The S.W.I.P.E.S. Email (Friday October 21st, 2022)

I want to put this in my "Cool-Vintage-Ads-I-Want-To-Have-Framed" collection!

This is 1958 Fender Amps print ad that promotes Fender's musical superiority over other guitar amps. 

The imagery on this one is lovely!

Good friends bring up hard conversations, even if it's unpleasant.

If you see a bad habit a close friend is doing, it might be worth the difficult conversation to bring it up, because no one else will.

Often times they don’t KNOW they’re doing it, and someone telling them might be first step to solving it.

I've learned a few things when approaching this:

I’ve learned to first “ask” if someone wants feedback first. Only if they accept do I give it.

I also have learned to use the "Compliment Sandwich" where you start the conversation off with saying you love the person, and that's why you're bringing up this issue. Then you tell them the issue. Then you remind them that you are there to help with it.

In the past I've simply told people out of the blue, "YOU TALK TOO MUCH AND IT'S ANNOYING" and it can come off very abrupt and rude or like an attack 😬 

I'm currently doing a “Healthy Week” with some peeps that includes:

🧁 No added sugar
🍔 1,500 calorie limit on no-workout days
🌮 2,000 calorie limit on workout days
☕️ Cut back on caffeine

Everything has been super easy...except the caffeine thing. 

YEESH 😳

I went without caffeine for 2 days and it felt like I never “woke up", I had headaches (which I never get), and wasn’t motivated to work much.

I’m not against caffeine, but wow…didn’t realize cutting back would be so hard, I definitely was zonked 😬

The problem is I used to not drink caffeine on the weekends in order to "reset" my tolerance each week, however this year I've drank caffeine pretty much every single day. 

So I was drinking 300mg to 400mg a day (still safe range, but high). 

I cut back to under 200mg this week. 

Next week 100mg and under. 

Then periodic "tolerance resets" by either drinking no caffeine or weekends or switching to lower caffeine grade tea.

Here's a fun recent purchase: A single speed bike! (Not a fixie, just single speed)

The main cardio exercise I get is riding my bike to my gym that's exactly 1 mile away. 

On the way there it's relatively easy, but on the way back it's ROUGH because it's alllllll hills with steep grades 😳

Since this is my main form of cardio exercise, I decided to buy an extra bike that's just ONE SPEED. 

No downshifting on hills to make it easier. My other bike has 21 gears to switch between:

This new bike has ONE gear, see how simple the gearing system looks in comparison?

Benefits of this single speed bike:
✔️ Forces me to get better cardio.
✔️ The bike is super simple. Very few components.
✔️ Silent. There's no gears that whine, click, or make noise.

Downsides of this single speed bike:
𝗫 Not fun to ride on hills, you will get sweaty.
𝗫 Slow starting from a standstill. Takes extra time to cross the road.

It's incredibly difficult to pedal this thing up hills. I've had to literally stop and push off just to get momentum going if I stop....so it's working!

The whole point of this purchase has been to force me to push harder on these gym rides. There's no other option. 

If I don't push hard, I literally don't get home 😂
 

Here's a cool way I've seen someone make new friends and meet new interesting people: By having a super interesting offer. 

Example 👉🏼

Two years ago me and my buddy Noah rented a house in Malibu, CA. and this guy Jon Senstrom reached out and asked us if we wanted to go spearfishing. 

OF COURSE THAT SOUNDED AWESOME! 

Our house was directly on the beach (brag 😏) so he came over and brought alllll this stuff for us to go spearfishing with:

He brought everything we needed including wetsuits, spear guns, weights, fins etc....

He gave us some training and taught us how not to die while spearfishing:

Here was the loot after going out!

He then spent the rest of the day teaching and helping us prepare the fish into sushi:

Then we made some of the fish scraps into ramen!

Jon said if he wants to meet someone, he'll offer to take them spearfishing, which is a pretty unusual thing. 

He's met so many cool people through this, and it costs him nothing! He already has all the equipment, he already has the know-how, and it's a super memorable experience for everyone. 

What a creative way to meet cool people!

"Crappy Marketing" is a fun way to get attention, and recently the North Carolina Department of State Treasurer got in the action. 

Check out this hilarious graphics designer request they did that went viral and got ~100,000 likes! 😂

They totally got inspiration from other marketing stunts like this and it totally worked!