Tag: health

On Work.

You may have noticed that I say I have a lot of favorite things, I don’t think this is a bad character trait I just feel lie it makes me well rounded. The quote below is one of my said favorite things.

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” Thomas Edison

I don’t know as many things as I did when I was younger but I have come to the complete realization that the above statement is a cold hard truth. We know this down to the core of our being but it doesn’t stop us or clever marketing executives from trying to convince us that they in fact have finally figured out the shortcut to success that does not contain excessive amounts of work but it will cost you at least $39.95 to get started. There is no easy path to growth and change in our lives it is filled with bumps and obstacles and the relentless fact that you have to get up and do it all over again tomorrow. Add on the hecklers telling/selling you the short cut and it’s easy to see why it’s so hard to make and stick to a plan of personal development.

Were at that natural time to reflect on things we liked to quit, start or improve in our lives this week. Can I make a suggestion from personal experience?

Often times we think that working the absolute hardest is the best path to opportunity when in reality taking a controlled and measured approach will get us better results in the end. It may take us longer to get where it is we want to be but the likelihood of reaching the goal is far greater when we put in a little bit of work every single day.

Call to Action.

If you’re thinking I need to start exercising every day or I’m going to go on a super restrictive calorie deficient diet starting Friday morning it’s highly likely that it isn’t going to last, It’s never worked for me in the past anyway. Biologically speaking one of our greatest strengths as humans is our endurance and when we look past this characteristic and rely on a change to happen like a sprint we are left dejected on the sidelines trying to catch our breath and getting further behind in the long run.

What I’m suggesting from personal experience is that we work efficiently to drive change in our lives. If you haven’t been working out for months running a 5k on Friday is not where you start or if you’ve been relying on the standard American diet for the better part of the last decade switching to whole 30 like a light switch is the fastest way to end up back where you started. Try this instead,  find one or two small things that you can do fairly easily and start there and grow into your work, it won’t be long before you start to notice those other opportunities to put in a little more effort and before you know it you will be miles down the path instead of saying “well there’s always next year”

Wining streak.

We, you, and I are the summation of all of our life experiences. For better or for worse we are where we are at in our lives based upon the multitude of our life’s choices internal, external, and the things that we have absolutely no control over. I came to that realization after walking on the beach earlier this year when I needed to brush the sand off of my feet. The beach aka our health looks like one big giant homogenous thing from a distance when in reality its made up of millions of tiny grains of sand aka life choices when you look a little closer.

A beach just like our overall health and well being grows/diminishes over time oftentimes so slowly that you don’t notice for months or years that things are looking a little different. And oftentimes when you do finally see a difference the change is so big that doing anything to fix it seems like an insurmountable task. This is where the old adage of how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time comes into play. When you’re faced with a huge task in your life the best thing you can do for yourself is do a quick OODA loop.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop#:~:text=The%20OODA%20loop%20is%20the,operational%20level%20during%20military%20campaigns.

Find something small and readily easy to accomplish and get going. When you start small and get an early win that massive obstacle starts to look a little smaller and easier to overcome. Just like it took thousands of choices to get to the point before we realized there was an issue it’s going to take thousands of choices before we ever see a noticeable difference.

It’s taken me 5 years’ worth of mostly positive choices to get to where I am today after years of poor choices. An almost 40-year-old in above-average physical condition. I can run fast, climb boulders and do a ton of pull-ups, and surf a 5’7 lis fish. I’m not going to win ultra-distance races, climb a v6+ boulder (extremely difficult) or break any pull-up records, or get sponsored. And you know what? I don’t give a damn about any of those things. What I care about is having fun, sharing those passions with my kids, and most importantly stacking up one good decision on top of another so hopefully my health/wellbeing stays clean so I can do all of those things for years to come.

External forces remember those from the opening paragraph? I’m not naive, We can make all the right choices when it comes to diet, exercise, and the thousand other variables in our life and still get side-swiped by disease, or for that matter, an actual car could take us out. Life isn’t fair, we’ve talked about this multiple times over in the blog, and that’s why the occasional slice of pizza or Christmas dessert is fine by me. We aren’t promised tomorrow but like the 96-year-old man that I see walking the neighborhood often likes to say 

” I woke up alive again today, I’m putting together one hell of a streak.”

When I have the time…

“You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.

And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.

