Category Archives: Friends and Family

Business, Friends and Family, Goals, Habits, Health, Life, Sleep, Travel

Ready for what’s next

Leave a comment

Happy 2020! I didn’t write a mid-year update for 2019 because I was putting in crazy 16 hour days, under cyber-attack, and just trying my best to stay afloat. It was insanely tough and there wasn’t much to say other than it fucking sucked. But I got through it and here I am reflecting not only on the past year but the past decade as well.

 

A year ago I was terrified of leaving my job to work full-time on mailfloss. At the time it wasn’t doing a whole lot in revenue, had a high churn rate, and a ton of bugs. Mentally, I felt really isolated, unprepared and alone, but in retrospect, it was absolutely the right thing to do. It’s been incredibly challenging at times, but nothing in my life has ever felt so rewarding, either.

 

2019 gave me a glimpse of a new life and what’s possible. Walking into the new year and the new decade I feel like I’ve gained some confidence back and know that everything is going to be alright.

 

I spent half the year in Canada and half the year in Thailand. There was one issue with Thailand, and that was the fact that I didn’t work out at all. This is horrible and something I need to fix. I’ve been doing double duty since coming back to Canada for the past month and it’s really made a difference in my size and leanness, but it’s also starting to nag on my joints a bit, especially my elbows.

 

The good news is I’ll be heading to South America for 3 months starting next week, which was my original plan in 2018. I’ll give my elbows a break from the daily grind for a few weeks, but then I’ll still need to get into a bodyweight routine of some sort, or end up with a dad bod again, which happened this year but thankfully is now under control.

 

My Spanish will be put to the test while in South America, which is exactly what I need. I had a tutor for over a year and still feel like my Spanish isn’t up to snuff, which is frustrating but is what it is. I feel like I’ll be able to get by without too much trouble, but we’ll see once I get there.

 

I read 23 books this year and the one that I recommend the most was the first one I finished – Atomic Habits. It’s a blueprint to better habits and really helped my productivity shoot through the roof, eliminate some nasty habits and get better at sticking with good ones.

 

Some lessons I’ve learned and re-learned from the past 10 years include:

Consistency is everything. Slow and steady wins the race. The tortoise beats the hare 9/10 times.

Don’t tolerate toxic people. Friends, family, SOs, classmates or coworkers, it doesn’t matter. If they continuously disrespect you and don’t support you then get rid of them. You will be objectively happier and better off once they’re out of your life.

Nobody gives a shit about you and nobody owes you anything. Don’t cry about it, this is empowering. You can do anything. Get after it.

Friendships come and go in cycles. Life changes, people get married, have kids, move away. Don’t hate, accept it. You can’t force and beg people to be in your life. If it was meant to be, so be it. You never know when you’ll reconnect with old ones.

Be cautious of the “isms” and worship nobody, no matter how great you think they might be.

Respect everyone until they give you a reason not to.

Be kind, even to those who don’t reciprocate.

Effectiveness beats efficiency, but ideally, you’d want to be efficient at the effective stuff.

Be micro-impatient, and macro-patient. H/t to Gary V for this one. Meaning go fast and hard short-term so you can reap the rewards long-term. But they don’t come overnight.

Sleep well so you feel great and can perform well.

Eat consciously.

Kaizen – try to continuously improve, always.

1% improvements add up quickly.

Don’t sweat the small stuff, but don’t underestimate them either.

Believe in yourself, even when nobody else does.

Don’t forget to breathe. This is especially important when shit is hitting the fan.

Don’t be afraid to ask for help, especially if you need it.

Think for yourself and don’t believe everything you read or see.

Exercise, already!

Balance is still over-rated. Especially when it’s ill-defined.

Just because you love something doesn’t mean it’s good for you. This includes friends and hobbies. And cheeseburgers.

Try to full-ass stuff rather than half-ass stuff.

Travel more. (side note: Instagram doesn’t need to know)

Put away your phone. It’s alright.

