Last week I wrote a post about how you need to stop disappointing yourself and while I gave a good overview of my thoughts I didn’t talk about the hardest part, which is putting them into action. I wanted to talk a little more about how I stopped disappointing myself with one thing in my life for a week (hey, it’s a start) and some of the surprising results.
In that post I brought up the example of not getting enough sleep and constantly disappointing myself after failing over and over to get to bed early. I’ve always been someone who has stayed up late but with my life getting busier and more things needing my attention I’ve felt like my lack of good or enough sleep was having a negative effect on me. Couple this with the fact that I’ve now started to enjoy getting up early to run and this was a habit that I had to change.
Looking back I think I started getting more serious about fixing this issue after I had gotten sick of not feeling energized during the day at work and the sense that my overall mood was way worse than it should have been whenever I was tired. I’m sure from the outside looking in most people wouldn’t be able to tell the way I’m feeling, but to me I was over it and wanted to make a change.
I guess recognizing that it was even an issue was the first step for me. Even though it was something I thought about a lot I just kept falling into the same traps of not getting to bed on time and then feeling tired the next day.
The first thing that really got me thinking more about doing something about this little issue of mine was sharing was sharing it with one of my friends and co-workers Rex. I remember I told him about how when Stephanie’s out of town I would fall asleep on the couch and then end up waking up around 3am to go to bed, which would totally mess me up for the entire next day. He told me that he sometimes does the same, exact thing and from that point on we’ve started to keep each other a little more accountable. I’ll text him “GET OFF THE COUCH!” and he’ll do the same to me, which sounds like something small, but it works.
The next step was for me to really make sure that I set myself up for success as much as possible. I guess you could say that I set some boundaries and structure and even though that sounds super cheesy it’s actually working. I won’t give too much detail on each of the things I’ve done but here’s a quick list so you can get a good idea of where my head’s at with all of it.
I set a goal of always getting to bed by 11pm or earlier. I don’t nail it every time, but giving myself a goal of when I need to get in bed by has been really helpful.
I’m getting up early on weekends, too. I want to be able to keep the same sleep schedule throughout the week because the more consistent I am with it, the better. Yes, this means that I set my alarm for Saturday morning. Hey, whatever works.
I removed the Reddit app from my phone, which was something that I always ended up wasting time on at night before I went to bed. Do I miss it? A little, but it’s helped me get more control of my time, which is the goal.
I don’t spend time playing on my phone before I go to bed or when I wake up. These are both time sucks that are fun to do but they don’t add any value. If you’re going to bed, then go to sleep. Do you read before bed? That’s fine, but wasting your time watching an endless number of YouTube videos for an hour before you put your head on your pillow is only taking away from the sleep you need.
This past week I had something scheduled for before work every, single morning. Either I had a quick 30-45 minute coffee meeting or I went for a morning run before work every day last week and it was awesome. By having that meeting setup I get out of bed when I need to and there’s no way I’m going to hit the snooze button. Both running and having good conversations with awesome people are both great ways to start my mornings (read more on the importance of coffee meetings over here on my buddy Jason Shen’s blog).
The results of these changes have been really positive so far. The mix of getting more sleep and having better control of my time and energy has only made me feel so much better. I’m getting more done at work and I’m getting my mornings started with things that energize me, which is a lot better than getting out of bed groggy and then heading into work.
I did notice that I felt a little worn down toward the end of the week which still had some negative effects on my mood, but that’s just a result of running again after breaking my toe and putting all of this plan into action. I know I’m doing the right things to keep me moving in the right direction and once my mind and body get used to my new routine I’m only going to feel better and better.
If you made it down here I know this was a little long and it might seem like I’m making a big deal out of getting more sleep. But breaking bad habits, no matter what they are, is never an easy thing and will never happen unless you have some type of plan in place. Even though it’s been hard, I’ve enjoyed putting all of this into action and once it becomes a good, new habit for me I’m sure there’s something else I’ll start working on next.
Nothing humbles you like being punched in the face. There have been two times when it’s happened to me and I only fully remember one. It’s also worth noting that this number doesn’t include getting punched in my head, my friends punching me in the face or anything that has to do with head-butting. If they those were included the number would be double-digits, easy.
The time I actually remember my face getting acquainted with someone else’s knuckles happened when I was still in high school. It was a warm and muggy night in Indiana and me and one of my friends were cruising through Anderson in his white 1989 Chevy Corsica with the windows rolled down. We’re from Pendleton, Indiana, which is your stereotypical small Midwestern town with lots of hospitable white people and cornfields. Anderson, on the other hand, was a nearby city that had a movie theater, diversity and a declining economy due to several General Motors plants that had recently relocated to Mexico.
