Getting your second wind

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There’s a concept athletes are familiar with called the “second wind”.

You may be familiar with this through experience, or have heard some athletic friends discuss it.

Mostly, it’s a feeling.

But, a powerful one.

What is the “second wind”?

If you’re swimming a long-distance event – like the mile, which is 1,650 yards and 66 laps – you will start the event feeling fresh and rested. Then, as the event wears on, you will get progressively tired. This makes sense.

When you get tired, you have two options:

  1. Let the tired feeling consume you and win.
  2. Push through and overcome that feeling.

If you’re able to push hard enough when you begin to get tired, you can unlock your second wind. It only happens after you overcome being tired.

If you can overcome, you will feel better than when you started the race. It’s like a weight being lifted. Like you’re dropping shackles. It’s as if you could go at top speed forever.

The reality is, with this feeling you can continue at top performance for a period. This period allows you to effectively get in the zone. You want to use the second wind to your advantage.

In the mile, you hope this happens around the 500-yard mark. That gives you plenty of time to be in the zone and meet your goal.

The second wind isn’t exclusively available to athletes. It’s an idea. Anyone can get them and use them to their advantage.

You can get a second wind during a single day. A week, month, year, or sometime over your career.

The goal is to recognize it and lean into it.

Once you can recognize them, you want to be able to manufacture them. Time them such you can regularly leverage them.

Let it be your hidden overdrive button used for a burst of productivity or creativity.

Just like getting in the zone while swimming the mile.

When you’re tired, it may mean it’s time to stop or move on.

It could also be right before your second win.

P.S. This is not an endorsement for hustle porn. A second wind can only happen when you’re well trained and well rested.

Hustle porn

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Throughout his presidency, Bill Clinton was known for sleeping six hours a night.

Sometimes less.

Obviously, the stress and amount of work that’s required of the President is going to limit the hours you can sleep.

But, a lot of the lack of sleep was by choice.

Clinton credits the idea of limiting sleep to a college professor who said successful men require less sleep than regular men.

Then, in 2004 Clinton nearly died and had to undergo quadruple bypass surgery. He had heart disease. Which, can be accelerated by long periods of sleep deprivation.

Needless to say, Clinton was a hustler. His hustle caught up with him and he publicly admits it.

That’s why he’s changed his sleep habits and is now vegan.

While the evidence is clear, sleep, rest, and recovery are paramount to our health, we can’t help but promote the hustle.

Hustle porn.

Working around the clock, trying to get ahead.

But, this can’t be sustained.

You can’t play the long game with this attitude. It affects creativity. You make poorer decisions.

It’s not cool.

Either, you mentally burn out, or like Clinton, you physically burn out.

There is plenty of scientific evidence to support all of this.

Sleep, rest, and sustainable work and creativity over long periods is cool.

Not flash in the pan hustle porn.

Thoughts about the marketing mix

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  • Product
  • Price
  • Place
  • Promotion

The 4Ps of marketing.

Tried, true, and proven through decades of use.

Sure, there are a few other models. But, all those models contain these four elements.

In tech, it’s common to be “product driven”.

Which means there is likely a “product team”.

When you’re on a product team, it’s clear which “P” you’re responsible for.

If you’re not on the product team, the “P” you manage is a little less clear.

A good question to ask is, what “P” (or “P’s”) does your team manage?

The white claw effect

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Stories sell.

They always have and it’s likely they always will.

They sell as ideas. They sell as books. They sell as brands. And, they sell as products.

To craft a great story, though, we have to understand our audience.

If you’re an author, writing a fiction book, you need to understand what your readers crave.

If you’re a marketer, you need to understand your audience and what they want to buy.

The formula for this is:

  1. Audience
  2. Story
  3. Product

My brother came bursting through the door, like he does, yelling about how there ain’t no laws when he’s drinking claws.

The situation was in fact lawless.

Not sure where we were, but this was my introduction to White Claw.

If you’re a marketer, White Claw is amazing.

The product isn’t overly complex. It’s just liquored up sparkling water.

The story they tell is one of inclusion. It’s not a men’s drink and it’s not a women’s drink. It’s a drink for everybody.

This resonates with their millennial audience, and it’s impeccable.

White Claw is audience first.

Story second.

Product third.

And they hit a home run.

That’s why there “ain’t no laws when you’re drinking claws”.

Eating raw pork

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Mett.

It is raw pork spread on an open-faced bread roll – called a brötchen – with raw onions sprinkled on top.

It looks like uncooked ground beef.

In Germany, if you walk into a butcher, or some bakeries, you’ll find this. It’s fairly common. I have friends who eat it for breakfast.

As an American, this is appalling. Pork is the one thing you do not eat raw. Ever. It isn’t even debatable.

If you eat raw pork, you’ll get sick. Maybe even die. That’s how severe this is. Even pork that is undercooked is bad. You can get sick from that too.

But here are the German’s, enjoying raw pork regularly.

Now, I’m not entirely sure why German pork can be eaten raw and American pork cannot. I can only guess it is a distinction like you have in Sushi. Like, “Sushi grade fish”.

Maybe they have “Mett grade pork”?

Though, that’s not what I am here to discuss.

What I am here to discuss is, from time to time, it’s probably healthy to challenge your beliefs. Particularly the strong ones. And, why you feel so strongly about them.

Pork can in fact be eaten raw. I have done it. I did not get sick. My German friends have not gotten sick.

Once I got over my strong belief, it isn’t bad. Not my first choice of food, but had I grown up with it as a staple in my diet, I would probably think differently.

The next time you’re in Germany, give some raw pork a try.

Just ask for Mett.