hideous but it was definitely still conventional in the sense that we didn’t really think much about what we ate. Lots of carbs but lots of fat to go with it, plus healthy volumes of heavy British ales. I kept up the kung fu and I bought some cheap kettle bells, but my commitment was somewhat intermittent given our entire living space was one room for two years. Still didn’t look great at somewhere between 87kg and 91kg (190-200lbs). For most of this time though, because we were poor, we walked a hell of a lot to avoid paying for transport!

Still in the UK and careers going from strength to strength, we had our first beautiful boy, Tobias, in 2015 and despite ramping up my training and healthier eating in the months beforehand, I REALLY let myself go once he appeared in our lives. I was sleep-deprived so I constantly fell for comfort foods and beer and wine, and within nine months I was up to 95kg (209lbs). I’d never been heavier or felt worse. They say it takes 28 days to build a habit and three days to break one and during this period, any time I tried to train, I couldn’t create enough momentum to take me to the next session; I couldn’t get anywhere near enough to the ‘28 days’ to establish the pattern I needed to be consistent again. Of course, I was weaker and more unfit than I had been and I found this very depressing so I coped by avoiding it altogether – and I’d always hated avoidance as a coping tactic. I was becoming someone whose choices I couldn’t respect and that was heartbreaking to me. I’d always been confident but that was now diminishing to the point that friends and colleagues commented on it. I even started to get ever-increasing bouts of performance anxiety on stage – scary stuff because I’d seen it end careers. The final straw was a photo that was taken of a group of friends and me on a visit back home to Australia; despite knowing inside that I’d gained a lot of fat, it was seeing my body stretching my t-shirt in all directions and having the photo shared far and wide that was my ‘ugh’ moment.

Enter Primal. I stumbled on Mark’s Daily Apple after looking at hunter-gatherer-related pages (I’d always had a thirst for knowledge about prehistoric peoples) and, like so many others who write these stories, I was instantly dumbstruck by the sense in everything I read. I’d heard bits and pieces about Paleo and a lower carb lifestyle (I tried the Ketogenic Diet in early 2014 with mixed success) but not like this. I ordered The Primal Blueprint days later and finally I saw what I needed presented in a way that used science, logic and common sense without the sensationalism you see surrounding other ‘diets’. This was so much more than a simple diet; as I saw it, it took care of everything that makes the human body and mind thrive, and with countless studies to back it up.

I wasn’t a super high-carb eater so I didn’t suffer terribly from the ‘carb flu’ the way some do when I dropped the last vestiges of a grainy diet (oats and sandwiches and the like) and upped the fat from sources like avocado, eggs, nuts, bacon, fish, heavy cream in coffee, and more olive oil, but still, the weight just flew off – in a matter of a few weeks I was down 6kg. I’m sure some of that was water but I felt so much better too: I was already getting sick far less often, I was sleeping better, my energy was balanced and I wasn’t getting as hungry. I attempted my first 24 hour fast on a major concert day (much to the bewilderment of my colleagues) and I barely noticed on stage that I hadn’t eaten all day. One of the other great benefits of all this for me has been the ease with which I can retain muscle while eating little enough to lose the fat off the top. 13 months on, I’m down 15.5kg (34lbs) and I can see my abs for the first time in my ENTIRE LIFE – and I still have most of the muscle I worked so hard for.

Day-to-day, I tend to cycle through the regular components of my diet according to what I’m in the mood for. Every morning I have the juice of half a lemon in hot water before anything else. If I’m having breakfast (I often fast till lunch), I’ll either have a protein shake or some full-fat natural Greek yoghurt and some ricotta with berries, a couple of Brazil nuts and milled flax, pumpkin and sunflower seeds, plus a double espresso with a splash of heavy cream. Lunch is generally a big tin of salmon (bones included, though I take the skin out – I’ve been squeamish about fish skin since I worked in a seafood factory at the age of 19) mixed with a bit of yoghurt, capers, cucumber, lemon juice, olive oil, apple cider vinegar, and seaweed salt. Dinners are a mix! It’s always meat and vegetables in some combination (curry, tagine, roast, summer salad, etc), generally without much in the way of carbs. Lamb shanks are my all-time favourite meal, however they’re prepared, and I’ll have some potato with them. I’ll have a spoon or two of rice with a curry.

Post-training I’ll always have a protein shake with creatine and a spoonful of blackstrap molasses or an occasional banana. I was eating a lot of eggs but I’ve largely dropped them of late due to some bloating – which I hope passes as they’re so convenient and tasty! I could certainly improve on my base level Primal diet, though. I really need to eat more vegetables throughout the day, and I need to eat more collagen due to my taste for muscle meat. That said, every day I feel I learn more about how I can best make it work for me so food decisions become easier and more instinctive.

My training schedule varies according to how I feel, but my average week will contain four or five days with some form of training. These will either be heavy kettlebell work (overhead mostly – clean and presses, snatches, and some rows and swings), or weighted dips, chin-ups, pistols and Turkish Get-ups, or a 15-minute farmers’ walk with my heaviest ‘bells, kung fu training, or (lately) some sprints. None of these sessions will exceed an hour – I’m generally done between 30 and 45 minutes. I’ll also knock out a set of pushups or chin-ups or dips when I’m near my doorway chin-up bar or a pair of kitchen chairs!