Another thing that Anderson had was a Taco Bell with a drive-through which Eric and I took full advantage of. While rapping along to some Notorious B.I.G. on our way back home we decided to take a detour through a strip mall parking lot across the street so we cruise through what we called “Applewood”. It was a nice night and we were curious to see who else was out.
While making our way into the parking lot there were a group of three white guys around our age whose wardrobes mostly consisted of baggy clothing,wife beaters and patchy facial hair. They yelled something at us and being the tough guys that we were back then we yelled something right back.
“Should we roll over there and see what’s up with these guys?”, Eric asked me.
With my adrenaline already starting to block out the little common sense I had during my teenage years I quickly answered, “Yeah, let’s do it.”
They quickly see we’re heading over there and stop walking while waiting for us. We turn down the music and Eric rolls up with the three guys on my side of the car. My window’s already down and when I get a good look at them for the first time I’m not intimidated. They’re just three kids from Anderson who happen to be just as bored as we are. Unfortunately this boredom creates a need to create your own action.
“Did you guys say something to us?” I asked out the window with a smirk on my face.
I give my attention to one of them who starts to say something back and as I do his friend decides to end the conversation by balling up his fist and throwing it right into my face. I don’t even see it coming. The only thing I remember is hearing the dull sound of his fist catching the outside of the car window right before feeling his punch that landed between my right cheek and nose.
Stunned, I grabbed my face and screamed out cusswords while asking Eric what had just happened. He was just as surprised as I was. By the time I came back to reality the three guys had ran away with not only my pride but a really good story to tell their friends. They had successfully broken through the boredom of yet another Midwestern Summer night and I paid the price.
The next few weeks I told a lot of lies of about my black eye and so did Eric. Stories that led my family, friends and basketball teammates away from the truth that only Eric and I really knew. He never told and neither did I, until now.
Calling Marc one of my best friends doesn’t do our relationship justice. It’s like we’re family, we just happen to have different moms. Yeah, it’s like that (rat-a-tat-tat).
I like to call Marc a gypsy although he’s always lived in the same place. He’s a guy who’s really hard to explain, in a good way. One time when we were little we were both sleeping in our underwear in his living room (that’s how we rolled) and we thought someone was breaking into his house. We were so tough we grabbed a couple of fireplace pokers, ran out the front door and hid in his neighbor’s bushes for the next hour, wondering if the coast was clear.
Yep, me and Marc are tight and we have some amazing stories that we like to talk about in a way that makes it seem like they’re made up. Heck, at this point I think that some of it might be but to be honest neither of us really care.
Although Marc’s an awesomely weird human and friend the thing that I respect most about him is his insane level of creativity. The guy just oozes the stuff and somehow it ends up on canvases and anything else he can get his hands on.
The people who know him have a have a hard time describing the things that he creates. They’re odd, they’re intricate, they’re beautiful and they’re just…Marc.
Marc is always making art but most of it doesn’t ever get outside the four walls he creates it in. I don’t think that’s fair to me and all of you so I’m going to start showing off some of the stuff he’s made (along with a short backstory of each one). If you have any thoughts on any of it, let me know and I’ll tell Marc.
Art is meant to make you think and feel and wonder what the heck is going through the artist’s head when they’re making it. Here’s a glimpse into what Marc was thinking when he made the painting you see below.
This painting is called “Trip To PCB”, which is an ode to Panama City Beach, FL. It was created a couple of years back, which seems like a couple days now. During this time I was teaching art and my position was cut out of nowhere. As I was dealing with the reality of losing my job I sat down in my studio (aka my spare bedroom at the time) and with pencil started sketching over and over and over again. With this piece I’m definitely trying to capture the viewers complete attention – if only for a few seconds or minutes. This baby took about a week for me to complete due to the many layers involved. During those 7 days I drank a few beers and was happy I didn’t die earlier in my youth. 🙂
I’l be posting more paintings from Marc soon (he’s sent me over twenty of them) but before I did I thought you should get to know him a little bit first. Consider your life just that much more interesting now, you’re welcome.
How often do you disappoint yourself with the things that you do (or don’t do)? I know that sounds like a funny question to ask, but it’s a legitimate thing to be aware of. Feeling disappointed with your thoughts and actions is a normal, human thing and we all do it. But, most of the time those types of feelings are happening for a reason and those reasons are important for you to think about and understand. Taking the time to sort them out and making changes because of them is something that’s helped me out a lot emotionally and I wanted to tell you more about it.
