What's the Appeal of Western Colorado?

Since we've begun telling people about our plans to move, we've been getting one question repeatedly - Why Western Colorado?

Admittedly, it is a somewhat strange destination. Even the folks interviewing me for the teaching position I wrote about in my last post seemed a little surprised this area was at the top of our relocation list.

Scouting While Traveling

The decision to make the Western Slope our top relocation destination started when we traveled the country teaching about barefoot running for Merrell. Over two years, we drove 50,000 miles through forty-six states. Some areas really resonated with us. Many didn't. 

Generally, we liked areas that were either rural or cities surrounded by rural openness. We liked mountains. We liked open spaces. We liked sun. 

We didn't like crowds, traffic, or hipsters. We didn't like pretentiousness. We didn't like nosey neighbors or hordes of homeless people. 

Locations We Liked

At the end of our travels, we created a list of possible areas we liked enough to consider semi-permanent relocation once the charm of SoCal wore off. That list included:

• The Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia
• The Smoky Mountains of Eastern Tennessee
• Outskirts of San Antonio, Texas
• Outskirts of Tucson, Arizona
• Redding, California
• Reno, Nevada
• Boise, Idaho
• And, of course, Colorado's Western Slope

All of the areas had pros and cons, but all were areas we enjoyed and could imagine living there for a significant period of time.

Why Western Colorado?

Of all these areas, Western Colorado stood out. We spent significant time there, partly to run races (Grand Mesa 100 miler, Mt. Sneffels Marathon), and partly because Grand Junction is a gateway between the Western and Eastern US. It was a convenient stopping point when crossing the Rockies. Specifically, this is what we liked:

1. Mountains. We have a thing for mountains, and this area doesn't disappoint. The Grand Mesa and Rockies to the East, San Juans to the South. The Uncomphagre Plateau to the West. Not only do they provide picturesque views, they also offer ample recreation activities. 

2. Elevation. There's something magical about the clean, crisp, thin air and bright sky at elevation. We'll be living at about 6,000 feet, but we'll have plenty of opportunities to get above fourteen.

3. Rural Setting. Both Shelly and I spent most of our childhoods in small towns. After spending over five years surviving the frantic, overcrowded rat race that is Southern California, we're eager to get back to a more relaxed environment. 

4. Seclusion. We're all a bunch of introverts. All of us love people, but we all need solitude to recharge. We'll have far more opportunities to get away from people in Colorado where the population density is a tiny fraction of the population density here in San Diego. 

5. True Seasons; Snow. I can't believe I'm saying it, but I miss the changing seasons and snow. Currently, we have a temperate, "rainy" season (about 13" per year) that extends from about January to March, then a "blazing hot" season that lasts the rest of the year. In Western Colorado, the climate is somewhat similar to East County given it's high desert, but also fluctuates more. Instead of 100 degree October days, we'll have mid-fifties. We'll also have occasional sub-freezing temps and snow without the brutally-long, dreary West Michigan winters.  

6. Less Regulation and Taxation. California has the fourth-highest tax burden in the US. Colorado is in the bottom quarter. Similarly, California is one of the worst states for personal freedom. Colorado ranks as the tenth best. To make matters worse, California has a bad habit of pissing away their tax revenue on stupid, elaborate projects. 

7. Resilient Population; No Hipsters. I like living among people who can take care of themselves if the shit hits the fan. When a population doesn't have to struggle or have a government with excessive social welfare programs, they tend to be fairly helpless and don't develop self-reliance. The decidedly blue-collar, geographically-isolated population of Western Colorado is rugged and independent. And there are few if any hipsters like we found along the Front Range to the east. 

8. Diversity. There aren't too many rural areas of the country that feature decent diversity. Western Colorado certainly won't have the extreme diversity we have here in San Diego (our kids' school is about 30% Hispanic, 30% Arabic, 20% African American, 15% white, and 5% a smattering of other cultural groups), but the area does have a significant Hispanic population (about 25-30%.) 

9. Cheap Land, Significantly Lower Cost of Living. This was a biggie. We've long-wanted enough acreage to raise chickens and goats, have enough room to shoot guns or drive go-carts, build projects, and so on. We'd never be able to realistically afford this anywhere near San Diego (we'd have to buy land in the desert ninety miles east of San Diego). Not so in Western Colorado. It's not uncommon to find 40 acre plots for as little as $100,000. This is the biggest factor in the lower cost of living. If 100 is the US average cost of living, San Diego is 146 and Western Colorado is about 90. That's a HUGE difference. 

