Summer Games Finale and Language Challenge (#61)

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[00:00:00] Daniel: 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. 

[00:00:20] Andrew: Hello, everyone. Welcome back toted by tomorrow. We are as always thrilled to have you listening in or watching if you're one of our two YouTube, uh, viewers, I'm pretty sure that's just me with two different accounts, but maybe YouTube smarter than me. So we have. The summer games, finale update for you guys.

[00:00:41] Andrew: The end of our fifth challenge for the year and the start of our next challenge, the kind of sixth slash July challenge. We almost had it every month, but we have some overlap. So it's kind of pushed out. So not quite seven for seven, but here we are. Daniel, I always introduce the challenge. Do you want to introduce the new challenge?

[00:01:02] Andrew: And then we hop into summer games.

[00:01:04] Daniel: Oh, I, I just wanna talk about the summer games. I know what you're trying to do. You're trying to, you're trying to avoid the pain that is loss for you.

[00:01:14] Andrew: fine. We'll save the second challenge or the new challenge for the end of the episode. And we'll go straight into this painful, awful conclusion to the summer games. Go ahead. Let's hear what you have to say.

[00:01:32] Daniel: than I expected.

[00:01:39] Andrew: Wow. That's that's some pity I wasn't ready for that hurts.

[00:01:45] Daniel: we joked about tiebreakers and in my mind, I was thinking the whole time, like, we won't have to do a tiebreaker we'll we'll have an outright win here. Like we week one, the step challenge y'all through your best punch. I felt like you stepped, like I Don. 500,000 steps or something like that. And it still wasn't enough to overcome the team.

[00:02:07] Daniel: And from there I felt, I felt pretty good about it. Like y'all got pushups, but I don't know. Colton took drugs that you gave him in order to let him get enough pushups for y'all to get the win there. But then the mile y'all just got smoked, like.

[00:02:26] Andrew: dominated.

[00:02:27] Daniel: It was, it was not even close. And so coming into pullups, I, I felt pretty good about it.

[00:02:34] Daniel: I felt like I was gonna get 30 plus I felt like Brett would probably match whatever I did. And I, I just felt like, yeah, you and Jason would probably be matched up. And then I was really banking on Jonathan being, you know, hypercompetitive and just being able to beat Colton. I really thought I was gonna finish.

[00:02:55] Daniel: Y'all y'all got us. You got us in the pull up.[00:03:00] 

[00:03:01] Andrew: See, I thought from the get go, I was like, okay, before we started the whole thing, I was like, we're gonna get 'em on the steps because that's something that's just dedication oriented. And I just couldn't imagine I was gonna let y'all win steps. I thought I could just take it by myself and then. Y'all got us on steps, which really hurt. Um, and I was almost positive. We're gonna win the pushups and the pull up. So I was pretty confident a tire breaker was gonna happen, but, you know, I actually did worse on the pull ups than I expected to do, but, uh, Brett was just a monster

[00:03:39] Daniel: Yeah.

[00:03:40] Andrew: what it.

[00:03:41] Daniel: Yeah, I'm still, I'm still a little sad that I didn't ultimately match him. So I ended up with 31, but I ended up with 33. My intent was that that 31 that I posted, I think was on. Monday, maybe it was pretty early in the week. And so my intent was to do a max rest essentially day, do a max the next day.

[00:04:03] Daniel: But what happened in between then is the deck board that I've been waiting for for literally like two or three months finally showed up. And so I spent all of my spare time plugging around boards in a hundred degree, summer heat, um, which did not lead to a lot. Recovery. So I ended up not really, not really adding to my total.

[00:04:27] Daniel: I tried the very last day after playing a, uh, a pro game, came home after the match went in my garage, tried to see if I could bust out 33, pull ups only got 29. So, yep. Y'all got us there. Brett. Brett is a beast. Kudos to. He,

[00:04:45] Andrew: How many we actually beat you guys from? Because I didn't see Jason's numbers in there. Jason got 12,

[00:04:53] Daniel: he got 11, but I think the real, I think the real number actually ended up being six. After we talked to him a little bit and just clarified some of the, uh, the finer roles.

[00:05:04] Andrew: Oh, well still, I think we only beat you by just a couple pullups so it wasn't a, it wasn't a thrashing. Well, that's with Jason getting zero, I think. Huh?

