“The difference between a warrior and an ordinary man is that a warrior sees everything as a challenge, while an ordinary man sees everything as either a blessing or a curse.”

Don Juan in Carlos Castaneda’s A Separate Peace

There is value in the Four Hour Workweek that goes far beyond how to hire a virtual assistant.

There is value in the Four Hour Body that goes far beyond the perfect posterior.

There is a place in life that rises above money and prestige, status and relationships.

It’s the place where we all want to be. The place that we as entrepreneurs exist and dream.

Where the life we live becomes the art we live to produce.

Your Primary Aim

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I’d like you to imagine that you are about to attend one of the most important occasions of your life.

It will be held in a room sufficiently large to seat all your friends, your family, your business associates and anyone and everyone to whom you are important and who is important to you.

Can you see it?

The walls are draped with deep golden tapestries.  The lighting is subdued, soft, casting a warm glow on the faces of your expectant guests.  Their chairs are handsomely upholstered in a golden fabric that matches the tapestries.  The golden carpeting is deeply piled.

At the front of the room is a dais, and on the dais a large, beautifully decorated table, with candles burning at either end.

On the table, in the center, is the object of everyone’s attention: a large, shining, ornate box.  And in the box is YOU!  Stiff as the proverbial board.

Do you see yourself lying in the box, not a dry eye in the room?

Now listen.

From the four corners of the room comes a tape recording of your voice.  Can you hear it?  You’re addressing your guests.  You’re telling them the story of your life.

How would you like that story to go?

That’s your Primary Aim.

What would you like to be able to say about your life after it’s too late to do anything about it?

That’s your Primary Aim.

If you were to write a script for the tape to be played for the mourners at your funeral, how would you like it to read?

That’s your Primary Aim.

And once you’ve created the script, all you need to do is to make it come true.

All you need to do is begin living your life as if it were important.

All you need to do is take your life seriously.

To create it intentionally.

To actively make your life into the life you wish it to be.

Simple?  Yes.

Easy?  No.

But absolutely essential if your business is to have any meaning beyond work.

I believe great people to be those who know how they got where they are, and what they need to do to get where they are going.

Great people have a vision of their lives that they practice emulating each and every day.

They go to work on their lives, not just in their lives.

Their lives are spent living out the vision they have of their future, in the present.  They compare what they’ve done with what they intended to do.  And where there’s a disparity between the two, they don’t wait very long to make up the difference.

They go to work on their lives, not just in their lives.

I believe it’s true that the difference between great people and everyone else is that great people create their lives actively, while everyone else is created by their lives, passively waiting to see where life takes them next.

The difference between the two is between living fully and just existing.

The difference between the two is living intentionally and living by accident.

The above is an Excerpt from:

The The E-Myth Revisited © by- Michael E. Gerber- Harper Business

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 My 4 Hour Body Occam’s Protocol Updates (Day 90)

7-18-1979	5-02-2011	5-29-2011	7-31-2011	Goal
Little Stephen	Body Fat %: 15.2 Total Inches: 140	Body Fat %: 14.9 Total Inches: 141	Body Fat% 14.9 Total Inches:143.4	Superhuman

As I was putting together my stats I realized that life is lived on a continuum.

As Mr. Gerber points out:

Great people have a vision of their lives that they practice emulating each and every day.

Their lives are spent living out the vision they have of their future, in the present. They compare what they’ve done with what they intended to do. And where there’s a disparity between the two, they don’t wait very long to make up the difference.

Are you living a life of disparities?

• 7-18-1980 (Little Stephen)

Age 3 years old: I was at “Bud’s Farm” a family friend who owned a horse name Blackie and pigs I would chase all day long. He chewed loads of tobacco, smoked a pipe, ate eggs and bacon every day, drank in moderation and lived to be 102. He was funny, well connected and loved by his community.

• 7-18-1979 to 8-4-2011

As a child I dreamed of changing the world, touching people’s lives, making the world a better place. Life gets complicated and we are processed, packaged and transformed into cogs in a larger system. We forget where we are going. We lose sight of our childhood dreams; we can become paralyzed by fear. We become stagnant in our lives, often at a level of achievement that is comfortable. The continuum is transformed to the now; life is no longer a place of growth, but of existence.

6-26-2011	7-31-2011
Body Fat %: 14.5 Total Inches: 139.25	Body Fat% 14.9 Total Inches: 143.4

A final thought on all of this:

I was watching a contemporary dancer last night. Her art was beautiful; the passion that defined her life came through so beautifully in her work.