No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.“

Pink Floyd – Time

It’s kind of interesting how we can sing a song in the car word for word a couple of hundred times in our life and never really pick up on the meaning of the lyrics. So let’s all do ourselves a favor and read the lyrics to this masterpiece of lyrical prose, Its okay I will just hang out and wait for you to get back. https://genius.com/Pink-floyd-time-lyrics

Mind-Blowing, Right? How did we miss that?

“You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today…” That’s what us millennial’s like to call a #truthbomb. I think everyone would agree that in your twenties and early thirties you are invincible, tomorrow is a guarantee and you can worry about getting exercise and eating healthy when you get old.

There’s a line in a classic Simpson’s episode where Homer says ” That’s a problem for future homer, and boy I don’t envy that guy” as he mixes up some mayonnaise and vodka before hitting the floor. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQvvmT3ab80

Hopefully, we haven’t stooped to that level of denial in our lives but I’m here to tell you that our chickens do eventually come home to roost and we will have to answer to our past indiscretions eventually.

This 21st-century life is so incredibly busy that it’s no surprise that we put something like consistent exercise and healthy eating way back down on the list of priorities. One salad and a 5k run won’t give you six pack abs and a clean bill of health on your annual physical just like a burger, fries, and a double IPA won’t make you fat if you eat it once. The choices we make for better or worse when it comes to diet and exercise are cumulative. They happen so slowly that often times we don’t notice that we are making progress or losing ground.

Change is here to stay and if you aren’t looking around and being conscious of the small decisions that you make today, tomorrow, and the next day you’re going to wake up and find ten years have got behind you and you slept right through the starting gun.

Why do we scream for ice cream ??

It’s the middle of summer here in the northern hemisphere and on these scorching hot days, there’s no denying that ice cream is pretty much the answer for all of life’s problems. But have you ever wondered why foods like ice cream are so crave-worthy?

The answer to that question is relatively simple once you understand the science behind it. All forms of fat pack 9 calories per gram and all carbohydrates aka sugars pack in 4 calories per gram. Ice cream along with a lot of our other favorite foods is the magical combination of both. This combination of chemicals is the most energy-dense partnership in the world of food and I think we can all agree they taste pretty amazing as well.

So why is it that we crave that combination so much? The answer dates back to the beginning of our species and has a lot to do with food insecurity. If you were a nomadic hunter and you happened to stumble across something high in fat or in sugars your brain would send a message through the reward circuit that this is pleasurable and you should keep eating. This reward circuit was massively important for the success of human beings when food was hard to come by but now it’s a major pain in the butt when the next meal is as easy as tapping a few buttons on your phone.

You can read more about the science behind the reward circuit here. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-sugar-and-fat-trick-the-brain-into-wanting-more-food/

Fat and Sugar in nature

The combination of fats and sugars are for the most part a man-made culinary combination. There are very few if any naturally occurring foods that are high in both of these categories. You either get high fat in foods like dairy and eggs or high in sugar like fruits and honey. I’m not sure if you’ve ever read a recipe on how to make homemade ice cream but those last four food Items I just listed would be in the vast majority of them.

Sugar Coated Lies

The first food that I was able to seriously reduce in my diet was added sugar and it was thanks to Jocko Willink and this epic little piece of wisdom.

Call To Action

Now we know why we crave ice cream, the desire to eat more of foods like that have been hardwired into our brains since the beginning of time. But we are 21st-century beings, we built self-driving cars, put people into outer space and have been to the bottom of the ocean. We are smart, we are disciplined and just like Nancy told us to do back in the 80’s we can “just say no” to ice cream and all of her nefarious cousins, or at least we should 95% of the time.

Whats a portion

11 years ago my wife wanted to go see the movie Avatar in theaters. I wasn’t completely on board with this idea as going out to the movies is not on my top 10 list of favorite things. After a bit of negotiating we landed on an agreement. She would buy me one single beer at the world of beer before we saw the movie. My wife was speaking my language with this offer and pretty soon we were in the car headed to the theater.

On the drive I hatched a devious plan to make sure I got the best end of the deal and it went a little something like this.

Bartender – What will you have?

Me – Liter of Hofbrau please.

Bartender sets down beer.

Me – Thanks

Wife – Wow, that’s a lot more then one beer.

Me – It’s 1 beer because it came in 1 glass.

