On top of the ebook I’m releasing through my experiments over at TalkMuse.com (which is days away from launching too!), I’m also going to be putting out an ebook on this site.
The working title is The Live Uncomfortably Guide To Muscle: How I Gained 10 Pounds Of NEW Muscle In Only 8 Weeks.
This guide is pretty much just a hype-free, detailed explanation of the workout and diet I used to put on muscle quickly while I was in Panama. (I guess the title could really read, how I gained 10 pounds of NEW muscle in only 7 weeks because in the middle of the training program I was sick and bed ridden for a week.)
Why Do I Say ‘New Muscle’
There are a lot of books and guides out on the market that advertise putting on 20 or 30 or more pounds of muscle in only eight weeks.
What these marketers don’t tell you is that these gains — if at all true — are from something called “muscle memory.”
Muscle memory, simply put, is the term used for muscle that you once had, that your body doesn’t struggle to put back on after a long period of inactivity.
I’m sure you’ve heard about bodybuilders that didn’t work out for years, lost their muscle, and suddenly had a huge comeback in just a short period of time. They were able to put all this muscle back on because of muscle memory.
While I do credit some of my gains in Panama to muscle memory, I believe I built 10 pounds of muscle that I didn’t have before.
Short Description Of The Ebook
What it’s about: Sculpting a great body and building muscle with short periods of hard work.
Who should buy this: Anyone hoping to shape up, lose some fat, and gain a lot of muscle quickly, and anyone who believes in hard work and is willing to get a little uncomfortable and think outside the box. Anyone who doesn’t want to spend the whole year training (I’ve taken huge breaks from working out and ate a terrible diet filled with lots of beer, but have been able to remain in shape because of the principles I outline in this ebook).
Who should not buy this: Advanced bodybuilders or fitness enthusiasts who already have a body they’re happy with, and anyone who isn’t willing to work hard for several consecutive weeks.
When you can buy it: I’ll be launching the ebook in the next week or two so you can enjoy your 4th of July weekend without worrying about diets or workout programs.
Let me know if you have any questions before hand.
Thanks,
Derek
P.S. Here’s a JUICY, real, MySpace-sque photo of me. You’ll notice that I’m not trying to sell this product with pictures of fitness models. An average person can expect to see results similar to mine and if they don’t there will be a 100% money back guarantee.
Note: Black and white photos not included. You’ll need to practice the angry face and hand-open-pose on your own time.
And a more impressive picture of a friend who used the same program (I like to think he looks better b/c he doesn’t drink as much beer. That’s what I like to think):
I used the spaced learning method to learn the complicated intro to “Money For Nothing” by Dire Straits in only 2 hours and 48 minutes. Watch the video below.
The Song
The “Money For Nothing” intro has one of the most epic guitar solos that I have ever heard. And despite the fact that I started playing guitar specifically because of this song, I had never bothered to learn it.
Several years ago I attempted it, but was never able to get far. The subtlety in guitarist Mark Knopfler’s playing (staccato plucking and unusual harmonics on the 4th fret!) made it just a bit too difficult for me to fight through.
Spaced learning is a simple system developed by memory researcher R. Douglas Fields, and is in use at Monkseaton High School in England. It’s a relatively little-known system, but has worked very well for me. It involves three eight-to-ten-minute sessions learning lots of information with ten minute breaks of unrelated material inbetween.
What Exactly Did I Do?
I studied the rhythm and the tabs 1 hour per day for 7 days. Each 1 hour session was broken into 8 minutes of playing and studying followed by 10 minutes of doing something completely unrelated (studying Spanish, writing, etc.) So each session had a total of 24 minutes of study and practice.
The Recording
I recorded the song on the 7th day using my FS100 video camera and then through GarageBand. I apologize for the tones. I didn’t spend a whole lot of time tweaking.
Conclusion
It had been awhile since I played electric guitar - about 8 months in Central and South America kept me away so my guitar fingers weren’t exactly ‘warm’. Overall, I’m pretty impressed with the speed in which I learned the song.