[00:05:16] Daniel: Uh, I don't think so. Nah,

[00:05:23] Andrew: Well, I'm not the one to trash, uh, trust at math. So we'll go with 13. We thrashed you so, and. Everybody that listen is listening is probably like, well, that sure sounds like a tie. Um, so I guess we need to go into the tie breaker.

[00:05:42] Daniel: Yeah. So we, talked about a few tiebreaker options. We originally were gonna have our commissioner Michael Miller give us a tiebreaker option. And the thing that he threw out there, I was all for. I think you were all for. The rest of the group responded with a variety [00:06:00] of hell, no gifts. Um, so his suggestion was that, uh, the fastest team to complete a one punch man workout would be the winner.

[00:06:11] Daniel: And so it's not like it's not that crazy of a workout. I think it's a hundred pushups, a hundred sit ups, a hundred squats and a 10 K run. Is that what it.

[00:06:21] Andrew: I believe that is correct. Yes.

[00:06:23] Daniel: Yeah. So again, nothing too ridiculous. That was Michael's idea. Everybody shot that down. Um, we also talked about, there were ideas thrown out there of doing like a memory challenge or like a, you know, softball throw, which it, I, I get the concept of it kind of changed things up a little bit, but the whole competition had been.

[00:06:49] Daniel: Physical based fitness based. So felt like we had to really stick with that for our tiebreaker. And so then you and I talked about two options that could have been potentially cool. Like either of them would've been cool. I think so one was doing a Murf relay. So Murf is you run a mile, you do 300 squats, 200 pushups, 100 pullups and then run another mile.

[00:07:13] Daniel: And you do it for your best possible time. And to truly do it, you're supposed to wear a weighted vest. I've never done it in a weighted vest. Have you ever done it in a weighted

[00:07:25] Andrew: to, but. I, I don't get it. Maybe I'm just weaker than my, than I'm willing to accept mentally, but I've, I've gotta way to vest and. Just running a mile and like a 25 pound vest is awful. And then pullups, I mean, get out of here. Uh, I could maybe do some pushups. Uh, the squats, the squats always get me because I always think going in, that's gonna be the easiest thing cause it's just air squats and they destroy me every time.

[00:07:55] Andrew: So I can't imagine what a best would do to me. Uh, I am just convinced that. There's something going on. I, my only thing is CrossFit and their weird tipping pullups but like that only explains away maybe one of the events and, yeah, I don't know. I'm just, I'm too weak, man. So no. I've done like a mini Murf with like, oh, vest.

[00:08:18] Andrew: And I think I did like maybe like a a hundred yards and then a couple pullups and a couple pushups and a couple squats. And that, that was it. And I was like, I'm done for the day, for the week. Really? So no, not, not even close.

[00:08:33] Daniel: Fair enough. Fair enough. Well, our idea was to make it a relay so that you could switch off team members kind of going throughout the event and still do it for time, which would be really cool. I think to really pull it off, we would all need to be in the same place. And unfortunately we're not. So we kinda landed with the, the lowest common denominator, the, the easiest option, which was, uh, to do a plank and the team who had the [00:09:00] longest.

[00:09:00] Daniel: Cumulative time planking would be the winner. And so, so that we could get this episode out. And also because we were kind of creeping into July, we had a, a strict, you had one day to knock it out, which admittedly it's like, you've you just need to carve out. most of the, most of Y's case is two minutes.

[00:09:21] Daniel: Uh, just co carve out a couple minutes. Just go do a plank, take a video of yourself and, and knock it out. So. Going throughout the day was kind of interesting. I, I actually didn't get all of my team's submissions until about 10 45 at night, but we got 'em in, we got it done.

[00:09:43] Andrew: Wow. Yeah, we, we missed one of them, but it's okay. This was, you know, y'all spanked us. Y'all spanked us at the plank. Uh, even if we would've had all three of us participating at the plank, but it wouldn't have made a difference. Uh, it's just kind of funny looking at it because. We talked about the, we had the four challenges the four weeks or the four competitions, I guess you could say.

[00:10:07] Andrew: And then the fifth tiebreaker and it was steps. We were, we were stupid close. I mean, I think you guys beat us by a few thousand. Um, but then the. Pushups. We didn't, you know, it was still fairly close. We, there wasn't a blowout. The run y'all blew us outta the water. Um, that hurt and then pull up. I, I guess I still think it was pretty close.

