Vertical Finale and Make Dat Bread Challenge (#57)

[00:00:00] hi guys, and welcome to the dead by tomorrow podcast. My name is Daniel winter and my co-host is Andrew Monroe in each episode, Andrew and I will explore topics that you should think about before you die. We encourage you to remember that some tomorrow will be your last, so each day could be your final chance to really

[00:00:19] Andrew: hello, everybody. Welcome back to dead by tomorrow. I will not call you beautiful listeners to this time to, uh, you know, avoid offending Daniel's sensibilities about ugly people, but, uh, we're glad you're here. So. We are wrapping up our third challenge of the year, the vertical challenge. And we're going to be starting our new challenge this episode, which, uh, I don't know if we're going to come up with a cool name or not, but basically it's going to revolve around Daniel.

[00:00:45] Andrew: Nice seeing who can convert, uh, I think a hundred bucks and to the most amount of money by trading bedding, options, crypto something we'll, uh, we'll figure it out. So Daniel. How did the challenge go? You have anything to report. Are you able to dunk? Are you 12 feet tall? What happened this month?

[00:01:09] Daniel: Here's the thing. We're not technically at the end of the challenge yet, which is pretty important. I've got two days left, which means I haven't yet gone out to do my dunking attempts. So what if in the last episode we talked about, I would call this challenge of success. If I could dunk a basketball, if I could get my vertical up to 36 inches.

[00:01:32] Daniel: And so right now I'm at 35, 35 and a half, so I'm pretty dang close. And so I'm hoping with, um, I'm going to use the next couple of days of the challenge that are remaining to actually rest up and try to see if I can get up to that 36 and then I'm going to go find a court. I'm going to bring a tennis ball, bring maybe like a Dodge ball or bring a volleyball and bring a basketball and just kind of work my way up.

[00:02:00] Daniel: see where I'm at. So the hope is that by the time we release this episode and send out kind of our newsletter, that I'll be able to throw in a video link of the successful Duncan at the very least, like, I know I'm going to be able to dunk something. So if it's not a basketball, I'll be disappointed, but we'll at least get some live action in there.

[00:02:21] Daniel: So, um, that's, that's kind of where I'm hoping the challenge we'll finish. I think last time around you also asked if there was anything on the back half of the challenge I was going to do differently. And I sort of said, no, I'm just going to stick with my program, which I am sticking with my program, but then I lied.

[00:02:38] Daniel: I actually decided to do it. I decided to do a little bit more research and see, is there anything I can do to kind of get that extra edge? And so I listened to. A podcast. And, I'm going to have to look up the name, but it's, it's from a guy who does vertical jump training and [00:03:00] he's a volleyball coach.

[00:03:01] Daniel: And so his, like, he has a big thing about vertical training. He actually has like a big, program, um, that he takes people through. And so I listened to his episode on vertical jump training and. The main takeaway that I have from it, cause I didn't want to pay for his entire, his entire program. but he talked about this idea of speed being a really important aspect of vertical jump training.

[00:03:33] Daniel: And um, one exercise that he has people do is he has them kind of go out and run like a 50 yard sprint. And at the end of that sprint, when you were kind of at your top speed, Try to jump and try to maintain as much speed as you possibly can. And if you, if you haven't done any training before, even if you have like getting a full jump, not losing any speed after the 50 yards, Brent, that's pretty, pretty challenging to do.

[00:04:04] Daniel: But what it does is it helps to sort of train your body to get more used to jumping while at a high speed. And then. When you kind of go back and you're trying to do your training, and again, he's a volleyball guy, so you don't get to do a 50 yard, a run up 

[00:04:21] Andrew: I'll be a big volleyball court.

[00:04:23] Daniel: to go into your spike. you get, you know, three, four or five steps.

[00:04:27] Daniel: And so, what to do after kind of doing that training is then you scale it back to that 3, 4, 5 steps, and you're trying to gain as much speed as you possibly can within those steps. And then translate that into a jump. You're trying to increase what he calls your maximum control velocity, so that the fastest speed you can be going where you jump under control and get that height.

