self improvement – Subjects to change

The cool Dad..

I’m not lying to you when I tell you that my favorite television show is a cartoon on Disney Junior called Bluey. The show is about a family of Australian blue heeler dogs and their adventures in raising two small children. First, off it’s actually an Australian TV show that Disney picked up for viewing in America and it reminds me of a cleaned-up version of the Simpsons. It’s seriously funny but always does a great job of passing along a valuable life lesson in the end.

Bandit Heeller is precisely the kind of dad I want to be when I grow. Equal parts goofball that never really grew up and is willing to play silly games and get into mischief while also being able to pepper in solid parenting, encouragement, and life lesson along the way to make sure they know they are loved and prepared to be the best possible versions of themselves they can be. I know your thinking to yourself seriously Brian a cartoon on Disney junior can be that deep or funny, My child likes Fancy Nancy or paw patrol and I’ve never once thought that any part of those shows was enjoyable. Don’t believe me? Go ahead and give it a watch. The first two stories are epically fun and the last one called Shadowlands is an excellent lesson in life.

In my little more than 5 years as a dad and the life lessons learned from Bandit aka Dad on bluey, I’ve decided I want to be the cool dad for my kids. Not the cool dad that lets the kids drink and have parties at the house or the one that lets them run around like crazy whackado’s because coming down on your kids and disciplining them is just not the cool thing to do.

I want to be the dad that can take his kids rock climbing and bring their friends along and show off my abilities so they can brag about how strong their dad is. I want to be the dad that goes surfing with his kids and gets barrelled with all their friends watching. I want to be the house where the kids want to come and hang out because we’ve built an awesome backyard filled with things to eat and play with. I want to be the dad that laughs and jokes and has a good time so they want me to be around.

Because if they want me around and I get invited to do those things listed above I’m there to help, supervise and set an example, and maybe just maybe if I’m lucky figure out how to pass along a little life lesson in there while everyone’s having a great time. I know a time will come when they won’t want to hang out with me all the time but hopefully trying to be the cool dad will push that a couple more years into the future. And with that kind of time, I might be able to pass along just enough wisdom to keep them out of trouble and give them the ability to make choices filled with integrity when there isn’t an adult insight.

Like Bandit says in that first episode about making it too fun, ” Sorry, squirts. It’s a hard one to get right” but I figure if I’m there, we’re laughing and having a good time I must be doing an okay job.

Call to Action

if you’ve got kids under the age of 7 or so watch some episodes of bluey with them. If you don’t it’s fine I watched that entire youtube video before typing this and everyone’s asleep in my house. It’s high-quality family entertainment, and everyone is sure to laugh. These are our favorites ones. The Dump, The pool, Shadowlands, and the Fairy Spell.
Find a hobby that you and your kid can do together. I think it’s best if it’s something that you are both new to, this way you can grow and develop together and watch each other’s development. Might I suggest rock climbing/bouldering.

Why, Subjects 2 change?

It probably would have been a good idea to write the answer to this question 40 or so blog posts ago but I’m glad I never got around to it until now.

Like most good brand names and nicknames this one started in a bar. We were talking about a restaurant in town that had undergone its 3rd concept change in about a year and just how expensive it must have been to build out, advertise and open and close that many times. That’s when one of the guy’s chimes up and goes if it was my restaurant I would just call it “menu, subject to change. And then I could do what ever I pleased.” We laughed hysterically at first and then I started thinking about the genius behind that name. I told him how smart I thought it was and that there was a good chance that I might utilize that name at some point in my life, he obliged and then I didn’t think about it for at least a year.

In June of 2019, the idea to start a blog was kicking around in my head, I had an idea for what to talk about but didn’t want to pick a name that narrowed potential subject maters to much. I wanted to be able to stay on a path but shoot off on a side trail for a change of view. And that’s when I remembered that lunch at the bar and subjects to change. I had already said I was going to use it and secured his approval through proper barroom protocol so a blog got a name that day.

A title like that gave me Cart Blanche to do whatever I felt like and write on a wide subject of topics and that felt awesome. I was telling you right from the start that this thing doesn’t have a lot of rules, we’re going on an adventure and maybe we’ll learn a few things along the way. And for about 6 months if people asked that was the 1-dimensional answer I gave them about the name.

