What’s the one thing you want to change in 2019?

Forget resolutions.

Forget lists on lists of habits and goals you want to accomplish.

In the race to change our entire lives overnight, we end up overwhelmed, unmotivated and unable to do it all.

The great thing about change and good habits are they ricochet and add value to our entire lives, not just the area that we are changing.

If you could do only one thing differently for the better, what would it be?

Start there. Start immediately. Don’t wait until the clock strikes new, start now.

One is a whole lot better than none.

Stay BOLD, Keep Pursuing,

Josh W.

What do we do when we are thirsty?

We drink. We seek water, we buy beverages to quench our thirst.

What do we do when we are hungry?

We eat. You go to a restaurant or make something at home.

What do we do when we are tired?

We rest. We go to sleep. We take a nap. We turn off and let slumber take us for a while.

What the body desires, we must fulfill, otherwise we don’t get very far, you know, with the whole living thing.

But what about our mental and spiritual wellbeing? What do we do when we have dreams we wish to do?

We usually do nothing. We satisfy everything and everyone else first. We forgo our dreams for other things we think we need more, like money and status (follows, fans, outfits, press). We expect. We wait for our dreams to happen to us. A letter in the mail telling us we’ve won the lottery (huh, I don’t remember buying a lottery ticket… oh well!). Any day now. The Great Pumpkin will come out with treats and cheer any second now Charlie Brown, just you wait. We hope that our lives will just automagically change by itself. spontaneous improvement!

But that’s not how it works. Adventure favors the BOLD. You will not find fulfillment waiting for your dream, go do it.

Perhaps your dream starts with enabling someone else’s dream, or perhaps you need to steady your nerves and go for it. Whatever it is, waiting isn’t enough.

You could wait all your life (which is also not assured to be long, we just assume we will live till we are 90)  and still not have done your dream.

Or you can live it up in the present.

STAY BOLD, Keep Pursuing,

— Josh W.

Rough, rough day.

My neck / nerve pain has been killer today.

Not sure what’s up. Is it stress? emotional? something I’ve eaten? posture? all the above?

Ginger and foam rolling helped.

Not much of a blog tonight, just wanted to tell you why.

If you’re in pain too, I feel for you. I know how exhausting it can be. To live and expect to live a ‘normal’ life, while also dealing with pain.

Always remember, tomorrow is a brand new day, full of possibility.

A glass full of hope.

Stay BOLD, Keep Pursuing,

— Josh W.

Just got back from seeing Spider Man Into the Spider Verse a second time. I’m feeling a little rough tonight, might be coming down with something. Gonna keep this short and go mega dose on some Vitamin C and sleep.

tinyReview:

👍

Fun movie. Art was unique and gorgeous. Music was rad. Great message. If you like animation or superhero movies at all, go see Spider-Man Into the Spider Verse.

Stay Bold, Keep Pursuing,

— Josh W.

Not all knowledge is created equal.

What was the first thing you did the last time you were trying to remember something, like the name of a movie starring Anthony Hopkins, or some other, on the tip of your tongue fact?

You Googled it.

We live in a disjointed moment in history where the majority of what we are taught in school are facts while at the same time we have human collective knowledge in the palm of our hands.

Facts are easy.

Memorization is a skill (also something that’s not taught, beyond simple mnemonics.

Even most universities haven’t caught on yet. I help my sister with her statistics this past semester. She wasn’t being taught statistics at all though. She was being taught how to plug numbers into a calculator.

Knowledge is only useful if it’s relevant to who you are.

Let’s pick on math for example. Math is vital to the basis of society. Bridges, roads, buildings, houses, music, money… everything involves numbers. But when you’re a kid in a classroom all you know is that you gotta add one thing to another thing, and divide a thing to solve for a thing.

The why is abstracted from the what.

Useful Knowledge is relevant, relatable, inspiring, challenging, practical.

Facts are great and all (especially trivia night) but aren’t as profound and powerful as they could be when combined with the wisdom of why the facts are relevant.

You could spend years learning everything about cars and never utilize that knowledge because you live in a city where you walk everywhere and ride the train. Or worse in my mind, you could know everything about cars, and never have driven one. There are exceptions of course. Your interest in mechanics could lead to a use of that knowledge on a new invention idea you have, or lead to you working on rockets. But even then you’ve gotta get your hands greasy, so to speak.

