Every now and again, you have to change the formula a little. How we learn to adapt the formula depends largely on how we are willing to listen to the smart people around us. You do have smart people around you, right?

Take a moment to think about every piece of absolutely incredible advice you have received.

How much of that advice is implemented in your life right now?

Today, I got some valuable information from a smart guy I trust immensely. This is my bootcamp week – where I attempt to pile in economy before the big race in 5 weeks time. I have to work and see how much I can squeeze, time wise, to practise this economy, out on the roads.

Simple, not easy.

But listening to the advice this morning, I realised I needed to rethink the bootcamp week, and make some adjustments to get the most out of the week, possibly with a little less volume in there as well. I am moving well at the moment and all I am looking for is economy of movement this time around. Fitness seems good and form is lying underneath a blanket of fatigue, waiting for the peak and taper weeks.

First, be prepared to ask the tough questions, when it comes to listening.

Of course, tough questions come with tough answers sometimes. Be prepared for those too. Let the ego go a little and remember to breathe and at least try to accept that you may have work to do, things to change and compromises to make.

Make sure you are listening for trends and things that are repeated. You are reflecting something and make sure to be particularly aware of these scenarios. For me, they always have to do with time. I am always having to pull back and make sure I have time for nothing.

It sounds so simple, but so many of us don’t really listen to what is fairly obvious to others but often, lost to ourselves. Make a list of 5 people you should listen to and invite them each for a coffee in the next 10 days. Make lists of the advice they have given and build that into a summary, something to keep in your handbag / laptop bag / fridge and refer to it often.

Wash, rinse and repeat for epic times ahead.

As the week goes and I get my “fatigue on” I usually get filled with energy and clear visions for the future, so expect more blogging this week from me. I have been a little quiet but it doesn’t mean I haven’t missed writing.

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On Saturday I went out to Grabouw with 3 friends to run a new route for a new trail running guide in South Africa. We covered parts of the Xterra Route, parts of our own route and managed to cover sand, rock, beach, jeep track, single track, river crossings and the views were insane. The routes out at MTO Forest next to the Grabouw Country Club are insanely good, as you will see in these pics. The first image is sign-in, a 20 ZAR fee and off you go on various marked routes. A full report coming soon.

All photos taken with the GoPro Camera. The full route details are here:

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Such a dirty thing, doubt.

When you know something, you should just know it, right? Wrong.

Doubt is the dirt that clogs the perfect pedal stroke, the sand in the shoes of the best runners in the world and one of the primary reasons you will not achieve your goals. How many times do we have to see the worlds best throw it away because of doubt. Doubt it something you learn. It’s a disease that comes with age, with time and with bad influence.

For the working athlete, doubt is a gigantic challenge. It’s the fear of not having done enough that destroys the form you have taken so long to build. 99% of the time, if it’s a doubt related to mileage, it’s a wasted thought. Use your mind – its stronger than the body and has been proven to be the link to high level performance, 100% of the time over lactic acid build up or anything related to the muscles.

Prof Noakes and I will agree that Ryan Sandes runs in a trance. Doubt never enters his mind. He has never really lost, so why should he doubt himself? By removing the doubt he cannot lose, right? The athlete who has no doubt will attack earliest because they believe they can hold it the longest.

The smartest athlete may not be the one who always wins. Maybe it’s the guy who goes earliest, in that semi-trance like state, where they just go. Pantani was a great because to him, if he went, everyone would falter. When Contador is at his best, he never looks back. Do you think Mark Cavendish sprints for 2nd place? How many guys racing him are racing for 2nd place?

Bekele kicks from 600m to go in the 10 000m not because he needs to, but because he wants to. To make a statement, that nobody can doubt his dominance. He does it because he has no doubt that he can hold it for 600m.

When you are standing on the beach at Ironman, a trembling mess full of doubt – why is that? It’s not like you won’t finish. If you just keep moving, you`ll finish. So what is that doubt?

Are you scared of what you might achieve on the day?

Are you afraid of getting it all wrong? It’s the simplest day of the entire year for you, why are you so worried? All you have to do is ride smart and be smart about nutrition. That’s ALL you have to worry about. The rest of the day is pure joy after getting those 2 things right. Why doubt yourself on such simple tasks?