I travel a lot for work, often for a couple of weeks at a time staying in various hotels touring around the USA. Lots of the tour days will contain two flights (when I’m already jetlagged and having to be out of bed by 5 a.m. after a late concert the night before), and this can add a little guesswork into the equation as far as not knowing what type of meal an airport will have or a promoter will provide – I’ll sometimes simply have to be a little less strict. Same thing with frequent 24-hour trips to spots all over Europe like that great Mecca of beer, Belgium. I’m extremely lucky to have a career that takes me to these wonderful places – as a great food and drink lover, I feel I owe it to myself to make the most of what these cultures have to offer so I might indulge a little. In any case, as long as I get back in the saddle on my return, nothing negative lasts very long at all. The 80/20 principle works very well for me – I’ve proven to myself that loosening the reins every so often doesn’t have to end the game for me, at least once my body and I knew the ropes. I’ve learned that I can get away with a couple of beers here, some wine and chocolate there, or an almond croissant on a special morning out with my wife and son. I don’t always feel great afterwards but it’s good for the soul.

If there’s hope I have to offer to anyone in particular who is contemplating taking the plunge, it’s to new parents. Our respective families live on the other side of the world, so we’re essentially raising our son alone – life is therefore far from easy, and a day’s planned physical activity can often go out the window at a moment’s notice – but the Primal approach is so adaptable that it needn’t ever be derailed. If Tobias woke early from his nap, my kettlebell session would be halved; if I was completely destroyed by a night with him refusing to sleep for more than 30 minutes at a time, I did a handful of chin-ups and chair dips and called it a day on training till I’d caught up a bit; if I was stressed by his unwillingness to play on his own for an entire day and felt like falling into a packet of sweet biscuits or chips, I was thankfully armed with the knowledge that I was just going to feel awful afterwards. And if I did succumb? I’d appreciate the moment for what it was and move on because I’d be back to craving what my body now instinctively knew what was good for it. This is all still relevant, but now that Tobias is nearly two, the challenge has changed a bit. Now he insists on lifting kettlebells with me (well, he deadlifts the 8kg one at least!), he gets me to help him with dips, he planks with me, he copies one-arm push-ups, and he now enjoys using a foam roller to work out all that tension created by the incredibly demanding situation of being a 23-month-old with his every whim taken care of.

As an aside, growing up in Australia, we took the sun for granted so we never considered taking vitamin D supplements – we simply didn’t need to – but it took me five years here in the UK to realise that it’s a really good idea in winter! Two months ago I was feeling especially drained, I had a constant headache, my sleep was sporadic, I was getting sick a lot again, and my fat loss had stalled. I re-read Mark’s article about vitamin D and checked all my symptoms against a few other websites and realised that was it. I’m now taking 5,000-10,000IU a day and all of the symptoms have gone, including my fat loss plateau – and that’s the only thing I’ve changed. If you’re not getting much sun for a long period of time, it’s definitely worth checking your vitamin D levels.

So that’s my Primal journey so far! I have to commend and thank my wife, Julia. Despite some reluctance at the beginning – she was raised with a more progressive and holistic attitude towards food, and as a result hasn’t struggled with the same fat gain or health issues – she is completely onboard and has been really supportive with all this (useful because she loves cooking and does nearly all of it). I’m also very glad to be able to give our boy the healthy head start not many get at the same age. We’re expecting our second baby in a couple of months so we’ll be back to square one with the sleep issues, but I now know I don’t have to drop everything as a result!

I have so much gratitude to Mark for the wealth of reliable and verifiable information he makes available in a world which is only just starting to shift in the right direction. He’s had the most profound influence on our health and well-being that it’s hard to know where to begin. So thank you, Mark!

Tom

[milenasanchezmk]

Finally Getting Lean and Feeling Excellent!

It’s Friday, everyone! And that means another Primal Blueprint Real Life Story from a Mark’s Daily Apple reader. If you have your own success story and would like to share it with me and the Mark’s Daily Apple community please contact me here. In fact, I have a contest going right now. So if you have a story to share, no matter how big or how small, you’ll be in the running to win a big prize. Read more here.

Big-boned. That’s what I told myself I was when I was growing up. I put down to genetics a tendency to gain fat with unnerving ease but what else could I blame? Armed with the conventional wisdom of Australia in the 1980s and 90s, we were simply fed the way we were taught to eat: some meat and vegetables but otherwise plenty of white bread, cereals, skimmed milk, margarine, and other ‘healthy carbs’ like potatoes and pasta. Having something of a sweet tooth myself, I was no stranger to unloading a tablespoon of sugar into my bowl of Weetbix or Rice Bubbles. I didn’t like water (admittedly, the tap water in Adelaide is still the worst I’ve tasted to this day) so anytime I drank fluids, they were enhanced with the sugary goodness of cordial. I often got sick when I was young, generally in the form of lingering colds, but my stomach often played up, too; nausea was a given for me for long periods of time, and if there was a stomach bug going around, I’d be the first to get it. (It would later turn out via a blood test in my 20s that I was borderline coeliac so I’d be surprised if that isn’t connected!). I was a reasonably active child, spending a lot of time on my BMX at the bike track, out waterskiing on the river, swimming in our pool, rowing, and playing weekly games of hockey, so I’m lucky not to have been really seriously out of shape. I was most definitely very soft around the edges though.

It was around the time I left school in 2000 at the age of 18 that friends and I started to take an interest in lifting weights, but we really had no idea what we were doing at that stage, especially as far as nutrition was concerned. We were far more likely to be downing post-training beers than anything remotely helpful like a protein shake or, god forbid, actual food. For the next couple of years I left the weights, and my only exercise was the daily 30-minute ride to and from my job at an award-winning bakery. I can only thank having youth on my side for the fact that the unfathomable number of pies, sausage rolls, cakes, buns and Red Bulls I consumed didn’t go straight to my fat stores and stay there!

