SparkGuy (Chris Downie)

Love helping people reach goals! 6x entrepreneur (ebay's only pre-IPO acquisition; emerging major healthcare company). Emergency brain tumor surgery survivor.

[SparkGuy (Chris Downie) @sparkguy]

💥💥💥💥💥
Hi Everyone!

Seven years ago I had a 5 hour semi-emergency surgery to remove a golf ball-sized brain tumor. This was after a near death experience about 36 hours before this when I had a brain seizure and full 9-1-1 experience while walking down the street about to drive 90 minutes.

This experience taught me to appreciate and be grateful for things that matter in life and try to be as positive as I can.

I thought I’d try a fun challenge focused on helping people be positive in any of these 3 ways:

1) Do at least 10 minutes of physical activity: This low amount helps you get started and be consistent (I’ve currently hit this mark over 700 days in a row; I usually do more than 10 minutes once I get started)
2) Setting/reaching/tracking one small positive goal in any area of life: This is how you build momentum to reach your most meaningful goals
3) Writing down the highlight of your day: This motivates you to seek out highlights.

It would be fun to see how many people we could SPARK doing this and sharing!

This challenge builds on my experience founding or co-founding 5 companies including one that helped millions of people reach goals.

SparkCheers!

Chris/SparkGuy💥

[SparkGuy (Chris Downie) @sparkguy]

Huge fan of short bursts of high intensity (after a quick warmup) for both physical and mental benefits)!

[Goku @ProjectGokuu]

Dr. Rhonda Patrick just revealed 9 minutes of HIIT per day has MASSIVE health benefits:

• 40% lower cancer mortality
• 40% lower all-cause mortality
• 50% lower cardiovascular mortality

No gym. No equipment. No workout clothes.

Patrick says these moments add up and most people aren't counting them toward their physical activity.

She says you can split it to 3 minutes x 3 times of the day and you'll reap the benefits.

The barrier to better health is 9 minutes.

— Dr. Rhonda Patrick (@foundmyfitness) on Andrew Huberman's (@hubermanlab) podcast

PS: If this type of content interests you, follow me as I continue sharing more unconventional health insights just like this.

[SparkGuy (Chris Downie) @sparkguy]

Impressive!!

[Andrew D. Huberman, Ph.D. @hubermanlab]

93 years & 231 days old Ann Esselstyn dead hangs for 2 min 52 seconds! To set new WR. (Maybe we call it live hangs instead now?) Distal strength reflects many things.

[SparkGuy (Chris Downie) @sparkguy]

I just started doing dead hangs. Astonishing to do this for almost 3 minutes!!

[Andrew D. Huberman, Ph.D. @hubermanlab]

93 years & 231 days old Ann Esselstyn dead hangs for 2 min 52 seconds! To set new WR. (Maybe we call it live hangs instead now?) Distal strength reflects many things.

[SparkGuy (Chris Downie) @sparkguy]

Great story about a dog and owner surviving!

[The Figen @TheFigen_]

This is Molly.
She was finally found a week after her owner fell down a 55-meter waterfall while they were hiking together in New Zealand. Her owner was injured and rescued by helicopter, but Molly was missing.
A week later, Molly was found at the bottom of the waterfall and reunited with her owner.

[SparkGuy (Chris Downie) @sparkguy]

Happy Tuesday! Are you ready to take any small steps towards reaching your goals today!?

My highlight yesterday was walking my dog to the neighborhood "dog park." Flash heard his friends barking and ran downstairs and barked at me to take him to play with his friends :).

SparkCheers!

[SparkGuy (Chris Downie) @sparkguy]

@yoyonofukuoka what a cool post -- happy to follow you!

[SparkGuy (Chris Downie) @sparkguy]

Amazing and worth 3.5 mins :)

[The Figen @TheFigen_]

26-year-old Polish guitar virtuoso Marcin Patrzałek responds to those claiming his music is fake.
He created this tutorial-style video to show exactly how he plays so incredibly well – and yes, it’s all performed live on a single guitar.
He is incredible! 👌👌

[SparkGuy (Chris Downie) @sparkguy]

Happy Monday! Are you ready to take steps towards reaching your goal this week?!

I just listed my priorities for the day and most of the week. Time to start reaching them!

SparkCheers!

[SparkGuy (Chris Downie) @sparkguy]

"You should demand more from you." -- A key is building a system that lets you fulfill this.

[Cole Jaczko @colejaczko]

One of the best speeches you’ll ever hear:

[SparkGuy (Chris Downie) @sparkguy]

Interesting mindset for how to stay grounded between a winning and failing mindset.

[Jaynit @jaynitx]

Kobe Bryant: "Failure doesn't exist, it's a figment of your imagination"

An interviewer asks: "Are you someone who loves to win or hates to lose?"

Kobe responds:

"I'm neither. I play to figure things out. I play to learn something. Because if you play with a fear of failure or you play with the will to win that supersedes fear, I think it's a weakness either way. If you play with fear of failing, you'll capitulate to that fear. If you play with the sense of 'I want to win, I want to win,' then you have the fear of what happens if you don't. But if you find common ground in the center, you're unfazed by either. That enables you to stay in the moment and not feel anything other than what's in front of you."

The interviewer asks: "How did you become someone who doesn't seem afraid of failing?"

Kobe responds:

"What does failure mean? It doesn't exist. It's a figment of your imagination."

