Meaning & Purpose

A Drop in an Ocean

/ nicholasjinfante / Leave a comment

Have you ever been getting your shit together and making consistent progress in the key areas of life you know you need to be doing better in, but then hit a bump in the road, have a setback, or start repeating old self-sabotaging behaviors and think to yourself, “Why am I like this? What in the actual fuck is wrong with me?”

As someone who’s changed a lot in (mostly) beneficial ways over the past decade, I can tell you that it happens to me pretty frequently. I haven’t had much time to sit down and write lately, so I want to take this opportunity to talk a bit about the darkside of self-improvement. You know… the hard parts. The I-feel-like-shit-even-though-I’m-doing-everything-”right” parts. The parts that most social media influencers don’t talk about because it doesn’t get enough likes or because they’re out of touch with reality. 

I want to reiterate that something I still believe is an absolute truth is that your life cannot be better spent on anything other than becoming the best version of yourself. It doesn’t mean you have to be loaded with money, it doesn’t mean you have to have a six pack and fuck like a porn star, and it damn sure doesn’t mean you have to pretend like you’re having the best time of your life at Disney World with your spouse and three kids on Instagram… the bags under your eyes are telling a different story, Becca. 

It doesn’t mean any of those things. It just means that you should strive to become the best version of you – whatever that means to you. Forget the conventional and societal constructs of what you “ShOuLd dO.” Sit down and ask yourself honestly, “what does a life that I would love to have look like and what do I [realistically] have to do to get it?” Then do those things… and don’t expect it to be easy. 

Now that we’ve covered the process in a nutshell, the rest is mainly execution. This is where you realize you’ve got a dream and a goal in mind, but you don’t actually know jack shit about how to attain it. If you like learning, you’re in luck because that’s what you need to do a lot of. Especially in the beginning. Start bridging the gap between the lack of skills and knowledge you currently have and the level of skills and knowledge you need to attain your goal as soon as possible. 

If you don’t like learning, well… this is all about changing yourself for the better. So start there. You need to think, act, and behave like the person deserving of the life you want. Don’t get caught up in the information gathering stage and start overthinking everything, but do gather information and think about it. (Everything in moderation, they say).

Embrace the journey and the process of growing into a new, better version of yourself and start taking action towards that end immediately. Putting off until tomorrow what you could be doing today is stacking the odds against you. It’s putting the start of a new, better life on hold. It’s pushing what you want further and further off into the distance and therefore, perpetually out of reach. 

See, evolution is not just something we undergo biologically over large periods of time as a species. The process of evolution is also available to each of us as individuals. The evolution of character. The evolution of spirit. The evolution of identity. The caveat is that Nature is unending and so that form of evolution will never cease to exist, whereas our personal evolution is limited by our impermanence.

The second you’re born, the clock starts ticking and we don’t know how much time we actually have. I really can’t stress enough that it’s never too late to get started, but the sooner you do get started, the sooner you will be able to experience the empowerment that comes from owning your full potential. Fortune favors the bold and results favor those who take action.

Once you’re solidly on the path of personal development, you will see how fast you can truly accelerate your life. The rewards you get from challenging yourself, overcoming obstacles, and actualizing your dreams will reinforce and invigorate you to never stop trying to improve. After all, if we are in control of choosing what meaning we bestow on our own lives, what could be a more worthy pursuit?

Again, it’s really important to subjectively decide what the best version of you looks like in your own mind because that will heavily dictate where you focus your time and energy. If you break yourself trying to fit the mold of someone else’s dream or someone else’s best version of you, you will still feel empty inside even if you succeed. Do it for you. 

Imagine if you can make the never-ending pursuit of your own personal excellence your main objective and then apply that motivation daily over the course of your remaining life. Is that 60+ years? 50+? 40+? Most people reading this still have a lot of time on the clock. Most people also know what things they should be doing (that they currently aren’t) in order to move themselves in the direction they want to go… if they’re being honest with themselves.

The problem is that few people have the level of patience required to operationalize that knowledge. In the age of TikTok, dating apps, and instacart, humans and chipmunks are competing for the shortest attention span in the animal kingdom. Luckily, patience is a skill that you can acquire and strengthen over time… and you’re really going to need it.

The type of progress we’re after when we start to prioritize our personal growth must be measured in years and decades, not weeks and months. We live in a world that thrives on instant gratification nowadays, but it is a trap. Play the long game, always. 

As cliche as it sounds, getting started really is the hard part. Once you build a little confidence in your ability to work through problems and find the next piece of the puzzle, it starts to feel a bit more like a game you want to keep playing. For better or worse, people really are just over complicated monkeys. The positive reinforcement you gain from overcoming challenges will encourage you to keep seeking new challenges and the continual progress you make each step of the way will stack up over time and can quickly reach mind blowing proportions. Never underestimate the value of momentum in your life.

My personal introduction to all of this began about five years ago in the winter of 2018. By July of 2019, I really started to take a more introspective approach to bettering myself and trying to change my life. I was about seven months into building my current business and had just returned from backpacking around Europe for a month on a solo adventure. I met tons of cool people from all over the world, saw a lot of cool shit, and had to deal with some not so cool shit. I even learned a bit of Spanish and German. 

I also got really fucked up. A lot. 

Having partied in NYC, Las Vegas, and Miami before, I really didn’t expect to be impressed by the party scenes in Madrid, Berlin, Amsterdam, and Paris, but I was wrong. Europeans are fucking nuts…. but I digress. Something interesting occurred on this trip that would create an ever expanding ripple effect across all areas of my life. I had left home simply excited to see things I had never seen before, but it actually turned out to be the blazing glory ending of a difficult chapter of my life. 

When I returned home, nothing felt the same. I hit the local bars in my neighborhood in NYC I used to bounce at and tried resuming my usual routine and habits… but I realized I wasn’t actually enjoying myself. I wasn’t having fun anymore. I started wondering if I ever had been in the first place.

This startling realization made me confront a whole host of internal issues I had been suppressing for many years. My identity as the no-fucks-given party boy was shattered and replaced by the clearer image of a 25-year-old manchild with no direction living with his mom and drinking heavily to distract himself from uncomfortable truths. I wasn’t drinking because I was having a good time, I was drinking because I didn’t know what else to do with myself. 

It was then that I decided to try something different. Something radical. Something terrifying. I decided to try living life sober. 

