Last updated on June 24th, 2025 at 08:33 am
June 17, 2025
Here is the best thing I heard (What?), saw (Eye.), and read (Read.) this week, as well as the best idea (💡) I developed.
What?
Unshaken Saints Podcast Episode 340: D&C 60-63 – Dangers on the Waters:
- [Dr. Jared Halverson] “There are times to sprint and times to slow. Gas, brake, what’s the circumstance? Am I being slow when I should be fast? Let’s get going. Or am I being too fast when I should let patience have her perfect work?
“Best example of this I think I’ve ever heard was an old story about Thomas S. Monson, the great bishop of the church, not just president. He was out ministering and he was with some junior companion and he needed to go to the hospital to give someone a blessing. Doesn’t this sound like a Thomas S. Monson story already? Well, he was so pressed for time that he was speeding to get to the hospital. And when he got there, they were like literally running through the hall to get there. His junior companion was like, wow, time is of the essence and we’re booking it.
“But the part that surprised him was as soon as they got to the room in the hospital, President Monson stopped dead in his tracks, breathed to get his breath, and then went into the room as if he had all the time in the world. [He] sat there, focused on the patient that was in the room, talked to them, gave them counsel and comfort, heard their story, gave a priesthood blessing. And this whole time, the junior companion was sitting there thinking: ‘I thought we were in a rush. I thought we had things to do.’ And it seemed like President Monson had all the time in the world. Well, as soon as that patient and slow, focused attention moment was over, very calmly, President Monson got up to leave, expressed his love to the person in the hospital bed, and slowly backed his way out of the room. Well, the moment the door closed, he was sprinting again. Gotta get to the next one.
“But do you see when to be fast and when to be slow? To me, there’s something beautiful about knowing the difference between the two. And if we can run when we should, and slow down when the Lord needs us to, we’ll be doing things according to his timetable, which makes all the difference.”
Eye.
Season 5, Episode 1: The Chosen Global Livestream:
- [Jesus] “This is eternal life – that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me.”
Read.
“Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity” by Peter Attia, MD:
- “Of all Olympic athletes, the decathletes are most revered. The male and female winners of the gold medal are declared the ‘World’s Greatest Athletes.’ Yet they are not the best at any of the ten individual events in which they compete; they likely would not even medal. But they are still considered the greatest because they are remarkably good at so many different events. They are true generalists–yet they train like specialists.
“We need to adopt a similar approach to aging, I decided: each of us needs to be training for the Centenarian Decathlon. …
“The Centenarian Decathlon is a framework I use to organize my patients’ physical aspirations for the later decades of their lives, especially their Marginal Decade. I know, it’s a somewhat morbid topic, thinking about our own physical decline. But not thinking about it won’t make it any less inevitable.
“Think of the Centenarian Decathlon as the ten most important physical tasks you will want to be able to do for the rest of your life. Some of the items on the list resemble actual athletic events, while some are closer to activities of daily living, and still others might reflect your own personal interests. I find it useful because it helps us visualize, with great precision, exactly what kind of fitness we need to build and maintain as we get older. It creates a template for our training.
“I start by presenting my patients with a long list of physical tasks that might include some of the following:
“1. Hike 1.5 miles on a hilly trail.
“2. Get up off the floor under your own power, using a maximum of one arm for support.
“3. Pick up a young child from the floor.
“4. Carry two five-pound bags of groceries for five blocks.
“5. Lift a twenty-pound suitcase into the overhead compartment of a plane.
“6. Balance on one leg for thirty seconds, eyes open. (Bonus points: eyes closed, fifteen seconds.)
“7. Have sex.
“8. Climb four flights of stairs in three minutes.
“9. Open a jar.
“10. Do thirty consecutive jump-rope skips.
“The full list is much longer, with more than fifty different items, but you get the idea. Once they’ve read it, I ask them to please select which of these tasks they want to be able to perform in their ninth, or better yet tenth, decade. Which ones do they choose?
“All of them, typically. …
“Eventually, my patients get it. Together, we come up with a list of ten or fifteen events in their personal Centenarian Decathlon, representing their goals for their later decades. This then determines how they should be training.
“The beauty of the Centenarian Decathlon is that it is broad yet unique to each individual. Nor is it limited to ten events; for most people it ends up being more, depending on their goals. …
“I suggest you join me and start training, with a very specific purpose, which is to be kick-[butt] one-hundred-year-olds. When my patients say they are more interested in being kick-[butt] fifty-year-olds than Centenarian Decathletes, I reply that there is no better way to make that happen than to set a trajectory toward being vibrant at one hundred (or ninety, or eighty) just as an archer who trains at 100 yards will be more accurate at 50. By fixing our aim on the Centenarian Decathlon, we can make every decade between now and then better as well.
“With the Centenarian Decathlon as my goal, I now work out with the focus that I once directed exclusively toward cycling, swimming, or boxing. It’s not about being great at any one pursuit, but about being pretty good at just about everything. As Centenarian Decathletes, we are no longer training for a specific event, but to become a different sort of athlete altogether: an athlete of life.”
💡
Rather than checking and responding to my work email frequently throughout the workday, dedicate one hour (i.e., 3:00-4:00 p.m.) per workday to this task.