Category: Living Well

Something To Remember While Building An Audience

Published on January 27, 2026

Yes… it’s for them. But more importantly, it’s for you.

If you sacrifice your art, ideas, direction, excitement, curiosity, and truth… because you think it needs to look, feel, act, behave, present to an audience in a certain way… then you’ve lost.

Period. Point blank.

And you’ll soon feel lost. And as a result you’ll eventually lose them anyway.

The thing about audiences is that they should evolve with you.

As you continue to share new ideas, pivot directions, change excitements, explore fresh curiosities, and discuss alternate truths… some people will leave. But more importantly, new people will arrive.

…Just as past versions of you will be shed as new skins/identities will grow.

This is a natural part of the self-evolution process. And it should be embraced equally as a part of the audience-evolution process.

This is how you win.

Because every day is aligned and becoming more and more aligned both within and without.

And after a decade of this? How could you not win?

P.s. Struggling with creativity? Try getting more bored.

Mindset Retirement Account

Published on January 20, 2026

People get the mindset they deserve through the actions they take in life.

Not from intentions…
Not from hopes or wishes…
…But from actions.

It’s hard to be optimistic when you’re constantly engaging with pessimists…
Or gritty when you always talk yourself out of doing hard things…
Or inspiring when you only ever do the bare minimum…

And that’s one of the frustratingly beautiful things about this whole process: action is the great equalizer—you can’t cheat it.

But what you can do is use those intentions, hopes, and wishes as fuel and get your butt in gear and prove you deserve that better mindset. Think:

…Becoming suddenly unavailable for the pessimist gatherings, both in-person and online, and finding a new tribe to start engaging with—one that defaults to more optimistic, healthy, exciting ways of thinking.

…Doing something hard in a large-scale way. Like doing ten minutes of exercise or meditation every day for a year. Running a half-marathon right now and then doing nothing the rest of the year won’t cut it. Large-scale smaller actions is the way to go.

…Creating and building something quietly. Like launching a side-hustle… Taking a skill-building course… signing-up for a new hobby or craft… and not making a big deal out of it publicly. Make it a big deal inwardly and talk about everything you learned after months of progress.

Incredible minds aren’t given… they’re earned.

…And every action you take is an investment into your Mindset Retirement Account.

Earn that mindset the same way you earn your retirement.

Make a deposit today.

P.s. Do you leave bread on the hook?

On Purpose And Meaning In Life

Published on January 17, 2026

We humans are not just biological scripting reacting to nature’s events.

We’re thinkers, planners, dreamers, organizers, collaborators…

…But most of all, we’re builders.

And if we want purpose and meaning in our lives… we have to build it—not wait for nature to give it.

Some examples of what has and/or still fills me with a sense of purpose and meaning are the following:

Family/Friends/Lovers: I don’t feel a sense of meaning or purpose towards strangers… only towards the people whom I’ve built strong connections with. My purpose is to nurture, provide, care for, support, console, and so on… and the more I invest (and build) into them, the more meaning and reward I feel. Especially as it’s reciprocated and something great gets mutually grown and shared.

Vocation/Career/Work: It started with an incredibly strong desire to be a great martial artist—that was my purpose. I was completely captivated by it. I was good at it. And I was lucky to have found a school that knew how to facilitate it. The more I invested, the more meaning I felt. And once I got to the point where I was leading, teaching, and coaching—and helping others build themselves—my purpose and meaning grew in proportion to the lives I touched.

Reading/Writing/Creating: Early stage reading was shallow for me. I cared more about finishing than comprehending. And not much meaning/purpose resulted. But once I decided to build a quote website? And write daily insights? And build accompanying websites, content, guides, and more? Uh, yeah… purpose and meaning city.

Never forget: purpose and meaning isn’t something life gives to you. It’s something you build from the life you’ve been gifted.

On Scratching That New Car Itch

Published on January 14, 2026

When my boss and co-worker bought new cars, I got this inexplicable, almost primal urge to do the same.

The new-car-thought became a part-time obsession and I hunted through digital lots like a hunger crazed Neanderthal navigating prehistoric landscape.

…But I also do a healthy amount of daily inner work.

And so I leaned into this urge with eyes wide.