10. Better Business Climate. Shelly and I have several business ideas we've been developing over the last few years, but the cost/benefit analysis has never made sense. Why? California absolutely sucks for starting businesses. The taxes, regulation, and out-of-control bureaucracy are a huge burden to small business owners. Colorado only ranks as the middle of the pack, but it ranks better than Michigan where I've started several successful businesses. I can live with the moderate ranking. The business plans are one of the elements of moving that excites me the most; I miss entrepreneurship. 

11. Safety. Compared to our current home in East County east of San Diego, Western Colorado has far fewer murders, assaults, rapes, robberies, and car thefts. We want our kids to be able to walk around freely without excessive worry from junkies, unregistered sex offenders, transients, paranoid schizophrenics, and the other undesirable characters we have roaming around our current neighborhood. 

That sums up many of the major reasons we chose Western Colorado. It's not an area that would appeal to most, but many of our outdoor-loving, adventurous friends would likely fall in love with the area. 

We certainly did. 

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Getting Back into the Game: Landing a Teaching Gig in Colorado

Welp, it's official! I recently landed a high school social studies job in Colorado. Later this summer, we'll be packing up the fam and moving to the Western Slope.

As I mentioned in my last post, this has been a plan we've been working on since our cross-country drive to Michigan last summer. It's been a long path, but it's well worth the effort!

To land the job, I first had to get certified in Colorado. That step turned out to be easy; Colorado's Department of Education is infinitely more organized and efficient than the shit-show Ed. Department here in California. It took six months to get my certificate in California. Colorado took three days. 

The next step was brushing up on all things education. This took time, but wasn't especially difficult. I've worked as a substitute teacher for the last four years in addition to working as a school security guard. During that time, I've been able to stay abreast of the latest trends. Amusingly, education really is cyclical. Today's "new" ideas are really just the same old stuff I studied in college dressed up with new terminology and technology.

Third, I had to research districts and apply to open positions. Websites like k12jobspot.com and teacher-teacher.com were useful, but I found individual districts' websites to be the most accurate and up-to-date. We knew where we wanted to live, so this part was simple. Find postings -> apply. I believe I ended up applying for about twelve positions in five districts. Then I waited.

I got the first call for a mid-sized high school job in a small, rural town (pop. ~ 20,000.) It came a little earlier than expected, so I wasn't prepared to make the trip from San Diego to Colorado. It's a 900 mile drive and a prohibitively expensive flight. Luckily they allowed me to interview via Skype.

The Interview

My process for interviewing involves a hell of a lot of research and preparation. This would be my first Skype interview, so I had to practice that aspect, too. Over the course of about a week, I researched far and wide to learn as much as I could about the school, demographics, major issues, the school board, the town, the area, and the people who would likely be interviewing me. The more I researched, the more excited I became. The school appeared to be a far better fit than I had expected. I took elaborate notes and memorized as much as I could.

Since appearance matters, I set up a miniature studio in our bedroom. I used an HD webcam, quality microphone, three-point lighting setup, and professional photography backdrop. To assure I was always looking into the camera, I set up our 40" flat screen directly behind the camera so I could see the interviewers while appearing to maintain eye contact. Finally, I summarized my notes on index cards and taped them around the TV screen.

When the time came, I shook off mild nervousness with a V-pose and performed well. I'm generally an excellent interviewer, and this one was one of my best. The interview further confirmed that the school would be a great fit. I started getting really excited about the possibilities, especially when I found out the position included not only world geography classes, but also a psychology class. While I love teaching social studies, I'm passionate about teaching psych.

About two weeks later, I received a call from the school's assistant principal; they wanted to meet me in person. The timing was perfect because we were currently on spring break and Shelly was on vacation. So we planned an impromptu drive to Colorado!

The Second Interview

We packed up the car and made the fourteen hour drive to Colorado. We're pretty well-versed in long road trips given our frequent travel, and this is a decidedly pleasant trip. Well, pleasant once we get past the Los Angeles/ Riverside metro area. Lots of desert, canyons, and mountain passes. Aside from one of the children getting sick en route, the drive was long but pleasant. We arrived in the town around eight o'clock, checked in to our hotel, then hit the grocery store for food.

