Author Archives: Hans Schiefelbein

About Hans Schiefelbein

In pursuit of a healthy and disciplined lifestyle. My goal is to help people attain and sustain their health.

Last Year I Joined Two Cults

“It just works.”

“I want one.”

“Geeking out.”

These are phrases I heard and read a lot last year. 2010 was the year I joined two cults. Technically a cult is a group of fanatics that are typically not only strange, but often destructive and leaning towards evil. Anyone who knows me can already figure out that’s not where I’m going with this. But I did in fact affiliate myself with two organizations that have a strong following of people. Let me explain.

The possibilities...

The first cult I joined in 2010 was Apple. As I was getting to know some people on blogs and in the business world, it seemed like everyone had a Mac. There’s also this subculture of Christian leaders who swear by their MacBook Pro (“MBP” when referring to your machine online). These same people also kept talking about their iPhone. Have you ever heard a group of people go on and on about their Dell computer or their Nokia phone? In my defense I was against both the computer and the phone. My ThinkPad was my favorite computer of all time. It was powerful and very mobile-friendly. And with the phone, I had always purchased high-end phones that were small and very powerful, allowing me to be very productive and organized. So I wasn’t looking to change my computer or phone.

But the summer of 2010 had a series of events that all converged into a season of change for me. My laptop started to have issues with the hard drive and the USB ports. It only had 40GB of space, which is obviously small by today’s standards (that also shows you how long and devoted I was to my ThinkPad). And my phone was a Blackberry that I really liked. But do you want to know the backstory? I traded a jacket for an iPod Touch and fell in love with it. I was carrying it everywhere for my email, notes, pictures, music, internet, podcasts – everything entertaining and educational to fill any downtime in my day. I thought, “If the iPod Touch is so useful, and I’m carrying it in addition to my phone, why don’t I get the iPhone?”

The ThinkPad and the phone were at their end and I was faced with a decision. All the cool trendy people where using Apple. But that’s not a reason to switch. What put me over the edge was seeing some high-end people, CEOs and very successful large and small business owners proud of their productivity workhorses – their Apple iPhone and MacBook Pro laptops.

So I converted.

And I’ll probably never go back. As many people say of an Apple product: “It just works.” I’m not going to pretend to be a tech geek that can tell you the 10 reasons Mac is better than PC. I don’t know the ins and outs of Mac OS. But I’ll just say that I demand a lot of my phone and my machine, and my iPhone and MBP don’t disappoint – in fact they’ve exceeded my expectations for productivity. Additionally, I literally look forward to using both devices more than my old phone or computer.

Want to hear the other cult I joined in 2010? I’ll write about that next week.

Training Tool: Calendar

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We’ve moved past January where everyone has their new resolutions and goals for the new year. Now we’re back into the swing of things where everything is back to normal. But is it really?

Here in Wisconsin the winter is not too popular for most people. That’s a topic for another post, but what I’m trying to say is that there’s a sense of excitement for the rest of the year, and more specifically for the arrival of spring. Then summer! And if you wait until that warm weather to start getting into shape or to start training for your first half marathon, it will be too late or too stressful.

What if… What if you put some goals on to the calendar this week and started to work backwards with your training to start your foundation now!

A close friend has approached me to become his personal trainer for an event this spring. The time to start training is now. Our plan is to put a detailed calendar together full of benchmarks and goals. Isn’t this how all other industries work? Goals for sales, scores in the classroom, votes, articles written, or audience approval rating. Effective leaders and producers work off a schedule organized on a calendar.

The same should be measured for fitness goals. I’m excited to put this calendar together for him, and I’ll be doing one for myself pretty soon also. This year I’ll be running at least two races this spring and probably one in the fall. And although I’m an experience runner in both the half and the full marathon, I want to take my training to a new level like I did last year. The calendar of my training goals and training log will help me to that end.

What will it look like? Stay tuned.

What about you? What kind of calendar could you produce and hang in your office that would move you towards achieving some worthy goals? For example:

number of books to read this year
number of hiking trials to finish
different restaurants to try
different blog posts to write
hand written letters to friends and family
number of dates with your spouse

CHALLENGE: Pick one area of your life where you want to see some significant progress this year. Create a calendar that will track your goals and your accomplishments and let us know how you’re making your calendar work for you.

Power in Numbers

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Just because I talk about fitness, do a lot of fitness, and know a lot about fitness doesn’t mean I always like to workout. We all have these times, right? We’re in our area of passion, our area of expertise. But we have those days (or even seasons) when we lack that motivation to take it to the next level. Maybe we don’t even want to show up.

