My grandfather graduated from the Naval Academy and loved Ancient Greek philosophy. He even learned Ancient Greek so he could read original texts. 

He retired at age 48 and bought a 40-ft Hinckley yacht. My grandparents enjoyed a good chunk of their retirement on that boat. I, along with my siblings and cousins, looked forward to sailing every summer on the Chesapeake Bay. 

In a nod to his love of Ancient Greek, my grandfather named the boat, “Arete”.

Arete is the notion of excellence or virtue. To me, it’s about living to fulfill your potential and strive for excellence in any area of life.

Starting around 2011, I began tracking and measuring several daily habits. My goal was to try and better myself every day. 

I always made progress for about a month, and then a trip or an injury would get in the way. Habits would stop. Habit tracking would stop. After a few months of feeling lost at sea, I’d slowly find my way back to shore and start up again. 

The same cycle over and over.    

I started a new job in 2019. It was stressful with long hours, and I wasn’t taking care of myself. I felt like I was floating out to sea with nothing to anchor me down or bring me back to shore. I felt lost. 

For the first time in my life, I sat down and wrote out what was really important to me. I wrote out the values I wanted to live by. I titled the page in my notebook, “Arete”. I always wanted to be the best version of myself, but I never defined what that meant to me.

Arete was the perfect moniker for my new values system. I made it personal to me, plus the actual meaning is about striving for excellence. 

Here is what I’ve developed as my Arete values system over the past few years:

A - Accountability

R - Relationships

E - Energy

T - Training

E - Eliminate

Accountability

Nothing gets done if you can’t hold yourself accountable. I hold myself accountable by keeping a spreadsheet of daily tasks that I’ve deemed important enough to be measured. I review the spreadsheet every Sunday to see how the previous week went and think about how I can improve. 

I also include my wife so she knows what I am trying to work on or stop doing. It’s hard to keep yourself accountable, so bringing in someone else or team of people who care about you can really help you stick to a plan.

Relationships

Quality relationships with friends and family is the most important thing to me. What does “quality” mean? It means checking in or interacting at least monthly. You have to be proactive to make relationships work, especially if the person lives on the other side of the country.

I wrote out a list of my closest friends and family (~50 people) and am keeping track of how frequently I talk with them. This is the toughest area for me and the area I’d like to focus on improving the most. Life gets in the way and it's hard to be consistent. 

For me, spending in person time is important because you can connect a lot more than over text or zoom. That’s why I highly value traveling to see family and friends. The where doesn’t matter as much as the who.

Energy

What gives me energy?

Am I making these a priority?

For most of the past four years, I’ve had four items listed here: proper sleep, proper nutrition, play and travel. 

Prioritizing sleep (quality AND length) and nutrition (quality AND caloric intake) gives me higher baseline energy levels. 

To keep my mind and body young, my focus on play usually means getting outside and doing something competitive, like playing baseball, basketball, tennis, or pickleball. It also means playing video games or card/board games with friends. There is a nostalgia factor here. I want to try to keep myself young by still enjoying some of the activities I loved doing when I was younger. 

Travel is something I enjoy and provides me with a boost of energy. 

I am willing to prioritize these areas. I am willing to spend money in these areas. 

Training

What am I trying to learn or get better at?

Do these activities “compound”?

Currently I am focused on three things: reading, writing and working out. 

I want to read daily because there is nothing that compounds your knowledge faster. Reading also provides ideas and connections for writing. I am writing quite a bit in my personal and business life, and reading great writers is an important aspect of improving my own writing. 

Working out is a non-negotiable for me. I love to see incremental improvements in my fitness and find value in measuring and tracking workouts. But more importantly, I’ve seen loved one’s health deteriorate as they get older. I want to do everything I can now to give myself as many physically fit years later in life.

Eliminate

What/who is holding me back?

What saps my energy and causes me anxiety?

What am I doing that doesn’t compound?

On the flip side are the negative things in life that should be eliminated. Currently, I want to eliminate listening to podcasts in bed, drinking too much caffeine and checking social media too often.

I try to reason with myself WHY I should stop doing these things.

I know that listening to podcasts in bed cuts my sleeping time down by at least 30-60 mins every night I do it. I don’t retain any information from the podcasts. Sleeping less affects my mood and energy levels the next day. 

This can lead to drinking too much caffeine. I want to stick to one cup of coffee a day, but too often I end up at 2 or 3 and it increases my anxiety and worsens my sleep cycle.

Checking social media too often gets in the way of being productive. I want to be more of a creator and less of a consumer.

Creating a plan with guardrails to limit or fully eliminate “bad” habits is just as important as creating good habits. 

It’s been roughly 4 years since I created my Arete values system. If I start to notice myself floating out to sea again, I just repeat the word Arete in my head and it’s like flipping a switch to getting back to shore. 

Arete is my habits anchor. 

I feel now, more than ever, that I have the right system in place to become the best version of myself. 

What systems do you have to keep you afloat?

For disclosure information, please visit the link here