Looking back on the past decade, I can say without any doubt that this was by far the toughest decade I have gone through and perhaps ever will go through. I left the corporate world in 2009 and haven’t looked back, but nothing turned out the way I envisioned it. While my friends got married, bought houses, cars, had kids, got promotions and new jobs, I got none of that. I failed, again and again and again and AGAIN, moved home, was ridiculed and laughed at and wrote off, brushed aside, disrespected, ghosted, and thrown shade at more times than I’d like to think about.

 

But it’s all been worth it for what comes next. I genuinely believe 2020 and beyond is mine for the taking, and I’m coming for it all.

Friends and Family, Goals, Habits, Life, Lifestyle, Me

2013 – Building Up Confidence

Leave a comment

Well, the end of 2013 is upon us, which means a new and exciting year awaits. Last year, in 2012, I took a leap of faith. This year, 2013, it was all about building up confidence. Next year, 2014, it’ll be all about execution.

The first half of 2013 I was still fumbling around like an idiot. My strength gains were stalling, I stumbled my way to launching Rentything, and I was still trying to transition into this new lifestyle and getting into the right habits and routines. But the latter half of the year I started finding my groove. I stopped getting injured so much, started making adjustments to my diet, to my routines, and to my environment. I stayed consistent in my activities with no expectation except to trust in the process. And guess what? The process started to work. Strength started to progress again, injuries were less frequent, productivity skyrocketed. Opportunities for growth in business, awareness of self, and happiness all improved steadily. In other words, I started to find my swagger.

I plan on taking this momentum with me into the new year. No fucking around, just consistent execution every. single. day. I really like where my head is at these days, and am in a very good place spiritually, physically, and emotionally as well. Just like 2013, I expect the first half of 2014 to be very different from the second half. There are some amazing things in technology that I am expecting in early 2014 that I am getting excited for that will have a large impact on my productivity and career for the rest of the year. It’s an amazing time to be alive, no doubt.

As for goals, I don’t really have anything concrete. I like to use goals more as a fun mental exercise rather than hard and fast guidelines to follow. I still want to continue getting stronger, and I think bigger (for a little bit while longer), but need to be careful not to neglect other aspects of physical health, such as sport specific training and aerobic capacity. I also need to do a much better job of blocking time off for important activities. This has been a huge challenge for me over the years, which causes me to spend too much time on certain activities (such as programming and reading) and not enough time on others (such as writing). If I can nail this, my activities will be less lopsided and more balanced.

Patience is something that I have spent the last few months working on improving, and I plan on continuing this practice. Even though I feel I’ve seen some big improvements on patience, I still see tons of room for improvement. Patience with myself, with family and friends, with personal and professional goals. All of it needs improving. Patience, patience, patience.

Happy New Year. Goodbye 2013, hello 2014. Bring it on, bitches!

Friends and Family, Goals, Life, Me

The End of the Beginning

Leave a comment

Another year has flown on by, and what a juggernaut of a year it was. With the end of the year comes my traditional end of year review, of course! So here we go. For me, there was nothing sexy about this year. It was gritty, it was ugly, and it needed to be done. I grinded and hustled for most of the year and I don’t really see that changing in 2013. The year itself proved to be huge. There were three really big events that happened to me. They were, in roughly chronological order: 1) I finished my MBA, 2) I turned 30, and 3) I moved home.

1. Finishing my MBA was a relief. I learned a lot during my two years back at school, and almost none of it had anything to do with the classroom. I did manage to pick up a few things here and there while actually doing “school” (at the very least, I can say for certain I know of a lot more of the things I don’t know and am ignorant of), but the real learning came in my hours outside of school. I began to learn certain things about myself, such as what kind of work related activities I enjoy and which I don’t. I learned that no matter how hard I try, there are certain people I just have a hard time clicking with and that I’m not everybody’s cup of tea, either. I figured out the things that are important to me, such as freedom and health over wealth and riches, and prioritized myself accordingly. This year especially, in my last semester at school, I started to really feel that the pieces were coming together and that the earlier 1.5 years had prepared me for the journey I find myself on now. I feel there is so much more to write about this two-year time period that a single year-end review post wouldn’t do it justice, so I do plan on reflecting on this time in more detail later down the line.