But then one day out on a run I started contemplating on how change was a constant in life. The weather, our jobs, traffic, and a magnitude of other variables change around us every day. We often perceive ourselves to be the constant in this equation of change and that outside forces should adapt to our needs. That option sounds great but answer this question. When the temperature drops outside do you try and make the weather change or do you adapt to the changing conditions and grab a jacket? How we react to that change can play a huge role in the outcome of our day, week, month, and life. We are subjects to the change happening all around us and our ability to adapt keeps us from freezing in a world that is trying to take us down.

We are here on this journey called life to evolve, grow, and overcome. I want to push myself to unknown heights of my ability and the best way to do that is be ready for the things that are subject to change and learn to adapt to them.

nobody wants to read your sh*t

Not too long ago I would become very distraught over the fact that something I took a great time to develop in writing or in my art didn’t garner the amount of attention that I thought it deserved through social media platforms. It made me want to quit and a few times I had to shut it all off because it had a tendency to be more a destructive force than something that was building me up.

I had quite a few audible credits at my disposal and I figured I should do something with them so I downloaded these three books. An audience of one by Srinivas Rao and the following two books by Steven Pressfield the war of art and nobody wants to read your sh*t. These three books changed my outlook on my art and gave me the resolve to keep being creative.

To be honest, I didn’t finish an Audience of one, it didn’t draw me in as much as other books have but a lesson early on was well worth the price of admission. When you tailor your art to what you think people are going to like you end up with something that you don’t like and more importantly others won’t like either. In other words, I’m writing things and taking pictures of things that I find interesting, hopefully, you feel the same way, and if not there are a couple hundred thousand or so other writers that might be a better fit for you. I’m not mad anymore I’m just trying to be me.

Art of war taught me something that I already knew but wasn’t smart enough to put into practice in this side of my life. If you want to get good at something you just have to sit down and do it. This was common sense to me when it came to building your personal health, I tell people all the time when they ask me how did you get so good at doing pull ups? “I did a lot of pull-ups.’ I’m not really certain why this truth I held dear never manifested itself into this side of my life but what’s important is that I’ve been writing almost every single day since I finished that book. I hope you see a difference.

and last but not least nobody wants to read your sh*t to paraphrase Mr. Pressfield, it’s not that they don’t care or are mean it’s just that they’re busy and they’ll actually have to take the time to read what you wrote and well who has time for that. This book helped me realize that If I want you to read my sh*t I need to make it clear, concise, and have some actual value so that one day after I write a ton of sh*t it might actually be good and worth reading.

This random cocktail of books has been very educational and more importantly set my artistic soul on fire. I hope that you enjoy my photos and sophomoric attempts at wisdom and humor through this blog I’m trying to get better by focusing on the things I like, I hope you enjoy them as well.

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.”

On surfing…

We’ve been getting a run of swell the last few weeks here in Florida and I busted a leash and needed some wax so when a downtime at work came up I ran down to my local surf shop.

A surf shop is similar to any other retail business but its also a place to hang out, talk story and brag or lament with your fellow brothers and sisters about that sick wave you got or how you blew it waiting for the tide to drop only to have the wind switch direction and ruin the waves. In all accounts, my trip to the surf shop could/should have been less than 5 minutes to pick up what I needed but when my wife texted 45 minutes later I realized I should probably get back to work.

Besides talking about the previous swell, what we were riding, checking out new boards, and gushing over some sweet vintage boards in the used rack older gentlemen walked into the shop with a hoodie sweatshirt and his wetsuit on underneath, he was stopping in to say hello, get the stoke going and head out across the street for a surf. After a few minutes of random surf talk, he tells me that he’s 67 years old and that he used to surf when he was a kid but life and a job that moved him around a lot had ended his surfing 30+ years ago. He went on to mention that he had some recent health issues and after a few doctor’s visits he needed to make some changes but didn’t know where to start. A chiropractor friend during a visit for an adjustment said to him next Saturday I want you to meet me at the beach instead of an office visit, We’re going surfing. And to make a long story short he’s since lost 40lbs by surfing and a diet change, stopped having to take several prescription medicines, and is feeling better than he has in years and his second love affair with surfing is in full effect.

All I’ve ever wanted to be when I grew up was a surfer, one of the local boys that could walk from his house to the beach instead of drive. The older guy that still surfs shortboards and is in the water for the best swells with the kids half his age. And inevitably the old retired guy whos out there still living the dream and never misses a swell. Those guys are my hero’s and I’m lucky enough to have a few of them as role models and surfing buddies. Those guys are in great shape mentally and physically because their passion for the waves gave them a “why” to stay that way also in their hearts they never really grew up to be adults.

