Daniel Baarns

Why train like an athlete? (When you own a business) So you can trail run 5 miles (Despite not having run for distance in years) Suana for 15 minutes Cold plunge for 2.5 mins Build a friendship And ceramic coat a vehicle afterwards. That's something few owners can do.

I spent a year taking exclusively cold showers. During the winter it's incredibly challenging. During the summer it's refreshing. Now I choose: coffee during the winter. Cold showers during the summer.

Choose your pain. Inaction is painful. Action is painful too. Missed 4 workouts last week. I was still sore. Worked out each day this week. Sore. But one feels like progress. The other feels like prison. I’d rather be sore from progress.

POV you’re on a call and 3 people posted over 500 times in the last week. My mind is blown. So much of life seems to be just breaking beliefs. Now that I know it’s possible I can do SO much more. For context that’s 80 pieces of content across platforms PER day. Wow.

why do you capture every talk? Because I only regret what I decided not to capture out of fear. Fear of being bad. Fear of looking dumb. Fear of forgetting something. I have one talk thanksgiving of 2023. And I WISH I'd asked someone to record it.

The reality of being an entrepreneur: Realizing at 11 o'clock that you have energy and ideas to execute. And at 29 you'll pull an all nighter. Not because of a worthless test. But because you're building a life. And these ideas are more energyzing than sleep.

I do not feel enthusiastic, but what I also know is that if I first act enthusiastic, often the feeling will follow. I will probably have way more fun being enthusiastic than not. I'm going to listen to a comedy special and ask myself what am I excited about over the next few months. Lean into that excitement and see what happens.

How are you? Today I don't feel that great, but tomorrow I'll feel a whole lot better. I think I said this to about four people yesterday. It's sort of fascinating to go: I don't feel that great right now, and having confidence that I will feel better in the future makes it more bearable. It's also interesting to watch people not know what to do with that response.

The right person at the right moment kept me alive at 19. Another helped me stay in college after failing tests at 22. Another person helped me stay in business when all I wanted to do was quit at 26. Having a support system of people who care about you matters.

I don’t need to learn. I need to teach what I learn. As fast as possible. If my life is about teaching I will learn more deeply. The time between learning and application becomes almost 0. Output goes up. Overthinking go down.

How are you so good at meeting new people? I was in college for a total of 9 years. That’s a minimum of 18 semesters x four classes. 72 new rooms. Each with 30 new faces. Finding the best people in the first 2 weeks determined if you had great group projects or bad ones.

Working out helps me be a better friend. How? It makes me feel good. Makes me feel accomplished. Which makes it easier to see the good in others when I already feel good. Its easier to celebrate others wins when I feel good in my own skin.

Some of the most valuable resources are hard to find. This last week I listened to a few lectures from Harvard. One 16 years old Another 9 years old But here’s the thing. They were SO good. One was on poetry and how to teach college students without boring them.

Volume. It’s my word of the year. But it’s also been a way of living. When I want to learn something I increase the volume until it’s unreasonable that I don’t get better. First did this with playing drums: Started playing 2-4 times per week for 5 years.

Instead of: how to detail a car. Here’s how I detail a car. This is my process. I show what I do. I want to share about ideas, products and services that have changed me. The message and the messenger are linked. Live first tell second Write third

My uncle said something that shocked me. In all his working life he'd never made $1000 in a day. The first month in business I made $1500. Now I can do that in a day. (Which still blows my mind) 4 years is a long time. But Skills stack.

- Art - Communication - Writing - Speaking - Business - Marketing - Working out Some of the things I nerd out about.

Today, when I woke up, I did not want to get out of bed. The thought that went through my head is that being faithful in the small things builds a resilience in me that I will need on days when I really need it. I got up and went to the gym and I amazed myself. I deadlifted 365, which I've never done before in my entire life, and I feel absolutely stoked. That wouldn't have happened if I wouldn't have done the simple thing of getting up, even though what I really wanted was an extra hour and a half of sleep. I wouldn't feel nearly as accomplished right now as I do detailing this minivan if I had not. This is going to build something in me. When I went and did the workout, even though it wasn't the whole workout that I wanted to do, I did what I could, and I'm so stoked that I made that choice. What a contrast to go from "I wanted to sleep more" to "I barely got to be able to force myself to get out of bed and stay awake" to having a deadlift be on. Pretty wild, what just getting up can lead to.

Use the gaps well. I stack things that matter to me while I'm doing something else that I have to do. While eating breakfast this morning, I sent a few texts to friends that I was praying for. I also learn a little bit of a language. Today, while I'm driving, I'm recording this voice note. I realized that I have these small moments, and I can use them to invest in people and in skills, and in building out ideas that lead to books, YouTube videos, podcasts. Either I can complain about the full life that I have that I love, or I can utilize these gaps, or I can use the gaps I have to create the life I want in the future.

There is something to this low-status but prints-money game. Yesterday, while detailing a Rolls Royce, I met a 19-year-old who made $1,500 door knocking for his window cleaning business. (That day) It's wild that some people are having such a hard time finding a job right now, and I'm detailing three cars, and this guy made $1,500 door knocking.