Welcome Dark Mode 2.0⚡! - Embracing weakness to build strength edition - Ep01

This is my first fisique check for this Dark Mode. I'm looking a little puffy. I weighed in at 146.3 pounds. I think I'll be a lot more cut by the end of this thing. I'm going to be eating perfectly, and I'm going to be following a very strict intermittent fasting protocol, and I'm also going to be running a carnivore diet, which we'll talk more about in a little bit. You'll see me using this a lot. You'll see me hitting that, that basically indicates that I started a new 45-minute work session. Every session that I start you guys will see on the screen what I'm focused on, and at the end of the day you'll see how many Pomodoro's I was able to work. So, we're running really behind today. It's already 6:00. am. I wanted to start working today at 5:00 a.m, unfortunately, we had some some camera issues and- But I'm not going to let that stop me, so, anyway time to get to work. Hey guys, so welcome to Dark Mode 2.0, "Attacking weaknesses". I'm going to try to run this Dark Mode for 10 days and we'll see how that goes. So, what is Dark Mode? Dark Mode is effectively where you focus a hundred percent of your energy on a specific goal or set of goals. We call it Dark Mode because during this time you can't do anything that is not directly facilitating the manifestation of those goals. Effectively, you're going dark, right? There's no social media. No going out. No television, and really just no unnecessary communication. So, the goal for Dark Mode 2.0 is to focus entirely on identifying and improving weaknesses within my four divisions: body, mind, expressive and occupational. So, here's roughly what my schedule is going to look like for Dark Mode 2.0: At 4:30 a.m: I'm going to wake up and go through my morning routine. 4:45 a.m.: Meditate. 5 a.m. to 8 a.m.: I'm going to focus on NelsonQuest work items. At 8 a.m: I have my first salsa class. 9 a.m.: Gym. 10 a.m.: Breakfast. 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m: AgentFire work focus. 12 p.m is optional, and that's where I can take about 20 to 25 minutes for a nap, or to take some sun upstairs on the roof. 12:30 p.m. is where I'll have my snack, let's just call that meal number 2. 4:00 p.m.: Salsa class number 2 or recovery, which will include either sauna or ice baths. 5:00 p.m.: dinner. 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.: Agent fire work focus. 7:00 p.m. to 9 p.m.: NelsonQuest work focus. 9:00 p.m. is when I start my night rituals, and then at 9:30 p.m., I'm off to bed. Ketogenic diet: So, for this Dark Mode, I'm going to be running a modified ketogenic diet, effectively a ketogenic diet with far fewer vegetables. I've been ketogenic for close to a year now, I'm a huge proponent of the diet and all of its benefits. I've experienced reduced body inflammation and improved muscle mass and definition, which has also been easier to maintain. Better sleep, and most importantly for me, greatly improved energy and mental clarity. So, for more information and a full explanation of why I follow the ketogenic diet, you can do a Google search for "NelsonQuest guide to the keto diet" or something like that. Pomodoro work technique: Dark Mode isn't about burning yourself out, It's about being maximally efficient during the time that you do work. So, for those reasons, I utilize a technique called the Pomodoro Technique during my work sessions. The Pomodoro Technique is effectively where you break the work session up into set intervals. So, each work session is followed by a five-minute break, and then every three to four intervals, you can take a long break of up to fifteen minutes. So, the traditional Pomodoro length is 25 minutes, although I prefer 45 minute intervals. And because my day is already so fragmented, I do not take any long breaks because I already naturally have a lot of long breaks. Before each Pomodoro interval, you have to decide what task you want to focus on and you can only focus on that task. And because you have eliminated all distractions and you're only focused on that one task, your goal should always be to achieve a flow state. Now, I have lots of small miscellaneous tasks each day, like answering email, responding to communications from my employees, and so, to get around that, what I do is, I dedicate one to two Pomodoro's per day specifically to just small tasks. Work stations: So, to preserve my body and my mind, I will effectively alternate between four workstations: My treadmill desk, where I can be active. My sofa, where I can use my pneumatic compression boots for recovery. My desktop computer, where I traditionally like to work on multitask type items since I have the multiple monitors. And the fourth workstation, if you can call it that, is a café or co-working space, which I'll work from for a couple of hours every day around midday. Morning ritual: So, for this round of Dark Mode, Dark Mode 2.0., I've made some important tweaks. So, I'm going to get up every day at 4:30 a.m. From there, I'll make my bed. I'll take a caffeine pill, which includes MCT oil and L-theanine. I'll take a cold shower, meditate, and then do some quick dynamic stretches before I start my first work session. My night ritual: So, starting around 7:00 p.m, I'll gradually start to lower all of the lights in my apartment, and I'll also ensure that I'm using blue blocking glasses and blue blocking software on all of my devices. At 9 p.m. I'll stop working and I'll begin preparing for the following day. This preparation will often include preparing my gym items, setting out my work clothes, tidying up a bit around the house, and putting all of my devices to charge. I practice salsa to develop my expressive abilities. I try to express myself in everything that I do, but salsa is kind of the training ground for that. So, my biggest weakness in salsa is definitely my upper body movement as well as my full leg extension and