[00:10:34] Andrew: I think there's something goofy in the math. We'll double check. We'll put in the show notes if I am wrong and it, 13 stands we'll leave it, but I'm, I'm pretty sure that it was only like a three to four. Uh, swing on there. So which Brett being able to get three more than you basically gave him five extra pullups than you got.

[00:10:54] Andrew: So four extra pullups than you got. So that's kind of handy, I guess. Anyways again, math is tough. I have a headache. We won't go into that route, but I, I don't think it was very far apart. Um, so really there was only two blowouts and it was you guys on the run and you guys on the plank and everything else.

[00:11:11] Andrew: I. Really close. So that was kinda interesting. Uh, I don't know if it's because me and my team was, were fatter or, uh, the lack of knees makes us bad at planking. I don't know what it was. Um, I it's been four days, three days since the plank and I am still sore. I tried to do some more pullups today at the gym and I had to quit doing pullups because my ads were so sore from my minute and 45 second plank.

[00:11:37] Andrew: And I was just like, This is stupid. I am so embarrassed. What has happened to my AB strength

[00:11:44] Daniel: Well,

[00:11:45] Andrew: y'all dominated us.

[00:11:47] Daniel: the competition can, can show, show the areas that, you know, maybe you thought you were doing right. And maybe the reality is you gotta, you gotta get back in the gym and

[00:11:58] Andrew: Oh, [00:12:00] absolutely. Well, that's a hundred percent what, you know, take the two that y'all blew us out of the water. And I, I won't speak for Colton or bread on this, but for me, I was like, okay, if we would've before the challenge said, like, okay, Andrew, how, how are you gonna stack up to everybody? Um, I'd be like, oh, you know, generally I can mentally push through a run.

[00:12:20] Andrew: Uh, I can get my mile time pretty good and same with a plank and blah, blah, blah. And that would've made, uh, theoretical justification on why I should be fine on some of it. And it was really humbling and good for me to, you know, come in and, you know, I hit an eight minute mile run and it, man, I. It was rough.

[00:12:43] Andrew: It was rough. I had to come to terms with my maker kind of rough. Uh it was this my last day alive kind of rough So, uh, same with the plank. I was, you know, I finished it up and it was like, I was like, wow, that was not great. I, two, two minutes used to be like my standard set. Like I do three, two minute planks.

[00:13:02] Andrew: Uh, On my AB days. And I was like, I'm probably not too far from that. Uh, and again, three days later, uh, I had to quit pullups today because my abs hurt so bad just holding myself while I was doing a pull up, which that's never happened before. So it was definitely a good experience for me, just on showing some weaknesses that I've been letting slide that I definitely need to work on.

[00:13:23] Andrew: What about you though? Was there anything that popped up that you're like, you know, obviously you ran fast, but like, was it as fast as you wanted or, you know, on the pull up, even keeping up with Brett for the most party beach out on a couple, you know, whatever it is, like, was there anything that you're like, I wish I would've tried harder on that or, you know, I noticed that this really affected me long term afterwards.

[00:13:42] Andrew: Anything that you are looking forward to, uh, shoring up.

[00:13:48] Daniel: Well, I, I probably won't revisit maxes in any of these. Like I. Wish that I had run my mile in under six minutes, um, like Boohoo . Right. Um, and, and I, that may be one as we get into the cooler months, like post Frisbee season, when I'm done with track workouts, I may go back, revisit that one, see if I could do that.

[00:14:15] Daniel: And that's one where if I had had the time, I think I could have, but I had a tournament that weekend. So I wasn't about to go. You know, kill myself on a mile and then play a tournament in a hundred degree weather in Houston, the days after that. Um, so that one, yeah, like that would've been nice. Um, it would've been nice to beat Brett and either the pullups or the pushups.

[00:14:39] Daniel: So Brett got 66 on the pushups. I got 63, he got 33 on the pullups. I got 31. So he beat me by two reps. Both of those. I feel like if I had done my kind of original plan on pullups, I probably could have [00:15:00] gotten up to 33, but who knows? So, I mean, it's, it's like friendly competition stuff for me. There wasn't anything where I'm just like, oh, I, I thought I was in much better shape than I actually was.

[00:15:12] Daniel: And this isn't like a brag thing, but it's just, again, it's. Maintenance is so much easier than trying to make up for ground that has been lost. And I don't know, I was talking to Jonathan about this the other day. I feel like one thing I've been really, really fortunate, really blessed in is I haven't had a major injury.

