now if those 3 tunes don’t make your heart all warm and fuzzy…. get a transplant!

without a doubt, 3 great house party tracks.

house party…. sounds great. off to see The Mother in an hour. Stoked. Some Merlot Rose might have to make an appearance.

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Post written by Leo Babauta. Follow him on Twitter.

How many times have you gotten upset because someone wasn’t doing their job, because your child isn’t behaving, because your partner or friend isn’t living up to his or her end of the bargain?

How many times have you been irritated when someone doesn’t do things the way you’re used to? Or when you’ve planned something carefully and things didn’t go as you’d hoped?

This kind of anger and irritation happens to all of us — it’s part of the human experience.

One thing that irritates me is when people talk during a movie. Or cut me off in traffic. Or don’t wash their dishes after eating. Actually, I have a lot of these little annoyances — don’t we all?

And it isn’t always easy to find peace when you’ve become upset or irritated.

Let me let you in on a little secret to finding peace of mind: see the glass as already broken.

See, the cause of our stress, anger and irritation is that things don’t go the way we like, the way we expect them to. Think of how many times this has been true for you.

And so the solution is simple: expect things to go wrong, expect things to be different than we hoped or planned, expect the unexpected to happen. And accept it.

One quick example: on our recent trip to Japan, I told my kids to expect things to go wrong — they always do on a trip. I told them, “See it as part of the adventure.”

And this worked like a charm. When we inevitably took the wrong train on a foreign-language subway system, or when it rained on the day we went to Disney Sea, or when we took three trains and walked 10 blocks only to find the National Children’s Castle closed on Mondays … they said, “It’s part of the adventure!” And it was all OK — we didn’t get too bothered.

So when the nice glass you bought inevitably falls and breaks, someday, you might get upset. But not if you see the glass as already broken, from the day you get it. You know it’ll break someday, so from the beginning, see it as already broken. Be a time-traveler, or someone with time-traveling vision, and see the future of this glass, from this moment until it inevitably breaks.

And when it breaks, you won’t be upset or sad — because it was already broken, from the day you got it. And you’ll realize that every moment you have with it is precious.

Expect your child to mess up — all children do. And don’t get so upset when they mess up, when they don’t do what they’re “supposed” to do … because they’re supposed to mess up.

Expect your partner to be less than perfect.

Expect your friend to not show up sometimes.

Expect things to go not according to plan.

Expect people to be rude sometimes.

Expect coworkers not to come through sometimes.

Expect roommates not to wash their dishes or pick up their clothes, sometimes.

Expect the glass to break.

And accept it.

You won’t change these inevitable facts — they will happen, eventually. And if you expect it to happen — even see it as already happening, before it happens — you won’t get so upset.

You won’t overreact. You’ll respond appropriately, but not overreact. You can talk to the person about their behavior, and ask them kindly to consider your feelings when they do this … but you won’t get overly emotional and blow things out of proportion.

You’ll smile, and think, “I expected that to happen. The glass was already broken. And I accept that.”

You’ll have peace of mind. And that, my friends, is a welcome surprise.

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just in time for lunch…

make these 5 clicks to fill your belly filling hour with some useful reading…

1. Psychotactics talks about how to respect the intelligence of the reader. Do I do that for you?

2. Seth Godin talks tactics for going online…

3. Chuckie V says that if it aint broke…. (insert comment here – but read the article first).

4. New Rules has a new rule for you, Go figure! I have yet to see one that doesnt apply to me though.

5. Get fit and go green at the same time? Here, Leo shows you how to do it…

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so le Tour is over. life carries on. but lets go back and look at the best pictures.

where do we find them?

at Boston Big Picture of course. click that link in a new page, and wait for the beauty to load. The grace, the power, the pain, the disappointment – its all there. raw, like a true story should be. Isnt that the draw of the Tour?

Is it the beauty, or the anguish, that draws us in? Keeps us there?

Success coaches often tell us that its not their stories of fortune that make them a success, but their stories of failure which teach people what NOT to do.

What would you NOT do if you had to start, all over, again? Enjoy the pictures. I know I did.

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Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Ian Newby-Clark of My Bad Habits.

Control yourself!” We all say it, mostly to ourselves. We say it when we ‘indulge’ in behaviors that cause short-term gain for long-term pain. And guilt. I cite many of the usual suspects: eating the wrong things, being lazy, staying up too late, drinking too much. There are others, of course. Why do we do such things? After all, aren’t we entirely in control of ourselves all of the time?