lockouts. So, that's what I'm going to focus on for this session. Alright guys, so I just finished Salsa. I'm going to go straight to the gym. One of my weaknesses is that I lose momentum during my transitions. So, when I finish salsa, I usually like to sit on that couch for a few minutes or- And I lose momentum there. So, for this dark mode, I'm going to make sure that for every transition, I am just moving straight into the next thing. So, on my upper body days, I'm going to do a circuit. I'm going to run between benchpress, landline rows, and bicep curls. When I finished with that circuit, I'll move on to a second circuit where I'll do overhead press, tricep pushdowns, and then one accessory chest movement; so, either plies or dips. That was awesome! I'm getting much better at testing my limits, right there. I was-- my head, I was convinced I couldn't do one more, but like I knew, I know I can do one more. And I did one more, so I'm getting better. So for my final set in each exercise, to improve efficiency even more, what I'm doing this Dark Mode is, I'm doing drop sets. So, what I'm doing, as I remove the weight, I'm putting it away because I have to put the weigh away anyways, so- I'm doing the drop sets so that by the time I'm done, not only I completely destroyed the muscle, overall, I'm doing less volume because I'm doing less sets per exercise, and It's much easier to clean up so I can move very quickly to the next thing. So the big reason I'm doing circuit training, again, well, I just like that style of training, but also it's just much more efficient. So, you'll notice with the first circuit, I was doing bench, so I was moving from a chest exercise to landline rows, which are back exersises. I'm using opposing muscle groups, so this while my chest is recovering, my- You know, I can hit back and that affects that. Here I'm doing shoulder press and dumbbell skull Crusher's, and I know that the shoulder press uses a little bit of tricep, but I want to kill my triceps anyway, they're the weakest part of my body. So just efficiency, efficiency, efficiency. Trying to get the most done in as little time as possible. Just a little over 35 minutes, I usually work out for 45 minutes, but I think with the reduced volume, I'll be able to get out of here much quicker. And again, I'm going to give my time- and again, I'm going to give my body- I'm going to do a little less damage, and I think I was overtraining. So, we'll see how this goes. Time to go home and get some breakfast. Again, no rest in between the transitions. I'm done with the gym, going straight home to get my breakfast. Okay, so we're going straight into breakfast. Again, I'm going to prioritize recovery this Dark Mode, so, I'm going to wear these ice gels on my knees for ten minute periods, wherever I have an opportunity. It's obvious that when I'm cooking is a good opportunity. Alright guys, so I would usually eat this sitting down but I'm in a bit of a hurry. It's already 10:19, I want to eat this very quickly and just get on to my next work session. So, here the macros real quick. Again, I'm doing a modified ketogenic diet, less vegetables. So, you'll notice the only vegetables that I have here are kimchi. This is a tablespoon of avocado oil, 4 eggs, about 35 grams of cheddar cheese, and this is about 40 grams of kimchi. And then I'm also eating 50 grams of roasted macadamia nuts. All right, so I'm done eating. I'm going to start my occupational work block. For my first Pomodoro, I get to figure out what my what my weaknesses are, where can I best spend my time right now. So, that's what I'm going to do. Alright guys, I just started my five-minute break. I determined that the main area that I can focus on for this Dark Mode within my business, is to redo all of the tour videos and continue to work on promotional content. So, I'm going to start with redoing all the tour videos, what we're finding is, right now all of the videos on our tour page are about 3 to 4 to 5 minutes long, and they're too long and people aren't watching them to their entirety. So, I'm going to redo all of the scripts for the tour videos, I'm going to try to refilm them as quickly as I can. I'm going to make each video one minute long, and then we're going to redo the the tour page as well to try to get it converting better. So I'm going to enjoy my-- I'm going to enjoy the remaining 4 minutes that I have, and then I begin Pomodoro number 4. It's 12:15, I'm going to take my optional nap. So, I'm going to nap for about 20 to 30 minutes. I'm going to have a quick snack, take a shower, and then I'm going to head to a co-working space to continue working. Wake me up in 25 minutes. Setting alarm for 12:41 p.m. Alright guys, I'm just going to grab a quick snack. So, I'm going to eat some salmon, with some avocado mayonnaise, and black pepper. So, I'm going to eat this, take a shower, and then head to a co-working space to start Pomodoro number 5. Alright guys, so I just finished going over some of the important updates we have to make to some of the most recent episodes of NelsonQuest, also, I've-- We're still trying to figure out how we're going to film this whole Dark Mode series, so, we're actually- we're very much running and gunning right now, so, we went over that as well. And we've got a whole plan in place to make sure that these episodes are absolutely awesome. Now, I'm about to start my second salsa lesson, this is Maria. You guys may have already met her in another episode, depending on how quickly we get out episodes that come before this episode. But, so I brought Maria in to help me out to- I know that one of my weaknesses is, I need to develop my style a little better when it comes to dancing with other partners. Sometimes, if I have the same teacher for too long I get used to that style, and if I try to dance with other other people, I just- I don't- I suck. So, Maria also has a very unique dancing background; she has a ballet background. So, she