Greetings from Tampa, FL!
Starting today I’ll be floating around the Caribbean on The Rock Boat, a 4-day music festival at sea. Before I started to work full-time on Nerd Fitness, I used to work for Sixthman, the company that produces the Rock Boat along with eight or nine other music cruises each year. In two and a half years with the company, I probably spent a combined total of eighty days at sea across eighteen cruises; this will be my first time ever on one of these things as a GUEST.
Sorry in advance for this post; the wifi in this hotel is awful: adding links and pictures is a terrible experience and I’m running out of time before I have to hop on the ship! If there are typos and missing links, I apologize.
Today’s post is all about all of the things I have hope accomplish with Nerd Fitness in the next twelve months along with the two free articles a week…after I take four days off to have waaaaay too much fun floating around the Caribbean with my friends and a bunch of great musicians.
Continue to develop the Nerd Fitness brand
I’m so freaking proud to be part of the Nerd Fitness community it’s ridiculous. This is a special place with lots of amazing people, and every day I wake up to another email from a new reader or stumble across a new fantastic message board post that has me grinning from ear to ear.
And then I see tweets like this:
and it almost brings tears to my eyes. Nerd Fitness is becoming a giant snowball of awesome that continues to grow bigger by the day and I can’t wait to see how it develops. I’m going to continue devoting time to developing the name, brand, and community of Nerd Fitness as I feel it’s a strong brand that can only get stronger. For starters, within a few weeks you’ll see an updated look over here on the site and message boards, promoting a more unified experience when visiting NerdFitness.com
And that’s just the beginning…
Real World Meet-Ups
Back when I ran the Nerd Dash back in May, a reader came up to me at the event and asked, “hey are you Steve? I’m a big fan of Nerd Fitness!” I got so fired up from meeting somebody I never would have met had I not started this blog – honestly one of the coolest feelings ever.
I want more of that.
A lot more.
While I’m out on my grand adventure beginning next week, I’m going to do what I can to make sure I meet as many readers as possible out on the road – whether it’s with official meet-ups, talking over beers at a local bar, going for a run (even though I hate running), tossing a frisbee, climbing, hiking, whatever. If you’re interested in meeting up with me when I come to your home town over the next eleven months – keep an eye on the site. Before I get to each location I’ll be posting on the blog where I’ll be and for how long, along with some sort of sign-up if you’re interested in meeting up.
But what if I’m not visiting your city? Fear my not, my friend! Check out the Rebellion Meet-Up section on the message boards to see if you have other rebels in your area who are looking to meet up and hang out. I know there is already a Boston meet-up in the works along with a few others, so check it out!
More options to support the Rebellion
I’m really excited about the number of Nerd Fitness shirts out there in the world and how much people are enjoying them. I certainly don’t want to just start cranking out a bunch of crappy t-shirts to capitalize on the brand, but I’d like to start giving people more options of they want to support Nerd Fitness in a way other than just a t-shirt.
How would you feel about a hooded sweatshirt? It would obviously be a very high quality hoodie, in probably a deep dark grey color, with a bigger red NF logo on the chest, and possibly “Nerd Fitness” written down the sleeve.
Quality exercise equipment
I’d like to start offering quality Nerd Fitness branded exercise products. I’m not talking about ab-coasters, Hawaii chairs, supplements, or any of that garbage, but rather things like adjustable dumbbells, pull up bars, and suspension trainers – exercise equipment for people who work out from home or on the road and are looking for a solid brand.
Like everything else that comes out of Nerd Fitness, this equipment will be reasonably priced and of the highest quality. Rest assured that I’ll only be offering things that I would consider using myself. This probably won’t happen until the second half of 2011, but the ideas, meetings, and phone calls are already starting to happen.
The next E-book
The Rebel Fitness Guide is continuing to sell well, even though I released it more than five months ago. It’s been great to work with the 300+ people who have picked up the guide, but I’m already hard at work on the next one!
The Rebel Fitness Guide helped people lose weight and get in shape without a gym membership. This next book (name to be determined) will focus more on strength and muscle building, whether you have a gym membership or not. It’ll be a great resource for folks that are skinny and looking to bulk up – my area of expertise – and also a great resource for folks that have lost a bunch of weight and are looking to take their fitness to the next level (pun intended).
