Can You Survive on JUST Supplements?

Being a ridiculously big Rocky fan I have the 36 Maffia song from Rocky Balboa on many of my workout playlists. I like to sing along and pretend it's me giving the threats like 'you'll be drinking fried chicken through a crazy straw' etc which helps motivate me during a workout (I always imagined they deserved it though...). As it turned out however it was I who was to end up drinking fried chicken through a crazy straw after getting beaten up in Bournemouth (In my defence though I was drunk, outnumbered and apparently still took an abnormal number of hits to the face seemingly with a knuckle duster without falling over or going unconscious). I literally had fried chicken in one straw and the vegetables in another. The straw wasn't technically a crazy straw but it was crazy in that it was a Halloween straw with a skeleton on it. That's pretty crazy right?? I mean why would a skeleton be on a straw?

So anyway, that wasn't particularly nice and was tough work to suck through a straw. So I moved on to complan. That actually is quite nice - I had the banana one and that's nice anyway. In fact it was just like a protein shake... which got me thinking; why wasn't I having one of those instead? This was the perfect opportunity to get some hyper lean muscle - for Rocky 3 Stallone allegedly lived off just protein shakes and burned toast - why couldn't I? I would turn this unfavourable situation around and make my lack of mouth the catalyst for a great new bodylab experiment - I would live off of just supplements.

Of course though protein shakes only really contain one essential aspect of our diet - that being protein, and as I advise elsewhere on this site you need every aspect of your diet to stay healthy. So I decided that to do this properly I'd need some more supplements and training foods. Namely Berroca - for every vitamin and mineral I wasn't getting from vegetables (and everything my body needed to repair itself), Omega 3 for fats, and Lucozade for energy. I now had my carbs, my minerals and vitamins, essential fatty acids and my proteins. The only thing I was missing here was fibre but of course the prospect of a 'drinkable' fibre doesn't make any sense.

This meant I was getting high concentrated quanities of everything my body needed without anything extra, and all readily available for its biological purpose. As you might imagine then this lead to a rather more ripped physique pretty quickly and surprisingly on this meagre amount I wasn't too hungry either (though my apetite had been somewhat ruined). It doesn't sound healthy, but as a diet it's certainly preferable to the Atkins or some shit like that and I can't see anything immediately wrong with it. For bodybuilders looking to cut before a competition... why not?

At the same time I started to suspect that supplying my body with concentrated vitamin E and protein could help it to heal the scarring and broken bone, and that I could help this with other supplements. For that reason I added GABA to the mix to give myself extra growth hormone that my body could use to heal the wound and added vitamin E cream to my face at the advice of the doctors. Vitamin C I suspect helped fight infection (along with the antibiotics) too.

Oh and I took one other supplement for the swelling 'Arnica'... which is a 'Homeopathic Remedy' - read as bullshit. I can't believe a Nurse recommended it to me, but it's a substance claims to be so diluted by sugar that if there was just one particle in the observable universe it wouldn't be that diulted by all of the others. This only goes to prove a) that it has nothing in it b) that homeopaths are liars and c) you should always research anything before you start taking it - even if it was prescribed to you.

So I got a lot more ripped from this extreme diet, how did the supplements do at helping the healing? Well the Arnica unsurprisingly will have done nothing (my friend purposefully overdosed on them to demonstrate their lack of active ingredients and surprise surprise was fine), but the rest might have. In theory extra protein and growth hormone should have aided the healing and in fact both my cheek bone and my sewn up lip are showing more signs of recovery than the hospital staff predicted... It could be that my weird science worked, or just that I'm magic. Either is possible.

In the future I hope we'll have access to extracellular matrix for healing wounds, which has shown to be able to grow back the tips of fingers. Until then, other transhuman/bodybuilding methods might be able to help. As a way to get super lean fast then eating just supplements works well too; and until I can get KFC in a curly straw that will be my new liquid meals plan.

Report From The Trenches..

