Personal life gamechangers

[Music] Hello everyone, welcome to the Idea Roastery, I'm Jason. And I'm Herman. Herman, I had an idea. And the idea was, I'm going to go through, and this is kind of based on one of your previous blog posts. We're going to go through some of the game changes in our lives, right? And what kind of spurred me to do this is partly your blog and there's this meme online of like, you have to do X, do it now, going to debt if you have to. And so it kind of spurred me to say, well, what are these things in our life that are, I would say, game changes and they could be like small little things, it could be like, you know, ways of thinking and it could be maybe a favorite pair of shoes or whatever. And so we're going to start to go through this. It's a bit of a different way to what we usually do in our podcasts in the past, but I think it'll be a bit of fun. Yeah, it sounds great. And to kick it off, do you want to go first? Ah, yeah, sure. Oh, oh. So I think what will be fairly interesting about going through these between the two of us is that, you know, especially for people who've been listening to us for a while is it should be fairly obvious. The things that have contributed to the way that we think or the way that we operate inside of our lives, but so I'll start off with my first, my first one over here. And that is when the biggest, one of the biggest game changers or the biggest game changers was waking up early or becoming a day person, like becoming a person who operates during the day. So I wake up at 6 a.m., which isn't terribly early. I'm not like, you know, 5 a.m. club boy, but I pretty much always get to see the sunrise. I get to enjoy like the cool freshness of the day before the traffic destroys the city. And it also means that by the time I get to the evening at around, you know, 8.39 o'clock, I start feeling tired and I feel like it's time to go to sleep. And why this has been such a big thing for me is that I find that once you become a person who operates well in the morning, it's just like this distraction free, gentle period of time that you can do good work or you can spend a good time doing something. And I also find that anything after 8 p.m. people tend to just watch Netflix. Hell, I would just watch some YouTube or some Netflix or something like that. And that's a part of my life that I can cut out. Like I actually don't need it at all. And so by essentially taking the last part of the day that was mostly, like, just thrown away, because I don't even remember what I've watched. Like, we'll be like, hey, do you want to watch fall out? And I'm like, I don't know. I don't know if I've watched it already. And then we'll like, watch the first episode and I'll be like, no, I have actually watched it. I think, right. And so now I've just taken that end of the day and I've moved it to the beginning of the day. So I still am awake for the same number of hours. But I just feel like existing inside of daylight time and just having access to this, like, hidden part of the day that only a few people have access to has been, has been such a big thing. Yeah, I think it's good. I've kind of, I've tried to do that. And I've had sort of a bit of success or not. I think one of my challenges with this is that, like, Banner's not quite waking up at the same time as me. So I think, especially when you live with someone else, like, going bad at the same time, waking up, you know, especially both of us being semi-light sleepers. I do get interrupted a bit. But I've noticed one thing that I've tried to do more recently is I used to get up and go to the gym. And over the last, I'd say, four or five weeks, I've decided that I, instead of going to the gym first thing in the morning, I would do some work. So like, I do like two, three, maybe even four hours of work first as like the first thing in the morning. And then I go to the gym in the afternoon. And similarly, what you're saying about being a morning person getting some stuff done early in the day, I've found that I've been able to do a lot more and I've been able to stay a lot more focused because first of all, I don't gas myself out at the gym. And secondly, I'm just kind of getting something done first. And then at least when I'm getting to the gym, I feel a little bit more accomplished that I've actually done things. And I don't know if it's just like a phenotype thing or if it's just like, you know, energy levels during the day or maybe I'm not used to getting up as early as you've been doing it for like many years now. So maybe it's just something like that. But I have found that it's contributed a lot more to my focus levels. And what when you started off doing this, did you just like dive straight into it? Did you like just start waking up early or was it like a gradual progression? So interestingly enough, I'd always like the idea of being a morning person, but I never was. I was always one of those people who stayed at a state of early lace. And then I'd try and force myself to start waking up early. Actually, for the brief period of time that you and I actually lived together up in Fraterhook, I went through about two or three weeks where I forced myself to wake up at 5 a.m. to work on my own projects. But then I was just so destroyed the entire time trying to do that. And then my actual