The next decade or so contained a variety of approaches to training, nutrition and wellbeing, some more successful or long-lasting than others. I discovered my love of a style of kung fu which I’ve now kept up for 13 years; I dabbled in Ori Hoffmeckler’s Warrior Diet for a few months; I fell in love with kettlebell training and have grown a pretty nice collection of them which I use religiously; I fell out of love with a vegetarian-pasta-obsessed girlfriend (this stuff contained pasta, tinned tomatoes, a couple of carrots and some celery – talk about a malnourished period of my life!); whey protein took its place in my diet and, like an epiphany, crystallized for me the importance protein plays in the healthy functioning of the body; I completed a personal training qualification but ended up not working as a PT after learning the statistic about the very high number of PTs who contract vocal nodules – I was (and still am) a classical singer who relied on his vocal health!

I’d always admired Arnold Schwarzenegger (his dedication and his physique, anyway) so at the time I was doing the PT course, I started training with traditional weights again to get as big and strong as I possibly could. And I did. I got very big and very strong. And fat. I got so fat you could barely tell I’d gained a notable amount of muscle too. Conventional Lifting Wisdom, as I was interpreting it, had been telling me to eat as much as I could fit in my belly, multiple times a day. I was loading up on fantastic meat (my sister managed one of the best butcher shops in Australia), but I was also gorging on peanut butter right out of the jar just to keep my calories up. I really ran with the concept and completely overshot the mark, going from 77kgs to 94kgs (169lbs to 207lbs) at a height of just shy of 6ft in a matter of months, and I did not look or feel healthy or especially happy by this point. It was a real eye-opener in terms of my caloric requirements, too – I’d significantly overestimated how much energy I was burning and how much of which foods I needed to eat for recovery. I have no regrets because self-experimentation has taught me a lot, but I realise in hindsight that this phase may well have created the insulin resistance that stayed with me for quite a few of the ensuing years.

Six months later. New wonderful girlfriend (soon-to-be-wonderful-wife), moved to a smaller place that didn’t fit my weights gear (power cage, Olympic bar and the rest) which was a real problem for my lifting as the introvert in me makes me very much a solo trainee – I’m completely self-conscious in a gym, and I need silence to train effectively – so I got lazy and happy. I was still using my kettlebells every so often and training kung fu but not with the dedication I had been. I lost some fat, but I also lost some muscle so for the next couple of years I was strong but kind of out of shape again with my training in flux without a clear goal. In 2011 we moved our whole lives over to the UK to try our hands at fully freelance classical music careers (my wife is a violinist). Things began well but building a freelance career where you don’t know anyone inevitably means pinching pennies so our eating suffered somewhat. It was never hideous but it was definitely still conventional in the sense that we didn’t really think much about what we ate. Lots of carbs but lots of fat to go with it, plus healthy volumes of heavy British ales. I kept up the kung fu and I bought some cheap kettle bells, but my commitment was somewhat intermittent given our entire living space was one room for two years. Still didn’t look great at somewhere between 87kg and 91kg (190-200lbs). For most of this time though, because we were poor, we walked a hell of a lot to avoid paying for transport!

Still in the UK and careers going from strength to strength, we had our first beautiful boy, Tobias, in 2015 and despite ramping up my training and healthier eating in the months beforehand, I REALLY let myself go once he appeared in our lives. I was sleep-deprived so I constantly fell for comfort foods and beer and wine, and within nine months I was up to 95kg (209lbs). I’d never been heavier or felt worse. They say it takes 28 days to build a habit and three days to break one and during this period, any time I tried to train, I couldn’t create enough momentum to take me to the next session; I couldn’t get anywhere near enough to the ‘28 days’ to establish the pattern I needed to be consistent again. Of course, I was weaker and more unfit than I had been and I found this very depressing so I coped by avoiding it altogether – and I’d always hated avoidance as a coping tactic. I was becoming someone whose choices I couldn’t respect and that was heartbreaking to me. I’d always been confident but that was now diminishing to the point that friends and colleagues commented on it. I even started to get ever-increasing bouts of performance anxiety on stage – scary stuff because I’d seen it end careers. The final straw was a photo that was taken of a group of friends and me on a visit back home to Australia; despite knowing inside that I’d gained a lot of fat, it was seeing my body stretching my t-shirt in all directions and having the photo shared far and wide that was my ‘ugh’ moment.

Enter Primal. I stumbled on Mark’s Daily Apple after looking at hunter-gatherer-related pages (I’d always had a thirst for knowledge about prehistoric peoples) and, like so many others who write these stories, I was instantly dumbstruck by the sense in everything I read. I’d heard bits and pieces about Paleo and a lower carb lifestyle (I tried the Ketogenic Diet in early 2014 with mixed success) but not like this. I ordered The Primal Blueprint days later and finally I saw what I needed presented in a way that used science, logic and common sense without the sensationalism you see surrounding other ‘diets’. This was so much more than a simple diet; as I saw it, it took care of everything that makes the human body and mind thrive, and with countless studies to back it up.

