Working and Playing

Posted on August 8, 2008 
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I think that it is safe to say that we like to work hard and play hard here at Fit Fuel, and I think that any healthy lifestyle has to include copious quantities of all things fun. To be truly healthy you need to stay up and be happy, and working out hard and often is the way to be able to enjoy your indulgences and still stay fit.

I eat a healthy diet for the most part, but every now and then I stray and throw something into my face that isn’t especially good for me. But what I do as an antidote is up my calorie burning the next day, and I’m back to square one. Putting in a couple of extra miles or taking a long swim is fun too, so I get to enjoy the calories, and enjoy taking them off.

One thing that is very important is beer. I highly recommend that you make beer drinking a top priority, especially during the summer….and winter….and spring….and yes, a nice cold one goes down well on a brisk autumn evening as well. There is a saying that is attributed to Benjamin Franklin: “Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.” I couldn’t agree more, and while we’re on the subject of Franklins, winning ten or twenty of those playing poker (while drinking beer, of course) makes you pretty happy as well.

Beer is crucial, but tequila, though optional, is highly recommended. Good tequila is best, but in a pinch any tequila will do, especially if you are making margaritas. Do not order your margaritas without salt. Do make sure that there is at least two (2) shots of tequila in your margarita, and don’t be afraid to tipple a Corona between sips of your margarita. Should an agave worm become available, do eat it without compunction, and make no plans before 10:00 a.m. the following morning.

Being committed to living a healthy lifestyle is great, and we are all about helping people to do just that. Having a hearty appetite for food, drinks, and fun is at the center of a healthy lifestyle from our perspective, and balancing indulgence with exercise and good foundational nutritional habits is the way to have your cake and eat it too.

           

Natural and Organic Foods

Posted on August 7, 2008 
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I am an intuitive type of person and I know what makes sense to me, so I like to see scientific studies about topics that I am interested in, but I don’t depend on them exclusively. Scientific studies are often slanted depending on who is paying for them and what the desired conclusion of the benefactor may be. When a particular industry would be harmed by a widespread shift in the buying habits of the public, you have to realize that the old guard is going to do all that they can to maintain their market share. So “studies” are not always objective.

Common sense, intuitive knowing, and anecdotal evidence are what I rely on to make decisions for the most part, and eating natural and organic foods makes sense to me as a way to prevent illness and optimize your health.

The native Americans had a belief that you shouldn’t implement any drastic changes in the culture unless you knew what the result of those changes would be seven generations down the line. If we had taken this type of wisdom to heart rather than doing all that we could to subjugate the native American population and marginalize their wisdom as primitive myth, our environment wouldn’t be toxic and our food and water wouldn’t be tainted today. So with this in mind, it is logical to me that we have no idea what impact artificial coloring, preservatives, chemicals, animal hormones, antibiotics, and genetically engineered foods are having on our health.

Many if not most people would be rather quick to agree that it makes sense to eat natural foods, but they are of course more expensive, and some folks feel as though they simply can’t afford to buy organic and natural food. I can relate, but the cost of health care far exceeds a little extra coin invested in your long term health when you are doing your shopping.

Staying away from preservatives and artificial coloring can be done pretty reasonably, and I was just reading an article called “Top Tips for Shopping for Organic Foods on a Budget,” by Laura Klein, who is the Publisher of OrganicAuthority.com. In it she mentions things like prioritizing, selecting particular foods that are staples of your diet and committing to buying the organic version of them. One thing I like to do when prioritizing is buy organic versions of produce that is especially high in pesticides: strawberries, green bell peppers, cherries, spinach, celery, apples, peaches, green beans, grapes, cucumbers, and cantaloupe. (Source: San Diego Earth Times)

I used to struggle a great deal with allergies. When I was in school I would get red and itchy eyes and the roof of my mouth would itch. As I got older, the allergies manifested in the form of chronic sinus pressure and congestion. It was a constant annoyance, and I would use over-the-counter products and nasal sprays which would provide temporary relief, but I knew that they weren’t good for me in the long run.