[00:15:38] Daniel: So like I haven't had. Point in time where for months and months, I like couldn't run, couldn't lift, couldn't do things. I've had like little things here or there, but it's taken me outta commission for like a week or two at a time. So it's just a lot easier to maintain and to, you know, slowly build up to high reps and fast runs and all that kind of.

[00:16:05] Andrew: Now it, that is something that. Is so important that I hope a lot of people take away is, you know, choosing your choosing lower weight or choosing slower speeds on choosing, taking care of your body over the ego lifting or any of that other stuff is so important. Um, it's you could even bring COVID into it.

[00:16:31] Andrew: Like COVID any of the stuff. It. You're talking six to nine months of recovery. If you, you know, have that long haul COVID, uh, issue, or if you have any injury or a groin injury, like from personal experience on the ladder too. I mean, it's like, , it's almost a year before you can get back to where you were.

[00:16:50] Andrew: That's a, not only a year of lost gains, but it's, it's just a. Getting back to square one with a lot of effort. So it's, if you can avoid injuries, if you can make sure you're stretching and properly recovering and you're listening to your body, um, , you can last a lot longer and get a lot further than having to hit the reset every couple of years, cuz you hurt yourself and you have to go back to square one and rebuild up and hope to not get injured again because once you get that injury, um, the.

[00:17:23] Andrew: I'm not gonna say likelihood, but the chance of re-injury definitely increases dramatically. So, uh, you know, Brett's suffering from that right now. He's, you know, since I've known him, he's spent more time recovering from a knee injury than he's had being able to do anything. it sucks. So it'll definitely mess you up.

[00:17:47] Andrew: Definitely take care of yourself and avoid that kind of stuff. And part of that, that sounds like, Hey, be cautious. Don't push yourself. I think one of the main reasons you have done so well at avoiding [00:18:00] injury is you don't do the, the spin up. Like I do where it's like, oh, kind of sedentary, whatever you wanna call it.

[00:18:06] Andrew: And then you go hard. Um, you are consistently. Active consistently moving. You're not letting your body lapse into any solidified positions or, you know, you're not letting yourself kind of take the easy route on some of these things. I think that's really important for that injury prevention. So don't, don't take this as, Hey guys, be easy and, and don't push yourself.

[00:18:32] Andrew: It's push yourself, but put your, you know, ease onto the gas. Don't just slam it and then hit the brakes. Slam it, hit the brakes. Keep the, keep the foot on the pedal and keep going. I think that's really, really good for you versus, uh, some of the sillier things I do where it's like, Hey, let's go play a Frisbee tournament for the first time in two years, or, you know, whatever it might be.

[00:18:52] Andrew: Let's go from a hundred pounds to 300 pounds on squat, just because, and that's not something I did, but like people do that kind of thing. Uh, we can warrior stuff, so definitely something to keep in mind.

[00:19:05] Daniel: Yep. And especially as you get older, , you know, that's, that's another thing to. To keep in mind. Like, I, I kind of laugh. I, I might have told the story at a podcast in the past, but was playing a tournament, was a guy who was really struggling to, to keep running around. And I was kind of giving him a hard time about it.

[00:19:25] Daniel: And he was like, I just turned 30, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, I'm 31. Like I don't, I don't wanna hear it. Um, it's it's about the decisions that you make. It is about, you know, not just kind. Letting yourself go and then saying, oh, okay. Like, I'm gonna, all of a sudden, I'm gonna get back into shape. I'm gonna, you know, reengage it's, you know, just do the, the smaller things, even when you're in an off season to just maintain.

[00:19:52] Daniel: And like, don't just, don't over indulge in sedentary, or like eating a ton of junk food or these different types of things. Like, listen, listen to your body, figure out the things that. When you, like when you eat a whole bunch of something, that's not good for you. I bet you don't feel good. And if you work on cutting some of that kind of stuff out, like you, you see gains in other areas too.

[00:20:17] Daniel: So

[00:20:19] Andrew: No, it that's a hundred percent accurate.

[00:20:20] Daniel: that's what it is.

[00:20:22] Andrew: Well, no, I mean, that's a great example. Like the food, um, that's something I've struggled with where I'm just, you know, I get bored. I'm, I've driving around and I'm, you know, I've got 20 minutes. I'm like, well, I can go get some food and that'd make me feel better.