[00:04:51] Daniel: So gone out and done a couple of those. I'll actually do a few more of those sprints and jumping at the end today, just to try to get ready to see where I'm at. 

[00:05:02] Andrew: That's awesome. I, oh, I can't believe he tricked me like that. Um, but it is, I can see the correlation there. That was nothing. I came across in my research, which should be telling that you can go Google search, how to increase your vertical, do the whole thing. And we have so much information at our fingertips and yet, you know, I don't know how much time he actually spent jumping around looking for this podcast.

[00:05:31] Andrew: But I had not heard about increasing velocity like that in your terms of running to increase it, it was all about hamstrings and stuff. So you can really go down the wrong rabbit hole if you're biasing your searches towards what you think it should be. And if we aren't open-minded on it, um, because that's totally what happened to me.

[00:05:48] Andrew: I think I probably passed over anything that was related to what you're talking about. So, oops. 

[00:05:56] Daniel: Yeah, I hadn't heard that before either. So that's where I was like, it's, it's something [00:06:00] different than what I've done. Let me try. And see. 

[00:06:05] Andrew: I had, uh, I've really enjoyed this one. Um, I have to admit, I did not. I feel like I pushed myself as hard as I should have. I didn't, I didn't hit all of the marks that I was planning on hitting to see if I could really improve this challenge, which is kind of the point of this is, you know, we're looking at how much can you pack into 30 days if you really take a 30 day focus and really work at a single thing, what will it do for you?

[00:06:33] Andrew: You know, I have this philosophy that if you really, really drill down, you can get pretty far in a really short period of time. And so that's kind of, kind of what we've been doing, this challenge stuff. And. Honestly, I sucked at this challenge. My diet was kinda trash on and off. Like I was, I was trying to do like the whole meat thing and no alcohol, which I did good on the no alcohol, but on the meat eating only, I, I broke down every couple of days and had bread or something fried or whatever.

[00:07:01] Andrew: So it kind of sucked there. Um, I don't know. Uh, 

[00:07:08] Daniel: but that being said, didn't you just most recently post your, your highest vertical and get to what your goal. 

[00:07:16] Andrew: Uh, well, and that's the thing is I, I added roughly three inches at least. And, you know, maybe, maybe over the next couple of days, I'm really taking a, took a rest day today and I'll probably go easy tomorrow. I'll probably do like an upper body again. And then I'll, I'll test the last day just to see if I can eat out like another inch on that vertical.

[00:07:35] Andrew: Um, and most of my vertical tests have been at the end of workout. So I'll probably do a little warmup and then test and see if I can get. That extra, if I've gotten that extra inch. So I've done well, which is cool. Like I've, I've gotten three and I'm guessing probably going to be four inches by the end.

[00:07:50] Andrew: And today. But I feel like in terms of discipline, I was lacking, I guess, is what I'm getting at. I, I didn't hit as many workouts as I wanted. Um, I didn't stretch as much as I said, I was going to a special on that last half. I still got some more stretching in, but there's just in my mind, I really dropped the ball on a lot of stuff.

[00:08:08] Andrew: It still was cool because I've, I've definitely had improvement on the vertical. Um, I feel like I could've done better. Um, maybe gotten five or six or seven inches out of it. If it really would have been disciplined on this, I'm hoping, or at least I'm telling myself that's what it was. Maybe, maybe no matter what I did, I was only getting three or four.

[00:08:25] Daniel: Maybe, I mean, that'd be, that'd be quite a jump, Um,

[00:08:29] Daniel: pun intended there. So I think this month though, you're, you're getting to experience a little bit what Brett and I experienced last month, which is that, you know, in our SQL challenge, Brett and I both had some struggles with our consistency. We didn't hit what we wanted to every single day, but we still left the challenge feeling.