Wife – I hope you pee your pants in this 3 hour movie.

In theory I was totally correct in ordering that 33 ounce beer but in spirit I was way off base. And I did have to take a restroom break half way through the movie.

Thanks for sticking with me through that little story, I hadn’t thought about it in years and it made me laugh but I feel like it can teach us a good lesson.

What we eat and burn

The average American consumes more than 3,600 calories daily – a 24% increase from 1961, when the average was just 2,880 calories. I know right. That factoid is from a 2013 study released by The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAOSTAT)

For a reference point the average american male burns between 1,900 and 2,500 calories a day, that number will vary with activity level. That leaves an excess of a 1,000+ calories a day. Which in theory sounds like a ton of extra food but in reality can easily be accomplished when your 1 beer has 440 calories.

Understanding portion size.

Our view of a portion size is completely out of wack with that we actually should be consuming. This is most evident in restaurants where studies have shown that we could be consuming up to 4 times the correct portion size based on a 2,000 calorie diet. Think about the giant bowl of pasta the last time you ate out at your favorite Italian joint. That’s probably what Nona Maria would have served to her entire family back in the old country.

Practical Advice.

Consult with a registered dietitian and see what you really need as your daily calorie intake. If you can’t do that a Basal Metabolic Rate – BMR calculator will give you a good idea of where you are supposed to be.

Buy a digital scale and read your nutritional labels. It’s a bit of a shocker in the beginning when you realize that you’ve been eating what is considered 2-3 portion sizes. https://www.amazon.com/digital-scale/s?k=digital+scale I agree it seems really silly to weigh out everything you eat but after a few weeks of retraining your self you wont have to rely on it nearly as much. ( we will dive deeper into this subject in a future blog, there’s some sneaky business going on with nutrition fact panels)

Fill your plate the correct way. A well designed plate will look like this. 50% vegetables, 25% whole grain carbohydrate and 25% protein. Vegetables are nutrient rich, relatively low in calories and are high fiber/high volume foods. When you get that digital scale try weighing out 300+- grams of vegetables its a lot more than you think it will be. P.S that’s a pretty good number to aim for at dinner and I almost guarantee you wont leave the table hungry after that portion of vegetable.

Like I’ve mentioned before in so many of my posts the key to long term success is to slowly but surely eliminate those junk food items from your daily diet. If you need some Doritos’s in your life right now i’m cool with it. But instead of taking the whole bag to the sofa for the ensuing T.V binge fest make friends with your new digital scale and weight out a correct portion and then get your chill on.

1. Stop drinking your calories

So I would like to open by saying I am not a dietitian or a doctor, I don’t have any letters after my name making me a subject mater expert in the field of nutrition either. what I can offer up for your consideration is some anecdotal evidence from my personal experiences as well as some cold hard science and perhaps plant a seed of change in your mind.

What if I told you that a year from now if you changed this one thing in your life you could lose a serious amount of weight and save a couple thousand dollars. Maybe you would think its crazy or another round of click bait marketing that isn’t even remotely based on anything factual.

Over the next few minutes I want to show you how drinking an excess amount of sugary drinks over the period of a year will hit you hard around the waist line and the wallet.

The science

Sugars are a type of carbohydrate and all forms contain 4 calories per gram.

Alcohol has 7 calories per gram.

1 pound of fat roughly contains 3,500 calories.

Beer and Alcohol

The average american spends roughly $435 dollars per year on alcoholic beverages, to be completely honest I was a little surprised at this number as I thought it was a little low. I’m sure in my hay day of $10.00 6 packs of craft beer I was spending way more then that on an annual basis.

Beer is the most popular alcoholic beverage in american and over the past decade we have averaged a consumption of 26.2 gallons per year.

The Math…

26.2 gallons equals out to 280 beers or twenty four 12- packs over the period of a year. based on an average cost of 10.50 a 12-pack that equals out to roughly $250 dollars. The average beer has 130 calories which leaves us with a total calorie count of 38,460 calories or 11 pounds of potential fat/stored energy.

Soda

We Americans spend several billion dollars a year supporting our sugar laden fizzy drink habit to the tune of 44.7 gallons per year according to a study released in 2010. The good news is that in the past decade soda sales have begun to decline but other sugary beverages have helped to fill those gaps.