If you’ve never dealt with addiction or breaking a cycle of unhealthy habits before, let’s just say that it is not a small mountain to climb. Life is hard for everyone and we all develop our own ways of coping with the hardship of that. Some ways are better than others – drugs and alcohol are an objectively bad way.

To be fully transparent, I got drunk and smoked weed for the first time when I was 13 years old. By the time I was 14, I had tried cocaine and things quickly went off the rails from there. I stopped going to school, I started getting into fights fairly often, and I started selling drugs so that I could do them as much as possible without going broke.

As I descended deeper into the cycle of addiction, I experimented with other drugs and became increasingly dependent on cocaine and alcohol just to function in my everyday life. “Only on the weekends” became a daily habit and my ability to feel good without the use of mind-altering substances was more or less nonexistent by the time I was 17 years old.

I really haven’t spoken much about this phase of my life and the toll it took on my physical, mental, and emotional health… but this behavior lasted in some capacity until I was 25. I’ve since made peace with all of my mistakes and have been working on accepting the parts of me I had tried to suppress with drugs and alcohol for so long. I realize now that what had felt rebellious and cool at the time was really a teenager’s desperate attempt to self-medicate his depression and anxiety because he was too embarrassed and ashamed to ask for help.

Once you’re dependent on drugs and alcohol to function, taking them away feels like a kind of identity suicide. As an addict, giving up these substances is essentially giving up your invisibility cloak. It’s like walking out from cover straight into the gunfire of life. Bullets start to hit you and you have no way of numbing the pain anymore. You start to feel everything fully again and at first it seems almost unbearable. You start to remember why you were hiding and running from it in the first place. 

But then a funny thing happens – you realize the hundredth bullet doesn’t hurt as much as the first few. If you can maintain your sobriety through the worst of it, you eventually become desensitized to the pain and rise above it. You develop a new set of coping skills that are constructive and propel you forward rather than returning to the destructive habits that had been keeping you stuck in a vicious cycle of self-pity and desperation. You cultivate a special kind of resiliency that makes you dangerously powerful and you start to reach acceptance and find peace with yourself and your life. It is a slow and grueling process, but also incredibly rewarding. 


Sometimes your perceived weaknesses are also your superpower in disguise. I’ve thought a lot about this recently when considering how to deliver the message within this blog entry, and here’s what I realized: I’m still the same person who was addicted to cocaine and vodka nine years ago. I’m still very much an addict right now. The difference is, I’m not getting high off of drugs anymore – I’m getting high off of my own progress. Sure, I don’t always feel like waking up and tackling a huge to-do list in the morning and I might feel really overwhelmed in my day-to-day reality on occasion, but when I break through a plateau – when I figure out how to ascend to the next level – I experience the best feeling I’ve ever had in my life. In other words, I didn’t overcome my addiction, I channeled it into something useful instead.

I don’t let it show, but some days are nothing short of a battle. Showing up for myself and the people who rely on me to perform at a high level every single day isn’t as automatic as a Steph Curry three pointer. Sometimes I just feel mentally exhausted and depleted, but I find a way to push through it because I know that what I want from life demands it. I am constantly trying to choose behaviors that are going to move me closer to my dreams and my ultimate goals. It’s far from a linear process – some days are downright dog shit. Sometimes a slump lasts weeks or months. But I still give it my best, and sometimes my best is just staying sober that day, and that’s perfectly fine.

I fully recognize that the separation between achieving my dreams and not achieving them may solely reside in whether I can handle the pain, the setbacks, and the failures of life without self-imploding or quitting on myself. Do I feel certain that I will always find a way forward even if I come up short? When I look in the mirror, do I see somebody that I can count on to do the right thing? These are the questions you need to ask yourself. The external results you want in your life are going to emerge from the relationship you cultivate within yourself, not the million other factors you have no control over.

When shit gets hard, I ask myself what the 85-year-old me would be proud to say I did in this moment – then I do that. I think the worst thing in life would be reaching the end of it and realizing you didn’t leave it all on the field. That you could have done a lot of things better and wish you had. To feel regret for the choices you made and realize you have no time left. I envision what I can do with 56 more years of focus and hard work from the present moment. Those thoughts help me minimize my current problems and align my present day self with my long-term goals. I’m not going to lie, it energizes the fuck out of me. 

Because here’s the thing… We all have shit that we go through. A single mom with 2 kids who wants to start a business, someone who is readjusting to life after a physically and emotionally abusive relationship, someone with a chronic injury or illness who wants to get in shape – we all have shit we have to deal with and contend with. We all have reasons why we can’t or why it’s so much easier for someone else to do it. Some of these things might be worse than others and many are completely legitimate factually speaking, but here’s another secret… it doesn’t fucking matter. 

The cards you have in your hand are the cards you have to play with. Period. You can cry about your cards and tell everybody else at the table that your cards aren’t fair, but it won’t change them. Which means you essentially only have two options. Option 1) Try to figure out how to win despite your shitty hand or Option 2) You can fold. That’s the game of life. (Tough, I know). I hope you choose the first of those two options, but that is a decision we all have to make as individuals. 

There is a particular mentality and perspective I use to help me stay mostly in this frame of mind in my own personal life. It’s far from perfect and I have to really make a concerted effort to keep it at the forefront of my thoughts, but it is more or less a subconscious belief now that permeates my behaviors. This is not to say that this is how you should think about life or that this is the “right” way to think. This is just what I use to help me get outside of my own head and move the ball forward in the direction of what I want most daily. It is, in my opinion, the biggest reason for my ability to generate results that others struggle to obtain. 

Most of us convince ourselves that the struggles and adversities we face are unique to us. They may feel unique to us because we live in a small town or because we don’t personally know anybody else going through it, but the chances of us encountering a really unique issue that no one else has experienced is pretty much zero. The idea that your problems are unique to you only serves to create a perception that there may be no solutions to them. As you might have guessed, this is wholly unhelpful to making beneficial improvements in your life. You cannot outperform what you think is possible. You must internalize the idea that you can do it, have it, and be it before you can actually experience it in real life. It’s the basic idea behind manifesting, which is why that practice actually has legitimate utility (even if it is a little woo woo). 

It helps to realize that the world is a crazy and chaotic place full of people just as fucked up and confused as you are. As I write this, a new conflict has recently reignited in the Middle East and we have been reminded of the cruelty and inhumanity that exists and has always existed. You can choose to submerge yourself into it… keeping track of every headline… every disaster… every evil deed… you can force yourself to try to reason with the unreasonable… you can force yourself to have an opinion about everything… you can try to figure out the right things to say to appease others… you can drive yourself absolutely mad….