[00:20:36] Andrew: And it's easy, but easy and quick is usually fast food. And so instead of preparing and taking care of. You know, being proactive about it. I'm like, Hey, I'll just grab some canes or grab whatever's nearby. And I grab that food and I eat it. And what you're talking about listening to your body, like, yes, I want it because our bodies are trained to crave [00:21:00] such things, but afterwards, if I'm actually paying attention and this goes back to a Tim Ferris podcast, um, I'll try and remember to link it in the show notes.

[00:21:08] Andrew: But if you keep that, like, if you actually. Sit and think like, Hey, how did I feel after I ate that? If you do that after you eat CAS, you, you know, you feel like trash. Like it's not even just like a mental, like, oh man, I ate bad food. It's like, you don't feel good. At least I don't. And I think most people in the same way, when you have that super fried saturated fat, um, Bucket of grease, go down.

[00:21:33] Andrew: You, your body kind of rebels. It's like, Hey, that was not cool. Um, usually we're not paying attention though. Most of us are thinking about what's next, you know, Hey, I ate my food. I've gotta go back to work or what's next on my list or whatever it is. And you're not paying attention to what your body's saying.

[00:21:49] Andrew: Same with the injuries. You know, if you have bad knees, it's not that you have bad knees. It's your body saying like, Hey, I'm compromised when you take care of this. And instead, most of us go, eh, it hurts, but it doesn't hurt that bad. And you keep pushing, you keep pushing and then you hurt yourself. If you pay attention and listen to your body, you can usually do the right thing, uh, either in diet or in exercise.

[00:22:12] Andrew: So definitely listen to your body. Um, it's something I'm working on still. It's hard. It's it is a challenging. Uh, shift in perspective to make for most of us, cuz most of us don't do that on a regular basis. We're not very present with what our body's trying to tell us. So I get it, but highly recommend doing what Daniel's talking about. All right. Let's get off our pedestal here and well, before I just force it. Is there anything else you want to talk about on the challenge? Are you ready to hop off the pedestal and jump into challenge number two for this episode, it's actually challenge number, uh, six.

[00:22:50] Daniel: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm I'm ready. I'm gonna still, I'm gonna wear my, my thunder clap. T-shirt the first time that I see you for

[00:22:59] Andrew: Oh, I'll, I'll be wearing my team. Hush t-shirt I am proud of how we did. I'm proud of how I did. I'm proud of Colton and Brett. Uh, I think we could have avoided the tiebreaker and beaten you guys if. Luck was more on our side that first week for the step challenge. I know Colton had a rough start of it. I think if he would've taken it, we wouldn't be having this conversation about playings.

[00:23:23] Andrew: We'd be talking about the three, one skunk we would've done. So you guys got lucky.

[00:23:29] Daniel: Oh, it's, it's fine. Wear, wear your hush shirt with pride. I'll wear my thunder clap shirt and we'll do our child Leia chase. And I'll show you just how silly the first two episodes of what we want truly were

[00:23:42] Andrew: Oh, don't even go there don't even go there. I will come over there and Darth mall. You , you

[00:23:50] Daniel: No, no. Remember your, your little, your little child layout in this scenario.

[00:23:56] Andrew: know what done it's happening? We'll see how [00:24:00] this goes. You're gonna end up with a broken pride or something or skull. I don't know which All right, enough threats. We don't want people to think we're that violent. Uh even though we might be challenge, number six are July challenge for you and me. At least we don't have a group on this one language learning.

[00:24:26] Andrew: This is something we've talked about before. I'm surprised that. I guess I'm just surprised we haven't done this yet. And that it hasn't been a more consistent thing in general. Uh, cuz I haven't really worked on language skills in a while and that's honestly something I really believe people should do.

[00:24:44] Andrew: So when was the last time you worked on Spanish? I assume. And let me take a get shot in the dark before you answer that. I think we're both gonna be working on Spanish for July. Is that correct?

[00:24:56] Daniel: Yeah, for sure. I actually, up until, uh, middle of June was rocking. 200 something day streak on duo lingo in Spanish.

[00:25:10] Andrew: Nice job. Wait, I am you're, you're beating me by, uh, a few hundred days there.

[00:25:20] Daniel: well, the streak has ended I've I haven't been consistent since the middle of June, but I was, I was on a good streak there for.