I wasn’t a super high-carb eater so I didn’t suffer terribly from the ‘carb flu’ the way some do when I dropped the last vestiges of a grainy diet (oats and sandwiches and the like) and upped the fat from sources like avocado, eggs, nuts, bacon, fish, heavy cream in coffee, and more olive oil, but still, the weight just flew off – in a matter of a few weeks I was down 6kg. I’m sure some of that was water but I felt so much better too: I was already getting sick far less often, I was sleeping better, my energy was balanced and I wasn’t getting as hungry. I attempted my first 24 hour fast on a major concert day (much to the bewilderment of my colleagues) and I barely noticed on stage that I hadn’t eaten all day. One of the other great benefits of all this for me has been the ease with which I can retain muscle while eating little enough to lose the fat off the top. 13 months on, I’m down 15.5kg (34lbs) and I can see my abs for the first time in my ENTIRE LIFE – and I still have most of the muscle I worked so hard for.

Day-to-day, I tend to cycle through the regular components of my diet according to what I’m in the mood for. Every morning I have the juice of half a lemon in hot water before anything else. If I’m having breakfast (I often fast till lunch), I’ll either have a protein shake or some full-fat natural Greek yoghurt and some ricotta with berries, a couple of Brazil nuts and milled flax, pumpkin and sunflower seeds, plus a double espresso with a splash of heavy cream. Lunch is generally a big tin of salmon (bones included, though I take the skin out – I’ve been squeamish about fish skin since I worked in a seafood factory at the age of 19) mixed with a bit of yoghurt, capers, cucumber, lemon juice, olive oil, apple cider vinegar, and seaweed salt. Dinners are a mix! It’s always meat and vegetables in some combination (curry, tagine, roast, summer salad, etc), generally without much in the way of carbs. Lamb shanks are my all-time favourite meal, however they’re prepared, and I’ll have some potato with them. I’ll have a spoon or two of rice with a curry.

Post-training I’ll always have a protein shake with creatine and a spoonful of blackstrap molasses or an occasional banana. I was eating a lot of eggs but I’ve largely dropped them of late due to some bloating – which I hope passes as they’re so convenient and tasty! I could certainly improve on my base level Primal diet, though. I really need to eat more vegetables throughout the day, and I need to eat more collagen due to my taste for muscle meat. That said, every day I feel I learn more about how I can best make it work for me so food decisions become easier and more instinctive.

My training schedule varies according to how I feel, but my average week will contain four or five days with some form of training. These will either be heavy kettlebell work (overhead mostly – clean and presses, snatches, and some rows and swings), or weighted dips, chin-ups, pistols and Turkish Get-ups, or a 15-minute farmers’ walk with my heaviest ‘bells, kung fu training, or (lately) some sprints. None of these sessions will exceed an hour – I’m generally done between 30 and 45 minutes. I’ll also knock out a set of pushups or chin-ups or dips when I’m near my doorway chin-up bar or a pair of kitchen chairs!

I travel a lot for work, often for a couple of weeks at a time staying in various hotels touring around the USA. Lots of the tour days will contain two flights (when I’m already jetlagged and having to be out of bed by 5 a.m. after a late concert the night before), and this can add a little guesswork into the equation as far as not knowing what type of meal an airport will have or a promoter will provide – I’ll sometimes simply have to be a little less strict. Same thing with frequent 24-hour trips to spots all over Europe like that great Mecca of beer, Belgium. I’m extremely lucky to have a career that takes me to these wonderful places – as a great food and drink lover, I feel I owe it to myself to make the most of what these cultures have to offer so I might indulge a little. In any case, as long as I get back in the saddle on my return, nothing negative lasts very long at all. The 80/20 principle works very well for me – I’ve proven to myself that loosening the reins every so often doesn’t have to end the game for me, at least once my body and I knew the ropes. I’ve learned that I can get away with a couple of beers here, some wine and chocolate there, or an almond croissant on a special morning out with my wife and son. I don’t always feel great afterwards but it’s good for the soul.

If there’s hope I have to offer to anyone in particular who is contemplating taking the plunge, it’s to new parents. Our respective families live on the other side of the world, so we’re essentially raising our son alone – life is therefore far from easy, and a day’s planned physical activity can often go out the window at a moment’s notice – but the Primal approach is so adaptable that it needn’t ever be derailed. If Tobias woke early from his nap, my kettlebell session would be halved; if I was completely destroyed by a night with him refusing to sleep for more than 30 minutes at a time, I did a handful of chin-ups and chair dips and called it a day on training till I’d caught up a bit; if I was stressed by his unwillingness to play on his own for an entire day and felt like falling into a packet of sweet biscuits or chips, I was thankfully armed with the knowledge that I was just going to feel awful afterwards. And if I did succumb? I’d appreciate the moment for what it was and move on because I’d be back to craving what my body now instinctively knew what was good for it. This is all still relevant, but now that Tobias is nearly two, the challenge has changed a bit. Now he insists on lifting kettlebells with me (well, he deadlifts the 8kg one at least!), he gets me to help him with dips, he planks with me, he copies one-arm push-ups, and he now enjoys using a foam roller to work out all that tension created by the incredibly demanding situation of being a 23-month-old with his every whim taken care of.

As an aside, growing up in Australia, we took the sun for granted so we never considered taking vitamin D supplements – we simply didn’t need to – but it took me five years here in the UK to realise that it’s a really good idea in winter! Two months ago I was feeling especially drained, I had a constant headache, my sleep was sporadic, I was getting sick a lot again, and my fat loss had stalled. I re-read Mark’s article about vitamin D and checked all my symptoms against a few other websites and realised that was it. I’m now taking 5,000-10,000IU a day and all of the symptoms have gone, including my fat loss plateau – and that’s the only thing I’ve changed. If you’re not getting much sun for a long period of time, it’s definitely worth checking your vitamin D levels.