If you’re anything like me you experience moments in your daily life where you think to yourself “Why did I do that?” or “I probably shouldn’t do this, but I’m going to anyway.” or “I hate when I do this to myself.” or even “I know what I should be doing but I’m not going to do it.”. These thoughts come into our head all the time and it’s important to recognize them and to understand why they’re happening. You can usually feel these in your mind but a lot of times you can also feel them physically in your gut. Most of the time they’re easy to recognize but hard to do something about and many of them happen over and over because we never do anything about them.
One of these things for me is getting enough sleep. I have a history of always staying up too late and then trying to get up early, which isn’t sustainable. When this happens I wake up feeling tired and then I go through the entire day trying to find energy any way I can. It’s harder for me to think, my head feels foggy and my mood is terrible, which makes me not want to talk to anyone. I can still make it through the day, but it’s a struggle and the worst part is that I know it’s all because of not getting the sleep I need.
This then leads me to being disappointed with myself for not getting enough sleep and knowing that if I had gotten more shut-eye I would feel so much better. But for some reason I never do anything about it and before you know it I’m doing the same thing all over again and the vicious cycle continues.
As I’m writing this out it sounds so ridiculous, but it’s what happens to me over and over and over and it’s not easy to stop. The good news is that I’ve always known how to make the change, I’ve just never done it. I’ve disappointed myself so many times even though I’ve always had a pretty good idea of how to make it stop. Is that crazy or what? Silly humans.
The good news is that starting this past month I started to make some changes. Even though I fumbled through the first couple of weeks with some disappointments here and there I’m now getting to where I need to be and it feels amazing. All it took was a little bit of thought, discipline and follow-through with a plan and some structure (and boundaries) that I set up for myself.
I can explain more about what my plan has been in another blog post, but I just wanted to let you know that making the plan, starting it and sticking with it is the most important (and hardest) part (another big thing is not letting your day to day emotions change your overall plan, which I can talk about later, too). Once you get through the grind of getting that started you’re almost guaranteed to say goodbye to some of those feelings of disappointment that we’re all sick of having.
Sometimes I find myself looking at amazing things that people have accomplished and fall into the trap of only appreciating what I’m seeing at that moment. Take the Olympics for example, those athletes are amazing and they look so cool doing their thing on the world stage. They’re the best of the best and I’ve found myself infatuated with watching them perform at the highest level possible.
Seeing her grab that gold was really awesome but trying to imagine what all she went through to get there really blows me away. I played basketball at a Division II level on scholarship and I know how much time and effort it took me to get there. Now multiply that by about a thousand and you’re should be in the ballpark of what one of these Olympians have put themselves through to be in London.
I call all of the practices they didn’t want to wake up for, all the injuries they never wanted to have and all of the things that they missed due to the time commitment of being at their level “the grind”. They’ve gone through the grind and have made it through to the other side to show all of us what can happen when you stare it in the face and, amazingly enough, enjoy it.
Did they enjoy all of it? No way, they are human after all. But they learned to like and at least respect the grind that they knew would eventually separate them from everyone else at every, single level of competition. These are some physically gifted human beings but what helped them get to where they are is the grind. No one sees the grind but it’s the most important thing.
I’m not sure how this post turned into an ode to the Olympians but hey, that’s what happens when you’re writing and just go where your thoughts lead you while typing away on the train. I’ve been personally thinking about the different grinds in my life (work, relationships, fitness, faith, etc.) and have been working hard to not just make it through them, but to respect and even enjoy them. It’s amazing how it can change your attitude and help you see things more clearly in your life.
Don’t avoid the grind, learn to enjoy it.
One more thing, if you want another good example of a real person (a non-Olympian) putting this way of thinking to work, be sure to check out Randall Degges’ post about how he’s learned to see his grind of losing weight and being healthy as an opportunity to better himself. Nice work, dude.
When I was in the thick of the Mo-sanity several people reached out to me and wanted to get involved. Some wanted to donate, some wanted to be part of the Catch-22 Crew Project and some wanted to offer their creative skills however they could help.
One of the creative people who got in touch is Mark Johnston who reached out to me via Mo’s YouTube account. He told me that he has an interest in shooting some video of the homeless in San Francisco and how he had already put together a short test video a year ago. I reached back out to him and we ended up connecting so he could meet Mo.
After all three of us met up one day in the city and got to know each other (and after one failed, windy shoot) Mark and Mo met up on another day without me to shoot another interview. Here’s the video that Mark ended up putting together, I think it gives a good sense of who Mo is and how he views the world.
Mark has an interesting way of telling stories and he does a great job putting together short, concise videos from literally hours of footage (which isn’t easy). I hope he continues to shoot video of Mo as a way to show more of what it’s like being homeless in San Francisco — I’m really happy with this first one.