Eventually, I got fed up and decided to change my diet and eat nothing but natural foods and see if that would help. Lo and behold, my symptoms went away almost immediately and I have had no trouble since, and this was over ten years ago.

I think that most health challenges can be met by lifestyle changes, and it has been my experience that eating natural and organic foods can have a dramatic positive impact on your health and well being. Like exercise, eating natural foods becomes a part of your lifestyle and you begin to work with your body’s needs instead of against them, and the long term health benefits of a conscious, intelligent, healthy lifestyle are truly immeasurable.

           

Fit Fuel Twitter Use in the Wall Street Journal

Posted on August 6, 2008 
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So it seems that my tweets on Twitter about crazy Vegas nights, being stuck in airports or my desperate attempts at cooking are finally becoming appreciated by someone, somewhere out there. Recently, the Wall Street Journal contacted us because we are one of only a handful of companies that truly embraced Twitter on the corporate level. They wanted to learn more about our use of Web 2.0 and social media tools to enhance our business.

Here is the resulting article and blog post that accompanied it:

Wall Street Journal Fit Fuel article:
Wall Street Journal Blog:

Since the articles didn’t have enough room to capture the full essence of why we all go out of our way to tweet at Fit Fuel, I thought I’d expand a bit on the reporter’s comments. Here are some of the main reasons Fit Fuelers tweet:

1. Internal Communication - it builds culture by encouraging our employees to interact in ways that they might not normally interact. This is, after all, how twitter was first conceived. It happened to grow into a social networking tool or micro-blogging tool, but it still has tremendous application at the corporate “intranet” level.

2. Relationship Building with our Customers - what kind of relationship would you have with your girlfriend if you saw her once a month? it’s hard! as a business, we’re not into long-distance relationships. Unfortunately, that’s the kind of relationship that most businesses have with their customers - the customers might interact with them once every 2 months when they need to make a purchase. Twitter helps us interact with our customers on a daily basis (or, in my case, sometimes 5x per day), and it’s much easier to establish a healthy relationship that way. Long distance relationships entail having as much sex as possible on every visit (read: purchases), and sometimes that becomes the central focus (of the business); ours is more like vines winding and weaving their way around each other - we end of building solid, long-lasting bonds. We have a vision of a Fit Fuel 10, 15, even 20 years down the road. Will we still have some of the same customers that we have today? I think so.

3. Feedback - often times, we ask our customers and twitter friends for feedback on ideas and business decisions. And we take the feedback that we get seriously! We like our customers to drive our business, so when we are considering a new idea, our customers are the first place that we look. We are customer-centric in all of our processes, and twitter helps us in those efforts.

4. Personal Stuff - yes, twitter is 90% personal. I use it because I’m the type of person who enjoys sharing his experiences with others and hearing about the experiences of other people. That’s why I follow so many people on Twitter - I’m curious about the world, curious about what people are doing and generally interested in life and ways that I can improve my own life and our company.

The Wall Street Journal seemed surprised that I would tweet about being hungover and worried that customers might view that negatively. I responded that most of our customers, even the healthy ones, know what it feels like to be hungover, and that’s something we can all relate to. At the end of the day, isn’t being able to relate to people one of the most important parts of any kind of relationship building, even that between a business and its customers?

5. Find People - Twitter helps us vet potential employees and develop relationships with people who want to be involved with the vision of our company. We have hired at least one person from Twitter thus far, and we always give twitter inquiries strong consideration. Why? Because even though we are fundamentally a health company (that happens to have an online store), technology is a big part of what we do - a large portion of the back-end work that we do is engineering and tech related. So, if someone is having a hard time learning twitter (or video-conferencing with us on Skype, for that matter), we can safely assume they aren’t tech-savvy enough to work here. Twitter is also something that tends to attract the kind of forward-thinking, adventurous and extroverted people that we want to be a part of our team.

6. It gives us something to do while we’re waiting in lines.

I’ve been asked why I would waste my time with something so trivial. My 800 followers, after all, (at the time of this writing) is a seemingly immaterial part of our customer base. Those 800 followers are among our best, though. And I believe that relationship building takes time. I probably spend 10 minutes/day twittering. I value my time more than anyone I know, and am constantly looking for shortcuts or ways to free up more of my time, so I would not be twittering if I did not see a tremendous benefit for the “cost” of my time. That benefit is not easily measured in dollars.