work at the office suffered as a result. And the change actually really only happened in the last five years where the trick was not to get up early. The trick was to go to bed early, right? And slowly your body kind of adjusts to it. So I find like if I get into bed at 9, is I'm going to be awake at 5, right? My body's like, "Cool, I'm done sleeping." So I'm awake at 5 and then I'll get up and go and do stuff. So the trick at least for me was to make sure to get to bed on time. It wasn't just about forcing myself to wake up early. And did you have a few nights where it was like you're just lying in bed and not doing much? Or do you have like a bit of a very good, I guess you've got a good wine on reading. Exactly. We don't have any top lights on in the evening and I'm not working late because work tends to keep my brain active instead. We'll just like read and we'll make some dinner and read or we'll watch something or we'll whatever. And then once we start feeling sleepy at like 8.39, we'll brush our teeth, clean the kitchen, go to bed. It does also help that Emma and I have the same sleep pattern. I think the only difference is that I wake up about 15-20 minutes before her and then I make coffee. And coffee also helps. It's like, I really like coffee because it's kind of like a bit of control that you can exercise over your on-off switch. Yeah, for sure. And what about you? What's your main one? Yeah, so I mean on the same topic of like work and life. For me, it is living close to where you work. And I know it's different now because there's a lot more remote work. But what sparked this for me is when I was in my sort of university days and starting my career. I had this very unfortunate situation where I was living about 45 minutes away from my university, but in some of say, West and what I had to do some mornings was go through what I think is the worst traffic in African continent. And that's between itself, obviously, West and do you have? I don't think it's an Nigeria yet. No, I have not. Yeah, so I would be in my car. I would be like staring at the road and there was a few occasions where my car was like not quite in the best shape. So it would like stall quite a frequently. So I think there was like a battery issue. And I think it was at that point that I was like, I do not want to be commuting. And thankfully, I was lucky enough that I could like when I started my first job, I could find a place like in Cape Town where I could like walk to work. But I find that it's been such a high ROI being able to work close to where you live. And it's come up a lot more recently because like in in around London, it's like quite common to commute for like, you know, 45 minutes an hour. And I think it is a bit different here because you're at least you're on a train. You can like kind of read and do stuff. Like you're not kind of like directly driving, but it's allowed me to have a lot more time because that like two hours is that you spend two and four work and two to work is like it adds up over time and it means that I'm like a lot less stressed. I'm a lot less sort of I completely understand where you're going with this because it's like nothing. I'm a very relaxed person generally and I'm also a very relaxed driver, but I must say that like people driving badly, driving dangerously and disobeying the rules, it kind of like it gets on my nerves and I really want to let it go, but it's something that doesn't, it's really difficult to let go of because it's like they are they're infringing on these social norms that allow people to get along. And so like when someone decides to skip the entire queue and push in in the front, you know, it's like, yeah, it's like no, you haven't figured out a hack to avoid traffic. You're you're just stealing that from everyone else and that's that's not on. So I'm really glad that I don't commute as well. I get it. I get that. Yeah. And I think like one of the things I've noticed with South Africans that I've come to the UK is I think they're very anxious about letting go of their space. And this is what's even in Cape Town actually. I've got a few friends who are like, no man, I've got to have my, I've got to have my like pad and I've got to have like, space to roam around. And I'd say especially younger in your career, like trading space for convenience or being close to like the action has like given so much like other benefit because not only can you like, you know, rock up to work, you're like looking fresh, you're like, this is in the context of like working at a place, like you get there early, like the boss is like, oh my god, he's here, he's always fresh, he's always like on the ball, you can stay a little bit later because you're not worried about having to like, you know, mistrathic and stuff like that. And so just like compounds the amount of time that you have. And I think early on in your career, I think you can afford to have not as much space and as much comfort. And so I'd say people should definitely try and like do that as early as possible because obviously as you get older, you're like, oh, I need my space, I need my life. I don't know, like, so I'm now 33 right? And And that's by no means old. But, you know, we live in a 95 square meter 2 bedroom apartment in the city. And I can get a, I can get a whole house like out round a