The kids were mildly-but-pleasantly shocked the store wasn't crowded. It's a sharp contrast to our current hone; every store in the San Diego metro area is a damn zoo all day every day. Until that point, I had a little apprehension over the culture shock between the urban sprawl and rural farming community would trigger objections. But they loved it. Epic mountain views, wide-open spaces, very little traffic, and plenty of silence. 

The next morning, I reviewed all my notes, suited up, and met the administrators and two potential colleagues. We met at a coffee shop across the road from the school. I was obviously out of place given I was wearing a suit, which was amusing. 

I was anticipating a formal interview. Instead, we just made small talk, then they took me on a tour of the school. As we discussed various issues related to the school and community in general and the position in particular, I began getting the feeling this wasn't an interview so much as an introduction.

That feeling was confirmed when the Assistant Principal offered me the job towards the end of the session. Given that I hadn't expected to be offered the job, I still had to discuss it with Shelly and the kids. I broke the news, then we talked it over while driving around looking at houses on the market. It didn't take long to reach a unanimous decision - we're movin' to Colorado!

In coming posts, I'll detail the rationale for choosing Colorado and document the process of prepping for the move. Getting rid of excess crap, packing,  renting a moving truck, making the drive, finding a place to live, preparing my curriculum... good times!

It's been quite some time since we've done something exciting and slightly terrifying. Needless to say, we're pumped!

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A Return to Teaching: Life Comes Full-Circle

A little under seven years ago, Shelly and I decided to quit our full-time teaching jobs in Michigan to travel the country in an RV with our three kids and niece Stephanie. Yeah, we're masochists. As I discussed in this post on my BRU blog, we left for a variety of reasons. First, we were simply burned out. Teaching is not easy, and we both got too caught up in negativity. The financial climate for education in Michigan at the time was decidedly bad and we had the opportunity to travel the country doing what we love. Second, we wanted to spend more time together with our kids and as a couple. Paid travel? Who wouldn't take that opportunity? 

After traveling 50,000 miles back and forth across our beautiful country, we eventually we settled outside San Diego. What started as a temporary stop to wait out winter turned into a five-plus year adventure... thanks mostly to Shelly and I falling in love with our coaches and training partners at our Brazilian jiu jitsu/ mixed martial arts gym.

I was busy trying to make a living as a writer while also exploring a variety of alternative career paths. I dabbled in package delivery and truck-loading for UPS, working as a materials receiver for a lumber yard, working in real estate lead-generation, and even drove for Uber for a spell. It all kinda sucked; none of the jobs captured my interest quite like teaching. I also worked as a substitute teacher for a local high school district. That experience kept my teaching skills sharp and allowed me to stay current with trends in education, but the intermittent nature of the work didn't inspire me to go back to teaching full-time.

All of that changed when we took a road trip back to Michigan this last summer. That trip rekindled a lot of our future plans we put on hold when we started traveling. All of us, the kids included, have been growing tired of the SoCal life (extremely high costs, ridiculous population density, heavy traffic, lack of real seasons, no parking, lack of a real yard, etc.) So we made a decision to move to Western Colorado, which was one of about seven locations for permanent settlement we scouted when traveling.

In preparation for the move, I got two jobs working school security. The jobs were to provide a regular source of income to pay off debt AND give me experience in school security for a business Shelly and I have been planning. The first job is working evenings at an adult education campus; the second job is working mornings at a middle school. Both jobs involve A LOT of interaction with all school personnel, especially the administrators. I also get to work work closely with the custodians, administrative assistants, counselors, food service, grounds and maintenance, IT, and, of course, teachers. Finally, I have the opportunity to work directly with students in a mentor-tutoring capacity, which is an extra-duty task I volunteered to do given my teaching background.

These experiences turned out to be the magical formula that rekindled my passion to get back into the classroom. It's taken quite some time to process exactly why that passion returned. Here's what I have so far:

• I miss making a difference. This is the biggie. Teaching gives you the opportunity to get to know individual students pretty well, which also gives you the opportunity to make a significant, positive difference in their lives. My "specialty" has always been finding out what motivates kids, then teaching them how to apply that motivation to academia. 
• I miss the dynamics of the classroom. Interacting with teens is endlessly amusing. They're intellectually-mature enough to have in-depth conversations and understand complex ideas, but haven't experienced enough real life to be overly cynical. That makes the teaching and learning process a ton of fun. 
• I have a far different perspective on the nature of education. When I started teaching, I had a Michelle Pfeiffer/ Dangerous Minds perspective on teaching. I was filled with piss and vinegar and I was going to change the world, damn it! I was hyper-focused on the welfare of the students in my classroom without consideration for the bigger picture. I didn't understand a lot of the decisions that were made at the building or district level because I didn't really understand how all the parts of a district function as a unit. 
• I've had a ton of great life experiences inside and outside the classroom. Since leaving full-time teaching, I've traveled to forty-seven states, four countries, run a bunch of ultramarathons in fascinating, beautiful locations, worked with a major outdoor company, wrote five books and about 1.2 million words worth of blog posts, experienced abject poverty, earned a purple belt in jiu jitsu and did a little teaching, had a pro mma fight (against an injured opponent, so it only kinda counts), have subbed in about fifteen different schools with wildly different school cultures, worked with varied ages and demographics, and totally different communities. Some were rural, some suburban, some urban. I've had the opportunity to work with students from decidedly different backgrounds, including a lot of first and second generation immigrants. I've had the opportunity to work with administrators with different leadership styles. All of these experiences have dramatically increased my relatability to students, which is really the key to being a successful teacher. 
• I can be a much better teacher. Early in my career, I had a ton of enthusiasm but no experience. As I got more experience, the enthusiasm waned. Now, I have the collected experiences of twenty years in the education world, years of extended travel, AND the passion and enthusiasm of a new teacher. I am intimately familiar with the trials and tribulations of teaching, have accepted the negatives, and can still approach the career with enthusiasm. 
• The pay, benefits, and schedule are nice. As much as I enjoy school security, the pay and benefits are pretty terrible compared to teacher pay and benefits. We're not materialistic, but buying land and a house is one of our reasons for moving. Teaching will allow us to achieve that goal sooner. The schedule will allow us ample time to do other things that interest us, like doing more travel during the summer. 

The Tentative Plan

Since making this decision, I've been busy preparing. First, I need to get certified in Colorado which involves digging up a slew of documents like transcripts, certificates, ID, etc. Thankfully their department of education seems far less chaotic than the California counterpart. 

Next, I've started setting up job alerts on all the websites that list Colorado teaching jobs, like k12jobspot, schoolspring, and teachaway, along with all the more well-known sites like LinkedIn, Monster, Indeed, etc. If a job opens up, I'll know about it.

Finally, I've been preparing to reenter the profession by brushing up on theory, terminology, pedagogy, new, relevant laws and regulations, and of course, classroom management. Luckily the substitute teaching and school security experiences have given me ample opportunities to stay up to date and regularly practice the skills we use as teachers. I've been preparing my resume and gathering my letters of recommendation. I've been researching possible districts who may be hiring for the coming school year. When the spring hiring season begins later this year, I'll be ready. 

Conclusion

I haven't been a full-time teacher since June of 2011, but am excitedly preparing to reenter the career. When I started teaching way back in '99, I was convinced I was going to change the world. Schools were failing and I was the person who was going to make the difference!

Like most teachers, the reality of teaching effectively killed that optimism. 

However, my experiences since that day I left my classroom for the last time back in '11 have really given me a broader perspective. I'm going into this return to teaching with that same passion and enthusiasm I did back in '99, only this time I understand the realities of public education. 

I'll likely post more on this topic in the near future. Stay tuned!

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How to Get Better at Reading People

"Reading" people is one of the most important, and vastly underrated, skills we can possess. I'll operationally define "reading" as the process of understanding why people believe, think, and behave the way they do. The better you get at reading people, the easier it becomes to navigate our social world. Honing this one skill will make you 

Pretty much all of my own personal success can be directly attributed to this skill. Aside from my better-than-average skill at understanding human behavior, I'm decidedly average. I'm not especially smart, funny, or athletic. Any "talents" I possess are a function of a lot of hard work, not the result of winning a genetic lottery. Despite all of the apparent limitations, I've been able to do some pretty cool shit in my life like earn multiple degrees, spend over a decade teaching, written books, run ultramarathons, and even fought a pro mma fight. By my count, I've had about fourteen jobs in my life and have never "lost" an interview. I've always gotten the job. All because I "get" people a little better than most.

My own "people reading" skills were developed early in childhood, mostly as a result of weird passive-aggressive martyr tendencies that defined my immediate and extended family. People almost always had a hidden motive, so I needed to be able to ignore the facade and assess their real intent. That "skill" was so deeply ingrained in me, I wasn't even aware of it until my thirties. Once I "discovered" it, I was able to actively work to improve the skill. 

