Tag: personal development

Ogres, Onions and Fathers Day…

One of my favorite movie quotes of all times comes from the original Shrek movie, its funny but has some deep-seeded wisdom lurking under the surface. Shrek and Donkey are walking through a garden discussing why Shrek didn’t torment a village, Shrek’s response is Ogres are a lot like onions, they have layers.

Ogres and people are very different, at least that’s what I’ve been able to infer from the movies, I’ve never met one in real life before. But just like onions and ogres, we do have a lot of layers. I’d be willing to bet that I could put my self in at least 2 dozen categories of groups I belong to. Like a surfer, aspiring farmer, runner, cook, husband, and father. Of all of my layers, those last two are at the core of the onion for me. They are why I go to work, eat healthily, exercise, and try to be the best version of myself I can be. I hope that I am better at those now then I was a year ago and that future me is better then I am today.

I am very grateful to have both my parents in our lives as they are fantastic parents and even better grandparents. They are a literal encyclopedia Britannica of wisdom on everything from parenting to building an outdoor shower. I’m 37 and I still need my parents for that wisdom and perhaps most importantly to watch our kids a few days a week so we don’t completely lose our minds as a result of working from home with an almost 2-year-old.

The most important thing I will do with my life is to be the gentle guiding influence that will hopefully turn my kids into kind and successful members of society as they grow and mature throughout their lives.

The best way I’ve come up with so far on how to accomplish that goal is to lead through example and take care of myself mentally and physically so I can be around for along time.

I want to take the next few minutes to implore you on the importance of taking care of yourself so we can be great fathers for many more decades to come. 

  1. If you haven’t been to the doctor to get a physical because your young and invisible in the past 5 years you need to stop and make that happen. In the spirit of brutal honesty, I belonged to that camp until about a year ago.  I went, it didn’t hurt and I felt grateful walking out of there after getting my lab results knowing that nothing unforeseen hadn’t been lurking under the surface.
  2. Take an inventory of what you eat this week, maybe even write it down. If you see something that surprises you next Sunday, pick that one thing and try to eat half as much the following week and in half again the following week. I truly believe that quitting cold turkey is bad for long term success.
  3. Pick a couple of bodyweight exercises like push-ups, squats, lunges, dips, crunches, planks you get the picture. Now pick a reasonable number of reps and days a week you will commit to putting in the work and start TODAY!!!

I promise you that if you put these three things into practice this year that you will be running circles around your kids come, fathers, day 2021.

You are Here…


How many imaginary finish lines do you think we cross in our life? I bet its in the hundred of thousands, who knows though that number could be a gross exaggeration or a massive underestimate. Think about all the races across the school yard when you were a little kid. If having an almost 5 year old son has taught me one thing it is that everything can and probably should be a race with a finish line.

Sure the vast majority of finish lines are insignificant in our lives but what about the major ones like graduating from school, getting a job, getting married, buying a house or having kids. All of these are huge goals that can be way off in the horizon and take years and years of hard work and dedication to achieve. But what happens when we get there to the “finish Line” of that race in our life? From my experience a small amount of happiness floods in and then the reality that maybe all of that work leading up-to the finish line was just a precursor of what was really in store for us.

I’ve been kicking this idea around in my head for a while and it was really cemented while listening to one of my favorite podcasts the 3 of 7 project. https://3of7project.com/podcast/ Chadd the host and Ian Thomas recounted their adventure in an ultra race called bob big back yard. The race format is pretty simple, run 4.16667 miles within 60 minutes and if you do so you can run the next loop when it starts on the top of the hour. There is no set distance for the race it ends when only 1 person is left running. In the 2018 race the last person running logged just over 283 miles or 68 hours of running.

I don’t want to give to much away as I really think the podcast is amazing and you should totally listen to it. but with out a bit of a spoiler I cant finish this blog post so with that being said… Ian had a goal distance in mind that he wanted to achieve and with that out on the horizon although difficult at times it was a motivator to keep moving towards it. When that self imposed finish line came happiness arose but the desire to keep going waned and he threw in the towel. Chadd the ultimate motivator tells Ian ” Don’t die in the chair” we go out like warriors on the battle field. And before the next top of the hour the two are off running again for yet another loop.

Ian ran a really, really long way that day. But I wonder how far he could have ran if all the wind wasn’t let out of his sails when he crossed the “finish line” and then I thought about all the times I could have gone further but the finish line got in the way of what I was truly capable of.

THERE IS NO FINISH LINE

who says there has to be an end to any chapter in our lives. why does the learning have to stop when we graduate, why can’t the high school track star keep running and competing ? Why do we have to grow up and be adults all the time?

I know I’ve wasted time in my life thinking that I had arrived at my destination to only realize several years later that I was still standing in the same place wondering how all those people got so far in front of me. Maybe there finish line was further out in the distance or they learned before I had that there really wasn’t one. When you stand still at your destination thinking you’ve arrived you might as well be going backwards.

Call to Action.

I’m sure there’s something that you are curious to learn about right now and boy oh boy are you in luck. Access to information has never been this easy or cheap to access. I’m currently learning about organic gardening practices as well as creating a food forrests. I haven’t stepped into a classroom or paid tuition, I’ve learned a ton through the magic of youtube. Just be careful that the cute cat videos don’t suck you in to deep.

Stagger you goals. I have a goal for my trail running, its a pretty big one and its going to take a few more years to get there. In the mean time I’m going to come up with what the next step is so I’m not standing at the end of the race wondering whats next. When that happens it’s easy to take the foot off the gas and go into idle.

Go out and challenge yourself to something that you don’t think your capable of right now. Hitting the register button is often times the hardest part. Go out and train, prepare your self mentally and go out their and execute the mission. When you achieve that goal it will light a fire inside of you as you realize that there’s a lot more in the tank then you ever would have imagined.

This is really cliche but life is truly a journey and not a destination. It’s a long hard road filled with tons of work and hopefully a healthy smattering of happiness and contentment along the way. Whenever I feel like quiting I think of these words from Dr. Martin Luther King

“If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.”