Below is your weekly dose of 4 Thought Friday, a short list of idea’s, thoughts, and experiments from a few members of the Mako Team. Enjoy!
Leroy is Living the 5 Factors of Health:
You have probably noticed by now the new poster on the bathroom door. Its titled “The Five Factors of Health” and is an awesome guide to a healthier “YOU.” This week, my dad Cuz, wanted me to write this to explain the Five Factors and explain how I have incorporated them into my everyday life. The 1st Eat is the most important and is defined as “Real food, not too much & mostly plants.” I always lived by the guideline of “eat whole foods” but I later learned that doesn’t just mean ‘eat your food whole.’ Luckily Kyle and Dad have been feeding me meals from Primal Nosh, and I’m on the right track! The 2nd is Sleep and is described as ‘7-9 hours per night. Every night. This one is really easy for me. The key is shutting everything down and getting relaxed. The 3rd Train is 5x/week of constantly varied, functional movements at high intensity. I focus on variation between which toys I play with and try to switch things up by returning them to different people every time. The 4th Think means to never whine, complain or make excuses. This one is easiest for me because I am just generally relaxed and enjoy the lifestyle I live. The 5th and last is Connect. This means to build, sustain and grow deep relationships. Do I really need to explain this one?!! I can’t think of a deeper more sustainable relationship than the one I share with Cuz. Our relationship should be an example of how all of your relationships should aspire to be! It was nice to be able to share with you guys this week! I hope everyone gives me a belly-rub and lets me know if this post touched them!
Seth’s Reading:
I just started listening to The Code of an Extraordinary Mind by Vishen Lakhiani. The author has in an entrepreneur and an education advocate who started Mindvalley University. The premise of the book is that we have developed constructs in our lives that were created by the societies we live in, he explains how we should question these constructs and learn WHY we operate the way we do in everyday life. It is an interesting book, that expounds upon the ideas and thoughts from Sapiens, which is another great read.
Carlos is Inspired: Humans are limitless
Let’s learn about our limitations using the “baby elephant effect” as an example. When elephants are babies, owners would chain them to a large tree; the baby elephant will try to break free of the chain but since he is so small and weak, he cannot break free from the tree. Overtime and many tries, the young elephant will keep trying to break free and he is realizing that he cannot because he has a chain around his ankle. Eventually, he stops trying, the young elephant is limiting himself to keep trying and failing. When the elephant grows stronger and bigger, every time he gets chained to something (even a small piece of wood), the elephant will not try to break free – he associates the chain with physical constraint. The grown-up elephant would easily break free but his mind is limited and will not try because he learned when he was young that he “cannot do that”.
This story tells us a lot about limitations and physical constraints. When we are young we learn that the human body has limits because they seem impossible to some people; therefore, we are getting restricted from what the human body can do. I believe that the human body is an amazing machine capable of doing a lot of things, that to us at this point, might seem impossible because we were taught that it’s “impossible”. That is one of the reasons why every year we see people break records, athletes are getting better, and every sport is evolving into something the society did not think it was possible 50 years ago- because we were taught that the human body was not capable of doing stuff like that!
50+ years ago, people were taught that the human body couldn’t run a 5:00-minute mile, squat 500 pounds, and perform 50 unbroken pull-ups on the same day. Or that the human body was never going to be able to run a 5k under 13 minutes. They would’ve laughed at you! Guess what? It’s possible. Just imagine in another 50 years what the human body is going to be capable of doing if we keep ignoring physical constraints. There is no true limit. Do not limit yourself and go get after your dreams!
Tori’s Thankful:
When was the last time you took a second to acknowledge and be thankful for the little things? Having a safe place to lay down at night, a car, running water, a wealth of information at the touch of a button, food that’s literally accessible 24 hours a day you just have to go buy it. It’s a crazy time we live in and we often forget that things weren’t always so attainable as they are now. There are still places in the world where things are very different than they are here. Don’t get so caught up in your busy life that you take these things for granted. Take a moment today to appreciate the little things.
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