Sometimes we stay the path and live out our passions for our entire life and sometimes life’s plans send us on a 30-year detour before we can get that second go around. It’s not worth getting upset over the lost time and having to start over again or even worse thinking it’s too late in our lives to make a change. Like the guy at the shop in the hoodie told me this journey all started because I agreed to paddle out and give it a shot, all I wanted to do was stand up and now months later I’m here and having the time of my life and feeling great

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.

My why in video format.

Yesterday I wrote about “concepts” and the two things that are constant in life. The first was, Change is constant and the second is things fall apart. Shortly after I posted that video I was looking at My Facebook page and my mom shared the following video. I know I ask you to do a lot of things but I really think this is the easiest and maybe the most impactful way to show you the message that I’m trying to get across. Watch till the end and grab some tissues.

Epic, right? It made me tear up a little bit as well. I could not have scripted a better advertisement of why I make the decisions that I do every single day and why I’m trying to encourage others to make similar long term life choices as well. Life has very few constants as I mentioned earlier, Things are going to change and eventually all things fall apart and don’t function quite like they used to. We have the power in our daily choices to slow down the progression of the later of the two constants, Were never going to stop the aging process with any amount of superfoods and kettlebell exercises but the choices you make today, tomorrow, and 30 years from now could keep you around and active for your loved ones.

B- effort…

I had a college professor tell me during a class that “I was the smartest student that he had ever had but the absolute worst student” I laughed at first and then thought about what he said and felt a little differently about the backhanded compliment I had just received. But like most things in the life of a young kid I was onto bigger and better things and that little nugget of wisdom went in one ear and out the other.

I hadn’t thought about that little moment in life for quite some time but hitting some golf balls this weekend at Topgolf for my brother in laws 40th birthday conjured up some old memories. You may be thinking that’s a random place to remember a story about squandering your talents but it will make a lot more sense after this. I used to play a lot of golf as a kid, like 27-36 holes a day at least 5 days a week for 4 or 5 summers. And not surprisingly you can get pretty darn good at golf when you play that much. Good enough to make the high school golf team and be a top tier member of the squad, good enough to win tournaments I was a single handicap golfer at the age of 14. I had the talent but I didn’t always have the mental focus to put it all together so when golf got moved to the swim season I decided to focus on swimming. I started on the swim team in my sophomore year I didn’t know a lot about swimming but I worked hard enough to figure it out and dropped a lot of time on my favorite event the 50 free. By my senior year, I was swimming low 22 seconds 50 freestyles and finishing 8th in the 5a regional championships for the state of Florida. A time like that wasn’t going to get me a full ride at a top caliber swim school but it was good enough for a walk-on opportunity at a D3 school. One season in me and my shoulders decided that 4 years of staring at a black stripe for a couple of hours a day had been more than enough. Besides I wasn’t doing that great in college,(see opening paragraph) and I needed a few less distractions in my life.

Back to last weekend. I hadn’t hit a golf ball in close to 2 and a half years so I wasn’t sure what to expect when it was my turn to get up there and put a few balls downrange. So I grabbed an 8 iron took aim at the 150-yard green and absolutely crushed it with a gentle fade right onto the target. I was able to recreate that shot over and over again with a variety of clubs that day. As we left an overwhelming sense that I had missed my life’s true calling rushed over me. I’m not saying that I was going to be tiger woods but I really believe I could have made a living off of playing golf. So what do I with this squandered talent now? The swing is there, the mental focus is better than ever but the time to go hit 600 balls a day and see if I could really make it is definitely nowhere to be found.

Why am I telling you this

The amount of things I’ve taken to what I have decided to call B- ability is staggering when I look back upon my life. I guess I should feel grateful that I’ve had the ability to progress that many things to an above-average performance ability and really a B- isn’t something to be that upset about. I would have loved to have a few more of those in college, my parents would have as well. It leaves me wondering if I had stuck it out and utilized those talents to the best of my ability where could I have taken them.

I’m not sure where my writing/storytelling ability lies on the grading scale yet. I’ve started and stopped on this blog at least twice now. Sometimes it seems pointless to type away at a computer screen when I perceive the limited impact I think it’s having on the world. What keeps me coming back is the hope that something I write is going to have an impact on at least one person’s life. I’m a different person today because a few people decided to write a book or start a podcast and I’m grateful for those people and the wisdom they have bestowed upon me.