I definitely could have learned this song in fewer days. But I don’t believe I could have learned it putting in the same amount of hours. Spaced learning helped me utilize my practice time better. Pretty sweet.
Cali is like Disneyland for drunk people. There are bars everywhere and people in chivas drinking. I wasn’t exactly productive while I was in Cali…
What to do during the day?
There’s not much to do during the day besides a zoo and a mall to look at fake boobs. People will tell you about fake boobs in Cali and you’ll think, “Yeah, yeah.” Then you get here and you’ll see that it’s an understatement. Colombia is a plastic surgery hot spot and Cali is mecca.
Where to party?
The club area is known as Manga. You pretty much can’t go wrong on this side of town. I went to Lo Las (there’s a gay club with a similar name LuLu so be careful) and Mangos. Both were pretty solid. If you’re staying at a hostel make sure you negotiate with the cab driver before going and coming back from the Manga area. It’s 10,000 or nothing. Don’t let the cabbies screw you over.
There’s a cool bar called Bourbon St. that’s closer to where the hostels are. It’s a gringo hang out but there were a ton of gorgeous women here. A live band plays all the Western world ‘hits’ several times a week. It’s a lot of fun but a bit expensive for Colombia.
Note: If one of the bartender girls comes to a sing a song or two with the band, stick around. Her voice is incredible. Also tell her that I’m coming back to marry her.
Where to stay?
I stayed in two different hostels while I was there - Casa Blanca and Pelican Larry’s. I loved the people who worked at Pelican Larry’s but Casa Blanca was definitely cleaner and nicer.
Where to work?
Both the hostels I stayed in had fast WiFi. Even though I usually recommend against working in hostels, I didn’t get an overall feeling of comfortableness in Cali, so I left the laptop behind whenever I went out.
Hot Tips
1. Salsa is required. Seriously, if you’re staying here for awhile get salsa lessons. Everyone is dancing and if you know a few basic steps and turns you’ll have a much better time.
2. Make sure you befriend the guys that are with girls you want to talk to. I usually try to talk to them first and have them introduce me. Otherwise your life will be threatened - this happened to me twice in Colombia. In Cali, a guy, who had his own girlfriend, got pissed that I was talking to the girls with him. He shoved my friend and the security guards had to break it up.
You need to befriend somebody in a group in order to get access to the table. Most people are sitting until they get up to dance salsa. Conversation topics? Colombian guys love to talk about getting drunk and women.
Final Thoughts?
Cali, Colombia is great stop over city but make sure you do it on the weekend. I couldn’t imagine spending time there during the week. Get in, party, get out.
This is a guest post from the very funny Sean Ogle. Sean is a writer in his mid-twenties who is determined to take control of his life and become Location Independent. You can read more of his travel and lifestyle writing on his blog SeanOgle.com.
Before I left for the French Riviera, I had heard about their famous topless beaches from countless people. Interestingly, almost all of these people had nothing good to say about them! Whether the people there were too old, or fat, or whatever, they made it clear that a nude beach was nothing like the dreams of my youth. Well I have one thing to say:
They are all liars.
When some friends and I arrived in Nice, we set out on a mission to experience a topless beach first hand. Within five minutes of laying down our towels, two of the most gorgeous girls I had ever seen, sat down right next to us and proceeded to remove their tops. What happened to the over-weight 60 year olds everyone had told me about? I wasn’t prepared for this.
A few minutes went by and the Mediterranean sun was already beginning to take its toll, so my friend Jacob and I decided to go for a swim. Upon entering the water we turned around to notice the two beauties walking towards us in all of their bare-chested glory. Apparently they had asked our other friends to watch their stuff, as evidenced by the hand-gestures my friends were making towards me from the beach. The girls walked up to the water and playfully ran in and out. All I could do was make a stupid joke to them about the water being cold.
Stupid or not, it apparently was the best opening line ever, as the conversation continued for the next 15 minutes. I can only imagine I looked like a bobble head doll - my eyes were fixed on them as their boobs bobbed up and down with the waves.