Or you can “zoom out.” 

I won’t say I do this every single day because that would be a lie, but I do this most mornings before I start my day. I do several minutes of breathwork and meditation where I just focus on being present in the moment. I listen to the sounds around me, I focus on how my body feels, and I try to silence my mind. As I focus on my breath I visualize myself sitting in my bedroom at the end of my bed. I put my hands together in my lap, cradling the back of my right hand in the palm of my left and touching my thumbs together. I then begin the process of “zooming out” by imagining that I’m rising above myself and above my apartment building and over the entire city of Charlotte. I go further and see the state of North Carolina, then the entirety of the United States… then North America… then the whole earth. 

At this point, I begin to speed things up. The planets in our solar system and the sun whiz by. Everything starts blurring together. The Earth where I began my journey becomes imperceptible and the stars and vastness of space stretch infinitely into darkness. The reality of my reality starts to reveal itself. I see and recognize the truth in all of it. I realize that I am just a microscopic dot in the universe. 

All human beings collectively at once on this space rock floating through the abyss are nothing more than a speck of dust in the grand scheme of things. We are merely a drop in an ocean. Maybe this thought gives you anxiety at first, but I hope you really ruminate on it and allow it to give you strength. You can choose to be anything in this life. Choose to be free. Free from judgment (from yourself and others), free from expectation, and most of all free from the torment you put yourself through when you allow the outside world to dictate who and what you think you should be. 

Some may view this as a reason to feel that nothing matters and so then why bother trying, but I would argue to the contrary. If nothing matters anyway, why play it safe? Why try to limit yourself and the size of your dreams? Why not find a reason to attempt the most audacious thing you can think of? Why not try to live the most exceptional life that you are capable of? That makes a lot more sense to me than just sitting on my ass waiting to die. Regardless of whether or not our lives mean anything in the big picture or whether the constructs we create in our minds hold any true value, how we feel is real. To be happy or to be void of happiness is a real condition.

The reality is that you and every single person alive right now to form an opinion of you and whatever you do or don’t do with your temporary time on this planet will be dead 150 years from now. In three generations, the most influential people of our time will have been forgotten except for honorable mentions in history classes. So unless you’re Elon Musk, you’re probably not getting much airtime after you expire. What’s actually holding you back from taking risks and going for it isn’t any logical reason, it’s simply fear. It is a figment of your imagination. After all, this human experience is really only good for one thing… chasing whatever gives it the most meaning and purpose while we have it.

If you can tune out the noise and the distractions of the external world around you and focus on what is actually important, it is unlikely that you will fail in the long run. Zoom out and find true perspective. Consider what you really are and what you are a part of. The substance that comprises the vastness of the universe is alive within you. The fact that you are alive right now is almost unbelievable, from both a mathematical and critical thinking point of view. Life is truly a gift and you are capable of great things because you were given the opportunity to pursue them.

Find a way to think and act from a place of love despite the hate and vitriol that exists around you. Do the best you can each day no matter what that looks like. Do the greatest amount of good that you can with the limited amount of time you have left. Try to live each day without taking it for granted. Remember that it is a waste of time to be outraged, especially if you aren’t helping to make a difference. It is an even greater disservice to the world to allow yourself to be paralyzed by fear when you know that the full potential of your life requires action. 

First zoom out… then look inward.

Finding Fulfillment

/ nicholasjinfante / Leave a comment

I just returned home from an eventful two weeks in NYC. I ate too much food at many great restaurants, saw a broadway show, got trapped in the most toxic air mass recorded in over half a century, and was able to spend some much needed time with friends and family I don’t get to see often. I visited my old neighborhood, embraced being a tourist in my former home, dodged some freakishly large rats, was accosted on at least three separate occasions, and nearly shit my pants once because trying to find a public restroom in New York City is akin to trying to find the fountain of youth. I also went to a Yankee game, but we’re not going to talk about them until they get their fucking act together. 

Anyway… while I was hanging out with one of my best friends one day in the city, we ended up having a bit of a heart to heart. The subject matter touched on something I’ve spoken about before, but I feel it is such a prevalent issue and there can never be too much said about its importance. I am drawing on memory several weeks old (and I may or may not have taken a hit of a joint before this conversation occurred), but we were speaking about how great it feels to watch other people succeed and find happiness in their lives, and then he said something along the lines of, “But it can be really hard sometimes because I haven’t found my thing / I don’t know what it is.” 

Let me preface the rest of this post by saying that this person is one of the most intelligent people I know. He has overcome so much in his life already to be where he is today. He has a good job and he’s living with his fiance in a great part of Manhattan and they’re both under 30 – he’s objectively killing it right now. I have seen this person demonstrate his determination and discipline in the form of grueling physical activity that most Americans wouldn’t even want to attempt, let alone be able to execute. I doubt he’s aware of this, but I truly admire his ability to dedicate himself completely to something and not stop until he’s accomplished it. And yet, deep down, he feels that there is something missing – he feels unfulfilled.

We spoke of the importance of trying new things and he mentioned that his job offers him an ideal work/life balance. He also conceded that he should be trying new things more often, but he appreciates his downtime and never actually gets around to it. I think I have to make a concession myself here – up until now I have felt strongly that everyone should seek meaningful work in their life. I felt that it was absolutely necessary for human fulfillment. Although I still believe that this form of finding fulfillment is under the most direct control of the individual, my stance has recently changed in that it is not necessary to experience fulfillment through work, granted that you can find it from some other means.

I just finished reading Man’s Search For Meaning by Viktor Frankl, and in this book he states that there are indeed three different ways a human being can derive meaning from their existence. They are: (1) By creating a work or accomplishing some task, (2) By experiencing something fully or loving somebody (aw), and (3) By the attitude that one adopts toward unavoidable suffering (the keyword here being unavoidable). I find myself fully accepting this theory. I still believe that human beings by design are created to solve problems, help each other, and contribute to the greater good and should therefore find their unique way of accomplishing these things through meaningful work. BUT, I also recognize that this is not realistic for everyone and therefore it would only stand to reason that there are other ways of meeting this human need.