At the end of the day, if one of my friends sees a tweet from me that I am at the Wynn playing poker and he shows up to join me, that alone is worth every tweet I’ve ever tweeted. The more I can spend time with people I enjoy being around, the better. If it enhances our company in any way, that is like icing on the cake.

           

Love vs. Fear

Posted on August 6, 2008 
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The movie A Bronx Tale explores the difference between making your way through life through engendering either love, or fear, in others. The story was originally an off-Broadway one man show written and performed by Chazz Palminteri, and in fact he reprised the role on Broadway last year and is currently touring with the show.

In the movie, a well loved bus driver played by Robert DeNiro explains to his son that the gangster who runs the neighborhood, who is played by Palminteri, is not loved by everyone as the boy thinks. He tells his son that he is in fact feared, and that is the reason that everybody treats him well.

It has been my experience that most workplaces are run through the use of fear rather than love as a motivator, and I have always thought that you could revolutionize a company if you shifted that mentality.

I think that most people react better to being treated with love and respect than they do in an environment of fear as they watch coworkers getting their heads lopped off left and right for reasons other than a lack of productivity. If your company is good to you and your family, and you know that they are decent and fair, you will work hard for them and pour a lot of love into the vibe. If you are constantly looking over your shoulder in an environment of fear, you will never be happy, and it certainly isn’t healthy to spend most of your time in a fear-based environment.

Respect and love are intimately connected, and when you respect your company, your managers, and your team, some semblance of love will follow. Respect, however, is earned, and it doesn’t automatically come when you are given a title. You have to prove something to your coworkers, and you have even more to prove if you are in management. A good manager should see himself, or herself, as a mentor whose job is to prepare the members of his or her staff to be able to take on increasing levels of responsibility, not a whip cracking watchdog with a pink slip always at the ready.

When workers see the managers as doing less work while being paid more to scare them into submission, the ensuing culture is built on a “plantation mentality” based on fear. Workers with any self respect move on, and what is left for anyone who stays is the dangling carrot of hope that maybe someday they too can produce less, get paid more, and be the one who scares everybody. It sounds like a drag, I know, but I’ve lived it, as have many, many other people.

It’s an interesting philosophical question. The gangster in A Bronx Tale told the boy that it was better to rule by fear. His father felt that engendering love from others was best. I know which one I prefer, and I feel as though any company that eschews the plantation approach to productivity will be rewarded for their efforts.

           

Fitness and Lifestyle

Posted on August 5, 2008 
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If you want to make regular exercise a part of your life, in my opinion, you have to do things that you like to do. If you work out in spite of yourself through pure willpower alone, doing something that you don’t enjoy, you probably won’t be able to stick to it throughout your life. When I hear people say that they hate to exercise, I try to remind them to do something childlike and fun, and it will become part of your lifestyle and not some sort of dreaded chore.

I enjoy yoga, lifting weights, hiking, walking and swimming, and I have done some sort of daily exercise for many years because I like to do it. The fact that it is good for my health is part of why I like it, but I would do these things even if they had nothing to do with my health because I find them to be fun. Everyone can find some sort of physical activity that they enjoy doing and make it a part of their lifestyle.

Riding a bike is something just about all of us did as kids, and cycling is a great way to get your aerobic exercise without putting a lot of weight on your joints. You can take it as far as you want to, mountain biking or doing high mileage, or you can take it slow and still get enough exercise to be moving forward in your conditioning. Swimming is another activity that is great for you in every way, but it is low impact on the joints, and it is something that most people find to be a lot of fun.

If you know somebody who likes to do the same type of exercise that you do, it can be fun to have a workout partner to talk to while you are taking a walk or jogging, and it is motivating to have someone depending on you to join them.