Later we returned to our spot on the beach, and to my friend’s dismay, they started packing up. Then the unthinkable happened. One girl, Daniella, walked up to me and asked what we were up to that afternoon. It turns out her and some more friends were renting a speedboat to cruise up and down the Mediterranean for the afternoon and asked if we wanted to go. Let me reiterate:
Gorgeous girls, fast boat, French Riviera.
All I could think about it was how this was too good to be true. After about five minutes of giddy-ness, and trying to figure out the fastest way possible to get the 50 Euros (each) required to rent the boat, someone chimed in at an attempt to be the voice of reason.
“THIS DOESN’T HAPPEN!”
Jacob became absolutely convinced that he was going to be the victim of a modern age pirate. He thought he would be robbed and then left out in the middle of the sea for good. His thoughts were so strong in fact, he decided to stay on the beach while we went to meet them at a pub nearby to see if this was actually legit.
But at this point, I was sold no matter what. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. If they wanted to rob me and dump me in the ocean, at least I would die a happy man. As it turns out they wanted to do neither.
We spent the day chasing yachts in Monaco, cliff jumping in Italy, and drinking more wine than I thought possible. To make the day even better, it was France’s annual nationwide festival of music. We carried on our party well into the morning listening to a different band or DJ on every street corner before crashing on the beach with our foreign beauties. I learned a lesson that day. Sure you have to be safe while traveling, but you can’t miss out on incredible opportunities just because of something that COULD maybe, but probably won’t, happen. So don’t be like Jacob. If a topless girl wants to take you out on a fast boat in the French Riviera, you should probably go. Just a thought.
+++++
Sean’s ‘List‘ of things to do before he dies is very cool. And you should follow him on Twitter if you’re into it.
I wrote an article for Free Pursuits and I’d like to welcome any first time readers who have made their way to my site today. I encourage any of my regular readers to check out the article and the Free Pursuits website. Lots of goodies there.
Please feel free to dig around and check out the About & Itinerary sections to get a feel for the site.
So to gauge the community, the people over at Location Independent have created a survey. It’s for BOTH people that have a location independent lifestyle, and for those who would like to live that way.
Please do us all a big favor and take the survey because we need your help to make the community better. It only takes a few minutes.
As I sit in the flat bed of gray and rust colored pickup, I think to myself, “My mom isn’t going to like this story.”
Sitting next to, and across from me, against the four corners of the flat bed, are three newly acquired friends from the hostel. We all share in the sentiment that this is not a good idea.
One of my friends hands our future driver his camera to take a photograph. I smile.
Moments earlier I was standing, firmly on the ground, outside of a club. Moments earlier I had a firm grasp on the direction of my life. Now, I’ve handed that control over to someone I just met. And now the cool night air is blowing through my hair as we drive away from the club and that security.
Winding our way through the dilapidated streets on the outskirts of Cordoba, Argentina I can’t help but feel that this would be a horrible place to die. But, then again, is it better to die in one place versus another? Probably.
I console myself saying I’ve lived a damn good life.
We are on our way to an after-hours club - “Not too far” our driver screams.
“You’re not drunk are you?” we ask.
“Not too much.”
“Drive slow,” we all scream.
There’s always a push-pull that goes on in my brain. Part of me lives for crazy moments like these and part of me knows how dumb this is. If I were back home I wouldn’t have dreamed of getting in this strange guy’s truck. My first question would have been, “Are you drunk?” But it wasn’t.
And now there’s a growing tension developing in the back of the flat bed. We want to get there now. The faster we’re out of the truck bed the better. Hurry up we think. But then, no, we don’t want him speeding.
I look to the front seat and see my driver bending down - reaching for something…or stashing something. His head and attention bobs from the road to his work below. “What are you doing?” I think.
Now my friend is taking a video.
A stop sign appears in the not-so-far distance. He’s still fiddling below his seat. His friend in the passenger seat is now helping him. Do they see it? God I hope he sees it. It looks like there are some cars up there. Stop doing that. I’m about to say something…
He stops.