[00:25:27] Andrew: so let's talk about that then, because I think that is the consistency is important. It's something that I've failed at, um, regularly for decades now. Um, And, you know, let's give some background and then we're gonna go to the consistency thing I wanna talked about. So, you know, I have a. Background in learning Spanish on and off since elementary school, all the way through freshman year of high school, where I took my last Spanish course, and then I have a minor in Japanese.

[00:25:54] Andrew: So I did language learning all through college study abroad. I've I've dipped my foot pretty heavily into that pond, but no way have I been even close to fluent in Spanish or Japanese? Um, Japanese, I got kind of close to being pretty decently conversational. In like a childlike manner. Um, but Spanish that just, just doesn't, hasn't been pushed hard enough from my end to actually count for much.

[00:26:24] Andrew: So you did Latin in middle school, but I don't think you did much beyond that,

[00:26:30] Daniel: Uh, yeah, Latin high school. I don't think we did languages in middle school that I remember. Um, oh, I,

[00:26:36] Andrew: Oh, I was definitely in Spanish for three years in middle school.

[00:26:40] Daniel: I did no such thing. I was just in English. I don't know how I got outta that, but yeah, I did Latin in high school and no languages in college and have just kind of done duo lingo basically since then.

[00:26:59] Andrew: Okay, [00:27:00] so consistency then, because again, I think that's important. You had a 200 day streak, which is 200 plus day streak, which is honestly pretty amazing. What ended it? What was your stepping stone stumbling block, I guess is a better way to put it that knocked you off the streak. And now that we are July 5th, as of this recording, You know, what, what happened?

[00:27:22] Andrew: Why did you break and why didn't you get back on

[00:27:27] Daniel: Well, it was going to glacier national park in Montana that broke it because there's no cell service and a huge chunk of that park. So I was. Not on my phone a whole lot. So that, that broke the streak. I tried the first day to like sneak it in whenever we were sort of in town, but I don't know, it, it wasn't a, as much as I valued the streak, it wasn't enough where I wanted to like sit in the back of the car with Hillary while Brett and Angela are driving.

[00:27:55] Daniel: And I'm like, here, . Talking Spanish to myself. So that broke the streak. Um, I haven't hopped back on it yet, cuz I have been really focused on building this deck. So I, that's not a great excuse because I obviously can't go out and work on the deck whenever it's dark outside. It's not consuming every waking hour.

[00:28:21] Daniel: And, and I haven't like totally fallen off. I just haven't gotten back into a streak yet. Like. I did a few lessons today, so it's not like, you know, complete failure.

[00:28:34] Andrew: gotcha. Okay. So you, you have gotten back on the horse a little bit.

[00:28:37] Daniel: yeah. Yeah.

[00:28:40] Andrew: I gotcha. Well, that's something that I struggle with. So I was just, I think that's something we all struggle with, you know, maintaining the streak is one thing, but once you break it, being able to be like, Hey, it's okay. I need, I can get back on. It is it's really difficult to kick back over to it. Uh, it's just human

[00:29:01] Daniel: I feel like you usually, yeah. I feel like you usually need some sort of. I don't know, milestone moment or something like that. So that's where I was glad for us to do this challenge, cuz I think that'll kind of kickstart again, getting back onto the horse, so to speak. Um, I don't remember what it was that, you know, roughly 200 days ago from June really set my mind of.

[00:29:25] Daniel: Okay. I'm gonna really stick with this. Um, there was something though, I. I don't remember what it was, but I know there was some moment where I was like, I really want to be consistent with this. And the thing that helps me to be consistent besides having a specific goal is just using reminders in my phone.

[00:29:44] Daniel: And I've talked to Hillary about this before. I, I think when it comes to building habits and some of these kind of things, I feel like people can go a little over the top and get a little bit crazy. And you all of a sudden have this habit tracker that has. I don't know, [00:30:00] 15 things every day. And it's like all this rotating stuff and it's just kind of exhausting.

[00:30:03] Daniel: And my approach is whenever it comes to daily to-do list of either habits I'm trying to build or just things that I wanna make sure I get done for the day. I definitely don't make my list longer than 10. Um, and I try to space things out and I just try to be real with myself. So I'll, I'll put things on there as simple as.

