123: Microworkouts

123: Microworkouts

Newsletter

🤔 Biggest change in last year? 🧠 Microworkouts 🖼 The Double Loop Pivot 👉 Profitability of ADHD Founders


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Cultivating Resilience is a newsletter that helps innovators navigate change and bring new product and ideas into world. It's published by Jason Shen, a resilience coach, product manager, 1st gen immigrant, ex-gymnast, and 3x startup founder.

🤔 What's the biggest change you've made in your life in the last year?

I asked this on Twitter recently and got some great answers back:

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Reply back to this email with your response and I'll send you mine!

🧠 Microworkouts

You know you need to move more. But the gym is too far away / not open / too busy. And you're tired. And you only have 15 minutes till your next meeting.

So do a microworkout.

I've had a busy few weeks of work as we make a final push before the holidays and I haven't been as consistent with longer, more intense workouts ~25 mins workouts that get me breathing hard and sweating like I usually do.

So I've been turning to microworkouts

A microworkout is a set of movements you can do in under 12 minutes with just your body.

Such as: 10 rounds of 40s work, 20s rest.

  • Jumping jacks
  • Pushups
  • Bodyweight squats
  • Mountain climbers
  • Shadow boxing

Repeat those 5 moves twice and you've done a microworkout in less than 10 minutes. No equipment.

Even in a busy day, you could fit in 2 of these in.

Another option assuming you work from home and you have to get on a big conference call a few times a week where video off is ok:

Just take the call on your headphones and walk around the block. If it's an hour long meeting and you only have to present in the last 20 minutes, you can do at least a lap, maybe two before getting back to the house.

Movement is so important. There's always a way to work more of it into your day.


🖼 The Double Loop Pivot

A diagram I made about how to explore new ideas inside your startup in a more structured way so you can get buy-in. More on this next week!


👉 Profitability of ADHD Founders

This chart really haunted me: untreated ADHD founders were more likely to start businesses but were less profitable in those businesses compared to founders seeking treatment for their ADHD. More on that in a future issue.


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Jason Shen

The Outlier Coach—helping founders build conviction in what's next · 3x venture-backed startup founder (acq by FB) · Author of 'The Path to Pivot' & 'Weirdly Brilliant' · ADHD · Former NCAA gymnast