has a very, very technical background. A lot of my weaknesses ,like the, you know, the leg extension, locking my knees out, the the upper body movement, just the placement of my hands, she's extremely, extremely technical. So, she's going to be helping me out with that. Yeah, and we're just going to be-- She also has a very, very unique dancing style, very much like water, so, it's good for me. So anyway, I'm going to get changed real quick, and time to start our salsa class. She's maybe shy, I don't know. So, just finished salsa, about to eat dinner. I'm not going to lie, I'm feeling a little lightheaded. So, I started eating some macadamia nuts before I start cooking. So, I'm having another 75 grams of macadamia nuts. Which I'm almost done eating because I'm starving. Also forgot to lower more food from the freezer, so this stuff is frozen. So, we're just going to start cooking this first. This is 125 grams of churrasco. I'm going to throw this in there, let it kind of warm up a little bit. I'm just going to use a tablespoon of ghee. Going to spread this and I'm going to get it covered in the ghee. Luckily, it's a really thin meat churrasco, so, it should cook pretty quickly. Again, I'm reducing my vegetable intake. I would normally be eating vegetables with this as well. Let's just throw a top on there so it doesn't splash around too much. Finish these macadamia nuts. I'm also going to add 80 grams of salmon. This way, I'm just going to kind of cut up, sprinkle around. I'm also going to have some more kimchi. I'm going to add about 40 grams. That's actually 70 grams. 70 grams of kimchi. Make sure we get all the ghee on there. I'll clean this up in a little bit. I'm going to have a little bit more macadamia nuts too. It's about 5 grams. 1 syringe of apple cider vinegar. It makes my teeth black if it touches the teeth. You can dilute it in water or liquid too, but it's just easier this way. Going to mix this with creatine and glutamine. I think I haven't eaten enough today, so, I'm going to get this, you know, I feel I'll probably going to eat something else afterwards, maybe some more nuts or something like that. I'm done eating. I actually feel pretty stuffed, so, I think that's going to be all the eating I do for today. It's about 5:30 p.m. I'm going to just finish washing this real quick, and then I'm going to have a meeting with the team about how we're going to , we're going to continue talking about how we're going to make these Dark Mode episodes so... I'll use another Pomodoro on that. Just another quick note: So, I mentioned that I split up my day into Nelson Quest and then AgentFire, and right now we're technically still in AgentFire time, you know the thing about the Dark Mode schedule, the thing about any schedule is it has to be flexible, it has to allow for exceptions. It is just a model, a structure. But there are times where you need to deviate from it, you need to make sure that you have flexibility. I need to make sure that I talk about this with the team, you know, before everyone leaves for the day. So, you know, that's what we're doing. Alright I'm going to take a five-minute break. which basically is going to consist of me lying back in this chair. I'm pretty tired. But I'll be good once I start working again. Once I start working my next Pomodoro, I'm going to focus on-- I'm going to clean this computer out for the boys. I have got to spent some time on that. and then-- I think I'm going to continue working on Nelson Quest stuff, since I'm most behind with that. Alright guys, I'm going to finish this Pomodoro here. Work uh-- Do one more Pomodoro, and then it's off to bed. I have my blue blocking glasses on, I've reduced all the lights in the house. So, I want to start getting getting ready for- for bed, I want my body to start producing a mellow time. Taking my pants off so I can use these compression boots, and I'm going to use my last Pomodoro. I'm going to make sure that- I have a bunch of employees that work night shifts. So, I have people in the Philippines, and Eastern Europe, so, I'm going to make sure that they have all their work, where do they go so that they can be working throughout the evening. We're actually creating a lot of stuff. A lot of new assets for this Dark Mode series, so, I want to make sure that stuff is in development. One of which is a downloadable PDF guide of this entire Dark Mode routine, and all of the important points that constitutes this Dark Mode, my Dark Mode, which you can then take and copy yourself. I hope you guys have enjoyed this episode. Welcome to Dark Mode. Hey guys, so you just finished watching the first episode of Dark Mode 2.0. I really hope that you guys enjoyed it. Just a couple quick things: One is, if you guys enjoyed this Dark Mode episode, if you like the idea of Dark Mode, I have created a PDF which you guys can download. It outlines exactly what Dark Mode is, it outlines-- It defines a lot of things. I've got my full schedule listed in there. So, you can find information on how to download that in the video description link. If you're not already subscribed and you liked this video, make sure to subscribe, and make sure that when you subscribe, you click the bell icon so, that when videos like this come out you get notified first. If you want bonus points, you can also follow me on Instagram. My instagram is @nelsonquest. I share insights from my life, articles, things that I'm reading. I share lots of really good stuff that if you relate to me as a person, I think you'll really enjoy. So, make sure to follow me there. I hope you guys enjoy the rest of the Dark Mode series. Every episode is going to focus on a single individual theme, and we're going to load them up with infographics and stuff that I think will be really helpful, beneficial to you guys, and ultimately stuff that you can relate to and apply within your own lives. So, I'll see you in the next video. Hope you enjoyed it! Chau!