[00:08:51] Daniel: Uh, sense of growth and, and I was able to get access to our SQL database at work. And like, I know enough where I could find some things if I needed to. [00:09:00] And I can talk to one of my managers about that, who he wants to learn more SQL stuff. So we've kind of set that around the goals and like we can converse around it versus that one was more, more of a successful month for you.

[00:09:10] Daniel: So it's, it's flipped a little bit and hopefully what you get to experience and what our listeners can sort of hear is even though you didn't have a perfect. Month in terms of your discipline and, and kind of trying to tick every box, you still did stick with it and you didn't, you know, the first time you ate something fried or the first time that like your vertical actually went down, instead of going back up, you didn't say, ah, you know what?

[00:09:36] Daniel: I messed up this month, I'm out. Like you, you kept back and you did stick with it. And you did still show growth over the course of the month. I think your vertical is going to technically increase more than mine will across the course of the month. Even though I, this was a good month for me in terms of training and consistency. 

[00:09:56] Andrew: Yeah, well, and that's, that is an excellent point because a lot of people, and I've done this as well, and I'm sure you have too. It's like, well, I screwed up. So I guess I'm done. And then you quit and that is you can't do it like that. You've got to learn to take those. Uh, we'll call them failures. It's it has the wrong connotation because it's not really a failure, but having those road bumps, you gotta be able to take those in stride and say like, Hey, I'm not going to be able to be perfect and me be able to keep going because you're right.

[00:10:24] Andrew: I still picked up some stuff. Um, one of the cool things about this challenge was I am finally running again. I've been telling myself for months that I was going to pick up my cardio and really get to work on it. This was kind of the, the boost that got me going there. So that's been really handy. So that's a big win.

[00:10:41] Andrew: Um, and, and going back to sequel, uh, this is kind of funny and just, just to really drive home that even if it's just a short little practice challenge during this little thing, learning sequel in this case, um, not only did we have the successes that we had or whatever you want to call it, learning. use this a thing called air table.

[00:11:03] Andrew: It's basically a free, uh, pretty handy user-friendly, uh, database. Um, instead of having a SQL database, it's, that's a lot more easy for the average person to use and saying that I still treated it like Google sheets. I used it like a, like a weird Google sheets. And so a lot of the stuff I was trying to do with air table, I would just kind of wouldn't.

[00:11:26] Andrew: Be able to fit it in, right. Because I was trying to do things that you would do with Google sheets or Excel. And after learning sequel, I'm playing around with it. Now I'm like, oh, I get it. Now I get how this is supposed to function. And it just carries over. So like, even though we've been doing this, this vertical challenge, I'm still getting benefits a month later from the SQL challenge.

[00:11:47] Andrew: I know that's how it's going to be with this vertical challenge. Um, my cardio is only going to increase more. I've gone up in strength on some stuff. Um, it's just going to get better. So even if I had, in my [00:12:00] mind, kind of some of these, these roadblocks, a lot of it came down to my schedule. What was going on, you know, I had a lot of work stuff that came up that got in the way and you know, that sucks at the timing.

[00:12:10] Andrew: And I wasn't able to follow through on some of the stuff I did, but it doesn't mean I'm not gonna be able to carry over. Some of the, I guess you could call it technique that I was learning on how to jump better. Um, and kind of the drive to like work on that aspect of life. Cause I've kinda been in a rut of just focused on like heavy lifting and trying to move more weight and that kind of thing.

[00:12:30] Andrew: So I'm excited about it even honestly, I, I would say it's a success, I guess, is what I'm getting at. This was a success that I know is going to pay dividends down the road. Despite me not having performed as well as I would've liked. Um, I'm still happy with it.

[00:12:48] Daniel: that's awesome. Yeah. And I think that's a great perspective is to 30 days in the month, like it.

[00:12:56] Daniel: just gives us a framework to work from, but there, there will be the further reaching impacts. What we're learning. Cause I mean, it's not as if those skills just go away and you never use them. We're, we're doing our best to try to do these challenges and things that actually intersects somewhat with our day-to-day lives, 

[00:13:16] Andrew: Sure. Uh, just, just because a lot of people don't look at the Google sheets we've been hanging out there. Um, your vertical right now is sitting at 36 inches. Correct? 

