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Category: Living Well

A Lesson From My Dad On His 70th Birthday

Published on January 3, 2025

Tonight, there was a celebration for my dad’s 70th birthday.

And right before it was time for cake, I gave a short speech highlighting seven things I learned from him.

The first six were concrete lessons—things he said or did that really helped me navigate life in a better way.

The last lesson, however, was one that only just started making sense to me tonight as I was preparing the speech.

And it’s the one line he has said time and again that he wants to have engraved on his tombstone: “I was only here for the cake.”

I’ve thought about this line on and off over the years and have pretty quickly submitted to mystery—leaving the expression as an open loop that I could curiously ponder from time to time.

And then when I imagined looking around at this celebration of my dad’s 70th revolution around the sun: eating good food, sipping champagne, and having cake… it started to make sense.

Because in many ways, cake was not something that was given to my dad throughout his life—cake was something he had to work really damn hard for.

And so as we were all sharing each other’s company and enjoying a wonderful night out, I concluded my speech by encouraging everyone to… eat the damn cake.

Because life happens fast—and if we can’t enjoy the cake every now and again, what are we working so damn hard for?

HBD, Dad. And cheers to many more lessons and beautiful years :)

P.s. You can read my complete speech here: 7 Lessons From My Dad, Read To Him At His 70th Birthday Party.

Live And In-Person For Life

Published on January 2, 2025

At some point on his journey, Matteo Milleri decided he wanted to start producing music. Which began as experimentation and eventually graduated to profession. Throughout that time, in addition to working incredibly hard to build a unique sound… he decided to start expanding and reimagining the visual landscape for his live performances as well—resulting in increasingly breath-taking, awe inspiring artistic expressions with each successive show. And so set the stage for Anyma.

Because just as he was out in front, pushing the boundaries of live audio-visual performances, the completion of the world’s largest and highest resolution interior and exterior LED screen was coming to a completion—The Sphere in Las Vegas. And breath-taking, awe inspiring audiovisual performances were high in demand. And who better to book than the person who was out in front… taking risks… taking initiative… elevating the bar of the industry as a whole and giving the art their all…? This is how The End of Genesys at The Sphere was born.

…And damn, what a breath-taking, awe-inspiring audiovisual masterpiece of a live and in-person experience it was. One that simply can’t be explained in words or paper-sized pictures or videos (here’s my puny attempt).

…As it should be, my fellow life traveler.

…As it should be.

Inner Work Prompt: What live and in-person experiences will you prioritize this year?

Treat Yo Self

Published on December 23, 2024

Nobody should be more in tune with your needs / desires than you.

And while a shiny new TV or a fresh pair of sneakers might be gifts at the top of your wishlist… there are needs / desires that supersede anything that gets wrapped in a box (or shoved in a bag with some tissue paper on top).

They are specific feelings / experiences that give us a sense of meaning / fulfillment and there’s six of them I want you to consider.

The first pair are certainty vs uncertainty. Too certain and our lives become mundane and vanilla. Too uncertain and we live overly anxious and chronically worried.

The next pair to consider are significance vs connection. When we feel too unique, special, important, different… we feel like outliers and struggle to connect deeply with others. When we feel too connected with others, we can lose our individuality and significance as an individual.

The final pair to consider are growth vs contribution. Focusing too much on growth is selfish—we ignore invaluable opportunities to use what we’ve developed to help others. On the other hand, focusing too much on contribution is counterproductive—we can only give back what we have or have built.

Ideally, we want to have a balance of all of the above in our lives.

The question is, which of the above needs the most work in yours?

Because once you’ve figured out that… the next step is to create the real wishlist. The one that focuses on the things you can do to improve that specific area… and includes the real gifts that’ll make the real dent in your life…

…And not just another person’s wallet.

Attack The Root

Published on December 22, 2024

I do this thing on weekends where I unintentionally stay up way later than usual.

It’s this weird self-sabotaging kind of behavior that’s fueled by this belief that going to bed early on the weekends is lame.

…And/or maybe it’s a reciprocal bounce in the opposite direction of my usual hyper-disciplined lifestyle.

…And/or maybe it’s because the weekends are when I allow myself some extra screen time and it always sucks me in longer than I originally plan.

None-the-less, no matter how exhausted I wake up the next morning or how many times I tell myself I’ll go to bed earlier the next weekend, I find myself zonked out on the couch at the same late times the following weekend.

What’s interesting is that either one, two, all, or none of the above mentioned reasons are at the root of this behavior.

And if I want to solve this challenge, I’ll need to identify the root first.

…Attacking the periphery is like trying to get rid of weeds by only cutting at what’s seen. And we both know that won’t do much to stop weeds from growing right back.

No.

What stops weeds from growing right back is attacking them at the root.

And oftentimes, like a well established weed, it isn’t always immediately obvious where the root is… but, once you’ve narrowed in on it… a focused tug or two is all it really takes to stop it’s continued existence altogether.

…Much better than cutting at what’s seen again and again and again.

P.s. ICYMI you can read the best of what I posted to MoveMe Quotes last week here.

The Best $10 You’ll Ever Spend

Published on December 22, 2024

One of my favorite holiday traditions is to Venmo $10 to 10 or so friends and include the following type of message:

“Take this and commit a random act of holiday kindness. Buy someone a coffee or pay for the person behind you in line (or pay it forward to another Venmo friend)… ‘Tis going to be a stressful week for many. Let’s make it a little better for a few.”

What I love about it so much isn’t just the random acts of kindness that get committed from the $10.

…It’s the amount of time each person spends thinking about how they’re going to commit their random act of kindness.

When this idea first made its way to me, the storyteller said her son was given $5 and a very similar message to what I typed above… and he spent 6 months thinking about how he wanted to make the world a little better with that $5.

…Talk about ROI.

What Success Story Do You Admire But Secretly Believe Isn’t Possible For You?

Published on December 19, 2024

Mine? …Ryan Holiday.

Started out as a college dropout at 19.

Turned into a modern day content producing machine—sharing not trends, junk, or click-bait, but uplifting, insightful, timely, grounded, evergreen messages very much needed in our modern world.

He sends out not one, but two daily emails. He publishes longer form articles weekly—many of which have appeared in The New York Times, Forbes, Fast Company, and more. He is the author of 12 best selling books. He does speaking gigs for professional sports teams and fortune 500 companies. He hosts a widely listened to podcast where he regularly interviews greats. He teaches online seminars and courses and creates challenges for people where they can join communities and get live Q&As with him to level up their life. He regularly publishes fresh content to his several social media channels. Not to mention… get this… he has his own brick and mortar bookstore and is happily married with two kids.

…And he’s only 37 years old.

Publicly, I admire this so much. And want to create something like this in my world.

Secretly, I know (think?) this kind of production isn’t possible unless it’s your sole focus. And I love my brick and mortar career too much to make the creation of something like this my sole focus.

…But, seeing this plainly typed out in front of me for the first time (I hadn’t answered this question ever in my life until just now), I can see more clearly in which direction(s) I’d like to head.

Your turn. Answer the above inner work prompt. Send over your any interesting insights or takeaways :)