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These thoughts all came to me as I was out removing doubt from my mind on Saturday. For the last few weeks work has been just ridiculously busy. I have not managed to get through the weeks without skipping numerous sessions. Not ideal when IMSA is 6 weeks away. Doubt was starting to creep in and I went out to do a beautiful, steady session all on my own, leaving the doubt out there, far away from home.

I figured there must be more than just a few of us who feel this way at the moment.

Your performance will not lie in the legs alone. Clearing the mind of doubt is the magic ingredient for many of us. It’s the basis of so much of our training – proving over and over we can do the distance, the intensity and the combination of those 2 elements.

Focus on clearing the doubt. When your mind says your legs are tired, clear the mind. Focus on something else entirely and best of all, think of nothing and just keep moving. Look for that trance-like hum that has you 20km down the road, riding faster, with smooth legs and a mind devoid of this doubt. It’s out there. In the past I have called it The Pause, The Ellipsis, etc.

You know the feeling. Make it your mission to find it over the next few weeks.

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This week I have had the pleasure of traveling with Prof. Tim Noakes, who recently has gone a full 180 degrees on carbohydrates and what we should be consuming. This is a man who has challenged beliefs and written incredible papers that have changed the way we go about exercise around the world. The man is filled with vitality, energy and seems to be happier than ever. He is running faster than he did 20 years ago as well, for what it’s worth. His secret?

Cut carbs. Almost entirely. No bread, no potatoes, no pasta… (sigh)

He`ll tell you to rip the chapter on nutrition out of Lore of Running. What they believed 10 years ago is not what they believe now and it takes a big man to stand up in front of the whole world and say “We made mistakes”.

So this no carbohydrate thing, is also known as Paleo, Atkins, etc. It’s not new news. The problem is that it messes with every piece of conventional wisdom out there and flies in the face of a large percentage of the advertising that pays for magazines and TV to be around. Really, if cereals, snacks, cold drinks and pizza/pasta/rice was cut from the advertising budget in many publications, what would be left? So the industries that employ thousands and make millions have said he is talking rubbish.

Another note is to say that if we all switched to eating twice or three times as much meat, would there be enough meat on the planet?

Personally, as a cold-hearted realist I would say we got ourselves into this mess, but I am only speaking to around 30 000 of you on this blog, so let us be the informed few who make the change towards better lives.

There are a few good articles out there on this, so let’s put some links up to those for you get a bit of background on this:

Link 1

Link 2

Link 3

Do I hear you say WHOOOOAAAA?

In order to give you a bit of background on other low carb diets, let’s give you some more links…

Paleo versus Atkins.

Paleo versus Other Low Carb Diets.

Paleo versus Primal versus Atkins.

Really, it may be a never ending debate, but we are not here to get into the politics. As someone interested in finding every edge, and feeling something was drastically wrong, in 2008 I switched to something in this line of eating/thinking. I cut wheat, dairy (90%) and sugar out of my diet. This left me with wheat-free muesli in the mornings, meat & veg for the rest of the day. I cut out all protein shakes, I moved to regular sleep and training in a more sensible manner (basically off the 4 pillars of aerobic capacity, recovery, nutrition and strength).

The result was I lost 8kg and qualified for Kona, dropping 62 minutes at Ironman that year. It took me 12 weeks and changed my life. Easy peasy.

I have maintained that style of eating, sometimes being a bit more stringent whilst at other times being quite focused on making sure I am putting no rubbish into the body so that I can recovery as decently as possible, session-to-session, when the sessions are high.

But I was carbohydrate intolerant. I did a period very similar to the Maffetone 2 Week Test and it was easy to see I had Carbohydrate Intolerance. Since then, my mom has tested to be a Type 2 Diabetic, which is a sure-fire sign that I was heading in the same direction. Prof Noakes had the same experience. Just because you are fit does not mean you are healthy.

The results? I have been to a GP once in 5 years, have had zero real injuries since and most significantly, my intake of calories during training and races has become significantly reduced. I would guess it has a scientific explanation, and I will endure to find that information, but for now, I am consuming about 30% less during rides and runs, which means the body can work more on performance than breaking down food. It’s a simple win-win.

But what does it all mean?

If you are carbohydrate intolerant (do the test or simply know that if either of your folks are obese or diabetic then you most likely are) then you should be focusing on eating the right way. The right way for me has no “diet” name attached. It simply means:

1. High Protein – meat, beans, eggs, etc.
2. High Fat – avo, nuts, etc and worth noting that you are aiming for Omega 3 and that Omega 6 is the bad one (which is in all vegetable fats).
3. Quality Carbohydrates – fruit, veggies, quinoa.

