"And where are you traveling to today, sir?" "I have no idea." *polite laugh* "Well, let me see your itinerary." "I don't have one. I'm trying something different today. I'd like to go somewhere. I have $500, and I'd like you to book me a ticket." "Well, where do you want to go?" "No place in particular . Whatever sounds good to you would be great!" "Well," (getting a little flustered now) "I don't know what you want to do, so how am I supposed to ...
Archives for 2013
Life’s No Good In Draft
Posts In Draft I've got a running joke with my friend Michael. He has a blog which he's been writing for a bit. In an effort to hold him accountable, I ask him every now and again, when it's been a while since he last posted something, how it's going. I usually get this response: Oh, I've got a lot of stuff I'm working on. I've got a couple posts in draft. Oh, I didn't know those counted. Fortunately, Michael is the type of person who dishes it right ...
Resetting The Default
Sometimes you get stuck. To get started again, you don't have to slay a dragon. You just have to reset the default. Resetting The Default If you find yourself stuck, stop thinking you need to do everything. You just need to do something. Anything. It doesn't have to be superhuman. *It just has to be done.* Instead making herculean efforts, trade out glamour for consistency, and retrain some of your habits. The focus here is on changing your ...
The Best Advice I’ve Ever Gotten
About three years ago, I was sitting on the veranda at the King Kamehameha country club in Maui, wondering what the hell I was doing there. I was at a mastermind summit, and had no business being there. All day long for three days, I was surrounded by business owners and entrepreneurs twice my age who made 1,000 x my income. I was way out of my league. I was not supposed to be there. 48 hours earlier, I was at my parents' house in Chicago doing ...
Is Life Meaningless?
I just got back from the World Domination Summit (WDS). You can read the WDS recaps and find more about WDS here if you're not familiar with it. --- Donald Miller was the final keynote speaker at WDS. I got the chance to hang out and chat with Don in the atrium for 30 minutes or so before his keynote and it was great to get some personal insight from him. There were a bunch of highlights in his talk, but the one that stood out to me was this little ...
This Isn’t Even My Final Form!
Warning: This might be the nerdiest post I've written to date (wait for it). The Gap There's always a gap in everything you do: the gap between who you are currently are and what you'll one day be capable of. That effing gap. It's the worst thing in the world. You want to cross it and just get it over with, but that's not how it works. You have to take it step by step. Effing gap. Ira Glass has a few words to say on the gap when it comes to creative ...
How To Run An Obstacle Race
I've done quite a few obstacle races at this point in time (including a GORUCK Challenge, which is a whole other monstrosity of a challenge). They're one of the best ways to break into running, or fitness in general, if you need a good way to get out of the house and have fun with some friends and you're not quite ready for a marathon (or ultra) yet. However, a couple weeks ago I ran my first Tough Mudder. It's billed as "probably the toughest event ...
We Built A School (And I Have Proof!)
We built a school! Here's a glimpse: I just got back from Guatemala a few weeks ago to see the school and have been putting together the story & photos over the past few days and as I'm going over the images & stories, it still blows my mind that we actually built a school. However, there's a lot more to the story than just the visit - let’s start from the beginning. --- How It All Started Almost exactly a year ago, I got an email from ...
A Tough Question
Greetings from Colombia! I'm spending some time now in Bogota after spending the first part of the week with the Pencils of Promise team in Guatemala, checking out the brand new dedicated Impossible school we built during the first part of the year! I'll have more updates (and a lot of photos) on that soon but, as I've been traveling the past week or so, I want to talk about a great question that Jeff Sarris of the ever-talented Spyr Media brought up, ...
5 Simple Motivation Hacks
Here are 5 simple motivation hacks. These aren't the common ones you'll find on Oprah. They're real ones that actually work - if you're brave enough to test them for yourself. I'm not even going to do a boring intro on why they work. They just do. Here we go: Hulk Up Get pissed. Get seriously pissed at your goal. Throw stuff. Break things. Yell. Scream. Call your goal names and punch it in the nose. Then go dominate it. It works for the ...