Aside from meaningful work, the next option you have for finding fulfillment in your life is through experiencing love. When someone finds meaning in their life through loving someone else, I think it is more often a child rather than a spouse or partner. I’m sure some people have found a way to happily live their lives for their significant other, but I personally find that to be a recipe for disaster because most relationships based on a high level of codependency tend to be pretty…. troublesome. However, although I have no plans for children of my own, I can (and have) seen how bringing a human life into this world can absolutely alter the essence of one’s own existence. Those who take responsibility for their children and rise to the occasion to help them learn and grow and thrive in this challenging world suddenly find their own well-being coming in second place, behind that of their child’s. It becomes their mission to protect and provide. In this way, they are given a purpose to live for. 

The third way… by the attitude that one adopts toward unavoidable suffering – I believe means the way someone can interpret a meaning in their pain. It is difficult to speculate what might go through the mind of someone who has been given a terminal diagnosis, someone who has lost a loved one in a car accident, or someone who has been wrongfully convicted of a crime – but these are instances of unavoidable suffering. Should your suffering be avoidable, you should do everything in your power to alleviate yourself of it. But when the source of your suffering is unavoidable, it becomes an opportunity to find meaning in that pain. Probably the best and most recent personal experience I can draw upon is having spent the worst months of the pandemic in the epicenter of the world. Though the various sorts of suffering experienced were unavoidable, I developed a greater sense of empathy, compassion, gratitude and genuine appreciation for life itself because of it. I found meaning in that suffering. 

As it relates to my friend, I think having found an occupation that provides him an agreeable way of life financially and creates a desired work/life balance is excellent. Many people would do anything to have that, but it still doesn’t fill the uniquely human need we all have – the need for fulfillment. Perhaps his need for fulfillment can be quenched by something else he can pursue as a hobby… or maybe he is simply going to wait until he has children and find a greater meaning to his life that way. All I can say is that when one is unsure of their purpose and is searching for meaning, it is incumbent on that person to continuously seek out new experiences and to stay patient. To have found so much meaning early on in my life through my work is somewhat paradoxical because the most unfortunate event of my life turned out to also be the most fortunate. A “blessing in disguise,” if you will. Without having understood the mission that I was being called to during the depths of the lockdowns in NYC, I very well may have lost my mind. I leaned into my work and the value I was creating for others in their time of need became more important to me than my own struggles. That gave me purpose. 

That being said, I don’t expect everyone to take a philosophical stance to life and pull a highly rewarding job out of their ass like a cruise line magician. But I do expect people to be reasonable. And a reasonable stance to take is to understand that you do not have to be sure of the meaning of your life so early on. Some people don’t find it until their 50’s or 60’s or even longer. Unfortunately, many never find it at all – these are the people who refuse to try new things. The ones who accept apathy as a cure for longing. At some point you have to accept that this human experience we’re all a part of is as unique to each of us as our fingerprint or DNA. Putting emphasis on some imaginary destination or subscribing to the idea that your life “should be” some particular way is to miss the point of life itself – it’s the journey and the evolution of your being that you’re here for. It’s overcoming challenges, solving problems, and developing into the best version of yourself along the way that you’re supposed to be focused on. If you don’t find a way to go all in on that, then you’re just sitting around waiting to die. 

Maybe the most striking interpretation in Man’s Search For Meaning was the idea that we all believe we are asking what the meaning to our life is when in reality we are the ones who are being asked. This simple shift in your psychological orientation towards this dilemma can set you free. Rather than feeling like some hopelessly lost soul meandering around wondering why the world won’t show you the way, you can take full control of your situation and instead show the world what your life stands for. See, you can have/do just about anything you want in life if you have the audacity to believe in yourself enough and have the balls to go for it. Many like to think that there is some fatalistic predetermined order to the universe, but I don’t think so. I think that we are all here for a reason and that everything conceivable is available to each of us. It is our free will and how we make use of it that will ultimately determine the quality of our life. That’s the X factor in all of this. You’re here for something, but can you find it? Can you become the person you need to be to actualize it? 

Essentially, this means that there are myriad different paths each of us can take in life. It is up to us, based on the decisions we make and the actions we take, to influence and construct the path we want for ourselves. What tends to trip people up is the fear of choosing incorrectly. The crippling anxiety that stems from understanding each major decision we make can dramatically alter the trajectory of our life for better or worse causes a lot of people to freeze. However, I’d like to point out again that if you stand still, time continues to move along with or without your cooperation. To not embrace the power of making these decisions is still a decision. It is to voluntarily be swept away with time – to just sit around and wait to die. The finiteness and impermanence of your life should be all you need to discard this anxiety and hop into the driver’s seat. Time is going to carry you forward regardless, so you may as well steer the damn thing. 

If you’re stuck in the I-have-no-fucking-clue-what-I’m-doing-here stage or if you’ve made a series of bad decisions and just want to change direction in your life – then I think this simple equation can help. I’m speaking from personal experience here. My free will used to prioritize doing a lot of cocaine and guzzling cheap vodka instead of seeking out new opportunities and becoming a better person (more on that at another time). It wasn’t until I decided to really start doing what was best for me that my life began to open up in ways I never thought possible. If you’re feeling lost right now, I firmly believe you should focus on these two things: 

  1. Discovering what you like to do 
  1. Discovering what you’re good at  

The beauty here is that finding out what you like to do and what you’re good at involves the same process. The process of trying new shit. You have to be willing to try new things or you’re pretty much shit out of luck. This is where I’m going to lose a lot of people. Too often no one wants to put themselves out there and go through the elimination phase of figuring out what they don’t like and what they’re not good at – they don’t want to “waste their time.” The irony is that by not putting yourself out there and trying new things and exposing yourself to new ideas and new possibilities, wasting your time is exactly what you’re doing. Finding meaning and fulfillment in your life is not going to come to you – you must go out in the world and look for it. This is easier than it’s ever been because you don’t even have to leave the house anymore. Try new things online. It doesn’t matter how you do it, it just matters that you do actually do it. 

Once you’ve figured out what you like to do and what you’re good at, it becomes a matter of creativity. How creatively can you merge these two things together to give yourself a solid starting point on a new chapter of your life? In a perfect world you would be able to find a job opening with a lit up runway that was an exact 50/50 mash-up of these two things. The reality is that you might have to create the job or path you need to be on. It might not exist yet. You’re going to have to make compromises and deal with things that suck along the way. When it comes to life, dealing with bullshit is the price of admission. Just don’t stop trying new things until you have identified what you like to do and what you are good at. If you find and combine those two things together, you will swing the odds of being successful in whatever way is most meaningful to you and of finding fulfillment in your life solidly in your favor. On the other hand, if your willingness to try new things is contingent on knowing whether or not you will succeed, you’ve already failed. 