You can also rekindle a past love to find a fun way to exercise. Perhaps you played basketball in high school but haven’t picked up a ball in five, ten or twenty years. There’s nothing stopping you from strapping on a pair of retro Air Jordans and going down to the park to get yourself into a pickup game. Or you can get your old tennis racket out of the back of the storage shed and get a friend to meet you at the local tennis court. These are things we did for hours on end as kids purely because it was fun, and we can find that same enjoyment again no matter how long it’s been since we played the sports that we once loved.

Isn’t it kind of satisfying to get the oil changed in your car? I always feel good about it because I know that I am performing the proper maintenance on the vehicle, and in turn, it will run well for me. I feel a similar but more profound sense of satisfaction from working out regularly. I know in the back on my mind that I am taking care of my body, and I have no reason to expect any serious health problems to crop up due to inactivity and lack of exercise.

Most people who visit Fit Fuel are obviously living a healthy lifestyle, but for those who find it hard to stick to a regular exercise program, it’s all about fun. Get in touch with that inner child and go out and play!

           

Workplace Respect

Posted on August 4, 2008 
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To enjoy a happy and healthy lifestyle you need to have a job that involves doing something that you would do even if you weren’t getting paid to do it. When you are doing something that you like to do, you will go to work with a positive attitude, and the quality of your work is invariably going to be high. Good work should win you the respect of your managers and peers, which you would return. This mutual respect builds a solid foundational core to your culture. Unfortunately, however, a culture of respect is sometimes elusive.

I read in an article called “Respect In The Workplace” by David Balovich that people leave their jobs not because they are dissatisfied with the company, but because they are not happy with their manager or managers. I think that many times people become dismayed with their managers because they feel as though they are not being treated with the level of respect that they deserve. It is said that absolute power corrupts absolutely, and there are times when people who are given some power are not wise enough to use it responsibly, and they lose sight of the basic human value of respect for others. They don’t respect others because they don’t have to, and when your managers fail to respect their staff, poor productivity, low morale, and constant turnover are going to be the result.

I know of companies that have been voted as some of the best places to work in the country, and I have read their core values, and the people who founded these companies truly had positive and progressive visions of what they wanted their cultures to be. However, as the companies expanded, the original values remained printed on new hire pamphlets, but in reality, the people managing the companies had completely abandoned these core values in practice.

Personally, I try to treat everyone with respect, but I don’t just treat them with respect; I actually do respect them, until and unless I find a reason why I shouldn’t. People can sense it when you truly feel respectful toward them, and you find that you feel comfortable around just about everyone when you have respect for them.

I think that integrity is a key concept here. When you are a manager, you need to have the personal integrity not to become drunk with power and lose your ability to respect others. I have a close friend who talks to me about her job a lot, and her manager is extremely sensitive to the feelings of others, and he treats people with respect. He has personal integrity, and he realizes that people’s financial lives are in his hands. He understands his responsibility to others around him, and I know that my friend works very hard for him because she appreciates his respect, and respects him very much in return.

To a large extent, the workplace should be an extension of our personal lives. I see no reason why anyone, at any level, should act much differently at work than they do anywhere else. Decent people treat others with respect at home and when they are out in public, so it should be easy to carry that basic foundational value into the workplace as well.

           

Gratitude and Health

Posted on August 1, 2008 
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One virtue that a lot of people lose sight of is that of simple gratitude. Many of us are quick to lament anything about our lives that is not perfect, but we take the positive gifts that we enjoy for granted. When I hear people complain about various things, I try to empathize, but more often than not I feel as though they are placing too great of an emphasis on the few things that may be lacking, and none at all on the many things about their lives that are good and in place.

Perspective is everything, and looking at things from a positive perspective is actually very good for your health. We have all heard people complain about their jobs, and of course every job has its ups and down, but there are folks who are constantly saying negative things about the places that they work, so much so that it becomes sort of a lifestyle. When I hear their stories I can sometimes relate, but in the end, I try to remind them that they should be grateful that they have a job. I ask if they would be happier broke and looking through the help wanted listings. This usually changes their perspective, if only for a long moment.

Gratitude is powerful, and reaching for the feeling of gratitude is a great way to achieve balance, because the vast majority of us truly have a lot to be thankful for. Nothing is owed to any of us, so whatever we have is a gift in a way, and when you are given a gift, you feel grateful.