2. I turned 30. Now, don’t get me wrong, there is nothing inherently special about the number itself, but something clicked at around the same time that my birthday rolled around. I started to take my crazy ideas very seriously. My entire life I’ve been plagued with self-doubt. I let that voice in my head scream loudly while ignoring the beat of my heart. I let well-meaning parents, relatives, friends, and guidance counsellors dictate and control my destiny. In my twenties I spent a lot of time trying to figure out who I was and experimented with all sorts of things, and now that I had the good fortune to play and discover, it’s time I got real. If there was a word for it, I guess it would be wisdom. But I am not that arrogant to think I am wise. I’m taking Steve Jobs’ advice and staying foolish. They say 30 is the new 20, but I hope not. I’d rather 30 be the same 30. It’s time I put on my big kid pants.

3. I moved home. I haven’t moved home in 10 years, and a lot has changed. Not my friends though, they are still the same dudes I remember in high school. All of them got fatter, some of them got bald and married, and a few even made some kids, which terrifies me to be honest. Regardless, I consider many of them as good friends, and a handful of them as my brothers. We’ve drifted far apart in terms of our ideals, morals, priorities, goals, and many other things over the 10 year span, but there is no denying my love for them. Just like family that drives you mad on a family vacation, that’s how I feel when I’m around these guys. But they are my family, and I love them regardless. Surprisingly, being so close to my real family has been awesome. For a person that loves his quiet time and space and solitude, it is nice seeing my parents on the regular. And they aren’t driving me mad. Heaven forbid, I actually enjoy their company!! I have great family and friends and I never wish to take that for granted. They play a huge role in my sanity and a lot of my drive and motivation comes from them.

There were other big milestones this year that I’d like to briefly write about. If you’ve made it this far, congratulations. Jump up and down in the air like you just don’t care. You also receive a free eHug from me. You are either really bored or genuinely care about me, so thanks either way.

I put on 10 lbs of mostly muscle doing barbell training (review of Starting Strength coming soon!). I love strength training and for as long as I am healthy will continue to train it in some form or other. After just under 6 months of training, I’ve gained a non pathetic amount of strength and that makes me happy.

I read a lot of books this year. According to Shelfari, my book count for the year was 142. See my shelf, here. That is more than 2.5 books a week. And that is an under representation as I read many ebooks that are not indexed in Shelfari. Again, reading is one of those loves of mine that just won’t quit. I have an insatiable thirst for knowledge and books are just a perfect medium to feed my addiction. Although Wikipedia, Ted, and Quora are pretty awesome, too. Quora, especially, is like a new kind of crack to me.

I’ve practiced Spanish on a daily basis. I’ve gone at it for 6 months consistently now and am finally starting to not feel like a total dumbass. The sites I’ve used are phenomenal. The first is Duolingo, which helps translate the web and was invented by the same guy who invented captcha, and the other is Memrise, which was started by a memory champion and a neuroscientist. Both are super badass and complement each other very well. Not only do you learn, but it is also quite fun! Me gusta! My profiles are at here and here.

And lastly, although I am not ready to talk about it just yet, I have been extremely busy building a new web app, so I guess that makes me a founder. I wanted to get it out of the door by the end of the year, but there are just a few minor things here and there that I’m not quite happy with before I put it out there to solicit feedback from a select group of trusted individuals. As soon as I get those out of the way and get the feedback, I’ll be sure to announce it here once I release it to the general public. It’s my small contribution to the interwebz and to society, and in Seth Godin lingo, I’ll be shipping my art.

I’m not done. I’m just getting started. Doors have closed, and doors have opened. I’ve played and had my fun, and now it’s time I… still play and have fun 😉 But now I know what I like to play and what I find fun. I’m nervous, I’m excited, I’m anxious yet calm. For the first time in as long as I can remember, I am excited to get up in the morning and ready to give the day hell. I love what I’m doing so I’m going to keep doing it. If 2013 is anything like 2012, it’s going to be exhausting, both emotionally and physically. It’s going to be a ton of work, it’s going to be ugly, and it’s going to be very hard. I say bring it, because that’s when I’m in my element. Let’s roll! Happy 2013!!

“Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” – Winston Churchill

Friends and Family, Goals, Life

Psssttttttt…is this thing on??

Leave a comment

Wondering if anybody still reads this thing, outside of random Googlers. If you do, awesome, you guys/gals rule. It has been a busy year so far! A lot of things happening that are as exciting as they are scary. I haven’t updated here in a long time not because I didn’t want to and not because I didn’t have the time. In all honesty, I just don’t know what to say. Sometimes the best course of action is no action. Some of the consequences of my decisions won’t be known until a few years out, so I’d rather not comment on them. The things that are going well are doing exceptionally so. And the things that aren’t I’m not really that worried about.

School was one of those things that just kind of took a back burner in terms of priorities. I honestly don’t know if school was the right decision at this point. It has its pluses, it has its minuses, so who knows. What doesn’t? Ask me again in 5 years and I’d have a more solid answer for you. The only real regret I had with school was that I didn’t get to connect with my classmates as much as I would have liked. I lost touch with a bunch of them that I would have liked to see more. But thems the breaks. School was extremely fast paced, stressful for some, and money/finding a job and time was always a concern for many. As for me, my own priorities changed as well and going out constantly and being involved in extra curricular school activities started to wane on me. I much prefer things like solitude, taking on personal challenges, physicality, learning on my own and so that’s what I focused on and set my priorities to. It might have been a schizo move and I acknowledge that but I just have to keep it real to myself and so I apologize to my friends and the potential friendships that I didn’t make because of my actions. There really are fantastic people in my program.

I feel very creative, experimental, and stoic right now. It kind of feels like that feeling when you spend a long time on a really hard math problem and get the right answer. I’m just loving life right now and rolling with the punches. I remind myself that this is my one chance at life and so I am going to do it the way I am going to do it. This summer is going to be my best yet. This much I’m sure of.

Friends and Family, Me

2010 Annual Review.

Leave a comment

Annual reflections are a good little exercise to try.  It helps put things into perspective by taking a look at what went right, wrong, nowhere and somewhere in between in your life.  This helps with planning on future direction and gaining insight.  I would encourage everybody to give it a go.  At the end of the year is completely arbitrary as I don’t subscribe to the new years resolution mentality.  If it can wait until the new year than the burning desire for achieving the goal just isn’t there yet.  You could just as easily do an annual review mid year.  In fact doing a semi-annual review wouldnt be such a bad idea but if you’ve never done anything like it before than starting with one is a good start.  Something I am very bad at is measuring and recording results.  This leaves me doing inaccurate guesswork with skewed and crappy memory.  Don’t do that.  Record and measure results whenever possible and save the guesswork.  Be as specific as possible.

What can I really say this year? 2009 was a year of epic lows and mountain highs.  2010 was much more low key.  I did some traveling.  Hit up a cruise and went to some excellent European countries.  Great fun.  Met some great people during these times and had some really positive Couchsurfing experiences.  I will likely write about that in the future.  Quit my job and got back into school, which I put off for too long.  I have been very happy with this decision.  Got back into Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and realized a healthy, tougher me is also a better BJJ student on the mats.  So for me, 2010 was like transitioning into a new and exciting phase in my life.  Lots of tiny little discoveries and aha! moments that have made it quite rewarding.

I didn’t define many goals for 2010 and thus did not accomplish many goals.  This was a mistake.  I tried a machine gun approach and because of this learned a ton but in terms of measurable success it was negligible.  Still, in terms of overall life satisfaction I raised the bar for myself.  I expect 2011 to be an equally slow process of discovery and adventure.  The one thing I lacked the most in 2010 was consistency, which imo is one of the most important things you could do to achieving any type of noticeable gains.  I plan on being much more consistent in my endeavours going forward.