[00:30:25] Daniel: Shave my face. do Spanish water, the yard, like read some scripture. Um, so I put pretty basic things on there, but it just helps me to stay on top of it and to not let my mind get consumed with, oh, there's this thing that I wanted to make sure I get done today. Like, I don't know. It just kind of frees up my head space.

[00:30:49] Andrew: That's interesting. So this is from what you're saying, the way you're saying it. I'd say we heavily diverge on this front. Um, But the part where you're talking about like only putting, like, you know, up to 10 things is pretty similar. I, I have a overly, maybe not overly complicated, but I have a pretty in depth air table that I use for tracking all that kind of stuff.

[00:31:13] Andrew: Um, but it probably doesn't have, depending on how you slice it more than six or seven things. So. On the daily, like, so the Spanish would be one that if I was, when I made the air table back in January, had been working towards Spanish. That would've been one of my daily tasks. I would've put into it. Um, right now, Uh, let me see, it's got walking the dog.

[00:31:39] Andrew: It has, uh, working out, um, which I've got actually three different workout columns, which shows where my priorities are. So I've got a stretching column. Um, if that's not one, I've got a cardio column and then I've got a weightlifting column and it's, I don't have to hit all three of 'em, obviously she's like, Hey, did I do one of these three things today?

[00:31:57] Andrew: Uh, I've got a. Uh, protein calm, make sure I'm trying to hit protein goals. I've got a. Mindfulness column and a gratitude column where it's like, Hey, did you do your gratitude journal today? So it's like little stuff like that. And then each day I also have like a to-do list and it's only two, I think I have three or four blanks for it.

[00:32:19] Andrew: And I don't always fill all for it. Sometimes just two or three things. I'm like, Hey, I need to work on this website today. I need to, you know, publish the podcast today. I need to, uh, Go hang a TV at so, and so's house, something like that. So it's little stuff like that. So, uh, mine's just in a giant database because I'm into that kind of thing.

[00:32:41] Andrew: So I, I do think though, having something built in where it's like, Hey, every day I'm gonna do this is really important, whatever it is, and it doesn't have to get complicated, you can do it in an. Pen and paper, I'm a huge fan of air table. Uh, apparently a lot of people like notion, which is something we're gonna be playing with at some point, but having a tool, whether it [00:33:00] be pen and paper, um, or on the computer, I think is really important, complicated or not.

[00:33:07] Daniel: Yeah. Yeah. My personal advice, both doing complicated and not complicated is do something that tends to be more simple, at least until you kind of get the hang of simple and then you can get a little more complicated because I mean, the, at least for me, the end goal is to. Form a habit to where I don't necessarily even need that reminder anymore.

[00:33:33] Daniel: Like I'm, it's just becomes a part of my life and, and what I'm going about and doing every day. So.

[00:33:43] Andrew: Well, and that, that is a great way to look at it. And that's how a lot of people should be approaching any kind of habit change you're looking for. And I'm almost positive. I'm stealing something from atomic habits here that I just think is my own original thought now. But, uh, having, having a diet, having an exercise regime, having, you know, Spanish as part of your daily practice, these aren't things that you say like, Hey, I'm going to do this until my.

[00:34:10] Andrew: In Spain and then be done like it's, if you're going to pursue something, unless there really is like an end goal, like, Hey, I need to run a marathon because I promise this person to run a marathon with him. So I've gotta work on running every day with this person that kind of date kind of makes sense, but maybe shouldn't even agree to the marathon if it's not gonna be kind of a longer term, you know, part of who you are whenever you're choosing these kind of habits, you're looking at kinda like these challenges we're doing, it's something to.

[00:34:39] Andrew: Really think about and say, Hey, is this something that I wanna do every day or every other day? Or is this something that I'm doing just a little sprint of, and it doesn't actually necessarily move me forward? You know, if I'm gonna have this really exclusionary diet, is that. It's why you, uh, relapse on diets is why the, the regain of weight, whenever people do these extreme diets is so high because they aren't taking into account that it's a lifestyle change they're going for.

[00:35:04] Andrew: They're doing a really kind of quick fix. Um, you can't just hit Spanish for two months and be like, Hey, I'm done. That I'm now I now speak Spanish. So really recognizing that the things you wanna be doing need to be long term, you know, walking the dog, uh, my dog Jasper should live for a number of years.

