When The Founder Of Your Company Dies

(your path is beautiful and difficult)

“I have some bad news. Paul died last night” he said.

Paul was the founder of an early stage entertainment technology company. The call just started. I was supposed to share the final business plan: 5-year financial forecasts, profitability, cash flows, organizational structure and technical strategy I’d been working on.

The business was growing organically. We wanted to put on the afterburners. Investors were interested and this call was to approve the plan so we could build a deck* for them and raise $XMillion.**

But now the founder was dead.

We had been working closely for 3 months. It was Tuesday morning, September 24th 2013 and time stood still.

“What happened?”

I was in Baltimore, Maryland wearing a blue v-neck cotton t-shirt. I was sitting outside in the sun and remember sweat trickling down my back. I noticed the tree leaves holding onto their late summer green, lingering before changing into fall colors. I heard birds chirping and felt a slight warm breeze.

He began telling me what happened.

You know how it feels when the world stops?

 

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. -Victor Frankl”

We see the fleeting nature of things. Life in Technicolor. Heightened for a second as we ponder the meaning and grasp the transient nature of life.

Like the last day of your vacation – soaking it in before departing to home.

Like the end of Christmas day when you’re a kid – the presents are open, everyone is sitting around feeling the chemical buildup dissipate as you realize it’s over.

I snapped back to his words on the other end of the line.

“…and then the housekeeper found him.”

Memories of Paul flashed through my head. His wide eyes excited about the possibilities and his passion for his mission in life. A friend gone at 66.

You knew Paul Darbee. At least, you knew his work:

Paul invented the Universal Remote Control in the 1980s, among other things. He cashed out of his company early. UEIC went through tough times and is today a $500M annual business traded as a public company.

His new company, DarbeeVision was his biggest dream. A company dedicated to making the picture on your tv or projector better using image processing via an HDMI-input device sitting between your incoming signal and your tv. It works really well. I thought I could help them put together strategy and get big fast.

But now he was gone leaving his business partner and I alone on the telephone talking about what to do next.

“Can you get to Denver by tomorrow?”

I flew to Denver. CEDIA is the show where all the home AV professionals demo their gadgets and distributors do deals for the next year. All the new hot stuff for your home.

I pressed flesh with the contacts I’d gained over 6 years at RealD and presented the plan to the majority shareholders and their advisors. Everyone was on board with the strategy and I think they were looking for a sense of hope. And a sense of security that the legacy would not die.

It felt like a memorial service: Paul’s last name in graphic design across the banners in the booth.  His widow and son bravely repeating the story of the company, the technology and Paul’s last days. Industry veterans stopping by to express condolences.

DarbeeVision is alive today and will likely keep going.

It can be sad to say goodbye.

It was a little over a year ago (1 year 5 days) that I said goodbye to RealD, went to Beirut for a celebration, moved out of my apartment in Boulder, proposed to someone I loved and had it fail, dated someone but it didn’t work out, drove 700 miles across the midwest to a magical weekend celebration, sold my first home in Portland, Oregon, put my stuff in storage, mourned Paul’s death, took a 9 day trail running trip to Maui, celebrated another birthday, and another Thanksgiving and another Christmas, welcomed a new niece into the world, got UL approval on a product, sold all my old stock options, and last week closed the first big deal of my new company then got hit with new hurdles. Among many other things.

Thankfully every day dies. Some days die quickly. Other days die a slow painful death, impossibly hard to let go of.

But then a new day is born.

People say let go of the past, but the truth is you must let go of the future, because the past happened and is gone. The only thing left of the past is evidence we interpret and emotions we carry. This impacts our thoughts, beliefs and shapes our future by influencing our reality.

When I let go of the future my life becomes magic and time stands still.

Things I never thought would happen become reality.

I was always scared to let go, because what then would I have left? And I only have one conclusion: faith. Faith that if I am healthy and I let go something new will show up to replace the space that’s made from what is gone. And it always happens.

Otherwise we keep missing the moment when all possibilities are endless. And when we miss that moment, we miss all possibilities.

Paul was someone who chose to make his own possibilities and inspired others.

But are you dead or are you alive? Are you missing each moment holding onto the past or are you healthy in your body, heart, mind and soul, with room for your dreams to become real?

I don’t know what works for you, but this is what works for me.  I’m grateful for the lessons I’ve learned from friends both living and passed who continue to be proof that we are what we believe.

And faith that something is on its way is the only way I know of.

I hope you have faith, too.

*a deck is the presentation you give to potential investors
**I’m still under nondisclosure

How A Garbage Man Became Your Broker

(Cosmo was not in the truck that day)

Raunchy porn magazines littered the dashboard. It smelled like rotting fruit, stale beer and dirty diapers.

“The other driver loves to keep the dirty stuff. He picks it out of people’s trash” he said. “I wouldn’t touch those without gloves on.”

We were 19 sitting in the sweltering cab of a recycling truck in suburban Chicago, in August. The grass was tall in the ditches next to the roads and the humidity held our sweat to our skin beneath our shirts. Something for the stench to cling.

He invited me “On The Route” so I went, now regretful, nose burning.

(what goes around comes around)

My friend confessed “it’s a good job but I don’t want to be doing this my whole life. I just can’t go to school. It’s a waste of time. Who are these teachers? They just throw stuff at you. This is real education.”

(all the gold, guns and girls. is it ever gonna be enough?)

My friend was the epitome of the James Dean type. Every girl ogled him but he was faithful to his girlfriend, contrarian, reckless but smart (once crashing his Dad’s new Mustang while driving underage, ditching it to avoid the police), questioning authority philosophically, appearing always like he stepped off the pages of a JCrew catalog (the most influential mail order of the time). I was not much like him, but we became best friends. I wanted to start a jazz club in Chicago called “Birdland.” We were obsessed with jazz. We had big plans. Always circling around how we’d leave our mark on the world, not sure how to start. Uncertain when our break would come, chasing.

We’d both dropped out of high school the same year. I tested into college and he went to work driving a recycling truck.

(we wanted to go back in time)

He drove the route every day while I tore through classes, tripling credit hours to graduate early.

But I didn’t have a job plan. I felt like I should. Anxiety was growing.

Sitting in the parlor of the house I shared with 4 girls and another guy, watching ticker symbols stream on CNBC two weeks before graduation, I had a flash: “can someone trade for a living?”

I graduated in December with two interviews at brokerage firms.

“Hey man I’m going downtown Monday to interview. You should come.”

“What are you talking about. I’m not going with you to your job interview.”

“Dude, it’s just an interview. You can introduce yourself and see if they have anything else. Seriously, no big deal. Come with.”

He agreed.

We took an early train from Barrington and met a guy in the office of Eurospread Associates, where some of my cousins un-coincidentally worked. “I didn’t expect two?” he said. We acted dumb and shrugged. He ushered us onto the trading floor. “People are gonna say shit. Just ignore them. Don’t take it personally.”

It was nothing we’d seen before: mass chaos, colored jackets, hands in the air, faces screaming, spitting and sweating. The floor was littered with paper.

Traders & clerks laughed and pointed at us chanting “fresh meat,” flipping trading cards our way like flat paper bullets.

We were overwhelmed by stimulus, captivated. You could feel the money.

“I didn’t know we were hiring two” one broker said.

My friend and I looked at each other “I guess you are” I said.

“Okay, fill out these forms. You can start January 3rd. I’ll put one of you in Yen and the other in the LIBOR pit. You’ll start as runners.” He got Yen, I got LIBOR.

We rolled out of the building laughing, high-fiving. “What just happened?!”

Two weeks later we walked onto the CME floor and started our future.