I was amazed how tough 2010 was for some of my friends and family.  This affected me more than most things going on in my own life.  Lots of marriages and breakups and highs and lows hit me with smiles when things were good and poopiness when things were bad.  I felt it more this year for reasons I cannot explain.  It did seem like it was a string of bad news after bad news more than usual.  No worries. Just a random series of events.  Good news always follows.  I hope my friends know that walking through fire only makes them stronger.

That’s it, may 2011 bring you success and happiness.  I have a good feeling it will 🙂

Friends and Family, Health and Fitness, Life

What Happens if You Started Today?

Leave a comment

I have been feeling lazy, which is why I haven’t written in a while.  Well, there’s more to the story than that.  School kept my hands full.  I wasn’t overloaded, just annoyingly occupied to the point where I wasn’t really able to do a lot of extracurriculars.  I had to cut down on my exercise, jiu jitsu, rock climbing, and writing.  I did still keep up with reading, though, so all was not lost.  Then my exams finished, and school was off for the break and I just decided to plunk down on the couch, play some video games and eat a lot of junk.  So far, so good.

I wanted to write a series of posts over the break but that didn’t happen.  Instead, this is the best I could muster.  Google seems to be sending lots of beachbody P90X, Insanity, Rev Abs people my way.  For the record, this isn’t a health and fitness blog, at least not completely.  Its mostly a lifestyle blog.  It was started before Facebook and Gmail and Twitter and Skype as a way to keep in touch with friends.  Friends are now much easier to keep in touch with so this blog, at least to my friends, became much less relevant.  Except some awesome readers have stated they have found my writing useful, and because I still enjoy writing. Man, the internet moves FAST.

Writing is like many skills that require practice.  If you don’t use it it becomes harder to do.  I’m still kicking myself for not practicing tying a few uber elite knots I was taught over the summer and have since forgotten 🙁  So, I am going to try to write 500 words per day for the next 2 weeks and see what happens (not all of it on this blog).  Just for fun, no pressure.  I find putting out a goal outside of your head and onto something else such as telling your friends makes it real and thus forces you into action.  Letting someone know that you are going to be running in a marathon forces you to start running.  Afterall, nobody wants to look like a liar and a fool.  Sometimes it happens, anyway.  No biggy, sack up and try again (trust me nobody really cares that much).

But when you start, it feels good.  Then, when you look back on what you’ve accomplished hopefully you have something to be proud of.  If you’ve made any improvements whatsoever, that’s an awesome thing.  Even if you don’t hit the goal, heading in the right direction is pretty rad.  I love it when I hear someone tell me they’ve started P90X, because I know that there’s a good chance, if they want it enough (that burning desire inside), that they are going to finish.  And I have yet to meet someone who finished it and didnt look better, or feel better, even if they hated the workout or Tony Horton’s annoying voice (I don’t find Tony annoying, he’s hilarious imo).  Heck, even if the ones who didn’t quit immediately saw some good benefits.

Just imagine what can be accomplished if you just started today.  Its one of those things that nobody can really force you to do, so its got to come from an “oh shit” moment.  Sometimes a moment comes from really crappy places like a divorce or passing out from eating too much chocolate cake (Win?).  Other times the moments come from really cool places like watching a 72 year old bench press 400 lbs.  Find the moments.  Find the burning desire.  Today is a good day to start.

I think I’ll do a year end review next.  Seems like a good time to do it, being year end and all.