But, the expression of her art, the beautiful technician that she was would be lost if she had been unable to reach her athletic potential.

This is the reason the continuum of life must we worked on from both the inside and the outside. The art we feel in our heart must be developed through hard work and apprenticeship. We must develop the skills and then assure that our skills and potential can be met through the health and well being of the body. They are mutually exclusive.

For this reason:

The 4 Hour Workweek + The 4 Hour Body = The Evolution of A Superhuman

Must you become Timothy Ferriss to reach your true human potential?

No, but you should strive for something, something that intoxicates your soul. Motivates you to wake up in the morning and embrace your life: “To go to work on your life not just in your life.”

I am so happy to have focused again on the continuum. I feel this process is just beginning.

Here is a tool to help you track your progress:

The 4 Hour Body / 4 Hour Workweek Results and Tracking Worksheet (MS Word) or View On Sribd (Excel Spreadsheets are embedded)

Also if you are interested we just posted our first set of results on the 4 Hour Body vs.Beachbody Challenge

Related Posts:

• Damage Control and the 4-Hour Body Slow Carb Diet Binge Day Cheat Sheet
• 90 Days of P90X Lean – The Results
• 4 Hour Body and The Elusive Body Fat: How do you Measure Up?
• 4 Hour Body vs. P90X: Day 30 Updates
• Truly Amazing People Never Tell You They are Amazing, You Have to Ask: A Case Study in Lifestyle Design,The New Rich and the Value of a Minute

Jay wrote me a few weeks ago when we began our 4 Hour Body Vs. Beachbody (P90x/Insanity) challenge and pointed out one obvious flaw in our “experiment”:  Our sample size (beyond being small) was not a good representation of the population at large. As Jason pointed out:

“I don’t think this will be a good example of the benefits of 4HB. A larger, more unhealthy person might better reveal what you are looking to reveal: that 4HB is better than P90X and Insanity.”

“If you need said person, drop me an email. I’m on day one of the slow-carb diet.”

So I did…. email Jay:

About Jay:

• 28-year-old male; Occupation: Technical Support; Height: 5’ 9”; Starting weight: 252 lbs.; Starting body fat 28-30%; Physical impairments: Not many, aside from incurable laziness and bad balance.
• Activity Level: I believe sloths move more than I do. I once got into a sitting contest with a large rock and won. Number of serious diet attempts: “Serious?’ None, obviously. I’m never serious. Maybe twice. When I was 15 my Jujitsu instructor told me I would always be big, but I didn’t need to be fat.  I showed him (Sorry, Sensei Stockwell!)  So I tried to lose weight. About two years ago I was given the choice to lose weight or die. I showed them, too!

Training Plan:

• Ice Packs/Cold Showers, Kettlebell Swings, Myotatic Crunches and Cat Vomits, and any other activity I feel like at the time.
• Vitamins/Supplements:
  • As soon as PAGG becomes free, Tim Ferriss writes me a check, or I Find more meaningful** work, I’ll take that too.

** Higher-paying

Nutrition Plan:

• Focus on increasing total protein in diet and decreasing carbohydrates. Not strict slow carb diet but may be focusing on a more targeted ketogenic diet in the near future (more info to come).  I totally just copy-pasted this from Stephen.  I know, that’s cheating. I’m a cheater.
• Basically that’s it, but doing so as cheaply as possible. The hardest part will be resisting the proscribed foods during the week.
• When I am stressed I eat. And I am by nature an angry person. A total jerkface!  My diet will be much more ketogenic than slow-carb, keeping my net carbs right around 100 grams by using xanthan gum as a thickener. I just want to shout xanthan gum. Maybe write an E-chord metal song.

Goals:

• Die at 80 in a warm bed with… Oh, wait.. You mean for this. Sorry, I get distracted. Honestly I’d like to get down below 25% body fat. Heck, I might dream big and go for 20% (GASP!)  I’d also like ……………………. Read More

Jay  keeps a wonderful blog at www.freegraddegree.blogspot.com

If you would like to read more from Jay and his 4 Hour Body journey as well as myself and the rest of the competitors at the 4 Hour Body vs. Beachbody Challenge head over to www.4hourfit.com.

Contact us if you would like to join the competition yourself. We are seeking all able (or not so able) bodied competitors who have a goal.

Even if that goal is simply to: “DIE AT 80 in a warm bed with”…….. A copy of the 4 Hour Body?