Skip to content

Category: Living Well

Changes Done Daily Are Never Small

Published on November 10, 2025

I just learned this fall season that I like pumpkin seeds.

I hadn’t really given them a fair shot up until this year, but for whatever reason with this go around of roasting and lightly salting the seeds scooped out of the Halloween pumpkins picked from the local farm, my taste buds were partying.

What I did with this newly found knowledge is swap them in place of the pretzels that I eat daily while working—which turns out to be a much healthier option that’s just as satisfying.

A small change, indeed.

But… compounded over the course of every workday that I snack throughout the year?

…Is actually no small change, indeed.

Gratitude As Fuel

Published on November 10, 2025

After sharing some thoughts about having an attitude of gratitude at the end of a martial arts class I was teaching, a student came up to me and asked, “How do we balance being grateful for what we have with being goal-oriented, driven, and ambitious?”

My answer is by using gratitude as fuel.

When we start from a place of gratitude, we fill ourselves up with a positive type energy. That energy, by and by, puts us in a better state. And when we’re in a better state, we perform better. And the byproduct, of course, are better results.

When we start from a place of entitlement, however, we fill ourselves up with a negative type energy. We feel discontent—like we don’t have enough and, by and by, aren’t enough as people… maybe even feel envy, jealousy, and anger at the people who have what we don’t. This puts us in a worse state, which leads us to perform worse (or in a dirty way), and the byproduct is hamster wheel living—always running in circles getting one thing, moving our desire to something else until we get that thing, and repeating forever onward.

See—gratitude allows us to reconnect with the present; scarcity keeps us focused elsewhere—rarely in the present.

Gratitude keeps us focused on the means. Scarcity keeps us obsessing over ends.

Gratitude fills us up—with energy. Entitlement fills us up—with toxicity.

Don’t confuse gratitude for weakness or with an unambitious-ness. Gratitude is a rocket fuel that’ll launch us further forward than the opposite ever will.

Today Is A New Year

Published on November 6, 2025

Every afternoon, for several year, I would read one or two pages from four different books. Three of them were a-page-a-day daily insight type books and one of them was a book I finished reading that I was uploading a quote at a time from to MoveMe Quotes.

I fell off this habit about three months ago.

Partly because of travel, partly because of work bleeding into home life, partly because of laziness. But what kept me from starting it up again for so long was mostly because of the loss of momentum—I lost my streak.

The other day, I caught myself thinking: “I can’t wait to start my daily afternoon reading habit again in the New Year.”

And it made me realize that… today is a new year. Today is as good a day to start it back up as any other day in the year. I don’t need a New Year to read three pages from three books and upload one quote to my quote website. I could do that now.

And so I did.

And it’s a reminder to me, and maybe you, that your new year starts whenever you decide it does—and today is as good a day as any to make that decision.

Don’t Measure Action, Measure Overall Net Result

Published on November 4, 2025

The thing about massive positive changes in lifestyle is that they tend to have massive rippling side effects that often get overlooked and aren’t considered.

Let’s say, for example, you hit the gym and have a killer workout—after having been out of it for a while—and plan on keeping everything else in your life essentially the same.

The theory is that this will have a net-positive result and move you in the direction of stronger, healthier, and feeling better.

In reality, however, that intense workout ripples into:
– A proportionally killer appetite and eating way more than you usually do.
– Feeling exhausted from the spike in energy expenditure and unproductive and not present the rest of the day.
– Feeling painfully sore the next day and like you don’t want to move at all… making your reconsider hard workouts and resent the way they make you feel.

Incremental lifestyle change, however, allows you to maintain all other lifestyle variables while positively changing just the one.

…Like doing ten minutes of foam rolling in the morning or taking a walk around the block when you get home from work. These types of changes won’t have massive rippling effects into the other areas of your life and you’ll be able to maintain all that you’ve been doing PLUS add in this constructive action that moves your life in an overall net-positive direction.

A massive positive action that has an overall net-negative result isn’t a positive change at all. The goal—and what we should be focused on when considering lifestyle actions we could take—should always be how can I make this net-positive.

Character Review Score

Published on November 1, 2025

One of the best things you can do for a business (outside of giving them your business) is leave them a positive review.

This is one of the—if not the—top criteria people who have never been to the business use to determine whether or not to come.

Only a small percentage of people will actually leave a review… but everybody, at the least, subconsciously reviews everything all the time.

And each of those reviews adds up to what society might say is the businesses success at doing business.

Think about how this might relate to you.

While we aren’t getting physically reviewed, per se, we’re always getting, at the very least, subconsciously reviewed.

And each of those reviews adds up to what society might say is the person’s ability to contribute.

And not just from a value add perspective (like running a business that adds more societal value than what it charges)—I mean from a character perspective.

Are you averaging a high score from all of the positive interactions you’re having with all of those whom you cross paths with throughout your day? Or are you averaging a low one?

The goal with this exercise isn’t to get you thinking that every interaction should be transactional and with the goal of eliciting a great review.

The goal should be to get you thinking about how you treat those who can’t do anything for you… the overwhelming number of people you cross paths with on a daily basis whom you don’t even consciously notice… the people who trigger and irritate you, etc…

…What would you say your overall average review score is?

Streaks and “X’s” > Pounds

Published on October 30, 2025

Remember that the ultimate test of a personal development system is what you do about it on your worst days—not your best ones.

Meaning don’t measure progress in how you performed when you were feeling well rested, motivated, and excited… measure progress on whether or not you showed up when you were exhausted, irritable, and over it.

Personal development is measured better in streaks and “x’s” on a calendar over pounds on a bar or lost on a scale. Get this right… and the rest will take care of itself.

The Simple Addition Of Good

Published on October 27, 2025

There are opportunities for good in everything we do.

  • We could go for a walk. Or we could go for a walk with a trash bag and pick up street garbage along the way.
  • We could post a selfie. Or we could comment thoughtful and kind things on other people’s selfies/posts.
  • We could make dinner for ourselves. Or we could make a little extra for our neighbors.
  • We could do our job and leave. Or we could do a little extra and help another employee out.
  • We could have a party and spoil ourselves. Or we could have a party with a purpose and point resources/efforts towards a charity or cause.
  • We could read a book. Or we could read a book and start a conversation, share our favorite insights/quotes throughout, or lend it to someone who you think would really benefit from reading it.

This isn’t to say you should always do things in this way.

…Sometimes, you just need to go for a damn walk or read the damn book.

But other times… what you might really be missing, that you might not even realize, is this simple addition of good in these tasks you’re already doing daily.

…The opportunity is already there. All it takes is a pinch of added intention.