The Challenge

Reading people is tricky because we always wear masks to hide our real selves, even to those closest to us. Deep down, all of us have elements of our personality that are so disturbing, we'll never let others see them. As we go through life, we all experience dark thoughts, totally inappropriate hedonistic sexual desires, and occasional thoughts of unspeakable violence. We also have incredible insecurities that, if discovered, would reveal that we're really just barely winging this game of life. Worse, we assume we're the only people that have these feelings. As such, all of us are VERY highly motivated to bury them as deep as we possibly can, put on a smile, and try to convince the rest of the world that we have our shit together. 

The problem - most people assume others do not have an elaborate mask that hides their real self. They take people at face value, then get confused when their ability to explain, predict, or even influence their behavior fails. Even if they do look behind the facade, they assume it's just a flimsy cardboard mask that's easily circumvented. As I'll describe in the next section, that false confidence causes them to stop searching once they believe they've discovered "the truth." 

The Basic Principles

Developing your people reading skills is pretty simple, it just takes a lot of practice. Understanding some basic principles is a prerequisite to reading people.

• Understand and accept that you can never really know anyone. No matter how close we are to someone, they will never reveal everything. Ever. They would rather choose death. Dramatic, but true. The reason this is important is because, as I stated above, it causes us to stop searching. Until that person surprises us by doing something completely unpredictable. As good as I think I am at reading people, I fully understand I can only ever see a minuscule fraction of people's real self. Even my wife.
• Foster curiosity. Curiosity is the engine that fuels the ability to read people. In order to improve, you have to be obsessively curious about what makes people tick. The moment understanding human behavior becomes boring is the moment your skills become ineffective.
• We all have common behavior patterns. Yes, it's true that we're all individual snowflakes. But we're still snow. We're cold, fall from the sky, and melt at a specified temperature. Like snowflakes, humans have almost universal similarities. These universals can be learned from all sorts of sources. Many of the similarities I use regularly come from the study of psychology in general and social psychology in particular, studying psychics (read up on "cold reading"), and just paying attention to general sociocultural trends. Check out the movie Leap of Faith. 
• We all have "tells." All of us wear masks, and we'll use different masks for different situations. These masks are essentially lies that we carefully fabricate. The problem, of course, is that we have a million details to monitor, especially when switching masks. Looking for and recognizing incongruencies between people's masks is a very easy way to see behind the masks. In the movie Gattaca, the main character is assuming the personality of another dude with the goal of becoming an astronaut. He fools everyone throughout the movie, except for the guy that collects urine samples. How did he know the main character wasn't who he claimed to be? He pissed with the wrong hand. Everyone has tells; you just need to keep your eyes open.
• Observe people without judgment. I was originally trained as an experimental social psychologist, which provided a perfect foundation for learning how to read people. Being an experimental psychologist requires the observer to watch what's happening around them without interpreting. It's a deceptively hard thing to do, but absolutely necessary. Interpretation comes later. If we try to interpret at the time, the interpretation interferes with the continued observation because we assign motives and begin introducing stereotypes. 
• Look for patterns, especially hypocrisy. We like to believe we possess a set of values, beliefs, or principles that guide our behaviors. We like to believe we're capable of intellectualizing anything and everything we do. We like to believe we're rational, logical creatures. But we're not. At all. Humans are anything but rational, logical creatures. Instead, we have biological drives that act as an invisible hand that compels us to do the things we do. When processing after the fact, we rationalize our behaviors in some way... and we're really good at that. Understanding this principle is probably the single biggest key to reading people, and it's really easy to see. Just look for hypocrisy. We're exceptionally bad at aligning our behaviors and stated beliefs. Hell, I'm acutely aware of this principle and still fall into the trap all the time. 
• Never assume you have the puzzle figured out. I've spent nearly four decades observing human behavior. I've definitely gotten better to the point where I'm really good. Yet I've just scratched the surface. There's always new individuals with different sociocultural backgrounds, new trends, new environmental factors, and a host of other things that are always changing. More significantly, individuals themselves are incredibly dynamic. The person I could read really well a few years ago may be completely unreadable today because something about them changed. 