This site is focussed on self improvement with a heavy emphasis on training, and that includes martial arts and combat training. I practice what I preach and so can personally 'road test' what I learn. So how did my training hold up when I was set upon by 4 drugged up thugs?

I'm going to honest... it held up badly. For a rough idea of how badly, yesterday I drank my roast dinner through a straw and today I don't talk; I squeek like Sweep from Sooty and Sweep. So not perfect but in my defence I was rather drunk and the weird thing it I didn't try to fight back, or run, but instead just stood there getting hit in the face. And making what I thought were funny jokes.

So in terms of endurance I did well, and I think they were impressed that it took about seven punches to make me fall over and that I didn't seem to react at all. Thing was that at no point did it hurt, and still doesn't, which meant that rather than run I just stood there saying 'have you hit me? It feels like maybe you did?' followed by 'Stop hitting me!'. I thought it was funny. It wasn't really in retrospect... Kept my honour though...

The thing that annoys me is that I didn't try and fight. If I'd tried I'd almost definitely have still lost (while four were attacking me a lot more were after my friends... who survived scot free damn them!) and maybe have got hurt worse, but I reckon I could have taken two down. Which would have been a much cooler story. This took aboutThe problem was that they gave no warning that they were going to attack like they normally do and caught me completely off guard. After following us the main guy said 'Why you lippin' us?' when I said 'we weren't', I got hit straight in the face. From there I just stood there, for a good two minutes, asking Craig to inspect my eye before getting hit again. And again and again. It wasn't until I went down that my alcohol-addled brain realised it was time to flee and I rolled, yes rolled, away...

Though the extent of the damage may have been partly my fault for innactin. This demonstrates how you can't really prepare for that sort of thing. I couldn't attack him pre-emptively as then I'd have been the first to attack in a situation where he may well have then left us alone, and even getting into a stance could provoke a reaction. If you read my book you'll see the 'step back hands up' technique which would have been very useful. I need to carry that with me everywhere... It also supports my theory that the psychological element is pretty much key in a fight and is the one thing they don't really teach in Martial Arts (being why they're essentially useless). I'll work on it.

At the same time though the real moral of this story is 'get less drunk'. Craig managed to dodge them, and I would have been able to do the same (they were rubbish punches) which would have been great. No matter how good my reactions were normally though they weren't going to work great with that much alcohol in me... So it's key to always be ready. Drinking alcohol is fun, but I should stop at the point where my reactions have become useless.

Anyway what matters now that I'm sober is how I'm going to deal with the situation. I'm seeing it as a learning curve and am going to use the recuperation time to hopefully come back better and work on some new projects. When Green Arrow got beaten to a pulp he went in for training so it wouldn't happen again, when a Saijan gets the crap beaten out of him he comes back stronger, and when Iron Man gets busted he makes a new suit of armour. So that's what I'll be doing, and as I can't eat I'll also be using the time to try surviving on just supplements, you can read how that goes right here. Stay tuned! I'll be back...

Adam Sinicki Disassembled

When writing the equivalent of a novel a week started to get a little too much for my primitive brain to handle I started to put on my Transhuman cap and start thinking of ways to squeeze every last bit of potential out of my grey matter…