He explains with an analogy:

"Let's use happy endings. Everybody wants a happy ending, right? Snow White finds her prince and lives happily ever after. Well, I call BS on that because two months later, they had an argument and he's sleeping on the couch. The point is: the story continues. So if you fail on Monday, the only way it's a failure is if you decide to not progress from that. If I fail today, I'm going to learn something from that failure and try again on Tuesday. That's why failure doesn't exist."

The interviewer asks: "If you finished your career without a championship, would you have looked at that as a failure?"

Kobe:

"No. I would look at it as being extremely disappointed, because I had a dream and goals I wanted to accomplish. If I didn't accomplish those goals, I'd have to ask myself why. Poor leadership? Failure to communicate with my teammates? Lack of preparation? Those would be reasons why I didn't win. So I'd have to analyze that. And as I evolved post-basketball into business, those same weaknesses would reveal themselves there too. If I don't learn from that, I'm going to struggle again."

He concludes:

"I can take those situations and learn from them and have them make me a better person later in life. But if I don't take that stuff and apply it someplace else, that's failing. The worst possible thing you can ever do is to stop. It's to not learn."

[SparkGuy (Chris Downie) @sparkguy]

Great list for how to build a great team whether that team is 2 people or 100 people :)

[Greg Berge @GregBerge]

10 Things Great Teams Do:

1. Stick together
2. Take ownership
3. Show resilience
4. Build relationships
5. Respect each other
6. Focus on the process
7. Commit to each other
8. Learn from losing mindset
9. Have a WE > ME mentality
10. Hold each other accountable

Be Great.

[SparkGuy (Chris Downie) @sparkguy]

What is your winning story? This is as important for anyone who wants to succeed as it is for athletes :)!

[Trey Hannam @TJHannam10]

"What's the biggest difference between the athletes who WIN vs the ones that don't?"

Answer: They have a WINNING story running in their head, all the time

- Too good not to share, sending to all my hitters (repeatedly)

[SparkGuy (Chris Downie) @sparkguy]

Make it fun to build one healthy habit in all areas of life at a time!

[Reads with Ravi @readswithravi]

A peak productivity advice from James Clear:

“You are not your grand plans. You are your daily patterns.”

[SparkGuy (Chris Downie) @sparkguy]

Happy Wednesday! Are you ready to take any small steps towards reaching your most meaningful goals today?!

My highlight yesterday was starting a big new project and putting together a plan for the entire project. Today will be a big next step.

SparkCheers!

[SparkGuy (Chris Downie) @sparkguy]

True!

[Chris Williamson @ChrisWillx]

Almost every successful person begins with two beliefs.

“The future can be better than the present, and I have the power to make it so.” — @nytdavidbrooks

[SparkGuy (Chris Downie) @sparkguy]

Happy Tuesday! Are you ready to take small steps to reach your goals today?

My highlight yesterday was 30 minutes laying in the sunshine for free vitamin D.

SparkCheers!

[SparkGuy (Chris Downie) @sparkguy]

Sunlight, mitochondria, and minimizing LED/blue light especially at night = 3 keys to health!

[The Vigilant Fox 🦊 @VigilantFox]

Dr. Andrew Huberman just confirmed a “wild conspiracy theory” about incandescent lights and LED bulbs.

The long wavelengths found in incandescents increase your metabolism and “charge your mitochondria.”

Conversely, the LED bulbs that most of you have in your house are “causing disruptions in mitochondrial function.”

DR. ANDREW HUBERMAN: “Your mitochondria function better, you increase ATP production, your metabolism increases in the presence of red light, long wavelength light to the skin.”

“Shine long wavelength light on somebody, watch blood glucose levels in a blood glucose test, and it’s blunted.”

“Now, the LED lights that are commonly used now… that short wavelength light, in the absence of long wavelength light, has been shown to damage the mitochondria.”

“This used to be considered crazy. This was like chemtrail crazy, right?”

“But now we’re starting to see from animal studies and human studies, from Glenn Jeffreys and others, that people’s vision gets better when they get in front of an incandescent bulb once a day.”

“If they get sunlight, which also has long-wavelength light, your vision improves because of improvements in mitochondria.”

The Biden administration quietly pushed incandescents out of the market through aggressive energy regulations.

But you can still find them online today if you look hard enough.

If that health insight stood out to you, there’s a lot more where that came from. (See post below)

This page finds the moments they don’t want going viral, with captions that tell you exactly why they matter before you even hit play.

See why 2 million already follow: @VigilantFox

[SparkGuy (Chris Downie) @sparkguy]

Happy Monday!

I just setup my priorities for the week. How about you?

My highlight this weekend was recovering from a quick business trip to Pittsburgh PA to meet with our team.

Have a great week -- SparkCheers!

[SparkGuy (Chris Downie) @sparkguy]

@RealProductGirl I'm building a significant healthcare company as a co-founder (Series B led by Google Ventures) and in my spare time building a stealth goal-setting and health app. Happy to connect and wish you the best!

[SparkGuy (Chris Downie) @sparkguy]

Happy Monday! Are you ready to take small or big steps to reach your goals this week?!

I'm starting the week off right with a 20-minute nordic hike (hiking with poles) after I write this note. I then get to cross off my "20 minutes of zone 2 cardio" and my "morning sunshine" goals for a double-win.

SparkCheers!