A year later I was hired at Michael Stoltzner’s Futrex Trading, training with Jeff Goldman (one of the largest EuroOptions traders) on weekends and went on to develop trading systems at Specialists DPM and Edge LLC until I left to pursue my dream on the West Coast.

People will tell you the better path is the path in pursuit of something they can see. The path that looks good on paper and reflects well when you tell your new girlfriend’s parents. They don’t like recycling trucks they like money and power and sophistication and houses in suburbs.

But when you climb the unfamiliar trail in front of you to the top of the first mountain, only then can you find the next mountain beyond.

16 years and witness to suicides, rehabs, parties, stories, more money than God, investigations, lawsuits, lies and fistfights, he’s a successful options broker at the Chicago Board Options Exchange. He didn’t need a college degree to get educated but he had to have the guts to hang on.

(this place smells like the cab of a recycling truck on a hot day)

And I’ll tell you the secret they don’t want you to know: it’s not the cab of a recycling truck but it’s still filled with raunchy porn, smells like stale beer, rotting fruit and dirty diapers. There’s just more money and more pixels, and looks better on TV.

Me? I just like to watch.

Sell the Sizzle: How to Turn $500 into $Millions With Your Minimum Viable Product

(what $8,000 looks like)

I spent $8,000 developing a web based visual media platform in 2011. It’s cool, and it works, and it’s out there on the web behind a password protected portal but it’s wrong. It should be prettier, easier to use and mobile. I lost money and time. I overbuilt the product before I had traction. I didn’t apply the idea of The Minimum Viable Product properly.

(lean and mean)

The Minimum Viable Product is a concept written about in Eric Ries’ book The Lean Startup. It’s now the de facto standard for startups. Before you waste money and time overbuilding an idea, you create something minimal first. The biggest problem with the concept of “The Minimum Viable Product” is what “Minimum” and “Viable” actually mean.

I’m working on a new product-based company and it has major traction. Starting this company cost $317. I had an idea for something I needed. I made 4 prototypes, each a different color. I posted some photos of it on social media and my friends said “Cool! I want one!”

But I didn’t believe them. You can’t trust your friends.*

So I took the prototypes to 5 stores. If 3 of 5 stores wanted it, I’d move forward with figuring out the details and getting them produced.

Four of the 5 stores wanted it NOW. Everyone said “Yes.” The product worked but wasn’t finished.

We figured out the details, took a few orders launched into 3 stores and sold out in 4 days. We refreshed the inventory and sold out again. Every new store we’ve opened sees a similar trend. We’re validated and now we’re going big.

We even developed a no-lose negotiation strategy that converts stores who say “no” to “yes” instantly and even makes them long-term customers.

We have revenue, demand and our idea is validated. Now we are confidently allocating more capital with a high expected return.

We’ve filed patents and invested in infrastructure. We’re refining our logo and branding. We’re getting better product photography and making promo clips. We’re begging media not to publish anything about us because we’re just a few steps away from being able to fill massive demand. We’re going to blow the doors off of a category that has been stale for 30 years or more.

We had revenue before we had a real product. That’s what matters. Now we can hunt without starving first.

(sell the sizzle)

The key to the MVP is one goal and one goal only: accelerate the sales cycle. The MVP should get you from concept to traction. If no traction move on immediately.

Don’t waste your time on infrastructure or paperwork or permission or overly ornate packaging or a business entity or lawyers or following “the rules” you think are required. Time is your greatest asset. You don’t even need a business plan. Whatever it takes to get to your customer saying “yes”, or better yet “holy crap I want that” is the point of the MVP. Any business can use the MVP philosophy.

Everything starts small.

Validate first, scale and grow later. Talk, date, marry, have kids.

Sell before you spend, promote before you develop, get users and customers before you dig a hole, don’t overdevelop your MVP. Don’t commit too much too early.

Sell the sizzle.

(lizanne falsetto started ThinkThin products in her kitchen. p.s. they’re really good)

Want to sell cookies? Bake a batch in your kitchen and sell them. Have a product idea? Prototype it cheaply and get orders with the prototype. Got a great beer recipe? Brew it and get restaurant or bar owners to try it. Mobile app? Design it in MS Word or Photoshop. Think of all the corners you can cut. It’s like speed dating for business. You talk, flirt and if there’s a fit you go on a date. You know very quickly whether or not you’re attracted in the first 6 seconds (aka “Blink” by Malcolm Gladwell).

That’s the point of an MVP. If you can’t sell the sizzle, put it to bed and move on. Don’t lose your hard earned cash or your time.

Want more? Read my friend James’ guide to selling anything and the story of how he started stockpickr.com for $500 and sold it for $10mil.

This is how to make $millions with a minimum viable product.

So what’s your idea?

*Unless they are honest or have a solid history of being accurate in their opinions

Ideas Are Everything, Execution Is Meaningless

(is this execution?)

Patagonia has sales of over $500M annually but when Yvonne Chouinard started he was selling rugby shirts and hand-forged climbing gear to dirtbag climbers in Yosemite out of his car. Was he “executing”? He was chasing freedom from a job so he could afford another Summer climbing in The Valley and another winter surfing in Ventura.

(this became a $100M business?)

Yakima car racks grew from a $5,000 purchase to over $50M in annual sales. The founders bought a kayak footpeg company. Their business struggled until a consultant told them “these patents for carrying stuff on car roofs that you bought with the footpegs are a better idea”. So they tried it because they thought it was a few thousand extra dollars in sales.  The owners sold Yakima in 2001 for $90M to Arcapita (formerly Crescent Capital). They had no idea it would ever become such a business. Were they “executing” in the beginning? They were just chasing ideas and some freedom from corporate life.

(the beginning of the future)

For thousands of years people tried flying but it was two brothers from Ohio that showed the world how to do it. Hundreds of prior attempts were perfectly executed: well engineered, well financed, well prepared, but the wrong idea. The Wright Brothers, underfinanced, working out of their bicycle shop, had the right idea. Was this execution? Their idea was still bad. Compared to modern wing designs and technologies their idea was remedial with poor execution. But the idea was still approximately correct and gave other engineers better and better ideas.

I worked at Watermark Paddlesports (later Yakima Products Inc) when it was owned by Arcapita. Yakima attempted to launch a ridiculous home organization product (I put one in my closet and hated it). They got a lot of press, had a lot of retailers carry the product, but it didn’t sell through. Consumers hated it. The company scrapped the idea and took a heavy write off in less than a year. You could argue they “executed” perfectly, but were exactly wrong.

Warren Buffett says “it is better to be approximately correct than exactly wrong.”

What is the value of “executing” if the idea is bad and noone buys it? $Negative.

Have you ever tried to make anything and sell it?

It’s hard.

I’m working on a new product. It’s not that complex, but we’re working with UL, sourcing components, finding quality suppliers and responding to customers.

Every day a new, unexpected challenge comes up.

My mantra every day has become “F* it. We’ll try again.” All expectations about the “plan” continuously change and the process of letting go is constant.

When everything changes, the creativity muscle flexes and sometimes fails under the weight of immediate decisions. Many times the decisions have hidden implications only visible after the decision is made.

It highlights how incredible some of the success stories are. There are so many opportunities for failure at the intersection of every decision. Navigating those decisions, consistently, is incredibly hard.

Ben Milne is a hero of mine and an example of the value of ideas. I’d call him a mentor, though he doesn’t know me.

He’s a straight-talking, f-bomb-dropping, corn fed Iowa kid. From what I can tell, he’s easily annoyed at the inconveniences of life, and doesn’t hide it. He’ll tell you if he thinks something is bullshit and he’s usually right.

(Ben, iterating)

But Ben doesn’t fit your normal geekapreneur profile. He’s not a royal. He didn’t come from money. He didn’t go to a fancy school. He didn’t roll with a group of vcs or geek out coding apps when he was 8. He’s just another kid from the Midwest who had ideas that are worth a $billion.