So that’s my Primal journey so far! I have to commend and thank my wife, Julia. Despite some reluctance at the beginning – she was raised with a more progressive and holistic attitude towards food, and as a result hasn’t struggled with the same fat gain or health issues – she is completely onboard and has been really supportive with all this (useful because she loves cooking and does nearly all of it). I’m also very glad to be able to give our boy the healthy head start not many get at the same age. We’re expecting our second baby in a couple of months so we’ll be back to square one with the sleep issues, but I now know I don’t have to drop everything as a result!

I have so much gratitude to Mark for the wealth of reliable and verifiable information he makes available in a world which is only just starting to shift in the right direction. He’s had the most profound influence on our health and well-being that it’s hard to know where to begin. So thank you, Mark!

Tom

[cristinajourdanqp]

Finally Getting Lean and Feeling Excellent!

It’s Friday, everyone! And that means another Primal Blueprint Real Life Story from a Mark’s Daily Apple reader. If you have your own success story and would like to share it with me and the Mark’s Daily Apple community please contact me here. In fact, I have a contest going right now. So if you have a story to share, no matter how big or how small, you’ll be in the running to win a big prize. Read more here.

Big-boned. That’s what I told myself I was when I was growing up. I put down to genetics a tendency to gain fat with unnerving ease but what else could I blame? Armed with the conventional wisdom of Australia in the 1980s and 90s, we were simply fed the way we were taught to eat: some meat and vegetables but otherwise plenty of white bread, cereals, skimmed milk, margarine, and other ‘healthy carbs’ like potatoes and pasta. Having something of a sweet tooth myself, I was no stranger to unloading a tablespoon of sugar into my bowl of Weetbix or Rice Bubbles. I didn’t like water (admittedly, the tap water in Adelaide is still the worst I’ve tasted to this day) so anytime I drank fluids, they were enhanced with the sugary goodness of cordial. I often got sick when I was young, generally in the form of lingering colds, but my stomach often played up, too; nausea was a given for me for long periods of time, and if there was a stomach bug going around, I’d be the first to get it. (It would later turn out via a blood test in my 20s that I was borderline coeliac so I’d be surprised if that isn’t connected!). I was a reasonably active child, spending a lot of time on my BMX at the bike track, out waterskiing on the river, swimming in our pool, rowing, and playing weekly games of hockey, so I’m lucky not to have been really seriously out of shape. I was most definitely very soft around the edges though.

It was around the time I left school in 2000 at the age of 18 that friends and I started to take an interest in lifting weights, but we really had no idea what we were doing at that stage, especially as far as nutrition was concerned. We were far more likely to be downing post-training beers than anything remotely helpful like a protein shake or, god forbid, actual food. For the next couple of years I left the weights, and my only exercise was the daily 30-minute ride to and from my job at an award-winning bakery. I can only thank having youth on my side for the fact that the unfathomable number of pies, sausage rolls, cakes, buns and Red Bulls I consumed didn’t go straight to my fat stores and stay there!

The next decade or so contained a variety of approaches to training, nutrition and wellbeing, some more successful or long-lasting than others. I discovered my love of a style of kung fu which I’ve now kept up for 13 years; I dabbled in Ori Hoffmeckler’s Warrior Diet for a few months; I fell in love with kettlebell training and have grown a pretty nice collection of them which I use religiously; I fell out of love with a vegetarian-pasta-obsessed girlfriend (this stuff contained pasta, tinned tomatoes, a couple of carrots and some celery – talk about a malnourished period of my life!); whey protein took its place in my diet and, like an epiphany, crystallized for me the importance protein plays in the healthy functioning of the body; I completed a personal training qualification but ended up not working as a PT after learning the statistic about the very high number of PTs who contract vocal nodules – I was (and still am) a classical singer who relied on his vocal health!

I’d always admired Arnold Schwarzenegger (his dedication and his physique, anyway) so at the time I was doing the PT course, I started training with traditional weights again to get as big and strong as I possibly could. And I did. I got very big and very strong. And fat. I got so fat you could barely tell I’d gained a notable amount of muscle too. Conventional Lifting Wisdom, as I was interpreting it, had been telling me to eat as much as I could fit in my belly, multiple times a day. I was loading up on fantastic meat (my sister managed one of the best butcher shops in Australia), but I was also gorging on peanut butter right out of the jar just to keep my calories up. I really ran with the concept and completely overshot the mark, going from 77kgs to 94kgs (169lbs to 207lbs) at a height of just shy of 6ft in a matter of months, and I did not look or feel healthy or especially happy by this point. It was a real eye-opener in terms of my caloric requirements, too – I’d significantly overestimated how much energy I was burning and how much of which foods I needed to eat for recovery. I have no regrets because self-experimentation has taught me a lot, but I realise in hindsight that this phase may well have created the insulin resistance that stayed with me for quite a few of the ensuing years.