We are avoiding insulin spikes and controlling intolerance. It’s not rocket science. It’s not a tickling competition. It’s the rest of your life and being able to live without discomfort or disease.

If it’s too hard, then maybe being sluggish, overweight, bloated and never achieving your athletic goals is simply not for you. Life habits are tough to change but worth every penny when you do.

Make the right choices. Check your intolerance levels and shoot for the stars.

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An Update: Tim Noakes published a great article on all this yesterday, so read it HERE

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I am a little disillusioned with the world at the moment. Well, the inside world at that. I am a little lost because mystery is a concept that is losing traction in the world. We want to know everything, all the time. No mystery – no anticipation, no waiting, no patience and certainly no panache.

With the worlds of Twitter, Facebook et al our heroes have become instantly accessible to us on a level that was always kept away from us. Most of the time, this means we see the rattling-mumbling-useless side of our heroes as they tweet about the movies, what peanut butter they like and which loo paper they prefer. My heroes were silent and let their bodies do the talking growing up.

Our heroes didn’t have GHD’s or Manicures. They walked over the All Blacks, soared over mountains on 3 speed bicycles and swam effortlessly over 30 laps in the Olympic pool. Now I know their training schedules, their bad habits and their inability to put together a sentence correctly.

Sure, I am a part of the generation that has it all at my fingertips, what with the Google-machine giving me all I want. What I am disillusioned by is that I hear people saying that by the time they catch up with friends, they have nothing to say to each other because they have the whole story already by following said friends’ feeds on Twitter, Facebook, etc.

It takes away the beauty of story telling, one of my favorite things.

Our heroes told stories with their escapades, their achievements being fleshed out by talented writers in the newspapers and on the radios as brilliant radio journalists told the story of the race unfolding, live.

Where are these stories now? During any given rugby match, you`ll be watching, listening to the radio, following Twitter streams and Facebook streams for comments, because you just can’t get enough of others peoples opinions. What about forming your own opinion? What about making your own mistakes?

Your well formed opinion and your ability to be willing to make mistakes will carry you further in life than just following the average and being average. If you never overcook a corner, take that double dummy step or attempt the overhead backhand slice how are you ever going to progress? By not attempting, by not risking, you are choosing to not improve.

For the last few weeks I have been suffering with tight achilles, calves, etc all in an attempt to possibly not succeed on the run at Ironman South Africa. Sounds stupid, but I have to put myself out there for the big result, which carries a high possibility of failure. If I don’t risk it, when will I risk it? This is my 6th Ironman distance race. Now is not the time to err.

To conclude, risking failure, to me, is a heroic trait. That is my opinion and sure, I could be wrong, but that is the conclusion I have come to. Perhaps it suits my needs, and fails yours badly but this is what I have learned.

C’est la vie. Have a great week.

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There will be more than a few people reading this who are now into the last month of serious prep for Ironman South Africa. That video is for you. This month is the most important month and what you do in this month will determine your day in Port Elizabeth. In April, we sharpen but in March, we build the sword.

For those who think it’s plain sailing, it is not. I am pretty sure I will not be the only one in the office tomorrow morning (yes, Saturday) for a few hours before heading out for a long session. That is just how it rolls at the moment. We make sacrifices and we make them count. It`s what makes the journey.

These commitments should be fun and the compromise should not be that hard. Simply, that’s what it takes. Sure, normal may not apply. Who wants to be normal anyway. Mediocrity is for the weak. We are opting in on mileage, pain, compromise, risk, trust and expense. This is not a tickling competition. This is Ironman.

It requires us to learn to be calm in the storm, to find the moment and enjoy it. It teaches us economy, self belief and above all teaches us to weather the storm. If that’s all you learn from your training and you don’t make it to the finish line then I believe that’s enough.

You will do this. You will be a better person for this. Let that be a part of the reason you are out there tomorrow. Let that be a part of the realisation out there. No bailing, no pulling the plug. You may fail but by being the person who is at least willing to fail, you are a hero in my books.

Ride smart, ride hard. Remember out there… ride for show, run for dough.

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This has been, honestly, one of the craziest weeks I have ever experienced at work. Our deadlines are insane, our commitment to getting them done our focus and the barrage of demands coming back being handled like a hanging carcass in the back of a butcher being fired at with a hundred small caliber rifles.