Ideas are the blood of life. Whatever you want starts with ideas.

From nothing comes something and the space in between is the idea. Like the spark of the big bang. Everything after that is meaningless unless it is fed a strict diet of ideas every day.

Because ideas are experiments. Experiments yield information which yield decisions which yield results that yield problems requiring more ideas. But the game doesn’t stop when someone “wins”. You can “exit” a business or idea, but as long as the business is alive, ideas must continue.

Which is exactly the problem with the statement “execution is everything ideas are meaningless”.

Execution for what and for whom? When they say “execution is everything ideas are meaningless” I want to puke.

There is no “execution” there is only “experimentation, adjustment and experimentation”, hopefully with enough time to figure out where there’s traction before you go broke. It’s the “Build-Measure-Learn” loop mentioned in “Lean Startup” by Eric Ries.

The ideas are important and “execution” isn’t “execution” at all.

Execution is Ideas In Action:
1. persistence – going under, over, around or through barriers
2. flexibility – switching course and letting go of your “plan” when it’s not working; doubling up when it is; trying new ideas and recognizing assumptions about the market may be wrong
4. ideas – the foundation for everything: constant ideation to overcome hurdles
5. effort – drawing more than you may have in your energy reserve. you have to make that one more call. send that one more email and hear yet another “no”: “no, we can’t do this for you”, “you’re not our kind of customer”, “no, we won’t invest”, “no we don’t like the idea”, and keep going.
6. selling – because without sales, you have nothing

You’re never “done” it’s never “executed” unless you consider a sale or taking cash off the table the “execution”.

Dwolla handles billions of dollars in currency transactions, charging a straight fee no matter the size of the transaction. It’s the best deal out there and I’ve used it for everything from collecting payments from customers to paying software developers in Russia.

When Ben started, he heard nos from all angles. He didn’t have the background, or the connections, or the knowledge. He had a vision, but as he dug in, things changed and he had to be flexible. The recently released Dwolla apis for example. Dwolla needs new “ideas” to adapt their product to the market: iterate, test, launch, cancel.

When Yakima misstepped with gear organization they correctly cut their loss. They learned and iterated. We built new products that recreated categories and revenue poured in again. Flexing creativity and new ideas in the face of mistakes.

It happens all the time in startups: execution is good, but the idea is bad and it dies; investors lose their money.

The key to success are the ideas that get you through the challenges. You can call ideas “execution” but don’t call ideas “worthless”. They’re the most important thing you have and the one thing that costs you nothing in the beginning.

They’ll also save you after a failure. Or during depression. Or after your girlfriend breaks your heart. Ideas crack open the weight of the world and let light flow through.

So don’t dismiss your ideas with the overused but useless adage “ideas are meaningless, execution is everything”. Instead, go for it.

Your dreams might be waiting within your ideas, where everyone else is afraid to go.

inspiration:

Faith, Death And Pepperoni Pizza On Lake Michigan

(Jib also goes by the name Genoa sail, nicknamed Genny. Our boat, Faith, is a sloop like this with a full keel)

The wall of black hit our boat.

Winds powered up from 5 to 70 knots. Waves grew from 1 to over 12 feet instantly, breaking upon themselves as frothy whitecaps collapsed down into black troughs and blew water pellets from the crest.

Our boat was bashed as our mother shoved the Genny down the forward hatch where my younger sister and I pulled the sail into the cabin directly on top of ourselves.

Dad held the tiller pointing the bow into the wind as my older brother reefed the mainsail.

(reefer madness. reefing the mainsail reduces lift)

Waves came from all directions.

My older brother, Mom and Dad layered on rain gear as they were stung by the pellets like kamikaze wasps. Torrential rain whipped sideways as the boat was heaved about.

My younger sister and I huddled in the cabin, as directed, not scared but aware of urgency.

Temperatures dropped 20 then 30 degrees, soaking and chilling the crew.

The boom was chocked to center by the main sheets.

We were facing north but blowing in reverse at 4 knots. There was little to do except fight and anticipate the next big wave and try.to.hold.steady. Bobbing straight up, then back down and getting hit from the side by cross waves.

(it was like this that day)

Until then it was a warm sunny day on Lake Michigan in 1986.

80 degrees with a light breeze. A boring sail up the West Coast of the Michigan shore. We lounged, making slow progress having left White Lake, Michigan hours earlier and only progressing about 6 miles.

We were convicted in our laziness, waiting for the next port to arrive while watching the shore slip by slowly. Minutes took hours, but it was summer so we didn’t mind. My brother, sister and I played the common deck games we invented while cruising the Lake every summer since birth. At 12, 8 and 6 our games were imaginative.

Off in the distance a wall of dark clouds came from the North, hanging low and moving quickly. We were too far to retreat. The shore offered only danger. We put our guard up and faced what became the worst storm we’d ever encountered on Lake Michigan.

“I think we should take down the Genny and prep the storm jib” Mom said.

She repeated the comment with more emotion, louder.

“Ok” said Dad, releasing the Genny (jib) halyard.

In 5 minutes the storm covered more than 5 miles, bearing down like a train. She ran to the bow and yanked the Genny down. The bow of the boat sprung straight up the first wave.

Mom climbed back to the cockpit, fighting to stay in the boat.

The boat tossed about. In the cabin we bounced like balls from a ping pong paddle.

Occasionally the aft cabin hatch slid open. Rain and a wet crew member poured in for a minute grabbing necessities and climbing back out.

This went on for hours into the darkness.

(been there done that)

But before darkness it was daylight and we weren’t the only boat to get caught with our sheets out.

The VHF radio was turned up to listen to weather and ships calling for help. Mayday.

We couldn’t help. We were small, slow, distant, and at the mercy of the storm. We could hear and see the victims churning about: a sailboat who lost rudder control (likely a sheared pin), and another inexperienced crew pleading for assistance.

We viewed the boats tossing and drifting out of sight. Hoping that mercy would honor the floating fiberglass bobber. It was a game of time. Whichever ended first – the boats or the weather.

There is a saying, “if you can handle a boat on the Great Lakes, you can handle a boat anywhere.”

Most people make the deadly mistake of thinking Lake Michigan is incapable of harboring some of the worst storms of any sea. It’s a lake, after all.

But songs have been written about the storms that sank unsinkable freighters. Buoys and visible wrecks mark the more notable or dangerous while the most famous “Edmund Fitzgerald” is hidden 500 feet below.

Over 6,000 wrecks can be found throughout the Great Lakes; hundreds known on Lake Michigan.

(the Francisco Morazan is visible from the south end of South Manitou Island in northern Lake Michigan where she was bashed ashore in a storm and sits rusting away)

What makes Great Lakes storms such killers?

The Great Lakes are not as large as oceans so the waves have less distance to form. They thus form short, steep waves like alleys between buildings.

The storms start swiftly. Ships are caught unprepared. Wet graves are dug.

(we were in waves like this – short, steep, from all directions)

Large freighters sink on the Great Lakes partly because of midline breaches: vessels caught bow on one peak and stern on the other, splitting in half. Smaller boats – yachts – of 45-60 feet – cannot transition wave to wave, so end up heading down one face as the next buries the bow in water, or swamps her entirely.

But our boat – Faith – was of both size and build fitting for a lake like Michigan.

25′-9″ long with a full leaded keel, perfect to ride steep waves up and down while remaining upright.

Our family was notorious for going out in hard conditions – cruising in seas of 6 ft waves and 20 knot winds wasn’t abnormal. My parents were trained by Great Lakes sailing legend Bill Morgan, once a deckhand on a pirate ship in the caribbean in the early 1900s, and since a master captain who solo-sailed around The Great Lakes for fun.

