I write 1-minute insights daily. Below are my latest. Like? Enter your email to get updates.
I help busy people do inner work.
I write 1-minute insights daily. Below are my latest. Like? Enter your email to get updates.
When getting to know somebody new, we start with how they treat us. We interpret their words, do careful tone-checks, dissect their body language, and try to understand, based on everything we’ve gathered from social interactions throughout our lives, if this person is kind, virtuous, and trustworthy or not.
Another layer down is to see how they treat strangers—particularly those who don’t attract any particular interest to them or those who do something that’s rude or upsets them. We’re talking about waiters, janitors, and maybe homeless folks… or people who cut them off in traffic, spill a drink on them, or say something off-putting. When there’s no perceived value that can come from the interaction, or the threat of a negative value exchange, their public-facing masks sometimes fall and you see a different side of them… a more authentic side.
And then there’s another layer down yet… and it’s how they treat the people at home. See strangers don’t carry our history… they don’t activate our wounds… they don’t mirror back the parts of ourself we’ve avoided for years. Our spouse does… our children do… our family does. And kindness to elicit a return… or to maintain an image… isn’t really kindness at all. It’s a barter… it’s a facade. And if building a home with this new person becomes an eventual thought in your mind… explore how they act in their current and/or previous homes. It’ll reveal a depth that’s simply hard to explore otherwise.
P.s. Shout-out to this video for the inspiration for this post.
Inside each of us are two selves engaged in ongoing negotiations about how to spend the available resources of the day.
The One is loud, about the now, and loves quick dopamine hits.
The Other is quiet, long-term oriented, and loves compounding returns from investments.
The One says, “You’re too old,” “You’re too weak,” “You’re too tired,” “You’re too late,” “You’re too busy…”—Let’s hit up TikTok instead.
The Other whispers, “You’ll do what you can,” “You’ll get stronger,” “You’ll give only what energy you have,” “You’ll be happy you went anyway,” “You’ll make time for what’s important—let’s take away from screentime instead.”
And the reason The One is so cunning and conniving is because it never presents as the enemy… it always presents as your friend.
And rather than gear up for battle against a full fledged, sword drawn, lion roaring enemy who’s charging at you from the other side of a battle field… you sit there with this “friend” who’s giving you warm tea and a blanket and whispering “Relax” and “It’s no big deal” and “It’s just this time” and “You’ve already been so good” and “You’ll look silly” and “You’ve got so many other things to do…” and a million other excuses that are oftentimes—quite hard to refute.
This is where WE need to get clever and strategic.
And in the same way we might politely say “Thank you” or smile and nod or rebut back with whispers of our own—and get up, excuse ourself out, and move forward with our life in real life—it’s good to remember that warm and kind and opinionated doesn’t always mean friend.
I couldn’t open the gate.
I was maybe 8 years old, and standing between me and my grandfather’s swimming pool that was situated in the middle of his assisted living complex, was this grumpy 10 or 11 year old who stood looking down at me from the other side.
I can’t recall his exact choice of words, but it rang along the lines of, “You can’t enter.” “What are you going to do about it?” “Make me.” Followed by a select choice of ugly, demeaning, worst-he-could-think-of adjectives.
Standing behind me was my sister and childhood friend, who was around 10 or 11 himself.
My sister and I didn’t really know what to say or do. And stood there like fawns soaked in white light… still trying to figure out what problems we must’ve caused?
My friend knew what was going on though.
This kid wasn’t upset, hurt, or offended by anything we did.
This kid was looking to upset, hurt, or offend.
And this friend navigated it by the book in the exact way I would teach it as a martial arts instructor today.
He kept my sister and I back. He spoke calmly. He told this kid we didn’t want any problems, we were just trying to swim, to relax, to leave us alone… and when pressed by the bully… at the exact moment when the bully reached out to grab and tackle my friend…
My friend punched him square in the jaw.
Dropped the kid in one punch.
Then calmly left him there to gather himself and walked my sister and I back to the pool.
We never had an issue with that kid again.
Make a positive change in your life.
It’ll tell you much of what you need to know.
Figuring out who you are is like writing an essay.
Try to rush it and you’ll end up sounding like a copy-pasted version of somebody else.
Take your time and do the research… kneed your findings with your past experiences and current opinions… wrestle with words… iterate, iterate, iterate… hit publish and present yourself to the world…
And you’ll sound like the unique individual that you are.
Do this again and again and again… and you’ll sound more and more and more like who you were always meant to be.
Not because you weren’t when you rushed… but because you didn’t copy-paste.
…You did the hard work of uncovering something original.
Inner work cleans the ground; prepares the garden bed.
It allows you to express suppressed emotions, let go or alchemize past trauma, and unlearn harmful beliefs.
…But this isn’t what plants the seeds or grows the garden.
New lifestyle habits should be initiated… activities scheduled… connections rekindled or explored. And each needs to be watered… exposed to the appropriate amount of sun… and cared for.
It’s this two step effort that grows the garden of a beautiful life—so that the same past garbage doesn’t just re-do what the inner work works so hard to clean up.
And instead of the clean bare land attracting back in garbage or debris (like an empty table in a busy family household), the ground eventually gets filled with an incredible array of flowers and trees and plants… so much so that there’s no room for anything else to wander in.
And even if it does… the beauty of a beautiful garden is that even the garbage starts to feel out of place. The aesthetics alone make it feel displaced and make it want to catch the next wind drift and wander out and away.
And suddenly… instead of cleaning endlessly and focusing solely on removing trash… you get to focus on beauty… and investing love and light into the garden of your life that begins to attract more of the same and repel more of the opposite.
The modern day brain has been programmed (quite literally) to desperately avoid boredom.
I overheard a child say to their parent the other day, “Mom, I’m so bored” in a play area that had books, puzzles, coloring sheets, crayons, colored pencils, magna-tiles, blocks, and so on.
…And what was the child hoping they could get access to to cure their boredom? …That’s right—their parents’ phone.
And as sad as that might sound… what you should consider is whether or not you and your loved ones are any better off.
What do you do when you crash on the couch after a long day? Or when you’re stuck in line at a restaurant? Or when you’re waiting for your child to finish their club/ class/ activity?
Because I’ll tell you what the majority of parents do while they’re waiting for their son or daughter to finish martial arts class… as soon as even an inkling of boredom occurs… they open up their phone.
This is not meant to be a criticism. It’s simply meant to be an inner work prompt. What is your relationship with boredom? Do you and boredom ever sit with each other for any amount of time? Or do you avoid boredom like the plague? When’s the last time you did what you encourage your kids to do (if you have any) and use your imagination to build, draw, or create minus the screens?
I’ll tell you what… there’s a magic in boredom that no screen game can touch.
…Just look at how a bored child can turn three blocks into entire worlds that are travelled and explored for hours and hours and hours at a time.