I would be lying if I said it was fun all the time. The pressure is immense and at times, the emotions run a little high. Thankfully, I`m surrounded by an amazing team, who, if you checked their contents, would all say *made with awesome

The statement, *made with awesome – It got me thinking today about the things in my life made with this word that is thrown around so commonly now, awesome. Awesome means “That which inspires awe”. That means gaping mouths, snorts of disbelief and 1000 yard stares at it’s simple magnificence.

*made with awesome – quite an honor to be given that badge. A little higher than a noddy badge, but here are the *made with awesome things in my life which blow me away:

(in no particular order)

- Rehidrat Sport. It’s hands down the best item in my cupboard for recovery, for training, for thirst, for feeling awesome.

- My FAAS250′s from Puma. My first pair took me through 18 islands in the Swedish Archipelago, including 12km of swimming in them. They climbed Die Leer in Die Hel on EUT11. They must have covered 600km in total, through sand, sea, mud, tar, grass and cupboard. My 2nd set debut’d at 70.3 this year and we know how that went.

- My family. They are straight up gobsmackingly awesome.

- My mates. I mean, have you been out for a few tequilas with my crew? Never quite understood awesome until you have.

- My Garmin Edge 805. That thing has saved my ass when lost more than twice. I would possibly not be typing this right now if it was not for that thing.

- Jack Black Beer. #nuffsaid

- The Better Half who lives with me. She is pretty awesome to put up with all of me all the time. I do wonder why she is so keen to get me out the door for 5 hour rides sometimes, but I imagine it’s just to miss me more.

- My Orca Apex wetsuit. I was 1st out the water at Xterra. Sure, I fumbled T1 and was out onto the bike course 3rd, but I have the fastest swim split. It’s a kiff suit, bru.

This is sounding like an ad for an epic life with epic toys now, so I am going to stop. I am a mile high on espresso, Deadmau5 and left over adrenaline from a long day. Time to sign out. Time to log off. Time to go be awesome…

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Dr Alan Couzens is a ridiculously smart bro. I love reading anything he puts out and this series on Performance Limiters for us Endurance Freaks is filled with pearls of wisdom. Originally from the Endurance Corner Blog, you can read it here:

by Alan Couzens, MS (Sports Science)

Part I
Part II – Strength
Part III – Work Capacity

In this final article in the Basic Limiters series I want to talk about the most overlooked of the three: mobility.

Mobility is kind of a catch-all phrase that incorporates all aspects of functional flexibility — the factors that may restrict an athlete’s range of motion in their chosen sport and general functional tasks. As such it incorporates:

• Muscular tightness
• Soft tissue restriction
• Joint capsule restriction
• And neuromuscular restriction/faulty movement patterns

It is a very important quality to the endurance athlete for two big reasons:

1. Injury prevention
2. Economy

Injury Prevention
Endurance sports are, more or less, whole body activities. On the positive, this fact enables the athlete to put sufficient demand on the body that they get a true systemic training response. All of the systems of the body from circulatory to metabolic to endocrine get a “workout” and, providing appropriate loading and recovery patterns are adhered to, the general health of these systems is enhanced.

The downsides of whole body activities are that:

• The movements are generally more complex
• The opportunity for faulty compensation is rife

Take running for example, say Joe Middleage arises from his slumber on January 1 one year resolved to begin running for fitness. He takes his first few loping strides and his body realizes (unconsciously) that he no longer has the ankle flexibility to drop his heel to the ground at the completion of each stride.

“No problem,” says the body, “I’ll just turn Joe’s feet out a little so the lever length of the foot is effectively decreased and he can manage the movement.”

Of course to do this, Joe is now pronating significantly more at the ankle, his knee is now doing a weird sideways kick instead of hinging backward and forward and because his hip is perpetually externally rotated, he’s swinging his leg back not from the hip but from the lumbar spine. To make matters worse, the faulty movement patterns that Joe is ingraining in these first steps back are becoming ingrained to an extra-strong degree and even if Joe finds the muscular flexibility later down the road, these newly formed motor patterns will be hard to break. In short, Joe is in trouble!