bus side for the same amount that I pay for this apartment. But then I'd have to drive everywhere. Right? It's like you want to go to the coffee shop. You drive. You want to go to the gym. You drive. You want to go to the grocery store. You drive. You want to go anywhere. You drive. Good morning, Emma. I just walked down the road to our favorite coffee shop. You know, our gym is within walking distance. The grocery stores within walking distance. There are multiple coffee shops within walking distances. Like, I actually functionally don't need to get in my car unless I'm going to visit someone or to a place in particular. For all the things that I need to do in life, I just walked to it. And that has the dual benefit of like, I've never really regretted a walk. Right? A walk is just such a good way to like clear your mind, get a little bit of exercise. You also have like a better taste of the city. Like, this morning, Emma and I were talking about it where we were walking down the road at like, say, a quarter to seven in the morning. And so all the shops, they're like lifting their shutters up. And you just kind of like see the city for what it really is. And you see the people who are a part of it that you don't really get when you're inside of your metal box. That's true, man. Like, I mean, that's more about like walking and like city living as like just being able to see what's going on about around. Here it's also great because like you actually see the seasons so you can see like, you know, flowers blooming at different times and like trees becoming greener. So it does give you a better sense of I guess place. What is your next one? My next one. This one is also going to be a very obvious one is my life changed dramatically once I started doing resistance training is going and lifting heavy things, you know, two, three, sometimes four times a week has dramatically improved my mental health. It also gives me like that, that win first thing in the morning. Like I go and I do the heavy thing and like it's not even a hard thing. Like in a sense that like this is a heavy piece of metal that you're going to pick up off the floor. Yes, it is hard, but it's now such a rewarding thing that is actually a pleasant thing to go and do. And it, you know, there's the bullet points that you can check off of, you know, this is really good for my physicality, for my health, for my brain, et cetera, et cetera. But it overall just makes me feel good. And there's really good research to back this up as well is that resistance training does more than just, you know, prepare you for old age or make you look better is that it actually definitively affects your brain in such a way that it reduces symptoms of depression and it makes you into like a more agentic, more optimistic person. And I certainly feel that. And like the days that I don't do resistance training, I also feel them as well. I'm like, oh, you know, like I didn't get my win for the day. Yeah. No, I tend to agree as well. I've also found recently that I've been using training as more of a way of getting into it into a habit because it is something that like you don't really enjoy. I mean, maybe after while you do enjoy it, but like the act of like getting up from what you're doing, going to the gym and actually like doing some sort of exercise is something that I find is more of a thing that you need to like be persistent in. And by sticking to that sort of routine, I've learned to become more persistent with other parts of my life. So, you know, like answering emails and was like, okay, well, no one likes to go for a run. But like is answering an email like the same as going for a run? And so it's kind of like bringing in the same level of discipline into my other parts of my life. And also recently, more recently, I've actually been, you know, spending a lot more time and actually trying to like progress a little bit better. And I've found that I'm challenging myself a little bit more. So I also tend to feel a lot more of that benefit. But one thing that I have done though is when I was, so I mentioned I've switched to doing like afternoons now, which is, yeah, definitely been a help as well. But I've also switched to do a much shorter exercise sets. So I've done like just like maybe just two exercises. And so I'm not as spent afterwards. And I've found that it's allowed me to be a little bit more consistent as well. I have found that you can definitely increase your volume over time. So it's like if you are, you know, if you are feeling pretty spent after a workout, then you can, you know, keep doing that or like reduce it a little bit so that you're at the right amount for the day and then ramp it up as time goes on. And so it's like right now I'll do each of my workouts are about 40 minutes long and I'll exert myself to failure. And I'm not tired anymore after that. But I have had to change it. I used to do like a push pull legs or a upper lower split. But my leg workout would completely sap my energy for the rest of the day. So instead what I've done is I've actually, I've got like an A and B one where it's like ones a push, but it includes pushing with the legs and the other ones a pull, but it also includes pulling with the legs like a deadlift or something. And by actually splitting up the leg volume between the two, it means