Today I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts the 3of 7 project https://threeofseven.podbean.com and the guest Jeff Forester was talking about the book he had just written. He went over a quick overview of the process that got him started on the book and what steps he took to finish it. And like a backhanded compliment from a college professor there it was again, me having done a lot of the work but not showing up the rest of the way to make it happen. I had already done quite a few of the steps he suggested, I even wrote them down in a journal. Problem is that’s as far as I took it a couple of months back.

I’m not sure if the book will ever get published or let alone if it does if anybody other than a handful of people will ever purchase it but I’m assuring you this today. I feel that I have a talent for writing and I don’t want to find myself leaving another 40th birthday party wondering why I never did anything with it. So before my next birthday in the late spring-early summer of 2021, you’re going to be able to read something that may just give you the tools to make a few changes in your life.

I saw it on the internet…

I recently stumbled upon a quote that I thought was amazing, as I read it kept getting better and better and by the end, I thought to myself “This is worthy of a blog post”

“‘I’m bored’ is a useless thing to say. I mean, you live in a great, big, vast world that you’ve seen none percent of. Even the inside of your own mind is endless. The fact that you’re alive is amazing, so you don’t get to say ‘I’m bored.’” ~ Louis CK

Boom. That’s what we millennials like to call a #truthbomb, That’s wisdom that you can build an entire life around. Scratch that, it’s so good you could build an amazing life and then put a couple more layers of awesomeness over top for good measure.

To say that 2020 is shaping up to be a raging five-alarm dumpster could be the understatement of the century. Going out and exploring the world right now is out of the question but we can certainly do some things to expand our mind.

The golden age of communication.

568 years ago Johannes Gutenberg invented the movable type printing press and the golden age of communication was born. The big problem was way back in the 1450s about 10% of the population of Germany and England could actually read what was on that paper. Fast forward to 1820 and only 12% of the entire world’s population could read, we are doing exponential better now as in 2016 the world wide literacy rate was 86%.

Access to the written word may be closing in on 600 years old but for the majority of the worlds population, the ability to understand it isn’t much older than your great, great grandparents.

The spoken word on the other hand is as old as time, we’ve been gathering around the fire, telling stories and teaching lessons in between bites of Woolly Mammoth and that was between 30,000 and 40,000 years ago (no need to fact check, I consulted google.)

The Second Golden age of communication.

I remember going over to my friends house in early 2005 and him going on and on about how cool this new site he found called youtube was. I asked some questions and came to the conclusion that I wasn’t nearly as impressed and probably wouldn’t use it much, boy was I wrong about that. Youtube has changed the world and how we learn, sure there’s cat video’s and this seven-second master pieced that never stops being funny https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9ifVx9yZbY but there’s an infinite amount of valuable lessons to be learned for FREE!!! How often do you say this ” I wonder how I could fix… I bet there’s a youtube video on it.” I’ve never had a time where something didn’t come up.

Call to Action

Video’s and tutorials

Are you a horrible cook, looking for quick and easy recipes that feature a bunch of vegetables?? Check out this link https://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/vegetables-recipes/ and get after it. Sure you might eat some mediocre versions of these dishes for a while but eventually like most things you will get better if you keep working at it. Your waistline and wallet will thank you as well.

Audiobooks

I love books but I don’t have the time or patience to read them. You can sign up for an audible account for $14.00 a month or check out your local library as they often will have free audiobooks that you can check out digitally.

Here’s a few suggestions for your summer listening.

Hemingway – The old man and the sea. Donald Sutherland narrates this version and its amazing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9BNaJ48j00 Hands down this is my favorite book of all time it’s short but packs in a ton of valuable life lessons.

Steinbeck – The winter of our discontent and America and Americans are both lesser-known works from this prodigious American author but they are my two personal favorites.

Podcasts

I’m pretty sure there’s a podcast out there for every single topic of interest that you could imagine. Of all of the tools that have helped transform me into who I am today this one has had the largest impact. Here’s the best part! Besides the price of an internet connection, these are completely free.

How many times have you listened to that same old song or wasted an hour listening to talk radio while in the car? Don’t think you have enough time to listen? According to Harvard Health Watch, the average American spends 101 minutes in a car every day. Why not use some of that time to learn, remember there is no finish line in life.

It has never been this easy to gain access to information that can truly have an impact on your life. So get out there and start taking advantage of all of the wonderful things that exist on the internet.

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.