Bougie beef jerky, Power in vulnerability, cold, and Jump training
HALT on Hump Day 5/14/25
Nobody makes good decisions when they feel Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired. HALT on Hump day looks at ways I manage those things in my life. Hopefully you’ll find something that will help your life.
HUNGRY
I’m constantly looking for high-protein snacks for myself, but also for the kids. One day I figured I’d try beef jerky. The kids hated it, but I liked it. My stepdad always had jerky around, and it made me a little nostalgic.
The kids didn’t like the teriyaki flavor, but I hadn’t given up all hope for them on this beef jerky quest. Then, I’m walking through the snack aisle at Costco (danger!) and I found this package, “Wagyu beef jerky.” It’s from Snake River Farms.
I pick it up for myself because it has all the buzzwords. When I get home and open it up, it’s fantastic. I love it. My oldest kid? He loves it, too. He won’t eat any other kind of jerky, but he’ll eat this one.
ANGRY
For years I avoided any emotional vulnerability. I thought people would see me as weak, but I also thought I would think of myself as weak if I allowed myself to show any vulnerability.
“Show no weakness,” easily could’ve been a motto for me. I’d love to say I willingly figured out I could show vulnerability and maintain strength, but it’s not true. Life put me in a headlock and gave me a noogie until I said, “Uncle!”
The process, though, opened me to a whole world of people doing the impossible: giving strength to others by sharing their vulnerabilities. I took to it.
Now I come back to this prompt from time to time to check in on this idea. It reminds me to have the courage to be vulnerable in service to helping others and maintaining humility myself.
What does emotional vulnerability mean to you? How have you practiced it recently, and how did it turn out?
LONELY
Back to the game corner for a simple, fast, suspenseful, and fun game we started playing with our kids. It’s called Kollide.
The game comes with a small loop of string and a handful of magnet pucks.
You lay the string down on the table, and players take turns placing the magnets inside of the string. The magnets aren’t weak. As more of them fill the string, they wiggle and dance as they press and pull on each other. If you put one too close to another, they’ll snap together.
If they do when you place a puck, then you pick up those pucks and put them in your hand.
The first player to get rid of all of their magnets wins.
TIRED
In the early 2000s, P90x became a craze in home fitness. I got on board a few years after it came out and used it to combat the ill effects of traveling for work. I packed the box of discs and the rubber bands in my suitcase and rearranged furniture in hotel rooms so I could do all the moves.
I stopped for two main reasons. First? I didn’t make enough time for it every single day. It was hard. I’d get through the first month or so and then it would fizzle.
Also, computers stopped having disc drives! I didn’t have a way to use it.
Now, more than a dozen years after I started it, I came back to do one of the workouts last week: Plyometrics. It’s jump training, and the workout I thought was the hardest.
It’s also the workout I got the most out of back then.
The verdict? I still really liked it. I’m going to start doing it more often.
Tony Horton’s jokes still make me chuckle, I got a sweat going, my legs felt like jelly afterwards, and I felt great afterwards.
Thank you for reading. If you liked something in here, send it to a friend. There’s a good chance they will smile, I’ll definitely smile, and I bet you will, too. Trifecta!