For a long time we did not have money, but we bought Bill’s boat and set out for two weeks each summer touring Lake Michigan as a family, earning our sea legs.

And there we were.

The battle finally subsided to 6ft seas and 30 knot winds.

Exhausted, we came about and ran south back to White Lake, arriving at nearly 2am.

(this is running)

We huddled into the yacht club restaurant which the manager held open serving hot drinks to harbor workers. The cooks gone, we ate 6″ pepperoni pizzas from the microwave. The taste of death averted, life given back.

(OMG!)

Others were not so lucky.

Off Traverse City, Michigan at least one boat capsized. Four people drowned in the storm, other cruisers were washed ashore as they lost control. Damage was extensive to ports such as White Lake. Boats moored at the harbor were lifted onto docks and run aground on shore. Boats arrived by US Coast Guard tow all night, with harrowing tales of survival. Others had to be salvaged from beaches.

But we survived. Maybe it was the training by Mr. Morgan. Maybe it was the skill by which our parents sailed the boat. Maybe it was right-place-right-time. Maybe it was practice. Maybe it was the boat itself.

Sometimes it’s just your lucky day. And we were glad to take it.

(Faith at her current home in Everett, Washington)

7 Ways To Make Money NOW

(i rented a room in this house where i started my first business)

When I was in college I was pretty broke so I started a business in Missoula, Montana in my tiny 75 square foot bedroom in a 6-bedroom house where I lived with 4 girls and 1 other guy.

I had no space and very little money but sometimes our constraints are advantages.

I was an outdoor athlete along with many others in Missoula, so I used my Dad’s company “Equipment Sales Company” (a company that built machines for the ceramic wire industry) to open accounts with outdoor gear companies. I posted handwritten signs around town “Wholesale Outdoor Gear 30-50% Off. Call 406-555-5555”

They would order the gear they wanted, save a ton of money on gear and I would get a 10% cut risk-free. It wasn’t huge but it paid rent. I’ve gone on to start 3 or 4 more businesses, help turn around a $50M company, help raise money and build a company into its IPO and I’ve got a few new projects I’m working on. I have a different perspective on things, but sometimes you need money NOW.

A lot of us are broke but the thought of starting a company is intimidating. We don’t know where to start or what to do. We’re afraid we might do something wrong or we need an accountant or an LLC, SCorp, CCorp, and so on. In short, we talk ourselves out of doing it because we’re afraid of the scary monsters in the lurky business forest.

But it’s not that scary. You just haven’t seen the forest during the day when the ferns and trillium are lit by sunlight. There are no monsters, just opportunities, and you’re standing there in the middle and I’m going to try to help.

(the forest seems scary at night…)

(…but it’s not so scary after all)

Before you start, this is what I recommend:

1. Write down ideas every day. What’s an idea? the idea and the next step it takes to start the idea.
2. Look around at your resources: somewhere to live, a talent, a car, bikes, boat, skills like cooking or drawing, maybe you know something unique, maybe extra space, a dock, a piece of land.
3. Be specific about how much money you need. Maybe it’s $50 for food or $1,000 to pay your mortgage.
4. See where you can cut expenses now so you can relieve some pressure. Give yourself some freedom.
5. Forget about the big details. Once you get traction (money coming in) worry about the rest. Maybe you never need a business structure and can just stick to nothing and file a Sole Proprietorship at the end of the year with your taxes.

With our smartphones and the web in full force, you have a powerful platform and tools to make money.

Here are 7 of the ways you can make money NOW:

(rent a place to crash on airbnb)

1. Rent your space. Use Airbnb, Vacation Rental By Owner or Craiglist. I was in Maui and people were renting tents in their back yard in Hana for $45/night with sleeping bags, refreshments and breakfast. There are no boundaries anymore. Rent your couch, rent your deck, rent your sleeping bag. Turn a room into a pirate ship and rent it. Throw in an eye patch and hot buttered rum. Offer your space for storage-  use a small corner of the garage and rent it for $100/month. Maybe your shed. Anything you have – get creative. Rent the space that is just sitting there.

(rent your tools on craigslist)

2. Rent tools. Growing up I was oblivious. We had a barn full of tools we hardly used: a wood splitter, a chipper, power tools, several lawn mowers. I could have put an ad in the paper and rented the tools and made a ton of cash (well, a ton for a kid anyway). Use Craigslist and rent your tools. Someone needs that tile saw in your basement.

(sell your cookies!)

3. Sell your food. My aunt won Illinois State Fair awards for her chocolate chip cookies. Her recipe could be bigger than Famous Amos. In grad school I built her the front page of a website called “Aunt Bee’s Bakery.” It had bees buzzing around a chocolate chip cookie and the chips were each a different menu option that popped up on scroll over. She hasn’t done it but maybe you can. Sell food in parking lots in front of busy stores, rent a small space and start a little tail gate restaurant at a food truck lot. Offer to cook for parties. Sell at Farmer’s Markets or other events. Dave’s Killer Bread started this way and is huge today. Grow something (no, not that) – trees, flowers, vegetables, anything, and sell it to local stores or florists or nurseries.

(build stuff people want…)

(…like the bubble tea collar from ii inu)

4. Build stuff. In 2004 I cofounded a company called ii inu (ee-ee-new; Japanese for “Good Dog”). It was a designer pet products company started when my partner created a cool looking collar for her dog. People stopped her to ask where they could buy. First we built them ourselves, then I outsourced manufacturing to a company in Seattle. Within 6 months we were in stores in 36 states and 12 countries. Our cost was $2.40-$4.30 and they sold for $42-$60 retail. It was a good business. What can you make that someone else can buy? Sell it on Etsy.com, eBay,  get a Shopify web store or in local stores. No local stores? Find other stores and call them or send a free sample.

(do this, but not creepy like this guy)

5. Offer other services. If you’re a student you should launder peoples clothes for $7.50/basket. 100 loads is $750/month. Maybe it’s 1,000 loads. Offer to create facebook pages and twitter accounts for $20/month for businesses. Get 10 businesses and you’re making $200/month for just a little effort. Get 100 businesses and you’ve got $2K/month. Would that change your game? Do yardwork, mow lawns, serve elderly or handicapped by running errands, offer a coffee delivery service to offices near you. Drive someone – sign up with Lyft or Uber and user your car as a service. People in cities are making $50K/year doing this. Think of a service you can offer right now to people in need. One idea I think would be a great business is helping other people convert their extra space to being Airbnb ready or driving people to airports at 1/2 the cost of a town car. Decorate Christmas trees, power wash decks, string lights or shovel driveways.

(entertain people)

6. Entertain people. Can you play music, edit video or do some other fun thing? Offer to perform at parties or services for local active events. Teach music or sports or tutor kids in those activities. Belly dance. I know one girl who teaches belly dancing and practically owns the market for belly dancing costumes.

7. Help local businesses make money. What local business can you help? Approach restaurants, stores, anyone and offer to help them advertise or run special events. Take a % of the money from each event or that day’s sales. Help a different businesses every weekend and observe to find more services they need or opportunities to extend the money you make.

But there’s just one catch. In any of these ideas, do it differently. Be remarkable. Give people more than they expect:
-if you’re mowing lawns, dress up like a clown. Be “Clown Mowing”. Every time a car passes they will be like “hey there’s a clown mowing a lawn!” When they need their lawn mowed, they will want you. Maybe they’ll start using you every week just for laughs
-if you’re renting a space on Airbnb throw in more than the guest expects. If they rent your couch, throw in dinner or a free Netflix movie. Surprise them to the upside so they give rave reviews or come back again
-if you’re cooking something throw in a sample of something else you cook or give them a recipe for anything they’re interested in. Help them learn to cook themselves

Being remarkable will do two things: 1. It will get you a lot of attention. Imagine how many people would share “Clown Mowing” on facebook, twitter and Instagram. 2. It will make you more money. More people will want to have that experience and they’ll be willing to pay more for it.