that I don't have that one day that's really, really intense and really hard to do. And so now it's like I can go and I can exercise every day and I feel pretty good about it. Yeah, no, it's I think it's definitely a game changer. I think for me, my next one is something a little bit less intense. It's finding something that is non digital. That's a creative outlet. And for me that has been cooking. So more recently I've started to get a lot more into cooking, not just because it's like good to eat good food, but also because like, you know, having to try and save a bit of cash because I've been starting my own businesses and stuff. It's like, you know, being able to cook is definitely an asset rather than having to go to a shop or go to a restaurant where it can be quite expensive. So it's almost a little bit out of necessity also because I want to eat a little bit health more healthily. So, but what I've found is like, especially with what I've been doing more recently is like being a little bit more creative in what I try and do. I found that it's a good way to like just completely switch off from the rest of the world and you can kind of like just focus in on it. You get an opportunity to be creative. There's a bit of mastery that comes out of it and that's just, you know, like I find that I'm getting better at chopping. I'm getting a bit of like gauging like the temperatures that need to be to get like a good sear. I've been doing like yesterday, I did tacos, so I made the shells and even in a way, like I didn't really do it in the past, but like it's actually kind of fun. It's like, you know, playing with Play-Doh when you were a kid. So I think there's like an element of that where you're like using your hands, you're doing something that's physical. It's like a bit of a craft. You can get better over time. And I find that now, maybe because I'm a little bit like better at it, I'm finding that I'm enjoying the cooking process a lot more. And I think for a lot of people having something that's creative that they can do that's offline is definitely a game changer for me. So with cooking, I completely agree with you and I cook pretty much every evening and sometimes I will cook together and it's such a nice way to just like turn off work. It's like the meal that I prepare is the way to get out of my think he had into my dewy space, right? And I also know quite a few people who don't cook at all. And I've met some of these people recently. And it actually boggles my mind because it's like, or they, you know, they'll just make like noodles. And it boggles my mind because it's like, you're going to have to feed yourself for the rest of your life. You might as well get into it. Right? You might as well learn how to do it well. And you might as well like turn it into as you put it like a craft or a hobby is, and so my, I'm right there with you is that it's such a delightful thing to go and actually make good food. And especially if you're making good food for and with other people, it's a, it's a beautiful thing. And I do recommend everyone get into cooking because it's cheaper, it's tastier, it gives you something interesting to become better at. And how is your, um, your leather workers, you've also got a number of creative outlets like non-digital. So do you find that they're equally, you get the same benefit from both of them or do you think they've served different kind of purposes in your life? So I find that these hobbies are useful in that they do provide you something to do or provide me something to do and it's nice to see the final product at the end. I'd say with leather work it's been an interesting one because I've made some really great pieces that I'm proud of but I also feel like you can easily get to the point where you're rarely competent with leather work and that that ceiling is not very high. Like you can become a very competent leather worker in a couple of months and I feel like I'm already there. Like I can go and I can make a bag or a sunglasses case to a very high quality now. And because I've kind of reached that level of competence I'm not super interested in it anymore and I feel like I want to pick up a physical skill that has a lot of depth. So I'm not suggesting that this is the one that I'm going to go and do but I rarely enjoy black smithing videos because there's like you can carry on practicing your entire you know for you know 10, 20, 30 years and you're still learning things and it's still a challenging craft whereas I'd say that leather is a very not challenging craft after you get past you know a certain a certain point. What else is on the what else is on the short list? What else is on the short list? Because you must have a short list of like next next hobbies. Well so one of the things that I'm still interested in doing and I'm still filling around with is I've been learning how to 3D model and I've got my 3D printer. So at the moment I'm modeling out some brackets that go underneath my work table to hold my Mac mini and my UPS and everything and just like clean up the space a little bit and learning about 3D printing is fairly straightforward like once you get the general ideas down anyone can 3D print but 3D modeling is a skill in and of itself because it's not just can you make this in 3D but it's also about you know making screw