The engine whirrs back to life and we round the corner. I get visions of news stories in my head. “He was such a bright young man with his whole life ahead of him. Why would he get in that truck bed?” I say this out-loud and everyone laughs.
Then suddenly it happens. The truck halts…
…We’re at the club. It really wasn’t that far.
We pay the 20 peso cover charge. We enter the club. We realize it’s a gay club. We leave 1/2 hour later in a taxi cab home.
As we drive, the taxi narrowly misses hitting another car. We laugh.
Live Uncomfortably isn’t about living stupid although at times I seem to confuse the two.
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My James Bond lifestyle ebook will be done and ready in the next couple of weeks. I’ll describe more practical ways to live an exciting life than riding in the back of speeding pickup truck.
I’ve now flown 4 times on a one-way ticket across borders with zero hassles. Here’s what I’ve learned.
If you have a one-way plane ticket, don’t fret. You’ll most likely go through the check-in and immigration process without ever being asked.
It is the duty of the airline to ask you if you have a return ticket because if you don’t, they are forced to fly you back to your country of origin.
The immigration officials most likely wont ask you if you have a one-way ticket. You’ll only need to provide a date in which you will be leaving the country.
Do not mention that you are flying on a one-way ticket to the airline staff. If they ask if you have a return or onward ticket, just say yes.
If they ask you to provide proof of a return or onward ticket tell them that you have a bus or train ticket out of the country. Research companies that leave the country before arriving at the airport.
If they ask you to provide proof of purchase, tell them they sent you a confirmation online and you didn’t print it out. Don’t apologize. You are in control.
At this point the airline attendant will most likely let you pass. However, if she doesn’t, you may be forced to buy an onward ticket.
Before you get to the airport, research air carriers that will allow you a refund or a change of itinerary with little or additional costs. If the airline attendant doesn’t let you go, then be prepared to buy a plane ticket.
Obviously, it is important to get to the airport early to ensure that if you aren’t allowed to fly without a return or onward ticket, that you can buy one before the flight leaves.Bonus 10. You can quite easily get a travel agent to print you out an itinerary (without paying) that you can use as ‘proof’.
If you’ve been following my business pursuits over at TalkMuse.com, you know that I’m currently working on an ebook for the James Bond niche. I thought I’d share a short section from the book on tipping like a real man.
I used to struggle to justify the money ‘wasted’ on tipping and never knew how much to tip to whom. That is until I did some research. I know tipping is something a lot of guys aren’t comfortable with. So I hope this might help.
Tipping properly is essential for living the James Bond lifestyle. Tipping not only shows that you’re a gentleman but also serves an important function in social dynamics. He who tips holds power.
In the beginning of the movie Dr. No, Bond is seen playing baccarat. After winning he casually tips the dealer. Then, as he’s exiting the casino, he slips the doorman a bill.
In nearly every movie James Bond is shown tipping very casually. Master this art and people will notice and respect you.
Tipping & Social Dynamics
In a study done in 1976, a university professor sent Christmas cards to a sample of strangers. The response he received was staggering—holiday cards addressed to him came pouring back from people who had never met nor heard of him.
The great majority of those who returned cards never inquired into the identity of the unknown professor. They received his holiday greeting card, and they automatically sent cards in return (Kunz & Woolcott, 1976).
This study demonstrates the power of reciprocity. If someone gives you something, you feel a strong urge to repay the favor. Tipping will spur reciprocity.
You’ll command the respect of people if you tip well. You should especially pay attention to this if you frequent certain places - i.e. restaurants, grocery stores, hotels.
Service workers will automatically think highly of you. And in the future, if you bring a date or friends around, the people you’ve tipped will treat you well and raise your social value.
Tipping is a symbol of status.
Tipping Rule: Always have small bills at hand.
Small bills aren’t just for strippers (and by the way, the best strategy for attracting strippers, if you’re into it, is not to give them any money at all and tell them that from the beginning - but I digress).