[00:13:27] Daniel: 35 and a half. 

[00:13:29] Andrew: 35 and a half. I'll give you that extra half inch. That's that's like a, a springy floor versus not a, so I'm at 26 inches, uh, which is a wildly.

[00:13:41] Andrew: And, and for those listening that know Daniel's a little taller than me. This is not like a, oh, Daniel's got a little height. This is with the standing thing. So Daniel has a full foot, higher vertical. They in me, which adding on to everything else means you're probably. Uh, good head and shoulders above me.

[00:14:00] Andrew: If we were both to go up for like a disc or something, which is a little sad on my part, but it's also always been kind of that way. So I'm not I'm over it at this point, but like, just for perspective, Daniels, jump on really dang high, in my 

[00:14:13] Daniel: that I think this means the next time we see each other. I could, I could maybe literally jump over you so we could try that. 

[00:14:20] Andrew: Maybe, I mean, 36 inches is like three feet and I'm only five nine. So I'll let you have to do is be able to get three feet up and be able to raise your feet, you know, two or three feet and you got it.

[00:14:35] Daniel: oh, I'm not talking not. And then I put my feet over your head. 

[00:14:38] Andrew: Oh,

[00:14:38] Daniel: I'm going to like, you know, I just gotta beat get my crotch higher than your head basically. 

[00:14:43] Andrew: Oh, that's easy. 

[00:14:44] Daniel: Yeah. That's what I'm saying. Well, we'll test it. We'll test it out. 

[00:14:48] Andrew: Yeah. I'm thrilled to see how this experiment goes. And if it goes poorly, the results will not be pleasant for either of us. I don't think. So, was there anything from this [00:15:00] last month that you thought was a waste of time or that you thought was really important for somebody else to try?

[00:15:06] Andrew: Or was there anything that really stood out as a highlight for this challenge?

[00:15:14] Daniel: um, I think for me, something that is a highlight, I wouldn't say that there was anything that was a waste of time. Um, I think something that stands out is. You mentioned I'm somebody who has historically been able to jump pretty high. Like that's, that's been, uh, you know, I, I heard on the radio the other day, uh, they were interviewing some like NFL dude from the combine and they were saying, you know, Hey man, if we were, if we were to see you at the combine and we were to say, like, do something that impresses us, like, what's your, what's your physical attributes?

[00:15:51] Daniel: Like, what thing would you do? Um, to impress us if we asked you to do that, would you lift something heavy? Would you, you know, run fast or whatever it is? Um,

[00:15:59] Daniel: so when I, if I were asked that question, I'd probably say like, being able to jump high is the thing that I would do to impress you if I needed to do that. Um,

[00:16:10] Daniel: so even, even with that being the case right now, By having more of a focus on I'm going to be consistent with these workouts. I'm going to be more consistent with my protein intake, um, and work on some technique was still able to improve. And so you can improve on strengths is what I'm trying to get at.

[00:16:34] Daniel: Um, and then specifically for me, as far as the different challenges or, uh, different tracking things that I did, I think. Trying to look at my protein consumption and my daily weight, where two of the most insightful things that an actually helped encourage me to, to keep doing the workouts, because I noticed there, there were several days that I'm getting to the end of the day and it's like, I'm going to close out the day with 90 grams of protein.

[00:17:03] Daniel: If I don't do something. So I would have another protein shake or. You know, just find some meat and shout down. And so it encouraged me to, to change my activity that otherwise I wouldn't have done if I wasn't keeping track of it. And then same thing, kind of watching my weight from like, oh, wow. I'm, I'm dropping some pounds here.

[00:17:22] Daniel: Cause I'm running a lot. Maybe I'm dehydrated. So it encouraged me to be drinking more water and again, to feel good about eating more food. 