Six months later. New wonderful girlfriend (soon-to-be-wonderful-wife), moved to a smaller place that didn’t fit my weights gear (power cage, Olympic bar and the rest) which was a real problem for my lifting as the introvert in me makes me very much a solo trainee – I’m completely self-conscious in a gym, and I need silence to train effectively – so I got lazy and happy. I was still using my kettlebells every so often and training kung fu but not with the dedication I had been. I lost some fat, but I also lost some muscle so for the next couple of years I was strong but kind of out of shape again with my training in flux without a clear goal. In 2011 we moved our whole lives over to the UK to try our hands at fully freelance classical music careers (my wife is a violinist). Things began well but building a freelance career where you don’t know anyone inevitably means pinching pennies so our eating suffered somewhat. It was never hideous but it was definitely still conventional in the sense that we didn’t really think much about what we ate. Lots of carbs but lots of fat to go with it, plus healthy volumes of heavy British ales. I kept up the kung fu and I bought some cheap kettle bells, but my commitment was somewhat intermittent given our entire living space was one room for two years. Still didn’t look great at somewhere between 87kg and 91kg (190-200lbs). For most of this time though, because we were poor, we walked a hell of a lot to avoid paying for transport!

Still in the UK and careers going from strength to strength, we had our first beautiful boy, Tobias, in 2015 and despite ramping up my training and healthier eating in the months beforehand, I REALLY let myself go once he appeared in our lives. I was sleep-deprived so I constantly fell for comfort foods and beer and wine, and within nine months I was up to 95kg (209lbs). I’d never been heavier or felt worse. They say it takes 28 days to build a habit and three days to break one and during this period, any time I tried to train, I couldn’t create enough momentum to take me to the next session; I couldn’t get anywhere near enough to the ‘28 days’ to establish the pattern I needed to be consistent again. Of course, I was weaker and more unfit than I had been and I found this very depressing so I coped by avoiding it altogether – and I’d always hated avoidance as a coping tactic. I was becoming someone whose choices I couldn’t respect and that was heartbreaking to me. I’d always been confident but that was now diminishing to the point that friends and colleagues commented on it. I even started to get ever-increasing bouts of performance anxiety on stage – scary stuff because I’d seen it end careers. The final straw was a photo that was taken of a group of friends and me on a visit back home to Australia; despite knowing inside that I’d gained a lot of fat, it was seeing my body stretching my t-shirt in all directions and having the photo shared far and wide that was my ‘ugh’ moment.

Enter Primal. I stumbled on Mark’s Daily Apple after looking at hunter-gatherer-related pages (I’d always had a thirst for knowledge about prehistoric peoples) and, like so many others who write these stories, I was instantly dumbstruck by the sense in everything I read. I’d heard bits and pieces about Paleo and a lower carb lifestyle (I tried the Ketogenic Diet in early 2014 with mixed success) but not like this. I ordered The Primal Blueprint days later and finally I saw what I needed presented in a way that used science, logic and common sense without the sensationalism you see surrounding other ‘diets’. This was so much more than a simple diet; as I saw it, it took care of everything that makes the human body and mind thrive, and with countless studies to back it up.

I wasn’t a super high-carb eater so I didn’t suffer terribly from the ‘carb flu’ the way some do when I dropped the last vestiges of a grainy diet (oats and sandwiches and the like) and upped the fat from sources like avocado, eggs, nuts, bacon, fish, heavy cream in coffee, and more olive oil, but still, the weight just flew off – in a matter of a few weeks I was down 6kg. I’m sure some of that was water but I felt so much better too: I was already getting sick far less often, I was sleeping better, my energy was balanced and I wasn’t getting as hungry. I attempted my first 24 hour fast on a major concert day (much to the bewilderment of my colleagues) and I barely noticed on stage that I hadn’t eaten all day. One of the other great benefits of all this for me has been the ease with which I can retain muscle while eating little enough to lose the fat off the top. 13 months on, I’m down 15.5kg (34lbs) and I can see my abs for the first time in my ENTIRE LIFE – and I still have most of the muscle I worked so hard for.

Day-to-day, I tend to cycle through the regular components of my diet according to what I’m in the mood for. Every morning I have the juice of half a lemon in hot water before anything else. If I’m having breakfast (I often fast till lunch), I’ll either have a protein shake or some full-fat natural Greek yoghurt and some ricotta with berries, a couple of Brazil nuts and milled flax, pumpkin and sunflower seeds, plus a double espresso with a splash of heavy cream. Lunch is generally a big tin of salmon (bones included, though I take the skin out – I’ve been squeamish about fish skin since I worked in a seafood factory at the age of 19) mixed with a bit of yoghurt, capers, cucumber, lemon juice, olive oil, apple cider vinegar, and seaweed salt. Dinners are a mix! It’s always meat and vegetables in some combination (curry, tagine, roast, summer salad, etc), generally without much in the way of carbs. Lamb shanks are my all-time favourite meal, however they’re prepared, and I’ll have some potato with them. I’ll have a spoon or two of rice with a curry.

Post-training I’ll always have a protein shake with creatine and a spoonful of blackstrap molasses or an occasional banana. I was eating a lot of eggs but I’ve largely dropped them of late due to some bloating – which I hope passes as they’re so convenient and tasty! I could certainly improve on my base level Primal diet, though. I really need to eat more vegetables throughout the day, and I need to eat more collagen due to my taste for muscle meat. That said, every day I feel I learn more about how I can best make it work for me so food decisions become easier and more instinctive.

My training schedule varies according to how I feel, but my average week will contain four or five days with some form of training. These will either be heavy kettlebell work (overhead mostly – clean and presses, snatches, and some rows and swings), or weighted dips, chin-ups, pistols and Turkish Get-ups, or a 15-minute farmers’ walk with my heaviest ‘bells, kung fu training, or (lately) some sprints. None of these sessions will exceed an hour – I’m generally done between 30 and 45 minutes. I’ll also knock out a set of pushups or chin-ups or dips when I’m near my doorway chin-up bar or a pair of kitchen chairs!