This situation is certainly not limited to the ankle joint in runners. Given the number of movement patterns involved in triathlon. Most joints are used and consequently, a deficiency in mobility in any one of these joints can lead to injury problems. Other common examples:

• Scapulo-Thoracic immobility leads to shoulder issues in the swim
• Hip extensor immobility (relative to position) leads to back issues on the bike
• Hip flexor immobility leads to Achilles and adductor issues on the run

Paraphrasing Mike Clark from his great book “Advances in Functional Training” — when a joint is immobile in a complex movement, a joint above or below is forced to take up the slack and this mechanism leads to muscles being overworked or working in purposes that they’re not really suited for.

There is nothing more frustrating to both athlete and coach to be unable to access the fitness that you’ve worked so hard for on a given date because of a lingering injury. This is an all too common true limiter in the world of endurance sports.

The obvious solution to Joe’s (and an unacceptably large portion of endurance athletes’) dilemma is to correct flexibility discrepancies in his chosen movement before piling on the miles in said movement!

Economy
If you’re a young, generally healthy, performance obsessed athlete, I may not have sold you on the importance of supplementary mobility work with the above example but perhaps this will…

Several studies on effective running biomechanics have found a distinct interplay between mobility, stability and running economy. For example, Godges et al (1989) found a significant improvement in running economy at all paces with improved hip flexion and extension. In contrast, the same author found improvement in economy with decreasedmobility — improved stability of the hip and trunk rotators. In other words, we want some joints to be very mobile and others very stable and capable of holding lots of elastic energy! Indeed, other researchers have come to a similar conclusion that there is a distinct and consistent pattern to joint mobility/stability in extremely economical distance runners (such as Craib et al., 1996, Gleim et al., 1990, Kyrolainen et al, 2001). In general, muscles of the frontal and transverse plane are relatively tight — “springy” may be a better term — while muscles of the sagittal plane are mobile & capable of force production over a long range.

This is not only true in running, but also in swimming, where mobility may be even more important to economy. For example, Jagomagi and Juramiae (2005) found that flexibility parameters alone explained 28% of the performance variance in breaststroke swimmers. Similarly, Silva et al. (2007) found that two of the most predictive variables to 200 IM performance were ankle and trunk flexibility (r=0.73 & 0.55 resp). To put this in perspective, swimming fitness (measured as speed at 4mmol/L of lactate) was less well correlated to 200 IM performance than ankle flexibility!

Now, while it may be true that these complex relationships of mobile and stable joints occur somewhat naturally when a young “blank slate” begins training, in my experience an older more “well written” slate will need to correct a number of dysfunctional patterns that have crept in through a lack of, or an imbalance of, functional movements (for instance, sitting at a desk for eight or more hours per day). The general preparation period of training is the time to do so.

Practical Applications
In general, the economical- and injury-resistant triathlete will want to establish:

• Ankle stability, especially in the frontal plane (via single leg exercise, including barefoot/minimally supported)
• Sufficient ankle mobility in the sagittal plane (via calf raises, inchworms etc.)
• Hip stability in the frontal plane (via single leg exercise with level hips progressing to single leg squats and deadlifts progressing to single leg work on an unstable surface)
• Hip mobility in the sagittal plane (high step ups, cook bridges, lunges with an emphasis on lumbar stability)
• Lumbar stability (CORE!!! Planks, standing presses, pulls, etc.)
• Thoracic mobility (foam rolling, mini crunches, thoracic extensions over stability ball or off bench, overhead squats, wall angels)
• Scapula mobility (Pectoralis and rhomboid self myofascial release, scapula depressions from a pull and push overhead and dip variety, scapula retractions/full rows)
• Shoulder stability (Swiss ball push up — hands on ball, single arm work — push up/plank variations, dumbbells, etc.)

Incorporating the above into your general strength/mobility circuits in the general prep phase of training will go a long way towards attaining some of the movement economy benefits discussed, and perhaps more importantly it will significantly mitigate the chance of a chronic injury limiting the expression of the fitness that you’re worked so hard for in 2012.

Train smart

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Yesterday, a thousand of us raced in Grabouw. By applying years of hard work and knowledge, I came out 8th best on the day. It was a day where I felt rushed on the bike, all day. After a bit of a rush around day on Saturday (completely self inflicted) and a messy T1, it took me almost 18km of the 27km on the ride to settle down to a mild roar.

The pause that I love, that I pursue, that clear mind, the one that was omnipresent at 70.3, totally left me yesterday out there. A week ago I rode that course hard, with no hassles, faster than I did yesterday. I didn’t put my foot down once and yesterday, I must have put my feet down 15 times during the ride, costing me minutes on a day when minutes meant a few places up front.