How to Improve

So how exactly do we get better? For the novice, here are my suggestions:

• Read the book "Social Animal" by Elliot Aronson. This is the gold standard for a primer in understanding why we do the things we do.
• Read the book "The Art of Seduction" by Robert Greene. Weird, but effective. Greene's book outlines some basic human personality types. Since it's framed as "seduction" and sexual desire is perhaps our strongest social drive, it's far more practical than other books about personality types.
• Read up on "cold reading" and "mentalism" (used by psychics and magicians, respectively.) Ian Rowland has some wonderfully useful stuff.
• People watch. Find a comfortable place with a large number of people, and just observe their behaviors. Continually ask yourself "why are they doing what they're doing right now?" Once you feel comfortable watching people, try to predict what they do next. That forces you to observe seemingly insignificant behaviors that normally don't register in our brains.
• Plumb the depths of your own psyche. One of the best exercises you can do is to consider why YOU do the things you do. In this specific situation, asking how and why you classify and stereotype people can be an invaluable exercise. There's a reason we react a certain way towards certain people, and understanding why gives you insight to exactly what they do to earn that classification. Do that enough and you start to notice your own patterns of observation, which can clue you in to the stuff you're ignoring. In short- this exercise improves your ability to observe more details. 

This list is far from comprehensive; it's intended to be a VERY basic primer. I love talking about the topic, so please post any questions you may have in the comment section.

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"What's the Deal With Jason's Facebook Craziness?!?"

A friend recently asked me about my activities on social media in general and Facebook in particular. Specifically, he asked me why I post and comment in the way that I do. If you're unfamiliar, he described it as "schizophrenic." [note - it's actually more "dissociative identity disorder-ish, but that's neither here nor there] Basically my activity falls into one of about four categories:

• "Normal" posts about my family or daily life
• Posts intended to inspire or pay tribute to people or institutions I respect
• Things that amuse me in some way
• Posts that are intended to learn about human behavior

The first three are pretty standard, but the last one is what results in the "what the fuck is wrong with you???" sentiment I get from people that don't actually know me well in real life. These types of activities usually involve posting about a news story or issue, then inciting debate and arguments. I rarely if ever voice my true opinion. Instead, I post things that will elicit a reaction which often means taking a stance that's completely the opposite of what I really believe. And it drives a lot of people crazy.

"Why Do You Do This?!?"

First - a short back story. When I was growing up, I went through different phases of what I thought I wanted to do in my life. I wanted to be an astronaut, professional baseball player, punter (for pro football), a business manager, a marketer, and a woodworker. In college I earned an Associate's degree in business, then decided to switch gears to become a history teacher. I really wanted to coach football and teaching was the best conduit. Before graduating, I discovered and fell in love with psychology and added another year to my undergrad studies. Upon graduation, I applied for teaching jobs and grad schools with the goal of either becoming an experimental social psychologist or a high school history teacher. Serendipity came knocking and I landed a job teaching high school psychology. As a bonus, I also got to coach my beloved football. For a few years, I was in my element. Eventually the realities of being a public school teacher set in (administration, parents, paperwork, grading, No Child Left Behind, friction between our union and administration, lack of public support, etc.) made the job unbearable. I had an opportunity to travel the country teaching about barefoot running, so I took it. When that adventure ran it's course, I settled into my current "occupation" as a writer. 

All of these experiences taught me an important lesson - I have two intense passions in my life: Teaching, and studying human behavior. For a while, these two passions aligned perfectly in my high school psychology gig. Since then, I've played the two off each other in various ways such as barefoot running, ultrarunning, and sex and relationships. 

The point to this trip down memory lane - the reason I do the things I do on social media is to learn about people. Specifically, what leads people to do the things they do, believe the things they believe, and most importantly, how they adapt to change. I'm more interested in how and why people react and respond than what they react and respond with. I don't care about other people's opinions as much as I care about how they developed those opinions. This also gives me insight to my own thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors. I'm as fascinated with my own inner workings as much as I am fascinated by other people's inner workings. 

I can then use this insight to human behavior to leverage my other passion - teaching. A key element to teaching is tailoring the pedagogy (the methods and practices of teaching) to individuals. That requires the teacher to understand the student. The greater that depth of understanding, the better-matched methodology that can be utilized.

THAT is the reason I do what I do on Facebook. I occasionally frame my social media antics in that way, but most of the time I write it off as "entertainment." That works because the exchanges are almost always amusing, at least to a certain niche of friends. 

