How To Set Yourself Apart From The Other 500,000,000 Freelancers In The World | Part 4

Brian Hood (0:00)

This is the 6 Figure Creative Podcast, episode 303

Welcome to the 6 Figure Creative Podcast, where our mission is to help you turn your creative passions into a stable, reliable income.

If you're in audio, video, design, photography, or really any other creative field, and you just want to learn from other successful creatives, you're in the right place.

Hello, and welcome to the 6 Figure Creative Podcast. I'm your host, Brian Hood. This is the first time I'm listening to the show. Hi, welcome. Don't know why you're starting in part four of a series, but I'm glad to have you here anyways. This podcast is for you if you are a creative freelancer, you offer services, and you want to make more money from those creative skills that you currently possess. And you want to do so without selling your soul. That sounds like you, you're in the right spot. For my attorney listeners, we are in the final, hopefully the final episode of the series.

I think I'm serious doubt, honestly. I don't know about you, if you're a regular listener, I'm kind of serious doubt. I'm going to probably stop doing series for a while and just start doing one-offs just because I want to change it up, I don't know. Anyways, we're going to continue a series, but before I get into that, a couple of final life updates really quick. For those of you who have never read the book, Outlive, I think I talked about this a few episodes ago by Peter Atiyah, I think, Outlive, the science and art of longevity.

The book has single-handedly flung me into my midlife crisis, at least a healthy version of a midlife crisis.

I'm 37, for those who don't know my actual age. I think I'm 37, I might be 36, but I think I'm 37

And there's a graph in that book, I'm going to share it on the screen here. And if you're listening in audio, this will be on our show notes page at 6figurecreative.com/303.

This single graph from the book Outlive effed my ass up.

F**k my s**t up.

This graph gave me a nice little wake up call. It just essentially shows how VO2 max, this is the stat that basically shows your cardio ability or your capacity for your body to utilize oxygen efficiently. How that's going to slowly, or actually not slowly, very quickly deteriorate over time, starting probably in your 30s and every decade drop precipitously.

And how it correlates to just doing basic things, like being able to walk three miles an hour up a slight incline, or up a steep hill, or slowly climb stairs, or run six miles an hour, or briskly climb stairs, or run 10 miles an hour, et cetera, et cetera. And how if you are 35, an average VO2 max, you can do basic things like run six miles an hour. No big deal. But if you want to be able to do the same exact thing at 70 or 75, you need to be in the 95th percentile of VO2 max.

So that means if your cardio capacity is average, by the time you're 65 or 75, you'll barely be able to walk three miles an hour up a steep hill. Feel free to pause, look at that, or go to the show notes page and kind of like analyze that further. But seeing that has, again, spurred me into my midlife crisis, and I'm hoping this is my midlife crisis because I know I will have to have some at some point. I think it's like a rite of passage for a man.

Some people violently go into it and let it happen to them, and others, they do it gracefully. I'm hoping to do a graceful one where I'm just focused on longevity and health and stuff. So I did a VO2 max test. It's where you wear a mask. If you wear this mask, run in the treadmill until your heart rate gets as high as possible, until you basically just give up and throw in the towel.

And my VO2 max was shown at 60, which is way higher than I thought it would be. My goal was in the 40s. I've also done a lot of blood tests recently. I did a whole blood panel of, it took nine vials of blood out of my arm. I literally passed out when they were taking all these tests, tests that I wanted to take from the book Outlive.

Since starting this book, I'm literally down 25 pounds, or since finishing this book. I don't remember, I think I started around January, but I'm down 25 pounds for my January 1 weight as of March 26th, that's when I record this episode. So 25 pounds in three months is pretty damn good. So I'm just curious, before I get to the topic today, which is not longevity, although I could do an episode on that if you're interested. Are there any other longevity nerds out there? I'm just curious. Call out to my listeners or viewers on YouTube, hi YouTubers. Again, this is something that I think now that I'm in my late 30s, I'm taking more seriously so that whenever I'm older, I don't have a lot of health problems and can actually enjoy my life. I don't necessarily care about living forever. That's not what I want. I just want to enjoy the life that I have. And I know that when I'm in my 60s, 70s and or 80s, if I make it to that level or even beyond, I just don't want to be the person who cannot enjoy my life.