As I write this I am in chilling in Rome with a mug of tea and a bowl of ‘Cao Flakes’ (petali di grano di cocao!). This is far and away however from the pace of life I’ve been experiencing lately however (although a stressful search to find the keys that unlocked my suitcase was more familiar), where I have been working from home to earn a living as a full-time freelance writer.
For anyone who’s ever tried working from will know that it’s harder and more stressful than you might think. Yes you can get up whenever you want and listen to Elo while working if you so choose (or watch Jeremy Kyle), but that’s precisely the problem - you have to be self motivated and highly disciplined all the time. This is even more the case as you get paid for exactly the amount of work you do. If you work in an office for example and you check Facebook, you’re technically still being paid; being paid to check Facebook. If you check Facebook and you’re self employed however, that means you’ll get less work done that day and you’ll have less to sell.
This means that if you work for a regular type of profit you can’t afford to take breaks. At all. I write 3 500 word articles an hour, and I get paid $21 dollars for that. That’s around £11 and that’s what I need to earn to survive. Most people simply wouldn’t want to do that as it requires me to pump out those 3 articles regardless of how tired or distracted I am and with no breaks in between. Those 1,500 words an hour equate to 12,000 words a day and 60,000 words a week - which is roughly the size of a novel (the worst novel in the world but a novel nonetheless). A novel a week. Every week. Then on top of that try to run this website and work on my own projects that will hopefully one day set me free of this crazy vicious cycle. And then I workout, go out with friends, date my girlfriend, keep up with family and house hunt too. So apologies if I’m occasionally slow updating the Biomatrix every now and then…
Perhaps unsurprisingly a novel a week is pretty much reaching the maximum output that my brain is capable of, and interestingly I’ve lately been suffering headaches, stress and fatigue (cool huh?). It’s given me an opportunity to test the maximum capability of my brain. Granted this wasn’t helped by my concussing myself using a makeshift grappling hook which is actually still a cause for concern... Or by my contracting Swine Flu (and still managing to do a workout - huzzah!). It’s meant the last couple of weeks have kind of run parallel to Tony Stark’s again where he’s deleted his mind and slowly losing the plot. I’ve grown my moustache again too…
I’m interested in this for several reasons - firstly because going past the point of comfort is how you go about training - so potentially my brain could start to find this kind of high-intensity writing easy (I’m also learning more than you could ever want to know about plumbing, pest control, various medicines, locksmithing, and gardening). So it’ll be interesting to see whether my productivity starts to go up - if it does it could reach pretty impressive levels. So far I’ve noticed nothing but it‘s early days.
At the same time though it gives me the opportunity to test other ways of increasing that output potential, namely through nootropics and other techniques. Once I reach a certain point procrastination becomes unavoidable. It’s not me just putting off something I no longer want to do; it’s my brain actively being unable to concentrate on one subject matter due to lack of energy. This told me that the first thing I needed to increase was energy and concentration and the best way I knew to do that was with a drug I’ve written about on this site before called Guarana. It’s nothing particularly new and it’s in all of the various energy enhancing sports drinks etc, but taken plain there’s really not much that beats it in my opinion and it makes a great boost about mid-way through my day when I start to lag by just subtle increasing my ability to focus on a single task. Hopefully soon I can look into some of the many other brain enhancers such as modivil - though in the UK these are expensive and hard to come by so there‘s definitely space on the market for something else.
I do also find however that taking my creatine helps, and leaves me just a little less lethargic at the end of the day. I’m not the first to suggest that it has anisotropic properties and it seems that the brain can benefit from the extra energy too. NO2 also helps with blood flow to the brain and helps me feel a little ‘fresher’ if this makes any sense, but don’t take it if you suspect you have a suppressed fracture on your temple… Of course caffeine and bananas are also useful mainstays.
On this site I’ve also long been an advocate of investing in technology to help the cause too and ‘augmenting’ yourself with increased capabilities. So I took my own advice for a change and invested in the ‘Eee PC’, a computer so small that I can work on trains and buses and carry it around easily with me in my beautiful new leather man bag. The laptop screen is only 7” so it really is small enough to tuck away in a bag and to forget it’s even there but at the same time the keyboard is just large enough to type on quickly (roughly my thinking speed actually so there‘s never any reason to pause when typing). This has massively increased my productivity, but also in ways I didn’t expect - such as the fact that the screen is too small to browse the web and so procrastinate and the fact that I can now multitask more easily - even typing articles while using the other computer to chat on MSN.
This further inspired me to find other ways to multitask and make use of the rest of my time. Using hands-free I can easily chat on the phone while typing, but I decided to take this one step further and start dictating articles to my sister while driving. As I often drive to Oxford and Guildford that makes good use of a lot of otherwise wasted hours. I also realised I could go old school and jot notes on a pad to type up when I get back. By carrying a pad of a paper and a pen then I have access to productivity tools even when I can’t take the mini laptop. This means that when I come round to typing my brain gets a rest.
Finally the last productivity ’trick’ is to make sure you get enough sleep. Having tried to write hung over or on minimal sleep I’ve realised just how important that is. Eight hours really is the minimum if you want to get the best performance out of your nonce so check out the article on this site about maximising your sleep.
Obviously the chances are that you won’t need to go to these lengths to push your brain unless you’re some kind of CEO who attends night-school, but it should be interesting nonetheless to see just how much performance you can get out of your neurons and if you do decide to get a little extra tutelage then you’ll be prepared.