Knowledge is powerful when used. It can change our lives for the better (when used ethically of course).

There’s a caveat of course 🙂 Anything you find enjoyable to learn, useless or not, is not a waste of time. In fact, no information is useless if you brings you joy.

STAY BOLD, Keep Pursuing,

— Josh W.

I am full of apple pie (definitely not gluten free) so I don’t have much of a brain at the moment, but I did think of one thing today:

Make decisions on restful, energetic days. And defer decisions on off days.

Bad decisions don’t usually feel bad in the moment. There’s a swirl of a thousands things going on around us, we’re under-slept, over-stressed, and anything but clear on what we need to do. And then on top of all this we make decisions. Rash decisions become bad decisions (or lucky decisions if fate turns our way).

STAY BOLD, Keep Pursuing,

— Josh W

I love opening gifts. Love surprises too.

Well, good surprises anyway.( I don’t know anyone who loves a bad surprise.)

In the season of giving and getting, I’ve been thinking a lot about what I own.

If you were to ask me on the spot, I don’t know if I could give you an accurate number of (all the) things I own.

Could you? If I asked you to count all of your worldly possessions?

Let’s refine the question.

How many things do you own that you use every day?

How many things do you never use?

How many things do you have that you would put in the clutter category?

You’ve probably heard the phrase, ‘the things you own, end up owning you’. It’s a well put phrase, and gets to the heart of the issue I’m talking about. But what does it look like in practice?

For one, owning something means being without something else. Unless you have unlimited resources (or unlimited genie wishes, either will do), purchasing one thing prevents you from purchasing something else (in the present). If I buy a new guitar for $3000, that prevents me from buying something equivalent, like a OLED TV, or another type of instrument. The guitar adds value to my life and enables me to continue mastering my music skills, but it doesn’t leave any wiggle room money wise. This applies not only to stuff but also experiences as well. I could buy a guitar, or I could take a trip to Hawaii. Is one choice greater than the other? Not really. That depends on my priorities and what I value most in this moment. Of course, in the moment, we don’t always think about these things this way. If I want a guitar, all I’m thinking about is the shiny new guitar on my wishlist, and am not really considering what the value and costs are if I click buy.

Another way things begin to own us is through osmosis.

Everything around you that you own has gravity and weight to it. Things hanging around your place are TODOs and habits you want to embodied, and a person you want to be more like. If you ARE living how you are buying, then the things around you are used regularly. Books are being read. Instruments being played. Exercise equipment has been hard at work. But often this isn’t the case. Usually, we are surrounded by things we wish we were doing, but are spending ever ounce of time, energy and focus we have NOT doing them. For good reasons usually. We’re too busy at work. We don’t have the time right now. Blah blah blah.

The question we must ask ourselves is should we keep things that weigh us down and zap our energy (just a little) every time we look at that pile of kitchen books and spiralizer and realize we haven’t cooked a proper home cooked meal in decades.

Remember this:

Before you buy something (or keep something) think about what it means for you to have it. Does it bring you joy? Is it an idealized version of who you want to be? Can you make time for it right now? Is it worth it?

And when you buy something new, thing about another object you already own that you can part with. A thing for a thing. One for one. Out with the old you, in with the new you.

Things are only worth having if they are actually useful or bring us joy. Everything else is for the birds and would be much more appreciated in someone else’s home.

STAY BOLD, Keep Pursuing,

— Josh W

The holidays feel like a big reset button to me. Perhaps it’s because January 1st moves closer, or the Holiday break from work and school are just a natural pause that gives us time to think about things we are normally too busy to give time for. Whatever the case, a great way of refocusing your efforts on what actually matters to you is reading books that challenge you and hang a big question mark on how you live and what you want out of life.

Here’s a few recommends that have helped me this past year:

Solve For Happy

“You are not your thoughts”

‘If you were, would you be able to observe your thoughts, or have moments where you stop thinking?’ (paraphrasing)

As soon as I read this line, I realized how impactful Solve for Happy would be. Mo Gawdat, former chief business officer at X (Google X), dives deep into what happiness actually means, and the actions (you know I love anything with practical application) we can take to live and enjoy happiness.

Resources:

Talks at Google: Mo Gawdat “Solve for Happy: Engineer Your Path to Joy”

Solve for Happy Website

Link to Book on Amazon

Almost Everything

“There is so much going on that flattens us, that is huge, scary, or simply appalling. We’re doomed, stunned, exhausted, and overcaffeinated. And yet, outside my window, yellow roses bloom, and little kids horse around, making joyous racket.”