In the article “Boost Your Health With a Dose of Gratitude,” Elizabeth Heubek quotes University of California at Davis professor Robert Emmons:

“Thousands of years of literature talk about the benefits of cultivating gratefulness as a virtue…Grateful people take better care of themselves and engage in more protective health behaviors like regular exercise, a healthy diet, regular physical examinations.”

I recently read a book by the Japanese researcher Masaru Emoto called The Message From Water. He was contemplating the fact that every snowflake that has ever fallen on earth has a unique crystalline structure, and he wondered what would happen if he froze droplets of water and observed them under a dark field microscope that was equipped with the ability to take pictures.

When he did it he found that the water’s molecular structure changed based on a number of factors. The original source of the water was important, as you might expect. But he experimented with less conventional ideas as well. Crystals that were formed when he froze the water looked different when exposed to different types of music, when he spoke different words in different tones around the water, or even when he attached a word or words written on a piece of paper to the receptacle that contained the water. Emoto found that the word “gratitude” caused the water to form what he considered to be the most beautiful crystals of all.

Life can be hectic and often times confusing, but I find that if I stay present in the here and now, everything is fine. It is only when you allow yourself to wander out of this moment that you find yourself worrying or entertaining negative thoughts and emotions. I try to remember that I am alive and well, and I have everything that I need in this moment. And for that, I am grateful, and I think that this is one of the reason that I enjoy good health.

           

Being Yourself At Work

Posted on July 31, 2008 
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Throughout our lives we find ourselves being asked to act in a particular manner in order to conform to some sort of preconceived notions of what constitutes “correct” behavior. When we are young, our families sometimes demand things of us that we may not necessarily agree with. When we get to school there are many rules, dress codes, schedules, deadlines and behavioral parameters. Even recreational activities like sports and clubs have a lot of rules and hierarchical structures associated with them. To succeed, for the most part, you have to conform.

“Success, recognition, and conformity are the bywords of the modern world where everyone seems to crave the anesthetizing security of being identified with the majority.” — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

It may just be a coincidence, but learning to conform with rules that you may not agree with while suppressing your own individuality prepares you for what is required at many jobs. Progressive companies like Fit Fuel encourage individuality, but traditionally, many companies tend to either explicitly or tacitly require conformity to a particular rather narrow set of possibilities.

I am not saying that families, schools, teams, clubs, and jobs should have no structure at all. I just think that they all go past the practical necessities of order, planning, instruction and coordination toward a shared goal and wind up intruding into the ability of people to truly be themselves.

It can sometimes be hard to even know who you are., and I know that saying that sounds like psychobabble, but I say it because we are forced to conform on so many levels from such an early age that many of us become sort of an amalgam of all of these things that have been expected of us rather than a truly unique individual.

It’s interesting because if you were to start a company, you may be tempted to hire people that you perceive as being a lot like you. But I think that true synergy requires people of various backgrounds and personalities who bring different strengths to the table finding a collective resonance that is held in place by a shared value of respect for people’s personal differences coupled with a mutuality of intent.

It seems logical to me that many if not most of the “best and brightest” would be nonconformists by nature because their creativity and intelligence is squashed when they try to fit it into a tiny box of conformity. And the people who wind up being their supervisors got to that level by being good at conforming to whatever they are told. To get ahead, their primary asset was a total lack of any courage, creativity or intellectual curiosity. They asked no questions and never challenged their superiors intellectually, so they were never seen as a threat by those who were above them. That is how you get ahead in most companies that I have been involved with.

The progressive employer should encourage their leadership to welcome and respect those employees who challenge the status quo and present ideas that may be able to improve the company. The type of person who can accept this type of “challenge” is truly qualified to be a leader because he or she is not personally threatened when somebody has a good idea that they didn’t think of. If your culture is built on the suppression of individuality, intellectual curiosity, and creative thinking, what kind of staff will you build as you look for candidates that are a “culture fit?”

If you look for people who have a good work ethic, allowing them the freedom to be an individual will result in maximum retention and productivity beyond the wildest dreams of these old guard companies staffed by a group of stale yes-men and women who have “risen to their level of incompetence.”