My long-time friends just roll with it, but I sometimes run into issues with brand-new friends or, more likely, friends of friends. They'll engage in arguments with me to try to prove why they're right and I'm wrong, then get pissed when I dance around the topic. They don't get that my refusal to engage is a calculated attempt to get them to reveal the motives behind their passionate stance on seemingly inconsequential issues that do not affect their day-to-day lives. 

Even some of my go-to antagonist topics fit that bill. Yes, that means I really don't care if people are vegans, vaccinate their children, engage in helicopter parent behaviors, or believe in psychics. I have a few issues and causes I feel strongly about, but not strongly enough to keep me from using them as social media debate fodder. My self-run social experimentation is more important than advocating for this or that, mostly because I understand that social media rants are piss-poor pedagogy. 

Why Not Just Become a Researcher?

Many people, especially those employed in research capacities or studying to be researchers, question the validity of my "experimentation." Having been trained as a researcher, I'm acutely aware of the limitations of social science research. It's slow and expensive, and it can take years to collect enough data to develop a consensus on any given hypothesis. There's a reason we don't have any "laws" related to human behavior.

I prefer the practical. Not only does it provide more immediate satisfaction, it's good enough to fuel that need to understand my potential students. The Barefoot Running Book and Never Wipe Your Ass with a Squirrel would not have been so successful without a deep understanding of how my audience thinks and learns. This is also the reason my "traditionally published" version of The Barefoot Running Book and The Ultimate Guide to Trail Running and Ultramarathons have not done as well... my editors neutered my voice to the point where it no longer resonates with my audience.

So there you go - I use social media as my sociopsychological sandbox to help me learn about people to help make me a more effective teacher. Keeping with that theme, I'm curious how other people would describe their social media activity. Tell me your story in the comments!

-Jason

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Defriending Your Annoying Facebook Friends Makes You a Horrible Person

Earlier today, my friend Tina Plantamura posted a Huffington Post article she wrote about defriending on Facebook. The article was supposed to be humorous, but quite a few people apparently didn't get the joke. The article caused me to reflect on my own friending/ defriending behaviors, which are a little bit unique. 

Over the years, I've developed a Facebook policy that prevents me from defriending people. No matter what annoying, offensive, disturbing or boring stuff they post, I keep them around. It's worth noting: I treat Facebook sort of like I treat teaching. It's a stage. The role I assume isn't the person I really am, though my Facebook persona is made up of elements of my personality. Often, I post thoughts and opinions that are the polar opposite of what I really believe in order to stimulate discussion. That slight dissociation allows me to more easily carry out the "no defriending" policy. Here's five reasons why I developed the policy:

1. It's a grand thought experiment that expands my horizons. This is the biggie. I have a lot of strong opinions, but I'm also open to points of view that contradict my opinions. That self-skepticism is basically a function of age. Over the years, I've went through a lot of phases ranging from ultra-conservative to crazy-liberal. The end result is the realization that the world is a continually-shifting collection of shades of gray. Absolutism, in any realm, is a ridiculous approach to life. Exposing myself to divergent opinions allows me to see things from other people's perspective and helps develop empathy. Being able to listen to their opinions is an excellent learning experience.
2. Echo chambers are boring as shit. If I surrounded myself with folks that thought exactly like I do, Facebook would be incredibly lame. I already know how and why I think the way I think and spend plenty of time in my own head. Why the fuck would I want to spend even more time discussing the exact same crap?
3. Trolling is fun. I know, I know. This isn't very open-minded of me, but trolling friends' status updates is a blast. It's sort of a douchey thing to do, but being douchey on occasion is good for the soul. 
4. Being offended by something is, in my world, a mortal sin. A few years ago, Shelly and I decided to start working toward becoming "offended-proof." It's really just a manifestation of the "zero fucks given" mentality. No matter what anyone says, the goal is to laugh it off. I cannot begin to describe how valuable this has been as a life-enhancer. Once we started that journey, I realized just how much our "I'm offended" culture traps us in a prison by letting other people's thoughts, ideas, behaviors, appearance, etc. affect us on a personal level. I take the right of free expression VERY seriously, and my right to express myself freely is entirely contingent on my willingness to grant the same right to everyone else. Playing the "I'm offended" card immediately gives everyone else the right to do the same, thus destroying my own right to free expression.
5. The natural filtering mechanism automatically creates a really awesome tribe of open-minded people. While I do not defriend people, many defriend me. In fact, I lose about five friends per week. I never really paid attention to this until I started getting friend requests from people I assumed were already friends. Anyway, the people that stick around usually need to be relatively open-minded to tolerate the hyperbole and dumbassery that occurs on my wall. The resulting tribe is thus capable of discussing a huge range of topics and issues from all sorts of angles, which helps fuel items one, three, and four on the list. 