It should be liberating rather than worrisome to hear that your life and what you make of it is entirely in your hands, but it is an unfortunate reality that people want to believe this less and less nowadays. It is far easier to blame the conditions of your childhood, your parents, the government, the economy, the rich, your health, or whatever other reasons you can think of to avoid looking in the mirror and asking yourself the hard questions. Are you actually trying your best? Are you working on building better habits and destroying self-sabotaging behaviors? Are you seeking new knowledge and opportunities? Are you taking consistent action? If the answer is yes, then you’re dealing with a case of impatience. I, nor anyone else can make you any guarantees in life, but if you are truly doing all of the above things to the best of your ability and being consistent – you are as close to guaranteed as you can get to having a better life than if you are not doing those things. If the answer is no, then those are the questions you need to examine closely and interrogate yourself on. Why are you not doing them and what is getting in your way?

Another thing I want to stress here is that if you’re struggling to find fulfillment right now, you are not alone. There is a rampant issue of severe unfulfillment in our modern society. This is particularly true in the United States. If you look at the discontentment of the masses – suicide rates, substance abuse (especially opiates like fentanyl) and the epidemic of mass shootings, there is a common thread amongst them. All, most likely, can be traced back to an underlying feeling of meaninglessness. I’m aware that this is a gross oversimplification of these issues, but at their core, are we not dealing with a large population of people who are struggling to recognize the value of their life? Maybe the real epidemic we’re facing is a lack of purpose. It’s good to have ambition and to want your life to be better, but don’t allow that feeling to manifest itself as hatred for your life the way that it is at this moment. Don’t want to be different so badly that it hurts your self-esteem about being who you are right now. If things aren’t going well, judging your life in its totality when there’s still time on the clock does nothing to help you. It just demoralizes you and sucks the wind out of your sails. You’re supposed to fuck up. You’re supposed to be frustrated. Angry. Sad. Worried. You’re supposed to feel all of these things because you’re a human being. What you’re also supposed to do is find whatever gives your life meaning and chase it ferociously – in spite of it all. 

There is good news here. Human beings are blessed with an internal navigation system. Not in location, but in life. If you’re feeling lost, consult your mind and your heart (in that order) and follow what you know to be right. Rely on this system to find your True North and never stop walking in that direction. No one else can do this for you. You can have people who love and support you along the way, but at the end of the day, your life is solely your responsibility. No one knows what you need better than you do. Don’t shy away from the challenge of finding fulfillment in your life – it’s supposed to be difficult. Life is this uncertain, complex, chaotic and mysterious thing. It’s somehow irrational and logical, and dysfunctional and organized, all at the same time. I think the beauty of it is that there’s really no “right” answer. There’s only the answer that you provide. Once you’ve given an answer, you get to determine whether or not it’s the right answer for you. If it’s not, you can change your answer as many times as you need to. Because you are not the one that is asking what the meaning of your life is… you are the one that is being asked.

Passion is Purpose

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It’s important to know where the line exists between practicality and wishful thinking. It’s equally important to have the capacity to do things you don’t necessarily want to do in order to provide for yourself when need be. I’ve had my fair share of jobs that I wholeheartedly despised in my life already and I’m prepared to have one again if push comes to shove. It’s an unfortunate part of life, but the fact is that sometimes you just have to suck it up and pay your dues so that you can pay your bills. That being said, if you hate your job and the work you do, you have got to put yourself in the mindset of understanding that it is temporary. I don’t know what it is about human nature that allows people to accept unending misery in the form of unfulfilling and understimulating work, but it literally pains me when I see people letting that happen to themselves. Sometimes I feel like people end up taking a job out of desperation and over time become comfortable with their pay, schedule, coworkers, etc. and end up trying to fit their life around those circumstances. “Good enough” becomes the mantra of the masses as you hit adulthood. It’s sad. We spend way too much of our lives working to give up on chasing our dreams and making a living doing what we love. 

No matter what job I had – whether it was pushing wheelbarrows full of rocks up the side of a hill in the sweltering heat, splitting wood outside in the frigid cold, or standing for seventeen hours straight in the corner of a dingy bar waiting to jump in the middle of two idiots boxing each other – not once did I ever think to myself that I was going to make them work for me in the long-term. Not once. On the contrary, I always felt more capable than anybody gave me credit for. I felt so underutilized, unappreciated and disrespected by the jobs I worked that it pissed me off. I didn’t even think I had to prove anything because I felt like it should have been obvious to the people I worked for that I could do much more if given the opportunity. Now I realize that most people in all industries are content with doing the bare minimum and are basically Stevie Wonder when it comes to spotting good workers in their businesses. Being in the position I’m in now where I run a company and have a hand in the hiring/firing process, it is unbelievable to me the amount of people in management positions who have their heads fully lodged up their asses. I used to suspect it, but now I know. Most of the jobs I’ve had in my life, I would have been more efficient running the whole business than whatever task-related position I was performing in. 

That might sound egotistical, but truth be told, we all have talents. Some people can sing, some people can draw. I can write and build businesses. In fact, I’m able to successfully leverage the first talent to bolster the second. But here’s the thing – it’s not just what I’m good at… it’s what I love to do. I’m currently working seven days a week and I’m sitting here writing this blog post at midnight hoping it offers something of value to one of the people who read it in the future and I’m doing it because I love to write and I want to help people however I can. I know that years from now, the fact that this blog was written and that it still exists will mean more to me than anything else I could be spending my time on right now. Similarly, the only reason I’m able to stomach working seven days a week is because I love what I do. It’s not just monotonous emails and stale meetings. It’s building something from the ground up. It’s learning how to combine the best of myself with the best of others to produce the greatest outcomes consistently. It’s strategizing. It’s problem solving. It’s taking risks. It’s the most exciting thing I’ve ever done in my life. Waking up in the morning knowing that I live or die by how accountable I am to myself is like breathing oxygen to me. Everything being my fault is the ultimate liberation. I don’t accept that other people have the ability to decide whether I win or lose anymore. In my mind, that power solely resides with me. If I accomplish great things, it’s because I earned them. If I end up broke and picking up the pieces again – at least I earned that too. I push myself every day because I know it influences the probability of me ending up on the side of those two options I want to be on. I show the fuck up for myself and my team because I wouldn’t rather be doing anything else – even when it’s hard.  