I understood that the forces at work were, yes, maybe something primal, but also largely a brainwashed modern belief that faster, sleeker, more expensive was what I needed.

I eventually narrowed in on this beautiful, beast of a car that was expensive, but within my means.

It was either that, I decided, or I would reinvest in my current car—one that was still running beautifully, was a beast in her own right, and—most importantly—was completely paid off.

The financial difference between these two decisions was almost $20,000.

And when I told a friend what I was thinking, he leaned in and almost whispered in my ear, “Upgrades for your current car won’t scratch that new car itch.”

And it was in that moment that I knew what I “needed” to do.

And so I whispered back to myself, “Challenge accepted.”

And I not only reinvested into my car (and saved $20,000), but I reinvested back into myself.

…Because taking care of what you already have, growing appreciation, and quieting the endless noise about more is exactly the kind of work my inner was signaling for right from the moment I told myself that story about those two new cars.

The Life Cycle Of Words Read

Published on January 12, 2026

With the amount of information that gets firehosed at us each day—it’s no wonder we so often rush when taking in words.

But it’s the space in between reading pieces—especially pieces that have different authors—where all the magic happens.

…Space for the words to saturate in the mind.
…Space for the mind to exhale after having taken a fresh inhale.
…Space to turn inward and see what’s been stirred up from what’s just been introduced.

Space (and time) is how we move from surface understanding towards internalization.

The image I hold in my head is like the lifecycle of rain:

Evaporation: The movement of words from paper or screen to the sky of my mind.
Condensation: The formation of those words into thought clouds… maybe even insight droplets that grow in size proportional to the space given and time they’re held.
Precipitation: The heat of our attention mixed with the cool vastness of our mind’s vast unconscious understanding create water droplets that eventually fall onto the surface of our mind.
Understanding: Depending on our attention, intention, and internal environmental condition of the space we create and hold for the rich precipitation that runs down the crevices of our mind… will determine our level of understanding, application, and internalization.

When we rush one piece to the next, the clouds in the sky of our mind move as quickly out as they came in.

Slowing down allows those clouds to linger. To plumpen up. To create a rain droplet size worthy of a rainforest.

Precisely what the environment of our mind deserves.

…Precisely what precipitation-less, fast moving clouds do nothing for.

It Matters

Published on January 10, 2026

A good friend of mine told me once that his college professor said whatever he’s physically like when he’s 25 is essentially how he’ll be the rest of his life.

And what an awful mouthful of complacency crap to spew at room of knowledge-seeking students.

Does it become harder than when you’re 18? Sure. And maybe what the professor was trying to communicate is how “it’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks”—in the sense that the habits we’ve built up until that point are the habits we’re going to mostly live by there forward.

But the real frustrating consequence of this statement is the seed that gets planted somewhere in the back of our minds that whispers, “It doesn’t matter.”

“I’m gonna miss my workout!” …Well, it doesn’t really matter anyway.
“I’m tired and just want to binge eat.” …Well, it doesn’t really matter anyway.
“I’m stressed and feel like some beers.” …Well, it doesn’t really matter anyway.

But here’s the thing.

It matters.

It matters that we show up for our workout—even if we’re late and it’s just for a few reps.
It matters that we learn to build self-control habits for our appetite even when we’re tired.
It matters that we find and prioritize healthy ways to managing stress.

Every decision is a vote. And inside us are two selves running for Bodily President. What that professor above said is some smear campaign to spread fake news and elicit a lower-self win. What we need to do is spread more of the opposite, rely on truth and fight for honest small victories that elicit that highest-self win… one key vote at a time.

Bringing Quality INTO The Time

Published on January 8, 2026

A coaching client mentioned today how frustrated she was that she hasn’t been spending enough quality time with her son.

She explained that every time she has been with him recently, she felt busy and tied up doing life things: cleaning, meal prepping, scheduling, etc…

I told her: rather than have this distracted need to be done with all the life things before she brought a quality time task to her son, maybe she could find ways to bring quality into the life things.

I told her: quality time isn’t a task; it’s a state of mind.

And the reality is: it’ll never all be done!

The key is to meet yourself where you are, let curiosity arise in the current situation, and find ways to playfully engage a quality into the time.