[00:35:25] Andrew: Uh, at least 10, maybe longer, uh, Walking him is going to be a part of my daily life for 10 years. That's okay for me to like, kind of make a goal of, but like at the same time, at some point it really should just become part of the routine. Same with the Spanish. I would love for it to become part of the routine where every day at, you know, 10:00 AM.

[00:35:47] Andrew: I'm knocking out 15 minutes on do lingo or in this case babble. So I like that. I know I really went off the, off the rails there on, uh, your little comment, but Hey, that's what we have a podcast for. [00:36:00] All right, real quick. Before we wrap this bad boy up, I assume you're gonna keep using do lingo. Is that correct?

[00:36:05] Daniel: that is the plan.

[00:36:07] Andrew: Anything else that you're gonna be doing to check in on this challenge? Any tips for anybody jumping in with us? Anything you wanna share?

[00:36:15] Daniel: I mean, the reality is if, if we're gonna really learn a language, you gotta find some immersion opportunity. And so I love for that to be the case. I don't know where that opportunity will come up. There. There is. The lady that I go to church with, that we sometimes have over for dinner, that she is, uh, bilingual.

[00:36:38] Daniel: She's a, a, uh, a Buila she's a Spanish grandmother. So she would probably talk to

[00:36:45] Andrew: so jealous.

[00:36:48] Daniel: So I may, I may take advantage of, um, You know, whenever I'm picking her up for church or whatever, trying to say, like, Hey, can we speak in Spanish a little bit? And she can just laugh at me and say like, no, that's not how you say that.

[00:37:01] Daniel: So there's that I, I think, yeah, doing doo lingo, maybe I may have a, a couple other goals of like, okay, I'm gonna try to, you know, watch a tele develop and see how well I can follow along with the plot or. I don't know, go to a Spanish website and order myself some food using their website, which I could probably do, even if I didn't know the language, just using buttons and stuff like that.

[00:37:30] Daniel: So maybe a better challenge would be going to a, like a really Spanish mix, like Mexican restaurant and trying to order in Spanish. You got any, got any like little stretch goals for.

[00:37:46] Andrew: Uh, not necessarily, I hadn't thought too far on the stretch goals. I am going to be using a new program and I actually got it months ago, just on the fly. It's called babble. Uh, had some really good reviews. I am a marketer's wet dream, and I love things that get marketed to me. Like more than three times, I'm like, oh, all, all of a sudden, this is now right.

[00:38:09] Andrew: I should buy this. So, uh, Babbel was one of those ones that enough different. Points of interest showed up on the babble. And I was like, okay, I'm gonna go download that. So I downloaded it. It was like, Hey, you want premium for the year for like 10 bucks? And I was like, yeah, why not? So I'm gonna try and use babble.

[00:38:27] Andrew: Uh, and mostly I'm just going to try and focus on driving up that word count. I'll try and get, I assume there's gonna be some kind of test at the beginning. Placement on like, Hey, where do you start? So I'm hoping to get, I'm not really sure. X number of words per day. I'll probably try and figure out what seems reasonable, Google it, maybe, and see how many, maybe five words a day.

[00:38:51] Andrew: Um, man, it's not a ton 30 days, 150 words. And we'll see. I think that [00:39:00] that could be good. Um, especially if I get the grammar, obviously the grammar's the hard part. Any language. So I'm really just gonna try and make sure that I'm consistently improving. Don't have any dead days, don't have any breaks in the streak, uh, and really try and grind out, you know, 15 minutes plus every day of the babble.

[00:39:18] Andrew: And if it doesn't work out, swap back to do lingo and see where that takes me. Uh, maybe at the end of it, I'll, uh, run away to Mexico and try and fit in So we'll see, but we'll have a, we'll have an air table up once. Uh, we figure out how to track this better. So by the time this episode's out, we may or may not have the air table up and some cool charts for you guys to see Daniel and mine growth my growth on Spanish for July. And if you wanna hop in, we are always thrilled to have people in.

[00:39:52] Andrew: If you already speak Spanish all the better, you can help us out and practice with us. But all right, guys, thank you guys for tuning in, and we're excited about this one. It's gonna be fun. Uh, this is something Daniel and I have done on and off. So, uh, this will be a nice change of pace from the exceptional number of pushups and pullups I was doing this last month, uh, which is still probably gonna keep happening.

[00:40:16] Andrew: So it's not like anything's gonna change on there, but oh, well, so anyways, before I put us all to sleep. Thank you guys. And we look forward to connecting with y'all.