Friends and Family, Lifestyle, Me

The Agony of Defeat and The Sweet Taste of Victory

Leave a comment

This year so far has been one of those crazy transitional ones for me.  Its probably the most uncomfortable and challenging time I’ve been through, but also the most rewarding.  Everything I have been doing or trying is not second nature to me.  Its been fail after fail.  I got demoted at work.  It seems any time I try to do the right thing I get burned.  I had to do some serious soul searching and make some tough decisions and sacrifices.  I eventually came up with three rules for myself during this transitional period. 1) Workout six days a week. 2) Hangout with friends and family whenever possible. 3) Work until my eyeballs bleed.  This was not easy.  It made me very aggressive with my time.  I was working 100+ hour weeks.  Night after night I sat in front of my computer until my eyes were fuzzy.  I balanced that out with hanging out with my best friends and seeing family members I haven’t really seen in years.  Sacrifices were made.  I stopped reading.  I didn’t get to do a lot of the things I really wanted to do like outdoor bouldering, bjj and playing the harmonica.  I stopped meditating and yoga and writing.  My diet suffered.  I mean *really* suffered.  Aunts and uncles were looking to feed me their favourite dishes every day.  Eating became a thing to do with friends for no other reason except because we needed something to do while hanging out (just like the good ol days!).  My performance and reputation at work took a hit as I waited to be called out by somebody.  Nobody did.  I made myself insignificant as I pumped the brakes and refocused my energy.  But I had to do it for myself and for that I have absolutely zero regrets.  I had no guidance from anybody except my favourite bloggers: Tim Ferriss, Ramit Sethi, Leo Babauta, Derek Sivers, Chris Guillebeau, and Seth Godin who would seem to come out with some sort of motivational post any time I would question myself and what I was doing.  It was like they knew how I was feeling and how to correct it at exactly the right time.  If you were to ask me if I were to do it again any differently I would say absolutely, I would have done this sooner.

“Do what you feel in your heart to be right – for you’ll be criticized anyway. You’ll be damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

I started freelancing and discovered that I could do this full time.  I made some really good connections and learned some cool new skills.  I also discovered the world of online marketing.  It annoys me how terrible I am at it.  Imagine trying to learn every sport all at once, and that’s how I feel about this.  It is like an entirely new world I discovered, kind of like the time I found out that people go on the internet to learn pickup but way, way cooler and way more annoying.  But I’m building my muscles and paying my dues, this much I know.  I’m putting myself in some serious debt.  Aside from time, money is another thing I’ve been aggressive in.  But I feel ok doing it because I am not spending on fancy watches and nice shoes but rather paying for useful software, paying for memberships and subscriptions and educational courses, investing aggressively, all things that have potential to bring back a positive ROI (and some have already).

School starts in September and I can honestly say I am not looking forward to it.  I am not convinced that the material you learn and the people you meet are worth the $75k bill that it requires.  Take that same $75k, apply it to the school of hard knocks over the same 2 year period, and the education and connections you make are likely way more valuable.  I’ve been to a few school events already and I know good friends who have completed or are completing the program at top tier schools.  Highly motivated, highly intelligent, successful people.  Lots still can’t find jobs.  Others question why they did it in the first place.  The rest don’t seem to really care beyond the superficial surface relationships.  This keeps me awake at night.  But I could be wrong, and there’s only one way to find out, so we shall see.

I’m very thankful for the people I’ve met and the friendships I’ve forged at my previous employer.  Some, like my manager, were highly influential in my growth and development over the years and this I will never forget or be able to repay.  But its time to move on.  I feel this should have happened sooner and it felt like it just kept dragging on but its over now and it feels nice not having any responsibility outside of myself.  I am really glad I don’t have a minivan and a mortgage.  I am really happy I don’t have any mouths to feed, because if I did I would be terrible at it.  That lifestyle honestly feels like it is a lifetime away at the rate I am going.  Slow and steady wins the race, at least that’s what I keep telling myself.  I have too much I need to see, experience, feel before I’m ready for that.  If I had all the money in the world, all the women I could handle and I could be anywhere in the world and be doing anything I want, where would I be and what would I be doing?  I’d be in Iceland, with all of my possessions strapped to my back, looking for adventure and hanging out with friends.  If not there then Japan, or Brazil, or Egypt.  Seeking solitude in India or building a school in Laos. I’m still not there but this is never far from my thoughts.  How do you eat an elephant?  One bite at a time.  I start today.  And I brought my appetite.

I’ll be updating at http://landland.posterous.com for any quicky pics and notes that I can throw up for the next little while on my adventure.