Colonel Sanders started KFC by selling chicken at his gas station. Ray Croc wasn’t too good to flip burgers. Conrad Hilton started with one crappy hotel, built a business, lost it and rebuilt it. You’re not too good for whatever idea you have. Just do the work.

When I feel uninspired or unmotivated I remind myself that everything, EVERYTHING, starts small. Microsoft was just a few guys in a room. Facebook was one kid in his dorm. Famous Amos cookies was an eccentric guy and a recipe. McDonald’s was a single diner. One thing is all it takes.

Right now I am working on at least 3 projects. I’ll share the details when it’s time. Some of it won’t work out, hopefully some of it will. No matter what, I’m not going to stop, because everything I want is just ahead.

And when I feel like stopping, I go to Wikipedia and read about Colonel Sanders, Conrad Hilton and others who started from nothing.

Sometimes I wonder what is missing in the world today because so many other people quit just before they became a huge success.

If you feel like quitting, read these stories and don’t give up. I believe in you:

Colonel Sanders

Ray Croc

Conrad Hilton

Sarah Blakely

John Paul DeJoria

Howard Schultz

Nick Woodman

(inspiration)

How To Run 50 Miles (part II)

(cliff young is a hero to me. he was 61 when he won the 544 mile ultra race in Australia and changed the way modern runners run distance races)

Running far means being on your feet for a long time and eating right.

Using the tricks I’ve discovered over years of training I can run about 30 miles any time I want.

The two keys are: Nutrition (what you eat) and Conditioning (how you get and stay fit).

Not all food is the same. Not all conditioning will prepare you the way you need.

Most people overemphasize their training and underemphasize their nutrition. It’s almost better to do the opposite so let’s start with food.

Recap:
1. no more than 300 calories per hour; avoid sucrose aka Gatorade, Powerade, junk food, and so on
2. no more than 16-20oz water per hour
3. you need electrolyte supplements if you are prone to cramping or are exercising past 2 hours
4. you need to take in protein supplements if you are exercising past 2 hours or your body will cannibalize itself

(I only use hammer products because they keep my stomach calm, taste good and work)

Specifically, I use Hammer Nutrition supplements. I use them exclusively because they use long-chain carbohydrates that do not upset my stomach in flavors that are easy to digest, and they explain each of their products so you can tweak your intake to specifically what you need. Everyone has their preference and I’m not compensated by them in any way.
The products I use from Hammer are: HEED carb drink with electrolytes, Perpetuem protein fuel, Endurolytes electrolyte pills, Hammer Gel energy gel (with electrolytes) and Recoverite recovery drink.

This is how I fuel (based on time, not distance):
1. runs up to 1 hour: 1-2 Endurolytes prior, generally nothing while I’m running unless I just feel crappy that day in which case I’ll take 8-10oz water with 1/2-1 scoop HEED mixed in
2. Runs up to 2 hours: 1-2 Endurolyte pills beforehand then a 16-20oz water bottle with 2 scoops HEED; if it’s a tough 2-hour run I’ll take 2 water bottles (each with HEED) and carry 6-9 Endurolyte pills – 3-4 per hour (1 every 15-20 minutes); if it’s hot, I’ll take 12-15 Endurolyte pills (4-7 per hour with a couple extra in case I drop them)
3. Long runs of 2+ hours: 1-2 Endurolytes ahead of the run; 16-20oz/hour in a camelbak or I’ll plan a run past a water source where I can fill up. Along with this I’ll take a multi-hour bottle of Perpetuem: mix 1-2scoops perpetuem + I mix in 1scoop HEED per hour of exercise (3 hours would be 6 scoops Perpetuem + 3 scoops HEED mixed together for me) and add water. This will be my fuel source for long runs – a single thick gooey bottle of running food, then 16-20oz of pure water (48-60 oz for 3 hours) from a Camelbak. On top of this I’ll plan 4-6 Endurolytes per hour or 12-18 Endurolytes for a 3-hour run + a few extra in case I drop some along the way (inevitable when you’re juggling them as you run down a steep trail).

Summarized:
1 hour – 1-2 Endurolytes + 1/2 bottle of water mixed with 1-scoop HEED
2 hours – 1-2 Endurolytes prior + 1 bottle per hour containing 16-20oz water + 2 scoops HEED; 4-6 Endurolytes per hour (1 every 15 minutes, more if it’s hot)
2+ hours – 1-2 Endurolytes prior + 16-20oz water per hour in a Camelbak + a bottle filled with 2 scoops perpetuem + 1 scoop HEED for every hour planned (3 hours = 6 Perpetuem + 3 HEED scoops in the bottle mixed with water to form paste + 48-60oz water in the Camelbak I use to wash the paste down and sip frequently)

This food model is scalable, so just adjust it to the length of your run and your personal needs. Some people can run for two hours without drinking anything. I am not one of those people and you shouldn’t try to be. It’s dangerous, especially when you’re considering ultra-marathons. You might feel good one hour and completely blow up the next.

Also important: as soon as you finish a 2 hour run or longer, you need to take vitamins right away. I used to get sick when I was training hard because my immune system was compromised. Taking vitamins post-run will help recharge your body and protect your immune system. A single big general supplement is good or you can buy vitamins from Hammer.

And I always drink Recoverite after any run. Replaces protein and muscle glycogen that will prep you for the next run. This is critical and shouldn’t ever be skipped. If you skip a recovery meal it’s likely your next run will be harder and more painful.

As for the actual running part…

When was the last time you were on your feet for 10 hours nonstop? It’s probably been awhile. So we have to start small when we’re training for an ultra and this is how we start. Start standing up for 3 or 4 hours. You can start by going for a long walk (time, not distance). Anything to get you on your feet.

Once you can stand for hours at a time start jogging. Walk, jog, walk, jog, walk, jog.

Set the bar low, then build it up once you have a base.

Actually, this is the key to finishing ultramarathons that few people talk about. Until you’re ultra-conditioned to run for 50 straight miles, the way to do an ultra (and any other longest distance run as you’re starting out) is to avoid redlining.

You avoid redlining by jogging flats and downhills and walking uphill or walking any time you feel like you’re starting to overexert. The key to going far is going slow.

As my pro athlete friend Chuck once told me “go slow to go fast.” And I say “go slow to go far.”

Once you can do that, you switch it so you are running while taking walking breaks whenever you need to: jog, walk, jog, walk, jog, and so on.

Once you’ve got that, you start running, slowly, for short then longer runs.

Once you can do this, you start running short and fast, then mixing in really slow long runs. This builds muscle and endurance. The skyscraper on the foundation.

Running short-fast sets followed by running long-slow sets is the training method we’ll use to build your foundation.

After doing this for a few months, you’ll be ready for anything.

So here’s the specific program I follow when I’m training for a long race:

During the week I hate going on pre-planned long training runs. It’s hard to find the time and it’s boring. I’d rather have fun with running, so here is the in-week plan:

Go outside or to a trailhead and just run at a moderate pace (for you) for 15 minutes to wherever you end up. Note exactly where you end up and remember it. You should be working a little bit but not stressing the distance or overexerting. This 15-minute distance point is your new benchmark, and around which your running plan will be built.

Turn around and run back to the start. This should be about 30 minutes of running total.

On weekends, we’re going to do subsequent longer, slower runs consecutively both Saturday and Sunday.

So your plan will look something like:
Tuesday – 30 minute(ish) run
Thursday – 30 minute(ish) run
Saturday – long run
Sunday – long run

That’s it. This is where you start.

