I decided to take a break from writing my daily emails last week, so today is my first day back…
And I’m jumping back in with 3 thoughts that are on my mind this Sunday morning.
Sometimes these thoughts are about business…
Sometimes they’re about life…
And other times they’re just truly random.
So with that said, let’s dig into the first thing on my mind this morning…
1. Things are not looking good (and are only going to get worse) for the “average guy”
Take a look at these stats…
– 10% of men get 80% of the matches on dating apps (this means 90% of guys are fighting over just 20% of women)
– 60% of women are going to college while only 40% of men are going to college (this has long term dating implications because college educated women don’t tend to date guys who don’t go to college. So if this keeps up, there will be a lot of college educated women who can’t find a man that’s on their level)
– From 2000 to 2018, the number of men who reported having no sex increased from 19% of guys to 31% of guys (this is an issue because when large numbers of lonely men are not having sex they feel hopeless and can go down violent paths)
– Between 1965 and 2018 the % of working-age men who were NOT working went from 3.3% to 11.7% (most of this came from men at lower education levels)
I could go on and on with these stats, but my point is simple…
The average man is facing an uphill battle today that is going to have wide-ranging effects in society…
It’s gonna affect marriages…
Suicide rates…
Violent crimes…
Birth rates…
And yet hardly anyone is talking about it.
The interconnectedness of things like Tinder and Instagram have been awesome for guys at the top…
But for your average guy, they’ve been a disaster.
I honestly don’t know what the solution is to this…
But it’s an important issue that not many people are talking about.
And if we want to have a better society for everyone, then we need to start talking about it.
Let’s hop to the second thought on my mind this morning…
2. Sell the “sexy” but when it comes to yourself, focus on the basics
I was watching a video on Youtube yesterday by Stan Efferding (he’s a pretty famous bodybuilder) and the whole video he was harping on “mastering the basics”.
So for bodybuilding, the basics is about optimizing three things…
1. What you eat
2. How well you sleep
3. How you train
That’s the basics.
And that’s where 98% of the results come from.
It’s not about what protein shake you use…
Or the pre-workout you take…
That’s like 1% of the equation.
The things that matter are the basics.
Which I think is a great analogy for life.
Cause if you can master the basics in anything (relationships, workouts, copywriting) you’ll be better than 99% of the people out there.
So my advice?
Don’t get sucked into the “sexy stuff”.
Focus on mastering the basics.
You’ll be ahead of 99% of people.
Alright let’s do one more of these.
This last one is quite exciting for me…
3. I’ve made HUGE progress with my Crohn’s disease over the past month, and can now eat things like pasta, pizza and ice cream for the first time in 14 years
If you’ve seen me at an event, or had dinner with me in the last few years, you’ll know the only thing I ate was steak.
Literally…
I ate steak 3x a day…
No veggies, no fruits, nothing else…
Just steak.
And this wasn’t because I wanted to only eat steak.
It’s because my stomach was so messed up that the steak was the only thing that kept it somewhat sane.
So I was on that diet for 3 years in addition to being on some version of the autoimmune paleo diet since 2008.
Which was not easy…
Traveling has been quite tough for me…
And I missed out on many dinners/brunches with friends because I simply couldn’t eat anything…
But I’m happy to say that over the last month, I’ve made some huge progress with my gut.
I started working with a gut specialist about two months ago who’s focus is on emotional triggers and your beliefs around food.
Honestly it sounded a little “woo woo” to me at first…
But my buddy Joe worked with them and saw great results healing his Colitis, so I decided to give it a shot.
(I’ve also tried much crazier stuff for my Crohn’s like putting someone else’s poop into my stomach (fecal transplant), and putting worms in my gut that helped with my microbiome (helminth therapy) – so working on the emotions I have around food is a lot less weird than that)
Anyways…
About three weeks after I started working with the new specialist, I noticed that my stomach felt a lot better.
My bowel movements were firm…
And I wasn’t going to the bathroom as much as usual.
Which was really exciting…
I hadn’t felt like that in years…
However…
I still needed to pass the big test of trying new foods.
This was terrifying to me.
Cause all my past experiences of venturing outside my diet were not good.
But the specialist I’m working with had me face my fears head on.
We were live on a Zoom call and she asked me to grab 3 things from my fridge that I was scared to eat.
Luckily I had a few things on hand cause I had just cooked dinner for a friend the night before.
So I grabbed three things that terrified me to eat…
Spicy salsa, a red bull, and a stick of butter.
Seriously I was scared shitless to eat these foods.
I just imagined a day full of stomach pains and diarrhea.
But she helped me push past that…
And gave me specific instructions to taste each food and think of only positive thoughts while I was doing it.
So I thought of a trip I have coming up to Mexico that excited me.
I thought of laying on the beach…
Swimming in the ocean…
And some of the people I’d be hanging with while there.
This all brought a smile to my face.
So I kept those positive thoughts in my mind while I tried each of the foods.
And contrary to the disaster I imagined was going to happen, nothing actually happened after I ate the butter, the salsa and drank the red bull.
I felt fine.
Now, I’ve had enough experiences with food messing me up to know that it’s not just about how you feel right after eating it.
So I was quite skeptical that it was going to stay that way.
However, the next morning, I felt fine.
My bowel movements were normal.
I honestly couldn’t believe it.
It didn’t feel real.
But it was.
And since then she’s pushed me to try more and more foods each day.
So I’ve been trying everything under the sun including pizza, pasta, milk, cheese, spicy food, ice cream and more.
And guess what?
My stomach is handling it just fine.
Just last night I had a slice of pizza, which I have not had since 2008.
Seriously, 14 years with no pizza.
And now I can handle it just fine.
It’s nuts.
Anyways, my fingers are crossed that this “sticks” and I can have more variety with my diet.
My long term plan would be to eat healthy 85% of the time (pretty close to paleo)…
And then 15% of the time, eat things like pasta, cheeseburgers and pizza.
That feels like a good balance.
And something I’d be happy with.
Anyways…
Wanted to share that update with you since it’s something I’m quite excited about.
I’m already thinking of all the new restaurants I can go to…
And the delicious foods I can now eat when I’m traveling.
It’s like I have a completely new life.
So I’m pumped.
I’m sure a few people will want info on the specialist I worked with, so I’ll just link you to his page here if you want to check it out.
So yeh, life has been good lately…
And I’m excited for what’s to come.
I’ll be back on my regular writing schedule this week.
And I’ll also be announcing my new training on writing “Justin-style” emails.
So be on the lookout for that.
And I hope you enjoy your Sunday.
– Justin
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