I spent the past week in The Land of Shadow. It was miserable. I loved almost every minute of it. I recently finished playing Shadow of the Erd Tree, the expansion for 2022’s game of the year, Elden Ring. In case you’re unfamiliar, Elden Ring is an action-adventure game where you play as an undead warrior tasked with slaying grotesque bosses across a hauntingly beautiful landscape. Fair warning: I will be making QUITE the analogy between two toxic online discussions I’m seeing these days. Don’t worry, I promise to bring you along for the ride even if you’re not a gamer. Let me first set the s ..read more

Last week, one of the world’s most popular shows finally made its way to Netflix: LOST. I’m excited for more people to discover this show. Because from 2004 to 2010, I tuned into ABC each week to find out what happened to the passengers of Oceanic Flight 815. Although it didn’t quite land the plane (heyo!) with its final few seasons, few will take umbrage with my belief that one episode in particular was one of the best hours of TV I’ve ever seen: Season 5’s: “The Constant.” I won’t spoil it for anybody who hasn’t seen this episode, so I’ll just speak in generalities: A character finds himself ..read more

A few weeks ago, I got a parking ticket. I went to meet up with a group of friends at a bar in Nashville, and forgot to pay the $5 for parking at the parking terminal on my way in. After about 45 minutes, while sitting in the restaurant, I remembered. Oh crap. I ran out to my car, and sure enough, right there tucked under my windshield wiper was a small manilla envelope. I sheepishly grabbed it, and saw a fine for $70 plus a processing fee. My $7 hazy IPA suddenly got a lot more expensive. I was also having a crap day. So how did I respond? I laughed. Then, I went back into the restaurant and ..read more

Last week, Wells Fargo fired a bunch of their remote employees. It turns out that these employees were “simulating keyboard activity” (with a program/device that automatically typed keys or jiggled their mouse when they weren’t at their computer). Why? Because that’s how these employees were evaluated: Not by how many clients they brought in, nor how many relationships they fostered, but by how many hours they were active on their computers. So that’s exactly what these employees gave them. Remember, this is the same bank that told employees back in 2017: “Sign up as many clients to extra bank ..read more

Today I’m going to teach you a valuable lesson about time from a giant tree. No, not Groot. Redwoods. If you drive down the Avenue of the Giants in Northern California, you’ll find yourself weaving in and out of some of the most majestic, gigantic redwood trees you’ll ever see. If you’re having trouble picturing this in your mind, think back to the Endor speeder chase scene in The Return of the Jedi. This scene was filmed near the Avenue of the Giants in Humboldt Redwoods State Park. And as you’re driving down the Avenue of the Giants, you’ll eventually stop at a nondescript gift shop along t ..read more

Last week, I downloaded a new video game to play. And 30 minutes later, I uninstalled the game. Not because I didn’t like the game, but specifically because I liked the game too much. The game is called Dave the Diver, where you are a SCUBA Diver/Sushi restaurant owner. You spend each day diving and catching fish, and then each evening serving sushi at the restaurant. This game pressed every biological button my brain has for “efficiency.” My brain told me I had to execute each dive as efficiently as possible. Each night at the restaurant meant I needed to receive a 100% customer satisfaction ..read more

As part of my operation “Revisit the past 15 years of Nerd Fitness,” and after writing about our ​Never 2 in a Row Rule​, I updated one of the most popular posts and ideas I’ve ever put together: ​20 Seconds of Courage​. What started as an obscure line from an obscure Matt Damon movie, We Bought a Zoo, has since become a rallying cry for the Nerd Fitness Rebellion, our community of nerds. Feel free to ​read the full article​, but here’s the quote from the movie, where Matt Damon is recounting to his son how he used 20 seconds of courage to meet his wife: You know, sometimes all you need is 20 ..read more

I was talking with a friend recently who said he had hit a bit of a plateau. We’ve all been there – that uncomfortable place where the scale stops moving, or the strength gainz slow down. Heck, I’ve even written a whole article about ​busting through a plateau​. As I’ve been revisiting the last 15 years of Nerd Fitness, I stumbled across an absolute doozy of an old video of me. It’s baby Steve, from 11 years ago, sitting on a poop-brown couch (Why did I think this was the right color couch to buy?), with helmet hair. I laughed as I watched this video, but I’m also proud of Past Me for putting ..read more

I bet you feel burned out right now. Overworked, underpaid, anxious, stretched too thin. All of those fun things! I also bet you’re frustrated you can’t lose weight the way you’d hoped, you wish you had more energy to get your job done, and you wish you could be a better partner and parent. You’re struggling, and you wish you could just get your sh** together. Have no fear, self-care is here! The solution to all of our problems can be found with your credit card: a better skin-care routine. A more optimized schedule. A new journal. $75 sushi delivery. A 2-hour massage. A vacation to a tropical ..read more

In 2009, I was an enthusiastic, optimistic, and slightly (very) naive nerd who started NerdFitness.com to help other nerds level up their lives and live a tiny bit better. Since then, I’ve done my best to build an identity as a lifelong learner who isn’t tied to a specific ideology or philosophy. This meant I got plenty of things right, and I also managed to get plenty of things wrong. Certain views I held in the past were factually incorrect. While others were “correct,” but turned out to be ineffective and unhelpful. As I continue my 15th year of Nerd Fitness, I wanted to revisit 5 viewpoin ..read more