Nope.

Research tells us that willpower is a limited resource. Each of us only has so much of it. The studies demonstrating this are rather ingenious. I will share one of my favorites with you, though there are many more.

You are a student at a mid-Western university and you are in a psychology experiment apparently concerned with taste-testing. The experimenter seats you at a table. In front of you is a plate of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. There is also a plate of radishes. Your stomach is growling because, as instructed, you didn’t eat anything last night.

The experimenter asks you to taste-test the radishes. You are not to taste the cookies. In fact, don’t even touch them! No cookies for you! Next, the experimenter asks you to help out another experimenter with a puzzle experiment. You start working on the puzzle. It’s rather hard …

Times passes …

You are having trouble solving the puzzle. Undeterred, you press on.

More time passes …

You still can’t solve the puzzle! You sometimes get close, but then you make a mistake and start over. Eventually, you give up. When the experiment is over, you learn a couple of interesting facts. First, the two experiments, taste-testing and puzzle-solving, were related. Those sneaky psychologists! Second, some people taste-tested the cookies. Lucky ducks!

Persisting at the frustratingly difficult puzzle takes willpower. But will the radish-eaters and cookie-eaters have the same amount of willpower? The experimenters think that the radish-eaters have less will-power than the cookie-eaters because the radish-eaters had to resist grabbing a cookie. So, the radish-eaters should give up on the puzzle sooner than the cookie-eaters. That’s what happened.

That study, and dozens of others like it, show that people only have so much willpower. When you have to control yourself, there is less willpower available to you for other parts of your life. This fact is a good one to know because people who lose their will-power often do things that they would rather not. They become aggressive, sexually impulsive, and give up too early on puzzles.

This has nothing to do with being physically tired. Your self-control is at low ebb when you are mentally exhausted. So, what lessons can we learn from what the science is telling us? How can we be in more and better control of ourselves more often? I have three tips:

1. Anticipate and plan for your times of low self-control. Now that you know that self-control is a limited resource and that depleting it means less for later, you can do some anticipating and planning. For example, make sure that you’re not in the chips and cookies aisle of the grocery store after a long day at work. Don’t start on your tax return after a frustrating commute.

2. Exercise your willpower muscle to get more of it. Roy Baumeister, one of the leading researchers in this field, thinks that willpower is like a muscle. Exercising a muscle in the short-term leads to its exhaustion. In the long-term, though, exercising a muscle causes it to grow. In fact, there is some good evidence that exercising your willpower, though temporarily depleting, means that it will be stronger in the long run. So, push yourself. Things to do that will deplete your willpower:

• Work on a tough to solve puzzle;
• Watch a funny movie but resist the urge to laugh;
• Watch a sad movie but resist the urge to cry.

3. Drink some orange juice. It turns out that glucose is one of the key ingredients that your brain needs for effective self-control. Willpower. It’s not just for breakfast anymore!

I hope that you find my message enlightening and helpful. Some of you, I am sure, will be disappointed to learn that your capacity for self-control is less than infinite. You do have willpower, just not as much as you might like. But now you know how to get more!

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“A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.” – Lao Tzu

often I wonder how I should be living when it comes to material things. I recently got rid of a whole lot of personal stuff, to be able to afford entering the Cape Epic , so essentially swopping material things for a (hopefully) incredible experience.

When I read that quote, from the wise Lao Tzu, I also have to realise that we are never 100% in control. That is another fact of life you may as well accept. You are NEVER in complete control. You could be sitting there, smug, all in control. BAM! a car may crash right into you, altering your life forever.

While I dont advocate you going around being that guy, waiting for that car, you have to accept that you will never be fully in control. So, no matter how much you plan, how many details you have under the belt, you might just end up somewhere else than what you expected.

C’est la vie, no?

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Goosebumps!

there is just something about the game, any game, where there is a favorite, and an underdog. a way where, yes, passion trumps physics. a place where no matter how good you are, if there is a guy who wants it more, he will have it.

how hungry are you for this week?

is the guy/girl sitting next to you going to get more out of it, because they want it more?

whats your excuse for non-achievement this week?

c’est la vie people, and justfully, I am going to rip this week to shreds, on all frontiers, in every capacity. from every angle. are you with me?