[00:17:32] Andrew: The protein is tough. Uh, that is it's fun to track, like, or not fun, but like could detract because. Almost every day. I was like, oh, I need to take my case and shake before bed because I'm at 115, 120 grams. And my goal was really like 180 grams a night. And I think the closest I got was like one day I got like 1 65.

[00:17:56] Andrew: Um, so it's keeping that in mind, [00:18:00] keeping it at the front of your mind. It's really handy get, especially if you're training in a, if you're trying to lose weight or if you're trying to gain muscle either way, you need a crap ton of protein and it is hard to get that much protein in your diet. Like it's just, it's difficult.

[00:18:18] Daniel: Yeah, no doubt. 

[00:18:21] Andrew: Well, I know we are, we still got a couple of days to round out our final numbers for the vertical, but let's jump into challenge number four, our money making challenge. So this'll be mostly through may. Uh, I don't know if that's a good month or not to make money, but, uh, what are your thoughts? Do you have like any kind of plan at all on what you're gonna do or any thoughts on what you're playing?

[00:18:49] Andrew: Lean towards, are you going to read anything, study anything like what's, what's going down on your world.

[00:18:56] Daniel: Yeah. this one is tough because I think from a market perspective, we're probably headed towards a recession, which There's money to be made in a recession as well as in a, in a bull market. But I. I don't know. I, I kinda think as much as I want to do a really smart like stock type of deal. Um, I kinda think I'm going to do some sports betting this month.

[00:19:26] Daniel: And so maybe, I don't know which direction you're going to go. Maybe it'll be an interesting dichotomy of if you just take a hundred bucks within the span of 30 days, um, you know, can you make more sports betting or doing stuff? You're probably gonna do like options, which is basically betting anyway. Uh, but I think that's the direction I'm going to go because the NBA playoffs or something, I've been just watching a lot of, um, I, the Mavericks are still in it, which is fun.

[00:19:59] Daniel: It's going to have to make me sort of decide between, do I bet with my head or my heart? Um, And yeah, I think it'll just be a little more, it'll add a little more excitement. Cause either I'm going to blow you out of the water. I'm going to like double or triple your money or I'm going to end the month with $0.

[00:20:19] Andrew: Yeah. There's no, in-between,

[00:20:21] Daniel: Yeah. 

[00:20:22] Andrew: Vegas with you. It's it'll be $0 or a bunch of money or a possibly bolt, depending on what shut timeframe you look at halfway through we'll quad or quintuple the money. And then by May 31st, we'll be back to zero.

[00:20:37] Daniel: Yeah. Yeah. So as far as reading and research, I mean, there, there are people who make a living at support spending. So I'm going to definitely do some, some research, do some reading, try to figure out a smart way to at least make the money last through the end of the month and not, you know, have day two roll around and was like, well, I'm out.

[00:20:58] Daniel: Good luck, Andrew. [00:21:00] 

[00:21:00] Andrew: Well, and so shout out to Nick, I, he, for those of you, who've listened to this podcast for as long as it's been doing it, or if this is your first episode, the intro and the outro music that we have was actually, uh, a song we purchased from this guy named Nick and his brother. Makes boatloads of money from what I've heard, I've never, this is third hand information, so grain of salt, but, uh, his brother is a professional sports better and he makes his money sports betting, uh, for years now.

[00:21:32] Andrew: So there are people out there. Uh, we'll see what happens. Um, there's a good chance. So we're going to try and do a hundred dollars, I think, is that has sound about right? Yep. So we're going to do a hundred bucks. Okay. There's a small part of me that might actually do a hundred dollars on sports betting stuff.

[00:21:51] Andrew: And then I might also do a separate experience with options trading cause I love options. And uh, so far I've been really, really good at making a chunk of money and then immediately losing all of it. So I wanted to do options. But in a much more controlled and specific manner because what'll happen is I might make two or three or four or $5,000, and then I get cocky or overconfident.

[00:22:17] Andrew: And now I'm doing like, what are basically three or $4,000 bets and a. Yeah, it just doesn't go so well. So I might do like one-on-one practice doing some options, really, really chill, like, and then practice doing the sports betting. Cause I've always wanted to learn sports betting and try and do a really, really investment style approach.