Your weekly runs (Tuesday/Thursday) don’t change in length, but they do change.

Once you have your 15-minute benchmark, you are now going to stress yourself on these short runs.

You will run these short runs for speed.

Every Tuesday and Thursday you’re going to do the same run. But you’re going to do it as fast as you can on the way out. On the way back you can run at a slow recovery pace, but try to go a little faster than that.

You will find that your 15-minute mark actually drops to 14 minutes, then 13 and even 12 minutes one-way and your total 30-minute run drops to 25-27 minutes total as you get faster.

Why? This builds strength, power and your VO2 max (lung capacity). And as your weekend distance runs increase you will be going out tired from the weekend run and stressing your body on these short, but hard runs.

Also, this becomes a palatable running program that doesn’t force you to run for 3 hours after a long day at work or when it’s dark. You can run in the morning before work, at lunch or whenever is convenient.

Just be sure you’re running as fast as you can to your original marker along the same route, then back to the start. It will feel very hard.

If you travel a lot, you can still do this program during the week while you travel. Just use the 15/30 minute run as a guide – run as hard as you can for 15 minutes sustained, then turn around and run back at a slower recovery pace.

You can also use  a treadmill with the same program.

As your base builds, you build your weekend distance:
Saturday – 1.5 hour run
Sunday – 1.5 hour run

1 month in:
Saturday – 2 hour run
Sunday – 1.5 hour run

2 months in:
Saturday – 2 hour run
Sunday – 2 hour run

3 months in:
Saturday – 3 hour – 3.5 hour run
Sunday – 2 hour run

4 months in:
Saturday – 5 hour run
Sunday – 2 hour run

By the time you reach a 6 hour run on Saturday you’ll be at about the 60% distance (30-31 miles or so) that is long enough for you to be ready for the Ultra.

It’s important to rest. If a weekend comes and you feel totally destroyed, drop down to consecutive 1-hour runs, do a really slow long run or even take a day off. Recovery is crucial and risking injury can sideline you from your goal.

You’re also allowed to use the run-walk strategy during training. It’s likely the first month that 1.5 hour runs on consecutive days will be very hard for you, especially through the mountains or hills. In that case you jog (slowly) flats and walk anything uphill. OR, you jog until you feel tired, then walk until you feel better. Just keep repeating the jog-walk-run strategy as you progress.

And don’t beat yourself up. The goal is to finish, not to break a record. There are no additional points for suffering.

Put it all together and you get short, fast runs during the week building your power and then long-slow runs on weekends building your endurance and teaching you what your body needs and when it needs it.

You will start “feeling” your muscles craving food and electrolytes and you will see what the effect is of various caloric intakes.

Most importantly, listen to your body. My guide is just a reference. If you’re cramping more than you should, bonking or feeling tight in your legs: increase electrolytes and carbs during your run. If you’re feeling bloated or salty, reduce electrolytes or food. Tweak slowly and look for the response.

Don’t run through injuries and remember why you’re running. It should be fun, not torture (sometimes torture is fun, but be smart).

(overtraining is a serious problem. go slow to go fast. go slow to go far. go slow and have fun. don’t overtrain)

This plan will get you ready for your first 50-mile ultra marathon and it works for other endurance events too.

Let me know how this works for you and if you have any “tweaks” I’d love to hear about them.

Oh 1 more thing: use sunscreen always, wear a hat with a bill to protect your face, get some arm warmer sleeves that peel away, invest in a good thin running shell and always have a great playlist – those runs can get boring after a couple hours. Email me or add a comment below if you want my gear suggestions.

That’s it. Have fun. Go run. Stay healthy.

(Lastly: I run in Altra zero-drop shoes exclusively. wide toe box and zero-drop is comfortable and prevents injury. these are not minimal shoes, but they do help you run naturally)

Take A Deep Whiff

“You have to smell it. Take a deep whiff.”

Their grandfather was in his 90s. It seemed he was in his 90s for 15 years because when you’re a child age is constant. Until he passed away.

But before he passed away, he was in his 90s and lived with them, C & B (initials for privacy), our friends.

We grew up on the end of a dead end street in Illinois. You could now call it a suburb of Chicago. But then it was just rural Illinois.

It was the dead end of a street with a 2-acre yard bordered by thousands of acres of woods and wetlands, streams and ponds.

It was a small neighborhood so us kids formed a gang.

(it only took 1 google search)

We had a plastic urinal from their grandfather because there’s a lot of schwag that happens with an old person and a plastic urinal seemed useful. We hid it under a large spruce tree in our yard.

So my older brother and our neighbor, B, made an initiation out of it.

After lunch someone convinced someone else to stick their finger down their throat and puke into the urinal.

We ate a lot of summer sausage and cheese. What can you expect? We lived not far from the border of Wisconsin. And so it began.

“Take a deep whiff.”

I was the first after my older brother and B initiated themselves.

I whiffed. But it wasn’t bad at first.

You’d hold the handle, pop the yellow lid with your thumb and stick your nose to the edge. At first it required the help of a finger in the back of the throat because the smell wasn’t horrible yet, but you could visually identify sausage rinds and cheese curds if you looked closely, so the visual and the finger kickstarted the gag reflex.

I puked. They cheered. We passed the urinal in a circle for a second round.

We puked, laughed and cheered.

It was fun.

The next day it was worse.

It smelled of ripe meat and rotten cheese mixed with fermented fruit. Enough to trigger the gag reflex, no finger required.

We invited friends over.

It grew riper as each new member’s initiation succeeded.

“Take a deep whiff.” If it didn’t happen on the first, we’d repeat “take a deeper whiff…”

Friend after friend whiffed and puked. Another kid’s reflux was added. We dry heaved and celebrated.

The yellow lid was flipped down and urinal placed back at the base of the great blue spruce.

(this is a blue spruce and this is perhaps the only valuable piece of information in this post)

We forgot about it for awhile.

It was a hot July in Illinois. Degrees of heat = humidity in percentage.

It fermented and gestated.

Until an altercation.

Our neighbor, B, and his sister, C, notoriously fought.

She said something. They yelled at each other. They tugged and pulled.

He stuttered back and disappeared under the great blue spruce.

He emerged. Yellow lid open, urinal in hand, she wide-eyed in panic.

We dry heaved at the sight of the yellow lid, trained like Pavlov’s dogs.

His arm arced broadly. Drops, then streams, of puke and loogies and pee and maggots spewed forth.

We scattered like mice from a cat.

We arched our backs and ran, extending our bodies as far from the smell and funk as possible.

(everything was in slow motion)

I’m sure we screamed. But I remember only silence and slow motion like a tranquilized Will Ferrell in “Old School.”

She ran, he chased and sprayed until it was empty.

A drop on the hand was cause for panic. A spray on the shirt drew tears.

Clothes were shed as we ran inside.

Friends raced home to shower.

The yard was abandoned to all but the lonely, dirty urinal tossed back under the great blue spruce where it sat for 3 years until receiving a proper burial in the trash.

It was an upchuck tornado and the second most disgusting memory I have of childhood. I will not recount the first.

“Take a deep whiff.”

But we all have our own urinals.

News, commercials, war, poverty, hunger, sickness, cancer, injustice, death, traffic, anger, hate, fear, drugs, slavery, and so on, and so on, and so on.

Virtual urinals people stick in our faces and tell us “take a deep whiff” because we just have to smell what they’re smelling and add to their collection of puke.

So we whiff. And with each whiff we throw up a little bit inside, filling up our urinal a little bit more. And we feel better when we share it and someone else throws up in our urinal.

Each day it ferments and gestates into something more disgusting that we hold onto until something triggers us and we pass it on, telling them “take a deep whiff.”

We’re trained like Pavlov’s dogs.