I travel a lot for work, often for a couple of weeks at a time staying in various hotels touring around the USA. Lots of the tour days will contain two flights (when I’m already jetlagged and having to be out of bed by 5 a.m. after a late concert the night before), and this can add a little guesswork into the equation as far as not knowing what type of meal an airport will have or a promoter will provide – I’ll sometimes simply have to be a little less strict. Same thing with frequent 24-hour trips to spots all over Europe like that great Mecca of beer, Belgium. I’m extremely lucky to have a career that takes me to these wonderful places – as a great food and drink lover, I feel I owe it to myself to make the most of what these cultures have to offer so I might indulge a little. In any case, as long as I get back in the saddle on my return, nothing negative lasts very long at all. The 80/20 principle works very well for me – I’ve proven to myself that loosening the reins every so often doesn’t have to end the game for me, at least once my body and I knew the ropes. I’ve learned that I can get away with a couple of beers here, some wine and chocolate there, or an almond croissant on a special morning out with my wife and son. I don’t always feel great afterwards but it’s good for the soul.

If there’s hope I have to offer to anyone in particular who is contemplating taking the plunge, it’s to new parents. Our respective families live on the other side of the world, so we’re essentially raising our son alone – life is therefore far from easy, and a day’s planned physical activity can often go out the window at a moment’s notice – but the Primal approach is so adaptable that it needn’t ever be derailed. If Tobias woke early from his nap, my kettlebell session would be halved; if I was completely destroyed by a night with him refusing to sleep for more than 30 minutes at a time, I did a handful of chin-ups and chair dips and called it a day on training till I’d caught up a bit; if I was stressed by his unwillingness to play on his own for an entire day and felt like falling into a packet of sweet biscuits or chips, I was thankfully armed with the knowledge that I was just going to feel awful afterwards. And if I did succumb? I’d appreciate the moment for what it was and move on because I’d be back to craving what my body now instinctively knew what was good for it. This is all still relevant, but now that Tobias is nearly two, the challenge has changed a bit. Now he insists on lifting kettlebells with me (well, he deadlifts the 8kg one at least!), he gets me to help him with dips, he planks with me, he copies one-arm push-ups, and he now enjoys using a foam roller to work out all that tension created by the incredibly demanding situation of being a 23-month-old with his every whim taken care of.

As an aside, growing up in Australia, we took the sun for granted so we never considered taking vitamin D supplements – we simply didn’t need to – but it took me five years here in the UK to realise that it’s a really good idea in winter! Two months ago I was feeling especially drained, I had a constant headache, my sleep was sporadic, I was getting sick a lot again, and my fat loss had stalled. I re-read Mark’s article about vitamin D and checked all my symptoms against a few other websites and realised that was it. I’m now taking 5,000-10,000IU a day and all of the symptoms have gone, including my fat loss plateau – and that’s the only thing I’ve changed. If you’re not getting much sun for a long period of time, it’s definitely worth checking your vitamin D levels.

So that’s my Primal journey so far! I have to commend and thank my wife, Julia. Despite some reluctance at the beginning – she was raised with a more progressive and holistic attitude towards food, and as a result hasn’t struggled with the same fat gain or health issues – she is completely onboard and has been really supportive with all this (useful because she loves cooking and does nearly all of it). I’m also very glad to be able to give our boy the healthy head start not many get at the same age. We’re expecting our second baby in a couple of months so we’ll be back to square one with the sleep issues, but I now know I don’t have to drop everything as a result!

I have so much gratitude to Mark for the wealth of reliable and verifiable information he makes available in a world which is only just starting to shift in the right direction. He’s had the most profound influence on our health and well-being that it’s hard to know where to begin. So thank you, Mark!

Tom

[subculturecreature]

High-Flying High-Fivers Fall

There’s no kidding; high fives are probably the biggest thing to ever emerge out of humanity’s social existence. A simple high five can make our day. It can give you exactly the right amount of confidence, reassurance, and pride in what you are doing that you resultantly excel beyond all imagined expectations. To most, the high five is only a positive thing. However, to a silenced minority the high five represents a dark chapter in our social existence. A silenced minority that I’ve now decided to vocalise.

The high five, as I said, is a fucking universal social norm. It’s deep ridden in every nook and cranny of our lives. To explore its inherent evil entirely would take years. Considering this, I’ve decided to explore a section of society where the high five runs deep and thick: The National Basketball Association.

For years players of the NBA have basked in the glory of the high five. They have – despite the ethical implications - used the high five for a drug-like confidence boost in order to drain free-throws, drain long twos, and even damn well drain threes. We, the spectator, and they, the players, have abused the power of the high five whilst good hard-working people have suffered. Now readers, I know you must be thinking: ‘High fives? Ethical implications? What’s this guy smoking?’. Let me tell, my dears.

Missed-high-fives have ruined games, ruined careers, ruined franchises, it’s even ruined lives. And this is only in the NBA. A missed high five has an unfathomable impact on people’s mental well-being. Such an impact that I ask you now: is it really worth it? Is a good sound high-five worth more than a man’s life? I - and I know I will be a minority here – I… I say it isn’t.  