 There you have it- five reasons why I don't defriend people. Of course, those that know me know I'm usually a bit hypocritical. I have defriended people in the past, and I have hidden a small number of people's status updates. The people that were defriended (happened three times) all showed very obvious signs of mental illness and posed a real, significant threat to my family (yay psychology degree!) The "hidden" people (about five) all fall into the same category - all are "one-trick ponies" that only post about one topic usually pertaining to ridiculous conspiracy theories. I consider my inability to tolerate their rants as a personal weakness, and it is something I'm continuously trying to improve.

Could this policy be right for you? If I were you, I'd give it some consideration. It has made me a more open-minded, empathic person, and I suspect it could do the same for you.

Some questions to consider (feel free to leave answers in the comments section): 

• What is your current "defriending criteria?"
• How do you handle posts that offend you?
• Has social media changed your opinion on any matter? If so, give the rest of us an example.

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You're Fat Because You're Bad at Counting

A few years back, I wrote a BRU post (and cheeky, snarky "book") about the concept of calories in/ calories out as a means of losing weight. Since that time, I've experienced a steady stream of people, in real life or via social media, that have asked me about weight loss. My response is usually the same: 

Eat less and move more.

The typical response is usually either a) "I already tried that and it didn't work", or b) "I read (or saw a YouTube video) that refuted the idea. A new post by NPR more or less sums up my response to those responses, which is basically something along the lines of "You're just really bad at math."

Here's the deal. Weight manipulation is relatively straight-forward assuming you don't have a disease that alters metabolism. Even then, the basic principle still applies. 

If you want to lose weight, you need to create a caloric deficit.

If you want to gain weight, you need to create a caloric surplus.

That's it. It really is that simple. "But wait!" you say, "I want to lose weight. I've tried that and it has failed!"

Here's why.

Reason #1: You think you consume less than you really do. This is the biggie. In my experience of working with people trying to lose weight, they ALWAYS under-estimate portions. You may think you're eating one portion of roast beef, but you're really eating two-and-a-half. And you forgot to add that handful of Chex Mix. And that third glass of wine.

Reason #2: You think you burn a lot more calories than you really do. Let's say you run three miles on a treadmill at the gym. It took you a half hour. You probably burned about 300-330 calories. That's not even enough exercise to make up for those medium fries you ate from McDonald's.

Reason #3: You fail to account for adaptation. This is common when people have initial success, then reach a plateau. This usually happens for two reasons. First, as body weight drops and body composition changes, the number of calories needed to sustain life (or are burned through exercise), the fewer calories you need. Second, your metabolism usually adjusts to the deficit by becoming more efficient. Both of these require a continually-diminishing caloric intake until the goal weight is achieved. 

Reason #4: You're over-simplifying the equation. There are all sorts of things that probably affect caloric uptake and expenditure, like the type of food, environmental conditions, internal states, etc. For example, eating 100 calories of carrots will probably help create a deficit better than 100 calories of chocolate cake because of the way the body digests both. Since we know so little of the vast myriad of potential effects, the only reliable solution is to consider yourself an experiment of one to learn what variables seem to be at play.

That's it. I know a lot of you will be tempted to refute the idea by posting links to YouTube videos from people that "found a way to cheat the system." But they're either wrong or their idea subscribes to the deficit/surplus idea with added layers of complexity. Either way, it's ignoring the obvious:

There has never been a case of a person gaining weight with a caloric deficit or a case of a person losing weight with a caloric surplus. 

My own experimentation confirms this. Back in the day, I used to weigh about 215 pounds. I attempted to lose weight often, but always failed. The one thing that eventually worked: creating and sustaining a caloric deficit.

It's worth noting I don't continually create said deficit because, well, I like food. And beer. And wine. And I like lounging around. For me, creating a caloric deficit sucks balls. As such, I tend to cycle every few months. Gain five pounds, lose five pounds. Wash, rinse, repeat. Sometimes that weight gain is mostly muscle (for mma, for example.) Other times it's mostly fat (again, I'm lazy and I love food.) Regardless, I don't sweat it because I've done the hard work of learning how my body responds to all sorts of caloric manipulations, which is what's really necessary.

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