The Future is Bespoke, The Future is Free

Okay, so the title of this article sounds like a bad mobile phone advert, but it seemed the only way to tie this random rant together cohesively. It may not seem at first glance like this is in keeping with the themes of the Biomatrix, but the Biomatrix is about keeping one eye on the future so that you can thrive in that future when it comes. This is exactly what the Biomatrix is about, and it is my personal view of where the future is headed.

I've been thinking of writing this post for a while now, but as usual it was annoyance and aggression that got me round to finally sitting down and writing it. You see I, like you, have recently been enjoying Spotify and all the free music that comes with it (only I've also been recording it using a program that lets you save sound from your computer as mp3 files... which kind of defeats the whole argument I'm about to launch into). Only then in Esquire magazine I read about some twat who calls himself 'The Internet Sherrif'. No one pays this guy, he's instead taken it upon himself to report what he believes to be cases of copyright infringement to authorities and record labels and gets the sites shut down (here's hoping he doesn't find a couple of the sections on my site - get downloading while you can!). Basically then he's no sherrif, but an 'internet busy body' or 'internet snitch'. Full of self importance. I'll find out his address then egg his house... This is the guy mostly responsible for the death of Pirate Bay and now he of course has his sights set on Spotify believing that the artists aren't getting the royalties they're due. 'The days of 'free internet' are coming to an end' is his battle cry.

The truth is however that he couldn't be more wrong. The days of free are in fact only just beginning and soon this will be the all-prevaling business model. Businesses have two choices - adapt or die.
The internet is so large you see that it's impossible to regulate the distribution of free material. Even if a company were to manage however, and stop people downloading their products for free, punters will just jump ship to those that do offer their products for free. We've had a taste of free now and we're going to resent paying for anything from this day onwards. Let's take Spotify as an example. We all have Spotify now, so when they take off the Westlife and the Eminem we're still going to have it. From this point on however we'll only be listening to the bands that are free (which we're constantly reminded about in the clever advertising) and that means that these are the bands that are going to start catching on and the concerts we're going to start going to. The big record labels will die out...
Just look at the Arctic Monkeys. Would they ever have gotten so famous if they charged people to listen to their MySpace page? And where are they now?

The true creative artists are going to carry on making free material which will make the large corporations extinct unless they buck up their ideas pretty quickly. And there's a lot of money to be made from free. I mean, just look at my website. Okay it's not making a lot of money as such, but it's making far more money than it would if I charged a membership fee and all that's from advertising. My mailing list has grown exponentially because I started giving away an e-book for free. Once you have a captive audience there's a lot of money to be made. Why do you think that Facebook hasn't started charging yet?

And this business model of 'free' is one that can be highly profitable for the organisations and individuals that embrace it. Neil Gaiman demonstrated this when he allowed readers to download free copies of his book 'American Gods'. As a result, sales of the book increased massively. I've seen this myself, and giving away free copies of Project Superman the e-book has proven one of the best ways to get people to buy the hard copy.

The thing is that you can only charge for things that are limited or in short demand. Information, music, art, ideas... they're bottomless resources and so to charge for them is really rather immoral. Now technology and websites allow us to share all these things for free or to make them ourselves exactly to specification and the middle man is being cut out more and more.