           

Are You Ready For Some Football?

Posted on July 30, 2008 
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It is that time of year again, and NFL training camps are opening up while the first game of the college football season is just four weeks away. Football season is highly anticipated by fans everywhere, but here in Las Vegas it is especially exciting because, well, because we get to bet on the games and participate in season-long contests at the various sportsbooks. Football season is by far the most lucrative for the books, and there is a lot of intense fan interest, making for an electric atmosphere here in Vegas during the football months.

Without question the biggest story surrounding the NFL right now is the Brett Favre saga. Everyone has their own opinion on the matter, and I can understand all points of view. We watched as Favre tearfully retired after last season, choking up as he thanked the Packers organization for all that they had done for him. Indeed, they made Brett a wealthy man over the years, but Favre transformed a fallen dynasty into a consistent winner. Favre’s record as a starter is 160-93. In sixteen seasons as the Packers starting quarterback, he led the team to 11 playoff appearances, seven Division titles, and one Super Bowl victory in two appearances. He is the all time NFL leader in passing yards and passing touchdowns (and interceptions, by the way).

I think that if you read between the lines, the Packers pressured Favre to retire after last season, in spite of the fact that he had a very good year. At the time, his loyalty to the Packers coupled with the aches, pains, and fatigue that a player feels after his 17th season playing in the NFL tipped the scales toward a decision to retire, and he did so, but very reluctantly.

My perspective on the situation as it stands right now is that Favre has been excited about the beginning of the new football season since he played Pop Warner. There are athletes that play in the NFL strictly for the money, but Favre is a guy who genuinely loves to play the game of football. I don’t think that he wants to play this year because of money. I don’t even think he is motivated by some kind of burning desire to win the Super Bowl again. I think he just loves to play, he feels healthy, and he knows that he is still better than most of the starting quarterbacks in the NFL.

I am not a Packer fan, so I have never been a big fan of Brett Favre, but I do respect him immensely, and I am not one of the people who thinks he should just get out of the way. It’s true that his presence would be difficult for the Packers, who have already given the starting job to Aaron Rodgers, but if they did indeed pressure Favre to retire, they should have no compunction about trading him. I think they are clearly afraid that he will lead his new team past the Packers, and I think that Favre wants to have the opportunity to do just that.

Favre is just one of the storylines as the 2008-2009 NFL season approaches, and there is indeed football in the air here in Las Vegas. I look forward to watching the season unfold, and like every renewal it is a time of great hope and optimism for all 32 teams as they vie for a shot to play in Super Bowl XLIII in Tampa on February 1st, 2009.

           

Pets and Health

Posted on July 29, 2008 
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I have always been a big animal lover, and I especially like dogs. I had an Australian Shepherd, and when he was about eight years old I took in a Border Collie as well. The Aussie, who was named Max, died a couple of years ago, but he lived to be fifteen, so he had a good run. He was actually reasonably healthy, but he had hip dysplasia and it got so bad that he just couldn’t stand and had to be put to sleep.

So now I just have the Border Collie, and his name is Kevin. There are a lot of ways that Kevin keeps me healthy. The biggest thing is that, like all dogs, he loves to go for a walk, so we walk at least three miles a day. This keeps him in shape, and it also helps me get my daily aerobic exercise.

Studies have shown that pets can lower your blood pressure, boost your immune system, and lessen feelings of anxiety. I can relate to this because my dog has a calming influence on me. He is very sensitive to his surroundings, and he gets very agitated if I get upset in any way, and this helps me to keep my emotions in check.

Clearly the companionship that a pet provides is good for your health, and there are people who take their dogs to senior centers and hospitals because they have such a positive therapeutic effect.

Having a pet is a lot of responsibility, and it is a long term commitment. There are certain hassles and occasional challenges that accompany pet ownership, but the rewards far outweigh the sacrifices in my humble opinion.

Here at Fit Fuel we acknowledge the health benefits that pets provide to their owners, and we offer animal lovers a wide variety of pet products to help you to return the favor and keep your best friend healthy and happy.

           

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