On a daily basis we average 94 grams of added sugar a diet in our diet, that equals out to 358 calories. That’s close to a 1/6th of the daily calories based on a 2,000 calorie a day diet. One 12 oz can of Coca Cola and you have reached your daily allowance of 36 grams of added sugar.

The Math.

44.7 gallons of soda is equal to 487 twelve ounce cans of soda or 41 twelve packs. At 140 calories per can that equals out to an annual calorie consumption of 68,180 calories or 19.48 pounds of potential fat/stored energy. Based on a $5.00 price that would cost you about $200 a year.

To make things even worse we spend 1 trillion dollars a year here in the United states treating diseases closely associated with excess sugar intake. Diseases like, obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and non alcohol fatty liver disease all have been linked with consuming an over abundance of sugar. Divide that 1 trillion dollars out by the 328 million Americans and you have an annual cost of $3,136 dollars per person.

Coffee

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the coffee its self its what we add to it that is the problem. I drink coffee every day and sometimes twice depending on how the kids slept the prior night and how things are going at our home office/day care center during this pandemic.

These numbers are a little shocking to me when I did the research for this blog. On average millennial’s ages 25-34 spend a whooping $2,008 a year on coffee, that equals out to $5.50 a day. HOLY CRAP!!! That’s a ton of money over the period of a year. So much in fact that the 1/3 of millennial’s spends more on coffee in the period of a year then they do on investments towards retirement. Now we know why Starbucks can afford to have a location on almost every street corner.

The Math. So we already know the financials on this habit but lets consider the calories. This is one is a bit tougher to do as a cup of black coffee has very few calories. in fact if you drank a very expensive cup of black coffee everyday you would easily come in under 500 calories for the entire you. However if you are spending $5.50 a day on coffee your more then likely moving towards the problem. Checking out the Starbucks menu online helped me narrow it down to 300 calories per drink on average.

so 300 calories times 365 days a year is equal to 109,500 annual calories or 31lbs worth of potential fat/energy.

THE REALITY

I’m not asking you to give up all three of these drinks cold turkey or suggest that if you did you would lose an upwards of 60 lbs over the next year. Both of those are completely unrealistic as a habit as hard as sugar is hard to break and the calories consumed in these drinks do help fuel our daily activity. Losing weight is not an exact science and none of us are exactly the same.

My goal with this exercise is to show that little uneventful decisions made on a daily basis can add up to some serious caloric intake and cost us a lot of money over the period of a year.

Over the period of a year all those drinks cost us $2,460 and account for 216,400 calories. Even if we fail miserably on our goal and only hit 25% reduction that’s still $600.00 and 50,000 fewer calories. That will make a huge difference in your health over a year.

CALL TO ACTION

Beer has always been my number one vice in life, I love it way more then I should. When I was younger and very active the increased calories didn’t seem to catch up with me. When I hit my late 20’s and the activity level dropped that’s when I started really putting on the weight. I had tried to limit/quit many times in the past but it was only when I took measured approach that I was able to eventually cut it out of my life.

Here’s what I did, maybe this will work for you. My goal was to only drink two beers a week one on Friday and one on Saturday. If I went to the store and bought a 12 pack thinking it would last 6 weeks in the fridge I would inevitably fail on this goal mid way through the week. So I stopped buying beer by the case and would ride my bike to gas station and purchase a single beer on the weekend. This way I had to take physical action to leave the house and go get that beer, and that’s not always easy when you have two kids.

After a couple of months of this pattern I noticed the spare tire starting to shrink and that motivated me to find other things I could do get even better results.

THE MORAL…

Start today but start small, You aren’t going to give up beer,soda or sugary coffee drinks tomorrow. If your drinking a 12 pack of soda a week lets start by trying to only drink 8 next week and then 4 the week after that. Make it a little more difficult to fall back on that vice in a moment of weakness. Put the money that you would have spent on those sugary drinks in a jar/separate bank account and watch it grow. Set a goal for something you need like a new surfboard, retirement or a vacation. Chances are by the time you’ve saved the money you’ve broken the habit and can move onto the next small step to better health and financial freedom.

Hows your beach, body?

Have you ever contemplated that grain of sand clung to your foot while your chilling on the beach? For instance how it got there, how long did it take or how many of his little friends does it take to make something as gigantic as that beach your lying on? You Haven’t, that’s okay I have a tendency to think about weird things and then wonder that the answers are.