Our urinals are no longer obvious like they were then. They are anything that makes us feel worse about ourselves or our lives or our relationships, eroding our happiness.

So I’m not whiffing any more. I quit awhile ago.

I’m keeping my stomach acid where it belongs.

Digesting goodness into energy that I can use for my well being and the well being of my friends and family.

I whiff only the fruits and flowers of Maui, roses of Portland, autumn in Washington, Jasmine in Southern California, sharing it with those I love.

What would you rather whiff?

(stop and smell the flowers or the urinal. it’s your choice)

How To Run 50 Miles (part 1)

(these guys are running 100 miles. let’s start with 50)

You may have just finished the 33rd Annual ING New York City Marathon, in which case you might agree:

Running can be miserable.

While running I’ve been:

Screamed at by passing cars in the middle of nowhere and black-smogged by those jacked-up diesel engine redneck trucks (you know the kind with tennis balls hanging from the trailer hitch).

(yah. like that)

Warned by a US Navy Seal “You are in a restricted zone with unexploded ordinances. Go back the way you came. IMMEDIATELY.”

(Honey Bucket please sponsor me)

Hit with runner’s distress more times than I can count: squatted in a patch of recently mown poison oak (I didn’t know, obviously), relieved myself behind bushes a few feet from other people who are lucky they didn’t look over, relearned how to pray (“Please, God, let there be a Honey Bucket!”) and sacrificed more underwear to the trail gods than I care to remember.

I’ve bonked* in the mountains 10 miles from home, cramped badly hobbling the last couple miles, and suffered from heat exhaustion while running in 100 degrees through the desert.

Jumped over rattlesnakes, chased by coyotes, gotten way too close to a mountain lion, brushed up against tarantulas, been sunburned, stung by bees and bitten by ticks.

Rolled my ankles so many times that it doesn’t phase me, and suffered from near hypothermia as rain and ice poured down on my jacketless body.

I even ran on a broken leg once. Yes, it hurt. No, I didn’t know it was broken.

This year I projectile vomited at 1:30AM on a rural highway in Oregon. Four times. (it looked pretty awesome in the light of my headlamp but scared me thinking I was not going to finish the race (it could have been an instagram that made even @JoseCabaco proud) note: later diagnosed with e-coli)

(like this but at night and looked awesome in the light of my headlamp)

But I still run. I can’t stop. I’m an addict.

I just spent a week living in a van like a dirtbag, sleeping in parking lots and weird places, running remote trails on Maui because it was one of my dream trips. If that doesn’t say ‘ADDICTED’, I don’t know what does.

But my torture is your salvation.

There is no logical reason to run 50 miles. None.

There is no rainbow. No pot of gold at the end. No leprechaun.

(this will not be there)

You will not get rich. You will not get famous.

You will suffer. You will question yourself. You might burn your skin and get bad blisters. If you’re not prepared, you could get dehydrated or overhydrated.

Your body could fail. Your kidneys could shut down.

You may lose control of your bowels.

But a few people out there still want to do it.

I get it.

And you know what? They can.

I’ve seen 77 year old women finish ultramarathons.

(at 70 he’s run the 135-mile Badwater Ultra 14 times)

If you do, it will change your life. It will change your context and your perspective.

When we look at our bank accounts, our jobs, people driving fancy cars, the things we always wanted to do but haven’t, we sometimes lose our way and think those things are bigger than us. We need to remember. We are humans and we are bigger than anything material that we’ve created.

Doing something you never thought you could makes you realize that if you can do that, you can do anything.

You are bigger than money or cars or jobs or skyscrapers or 50 mile races. You are part of what created those things. You are not a victim. You can manifest anything with the right focus and effort. You are still alive.

If you don’t want to run 50 miles. Stop here.

If you do, I have to warn you.

I’m a running hacker.

I’ve never done a marathon (at least not a sanctioned one).

I hate running on pavement.

I want to do the most by putting out the least effort.

I may not be fast, but I can go forever.

In 2009 I got ready to run The Leona Divide 50-mile Ultra in 4 months. Since then, I can pretty much run anything up to 30 miles with little preparation more than my standard running schedule, and this training method.

I don’t cramp. I don’t bonk and I don’t stress over it.

But how is this possible? People kill themselves getting ready for 26.2 miles.

They cramp, they puke, they bonk, they cry.

But I don’t:

Because most of what people do for marathons is wrong.

Much of what you’re doing is probably wrong.

Because you’re trying too hard and ignoring your nutrition.

Running a long distance is possible (unless you have a condition that makes it particularly difficult); it’s a 3-step process:
1. Stand
2. Walk
3. Run

And the key to everything, the under-appreciated and under-discussed secret – is your nutrition.

You have to eat and drink while you’re exercising or your body will shut down.

More importantly, you have to eat and drink certain things. The right things.

Someone once said to me “I feel like you’re one of those people who just got up one day and decided to run 50 miles and did it”. I was slightly offended by this because it’s not that simple. I put tons of work into preparing, it just wasn’t traditional preparation. Then again, I’ve always been an outlier.

I may have never run a marathon or been stereotyped as a “typical runner” going out and working my way up from 5k races to marathons to ultras, but I did something different that applies to any endurance sport: I gained experience bagging alpine peaks, competing in 8-12 hour cycling or adventure races, and climbing long technical rock routes in Washington, Oregon, Montana and elsewhere.

I spent hours reading books on endurance nutrition and testing theories. It was almost 10 years of learning, trial and error. Then after all of that “I just got up one day and decided to run 50 miles…”

It was during those adventures that I found secrets – what works and what doesn’t. Especially for nutrition.

Here are the secret nutrition rules no one ever told you (probably because they never knew):
1. you can only absorb 16-20oz of water per hour
2. you can only digest ~300 calories per hour
3. the wrong kinds of foods will not only upset your stomach (runner’s distress) but will also cause your endocrine system to go berserk. Mass changes in insulin cause mass changes in energy. Eat the wrong thing and you may bonk or worse.
3a. if exercising <2hrs you can get away with long-chain carbs and electrolytes in energy drinks and that’s it
3b. if exercising >2hrs you need to add electrolyte supplements and protein to your fuel plan to avoid body cannibalization (i.e. your body breaking down muscle into energy)
4. your body has a certain amount of muscle glycogen stored up within muscles and your liver. for me, it’s about 54 minutes of intense exercise. You may have more (up to 90 minutes) or less. Beyond this threshold you need to eat and drink.

These rules mean you will always be operating at a caloric and hydration deficit during endurance events and there is nothing you can do to change it except ingesting the right things at the right time in the right amount.

If not, you will bonk, DNF or worse, during races – they may train hard (even too hard) but they lose when it comes to their food and drink.

Ingesting proper food and drink will save you, even if you’ve undertrained.

So This Is What You Do
Combine the secret rules above and this becomes your formula for success:
A. For each hour after your initial hour (or whatever your limit is for not needing food) of exercise, you should drink no more than 16-20 oz water and eat no more than 300 calories per hour. If you know you’ll go for a long time, you can start eating and drinking as soon as you start exercise.
B. For exercise beyond 2 hours at a time, you should supplement with concentrated electrolytes and protein supplements
C. Once you finish exercising you should eat recovery food immediately that consists of a combination of electrolytes, protein (like whey) and fortified with something that will quickly replace muscle glycogen (like glutamine)

Chances are, you’ve been eating too much or too little, drinking too much or too little and haven’t been supplementing with electrolytes: all your bonking, cramping, and other distress is for naught.

In other words, you’ve been torturing yourself trying to get better and thinking you’re not capable when the secrets were right there hidden out of sight.

If you master nutrition, you’ll master ultra-marathons (or marathons or whatever athletic even you’ve always wanted to do).

