winter – From the desk of Adam Thomas

Don’t let pain stop progress

Showing up, it isn’t free. No pain, no gain.

You give space to the outside world to judge your work. Putting who you are in the town square means the crowd can sling stones at you. When you ship constantly, this isn’t a matter of if, it is a matter of when.

Also, we are our worst critics. Your internal critic plays off of any sound (and no sound at all for that matter) to “confirm” your self-doubt. When you don’t ship, you make excuses.

You open yourself up for pain.

With that said, we have to remember winter facilitates spring. An eternal summer creates a desert.

Pain is the first step towards growth. It clears a path so our inner selves can test our mettle and eliminate our assumptions.

We get to make good on an idea.

That’s impossible when we hide.

Hiding from pain means hiding from growth.

We aren’t due comfort

I haven’t worn a coat this winter. In fact, I have tried to wear short sleeve shirts when I can. The most I’ve done is a hoodie. No, I am not becoming a shut in staying inside. I am using this idea of removing my comfort to improve my resilience.

The only thing I hate about this is that I haven’t tried it earlier!

The Idea

I stole this idea after listening to Tim Ferriss podcast with Wim Hof.

Here is the discription of the episode:

Wim Hof () is a Dutch world record holder, adventurer and daredevil, commonly nicknamed “The Iceman” for his ability to withstand extreme cold. He is the creator of the Wim Hof Method and holds more than 20 world records. Wim is an outlier of outliers, as he routinely asks scientists to scrutinize and validate his feats. Here are just a few examples:

In 2007, he climbed past the “death zone” altitude on Mount Everest (~7,500 meters) wearing nothing but shorts.
In 2009, Hof completed a full marathon above the polar circle in Finland, in temperatures close to −20 °C (−4 °F). Dressed in nothing but shorts, Hof finished in 5 hours and 25 minutes.
Hof holds the current Guinness World Record for the longest ice bath, now set at 1 hour 53 minutes and 12 seconds.

It got me thinking. Why do we wear jackets?

I’ve never tested cold before. Since I was young, I learned to put on a coat – “before I catch cold”. After a certain day, I just threw on a coat, because it was “winter” and didn’t think about it.

I know the people around me meant well, but as I got older, I learned that you don’t catch colds from cold weather – you catch them from disease.

I let that sit in the back of my head for years, until this podcast episode came around. I have thought a lot lately about the ability to test yourself as much as possible when the conditions are favorable, just to see what is the worst that can happen (blame stoicism :-] ).

I have done this for a few weeks now.

About 6 Weeks In

I notice my resistance to cold is building up. Going outside used to make me shiver, and now, I am able to walk out fine. What was unbearable a year ago at 37 degrees wasn’t so bad in a tee-shirt. Make no mistake – I am cold (it is winter!) , but I have noticed there hasn’t been too much difference in how cold I am with a coat and how cold I am with no coat.

The only time I really thought about it was earlier this week, when the temperature hit 15 with a below 0 wind chill (too much too soon). Its been interesting, and I still haven’t bought a coat.