Category: Understanding Love

Yesterday, the number of people subscribed to my MoveMe Weekly newsletter and 1-Minute Insights daily email crossed 10k.

And what did I do to celebrate this milestone?

…I unsubscribed close to 4,000 of them.

…Why?

Because for the first time since I started collected emails for these newsletters (about 10 years ago), I decided to finally clean the list.

And by clean, I mean anyone who hasn’t opened an email from me in the last 6 months was unsubscribed.

…Obviously the newsletter and/or daily emails isn’t for them.

This worked out to be close to 4,000 people.

It was a humbling reminder (the gift to myself) that quality trumps quantity in this regard.

Why keep sending emails to people who obviously aren’t getting value from them? It’s a waste of space in their inbox and resources used to send.

Better to hyper focus on those who are opted in, engaged, and aligned with us on the journey forward.

…Both in newsletters and in life.

Today, some of my staff and I walked door-to-door in our local neighborhoods and dropped off flyers that said, “Help us to help those in need this holiday season. Leave a bag of non-perishable food on your porch and we’ll pick it up on Sunday by noon.”

During my walk, I had four encounters.

One was with a neighbor who swung the main door open not even two seconds after I closed the flyer into the screen door. He looked at me as if assessing the threat level, saw the flyer in the door, read it, nodded, and then just as quickly closed the door.

The second was with a Ring doorbell. After I closed the flyer into the door, it announced over its speaker, “YOU ARE ACTIVELY BEING RECORDED.” Kind of creepy… but I guess it wasn’t news.

The third was with two gentlemen who were sawing wood in their backyard. I walked up, smile on my face, and told them about the food drive. One didn’t acknowledge my existence at all. The other said “Okay” and pressed sharply on the buzz saw into the wood. I didn’t give them a flyer.

The final was at a house that had a car in front with two of its doors open. Just as I turned the corner of the house after leaving a flyer, I heard a voice yell, “HEY! HEY!! OYE!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” To which I calmly turned around, smiled, and told him. He was quite relieved.

I share this because, sheesh, maybe we need to go door-to-door MORE… for non-political/religious/salesy/sketchy reasons… and change the perception. Seeing a neighbor should lead to warmth… not closed fisted cold.

I attended a wedding today.

At the venue, there was a Jenga set up with sharpies scattered around and a note on display saying “Leave your words of advice for the newlyweds here.”

Next to me was a good friend who joking said, “You can’t write anything—you’re single!”

The thing about relationships though, that I was thinking about after the fact, is that you don’t need to be in a relationship to give relationship advice per se. Because even us single folk have a ton of experience managing the relationship we have with the person more important than any spouse or soulmate… the one we have with ourself.

If you’re mindful of your inner landscape, are consistently trying to find ways to improve that landscape, and are reflective towards the ups and downs and how to keep moving forward in spite of it all… the insight you gain can be just as valuable—if not more so—than the insight you might gain from being mindful of another person’s inner landscape, the strategies you’ve found that can help improve that other person’s inner workings, and the reflections you might’ve gained from the relationship’s ups and downs along the way.

After all, one of the best indicator’s of a relationship’s success—between two people—is the success of the relationship each person has with him/herself.

…Or maybe I’m just some naive single guy who has no idea what he’s talking about.

But, I digress.

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P.s. If you’re wondering what I wrote on the Jenga piece (I obviously wrote something)—I said: “Like Jenga, all great things are built one brick at a time… never forget to keep laying bricks.”

How does the transition from friend to “part of my chosen family” happen?

Is it sudden or gradually?

I think a case could be made for both instances.

But, one thing I observed tonight at my friend’s dad’s celebration of life is that there are key moments where the transition is undoubtedly solidified.

Like when my friend’s employee made the extra effort to fly from Florida to New York just to be there.

Or when a young women I met, after having met my friend and his girlfriend at a restaurant they attended frequently as their waitress and who slowly became their friend, spent time alone in the hospital with my friend’s dad right before he passed—just to bust his chops (as she always did) and maybe lift his spirit.

Or even as I noticed the way my friend was talking to me throughout the night… in how it felt like his gratitude and conversational points were coming from a much deeper place than they normally would.

The point to reflect on is this: if you only ever meet people when it’s fun, light-hearted, and convenient… you’ll only ever get so close. But, if you meet people as a family member would… through the good times and the bad; when it’s sunny and when it’s rainy; when it’s convenient and when it’s not… it’s only a matter of time before family is how people start to perceive you.

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P.s. Day 4: Took an extra few minutes to express just how beautifully done the celebration of life was for my friend’s dad.

We humans are incredibly multifaceted and complex beings.

Because of this, when looking at other human beings and in an attempt to make sense of them and their actions, we tend to oversimplify them as a whole and categorize them into neat, little boxes.

We say this person is “good” and that person is “bad.”

We say person A is “right” and person B is “wrong.”

We talk about people in “black-and-white” terms when the reality is… we’re all gray.

Just because someone doesn’t agree with you or can’t commit to an unwavering level of support or give back just as much or more than you give them… doesn’t mean they can’t add value to your life.

Sometimes it’s the ones who disagree with us who teach us the most about what we believe (because we have to better understand the argument from new perspectives)…

Sometimes it’s the people who aren’t committed or supportive who make for great conversationalists (because they aren’t scared to say something in disagreement with you)…

And it’s the people who maybe don’t give back as much as you give them who keep us humble, grounded, and reminded that transactional giving isn’t really giving at all.

Maybe if we stopped making hyper generalizations about people based on one narrow aspect of their personality, belief system, or character… we’d have a much better time building connections and spend much less of our time watching bridges burn along our way.

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P.s. Day 2: Today, I made it a point to thank the 40+ people who showed up to the adult martial arts class I taught tonight. The energy and camaraderie was incredible.