holes with the right tolerance embedding things into your designs and a lot of engineering thinking that you know I didn't study as a mechanical engineer I mean you did so you spent a lot of time thinking about these kinds of things so it's been a it's been a big learning experience for me in that case. Yeah. What's your next one? So finally enough my next one is very very similar to to your one and it's about the whole disconnecting from the digital world except in my case it was having good media hygiene right and what having good media hygiene for me means is trying to release myself from the constant drip of digital media that permits everyone's day. And about this quite a few times in my blog I've managed to get my phone used down to about half an hour a day and that's just for utilities and stuff. It boggles my mind to think that in South Africa people use their phones for more than 5 hours a day for just media consumption and so how this looks for me is that firstly I don't have any social media apps or I don't have any social media accounts at all and my YouTube algorithm has been completely removed so it's just a blank slate whenever I go onto YouTube and I explicitly don't go on you know infinite content things like I don't go and hang out on reddit and I leave my phone on the console in my in my apartment and I don't go and farts around with it like I try my best to not go and flop down on the couch and sit and scroll and because my phone is so boring it also means when I'm like in the line at the bank or whatever if I take out my phone and I'm like entertain me there's nothing for it to entertain me with and I'm like I guess I'll put my phone away again and this has allowed me a lot more time to think and reflect and do all these things that I don't think people actually do anymore like I don't think the modern person spends any time with themselves because every single free minute that they have can easily be taken up by you know browsing Instagram it's like you'll even see it at like the traffic light you know the traffic light goes red and so people start scrolling on their phones and then the traffic light goes green they put their phone away and off they go so they don't even get like that that short you know 20 seconds worth of time to do anything you are on I do really think of it as like it's like a drug that you've just got attached to your artery that you just sit there and you have a drip fenty for your entire life. I love this like this artist I can't remember what his name was but he had this like these pictures of he would like take the people and in an area and he would remove the phone so it just looked like they were all stirring it they had. So it kind of gave a bit more of like a you know zombie like and I think I agree with you I think it is a bit of a plight of the current like situation that we're in that we have such a strong addiction to our mobile phones some of it might be you know just because of the addictiveness of the algorithm some of it might be like because people do feel very stressed and you know I think in many ways things are seem a lot worse than they are obviously we've spoken about that in terms of like perception of danger versus. But I think it also goes hand in hand right is like with any with any addictive substance whether it be alcohol cigarettes is if you are feeling anxiety or whatever is you are more likely to use it so it's like I think that people are overall you know in a state of feeling anxiety and so they're just kind of self soothing by going and browsing Instagram and but instead doing they never really address the sources of their anxiety they just mute them. Yeah I've tried to do the same as like like I mean we talked about it earlier like walking around the city and like seeing things operating that's also part of like I guess this whole like being present kind of concept is like you're like looking around you see things changing like I like to go for walks and stuff without my phone and just just see what's going on nature like oh like and you get I'm quite interested in like architecture and like sometimes like the rooms and stuff so like sometimes when I'm just sitting down like waiting in a waiting room I'm like well what is it do I like this room is it a nice room like what why do I like the room is it because it's lights one of the lights oh interesting there's like three different types of lighting and you can kind of like by doing this you actually notice your surroundings a bit better and you can become a little bit more interested in like you know just oh like if I was to draw this building like I would I draw it because in England this at least it's nice because you get like different shapes of buildings and there's like you know windows with like this little arch and some of them have the arch and some of them have just a little and like square and so you kind of turn to appreciate your surroundings a lot better and I think that's also part of like mindfulness which I think brings me on to my my last topic which is a game changer for me is this idea of the dichotomy of control is it's kind of part of like I guess stoicism is like always reminding yourself like what you have in your in your control versus what you can't control and this kind of relates somewhat to like news I've I tend to not read