💪Finkel's Fast Five 121 - May 22, 2020

Welcome to Finkel's Fast Five #121. Thanks for reading and subscribing!  CONTEST TIME: How would you like to win a classic Ken Griffey Jr. Starting Lineup action figure, still in the box? All you have to do is forward this e-mail to three (3) friends who you think would like it and you'll enter to win a drawing to get it. Easy...just like Junior's swing. FORWARD TO A FRIEND HERE.

 ONE

 MOVIES - The lack of live sports and new films in theaters has allowed me to methodically work my way back in time to movies that I always wanted to see but never got around to. Movies that stand the test of time... Movies that define an era... Movies that typify an actor's brilliance... Movies like... Action Jackson.  Yes, that Action Jackson starring Carl Weathers coming in hot right after his explosive performance in Predator. This movie is part Die Hard and part Lethal Weapon and all manly 80s awesomeness. You can practically smell the gasoline and Brut cologne through the screen. You've got a supremely smug Craig T. Nelson as the bad guy, a super young Sharon Stone as the featured actress and a host of supporting actors you love, including the guy who played Argyle in Die Hard, rounding out the cast. Not to mention a scene were Action Jackson plays chicken with a car, while on foot, and JUMPS OVER IT. Yeah, this will be the best $2.99 you've spent in a while.

TWO

 GEAR - Every summer I treat myself to an entirely new set of socks. I can't recommend this enough. Your feet are super important to your comfort... and yet most people I know never give a second thought to wearing out crappy socks until they have holes in them... Or wearing uncomfortable, sauna-like socks all summer. For like $30 your feet can feel great all year.  The last few years I bought myself some Slazengers, which worked well. But since I've started running a few days a week I realized my 'everyday socks' weren't cutting it in the Texas heat. I went on the hunt for some new running/workout socks and of all places, Wired Magazine had a great write-up about socks. I went with the Saucony multi-pack. Solid price. Solid upgrade over what I had. But get whatever works for you.

THREE

PRODUCTIVITY - I have given a name to my arch nemesis...and it is: organization. If the lockdowns and home schooling while working from home and writing have done anything, they have exposed my weaknesses with scheduling, planning, dividing up time and everything in between.  I use Evernote successfully on a regular basis to keep track of my ideas and notes and creative project stuff, and I've dabbled with Outlook Calendars and other apps unsuccessfully to try to merge my work and personal day-to-day stuff. But with the extended quarantines, continued WFH, camps and schools closed, and me about to start a huge and kick ass new book project (which I can share soon), I needed help. After cruising around productivity blogs and books, I found this article by Noah Kagan, who was an early Facebook employee, one of the first Mint employees and an entrepreneur. It's super thorough and long, but I found it really helpful in getting me set up on Google Calendar, which I've been using, amazingly, for a whole week.

FOUR

 MUSIC - Once upon a time I considered myself a mix tape master. I would make mixes for my brother at summer camp, mixes for specific swim meets, mixes to mow the lawn, mixes for car rides... Mixes for anything, really...  As I watched the final episodes of The Last Dance, it brought me back to the biggest mix tape conundrum of my entire life, back to the year 1992 when I was waffling about whether to put Gatorade's 'Be Like Mike' on a bona fide mix tape for my buddies and I to shoot hoops to. If you were a teen back then like me, you have no idea the guts it took to potentially include a commercial jingle on a tape with Black Sheep, TLC, Bobby Brown and Kris Kross. This is the inside short story of DJ Finxellaneous (me, I explain in the piece) and the ballsiest mix tape moment of my career.

 FIVE

 A great quote about courage:  “Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.  – Winston Churchill  SUPER, SUPER IMPORTANT NOTE: To make sure you keep getting the FF5, please add [email protected] to your address book or whitelist us.  AND DON'T FORGET TO FORWARD TO A FRIEND: FORWARD TO A FRIEND HERE.   WAS THIS E-MAIL FORWARDED TO YOU? SIGN-UP HERE

BONUS

Many of you enjoyed my Meathead Movie Home Workouts. I combined all four of them into this really cool e-book PDF that you can download for free right here.

THE PERFECT FATHER'S DAY PRESENT:  Your dad or husband probably likes sports. And they probably like US History.  And they've probably wondered which president was the most athletic.   So they'd love the book I wrote breaking down every single president's athletic ability, from Washington to Taft to Trump. 44 Essays. 1 Winner.  It's called JOCKS IN CHIEF: The Ultimate Countdown Ranking the Most Athletic Presidents, from the Fight Crazy to the Spectacularly Lazy  You can buy it right here.

Share the FF5 and get TREMENDOUS STUFF:  1 SHARE = Enters you into a raffle to win a free copy of one of the books I mention here in the FF5. I'll do a drawing every 10 issues, but you have to forward the FF5 to a friend to enter.  3 SHARES = 1 Abe Lincoln as Tyler Durden Fight Club Sticker - perfect for your laptop, office, fridge or on your squat rack like Tommy John  10 SHARES = 1 Official Finkel's Fast Five Coffee Mug like this one that my man Marlin won last year  25 SHARES = If you share Finkel's Fast Five with 25 friends who you think would like it, I will take you to the movies... (well, not literally) ...but I will Venmo you money for a ticket to your next movie, on me. We'll cap this at 4 people for now.  FORWARD TO A FRIEND RIGHT HERE  DID SOMEONE FORWARD YOU THIS E-MAIL? GET MY FREE STARTER LIBRARY HERE  FYI: The sharing of the FF5 is cumulative... You don't have to share this e-mail 10 times if you don't want to. It can be 10 issues over 10 weeks or 10 months, whatever... The point is, please share it. We've grown from less than a hundred to a few hundred to a few thousand readers in under two years... Let's see how fast we can get to 10,000! - Jon