This is why I want to discuss passion with you. When you find that thing that really lights you up inside to the point that everything outside of working towards being the absolute best you can be at it becomes blurry to you, it’s like something just clicks into place. It ignites your passion and your passion becomes your purpose. It turns into a legitimate obsession – an internal driving force that sustains itself through the inevitable ups and downs. No matter what you want to be successful at, it’s going to require a lot of hard work. Not to state the obvious here, but you will be much more likely to work hard when you enjoy your job than if you hate it. That’s why pursuing your passion is so important. You can turn it into fuel. When you’re driven only by arbitrary accomplishments like money and a big house/dream car, you fizzle out eventually. That’s why most people never achieve those things even though they sincerely want them. But if you feel like you’re doing what you were created for – like you found the thing you were placed on this earth to do with your life – then you’re able to transcend your limits and those things end up falling in your lap as a natural byproduct of your efforts. When you encounter difficulties, you either go over, around, or straight through anything that gets in your way. Desire, especially if it’s directed purely towards material things, is a finite resource. It can only take you so far when things get hard. Purpose, however, is renewable. If you continuously dig deeper, you will always find more of it to carry you forward.

I see a lot of “success gurus” and social media influencers shitting on the idea of pursuing your passion lately. They make it seem silly or childish to think it’s possible to make a life worth living that way. They go so far in treating it with contempt as if to paint prioritizing your own joy as emasculating for men or purely stupid for anyone to believe it can be done. You have to be mindful of the role money plays in your life and how it factors into providing the life you ultimately want to live, but if you don’t prioritize enjoying how you obtain that money, you’re really missing out on a key component of living a fantastic life. There are plenty of people out in the world selling their souls for dollars and then drowning themselves in the empty things that money can buy. It’s another form of gluttony that our modern day society perpetuates, and in many cases, celebrates. Don’t be fooled into thinking that’s the answer. There’s a quote from Aristotle that I really love that goes, “Happiness is the meaning and purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.” If someone offers you life advice that conflicts with that statement, make sure you believe they’re smarter than one of the greatest philosophers who ever lived before you act on it. It’s likely that they are not and that they are probably leading you down the wrong path. Don’t fall for it. 

Instead, explore your passions and choose a direction in life that is fulfilling to YOU. You can still desire material wealth, but challenge yourself to earn your way there by providing value to others and improving their lives and the world around you. Give your work meaning and make it something that feels good, keeps your conscience clear, and allows you to sleep well at night and look into the mirror without shame or disgust. The world wants you to give up on yourself and believe you can’t have success and genuine happiness. It wants you to believe the only people getting to the bag are the selfish, ruthless people who do it the wrong way. It’s bullshit. Success isn’t an either or and you don’t have to engage in shady shit, lie, cheat, steal, etc. to make it. You don’t have to compromise on your personal values to excel in life. You just have to do the work. If you understand the true nature of free enterprise, you’ll embrace the fact that it’s designed to create things that solve problems, reduce pain, increase convenience, and otherwise improve the lives of other people. If you love something and are passionate about it, I promise you there’s a way to tie it to one of those objectives and monetize it in today’s world. As an added plus, you will have to embark on a journey of personal self-discovery by pursuing it. A little creativity and determination goes a long way. 

Another point of emphasis when choosing your direction in life is this: if something doesn’t feel right, it’s not. No loopholes, no gray areas. There is right and wrong and you get to define them for yourself. Many people just don’t like their jobs, but many more work in companies or industries that make them engage in activities they don’t agree with. I know people who work in marketing and finance who try to justify their role in deceiving and exploiting others by claiming they’re just a cog in the machine. But guess what? No cogs, no machines. They’re there by choice because changing jobs, hitting the job market and facing pay instability is scary. People like to think they can deal in filth without becoming the thing they touch. But once you’ve made the conscious decision to do something wrong, you’re complicit in it. Corporate America takes many good people and compromises them against their own values. There is nothing admirable about a person who is smart enough to see wrongdoing, but too much of a coward to take a stand against it. It’s even worse when they rush into doing wrong willingly for personal gain. You can make a lot of money doing the wrong thing and buy lots of nice stuff with it, but you’ll always lack integrity. Just remember that we are all going to die one day, and the way you maintain your character will matter more in the end than the amount of money you accrue over your lifetime. 

The bottom line? When you don’t have meaning – when you don’t have purpose – the unhappiness it creates readily permeates through many other areas of your life. Think of your life as a canvas you get to paint. Unhappiness is like black water color on a paint brush being pressed firmly into the center of that canvas – it expands outward from its actual cause and bleeds into everything else. Happiness, on the other hand, inspires you and guides you in the right direction. It allows you to fall in love with the process of painting that canvas exactly the way you want it to be. You don’t feel rushed and you don’t care very much if other people see the beauty in your creation or not because it’s not for them. It’s for you. The best way to foster that kind of happiness within yourself, in my opinion, is by finding purposeful work first. Search for that thing that makes every moment you work on it feel intentional. The thing that makes you feel like what you’re doing really matters and is having a positive impact on other people and the world. If you find that, you will find the foundation to your happiness that you can then build something really beautiful on top of. Avoid being misdirected down the path that leads to nowhere. Follow your passion to your purpose and then walk that path wherever it may lead. You’ll thank yourself for it later.  

Too Deep For The Intro

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I’m not entirely sure where the best jumping off point is for this, but I’m a firm believer that you just have to get started and the details will work themselves out in time – so here goes nothing: As for most of you, the COVID-19 Pandemic has been a pivotal turning point in my life. All of us, whether we’d like to admit it or not, were forced to suddenly and unceremoniously come to terms with a certain kind of ugliness that has been hidden behind the curtain of society for most of our lives. The kind of stuff you would read about in history books, but never had to witness firsthand before. We also had to confront the always present possibility, and long-term inevitability, of our own deaths. How awesome is that?!

I think having spent the first nine months of the pandemic in New York City, which for an extended time was not only the epicenter of the pandemic in this country but the whole world, offered me a unique experience denied to many throughout this time period. You probably saw it on TV and worried yourself in imagination by consuming the fear that news networks were churning out around the clock without hesitation – painting the apocalyptic pictures for you that you otherwise would never be privy to from the comfort of your living room. “Will I ever be able to wipe my ass again?” probably crossed your mind at least a few times.

I have since established this as truth, having had the opportunity to discuss the experience of others during the pandemic in many places around the country. The level of destruction, death, and in-your-face misery was nowhere near the same level in other places as the place I was living when the shit hit the fan. It was like living in a war zone, but the bombs were silent. I’m sure I’ll share detailed glimpses into my personal experience with this when it ties into relevant topics, but I’ll save that for later.

