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Category: Living Well

The Power of Alignment + A Full & Present Heart

Published on March 1, 2025

My sister went to Toronto last weekend for her birthday.

While there she spent most of her time exploring quaint and classy bars and restaurants.

And during her explorations, she stumbled upon a small restaurant that was semi hidden in an unbusy mall.

And something struck me as being incredibly inspirational about this restaurant as she was describing it to me.

She said the women who was running the restaurant was one of the most kind, sweet, and present women she had ever met. She wasn’t there to do a job or get tip money. She was in alignment. It was as though she had a dream and was evidently living that dream in real time.

And it brought to mind for me the person who chooses a path… and then walks that path with a full and present heart.

All too common in today’s world are people who choose a path… and then spend all of their time walking that path looking at other paths… and comparing… questioning… envying…

You’ll never feel fulfilled walking a path this way.

Which is why it’s so incredible to come across someone who is in such alignment.

You don’t need to be a CEO, multi-millionaire, silicon valley startup founder to feel fulfilled. All you need is alignment and a full, present heart. And sometimes, that looks like a small restaurant that’s semi-hidden in an unbusy mall.

…Don’t complicate it.

On Changing Stupid Business Practices

Published on February 27, 2025

Such a simple idea that could significantly help customer oriented businesses: treat customers the way you would want to be treated as a customer.

I have been stunned at how I’ve been treated by several major companies lately and it just makes me wonder how such disconnected practices and systems have been put into place?

Like… YOU, customer service representative, would HATE the very experience you’re putting me through right now if YOU were the customer… How have we gotten here? Why is it like this? How can we change it?

Some of you reading this are in customer oriented businesses. And I encourage you to challenge your practices and systems and see if they pass the above test.

And some of you maybe aren’t. But, you certainly interact with them regularly. Keep pushing back against bad practices and bad systems. Keep voicing your frustrations and suggestions for improvement. Keep voting for good business with how you spend your money… and stop giving money to companies who have bad business practices.

Big change never happens all at once.

…It happens slowly, slowly. One push, one shove, one vote at a time.

Balancing Prep And Go

Published on February 26, 2025

One trap I’ve fallen into in the past is spending too much time preparing and planning—and not enough time experimenting and doing.

I recognized this in myself very early into my DJing journey.

I was spending SO. MUCH. TIME. downloading music, filling in meta data, setting hot cues and memory points, and creating playlists…

So much so that I was barely doing any actual DJing.

So I’m trying to more mindfully walk this balance between prep and go. Because, yes, too much go and not enough prep leaves you confused, disjointed, and without a coherent sound… but too much prep and not enough go leaves you just as confused and disjointed as you come face to face with the decks.

So much of life is about finding the balance between these two.

…About sorting through the infinite information that’s available and acting on what’s chosen.

…About building book smarts, but also street smarts.

…About picking a direction and just as importantly… walking the path picked.

How are you doing with this balancing act?

Relationships Are Like Social Media Feeds

Published on February 19, 2025

The relationship you have today will not be the relationship you have tomorrow.

Not with your spouse, your girlfriend/boyfriend, your parents, your siblings, or yourself.

Relationships change as quickly as your social media feed.

And like your social media feed… what direction your feed goes depends entirely on how you interact with your feed today.

…Not in how you intend to interact with your feed or how you plan to, hope to, or want to interact with your feed… but in how you actually interact with it.

Invest in better content, connect with better people, better utilize block/mute/unfollow… grow. Do the opposite… regress.

Invest in better experiences with people, take more initiative in surrounding yourself with better influences, better enforce your boundaries and prioritize your mental health… grow. Do the opposite… regress.

Nothing ever stays the same. Remember this as you’re deciding how you want to actually act today.

Hardening Your Mind

Published on February 17, 2025

When I lift weights… time crawls.

When I train martial arts or play a sport… time flies.

Some people will tell you to only do the things that make time fly.

…After all, why suffer your way through exercise, for example, when you could be getting it in in a fun way?

And while there’s absolutely nothing wrong with choosing the fun route… there is something to be said about learning how to discipline yourself to endure the type of temporary suffering that leads to lasting benefits/rewards, too.

Because once you can learn to do it for, again, weight lifting as an example… not only will you be hardening your body… but, you’ll be hardening your mind.

And a hardened mind isn’t only useful for lifting weights…

It’s one of the most useful tools for every single other endeavor you ever come across in life.

Living With Dead Potential

Published on February 16, 2025

If you look at motivation as something that happens to you… something you wait for to arrive… something like lightning that strikes when it strikes…

…Then you’re going to live with so much unrealized potential.

Motivation isn’t something you should expect to happen to you anymore than you should expect a charge to happen to your phone.

Wait for lightning to strike a charge into your phone and you’re going to live with a dead phone.

…Which is what so many of us are doing: living with dead potential.

And not because we don’t care… I think we all want to realize our potential… but, mostly because we don’t know how to activate and grow our potential.

The motivation required to do the things that help us realize our potential is something we make happen to ourselves… it’s something we actively seek out… it’s something that simply requires a (re)charge…

And rather than wait for motivation to strike:

  • We create a space for our creative work… and we honor it—through boredom, busyness, and curveballs.
  • We team up with people who can hold us accountable, challenge us to grow, and be there to support us when we’re down and want out.
  • We watch videos, listen to podcasts, read books, etc., of people who get us charged up rather than mindlessly consume passive entertainment on the socials.
  • We can commit to a daily habit and start a streak. Momentum is an undeniably powerful thing, and if we can lean into its power, we can start a process forward that becomes self-sustaining.

…What else? What gets you charged up? How can you actively incorporate these ideas into your daily practice?

Stop waiting.

Learn From Those Later To The Game Than You

Published on February 13, 2025

When learning something new, don’t look at who has already mastered whatever it is you’re trying to learn that’s your age or younger…

…Look at who has mastered it that’s five or ten or twenty or even thirty years older than you.

Our ability to learn never dies.

Our decision that we’re “too old” or “too far behind” or “too late to the game” will, however, kill our ability to learn long before we ever die.

P.s. There is definitely somebody out there who’s doing the thing you’re interested in learning who started LONG after you did. Believe it (and stop making excuses).