It’s a great reflection, the way we race.

When the pause is not there, that ability to be clear and think and power our way through the day rather than force it, we make mistakes. Mistakes create frustration, which makes the pause seem even further away, which makes our motivation to hurt less and so forth. The pause is the success factor on race day, and yesterday, I lacked it.

It was a beautiful day out in Grabouw and I had an absolute blast, despite this. I had the best swim of my life in triathlon, had an incredibly fun ride chattering away with Raynard Tissink, a very rare opportunity for me, as we gingerly made our way around the course with a few laughs and a few frustrated moments for both of us, and I had an ok run, nothing spectacular, nursing a blister the size of a R5 coin on my left heel which I picked up somewhere in the week before the race.

Xterra is, for me, a great chance to mix it up with mates in a sport which isn’t my primary focus. I love the organisation, the vibe, the history and the energy around Xterra and will be racing it for many years to come. As a “roadie” it’s fun to improve a little each year, sticking it to the purists a little as my mountain bike skills improve, despite days like yesterday where I felt like a rookie.

I qualified for another world championship which is a huge achievement, and the second qualification of the year for me. I am feeling hugely blessed and very energetic for my 3rd qualification opportunity in April at IMSA. In the interim there is much work to be done and quite a bit of time in the Pain Cave where the fire is burning bright and the opportunities lie all around me.

Then there is the hunt for The Pause. Just typing it brings a wry smile to my face. I love this hunt…

A special thank you to BoE Private Clients, Velocity Sports Labs, Rehidrat Sport, Puma, Oakley and Pure Planet Racing for making this all possible. A huge congrats to Conrad and Carla for their wins.

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I’ve been quietly sourcing information from my friends to get their best advice on what they’ve learned so far in terms of the largest outputs for the smartest inputs towards success.

The general feeling I have gotten was that people keep moving, that there is very little time to stop and reflect. Sabbaticals just don’t happen any more in this country. This group of friends vary from senior CEO’s to PRO athletes and everything in between.

What I would love more than anything, and perhaps this is a pipe dream, is to be able to have the manoeuvrability to be able to drop everything (i.e. it can roll on without me being an active part of day-to-day maintenance) for a big idea and have the means to put everything into this big “opportunity”, whether it be a business, the opportunity to climb Everest or the chance to ride the Silk Route with my fretten.

I am looking for significant financial freedom by my mid 30’s and that is what my life is centered on at the moment. I want complete financial freedom in my 40’s to have the opportunity to raise kids the right way. This is one of the primary drivers in my life.

Lives, and opportunity, have a shelf life. There are windows to follow our dreams; become elite athletes; start a new business; spend time with grandparents; and watch our kids grow. If we don’t grasp those opportunities then the window closes. New windows will open later, but they will be different. You can never get back a closed window.

One of the things I am absolutely grateful for at the moment is my physical power. In my early 30s this is about as good as it gets. I am very aware of that and I plan to be powerful for many decades to come, but I realise how good I have it right now, something I don’t see around me that much.

While living in the present, I keep an eye on the future.

Gordo Byrn recently posted that his successful friends advised him to “put yourself in the middle of people that are what you want to become”. This is huge advice.

This is also good relationship advice. After my last failed relationship I took a year to turn myself into the person I wanted to meet. Only once I was happy with myself did I meet the person who was perfect for me. I am ridiculously happy and this is one of the key reasons for this. I am surprised that more people don’t see this. I am surprised that it took me so long to figure that one out, but grateful that I did.

When I look at my friends that have an enviable lifestyle, regardless of wealth, they follow their own advice to simplify as much as possible. Specific quotes are:

• Things that send bills and demand interest are the devil.
• Sometimes you may not realise the energy something takes from you until it’s gone. I`ve always maintained that true friendship allows me to disappoint you by being true to myself.
• New stuff is overrated. Shoot for new experiences.
• Make sure to be doing one thing really well at a time, rather than being the Jack-Of-All-Trades-Master-Of-None.
• The ability to say NO is one of the most important skills you`ll ever learn.

To quote Gordo again: “It’s important to remember that a simple life isn’t financial management. While it will save you money, the largest payoff is not financial.”

I am feeling the itch to clean out again and next week if you keep an eye out on Twitter, TheHub, etc. you`ll see evidence of a big spring clean for me. Keep it simple, do it now, be true to you.

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