I’m not lying when I say my trip around the world literally came out of nowhere. Back in November my plans were to book a one-way ticket to Sydney and figure the rest out. It quickly snowballed into the worldwide adventure that you’ve read about on here – which means I haven’t been able to put nearly enough time into this next book. Who knew planning a 35,000 trip would take up so much time? 🙂
So rest assured, I’m working on it, but it will take some time.
I also have an idea kicking around for an adventure-travel hacking guide if there’s enough interest for it – how to travel the world and cross stuff off your bucket list without breaking the bank (something I will be well versed in very soon). That will be certainly be a second-half of 2011 project as well.
Help out rebels in need
I’m very fortunate to be healthy and live a great life; I know there are folks out there that aren’t so lucky.
I’m inspired by guys like Chris Guillebeau and Baker over at ManVsDebt who not only run great sites, but also do a lot of great things for people in need as well. Now that I’ve become financially stable (certainly not rich, but doing well enough to pay my bills and keep focusing on Nerd Fitness full-time), I want to kick the “level up the world” aspect of Nerd Fitness into high gear.
Expect more details shortly.
Success Stories
I NEED THEM! – I’m looking to add a page of success stories to the Nerd Fitness website – stories from people who have had success in getting in shape, losing weight, and/or accomplishing goals because of Nerd Fitness – whether it’s from reading articles, using the Rebel Fitness Guide, or joining the message board community.
If you have a success story that you’d like to share, shoot me an email with a few sentences of how you’ve been successful along with your name, age, and occupation – I’d love to feature it on the site. Even better, if you have Before/After pictures and aren’t afraid to share them, I’d love to put those up as well (and give you a free t-shirt for your trouble!).
My personal goals
That looks like a pretty busy year for Nerd Fitness and the rebellion – I guess I just don’t do well with “not busy.” But what about Steve Kamb? Here are the goals for my own personal development in 2011:
- Stay in shape while traveling. My next eleven months will be spent on the road, in different locations each night. It is going to be challenging, but I hope to stay in great shape by eating well and continuing to strength train three days a week by getting creative with bodyweight exercises and my environment. I have a tendency to just skip meals when I’m too busy; I’m making it a priority to eat enough calories so that I don’t come back looking like a complete skeleton.
- Sleep more I suck at sleeping – I never do it! For example, two days ago I got three hours of sleep; last night was five. I stay up far too late and then get up far too early – it’s not good for me and I know it’s going to catch up to me at some point down the road. In order to sleep more, I need to…
- Work more efficiently. Here in the states I don’t mind working fourteen hour days because I don’t have much else going on. However, I need to find a healthy work/life balance once I start traveling so that I’m not spending my entire trip in an internet cafe. I want to live in the moment, say yes to any adventure thrown my way, and still get all of my work done for NF. It will require me to become more efficient PRONTO.
- Start learning a 3rd language. I’ve become addicted to Benny’s “Fluent in 3 Months” blog, and I decided it’s time to start learning a third language (besides English and Spanish); I just have no idea what that language is going to be! I picked up Benny’s Language Hacking Guide, so hopefully going through that will give me some inspiration on what language to pick.
Survey!
As I said, the internet in this hotel is absymal, and trying to load a survey on another site would take another seven hours, so I need your help! I realize I’m subjecting my inbox to a possible nightmare, but I want you to email me at steve@nerdfitness.com with answers to these questions if you get a chance:
- Do you have a Nerd Fitness success story? What is it? (just a few sentences please).
- Do you have any interest in a Nerd Fitness hoodie?
- Do you have interest in a guide to build muscle, take your fitness to the next level, get stronger, and push yourself?
- If so, what’s one thing you really want to see in that guide?
- Do you have any interest in a adventure travel hacking book/service?
I’ll be out in international waters for the next four days, which means I probably won’t be checking my email – I’m actually going to try and have an actual vacation! If you’re waiting on a response from me, I’ll get to it next week as soon as humanly possible! Thanks for your patience, and I’ll be back on Monday afternoon.
Get ready 2011, the Rebellion is comin’ for ya.
-Steve
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