Author Archives: David Truss

Accept and place

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I heard this phrase and it really struck a chord with me:

“Accept people as they are, but place them where they belong.”

There are 2 really big ideas here.

First, we are often quick to want people to change, and the disparity between who people are and who we want people to become is often too large of a gap. Step one is accepting people for who they are.

The next step is a bit more challenging. We often spend way too much time on people that are not worth our time. We don’t ‘put people where they belong’. We take amazing people for granted and we focus too much attention on people who aren’t worth our time.

The task sounds simple: accept people for who they are, then place them in your life accordingly.

There are people who would do anything in the world for you. And people who you in turn would do anything for. When that’s the same person, well then you need to prioritize your connection to that person. They deserve a special place in your heart and in your life. They deserve your attention and time. Not the person that cut you off in traffic, not the annoying co-worker, not the friend in need that is never there when you are in need.

“Accept people as they are, but place them where they belong.”

Wise words to live by.

Blast from the past

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Tonight I’m going to watch a Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon laser show. I think I was between 16 and 18 the last time I saw a show like this, so it has been at least 40 years.

I find it amusing that it can be that long between experiences and yet I still know exactly what to expect. I saw Pink Floyd’s inflatable flying pigs concert back in the 90’s, and I’ve always enjoyed their music, although I’m more of a fan of their Another Brick in the Wall album. That album took me places in my mind that I didn’t know I could go to. I’d lay on the couch and listen to it for hours, especially the side with Mother and Comfortably Numb.

Tonight I’ll get a little taste of that experience again. A little trip down memory lane.

Slow to go

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My resting heart rate will often drop to around 50bpm when I’m lying down and below 55 when sitting still for a while. I just checked my pulse on my watch and sure enough it’s showing 55bpm right now. When I don’t start my day with exercise, like today, I find it hard to kickstart my day. It’s almost 6pm and I haven’t done 1,700 steps yet.

The good news is that I’m about to get on my exercise bike and that will get me going. It’s the holidays and I don’t mind having a lazy day, but this is a good reminder that morning exercise doesn’t just invigorate me, it prepares me for a far more active day.

Essentially, I’m like an old car, needing a bit of time to warm my engine up… slow to get going but reliable as can be once I’m on a roll.

Find your Everest

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Today’s title inspired by Dave Sands.

We had just completed our weekly training as we prepare to ‘Everest the Crunch’ (walking up the Coquitlam Crunch 37 times in 48 hours, to climb the equivalent height of Mount Everest), when Dave shared the following quote on Instagram, along with a photo of us and of a sensational sunrise behind Mount Baker from this morning.

“Refresh, renew, and re-emerge! Find your Everest, go for it, and crush it!”

This is the time of year when millions of people start New Year’s resolutions, yet statistics say that 92% of these will fail. If you want to be in the 8% success rate, take a moment to really consider what your goal is that you are going to attain with your resolution. Is it something that you can hold on to? Is it big enough to be a challenge, desirable enough to keep your drive, and yet still attainable enough that you won’t be discouraged if progress is slower than expected?

Find your Everest!

((… And follow us on our journey too.))

Tracking training

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I’ve got to say that I love my new watch, the Garmin Venu 4. I’ve been very interested in tracking my training, but have only been tracking my number of training days until getting the watch. Now I get to see what my speed and heart rate are during my workouts, among other things.

I try to do most of my workouts in Zone 2, but my watch says I’m actually in Zone 3. My next bit of research is determining if I’m going harder than I should or if I am just in good condition for my age. More data needed before I decide.

Today was my second time with my watch on an interval run. I do a warm up walk then 8 intervals, high intensity for 1:15 and low intensity for 1:10 eight times, then a cool down walk. The high intensity is really just for a minute and about 3 seconds because it takes 12 seconds to get the treadmill from 3.4 at low intensity to a range between 8.6 to 9.4 for my progressively faster high intensity intervals.

What’s really awesome is getting the data about my workouts from my watch. Here is just some of the data:

This is just my second data point for intervals so I’m creating a baseline from which I can hopefully see progress. Until now my only data has been how tired I feel. Now I can dig a lot deeper and actually see gains. I can also make sure that I’m training at the right pace. High intensity intervals aren’t exactly fun. Collecting data on them and getting results to compare over time will make them just a little bit more enjoyable.

A chance to be with family

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I love getting together with family over the holidays. It’s a chance to focus on being together, eating, and being merry. 2025 hasn’t been easy, and it’s nice to spend the end of the year with the people I love and care about.

I hope everyone is doing the same, finding people they care about to spend time with. If not, make the hard ask. There are people who care, reach out.

Merry Christmas, and Happy Holidays.

Form sustenance to enjoyment

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One thing I’m really looking forward to in retirement is food prep. Right now meals are a chore. I need to eat, food doesn’t make itself and it’s too expensive to eat out all the time. So I make food. It always feels rushed, and if I’m honest, lacking imagination.