Look at a website like Shapeways.com, the tagline of this site is '3D printing for everyone'. Essentially, by submitting 3D designs from a programme like Autocad and specifying the materials, you can have your own metalic scuptures, jewelery, even basic mechanical devices and for barely more than the cost of printing. What this results in is a website full to the brim with inovative designs - literally billions of rings, ornaments, vases etc etc - and all far more creative and original than any design that would have to go through a whole bored of directors before it could get approval. Lulu.com - the site that publishes my book Project Superman, is yet another example of giving people the 'tools' of an industry rather than selling pre-made goods. Like Wikipedia has proven - give people the tools they need (and make them free) and they'll do a far more diverse, comprehensive and creative job than ever single organisation could ever do.

And not only do you have millions of unique designs to shop for, but you can also design your very own. Why give your girlfriend a ring you bought from Essentials, that a thousand other people own, when you can make her one from scratch that is entirely her own? This is what the first part of my title refers to - 'the future is bespoke'. Why would you ever buy something that someone else designed, and pay more for the priveledge, when you can have something entirely your own, perfectly designed for you, and at half the price? It's the equivalent of growing your own vegetables and making your own cheese (which as living 'green' becomes more and more popular is only going to increase as well). It's the equivalent of designed and making your own clothes. We no longer live in an age where creativity and industry is something only attainable by an elite few with the know-how; technology and society has evolved to the point where anyone can make practically anything they desire if they put in a little bit of time.

It's easy to see then that as these sites and technologies grow, the market for items that are of a fixed design sold at a high price is only going to dwindle. Of course this share of the market will always exist, but if companies don't start chaging their ways and becoming more flexible and less pricey there are going to be a lot of casualties. People are going to expect their products to be made to spec and largely free. Then they're going to spread them and alter them and unleash them into the open creative community. Everything is going open source which is only natural and reflects the way that we are at once more individual and more communal than current business models assume. It's the ultimate merger of communism and capitalism.

And this model of society and business has truly utopian potential as technology takes it to greater and greater extremes. Transhumanism and nanotechnology represent the future development of this kind of thinking; transhumanism showing how even our genetic code is going open source, how even our own bodies and minds will be bespoke; nanotechnology showing how everything will one day built entirely from scratch - particle by particle and with limitless supply. Both of these are genuine technologies - gene manipulation has already been demonstrated in mice and other animals, and nanotechnology promises to one day allow us to build any material out of the very particles in the atmosphere. In an age where we can alter our bodies, and an age where we can build anything at no expense with limitless supply, what place is there for traditional business and for traditional politics? Already the internet provides an almost limitless source of revenue if you know where to look, that's how I'm managing to work from home. Soon going to work and working for corporations 9-5 will be almost obsolete and it'll seem archaic that we ever did. But then when materials are infinitely available money will be obsolete too.

Of course this is only one possible futre, but I do think it's safe to say that the days of 'free' are not coming to an end. The days of Dinosaurs like the Internet Snitch are what is coming to an overdue end.

Project Superman: Ultimate Edition

Ahoy there me hearties! Have just finished work on the latest edition of Project Superman, I've added a whole bunch of material from the site and original writing and it's looking pretty hefty now at over 89,000 words and exactly 164 pages! This new version really is the culmination of everything I've been working before and if you want to replicate any of what I've achieved on the site then this is how. It contains advanced and unheard of bodybuilding techniques for ultimate muscle gains in minimal time, strange martial arts techniques, cutting edge technology, groundbreaking psychological research and news from the front line of advanced athletic training - ending with a simple day to day plan that will tap into all of these things to allow you to transform yourself over night. So head here and buy your copy now!

Need more incentive? Check out this impressive list of contents:

6. INTRODUCTION

6. Intro

7. An Overview of the Philosophies of Omni-Training

9. Omni Training

11. The Power Quotient

13. Averages and Records (2009)

14. Real Super Powers

16. Time Division Training

17. Power Positions

19. STRENGTH

19. The Science of Bodybuilding

22. Zero to Hero - 5 Steps to a Bodybuilder's Physique

25. Become an Incredible Hulk

26. Higher Intensity

28. Life is Training

30. The Nature of Training - The Secret They Don't Want You to Know.

30. Improve Your Bench Press

31. 'How can I add an inch to my biceps?' - Join the Arms Race!