[00:22:38] Andrew: So I might actually end up doing 200. Treat them as like two separate $100 things just because I have, uh, you know, I don't have kids and too much responsibility in my life and I can be dumped sometimes. So we'll see what happens. Um, I'm probably going to try and learn the candlestick method because I've mostly just been, uh, treating this as Vegas on my phone.

[00:22:56] Andrew: So that be my goal is I'm going to try and actually take this into a scientific as if it's a job approach, probably spend 10, 15 minutes a pre-market opening in the morning and then. 10 15 minutes may making one or two trades, uh, throughout the month and just I'll probably record them and see how it goes.

[00:23:14] Andrew: And or if I go to sports betting route, same thing, I'll probably try and do like 10 minutes research every day and then make some really small five, $10 bets and try and just stack up a couple dollars a day. Cause you know, if I can make five bucks a day doing this, then technically by the end of the month, we'll be at a much bigger value than the a hundred dollars.

[00:23:33] Andrew: And I'm not going to do that math because. don't know how to process that kind of numbers in my head. So I'm excited to see where it goes. Uh, it'll be nice, not worrying so much about, uh, killing my body in the gym, but I'll probably still be happening, but yeah. 

[00:23:50] Daniel: yeah.

[00:23:50] Daniel: Do you have any, is your goal to like double your money to. Not having lost your money, like w what would be success? 

[00:23:59] Andrew: [00:24:00] Uh, okay. This is gonna maybe sound a little overzealous and I am POB probably going to regret this, and it's also probably going to be why I ended up with $0. Um, I'm aiming for a thousand dollars by the end of the month. I want to, I want to 10 X the money.

[00:24:16] Daniel: okay. I, I think I'd be happy. With a nice 50% gain. If I had in the month with one 50, calling that a win. 

[00:24:27] Andrew: Well, uh, I guess we'll see what happens. I, this is, you'll probably end up with your 150 then, and I will probably have zero because, uh, that sounds a lot more achievable, but I get ridiculous when it comes to this kind of thing. And I'm really, I don't know. Part of me secretly wants to one day be able to just trade for, uh, for a full-time job.

[00:24:50] Andrew: I guess you could say. We'll see, but all right. We'll, uh, we'll throw everything we find in the show notes. Um, we'll obviously have another journal that, uh, we'll probably spend too much time making to look fancy. And, uh, so if you want to keep up with how this last challenge went for us, how the next challenge is going, always check the show notes for that Google sheet link, and you can see how we're doing.

[00:25:15] Andrew: Maybe we'll get fancy and we'll be able to track like the actual dollar amount that be kind of fun. So we'll link them to the show notes. We'll have Daniel's video of him dunking in the show notes as soon as he gets it over. And yeah, we're excited to guys hope some of you all join us on this money. One, I know this is probably a little bit more up more people's alleys than a learning, how to jump high.

[00:25:36] Andrew: So hop in, 

[00:25:38] Daniel: would love if, if anybody, if anybody's like I'm in for that, just text us.

[00:25:43] Daniel: what you're doing, how it's doing. We'll give you a shout out. You don't, you don't have to necessarily come on the episode unless you want to free to come on to, but this is an easy one to just follow along And have some.

[00:25:55] Andrew: And it's interesting keeping up with the stock market really makes you aware of the world and same with the sports betting. I'm sure it, it makes you more aware of factors that you're probably not paying attention to on a day-to-day basis. And it kind of widens your perspective on whatever this little niche thing is, you know, the economics, the, and in my case, it's going to be knowing what what's happening in basketball, period, whatever we're doing.

[00:26:19] Andrew: So, uh, it's always cool to kind of shift your perspective.

[00:26:22] Andrew: But all right guys, uh, until sometime in mid may, we'll have our update upset for you guys. And, uh, we appreciate y'all listening and we look forward to connecting with you soon.