Always keep small bills on hand and easily accessible when you are out on the town. There are countless opportunities to tip and everyone who receives a tip will not only be grateful, but also feel differently about you.
Tipping Guide - How Much To Give To Whom
Remember that this is only a guide. Tipping is dependent on the service. If the service is horrible you’re not obligated to tip a great amount. Use your discretion. Just know people are always judging.
1. Restaurants -
Tip at least 20% in restaurants. Don’t think about it, don’t take out a calculator, just divide the bill by 5 and tip that amount. 2. Coat Check -
$1 or 100% of the bill 3. Valet -
$5 depending on the car and your bill. If you tell him to take special care of it, obviously tip a bit more. 4. Washroom attendant -
Give him a $1. Most guys scurry out of the bathroom with their heads down trying to avoid contact. Don’t do this. Make some small talk, check yourself out, spray some cologne, take a piece of gum and tip the man. 5. Bartenders -
Bartenders should get at least $1 per drink. If you want to make friends with the bartenders fast - which is a good idea if you frequent the place - then tip big. A bartender who likes you is a very powerful indicator of social proof to a woman because the bartender is the most popular person in the room. Start making friends with the service. 6. ClubBouncers -
Here’s a trick I learned from a friend of mine. As you enter a club for the first time ask the bouncer if he wants a drink. This will create a relationship you can exploit to skip big lines on other nights. If the bouncer declines a beer on entry, try to chat him up as you leave, and then slip him $5 thanking him for everything. 7. Coffee Shop Baristas- When you pick up your morning coffee make sure to leave a $1 tip in their jar. Make it discreet but noticeable so they’ll remember you in the future. 8. Hairstylists -
Go to a good hairstylist and give them at least $5 or 20% if the bill is over $25. The person working with your hair is always someone you want to keep happy. And make sure you talk about something interesting with your hairstylist. Don’t talk about the weather. 9. Cab drivers -
Cab drivers get $1 if the bill is under $10. 15% if over $10. I always tip bigger to cab drivers who actually seem like they enjoy life and talk to me. Happy people are rewarded with happiness.
The point - just start tipping everyone well. Your wallet might be a little bit lighter as a result but your perceived status will go through the roof.
The money you spend tipping will come back to you in time. Generous people receive generously.
I took several flights in Central and South America in the last 8 months never checking a bag. But I decided to check my duffel bag on my flight back to the USofA and of course it got lost.
As a digital nomad you can’t afford to check your baggage. You can pack light enough to avoid it.
Checking a bag gives the airline an excuse to lose it and not compensate you properly. Jet Blue’s policy for lost baggage is $25 per day, but only after 48 hours of its disappearance. If the bag doesn’t show, you get a whopping $200.
My bag found its way back this morning to the house I’m staying at in New Jersey. If I were in a different country, I’m sure I would have had to wait around or go back to the airport to pick it up. Thank you US mail system.
But just because it showed up doesn’t mean all is well. The unmarked, black, plastic trash bag it was wrapped in was kind of like a metaphor for the general treatment of my bag. I wasn’t surprised to open it up and find the contents ruined.
I bought a bottle of Aguardiente from Medellin to torture my friends into drinking with me. I carefully wrapped and secured it in my bag but it didn’t make it through the process. As a result, my things now smell like black licorice death.
Along with several clothes being ruined beyond repair, some other gifts I purchased will not make it home either.
Checked baggage is treated with no respect. It’s thrown, kicked, and searched through. Employees simply don’t care and probably aren’t paid well enough to care.
If you absolutely must check your bag, then get a fragile sticker for it. All you have to do is ask. It should result in slightly above terrible treatment of your bag.
I learned a lesson that day. Sure you have to be safe while traveling, but you can’t miss out on incredible opportunities just because of something that COULD maybe, but probably won’t, happen. So don’t be like Jacob. If a topless girl wants to take you out on a fast boat in the French Riviera, you should probably go. Just a thought.