I’ve found that a lot of my motivation comes from the desire to compete against a goal or even compete against someone else. I’m not talking about necessarily training harder or finishing faster than the person. The key here is having others in your Inner Circle to compare training stories.

Right now it’s the start of February and it’s really cold here in Madison, WI. And I love the cold. (I really do.) But the idea of going out for a 4-mile run sounds as appealing as preparing my taxes. My motivation is 90 miles away, and he’s keeping me honest if not spurring me on.

My brother-in-law, Grant, is having a great start to his training season. He’s signed up for the Dam-to-Dam in Iowa in June and it looks like I’ll be joining him. The competitor in me is getting motivation when I hear about his workouts and the mileage he’s up to. Remember, I’m not saying I want to run more or faster than him (“resist the urge to trash talk, resist the urge…”). The competitor in me won’t accept the fact that he’s working out and I’m not. That’s gotten motivated this last week.

Community is essential in exercise and fitness. There’s not many people that I know who can sustain workouts and competitions all by themselves. Training partners make a huge difference, even if you’re not actually training with them. It gives you good conversation topics with that person and it stretches you to think about your training.

Do you find community anywhere in your workouts?

Prepare the Cuisinart, Prepare for the Day

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I like coffee. A lot.

And so when my father-in-law found out we were using a European coffee pot that brewed about 1.5 cups per attempt, he knew I needed an upgrade. So for Christmas he bought me the Cuisinart 12-cup coffee machine. My favorite feature on this model is the ability to preset the machine to brew.

But as great as the machine is, it won’t brew coffee all by itself. I need to do a few things each night:

clean out the last round’s coffee grounds
grind new coffee
fill the water
make sure the preset is for 10 minutes before my alarm wakes me up

If I do these things the night before, my next day starts without a hitch. (Unless my daughter gets up too early.) This ritual got me thinking about personal productivity. What other things can I do the day before to make the next day go without a hitch. The more accurate question (using football lingo) is how can I call a few plays the day before to make the next day start off with energy?

Successful leaders are like the Boy Scouts: always be prepared. I always loved that motto, and as life seems to be getting more complicated and even more dependent on my decisions as a husband/father, I’ve realized that planning is essential for my success. When I think through the next day’s first few plays, I rest easier at night and transition to work more smoothly the next morning.

So each evening I try to call a few plays for the next day – I prep my schedule and I prep my Cuisinart. What about you? Do you prepare a detailed game plan for the day, week, or month?

Productivity Essential – Evernote

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As our world goes more and more digital, the tools and resources at our disposal are increasingly more efficient. Do you find yourself taking notes on multiple sheets of paper? Do you find websites or pictures you’ll want to access later on? Do you have meeting notes from work or from your spouse that you cannot afford to lose? With Evernote, you can keep all these things and more in one place. The best thing about it is that you can access it from multiple devices. I have mine on my personal phone, work phone, iPad, and laptop!

I use this app most often while I’m at work. On any given day, I use Evernote to:

take notes on the details of our work from the day
get customers’ contact info
track hours
take notes on our staff for the purposes of leadership development
Take pictures of a job site to discuss with the boss or customer at a later time

One time I took some notes from a customer and I emailed the note to the boss. All of the notes are fully searchable, so nothing gets lost.

My free account does everything I want right now. I currently don’t need the Premium versions, but your use may differ. On my free account, I have two notebooks set up – one for personal and one for work.

So if you’re looking for a free app to take all your notes and never lose another piece of information, check out Evernote. I’d love to hear in the comments if you use it or if you’ll give it a test run.

** UPDATE 1/29/11 **
After hearing in the comments section that you can search the text of a picture in Evernote, I was shocked! But I tried it. I took a picture of a notecard that I used on Thursday for my list of things to do. I uploaded it to Evernote and then searched for an item on the card – it worked! Whiteboards, menus, notecards, recipes – everything to Evernote.

Consuming vs Creating Information (Part 2)

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In my last post I talked about how easy it is to consume information. I worked off the assumption that successful people are lifelong learners and that they’re constantly challenging themselves to read and learn. I freely admit that I’ve been in situations where I subscribe to too much information and it becomes an overload, and thus overwhelming. Progress is hindered, stress is raised, and everything needs to get reset. So I reset my intake of information and I prioritize it according to Covey’s idea about Big Rocks, putting the most important things first on my schedule. But even if I’m completely happy with what I’m reading and learning, I would argue that I still am not efficiently growing as a leader if I’m only consuming information. What I take in needs to be proportional to what I put out. Consumption needs to lead to creation.