33. Get Abs Like Brad Pitt in Fight Club

34. Why and How You Should Squat

34. The Home Legs Workout

36. Training for Symmetry

36. Get Ripped Like Bruce Lee

39. Develop That V Shape

40. Add an Inch of Muscle in Twenty Four Hours

41. Unusual Bodybuilding Methods

43. Train ANYWHERE!

45. Gym Buddies

46. Be Quicker in the Gym

47. Higher Intensity

48. Understanding Nutrition in Bodybuilding

51. Super Foods, Drinks and Recipes for Bodybuilding

54. Which Supplements Do You Need?

55. The Best Supplements Stack for Bodybuilding

58. SPEED

58. Go Faster! Training tips to improve your running speed

59. The Biomechanics of Running

60. Running Training

60. Improve Your Reactions

63. ENDURANCE

63. Improve Your VO2 Max

63. Be An Energizer Bunny – Improve Your Energy Levels

64. Iron Kung Fu – Feel No Pain

66. AGILITY

66. Improve Balance

67. Improve Flexibility

67. Improve Your Jumping Height

69. Basic Parkour/Gymnastics Moves

How to Wall Mount

How to Hurdle

How to Walk on Your Hands

How to Backflip

How to Kipup

77. Parkour: It's Hard on the Bones

80. TECHNIQUE (MARTIAL ARTS)

80. A Brief Introduction to the Martial Arts

82. Mixed Martial Arts: Control the Range

83. Adapting to Your Opponent

84. Finishing Moves

85. Being Stealthy

85. Unlikely Weapons - How to Turn Everyday Objects into Deadly Weapons

86. Blocking

87. The Psychology of Combat

89. Chi? Ki? Qi?

89. Explosive Punching Power

90. Fighting Animals

91. Keysi Fighting Method

92. Bushido, Chivalry, Honour and the Way of the Warrior

94. MIND

94. Brain Plasticity

94. Improve Your Senses

96. Homo-Universalis

100. Change Your Thinking

100. Improve Your Brain Power

102. Double Your Processing Speed and Learn to Speed Read

104. Sports Psychology

107. Crisis Strength – The Mind/Body Link

109. Become a Memory Master

110. Become Ambidextrous

113. NLP

114. Meditation

116. The Best Nootropics (Smart Drugs)

118. The Ultimate Nootropics Stack

120. Binaural Beats and Digital Drugs

122. MISC: HEALTH & LIFESTYLE

122. Mr and Mrs Perfect

123. An Introduction to Vitamins

125. An Introduction to Minerals

126. Polyphasic Sleeping

127. Sleep Like a Baby (but not in a cot): How to Improve the Quality and Quantity of

Your Sleep

129. No Caffeine for a Week

131. New-trition: 5 Quick Diet Fixes

132. Become Immortal - How to Live Forever (or at least not die for a few more years)

137. Goal Setting and Discipline

138. Invest in You

140. Who Are the Real Life Superheroes?

142. How to Make Your Voice Deeper

143. Become Taller

145. TECHNOLOGY (TRANSHUMANISM)

145. What is Transhumanism?

146. More Than Human: Transhumanism, Real Mutants and the Future of Bodybuilding and Sports

148. Transhumanism in the public eye – A Focus Group Study

150. Potential Categories of Transhuman Technologies

152. Augment Yourself

155. EPILOGUE

155. Project Superman and Omni-Training, an Overview

155. The Omni Training Routine – For The Ultimate Power Quotient

156. A Week in the Life of an Omni Trainer

163. And That’s That

164. Credits

Invest in You

Recently I’ve been working from home, both writing articles for websites and magazines, and also running my own website and small publishing start up from home. That’s a lot of work to be doing if I want to eat and to eventually have time to enjoy life too. While I spend a lot of time working though, I also realise how important it is for me to spend some ‘me’ time. Literally.