As a millennial born in 1994, I think the insane opportunity to be born in the richest country on earth well into two centuries of unrivaled prosperity really flew over my head. I was just another kid that took so much of what I had for granted and never thought twice about whether I deserved the life I was given or really considered what types of alternative living conditions existed in the world. For me, this manifested itself in a lack of gratitude and maybe a slightly delusional idea that the good times would just keep rolling and all I had to do was be here and look pretty to enjoy the ride.

As Americans, I think we really fuck up our happiness quotients by always being concerned with doing better, making more, and having more. We constantly reinforce what we don’t have and rarely take the time to appreciate what we do have. That mindset is the life force of American capitalism – which does, admittedly, have many benefits (when it works fairly for everyone). But although the abundance of opportunity and stuff we have offers so much in the way of distraction, it offers very little in the way of true perspective. Sure, we have problems, who doesn’t? But until we were thrust straight into survival mode without warning during the recent shakeup of reality, I don’t think a lot of us knew what real problems were.

Prior to the pandemic I felt lost, but I didn’t even realize it at the time. I knew I was unhappy, spending most of my time trying to make a buck so I could spend it drinking myself under the table and bullshitting myself and everyone around me into thinking that was genuinely fun for me… but I never really thought deeply about why I was unhappy. Now that I’ve had nearly two years to absorb and digest the trauma of my experiences during the pandemic and reflect on my life up until this moment in its entirety, I think I have better insight into this. It was painful and involuntary – and I would certainly never want to go through it again – but the internal growth has been evident. I feel more in tune with my inner-self and understand my true nature in a way I never had before (is this what spirituality feels like? Gross.) I would even go as far as to stay that I am grateful for what having endured this experience has given me.

But before you run away thinking I’m going to encourage you to walk barefoot through the forest or to start putting a rose quartz suppository up your ass every night before bed, I promise you I’m not. As much as the name implies, this is merely a side project of mine to provoke thoughts and help create a dialogue around many aspects of human life and the world that we deny in the modern day. It’s as much for me to process and articulate my thoughts and feelings as it is for you to hopefully gain value and new ideas or perspectives from. I read somewhere recently that we’re living in a world that is drowning in information and starving for wisdom, and that really resonated with me. The older I get, the more I realize that human beings are simultaneously the most impressive and unremarkable species on the planet. Somehow, we collectively know everything that is known, and yet, seemingly lack basic understanding of simple concepts. We are incredibly simple creatures with a terrible tendency to overcomplicate… well, just about everything. Many people struggle to tell the difference between good and bad, and the majority of us shy away from accountability like it’s a prostate exam. Both of those qualities we are neglecting at scale are instrumental to creating a better future for ourselves and the world. I think it’s easier to try navigating this bumpy and unpredictable terrain together – even if we’re thousands of miles away from each other and experiencing that connection through computer screens.

As a disclaimer, I wouldn’t expect this to be regularly updated (at least not at first). I am currently helping to build and manage a company that is gaining international recognition and growing rapidly. I also have other interests to pursue (mainly reading philosophy and learning everything I can about investing – and hopefully, traveling the world again if covid fucks off so I don’t get locked in a hotel room in Thailand for a forced quarantine – I’m not willing to risk it yet). So, it’s safe to say that I have a lot on my plate right now and this is more of a way to share my ideas with those who care to listen. I will probably pivot directions at times and may even post short stories and personal theories on an array of topics I find interesting – whatever I think is useful to you or expressive of my true thoughts, really. Writing has always been a naturally gifted ability for me and as I learn to leverage that ability and hone into it successfully in the business world, I also want to use it to communicate with the real world effectively. Some people are naturally gifted speakers – and some people feel great on camera… I’m a writer. This is how we’re doing it.

Since I don’t know when I’ll be making a second addition to this, I feel like I should give your brain something juicy to chew on right here in the introduction. Much of the shift that has taken place in my way of thinking over the past few years centers around each individual taking action to identify their role in the world (finding purpose) and then using it to improve themselves, and then the world. This is achieved by taking an active role in public life and contributing through donating time, money, and committing random acts of kindness on an intentional and consistent basis. An ancient stoic viewpoint that I’ve gravitated to recently is that the world is like a city in which all human beings are citizens, with all the duties inherent to citizenship. Basically, the thinking is that as human beings, we are part of nature and our duty (or purpose generally speaking) is to “live as nature requires.” To not be passive participants with the life we were given, but rather to engage in active cooperation with the world around us, and more importantly, with other human beings. Marcus Aurelius, a Roman Emperor who lived thousands of years ago and who was a diligent student of Greek philosophy, surmised that we were created not for ourselves but for others. That human nature is fundamentally unselfish and that we must work for the collective good while treating every other person justly and fairly as individuals. And although the role of each person in the world may not be equal, we all have a role to play in the vast design of the cosmos. I personally find this idea profoundly beautiful.

Whether or not I fully believe that in my heart of hearts, I do not know. But I do believe that being a fatalist is of secondary importance to understanding the intellectual undercurrent of the concept and how we can apply it in our every day lives to make the world around us a better, stronger, and more unified place for everyone. I was really struggling mentally and emotionally when I relocated down to Charlotte about ten months ago – trying to process and make sense of the prior year didn’t come naturally to me and was a psychologically painful endeavor. But I have made a lot of progress in this area since and I find myself having a deeper appreciation for everything in life lately, and particularly my view of other people has undergone a radical change. I could have easily chosen to lean into the negativity of it all and give anger and resentment a fertile breeding ground within my heart and mind, but I chose to pursue the opposite.

I find myself trying to make eye contact with every person I see and say hello to them – trying to feed this new internal desire to make sure every person feels seen and genuinely appreciated. I care for people I do not know in a subtle and unspoken way that didn’t exist within me previously. Not that I didn’t care for them before, but it just never even occurred to me. I was so wrapped up in my little bubble of narcissistic desires and every problem I had seemed more important than the world itself. I now have the humility to realize how small and unimportant I am in the grand scheme of things, but that I also have the power to change and impact the lives of others in meaningful ways. I hope that through this project I can stimulate that thought process in some of you as well – and ultimately inspire you to take more action and to increase your focus on what is going on outside of your insular experience and to contribute to it. The goal is never to be perfect, but to embrace being a very imperfect practitioner of idealistic values. What I find separates success from failure in my life is truthfully just conscious effort to apply what I know at every turn and to make the best possible decision I can when decisiveness is demanded of me. To rely on the instruments of the heart and mind when I don’t have a definitive answer and to trust that making a mistake and moving forward is better than being paralyzed by fear into a state of inaction. It’s quite simple, but as we’ll discuss in later entries – simple is not always synonymous with easy.