That’s one of my goals with this blog. I need to process what I’m reading and learning and translate it to how it’s helping me grow as a man. Have you ever written in a journal or written a meaningful letter to a friend or family member? Writing forces you to process your thoughts much further than you would just in your mind. You can read about leadership all you want, but until you apply what you’re learning to your work situation, you won’t fully grow as a leader. On a social level, you can look at all your friends’ pictures, but what if you spent 30 minutes creating your own photo album for yourself and for others to enjoy. You can read about the news for hours and know the headlines, but what about writing a personal commentary on it and taking a stand on some of the issues.

I don’t intend to be an expert on this, but I’ve certainly been challenged lately to shift my time in front of the computer from consuming information to creating content.

Consuming vs. Creating (part 1)

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In the digital culture of today, we have the ability to co information as if we’re drinking from a fire hose. I know because I live it. If I’m not very careful with my time and boundaries, I could sit in front of this computer for hours at a time. The problem is that it would all be good stuff, really good information. My Twitter list called “Thinkers” could keep you chasing links for at least three hours per day. My Facebook friends are constantly busy and seeing their pictures and updates with family and friends could fill another afternoon. Then there’s my RSS feed. Leadership, business, fitness, Chritianity, commentary. It’s all there. And like I said, it’s all good.

Consuming information these days is very easy. We subsribe to things and we don’t even have to chase them anymore – they come to us because we’ve asked for them. This is very good. But this can be very overwelming and a complete distraction if it’s not managed properly.

I subscribe to these sources of information because I know they are what sharpen my thinking and challenge my decision making as I navigate work, family, leadership, and growing as a man. Have I mentioned these are all good? But when I consider managing this overflow of information, I think of Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits, specifically Big Rocks. The idea here is this: if you’re going to appropriately fill your schedule (or in this case pick and choose which information to read and which to ignore) you must fill your schedule with the big rocks first, and then fill in the little rocks where there’s room. I simply can’t read every Tweet, look at every friend’s Facebook status, and read all the RSS blog posts. It’s obviously impossible. So I must be disciplined enough to find the important items and focus on those. The ‘good’ items have to come second to the ‘great’ ones.

It’s easy to consume information. And it’s good to consume information. Great and successful people are life long learners and spend their time appropriately. But consuming information is only the first step. What then do we do with all the information?

Thursday I’ll be talking about what we do with all this information we consume. How does our creativity flow out of what we’ve learned.

What I Learned Going Back To Grad School

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Last fall I enrolled at the University of Wisconsin as a special student with the purpose of refreshing my learning in the area of exercise physiology and preparing to apply to their new grad program in the fall of 2011. Very quickly I realized I was a little over my head and that I had a challenging semester ahead of me with reading, studying and falling on my face a few times. Along the way I learned a few things about myself.

Use it or lose it
It was immediately obvious to me that I had been out of school for a few years – 8 to be exact. Sure, the level of the class (700) was higher than anything I took as an undergrad, but the pace and the background that the professor assumed and the other students seemed to demonstrate left me at a significant disadvantage. Still, I recognized the deficiency and dove right in. But I realized that when you’re not constantly sharpening your sword, it gets dull. This happens pretty quickly. It felt great to be back in the classroom and being challenged with new ideas, problems, and workloads. I was encouraged to stay in the loop of education and continue to challenge my thinking and learning.

There will always be a smarter guy than me
And I’m ok with that. As an undergrad we were all pretty much on the same page. This introduction to grad school showed me that there will always be some doctoral candidates pursuing degrees way beyond where I want to go with school. This particular grad program focuses on research, which I have no desire to pursue. They’ll always be smarter than me, but…

I’m confident in my direction as an exercise specialist
It was crystal clear that most of my classmates are interested in research. I’m interested in clinical applications. I kept asking myself (and the class), “So what?” So what about all these studies on rats’ cardiovascular adaptations to prolonged exercise after drug infusions. So what that muscles vasodilate but then another system kicks in to achieve certain adaptations. There were numerous moments of frustration being mixed with people who just care about the scientific research whereas I’m trying to find practical applications to get the next client back into exercising. This semester reminded me that although the researchers are very important, I find my drive in learning so that I can help people be more active.

Exercise is Medicine
I’ve written about this before, but this class reinforced the notion that exercise is good for everyone. Specifically, we learned about cardiovascular disease, and without boring you with the details, essentially the idea is that for unhealthy people who have vessels that aren’t supporting proper blood flow (and thus are at risk for disease), 2-4 weeks of structured exercise can facilitate significant improvements for your cardiovascular system.