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So I got my ass handed to me on a shiny, fynbos ridden plate on saturday morning, and I really don’t have anyone to blame but myself. Here are the lessons I learnt from the race:

1. Check the route: I had no idea where to go, and got stranded, about 15m behind someone, and about 200m ahead of the next guy, in the dark. I kept going straight on a path which looked like THE path to be on, but in reality, I should have turned left at some point. But there are no markers, so I ran till I got the top of the hill and spotted another lost soul. Bad move. around 4min wasted by this point, and would take me another 4-5min to find the path, and then got stuck behind a train of slow-movers up a singletrack path, walking/jogging. Cost us the overall race, and the record.

2. Don’t panic: In my haste to find the route, I was bounding over fynbos like a springbok, and when feet hit a pile of wet wood, I was head over heels on my back, back seized, and shins seriously hurt, and bleeding. Backtracking is often the better idea. As boys, we tend to believe we can bound and hop our way over anything. Not so.

3. Gear: I had on shorts and short socks. kak idea when the route is overgrown, covered in prickly things, sticks, freshly chopped branches, etc. My legs are cut up so badly I cant swim today. Infection is in the wounds and I am in light pain, all the time, 2 days later. Had I checked the route beforehand, I would have known to wear long tights, would would have saved me more time, as by the end I was running around the direct routes, to avoid more scrapes and cuts.

So thats what I learnt on satuday. scout the route, dont panic when things go wrong, and make sure you are equipped for the conditions.

Those are some great life, business and relationship rules too I reckon.

Monday here we come!

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so the weekend looms just ahead of us now. in merely a few hours time, you will in all likelihood have around 50 hours to what you want, and how you want to do it.

I am running leg 1 in the Houtbay Trail Challenge tomorrow for team Mens Health, hoping to defend a record they set last year. I hope to not let them down and hope to follow some top guys on the first leg. Puma have come to the party with some magic Usain Bolt gear for us too. That’s about 20seconds right there. I am looking forward to powering up the hill at a conservative effort. Thank goodness for a Suunto HRM and a Suunto Footpod to help make the journey that much easier and easier to judge on effort as well. I am so lucky when it comes to sponsors.

Then in the afternoon, I am going to veg out on the couch and watch the tour guys go up this climb…

for Capetonians, relatively speaking, its from the waterfront, to the top of Table Mountain, only twice as HIGH, in 22km.

for the Jozi folks, its Jozi to Midrand, and roughly as high as the clouds. Not the smog, the clouds. Yes, look a little higher. well done.

for Durbanites…. never mind.

If you want to see why the guys go so fast up the climb, apparently they let a rabbit loose up the climb about 30min before they get there. it looks like this (NOTE: This picture is not safe for work, or kids). K – enough of that.

Seriously though, 1700m odd climbing in 22km is a seriaaaaaas effort. there is so much to be decided on there.

After this excitement, where a few Jack Black Beers will undoubtedly flow, we are off to the land of the white loafer for The Housemate’s birthday. Copious amounts of Kleinhoekkloof Wines will be consumed, in honor of him being such a legend.

I do aim to ride on Sunday morning, as the weather will be great, I just know it. Seriously – how power has this weather been in Slaapstad lately? best kept secret of Cape Town is winter. Now that I am training for our Epic Challenge, I need to get the long rides in, sooner than later. Gotta loose some weight, gain some power, and rock the house.

If you haven’t got a challenge in your life right now, get one. Take the leap. Employ yourself and make sure you are reaching beyond what you think you can do, so that you can learn that there are no limits.

and remember to smile, while you are at it.

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click the map for a biiiiiiig view.

20/07/2009

Suunto is a proud partner of the Red Bull X-Alps 2009, which is the non-stop hiking and paragliding race. The race kicked off this past Sunday, July 19, from Salzburg and will go on day and night until the first participant reaches the Mediterranean Sea in Monte Carlo. See the route on map.

The intensity, the danger, the competition all add up to make this one of the most unique and inspiring adventures yet seen.

Pierre Carter is South Africa’s sole entrant, and seconded by James Braid is currently lying 18th out of 30 teams. Let’s give him some support and drop a line or two on his Guestbook on the site. Details below

Follow the race on www.redbullxalps.com as well as check out the Live Tracking and RSS feeds from the Red Bull X-Alps on the Outdoor World.

If you want to know more about Red Bull X-Alps, go to www.suunto.com/xalps and watch the Red Bull X-Alps trailer on Suunto TV.

Go saffa!

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