2018 has been a tough year. Tough in general, but also tough for me personally. To say I’ve been on a rollercoaster (mentally, emotionally, physically, financially etc) is an understatement.

Anne Lamott is a treasure. The way she writes and thinks about the world has me howling with laughter on one page, and on the verge of tears on another. Almost Everything is a book about hope, and lessons that Anne has learned along the way.

If you are looking for some encouragement, a little hope, or a shake out of despair / discouragement, pick it up.

After reading this and Bird by Bird, I immediately impulse bought the rest of her (bestselling) books. Anne also has a fantastic TED talk by the way.

Also check out Live Your Truth by Kamal Ravikant. Another one of my favorites.

Resources:

TED: Twelve Truths I Learned from Life and Writing

Link to Almost Everything on Amazon

It doesn’t have to be crazy at work.

“Anxiety isn’t a prerequisite for progress.”

“Oftentimes it’s not breaking out, but diving in, digging deeper, staying in your rabbit hole that brings the biggest gains. Depth, not breath, is where mastery is often found.”

“If you don’t own the vast majority of your time, it’s impossible to be calm. You’ll always be stressed out, feeling robbed of the ability to actually do your job.”

If you’ve caught yourself saying or thinking “work is crazy” “I’m super busy” or finding yourself being too tired to do anything on the weekends because of work (or STILL working and checking email on the weekend) you are not alone. It seems like nowadays, if your work week isn’t stuffed to the brim with TODOs, you’re not working hard enough. It doesn’t have to be crazy at work is a case against crazy, and why you don’t need to ‘busy’ to do great work.

Jason Fried and DHH are two of my favorite thinkers. Ever. If there was ever a company I would love to work for, it would be Basecamp. This book makes me want to cry it’s so good. It doesn’t have to be crazy at work is a primer on how to build a calm company. While I was reading it, I was often reminded of Tim Ferriss’s question he asks himself, “what if I did the opposite?” This book is a ‘what if I did the opposite’ of what everyone else is doing with work to be ‘productive’ and make a profit. If you feel like work is controlling your entire life, this is a must read.

Honorable Mentions:

Leonardo Da Vinci —Walter Isaacson

Elon Musk — Ashlee Vance

On the Shortness of Life — Seneca

Making Art a Practice — Cat Bennett

How to Stop Worrying and Start Living — Dale Carnegie

STAY BOLD, Keep Pursuing,

— Josh W.

Start.

Don’t wait for New Years.

Don’t wait for the right time.

Money, time, energy, courage… whatever you think you need to get going are just nice to have things that enhance what you do, you don’t need them. ‘But other people have more than me’ yeah they do, that makes you an underdog, and everybody loves a good underdog story.

None of this is new, you’ve heard of version of this before.

The reasons you haven’t started are the reasons we all haven’t started what we wished we would have started: excuses.

Inner fear is just an embodiment of our excuses. It’s a coat we can wear that protects us from harm (real harm sometimes, but 80% of the time false harm). Which means you don’t always have to keep it on. (That’s super cheesy 🧀 Josh…)

Now is the time. Even if it’s 11 PM at night. Just one small act to get the momentum going.

Start.

STAY BOLD, Keep Pursuing,

— Josh W.

I’ve been learning a lot about entropy this week.

Crash Course: https://youtu.be/ZsY4WcQOrfk

TedED: https://youtu.be/YM-uykVfq_E

Entropy: Why Life Always Seems to Get More Complicated

Trying to compare thermodynamics to our personal lives is like trying to compare car mechanics and peanut butter, it’s better to not. But it’s hard to resist. In simple terms (perhaps too simple), Entropy is a measurement of disorder. In life, order is more likely to move towards disorder. Order becomes disorder. It’s equilibrium in a way. A hot cup of coffee becomes cool, roads grown worn, we grow old.

What I’m really looking for are systems to live by. I know what I want. Now it’s a matter of discovering how.

It’s sounds minor, but it’s helpful to know that things tend to get discorded over time, because we can build checks and balances into our lives that help stay focused on what’s important to us, instead of lost to the whims of, well, everything else.

Stay BOLD, Keep Pursuing,

— Josh W.