That said, when I have time, I actually like cooking. I enjoy the creativity. I appreciate that I can put on a podcast, book, or music and listen while I ‘work’. I don’t even mind the cleanup when I’ve made something that tastes great.

I hope that I’m not just building it up in my mind, but I’m really looking forward to having the time to cook. Time to put some energy into making something delicious, in a way that I just don’t bother to do now. I’m looking forward to the transition from cooking for sustenance to cooking for the enjoyment of both the activity and the end results.

In and out

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I joined a gym, and I took advantage of a deal to get 5 sessions with a trainer, for a great price. My trainer had me download MyFitnessPal, an App to track my calories and macros. I’ve been using this app for 10 days now and it has taught me a lot.

What I’ve learned first and foremost is that I have been totally clueless about my food intake. It’s such an important part of living healthy and yet I have had no idea what and how much protein I eat daily. I’m oblivious to how many calories I eat, and have zero sense for volume or weight of the food I eat… which makes knowing the benefits or consequences of my food intake impossible.

I’ve ranged from 1,104 calories with 65g of protein to 4,554 calories with 186g of protein daily: Basically from subsistence to gluttony eating almost 200grams of fat on my ‘big’ day.

I’ve done this with zero connection to how much exercise I’ve had in a given day. My lowest day also included an hour and 16 minute workout going up and down the Coquitlam Crunch with a couple extra loops of the 457 stairs section.

I need to understand what I’m putting into my body, and also how much energy I’m outputting. I want to know what I do to fuel my body and ensure I’m doing so in a healthier way than I have been. Tracking is a start, knowledge is power, but it’s only a start. Tracking has taught me that I’ve got a lot more to learn.

No Authenticity Without Sincerity

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I was listening to the Modern Wisdom podcast with Chris Williamson and he said something that really struck a chord with me,

“…society is obsessed with authenticity and terrified of sincerity.”

For me it’s the perfect vacation photo, but it took 20 minutes to take because that’s how long it took to have a split second of time when the scene doesn’t look over-crowded.

It’s the beauty advice from people with injection enhanced lips and inch long false eyelashes.

It’s the made-to-look-candid moments that are completely contrived.

It’s the ‘I’m an influencer’ entitlement.

It’s the beauty filters that remove wrinkles and age lines while enhancing complexion.

… I could go on. The point being all this happens with an air or attempt to share an authentic moment, a real, ‘this is me’ connection’, or a ‘I’ve got what you want’ attitude, all the while masquerading as sincere.

It’s conveyed as authentic, yet there is pretence, deceit, and/or hypocrisy. It’s the promise that you can have it all: the beauty, the physique, the wealth, the perfect significant other, the happy and fulfilled life.

‘If I can do it, you can too.’

Never mind genetics, forget about privilege, disregard the challenges that are proclaimed as easy or simple to overcome. Leave behind sincerity.

Real authenticity comes with vulnerability. But vulnerability is seen as weakness. So everyone’s afraid of sincerity because theky don’t want their message, and more importantly themselves, to appear vulnerable and weak.

What are we left with?

“…society is obsessed with authenticity and terrified of sincerity.”

What do we see?

False authenticity thinly vailed as sincere but really just an illusion. It’s performative rather than practical. And yet somehow it gains traction, and social media algorithms just feed us more. More vapid messages pretending to be genuine but never sincere enough to be truly authentic.

The upside down bell curve

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The bell curve, also known as a normal distribution, is a graph that depicts how values in a dataset are distributed. Most values cluster around the average with fewer values appearing at the extremes… those rare few that do very well or very poorly.

But there is a new curve evolving that matters more, the upside down bell curve where the ones on the extremes are where most of the data points are distributed. In an era of free and openly available information, this is the new learning curve. There is no more average majority, instead there are those that understand and those that do not. Those that participate and those that opt out. Those that engage and those that choose not to. Those that seek to learn and those that disengage.

The resources needed to do well are available. The access to information is there for all who want it. The opportunity to get that information in a format or delivery that makes sense to you is easy to find. The question is, are you willing to put the effort in?

If you learn how you best learn, then access to information is no longer a barrier and you will likely learn very well. You will be with the majority of people on the successful side of the distribution curve. If you decide it’s too hard, or choose not to engage, you will be with the other majority, ignorantly selecting the unsuccessful side of the distribution.

There will be anomalies, those that have learning challenges that are not met and struggle, and those that make no effort yet still find it easy to understand things. There will also be those few that just choose to squeak by, capable of more but neither excelling or struggling. But this is the era of extremes. This is a time when the ‘A’, the ‘Exceeding Expectations’, the ability to excel, is available to most… and yet will only be achieved by the ones who actually choose it.

The mathematical average of the curve might be the same, but the distribution will be starkly divided.