I’m kind of a geek about school I could take one class per semester for the next 20 years and be pretty happy. I worked very hard this semester and it felt very good to get back. And I learned a few things.
If you went back to school, what class would you take?

If not a class, what would you enjoy studying?

Could your local library or bookstore offer some reading materials to make that happen?

Remember: use it or lose it.

3 Words for 2011

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Last year I did an activity suggested by Chris Brogan called 3 Words. Essentially the idea is to take your goals and attitudes for the year and narrow them down to 3 words. Your mission is to have most of what you do on a daily basis fall under one of the three words. Brogan takes his three words and breaks them down into more specific areas adding layers and layers of detail. He keeps this private, and I too reserve details for myself. But these general overviews give you a good idea of where I’m focusing my energy and workflow in 2011. Consider finding 3 Words for yourself.

Pillar

I’m re-reading one of my favorite books this year called Four Pillars. It’s written by Stu Weber and it talks about the four pillars of a man’s heart. I’ve highlighted, underlines, and made notes all throughout this book. It’s so inspirational and educational, especially as I grow into this new role of a father. My idea here is that I want to be very intentional with how I”m growing as a man – how I become the father I want to be to Sorin and Norah, the husband I need to be for Katie, and the friend I want to be to those closest to our family.

Platform

Having a platform sounds like something for authors and public speakers. But God has given each of us a platform and thus a level of influence. Some are larger and more prominent than others, but we all are recognized according to who we are, what we do, what we talk about, what characterizes our lives. I’ve always been a very reflective person, and so I’ve always journaled a lot and read as much as I can find time for. To take this reflective quality a step further, I get a lot of value out of my time when I process these thoughts and write here on my blog as a public platform discussing things important to me (and important to a lot of my readers, too). It’s not about personal journaling and it’s not about starting a business. It’s about having an online presence where community and conversations can happen. Hopefully it’s helpful for both me and the reader.

First Down

(I know, it’s not one word.) In this last area of focus for me this year, I’m working towards the idea of “finish.” I thought “finish” was a little too straight forward for 3 Words, so I went a little deeper and I ended up with a football analogy – win! First Down reminds me that I want to be constantly moving forward, and not just one yard at a time. I want significant progress such that I get the first down. The goal is the end zone, but if I get a first down, I get to keep the ball, keep possession and I’m still on the offense. I need to finish. Not necessarily to the goal line, but enough to get me a first down.

These descriptions may not be fully explained for you, the reader. But they give you a good idea of my mindset for the year. This is the second year Katie and I have done this activity and I’m looking forward to processing it a few times throughout the year with her. For me it provides a great structure for compartmentalizing big areas of my life and gets my mind thinking proactively.

Might you consider Three Words that will frame your attitude and focus for 2011?

Resolution or Reset?

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I’m not one of those guys who has been to the gym four days this week in an effort to reinvent myself for the New Year. Fitness goals have to be the number one resolution and as a fitness specialist, I applaud their ambition. But it’s usually not executed with a proper base or in the appropriate context (of a structured exercise program). Is it a valid pursuit? Yes. Do they mean well? Yes. But exercise goals often come as an all-or-nothing pursuit.

What I am more concerned with is the journey towards greatness, excellence. I’m more interested in the process towards a disciplined life. A person who lives a disciplined life doesn’t need to make a list of resolutions, but rather needs to simply reset. Do you see the difference? A resolution is going from something that isn’t working towards something brand new. A reset is simply an adjustment to a lifestyle.

When is the last time you heard someone say, “It’s the first week of December, and boy am I doing great at this year’s resolution.” It’s an attitude shift. Building versus reinventing. Building leads to success, reinventing is often a recipe for failure.

I have fitness goals to build on from 2010 (and earlier). I have writing goals to build on. I have personal productivity goals to build on. I don’t need to reinvent myself. I need to build.

I’m really excited about launching this blog late last year. I have been challenged by the likes of Michael Hyatt and Desiree Scales to be a better writer. This blog is a personal hobby but it has professional significance and I develop it to be a resource for anyone pursuing health and discipline in their lives. As a little teaser, I’ll be doing a lot more video, I’ll be referencing experts in the field, I’ll be doing a series on P90X, and I’ll certainly be more consistent and polished than I was last year. That’s my reset. Far from a resolution because it’s not new, it’s just better. You?