So let’s see, so far I have breezed through childhood, college, grad school and my “professional” career so far.  If you don’t remember you can stroll down memory lane here:   My journey to this point.

Dave has talked a bit about his early days as an entrepreneur and dissatisfaction with the real world (To be an entrepreneur), so I figured I better catch up.

I’m not going to bore you with all the details of my career, but let me start by saying that what motivated me to do what I was “supposed” to do (read:  go to school, get a good degree, get a good job) was the basic belief that the working world is a meritocracy.  I believed that skill and ability were valued, acknowledged and rewarded.  Looking back I have no idea why I believed this.  Naiveté.

I now realize that although I have demonstrated my abilities, they are only valuable to my immediate supervisor.  He relies on me to figure things out.  However, the decision makers have no clue what my competence level is.  I am X, I do Y for a price of Z.  I can be replaced with any number of comparable units.

Truthfully, I expected too much.  I’m under no delusions that I can alter the corporate world.  So I have an important choice:  take it or leave it.

I have a friend who has carved out a nice life for himself as a medical device entrepreneur.  He has been a great source of inspiration and also provides a great dose of reality.  It is certainly not the easiest path, but in the end, it comes down to where you fit as a person.  When discussing my frustration with the job world, he mentioned that he is always paid exactly what he is worth.

Bingo!  A real meritocracy.  Or at least as close as we get.  In truth, random events and many things outside of our control affect our destinies much more than we’d like to admit.  Some people just get lucky or jinxed no matter how you slice it.

So far it sounds like I’m obsessed with pay.  It’s a bit complicated because I really assign almost no value to money itself.  However, I became incredibly disgruntled because I constantly had to figure out how to do things for a colleague who made 2x what I make.  It just didn’t seem fair.  It wasn’t fair.  My own boss admits that.  He also admits he is powerless to do much about it in the short term.  This is just not a scene I want to get sucked into.  People sell away their life.  In the ideal world they would reward me comparably to my colleague.  In the real world the colleague gets laid off and I stay the same.

I choose not to be a unit.  I choose to be my own brand.

Dave and I hope to create some sort of value for you.  I plan to provide a lot of free content related to our product and nutrition in general.  I hope you will find it useful and join in a discussion about how to live a healthier happier life whether you choose to buy any of our products or not.

If we succeed, we will be rewarded financially.   If we don’t, we will still be rewarded with a great learning experience.  It’s that simple and I love it.

Perhaps it goes without saying…

that healthy living is harder than not.

Today we have all sorts of choices to make about what we eat, how frequently to eat, where to eat, etc… And for the most part, I think, people don’t understand which dietary choices they need to make to live healthy lives.

What most people don’t understand is the old hand-me-down from gradeschool…

YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT

Fundamentally, when you digest food, your body breaks down whatever it is you’ve eaten and reconfigures those particles into new cells. Seems easy right?

Well, until recently it has been easy to remain healthy by eating just what’s put in front of you. For a long time, food has been produced through traditional agricultural means. For a long time, humans have invested a lot of their time and money into acquiring sustinance.

All that has changed though. With the advent of industrial farming techniques, humans in the civilized world have discovered an unlimited supply of calories for relatively low out-of-pocket cost.

Unfortunately, that low-cost high-output model of production has transformed our human culture faster than our human bodies could adjust. Now that people have abundant food, they seem to absorb more and more of it.

IMMORTALITY WON’T BE FREE

Immortality will take a long time to realize, both scientifically – thru research and understanding of biology – and individually - it will take humanity a long time to adjust to the changes that longevity science brings to society. What’s certain though is that nobody can say for certain when longevity science will become the explosive industry transhumanists are looking for.

Until treatments come to exist which will let us avoid aging, it’s important that anybody who wants to be around to see a transhuman world is acting like it today – by eating right and staying healthy.

Consider this:

• Longbars are formulated to provide the protein and vitamin content of a square meal in a low calorie / low sugar snack. If you sit at a desk all day, then a Longbar is the perfect food to keep you alert and focused without loading your blood and body full of sugars that can negatively impact your health.
• Longbars are designed to help prevent unhealthy consumption. The bar is small and easy to eat, but you’ll find that each one is very filling and full of nutrients and protein that your body needs.
• Longbars are developed by our customers. If you have a question or comment or would like to see an ingredient added… all you have to do is ask.

Please consider supporting Longbars by trying a free sample or even ordering a box to share with people you know.

You can order Longbars in our shop!

Before Aaron and I founded Longbars, I was working at a company in Gilbert, AZ. Each morning on my way to work, I would stop at Burger King for breakfast. As a vegitarian, it’s hard to find ‘fast’ food that doesn’t have meat in it. Fortunately, you can get a breakfast sandwich from BK with just egg & cheese.

So every morning, I’d stop for a croissant sandwich and a large coke. This would constitute my first meal of the day, five days a week. Typically, I’d have the sandwich eaten before I made it to work. And then I’d drink the 32oz soda once I got in the office.

It didn’t take long before my not-so-healthy diet had caught up to my waistline. It helped me to pack on an extra 25 pounds. May not sound like whole lot for some people, but I’m only 5’7″. And while I gained 25 pounds, I also was loosing muscle mass that I’d earned as an active climber. I can tell you… it showed.

I felt it in my waistline, going from a size 29 waist to a size 32. And I felt it every time I walked up the stairs to my apartment. And I felt it emotionally, knowing that I wasn’t doing any good for my body.

Around the beginning of 2009, I decided that I couldn’t keep this up any longer. After reading Fantastic Voyage, I decided to act on what I’d always known: I would need to eat better if I wanted to feel better.

There were a lot of steps I could take that would make a difference. My first order of business was to stop with the fast food breakfast buffet, which meant finding an alternative. Waking up earlier was absolutely out of the question, ergo making myself breakfast every morning was not an option either.

Instead I started my search for a healthy alternative by foraging in convenience stores for a breakfast food. I knew I’d need to find something that was healthier than what I’d already been gorging myself on. And of course, I wanted something that was at least edible… protein shakes are great but they wear your tastebuds thin.

I’d learned that I should be eating something that had a low glycemic index, and I wanted to be sure that it had enough protein to keep my brain fed for at least 8 hours of cubicle farming.

Cubicle farming doesn’t sound like a lot of work, but you might be surprised how strong the desire to snack is when you sit on your butt for 8 hours a day. Most of the food available at the convenience stores were “snack” foods: chips, candy, crackers, soda, etc… Eventually I found a store on my way to work that also had a decent selection of protein bars.

Even still, those bars weren’t a very good option. Most of the protein bars available had at least 20g of carbs and a relatively low 8 or 10 g of protein.

What’s a guy like me to do?