Author: Juan Acevedo

PhD. Humanist, Destroyer of Negative Narratives, Constructor of Positive Change. I specialize in aligning the mindset, fitness, and nutrition habits of my clients. Superpower: awesome learner. Founder of SELFMASTERY.
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    Two Brains: Short Term vs. Long Term

    Somebody more intelligent than me pointed that we never fully understand anything. What we do is we go one step back in the line of causality. That step back gives a sense of ease and brings us calm. The more I study neuroscience, the more I agree with that view. Today's video is one example of what that means. When making a choice, do you ever feel like you have two brains? ... Well, neuroscience kind of says you do. However, my aim isn't to give the step back but to use that description to improve your decision-making process in the future.Okay, okay, alcohol is complicated, and I wish the answer were that simple. In today's video, I try to embrace its full complexity. I present some ideas I consider valuable when thinking what's the role that alcohol should play in your lifestyle. If you like this video or this topic, make sure to check the references below.

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    How to do alcohol

    Sometimes I like to complicate easy things. The answer to "How to do alcohol?" is simple: like the nice human in the picture below, on a horse at the beach and with style. Done!
    Okay, okay, alcohol is complicated, and I wish the answer were that simple. In today's video, I try to embrace its full complexity. I present some ideas I consider valuable when thinking what's the role that alcohol should play in your lifestyle. If you like this video or this topic, make sure to check the references below.

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    My Two Main Principles in Fitness and Nutrition

    The Strong Story Hypothesis states that the mechanism that enables us to tell, understand, and recombine stories is what separates us, humans, from primates. In other words that storytelling is what makes our thinking brainz special. The exciting thing is that Patrick Winston, its author, was an engineer and a professor at MIT, not an anthropologist or a social sciences guy. For many years he was the head of the Artificial Intelligence Lab. So when he says that storytelling gives us an evolutionary advantage over primates, that is meaningful. He gets to this conclusion by asking the right question. You see, the AI field was always trying to answer the question: can computers reason like humans? Winston made another question, more elegant, more interesting. What makes humans different than primates? Why are we capable of more?

    Touché!

    Nothing like a good question asked at the right time. In the video below, I present to you the principles that guide my practice in fitness and nutrition. I show them in the form of questions too. I believe this is the most effective way to approach such a complex problem. When you feel sluggish and unproductive today, instead of heading to Facebook, get this video a watch and let me know what you think.

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    Discernment vs. Judgement

    I know I go against all the best SEO/marketing practices. My blog posts are long, I don't have a lot of popular keywords, I don't give a nice summary in the form of three to four bullet points at the beginning, and I don't create a lot of rankings. Yup, I don't do that often. Instead, I start my blog post with a quote from an obscure Austrian write from the beginning of the 20th century. I know our attention spans are short, and we live now in the ethos of the busy life, and precisely because of that, I try to make sure that my three pages are worth your time and make you stop, think, and breathe. I hope you will find this post insightful and that it will help you have a nice break in this Thursday afternoon. Please read it and let me know how it goes!

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    Fatigue is Hyperbolic and How to Pace

    In some of the previous posts, I have talked a lot about the idea that a good workout should leave you energized rather than destroyed. Not always, sometimes we have to go to the limits to learn what those limits are. But in general, getting above your threshold more than producing physiological adaptation produces fatigue. And fatigue is really not that cool. The video today presents one of the many ways to look at and understand fatigue. This video is excellent for my endurance athletes out there. Watch it and let me know what you think!

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    Walking Naked and Other Uncomfortable Things

    Borges is one of those writers that is highly appreciated yet poorly understood. You might have heard of him, but probably you haven’t read his writings. His work reminds me of David Bowie. There is this aura of bizarreness that covers it. It makes it seem disruptive and avant-garde. Yet it’s simple, classic, and universal....