In any kind of business, as in life, there are two things you can invest with – time, and money. And in business, as in life, the most important thing to invest in is people. And the most important person – is you. You see whether you’re happy in your job and want to progress, or if you’re not and you’re working towards your own business, a new job or extra qualifications, then you really need to make sure that you’re the best you can be. You need to be better than the competition for that job, or you need to have a fuller understanding of the market and industry. In short you need to be the best, the strongest, the smartest and the best informed.
That’s why when I have a deadline looming, you’ll often find me reading the biography of Richard Branson, Barack Obama, or my personal hero Sylvester Stallone. It’s not idol relaxation – although it is relaxing – it’s inspiring and giving me ideas. That’s why I buy ‘Wired’ magazine, ‘Men’s Health’ and ‘Esquire’ out of my ‘business’ account, as well as a gym membership and various supplements. Role models and inspiration are actually particularly useful, whether you’re the head of a business or the lackey in administration. Either way learn from the greats and keep your finger on the pulse, it’ll keep you at the cutting edge and with the right frame of mind to spot entrepreneurial and business opportunities. It’ll help you make other wise investments and to keep an eye on the future.
If I’m not reading, I might well be in the gym, taking supplements or buying good clothes and equipment. Being fit keeps your mind active, but it also gives you the drive and the determination to succeed in any field. It gives you an air of confidence and makes you more imposing. People will see you and know that you mean business and that you’re capable of setting your mind to something and accomplishing it – which is really what all business is about. You will blow the competition out of the water, you’ll be the complete package.
Furthermore, spending money on nice clothes and accessories/supplies will propel you to success in business and in life. It’s true that you get out of life what you put into it – the more money you put into your appearance and the more you spend on your ability, the more your salary is likely to reflect that. If you take pride in your appearance and accessories – get a good hair cut and a nice pen – then you’ll inspire more confidence in those you’re dealing with. It reflects high standards and ability. I read something interesting just recently, that like spawns like – meaning that you get in life not what you deserve so much as what you’re accustomed to. So if you make yourself accustomed to high standards – high standards will be what you find coming out of life. For example, think about the people in your life – with some you’re careful to be on the top of your game while with others you can relax, indifferent to their opinion. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad guy, it’s natural. If they seem like someone who’s used to being treated with less respect or just not the same admiration because they’ve let themselves go then you will be less concerned with how they see you. Similarly, when thinking of what gift to get someone for Christmas or birthdays you generally spend more on people who are better off. In reality this should actually be the other way around – surely it would be nicer to get something nice for someone who really needs it? And yet we don’t. You see other people will treat you the way you treat you, if you treat yourself well others will follow suit. And you have to respect yourself before others will. So it’s worth investing in you even if it just means better Christmas presents…
If you’ve put time and money into developing every aspect of your game, then you can rely on yourself to perform when necessary. My own personal business model, or it’s more of a maxim really, is do everything yourself. So many individuals and businesses, waste unfathomable amounts of money by hiring unnecessary amounts of staff to perform even the most menial roles, or by outsourcing for a task that they could probably learn themselves. I was tempted to hire someone to programme a website for me the other week as I don’t understand CSS or PHP. But then I had a change of heart – that would probably cost me a couple of hundred quid, which incidentally is pretty much what I earn in a year. But then I had a change of heart and learned CSS and PHP myself – by reading a book then reverse engineering other sites. That took me two days and saved me several hundred pounds. And now whenever I want to invest in a new website I can do the programming myself in a fraction of that time and at no cost. If you’re weak in a certain area, or there’s something you want to do better. Take time out, train, put time in and learn to do it better. Don’t be satisfied with what you’ve got, almost every aspect of yourself can respond to training.
You should also make it my job to be aware of everything that’s happening and upcoming in your field, so that your work can be on the cutting edge and ahead of the competition at all times. Riding the waves of new trends and technologies. Right now I can tell you that made-to-order, consumer designed goods and transhumanism are where my head is at – the future is bespoke.
As well as being fully aware of your field though – be aware of everything in other fields. Combining disparate areas is one of the greatest ways to creativity and originality – and adopting other ideas can help you to succeed too. See what’s working in other industries and try and work out how they can help yours. That’s why I’ve set my home page to Sky News. If you’ve ever seen or read the Watchmen then you might have seen the scene where Ozymandias is sitting watching a giant network of monitors showing every television broadcast in the world at once. A giant wall of sensory information that he uses to identify patterns and trends in the human psyche. Brilliant. And he can catch bullets. See what’s working, or what’s upcoming, give it a unique slant – by simply investing some time into thinking about it – maybe setting side an hour of meditation – then do it. Do it first, do it different or do it best.
More than exercising, reading or buying nice clothes though, you’ll often find me just staring into space thinking. That is possibly the best use of my time I can think of. If you have a specific problem you can set yourself of thinking until you come up with a solution. If you don’t have a problem, what others will write off as ‘daydreaming’ can infact be imagination, creativity, visualisation… and it can lead to a breakthrough. That’s why I’m doing this writing job – so I can invest in my own ideas and be the only person reaping from those rewards. I watch Dragon’s Den and I’m always confused by those people – they have these ideas that they genuinely believe will make them millionaires, but then they give half of the profit to someone else, and half of the control. Why not have a business plan where they can start from scratch, where they can earn enough money a the beginning to invest in themselves?

