Work and life

An episode of The 2% Solution with Dai Manuel.

An episode of The 2% Solution with Dai Manuel.

An episode of The 2% Solution with Dai Manuel.

An episode of The 2% Solution with Dai Manuel.

An episode of The 2% Solution with Dai Manuel.

An episode of The 2% Solution with Dai Manuel.

An episode of The 2% Solution with Dai Manuel.

An episode of The 2% Solution with Dai Manuel.

An episode of The 2% Solution with Dai Manuel.

An episode of The 2% Solution with Dai Manuel.

An episode of The 2% Solution with Dai Manuel.

An episode of The 2% Solution with Dai Manuel.

An episode of The 2% Solution with Dai Manuel.

Five life lessons from Ted Lasso, played straight. Believe in possibility, relationships over results, be curious not judgemental, the power of vulnerability, and the biscuit philosophy. Funny on the surface, and a decent blueprint for leading anything underneath it.

An episode of The 2% Solution with Dai Manuel.

Chapter three and a half. The big, hairy, audacious goal. The thing you keep telling yourself you will do one day. I argue for naming it out loud, setting it beyond comfortable reach, and letting it pull the daily work along behind it.

Chapter three. The why nots. The excuses I come across most often in my work, including the ones I used myself. Why enthusiastic all or nothing starts fail so reliably, and what to do instead when the plan meets a real week with real obligations.

Chapter four and a half. Stress. Drinking, scrolling, venting and zoning out feel like relief and do nothing. I go through five plain ways to reduce the load instead of numbing it, starting with the hardest one: stop over committing to everybody else.

Chapter eight. The Power 30. Four weeks, thirty minutes a day, movement, mindfulness and personal development in one block. I read the plan out in full, including how the time splits and why the habit matters more than any individual workout in it.

Chapter six and a half. Exercise myths, and the equipment question. What you actually need to begin, what the industry sells you instead, and why the shift that matters is from someone who plans to start to someone who already did.

An episode of The 2% Solution with Dai Manuel.

Chapter two. Your why. Goals built on appearance collapse the first hard week. I talk through how to find the reason underneath the reason, the one that involves your kids, your work and your marriage, and why that reason is the only thing that survives a bad month.

Chapter one. Fitness is broken. Most of what we are sold is built on vanity and a body shape that is supposed to make us happy. I make the case for a different definition, one measured by how you live rather than how you look in a mirror.

The five Fs behind the whole approach: fitness, family, faith, finances and fun. I walk through why looking at only one of them is what keeps men stuck, and how a balanced life is what actually holds a training habit in place once motivation runs out.

The first episode, and the reason for all of them. Thirty minutes is two percent of your day. I explain how giving that back to yourself, consistently, changed my life more than any big overhaul ever did, and why small and repeatable beats dramatic and short lived every time.

The introduction to the Whole Life Fitness Manifesto, read aloud. I set out what the book is for, who it is written for, and the simple premise underneath it: thirty minutes a day, body, mind and spirit, without rearranging your entire life to get it.

Chapter four. Time. Take a third of the day for sleep and a third for a job that is often stressful, then look at what is left. Thirty minutes fits in that remainder, morning, afternoon or evening, whichever window you will actually keep.

A side conversation from the writing of the book. Victor Chan, who has written two books with the Dalai Lama and spent four years hiking the Tibetan Himalayas, on what a meditation practice looks like day to day. Practical, unhurried, no mysticism.

Chapter seven. The basic moves. The handful of movements the whole programme is built from, shown in full colour with Christie demonstrating the stretches and our friends demonstrating the rest. The photography is the part of this book we are proudest of.

Chapter five. Mental fitness. Meditation without the robes and the incense. I explain how mindfulness works as training rather than belief, why a few quiet minutes belongs in the same thirty as the movement, and how to start without feeling ridiculous.

Chapter six. Eat smart. My own history with food, including the strict list of ten safe foods I allowed myself, then Kathy Smart's nutrition tips from the interview I did with her for the book. Simple enough for a normal week with a family and a shared fridge.

Chapter nine. The long haul. There are no instant fixes in fitness and health. I close the book with the habits worth carrying past the first four weeks, and what to do about the days you miss.