So here’s the cliff notes on the answers. erosion, currents and tides, fish poop, millions of years and one hundred trillion other grains of sand is what it takes to make that beach your lying on. In other words a lot of small things happened every single day and eventually it ended up making the awesome beach you are dreaming about right now.

A few weeks back those questions crossed my mind as I was looking back towards the beach brushing a few grains of sand off my feet before putting my shoes back on. and it got me to thinking that…

Our health is a lot like a beach.

Both are made from tiny things that over an extended period of time will accumulate to make something much bigger then themselves. Just like the ever changing beach our health from a day to day view is changing so insignificantly that we never notice something until it becomes so big that it’s obvious. The slow progress is a detriment on both sides of the equation. If you went on a crash diet and started exercising 2 times a day you will not see a dramatic change for months. Or on the flip side you wont pick up 20 lbs over night because of that extra trip down the buffet.

Design your own beach.

You may remember that 25% of our health/life expectancy can be attributed to our genetic build up leaving our daily choices to make up the lion’s share of our health. What I’m trying to say is that the decision you make today for lunch today is simultaneously the most important and least significant choice you will ever make. I’m sure you have heard the statement ” one kale salad wont make you skinny, just like one cheeseburger wont make you fat” and I totally agree with that statement. The problem/solution is that what we tend to do once often translates into what we do very often.

21 choices a week

lets do some math for a minute. lets say you started being fully conscious of the decisions you were making about your diet and nutrition at the age of 18. You eat 3 meals a day 7 days a week equaling 21 meals. You do that 52 weeks a year for 1,092 meal a year. And you live for 60 more years (78 is the average american life expectancy) that would give you a grand total of 65,520 opportunities to make an impact on your overall health and well being.

There is no way anyone on this planet can make 65,500 or so perfect decision on what they put into their bodies. If you start with the next meal and win there you may be able to put a streak together, when you win the battle at dinner and so on and so forth until that double fudge chocolate brownie yells your name loud enough. The fact of the matter is there is going to be bumps along the way that’s okay life is hard and cookies are delicious. Whats more important for our long term health is how quickly you forget about the one “poor decision” and get back on the path.

Little by little becomes a lot.

Over the past 4 years or so I was able to share this idea of small but consistent change with my family and as of today my Wife, Mom, Dad, Sister and I have lost a combined 130 lbs. We did it by starting small and working our way up to more healthy choices in our 21 meals a week. We started an exercise regime that wasn’t much in the beginning but grew into something that met our needs and kept us injury free. And perhaps most importantly allowed us the chance to have a piece of birthday cake and not feel horrible about it.

I’ve compiled a list of the 10 small changes we’ve made that have given all of us a better quality of life and over the next two weeks I am going to share them with you 1 by 1. I’m not a doctor or a dietitian and what I’m going to share with you is far from ground breaking but I truly believe that what has worked for us could make a difference in your life as well.

P.S

If you stay the course you will have that beach body you’ve always wanted, its just not going to be this summer if you are doing it for the long haul. Also a tight stomach and buff arms is nice but you know whats really sexy? Low cholesterol, low blood pressure and the way your doctor will praise you during your next physical.

What’s your why???

I want to open by saying I’ve written this blog post about 8 times already and I’ve thought it was good and then I would read it and think I hadn’t hit really hit the mark. I feel like this version might be the one that see’s the light of day.

Four years ago on a Monday I took the trash out and had a conversation with a neighbor that made me think about the choices I was making in life. It started me on my path to where I am today. Those early days had some bumps, detours and full on sabbaticals as my “why” was motivating but was a bit superficial and self serving. I don’t want to discount this why to much as it still drives me today but about a year into being a Dad the “Why” Epiphany hit me really hard again. It came in the form of 5 simple words formed into a question by Travis Manion –http://www.travismanion.org

“If not me then who?“

Those words got me thinking more about the way I was living and what would happen 20 to 30 years down the road if I stayed on the current path I was traveling. Who would take care of my my wife and children if I let my health go by the wayside and I passed away relatively young? Who’s going to go surfing my with my son and daughter when they are teenagers? Who will teach my children how to cook, look someone in the eye and grow up to be fine contributing members of society?

I knew the answer to those questions and it was me! And that’s when I found my “why” that has kept me going every day since I asked myself those questions.

