My overall 100 day grade is a B+. At Day 50, my grade was a B. Glad to see I moved upward from my last check-in.
At Day 50, I my grades were as follows
Spanish: B- (80)
Community: B+ (87)
Health: B+ (87)
Business: C+ (78)
Family: B (85)
My 100 day individual grades are based on how well I kept my commitment to the action steps I created at day 50.
Spanish: B+
My 50 day grade was a B- because although I started off strong, I felt I had not pushed myself for several weeks to improve, and my language skills stagnated.
My action step was to schedule on Sunday nights 1 hour a day to study Spanish the upcoming week and to use at least half of that time for conversation through zoom with Baselang tutors.
The Results:
I did not schedule an hour a day for Spanish studying (I mean, come on, what was I thinking), or start having conversations through zoom with Baselang tutors. However, I did do two key things that allowed me to drastically improve my Spanish during this 50 day period.
As I was searching for videos on learning Spanish on YouTube, I came across a video that described something called a memory palace. I was intrigued. So I went further down that rabbit hole by finding more videos on this subject. Someone recommended I read Moonwalking With Einstein and in that book, it recommended I read the book Unlimited Memory.
I knew if I could memorize the most common verbs, it would be a foundation for all of my conversations. Thanks to Facebook’s all knowing ad technology, I saw an ad for a poster of the top 100 Spanish Verbs. I wrote down the list of those verbs in a word document and using the memory palace, I was able to memorize all 100 of them in about 8 hours over several days. Those 100 words, coupled with understanding the basic conjugation rules, allowed me to have 10x the amount of conversations I was able to have previously. It was a game changer in the way I could communicate with locals.
Second, with Kelli and another couple, we started meeting weekly with a Spanish teacher at a cafe to practice conversational Spanish. He would not teach us in the traditional sense, we just speak Spanish the entire time and learned from each other. That has been a big confidence boost for me and a step forward.
As a result of these two actions, I am increasing my grade from a B- to a B+.
Next Steps:
1) Memorize most common nouns and adjectives.
2) Learn the conjugations for the 100 most common verbs.
3) Increase my conversational Spanish lesson from 1 day per week to 2 days.
Community: A-
My 50 day grade was a B+ as I felt grateful we had found such a strong community in a short amount of time. My biggest action step was to venture beyond Americans and start interacting with ex-pats from other countries.
The Results:
I am happy to say we have had several dinner dates, as well as, playdates with kids and international parents. It has broadened our horizons, as we keep pushing ourselves to learn about new cultures.
Kelli had a big trip with 4 other women to Istanbul for 4 days and I went to Bordeaux with my first forum. In addition, I officially joined a second entrepreneur forum which gives me a total of 12 people who I will get to know on a very intimate basis over the next year.
Next Steps
Continue to interact with international couples, and get out of my comfort zone and do more group experiences with guys. I have never been a group guy person, but in Barcelona that seems to be a big part of the experience so I will give it a go. Lots of people have running groups and biking groups. I plan to be more active in the running group and try an easy biking group on for size.
Health: B+
My 50 day grade was also a B+ and I am happy to have stayed consistent here. While I slowed down with my running as the weather got a bit colder, I increased the amount I went to the gym to use the free weights and machines. Some weeks, I am working out 5 or 6 times. One area I am proud of is getting my pull-up and chin-up game back on. I went from only being able to do two in a row, to quickly getting back to my 10 reps per set. In addition, I increased my curls from 26 pound weights to 36 pound weights, and I am close to the next increase.
My goal was to sign up for a half marathon in December. While I did not do that, as it did not work out with timing, I did sign up for a 10K and I am one step closer to signing up for the full marathon in March.
Next Steps
Hiring a trainer for 10 sessions at the gym to get me out of my comfort zone to try new routines. Also, YES sign up for the Barcelona Marathon and train with others for it.
Business: B
My 50 day grade was a C+ because I was having trouble adjusting to being in Barcelona, as well as my work/life balance while we are here. My goal was to plan ahead and schedule more time for work.
The Results
Over these 50 days, I did a lot of planning and focus as we prepare for 2020. I did not just stick with the status quo of what we are currently doing. Instead, I focused on how we will take important leaps forward next year. Stay tuned for more to come on this front!
In addition, I am planning my first trip back home in December so I can touch base with the team in person.
Next Steps
Share the vision with the company of action steps to take the leap forward in 2020.
Family: B+
My first 50 days I gave us a B. While we were spending a lot of time together as a family, the kids fighting was out of hand. On top of that, we did not always handle it as well as we would have liked.
The Results
After working with Kim Ades, we were able to do two key things that made us much happier. We just removed ourselves from situations that made us unhappy with our kids, and let the kids deal with their fighting on their own. And we tried not to put ourselves in a situation that would lead to us being frustrated by the kids fighting or not listening to us in the first place.
Overall, while sibling fighting will always be there, day 51 to 100 were much better than the first 50. My parents visited and we had a nice two weeks with them, including a trip to Valencia. We went to London for the weekend with the kids and have just spent some nice R&R time together.
Next Steps: Spend more alone time with each kid!
To sum it up my grades are below:
Spanish: B+ (89)
Community: A- (90)
Health: B+ (88)
Business: B (85)
Family: B+ (87)
Average = B+ (88)
PS. I let my wife approve the grades with these categories, to remove bias!