I’m not sure if it’s the country bumpkin in me or not, but I feel this is a strong analogy, so I’m going with it: Watching the pandemic unfold was like watching an anthill get kicked over. Things were organized and people were on autopilot – going about their lives like busy worker ants. Then COVID-19 came in like a hillbilly’s work boot and sent everything into a tailspin. Chaos ensued, people lost their fucking minds, and what we witnessed was much like watching a colony of ants scrambling to try and figure out what to do in the midst of unexpected destruction – except instead of “protect the Queen!” it was more like “hoard the toilet paper!”

I think what stood out to me the most was how fragile our world really is. We saw how easily what seemed cordial (at least on the surface) can turn venomous and violent quickly when you introduce stress and adversity into the ecosystem. Society fractured along its fault lines and although things have calmed down, at least momentarily, I think we would be wise to understand that things are currently held together by scotch tape. If we truly want to create a just society that works for all of humanity, we must understand the responsibility of the individual (of ourselves) to care for others and to nurture that reality – strengthening the weakest points of it in ways that will be better equipped to handle future hardship without completely falling apart. Otherwise, we’re teetering on a potentially ominous chapter in human history that will leave everyone emptyhanded and in a position to lose everything they value – all at the behest of indulging their desire to be right, morally superior, dominant, etc. The ability of human beings to adapt and solve problems is unparalleled. We have figured out an answer to pretty much everything besides how to be kind to each other. For me, I feel like the answer must be rooted in focusing on what is within our control as individuals and not drawing lines in the sand and identifying ourselves into factions – the idea that you can disagree with (and even dislike) people while still caring for their general well-being. It’s a cornerstone of humanity, and it’s the cost of admission if you want to have a functioning democracy.

The ability to do this successfully relies heavily on mastering one’s own mind and practicing particular disciplines that will translate into tangible actions. Actions that require thoughtfulness, sacrifices, and the unwavering belief that what benefits the common good is what benefits us. Unfortunately, I’m noticing that as things gain more of a semblance of “normality” again, the worker ants are tirelessly trying to put things back the way they were – rather than building something better. People are buying into a false sense of security again – perhaps because the mental anguish that accepting reality would cause them is too great a burden to bear. Nevertheless, the amount of people I know personally who have fallen right back into their old patterns is astounding. “Glad that’s over, let’s go have a beer!” seems to be a common mindset. If we fail to acknowledge and learn from the lessons of what we just witnessed and lived through, we are setting ourselves up to repeat our mistakes – and next time could be worse.

Every day when I was forced to walk through the streets of Manhattan and absorb the pain there – really becoming aware of what the world could be, I decided that every day I’m alive and it isn’t like that I’m going to choose to be happy – and also, that I’m going to spend a good portion of my life doing what I can to ensure that it doesn’t ever look like that. I considered those moments during the height of the lockdown as an encumbrance on my life and pitied myself for having to live through them, but I now realize that they were a privilege – I was given the chance to come at life from an entirely new angle because of it. I’m not delusional, I don’t think we can eliminate suffering from the world. I just think we can strengthen ourselves internally to withstand our own suffering and then reach out to lessen the suffering of others. Again, this is about progress, not perfection.

For a while I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it through this intact – in mind, body, or spirit. But I promised myself that if I did, I had no interest in going back to who I was before… and I haven’t. I hope you never have to see that level of destitution or feel that kind of sorrow in your life, but the truth is that you might. The best way to prepare for that possibility is to know yourself fully and build the inner-strength necessary to overcome any level of difficulty or pain the external world can throw at you. I implore you not to revert back to old behaviors and not to ignore what nature has been trying to open our eyes to. Start waking up with intention and valuing each moment and recognize the abundance of opportunity before you and know that you truly have something wonderful to offer the world if only you can find the courage to deliver it. I believe in that, and I believe in you.

When I was a teenager, I was consumed by anger I had harbored since my childhood and what I thought I wanted out of life amounted to millions of dollars so I could have a bunch of things and show everybody that I was worth something – to show certain people they were wrong. I dreamed of being able to show-off and rub it in the faces of those who had doubted or hurt me, and I desperately wanted to reach a point of being the stereotypical arrogant douchebag because I lacked any self-worth at all at the time. Now that I’ve reached a measure of success in my life, I realize I don’t want that at all. I’m not averse to being successful by traditional standards – in fact, I feel confident that my new approach to life will make me infinitely more successful in every meaningful way than I would have been otherwise – but my priorities have changed.

My goal now is constantly trying to prepare myself to deal with anything life throws at me – to approach life with radical acceptance and view my problems as opportunities for personal growth and to exercise my rational thinking and problem-solving abilities – rather than to view them as an excuse to feel sorry for myself and fall into the spiritual poison of self-pity. The advantage of this approach is that as increasingly complex situations arise, my composure does not falter and the confidence in myself to achieve and overcome obstacles grows larger. Repetition is the mother of skill and like anything else, you develop this ability through practice. I almost (admittedly oddly) look forward to the next problem to come my way now because I am intimately aware that more problems are guaranteed to come, and this is an area of life I excel and shine brighter than most at. Rather than to live a life consumed by acquiring materialistic things and status, my dream is simply to live my life as a competent person who solves my own problems and who knows my own mind and spirit without question – unrattled by external judgement and with no fear towards the difficult and unpleasant things that life brings with it. That is my definition of liberty.

You see, the avoidance of pain and adversity is futile – but developing the right tools and understanding how to use them properly can turn even the bleakest circumstances into opportunities to rise above and conquer. As your forward momentum builds off of each triumph and you begin to experience the success that this skillset brings with it, you then have the opportunity to improve the lives of others. This ride that we’re all on isn’t about money, it’s about meaning. What matters most isn’t what we have or don’t have, but each other. We must learn to act like it or suffer the consequences. It is my sincerest belief that life is about attaining freedom (from doubt, from the opinions of others, from the false narrative that our successes in life must come at the expense of someone else’s), to achieve humility, and to learn how to be of service to others. I hope we can uncover truths and practical ways of accomplishing these objectives together.

How’s that for an introduction?