Part 2: How Richard Branson Started Over 400 Companies: The most powerful productivity (& confidence) hack of all time.

Part 2: How Richard Branson Started Over 400 Companies: The most powerful productivity (& confidence) hack of all time.

“The more you do, the more you’ll do.”

– Anonymous

Because Live Your Legend has been growing like wild-fire, many in the community haven’t yet seen all of the amazing and timeless work our founder Scott Dinsmore created. Today, we showcase Part 2 of one of Scott’s classic posts as we roll out this new series. These will be Scott’s original words, unfiltered, to help you understand what made Scott so remarkable.

Last week we asked for your input and you (over-)delivered! 

You left dozens of useful comments about what we should name our new series. Some of the favorites already are Classic Scott Dinsmore, Luckey’s Lasting Impression, Scott Unfiltered, In Scott’s Words, Scott’s Thoughts, Legendary Beginnings, LYL Legacy, Musings From a Legend, etc. There are so many good ones! It’ll be a struggle to pick just one. Big thanks to everyone who submitted ideas; we knew you’d come up with something better than we could.  🙂

Enjoy Part 2 of 2 of this first installment of the new series. (See part 1 of 2 here) Take it away, Scott…

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How Richard Branson Started Over 400 Companies: The most powerful productivity (& confidence) hack of all time! 

The Magical 30-Day Challenge

By far my favorite way to tackle fitness is through 30 and 60-day challenges.

Given our craving for variety and how quickly we get bored with the norm, especially with working out, I decided to break my activity into 30-day bursts. This allows me to try all kinds of adventures and to seriously go after the activity at hand without getting burned out. Plain and simple, it makes fitness fun.

I encourage you to use the above steps and apply them to a different 30-day challenge every month or two.

You can do anything for 30 days, right?

Some of my recent challenges include: 

  • 31 days of Bikram Hot Yoga in a month (this was last month’s January challenge). I also juiced veggies for breakfast and ate mostly plants the rest of the day to do a little New Year’s cleanse – Chelsea, my wife, is an insanely talented cook – check out her mostly plants veggie cooking blog Food-Life Balance. (Side note: I was in a body fat loss competition with my buddy – not because I felt I needed to necessarily lose weight, but just for the fun challenge).
  • See how much muscle I can gain in 2 months – that’s my Feb and March challenge, which involves a combo of Crossfit and Leo Costa’s Titan Training System (btw, the quality of the instruction at Kelly Starett’s San Francisco Crossfit gym is bar none. Also has a great view of the Golden Gate…).
  • Complete the Goruck Challenge with 8 friends this June.
  • Run a self-guided ‘Accidental Marathon’ with four friends.
  • Rock climbing (gym or outdoors) – pick a face the first day you hope to conquer by month’s end.
  • TRX Suspension training- whoever can get the most days in wins.
  • Swim Fast Escape from Alcatraz and across the Golden Gate swims – with a group of 12-year-olds.
  • Tahoe Rim Trail Ultra Marathon barefoot run- long runs and learning Chi Running as prep.
  • Pick a different staircase to run each day in San Francisco- we found a great guide book for this. Every city has countless stairs.
  • Summit Mt. Shasta or climb any mountain for that matter – this was actually what I did for my bachelor party…
  • Cross-country Crossfit (high intensity 10-20 minute workouts) – I did this challenge last year remotely with my buddy in the Navy in Maryland using his Crossfit website. Free workouts posted daily. What a fun way to keep up from afar. We compared times each morning.
  • P90X Extreme Home Fitness. The 13-week program is one of the best I’ve experienced for full body muscle, cardio and flexibility. Doing a month of it is a great start. I did the full 13-weeks and even gained just under 10lbs.
Take a second to think about what your first challenge will be.

They do it for themselves…

I’m not the strongest guy at my gym.

I’m not the fastest guy in my running group.

I don’t win the races I enter.

I don’t do the things I do for some external trophy.

I do them because when I lift a little more weight, run a little farther, swim a little longer or eat a little healthier, I become a different person.

When I’m fit, I treat people better, I help people more and I’m capable of putting a bigger dent in the world.

I find new levels of confidence. I experience new heights of ambition.

I become powerful on an altogether different level.

And I absolutely love it.

The fit people don’t do what they do for those around them. They do it for themselves. 

They do it for the person it makes them and for the way they’ll be able to impact the world as a result.

There is no health benefit to being bigger, faster or stronger than the person checking himself out in the mirror next to you.

The power comes in knowing that you can control the things you can control.

That you have the discipline to move mountains.

Get in control of that, and you’ll start to surprise yourself.

-Scott

P.S. What benefits have you gained from regular fitness? Motivate us by sharing a sentence in the comments below. Thanks!

Note: Tim Ferriss‘ book The 4-Hour Body helped me add clarity to some of the above ideas. Thanks Tim!

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In the comments below, let us know which 30 day fitness challenge is the most inspiring or interesting to you. We’d love to see you commit to trying it out!  It can be such a confidence booster; don’t be surprised if it starts showing up in other areas of your life.  🙂