Lover of trading, tacos, 3D/AR/VR, cryptos, and most things Japanese

From time to time I like to pause, reflect, and be grateful. This morning’s thoughts have been brought to the forefront by yesterday’s terrorist attacks in Paris. It saddens me that things like this still happen in 2015. It doesn’t surprise me though, every living thing on this earth has fought for itself since time began. People fight every day, that’s not going to change any time soon. What does bother me is a lack of compassion, recognition, and even acceptance of views that may not match one’s own. Everybody is carrying something with them through life, it’s so much better when one can occasionally share the load with others. Working together makes the burden less onerous.

It has been almost a year since I got out of the hospital. So much has happened, so fast. And so good. I am grateful to be alive and doing better than I probably ever have before, and it blows me away when I think about it. I am living an actualized, intentional life.

I am grateful for my family and friends, who have supported me through my trials and tribulations. My immediate family has really been amazing, thank you all. I love you. I am grateful to be reconnecting with my son after a prolonged absence at such a critical stage in his life. We went to the Avs game last week – thanks to tickets from my boss – and had a great time just hanging out. We work out together when his schedule allows it. His life has gotten exponentially busier, balancing school and a part-time job, and I am grateful for every minute I get to spend with him. My friends (that means you 🙂 ) have been there for me the whole way. Every “like”, every post, every share, connects us and sometimes gives just the right amount of support at the exact right time. I appreciate every one of you. Thank you for being my friend.

I am grateful to have the love of the most amazing woman I have ever met. We.are.the.same. Words can’t convey how special and important she is to me. We text every day and talk every night, for almost two years now. Every day. The only thing that would make it any better was if we lived closer to each other. We are both going through major life changes and the distance may actually be helping us grow closer. Each of us are strong enough that we would have navigated our personal shifts on our own, but to have the love, support, caring, and understanding of another who is going through a similar transition at the same time makes it so much easier. I wouldn’t be lost without you, my love, but I wouldn’t want to be without you either. Thank you for being such an amazing force and for sharing your life with me.

I am grateful to have a job that I love at a company that is just awesome. Everybody at Cliintel walks the talk and it’s fantastic to be surrounded by such a great group of people. It has the spirit of a startup with the security of an established corporation – exactly what I was looking for in a company. I’ve been with them for six months now, and am looking to expand my role into something more executive/strategic, and they’re fully supportive of that. In the meantime, I get to keep coming up with new ideas, doing analyses, writing killer code, and even creating the occasional stylin’ graphic or video. Good stuff!

I am grateful to be making new friends. As we move along in life, making new friends becomes more difficult than it was back in our school days. Work and family take up most of our time and unless we make the specific effort to get out, expand our boundaries, and meet new people, our circle of friends will shrivel up over time. There are those who have had the same friends their whole lives, from preschool to present day. I moved around too much as a kid to have those type of friends, but my Lexington friends are my oldest, and it’s been great to keep in touch with them over the years. I am glad that Tom has lived in the same town his whole life, and has that consistency. I also know people who stopped making friends after college. They’re satisfied with the friendships they have, and aren’t looking for anything new. I don’t quite get that. Perhaps a result of having a fixed mindset? I love meeting interesting people and my poker play has expanded my circle of friends substantially the past six months. We all love playing poker competitively, but there is a strong undercurrent of intelligence and supportiveness as well, at least in league play. We’re all trying to beat each other, but we’re all rooting for each other to do well too. Just a wee bit worse than ourselves. 🙂 I’ve made 20 new friends in my main poker league, with two or three having the potential to expand beyond the felt. In Dutch Boyd’s Twitch stream and poker league (Both are free, btw. We’d love to have you if you’d like to play), I am making a bunch more friends, notably including Dutch himself, and again it is a great, supportive environment.

I am grateful for my health. I’m slowly weaning off my meds for a variety of reasons, not least among is that they’re the wrong meds for bipolar and too low a dose to be clinically effective anyway. (Wait, a state-run institution got something wrong?? Say it isn’t so!) I remain sign- and symptom-free, for three and a half years now. I started TRT three weeks ago and am back in the gym every day. I’m starting to see results. I’ve gained 10 pounds in the last month and dropped four percent body fat. I figure most of that weight is just water, and frankly I don’t care about the body weight gain, just the fat loss. I am getting stronger, bigger in the right places. I can’t really feel the effects of TRT yet, but I am getting some physiological changes that suggest it’s starting to work. It’s funny, for some illogical reason I was expecting a more immediate response. But of course, treatments take time to produce results. Dammit, I want results NOW!

It’s an interesting thing, rebuilding my self and my life. I’m sure part of it comes from increased maturity, but I think more of it comes from intentionality. I had a long time in the hospital to figure out what I want from life, and I am no longer willing to sit back and wait for things to come to me. I finally realized that nobody is going to give me a thing. I was not born into privilege, I have had to work for everything I’ve achieved. And that’s where the satisfaction comes in. It’s rarely easy. In fact, the hard is what makes it good. I tend to minimize my efforts in hindsight, downplay how hard I’ve worked to achieve something. In reality, I’ve been working hard my whole life, and really feel that it’s all coming together now. Finally paying off. With that comes a twinge of fear, perhaps, that it will all go away, be taken from me by some force outside of my control. I accept that no thing is permanent – it will all change, again, at some point. Growth is, by it’s very nature, a painful process. But when we stop growing, we stop living. Just one year ago, I couldn’t allow myself to dream of the life I have now. Now that I have made it this far, I am taking this moment to acknowledge it and express my gratitude for it.

