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Month: August 2026

Pay Attention To What You Pay Attention To

Published on August 20, 2026

If I suddenly forgot everything about my life and was told to piece back together who I was… a good place to look for clues might be the things in my house, what shows up on my social media feeds, and my camera roll.

What you’d find in my house are vegan food items, books galore, exercise equipment, DJ decks, unique wall decor, and more…

What you’d find in my social media feeds are martial arts clips, DJ sets, creator strategies, basketball drills, inspirational speeches, and more…

What you’d find in my camera roll are pictures of my family/friends/students, travel shots, music show videos and dancing clips, recorded stories and ideas I wanted to share, and maybe a few selfies or moments of me in noteworthy moments or while I was in my element.

The thing about camera rolls, social media feeds, and collected items is it communicates priority or attention.

And what we pay attention to tells us volumes about who we are.

Take a closer look at what the above communicates about you in your life. Do you like the picture it paints? Or are you paying attention to things that are in conflict with who you are or who you want to be?

And finally, pay attention to the things you pay attention to in your life. There’s still so much you have yet to discover about yourself and what captures your attention is a clue that there’s something deeper worth exploring.

Why Do We Self-Sabotage?

Published on August 19, 2026

On the surface, it appears masochistic and idiotic.

But when we dig deeper… we might realize it’s actually to serve a need.

Brianna Wiest, author of The Mountain Is You, points out that, “Being successful can make you less liked. Finding love can make you more vulnerable. Making yourself less attractive can guard you. Playing small allows you to avoid scrutiny. Procrastinating puts you back in a place of comfort.“

We self-sabotage because we’re serving the needs of a lower version of ourself.

The practice—the inner work—is about learning how to identify and act in ways that’s aligned with the opposite—our highest version.

Rather than blindly serving the needs of our lower version self, we need to ask ourselves, “What would my highest version do?”

And rather than ignoring, suppressing, or hiding behind behaviors that self-sabotage… we need to unpack, dissect, and understand them.

And by committing to a regular practice that leads to growth, we might find that being successful can make us like ourselves more… that finding love can make us feel more fulfilled… that making ourselves more attractive can be exciting… and that by playing big, taking action, and staying outside of our comfort zone can allow us to maximize our time here on earth.

P.s. Here’s a list of my favorite quotes from The Mountain Is You by Brianna Wiest.

There You Are

Published on August 18, 2026

Sometimes when I sit in my backyard and close my eyes… the rustling of the trees sounds like the caressing of the waves on a shoreline.

Sometimes when I’m driving to work with my windows down, music up, and hand out the window surfing the wind… I forget I even have a destination and feel as free as I ever did roadtripping.

Sometimes when I’m reading a book at home… I can feel as filled with wonder, awe, and curiosity as I ever did while walking the streets of a foreign city or natural landscape.

It’s a reminder for me that wherever you go—there you are.

If you aren’t happy where you are, you will not be happy where you go.

The scenery, the novelty, the freshness might distract you for a little while. But once it settles—and trust me, it settles—what’s left is you… the perceiver. The witnesser. The experience interpreter.

And if you can do the inner work that’ll give your perception novelty and freshness… then it won’t ever matter where you are…

There you’ll be.

The Paradox Of Love

Published on August 17, 2026

The paradox of love is that the deeper you’re in it, the more vulnerable you are to the pain of its loss.

That’s what makes love so scary.

Its impermanence. Its fragility. The fact that it comes with no guarantee.

People promise forever… to have and to hold, for better and for worse, for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health, for as long as they both shall live… and yet, often end up getting divorced well before they’re anywhere close.

And it doesn’t take many deep experiences of pain before guardrails are built.

And what many people might do is put a throttle on their love. Hold back. Build safety mechanisms that prevent them from going all in and risk feeling a proportionally deep pain again.

But… that’s the paradox of love. The less vulnerable you are to the pain of its potential loss… the more shallow the love will feel.

And shallow love is no way to love.

It is indeed as Lord Tennyson suggests, “‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”

Maybe it’s just that we shouldn’t promise forever… and should promise instead to always love fully. No throttles. No holding back. No assumption that now will take care of forever.

Just the promise of no guardrails. Not with you. Not in any of the renewing nows.

Just a limitless sky above and bottomless pit of the emotional spectrum.

For you. For me. For us.

P.s. This idea is what inspired the poem, Don’t Say Forever.

Your Love Is Not For Another To Possess

Published on August 16, 2026

When somebody you love turns and walks away… they don’t take your love with them.

Your love is exactly that… love that’s made and expressed by you… for you… within you.

What that person did was give your love a mirror to look into… a love to emulate… a love full of permission to model yours against.

What that person did was help you grow your love… realize a more full version of your love… express the unhindered, unrestricted, unapologetic form of your love.

And because they helped you unleash this elevated version of your love… you love them for that… and they became the target and focus of its powers.

But they do not become the possessors of it.

…They simply take the mirror and model with them when they turn and walk away.

It’s up to you now to become that version of yourself independently… to express a love at that level that simply overflows—not targeting any one person in particular—but rather one that radiates towards everyone you cross paths with…

One that allows you to become the loving person your best version knows you can be.

P.s. This is a response piece to the poem I wrote yesterday.

A Primal Awakening [Poem]

Published on August 13, 2026

You’ll be back you say
As an unmissable plan
A stage. A promise. A DJ.
Rips you away.

Six hours we danced
A primal awakening
Lost. Forgotten. Found.
You—the light; my now.

I learned everything about you
Yet learned nothing at all
Stomping. Screaming. Your sound.
An ancestral introduction.

The ecstatic in you
Brought out the ecstatic in me
Mud. Goosebumps. Aroused.
…To stop that? Leave?

But plan triumphed over presence
And this, too, must end
Release. Detach. Allow.
It never gets easier.

And me? Never better.
…Back to phase: mend.

P.s. You can read all of my poems here.

On Finding The Love Of Your Life

Published on August 12, 2026

You are so much more likely to find the love of your life while you’re in love with life.

Think about who you are when you’re in love…

Radiant. Energetic. Generous. Bold. Excited. Kind. Helpful. Cute. Funny…

And I suspect a lot of people mistakingly think they need to be in love with a person in order to express this elevated side of themselves.

But the truth is, you just need to be in love with life.

And if you can figure out what makes you come alive and express yourself in the above ways…

I suspect the love of your life will finally figure out that you’re the one they’ve been waiting / looking for.