On March 12th, 2022, I challenged myself to a gym streak.
How many days could I go without missing? When I started, even just thirty days felt ambitious. Because I knew the unpredictabilities of life (illness, injury, work emergencies, etc.) would inevitably test my commitment.
This past March, I passed the one year mark. 365 days of consecutive gym.
Since starting, I’ve posted a snippet of my daily workout to my Instagram account - to memorialize that day's feat. Some days are 2+ hours of heavy lifting and explosive exercises. But some days, when I’m seriously ill, I’m in and out of the gym in 10 minutes.
One could argue these “off” days shouldn’t count - that they’re not “real” workouts. But to me, they’re the most important.
Charlie Munger said, “The first rule of compounding is to never interrupt it unnecessarily.”
To me, getting to the gym on those “off” days - when getting out of bed feels impossible - is my way of acknowledging the wisdom in Munger’s advice.
There are few things I’m certain of in life. But one thing I’m sure of is this: Your Defaults Define You. The more life I live. The more experience I gain. The more knowledge I acquire. The more I’m convinced of this.
Recently, as part of my deep dive study on money, I was re-introduced to the “Stock-to-Flow” model. This model (which frequently gets cited in Bitcoin circles), points out that the price-action of commodities is greatly influenced by that commodity’s elasticity of supply. [1]
This reminded me: most personal assets can be framed in Stock-to-Flow terms, too: (1) Knowledge is just the accumulation of days, weeks, and years of information absorption. (2) Wealth is just the accumulation of one’s ongoing savings and investment performance. (3) Strength is just the accumulation of muscular stress over time.
Thinking in this way is liberating. Because if knowledge, wealth, and strength are just running totals of their respective inflows, then reaching “success” in these categories is simply a question of, “How do I make these inflows bigger and how do I do it faster?”
The framework also helps explain my disdain for exceptions.
The way I see it: exceptions are rarely ever just exceptions. Sleeping in on a workday. Spending beyond your means. Missing a workout, “just once”. The danger with exceptions is that you open the door to the possibility of squandering the discipline you’ve exercised to that point. In Munger’s terms, you risk “interrupting” your compound growth.
Exceptions are only exceptions until they become the rule.
I don’t know how long this gym streak will last. Maybe 10,000 days. Maybe just one more. To date, I’ve been able to work through unexpected challenges. But should a serious emergency arise, I realize some things aren’t worth compromising for.
Whether this gym streak lasts one more day or until my death, at the very least this challenge reminded me: Your Defaults Define You.
1// Example: A sudden increase in demand for copper results in a price jump. Since copper is abundant, miners quickly step in to produce more (and profit from it). As the supply replenishes, the price begins to drop. A price increase in gold, on the other hand, doesn't follow the same path. Since gold is scarce, producers can’t ramp up production with nearly the same speed. As a result, the price action of the two metals behave differently.