After several thousands of hours of podcasts, audible and long runs I have reached something that I think is of value to this world.

“One of the best ways to to take care of the people who rely on you is to first take care of yourself.” Its a little wordy but I think the message is solid.

To elaborate I’m not telling you to become a self serving jerk who ignores their family in the search for a banging six pack at the gym. I’m asking you to squeeze in 15 minutes a day of exercise, eat more vegetables and less processed food and perhaps more importantly go see your doctor for an annual check up.

What’s your why

My why and your why to take control of our health may be completely different and that’s to be expected. My why isn’t better then yours, just like yours isn’t better then mine. what is important is that we find the thing or things that will keep us on the path to who we want to be when we grow up.

Which leads me to my question for you today. Who/what do you want to be doing 10,15, 20 and so on years down the road? I would be willing to bet those ideas are filled with hobbies, good health and time spent with the ones you love. Now ask yourself this question are the choices I am making today moving me closer or further away from that dream.

I hope that you answered that question with a resounding yes but if you didn’t that’s quite alright. It wasn’t that long ago that my answer was the opposite of what it is today. And if you remember back to the WHEN blog post from this series, the second best time to do something is right now.

There are so very few things that we have any control over in life and I feel like that’s more evident know then ever in the time of covid. The choices that you make today, tomorrow and the next day will have a collective impact on your life down the road. Having a why that is bigger then your self will serve you far better then trying to rely on fleeting hopes of motivation.

If your curious about who I want to be when I grow up send me a message and I will elaborate. https://www.instagram.com/brian_in_search/

When? how about right now.

There’s an ancient Chinese proverb that says the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago and the second best time to plant a tree is right now.

How can today be the second best time? wouldn’t 19 years 364 days ago been a much better time then today to plant that tree. If you would have done it then you would already be sitting under that tree with a cold drink, reading a book and basking in the glorious shade it’s providing.

But alas we don’t have time machines and living in the past is for the dummies. We cant change what we have done or more importantly haven’t done in our pasts, and well that’s pretty darn important if you ask me. One of the two things I learned in college and actually use on the regular are, those who fail history are doomed to repeat it. In layman’s terms, learn from your mistakes dumb-dumb and don’t repeat them.

So with that being said NOW, RIGHT NOW is the second best time to go out and do something that’s going to pay off in the future. And quite possibly right now, in the middle of this epic dumpster fire of a global pandemic that we are all struggling through may be the best time in our life time to get out the shovel and start digging.

The Problem with trees.…

Is that you put one in the ground and you go out and water it every day for a couple of weeks and almost nothing happens. It hasn’t gotten much taller, there’s no fruit and the only thing getting some shade are the ants crawling around under neath it.

Things of great significance don’t change drastically over night they change little by little everyday, in fact most days its so insignificant that it doesn’t look like anything is happening at all. I don’t know about you but that’s pretty frustrating. I bought an orange tree because I was thirsty for juice now, not 5 years from now. It’s pretty easy to lose the drive to fertilize and nurture the tree when the grocery store down the street has a gallon of OJ cold and ready to go for just a couple of dollars.

I’m sure you’re thinking by now. Why are we still talking about trees? I don’t own a shovel or have the land to plant one in and for that matter who wants to get dirty.

Good because I have nothing else clever to say about them, so here’s the moral of the story…

Planting a tiny oak sapling and looking for shade is a lot like managing our health and well being, you are barging with the future. The decisions that we make today, tomorrow and so on will impact what happens to us in the future for better or worse. We can make wise choices and thrive and grow to our fullest potential or we can ignore the call and stunt our growth in the shadows of what could have been.

Call to action.

A lot of us are finding ourselves with extra time on our hands right now. Honestly I wish this wasn’t the case. This life right now is a nasty roller coaster and I’m ready to get off, but were stuck and might as well try and make the best of it.

Whats your big oak tree that you wish you would have planted 20 years ago? Is it better health, a shorter honey-do list,that book you’ve always wanted to write or maybe it’s just a simple ole shade tree.

Once you’ve decided what that tree looks like, stop imagining what it looks like and go grab the shovel and start planting. Set up some short term and mid range goals to measure your growth, this way you can see where you’ve been and where you are going.

Trust the process and one day you will find yourself under that tree drinking a glass of fresh squeezed O.J appreciating the work that you put in and being grateful that you started the project so long ago.