I don’t have a lot of time.
But as my man Anand said “we are now entering that 3rd quarter of our lives” and I can’t escape thinking a lot about how much time I have left on this planet.
There are those friends you are meaning to connect with who have passed on. There are successes you were sure you’d have achieved by now. Now add in a dose of thoughts of raising (and paying for) children while wondering how many really good years you have with your parents.
The whole concoction can cause a bit of a mind fuck.
At the beginning of this year I made a decision to be a lot more focused on time where i’m spending it and who i’m spending it with. I like to think a lot and I also have some good systems in place and a great wife that allow me to experiment.
So for my time hacks I thought about the following:
- what has naturally lined itself up to be taken advantage of
- what can compound multiple activities together
- how can I do this and not upset the delicate scheduling balance of family and business
Right away Snowboarding jumped the fuck up. How many activities can deliver the the joy of gliding across fluffy clouds, while drinking beers, and also be an unbelievable work out? Yeah. Exactly.
I’ve always enjoyed leaving the bubble of San Francisco to be in nature. It’s one of the biggest advantages of living in the Bay Area. Snowboarding is a great activity for the family as well.
As 2017 was approaching it was looking to be a massive snow year and I was fortunate to have a great partner in crime. My man Shawn Steele, who I work with, has homies in Tahoe, is a great rider, and owns a lifted Pathfinder snow stomping beast. I got a season pass to seal the deal. I’m super cheap and knew I could harness the motivation of not wanting to waste that money.
Leaving at 6am on Fridays meant we never hit traffic and by 10am, when most people were drinking their second cup of coffee deep scrolling on Facebook, we were already on the mountain. At the end of a day on the mountain, completely exhausted, there’s a sense of fulfillment like achieving something that had taken weeks, not just lasted 5 hours. After crashing in a sleeping bag on the floor we’d get up at 8am on Saturday, ride 4 more hours and be back in SF in by 5pm again going the opposite way of traffic. By time I got home the kids were waking up from their afternoon naps with plenty of quality time left in the weekend.
Something amazing happens when you concentrate a significant amount of time into an activity and are motivated to improve. You get better way faster; even as a 40 year old Dad. Before January of this year i’d never ridden features in the park or really hit jumps at all. I give a lot of credit to SnowboardProCamp, the best YouTube how to Snowboard channel I found. Even when I wasn’t on the mountain I was watching these videos visualizing new tricks and movements.
This experiment brought me back to how it felt sophomore year of college when I finally broke through playing the guitar. It’s like the more time invested the better I got. Getting into that zone both physically and mentally is one of the most rewarding things in life.
Being open to learning and growing is my 3rd-quarter-of-life game face mentality. I’m trying my best to not let fear stop me from starting. Even old dogs can learn new tricks.
Let me know what you think.
Hopefully this motivates you to try some crazy shit.
Just don’t send me the hospital bill if it doesn’t work out.