Investing yourself is one stock that you can control, economic crisis or not. Why invest in a business that could go south at any moment because of bad management when you could invest in a business and a CEO that you can control every facet of. In any crisis you need to put money into the economy for it to recover – and you need to put money into yourself if you’re going to get it back.
If you think about anyone truly successful you’ll see that they are usually in good shape, great public speakers, fully aware of everything that’s currently going on in their field. I recently saw Richard Branson interviewed and was actually really surprised that he was as shy and nervous as he was. He’s a pioneer, a great businessman, an adventurer… he should just spend some time to complete his game and fulfil his potential by becoming a good spokesperson and improving his confidence. (Lol – because Richard Branson really needs to be taking advice from me… still it’s a valid point!). The other month I graduated – a bunch old chancellors and deans marched around the hall at a snail’s pace, doddering around, before speaking uncharismatically for half an hour. These guys are supposed to be ambassadors for the university, they’re supposed to inspire respect. If they want me to respect them they need to earn it. They need to get in the gym!
And of course there’s a chance you could fail if you invest in yourself, that you might end up losing money and time, ending up with nothing. If you do then that’s great – you’ve learned a lesson and increased the challenge. Pick yourself up and try again, taking the lessons you’ve learned and do it again better.
Investing in yourself will help you in your business life, your private life and your love life. Like anything else, you need to put the time and money into yourself get the time and money out. And that’s the best investment you can possibly make.

Introducing: The Statue Technique

If you head to the main site and find the recent article on 'unusual bodybuilding methods' you'll find some stuff on static contraction, dynamic tension and isometric holds. Anyway, after some thinking and as I'm currently traveling I came to the realisation that you could combine these methods to create a most simple and powerful workout. Here, you press against yourself to get your resistance, contract the muscles you're using as hard as possible, then stop and repeat - it’s that simple. For example, rather than using the pec dec you would push your hands against each other as hard as you can in front of your chest (like the crab pose from bodybuilding). For your biceps you'd try and curl one arm while holding it in place with the other hand; for triceps do the opposite (push downwards). For your abs either sit down or lie down, raise your knees in front of yourself and push against them with your hands generating force by pivoting at your waist and tensing your abs. For quads stand on one foot and hold your other ankle behind you then try and straighten that leg. Instead of a squat just stand on something and push down hard.

Hold each movement for about ten seconds then repeat. Do eight sets of one rep then repeat. It burns right? And no need for any equipment or even any movement! You could literally be training and no one notice. It’s static contraction using your own body as the immovable force. It won’t replace a full workout (though you could probably develop a fairly good physique from these alone) but it will be great for traveling and great for the . I call it ‘The Statue Technique’ – because you don't have to move (like a statue) and you'll end up looking like something carved out of granite by Michaelangelo (except hopefully better hung). Expect a video on YouTube soon!