If this much was possible in the past year, who knows where I’ll be a year from now? I am ready for whatever comes, and am looking forward to continuing the adventure. Bring it! 😀

“At the core of every true talent there is an awareness of the difficulties inherent in any achievement, and the confidence that by persistence and patience, something worthwhile will be realized.”

— Eric Hoffer
(from the book, “Influencer”)

What motivates us? What inspires us to go after the things we want? What keeps us going to the gym, day after day, in search of dem gainz? Motivation.

I think it stems from desire. Without desire, there can be no motivation. You have to want something bad enough to go out there and get it, make it happen.

Motivation varies, like many things, and for big goals a big motivating factor is called for. Some people find it easy to set goals and go after them, others need help. I think it mainly stems from the “Why?” If the “Why” isn’t strong enough, if you haven’t bought into it, then you will find motivation to be lacking. If the “Why” is strong, it becomes much easier to disregard distractions and stay focused on the goal. This is what drives us.

Want to change your body? Do it. Want to get a killer job? Make it happen. Want a new car? Save more or take another gig to help pay for it. Very few things in life are given to us, we have to strive for what we want. Make a consistent effort. This goes back to my “Daily Wins” concept. Set a goal, then do something every day, no matter how small, to give you a sense of victory and progress towards that goal. It creates a feedback loop that eventually becomes self-perpetuating.

Gandhi’s quote, “Be the change you want to see in the world” comes to mind. If you want something, and you want it bad enough, you’ll find a way to make it happen. This stems from the growth mindset, which one has to have, imo, to achieve much. Don’t get caught in the status quo, ask yourself “How?”, “Why?”, and “Why not?” There’s always a way, it just boils down to how much you’re willing to work to achieve it.

I’ve been working pretty hard in the gym lately (excepting the last week). My motivation for that stems from feeling so much better about myself when I exercise, and perhaps a little father-son competitiveness too. My son is a monster, with 17.5″ arms at the tender age of 16. I had always said that I’d know I was in good shape if I could lift him over my head when he turned 18. As of now, I’m going to have to be able to press over 200 pounds to be able to do it. Time to get to work!

Anyway, he’s in great shape. I used to be in great shape, and want to be again. That is why I train. I have a vision of what I want my body to look like by the end of summer and that keeps me going. I have a number to shoot for. I don’t care about how much I weigh, but I do want to get down to sub 10% body fat, so I’m properly ripped. (I haven’t been that low in three decades.) I know I can do it, it’s just going to take time, consistent effort, and vigilance.

I’ve added muscle, dropped a little fat, and increased measurements in the right areas. I haven’t really focused on getting ripped right now, as my body is still adjusting to the efforts of working out hard after lying dormant for so long. I did drop 50 pounds last year – an indication of just how badly out of shape I had gotten – and use that as continual motivation to keep putting in the time at the gym, making it a priority in my life.

I’ve been fortunate these past few months that my work schedule hasn’t interfered with my gym time, so I’ve been able to remain consistent. Now that I have a great job that I’m going in to the office for, I’m in the same boat as most of you. I need to find time to go to the gym, and that’s requiring some tough choices. I don’t want to get up earlier in the day, but I’m generally spent by the end of the day and, if I want to make progress, something else has to give. So I’m going to start getting up earlier and hitting the gym before the office. It’s really the only way that I can ensure that I can remain consistent, get enough training in during the week to meet my goals, and keep making progress. I don’t want to do it, but it’s the only option that guarantees I can continue to make progress. It will also mean that I start going to bed earlier at night. No more staying up late, playing poker, surfing the web, being unproductive. It’s down to time management at this point. I only have 16 hours in the day to work with, and at least half of those are going to be in the office. It’s doing what needs to be done to meet the goal. So I must motivate myself to go to bed earlier, get up earlier, and lift heavy weights first thing in the morning. It can be done. I will do it.

For those who are trying to find motivation in their lives, my suggestion is this: Find a goal. It doesn’t have to be a total body transformation, for example, but have a concrete aim that gives you something to go after. Do something every day to get yourself closer to that goal. Change doesn’t happen overnight, it takes time to see results. The Daily Wins help stoke the feedback loop to keep you engaged and moving forward. Spend some time and really think about what you want to achieve, get clear on it. Write it down. Make a vision board. Keep things in your environment that constantly remind you of your goal. Find inspiration wherever you can, draw on it, and use it to help you. Engage your support system – be it family or friends or strangers. Two of the best inspiring motivators for fitness I’ve found are BodySpace and Instagram. There are tons of pics and stories of people just like you that are taking control and effecting the changes they want to make. Find a successful strategy and follow it. Don’t be afraid to copy what others have done – it worked for them, it can work for you too!

Good luck, be great, and go get it!