Rarely does the NBA address missed high fives, rarely do players apologize for missing high fives, and rarely does the unwilling receiver of missed high fives return to their former confident self post-missed-high-five. I say now is the time to expose this dark and ugly area of the game we love. I say now is the time to take a horrific, but needed, journey through the devastating consequences that missed high fives have caused in recent history. I say now is the time for change. But change does come at a cost: I’m warning you, if you’re soft soul, or if you’re underage and without parental supervision, stop here and only read the last paragraph, because it damn well gets ugly.

Phil Jackson’s surprise departure from the Los Angeles Lakers in 2004 has been explained by a forage of excuses; Kobe Bryant was unhappy, Phil wanted more money, the owners didn’t like the amount of control Phil demanded, Slava Medvedenko wanted Phil’s parking space, Laker’s front office refused to make their in-office brownies vegan for Phil’s dietary requirements, ridiculous off-beat fact. All of these excuses wrong and simply there to hide the horrible truth. During a time out late in the 2003-2004 season Phil Jackson was congratulating his players on a good period of game; fist bumping Fisher here, high fiving Shaq there. All was well and jolly. This was at least until Phil met the absence of Kobe Bryant’s deadly hand (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nZT3vyiHSs). In the moment it didn’t seem much. People say ‘a missed high five? Meh, it’s fine. You’ll move on. It’s only a high-five’, and to those people I ask: have you ever experienced the emotional turmoil of a missed high-five? Have you ever tried to kiss your children goodnight post-missed-high-five? Do you even have children?  No you don’t, and I hope you never will. From the very moment Kobe denied Phil Jackson a social norm, in doing so, making himself the superior, the alpha, the controller, well… well good ol’ Phil lost all control of the team. He had to leave. It was only a year later after much damage control when Phil gathered the courage to return to that locker room; he was a new man… he was able to high-five again. He was able to live again.

Phil Jackson’s a strong man, a winner, a father. He was able to recover from that scenario and do great things. Things like raise a family. God I want children. Unfortunately, not all are that strong. Some are, but not all are. People often forget about role players and bench players in the NBA. They contribute little rather than steer teams to wins. They’re expendable. These players have often much less support, and thus, must have the highest levels of confidence to succeed. What happens when a role player gets rejected in a high five? You don’t want to know. But you will, because… well because this is an article about it.

Ronny Turiaf (A.K.A, The Ron Tonne) was once a decent prospect in the NBA. He was even on post-missed-high-five Phil Jackson’s roster. However, even zen-master Phil Jackson couldn’t predict the hellish future in front of Ronny (AKA The Ronassiance). I’m sure if he could, Ronny would be in the NBA to this day.

A long time ago on a court far away Ronny was a great high-fiver - a free throw average of 87% forced him to be. He had no choice. It was obvious doing those times that Ronny was a man who loved high-fives. After one game he was even quoted as saying ‘I love high fives’. He had drained 35 out of 39 free throws that night. What a man he was. This was all until 2012.

Well now the informed reader must be saying something like ‘hey there, mister. Now I may be wrong, but wasn’t 2012 the year Ronny got a ring’, and to them I say: please have children. From 2012, despite his ring, Ronny’s career only went downhill as he bounced from team to team at most being a 12th man. How could a decent prospect fall to that after winning a championship? One would think the only way was up. Wrong. One missed high-five sunk the very tyrant that was The Ron Tonne.

Let’s explore the moment Ronny got struck by the remorseless power of a missed high five (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBNegwJMeZE). After a successful possession - which the great Ronny Turiaf ran - obviously ecstatic with his team mate, Bosh joined to Ronny celebrate. Having an average game at best, Bosh went looking for the high that Ronny was running off; he wanted the rush. It was in that moment that both tried to high five (you’ve got to realize that poor naïve Ronny couldn’t get enough at this point)… both missed. It was a failed high five on both sides. Nothing quite so tragic has happened in the NBA up until that point.

Over the proceeding months Chris Bosh had the assistance of his loyal entourage to recover. Bosh was a superstar, Ronny was a role player. Ronny had no one and nothing. It was in those months Ronny declined. He turned to heavy drugs. He became romantically involved with his mirror reflection. He campaigned for Kony 2012. He even had several stints in jail – it’s rumoured he passed the time by replicating the noise of the high five. Clap, clap, clap, they say. One superstar, one burning star, one missed high five… two stories.

By now you must all understand the high five as an unforgiving evil in the world, and you’re probably thinking whether it’s really worth it. We all openly accept the highs of a high five, but when we are faced with the taxing lows, our thinking is changed. I understand. It’s easy to ignore. Well, what if I told you that the future for the high five could be all positive and no negative?

D’angelo Russell has taught us a lot about basketball since he entered the league. He revolutionized the game in his first year with stat lines of 14.3 points per game, 7.2 assists per game, 0.8 steals per game, 0.2 blocks per game, and 0.08 broken marriages per game. So good he kicked Swaggy P off the roster and his engagement. Incredible for a rookie. And now, in his second year, he is only teaching us more.

During this year’s pre-season D’lo achieved the unimaginable. He took a traditionally two man job that required the full backing of both parties, and stripped that back to one. He changed everything. He high fived himself (https://youtu.be/cAftV4Qpz_M?t=16s).

D’lo’s changed the game. We no longer need two people to high five. We can high five ourselves. But what does this mean? Will human relationships cease to exist? Will the price of gold decrease? Will you become a parent? We don’t know, and I hope we never will, as not knowing is the beauty of life.

#nba #high five #d'angelo russell #lakers #basketball #ronny #fun #bastille #reddit #nick young #swaggy p