(me just before running Haleakala, Maui rim-rim October 26th, 2013

If you’re just starting out, heed this advice: it’s critical for performance and will save you a ton of trouble. Your training will be less painful, more fun and your gains will happen faster.

At the end of the day, if you get nothing else, you will at least appreciate your couch a whole lot more after running 50 miles.

(part 2 of this post will explain the running regimen that will train you without killing you, and I’ll tell you the supplements I use when training and heading out for long runs)

*Bonking is a term that means you feel like your body can no longer move; like you’ve overexerted yourself and run out of gas, whiich, in a lot of ways you have

0 to 50

0 to 50*

(50 miles of bliss: this is where you run the Leona Divide)

“Oh shoot.” She yelled.

Mom’s white knuckles twisted the steering wheel violently. Everything went black.

Restrained by the lap belt, my upper body swung forward. My left arm, encased in plaster, swung directly into my face. The cast broke my nose and left shoulder simultaneously. My right arm punched the dashboard and broke instantly above the wrist. My eyeglasses flew off and everything was blurry. Red droplets fell from my nose and popped as they hit the white plaster cast. Red streaked my t-shirt as I went into shock.

We were hit by a drunk driver attempting an illegal pass. It was 5PM, she bar-hopped since 11AM.

I woke and slept unaware of day or night in the intensive care unit of Northern Illinois Medical Center. Everything was hazy. It wasn’t until 5-days later I received a 2-pint blood transfusion (1/3 my body’s capacity) that I woke fully. I was moved to the pediatric ward and spent 6 weeks isolated in my bed..

My left arm fused at the elbow, left humerus stunted from the broken shoulder, and my right arm was thin and weak in its cast. My leg muscles atrophied from all the time prostrate in bed. I could no longer walk.

I was at Zero.

Unaware laying in the hospital bed I never considered that I couldn’t walk. I grew up outside in rural Illinois, rode my bike to school, built half-pipes and climbed trees. Walking was assumed. I did not understand how my legs no longer worked.

Walking became my singular focus. I learned again like a child, one step at a time, every day for weeks in the hospital.

I spent a year in physical therapy , progress kept in a training log. My first results-measured training. It was a long process but I achieved an almost-full physical recovery, though emotional injuries endured.

Struggling in school the next two years having missed so much. I got picked on for my weakness. Replacing low social status in school with adventure, I focused my hyperactive, shy demeanor, into singular goals: earning a black-belt in karate, achieving Eagle-Scout, ski racing, and, skipping two years of high school finishing college at the University of Montana with two degrees before I could legally drink. I trained, obsessively, as a climber and pushed my limits.

I redpointed 5.12’s, a hard rock climbing grade, always pushing harder, at one point leading the Western Montana Mountain Rescue Team on the first successful recovery mission with another teammate. I combined climbing with endurance training, doing peak marathons with my friend Chuck. Each goal got riskier. Success was fleeting, perpetual and elusive.

The impact of decelerating from 50 to 0 reverberated throughout my life. I was changed forever by the Cub Scout den mother who drank too much.

But we were lucky.

More than 47,000 Americans were killed in car wrecks in 1988. 3 million people on average are injured in crashes each year according to the NHTSA.  Almost 341,000 receive permanent, incapacitating injuries, not to mention unmeasured, debilitating psychological inflictions.

In August 2008 I entered the Mt. Baldy Run-to-The-Top, a Southern California race. I was hardly running but trained for 3 weeks and finished a decent 1h38m on the 8 ¾ mile, 4,000 ft elevation gain course.

On the drive home I wondered.

I’d done triathlons, raced XC mountain bikes and adventure-raced, but I could only think of an ultramarathon. I wanted a 50-mile, kick-my-ass ultra. This became a metaphor for the last 21 years: how I faced every goal in my life.

The Leona Divide is a 50 mile race with total elevation of 9,500 feet. I looked at the website daily and studied the elevation profile. Huge spikes and valleys kept me motivated, so I planned.

(this is what a kick-your-ass ultramarathon looks like)

An ultra is a mentally and physically demanding journey. It requires constant nutrition and pace calculation.

The 50 mile plan became a symbolic capstone from learning to walk again.

I went from 0 to 50 and it changed my life.

I trained using what I learned alpine climbing: I combined speed running for strength, weekday runs averaging 4.2 miles, with weekend endurance running up to 31 miles in terrain similar to The Leona.

I trained alone.

Previous experience and common sense defined my training:

1. Nutrition
2. Recovery
3. Mileage on terrain
4. Speed & Endurance

My longest organized run prior to the Leona was 8 ¾ miles. My longest personal run was 31 miles.

I focused longer runs in the Santa Monica Mountains. The plan gave me elevation gains/losses similar to race conditions. This strategy paid off by knowing my thresholds and avoiding redlining.

I filled my training runs with constant nutrition calculations and iPod earbuds.

My approach to nutrition was simple:
a. <400 calories per hour intake with no refined sugars (sucrose, glucose)
b. 30% replacement hydration, soy-protein enriched supplements for exercise longer than 2 hours
c. electrolytes to avoid cramping and B6 to prevent exercise-induced depression
d. recovery meals combining whey protein and glycogen. This prevented energy peaks and valleys, and sped recovery.

I let go of my training schedule as a law and used it as a guideline letting my body define its recovery.

By two months prior to the race I ran 30 mile training loops with 6-8K elevation gain/loss improving my speed but I was stuck in training mode. I needed optimal recovery and race day performance. I needed team advice.

I called Tracy and Chuck, two world-class athlete friends that gave me the same advice: taper carefully while running during the week prior to the race. The strategy provided recovery time, optimal muscle glycogen, and kept me race-ready.

The race began at 6AM, about 60 miles from home. I woke up at 4:46 and freaked thinking I’d just blown it.

I arrived just 8 minutes late, I started the race, dead last with feet wrapped, drop bags in place, nutrition loaded and iPod ready. I started the 174-track playlist and started up the first hill – a 700 foot climb over 4 miles, Pink Floyd’s Animals kept me calm and focused.

The sun was at the angle that turns the dry desert valleys into ovens. We ran up and down like broiler chickens roasting. I passed several people suffering heat exhaustion so I leveled my pace to avoid overheating. A blister popped in mile 37. A minor issue and far from hydration, heat stroke, digestive, or structural injuries that can debilitate and cause a DNF or worse. The roughest miles were 42-48, climbing 1,100 feet in a baking valley with a taunting blister. The iPod luckily launched into a favorite Foo Fighters set and I cranked the volume, found solace in the pain and gulped fluid.

I finished the LD 50 in 10:53:10, qualifying for the Western States 100.

The Leona Divide changed me. I’d competed against the clock in a sanctioned event, exceeding my own expectation.

(gratuitous picture of a picture of myself throwing a shaka while running the LD50. hanging on Mom’s kitchen wall. thanks MOM)

Reflecting on my path over the last 21 years and its relation to my most recent finish, Chuck sent some encouraging words:

“I warn you now – you have started a very crazy cycle where each accomplishment is judged by the previous one.  Each time you have to go bigger and better to see what your body can accomplish.  Welcome to my world… Walk the path grasshopper but know that it never ends for guys like you and me.”

I guess everyone has their own “50”: that one thing they dream of doing that they believe is out of reach. I imagine for most it is anything scary, testing your own capabilities to learn that you’re more capable than you think.

Some of us seek our gifts in the outdoors, pushing our limits in the raw environment to commune more closely with nature’s beauty, and to unlock hidden mysteries within ourselves. I just bought a surfboard and found my new “50” in the waves of the Pacific. Thanks to the Leona, I feel less fear and more calm as I paddle out into the twilight towards my new “50”.

*part of this post appeared in a 2010 issue of UltraRunning Magazine; this is the full, unedited version