Cut the Ties and Jumped the Tracks

So I guess I live in Brooklyn now.

After months of going back and forth on the Great Borough Debate, weeks of intensive searching during the worst rental market in the last decade (people were literally lined up at open houses like in Soviet bread lines), and a week of frantic packing, we officially landed in new digs, a few blocks from the top of Prospect Park.

And though we’re still living inside a fort of moving boxes (while I’m not going to say Jess is a hoarder, I’m not going to say she’s not a hoarder), I’m absolutely thrilled thus far. We have way more space, endless new restaurants and bars to explore, and a feeling of moving forward that I think we desperately needed after spending so much of pandemic lockdown (and the time post) feeling ‘stuck’ in a bunch of senses of the word.

Relatedly, still cranking with A3, which continues to build slowly and steadily. At this point, I feel pretty excellent about what we’re able to do for clients (even if, obviously, there’s endless room for continued improvement). The bigger challenges are, instead, around how we explain it to people, and how we get them in the door to try it out in the first place.

And, actually, that feels kind of familiar. When I started CrossFit NYC way back in 2004, and honestly for most of the decade following, nobody had heard of CrossFit or functional fitness or anything like it. So there was, similarly, a bit of a learning curve in terms of how to get people to understand and appreciate and hop in on something new and different enough that it literally defied easy comparison to something they already knew about or did.

Which means I have a bunch of work ahead. Both on that front, and on unpacking our many, many, many boxes, and setting up our new apartment so it really feels like home. But I’m excited for both! And that, in and of itself, makes me feel like I’ve landed—both physically and metaphorically—in exactly the right place.

May 11, 2023

Borough-ing Deep

When I moved to NYC twenty-some years back, I landed in Manhattan, and I’ve been here (across a half-dozen apartments) ever since.

When I met Jess, however, she lived in Brooklyn. And though she soon thereafter moved in with me (due to a confluence of commute time reduction, increased square footage, and the addition of a Hudson River balcony view), she’s been at least partly rueing that borough swap ever since.

In my early NYC days—and even, though to a lesser degree, in my early days living with Jess—I could always dismiss Brooklyn as “Manhattan’s waiting room.” Sure, people started out there to capitalize on early-career-friendly rent prices, but the real center of gravity of the city was the island of Manhattan itself.

But, in the years since, that’s shifted. Now, for example, it’s the best new restaurants—not just the quirky hipster-coolest ones—that open in Brooklyn.

So, in the last few months, as we’ve been contemplating a move, we’ve been looking both here on the Upper West Side, and in several Prospect Park-adjacent stretches of Brooklyn. By now, the days of lower rents in those neighborhoods have long since passed. But, for the same (ridiculous) amount of money, you still do get at least a little more space.

And, honestly, sometimes it’s nice to start fresh, and to take on a new adventure. Which is why, in the past few weeks, I’ve started to think Brooklyn might actually—to the shock and dismay of my younger self—be my next stop.

Perhaps inevitably, that kicked off a counter from Jess. After lobbying for a Brooklyn move for the better part of a decade, things have suddenly inverted, and now she’s the one suggesting all of the great things about living on tree-lined streets wedged between Central and Riverside Parks.

Where this ends (and where we end up) is still totally unclear. But as we’re hoping to get out the door to new digs within the next month, it seems I’ll soon be finding out either way.

And, if nothing else, I’m glad all of the contenders still count as peak-Gotham NYC. The borough may be up in the air. But I’m as sure as ever that the Big Apple is where I’m supposed to be, and where I’ll be keeping at least one foot planted for the balance of my never dull life.

January 18, 2023

Here, There, Everywhere

The public launch of A3 is picking up steam, and with it (as previously promised) I’ve been posting more on both LinkedIn and Twitter, writing about evidence-backed approaches to fitness and health that work in the context of already over-packed professional lives.

Initially, I had planned to also write about that stuff here, in longer-form posts. And, intermittently, I still might. But, honestly, that mostly just feels redundant. So, instead, I’m leaning back towards writing about the inane and varied stories and musings that fill the rest of my brain and life.

As I puzzle through how best to approach this blog—and, really, how to approach pretty much everything else— I can’t help but think of Samuel Butler’s (two centuries old, but apt as ever) observation: “life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.” Per usual, lots still to figure out. Though, if nothing else, I’m still oddly glad to be recording that learning process here, on this now rather ridiculously long-standing site.

Untethering

In Buddhist thought, the difficulties of life all boil down to four Noble Truths. The second of which, “samudaya,” basically posits that the the source of our suffering is craving or attachment; wanting things we don’t have, or not wanting to lose things that we do.

That may indeed be part of the path to enlightenment. But it also explains why new year’s resolutions make us so miserable. We set out with a clear sense of how we want to be different in the year ahead. And then, because real change often feels glacially slow, we slog ahead for a month or so, realize things aren’t yet different, and give up entirely.

Which is why, research suggest, only about 9% of people each year feel like they successfully keep their resolutions. (Indeed, more than 40% expect to fail even before they hit February.)

So, rather than implore you to cling even harder to those earnestly-desired but rarely-reached outcome goals, let me suggest that, this year, you take an entirely different approach. Instead of resolving to reach new outcomes in the year ahead, resolve to follow new routines instead.

Put another way, untether from the outcome, and put all of your focus on the process. Figure out the things you want to do every day and every week over the next year. Then stop paying attention to progress, and stop keeping an eye on the prize. The only wins you need to celebrate are process wins: “I made a weekly grocery run to stock up on vegetables!” “I stuck to my pre-bedtime wind-down alarm last night!” “I made it to the gym the three times I was gunning for this week!”

One of my own process resolutions is to start posting regularly on both Twitter and LinkedIn. Over the course of January, I’ll be aiming to post actionable ideas related to this same concept. Stuff like:

Why we should ditch SMART goals and focus on DUMB habits.
The value of never missing twice.
How to create consistency by shifting your identity.
And ways to become addicted to the process, so that the outcomes take care of themselves.

Until then, let me share a similar thought recently tweeted by entrepreneur Ankur Warikoo. I think it’s so good that I’ve actually printed it out, tacked it over my desk, and will be looking at it all day long over the year ahead:

“Remind yourself that it is the boring that makes shit happen.
When people ask me, ‘What’s next?’
I do not have an answer.
There is no next.
There is just repeat.
Repeat what works.
And give it time.
It is the biggest thing I have learnt in life.”

Happy new year. May it be an incredibly repetitive one!

December 25, 2022