the news as much as when I was in like university I used to like university I go on news 24 all the time like you know see what's going on like because I thought at that time it was like a thing to just know what's going on and be like a knowledgeable person but what I've learned over the last like a couple of years is to try and focus on the things that I can control versus the things that I can't and anything that you can't control almost like completely just disregard them and what it's done as mean like when I'm looking at a news article it's I'm like yeah is this something I can do about it probably not and then putting it aside and I found that that has been able to make me a lot more able to handle what's going on in life is like especially when it comes to choosing what to like spend your time and attention on and I think it's been a good sort of improvement to the way that I see things and also this extends to the past right so a lot of the time of like you know like what are you going to do in the past you can't go back in time so like I don't really dwell that much on things in the past either and so yeah I think it's just a better way that's I feel as improve my life in a big way just being able to say like these other things that I should be focusing on that I can actually make a difference yeah I like that it I definitely resonate with that that that makes a lot of sense to me I have I have one more question for you before we go and this is a this is a question that I saw pop up on some forum somewhere and I thought like what is the best purchase that you have made for less than a hundred pounds I like this one I think in our in our household one of the best purchases is an egg poacher and egg poacher okay yeah so this is if you don't know about it it's like it's basically like a pan but it's got like these circles on the top and it's got these little like ramekins that are like made of metal and you just crack the egg in there and you just you know put put some water in the bottom and you just let it steam and that thing is like always out like it's it's great because you just put it on for like five minutes and you've got like four poached eggs and you can put some in the fridge and you got you got some a good source of like good protein in the morning So but between me and Banner we like using it all the time It's such a I would say it's like dramatically changed my life, but it definitely has improved You know the level of egg-same eating every day and it's just like you know a nice clean process Nice nice how about you? So I'm actually torn between two things So I'm gonna I know it's technically cheating, but I'm gonna talk about them both The first is a pillow that actually fits your head and shoulder, you know like one that When you lie on your side your head is straight in the line with your spine and when you're on your back It's also not too high and not too low and It took me a while to figure out like which pillow works for me and everyone's naturally going to be different But finding a pillow that allows you to get Great sleep is an inexpensive way to improve your sleep experience for sure. I currently have Just like a memory foam pillow that happens to be the right height Whereas I've had memory foam pillows that squish in I've had microfiber pillows. I've tried Whatever, but this one just it's just right and then the second one is a Good coffee a good hand coffee grinder So I hand grind my coffee every day But if you've got it like a cheap or bad hand coffee grinder you sit there and you spin it for you know five minutes But like a good proper steel or ceramic burr coffee grinder where you can like really feel that crunch of the coffee in there And it takes no time at all is my one is great. I take it with me everywhere when I go traveling Internationally, I bring my coffee grinder with me and I make coffee in the hotel room um And it's also like the sound of waking up for me because I kind of like come out of my room and I wash my face And then I get to the thing I turn on the I turn on the kettle and then I grind the coffee And it's just like that that's the beginning of my day every day Yeah, I actually listen to another podcast I think the guy um what was the guy the guy wrote good to great And he also says that he has like this Always carries a coffee set around with him And it's got like all of the things he needs so that he like every day wakes up he has the same same coffee same process same ritual And I thought that that that reminded me of it is like having you know like you could be you know here in your home Or you could be in the middle of like the you know Desert camping you always have your same ritual of the same That's actually exactly what I might have we've got the exact coffee set that we just take with us everywhere We go whether it's Vietnam whether it's Africa burn whether it's here in the in the flat It's always the same coffee set it's a pour over Um on a stainless steel double-walled pot and What's convenient is that my coffee grinder fits perfectly into the pot so that they travel that's they travel together Is it a is it a filter? Oh that It's a it's a pour over filter. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Awesome. I'm dude. This has been really fun I think we should do maybe another one in the future for sure