Like the video? Don’t like the video? Give me your thoughts in the comments.
I finally have some time to sit down at my laptop and make some sense of all of the stuff that has happened with Mo over the past few weeks and it feels good. All of the things that happened with Mo and the fact that his story went viral all over the world is incredible, but it’s also tiring and slightly addictive. When the real time web decides that it’s chosen you to be the flavor of the day you better hold on because it’s one heck of a ride.
When Mo’s first video was rising up the ranks over on Reddit I was doing my best to keep up with the comments and to make sure that the story was being told the way it should be. There were lots of early critics with what I was doing with Mo but thanks to some of the past posts that I had on my blog (like this one and this one) and some of the earlier videos we had together (like when he got his new shoes) when the Internet trolls went digging into my story there was plenty there to back it up. All of this attention has helped Mo raise over $2,000 which means he’ll be off the streets and eating everyday for the next couple of months and it’s also created a new awareness around homelessness that’s affected thousands of people. There’s still a long way to go, but this was a great way to start.
Before too much time passed by I wanted to make sure to post up a good overview of how Mo’s story spread so I gave this story the respect it deserves. I’m going to do my best to recreate a step-by-step recap of Mo’s rise to international Internet fame through all of the experiences that have happened since I first posted Mo’s video on Reddit. Here goes nothing and let me know if there’s anything I forgot.
Mo Gets Some Video With A Flipcam
A few weeks back I gave Mo my flipcam so I could see what his day was like and find out what other homeless people’s stories were. After a few tries he ended up getting some really good interviews that chopped up and started posting online.
I posted the video around 3am and before I went to bed it already had several comments and upvotes, which means that people were really liking it. The more upvotes and comments you get the more visibility your post gets and when I woke up the video was already near the top of the video section. It eventually went to the top of the video section and even made it to the very front page of Reddit, which meant thousands of people were watching it.
Mo’s video was at or near the top of the r/Videos section on Reddit for over 24 hours.
When something like this happens you start to feel really funny. It’s exciting and you want it to keep on going higher and higher so you can get more and more attention. My video was at the top of the video section for over 24 hours and ended up making it’s way up to the very front page for a couple of hours. That means serious traffic and Mo’s video was well on it’s way to being viewed over 100k times.
At the height of the video getting viewed on Reddit Mo’s YouTube account was literally getting 1-2 subscribers every minute. Here’s what my email inbox looked like. It was nuts.
Mo’s YouTube channel was getting 1-2 subscribers per minute for most of the day.
I was also getting a lot of new Likes on Mo’s Facebook page. Every time I would log in to his account this is what the notifications would look like.
Mo’s Facebook page was getting lots of likes.
Mo Gets Covered In Business Insider
Soon after the Mo and Andrew’s interview became the most popular video on YouTube the press came calling (emailing to be exact). They sent me messages through Reddit, Facebook, Mo’s gmail account and YouTube. It was a crazy keeping up with it, but I was all about getting Mo’s story out there and they were excited to get more details.
The first site to cover Mo’s story was Business Insider.
The first real coverage we got was this post on Business Insider and it was posted even before they interviewed me. Once again, it was valuable that I had already blogged about Mo several times before his video went viral because it enabled anyone who wanted to write about Mo’s story could to go to my blog, grab some photos and quotes and not even have to talk to me before they posted something. That’s exactly what happened with this first post, the photo they used was taken from my blog and so was this quote:
“For some reason out of all the homeless people I’ve talked to, he’s stuck around long enough for us to become friends,” Hupfer wrote on the blog he’s using to chronicle his visits with Mo. A non-smoker, he convinced Mo to settle for a meal at Subway instead. They’ve been pals ever since.
Mandi Woodruff, the writer who posted this first story, interviewed me later on that day to get more of the story and then posted something else about Mo on the following Monday. In this second post Mandi went into deeper detail about me and Mo and was able to get more of the story from me since we talked on the phone. There are some good quotes in there and she linked to my blog, Mo’s donation page and other relevant content that I had out on the web. The media loves having all of that stuff to link off to and it’s great for letting the reader fill themselves in on the details that can’t be squeezed into the post.
Mo’s story was feature on Business Insider a second time a few days later.
Mo Gets Interviewed By Local TV in San Francisco
Friday quickly turned into a really crazy day and the interest just kept pouring in. Towards the end of the day I got a call from Chris Surdi who works at WePay, a local startup here in the Bay Area and the platform I was using for Mo’s donation page. They saw some of the buzz that Mo’s story was generating and wanted to see if they could help get it out into the media even more. Stories like this are PR gold for companies like WePay so it was really smart of them to help out. I didn’t even think about using them as a potential resource before they called but they pulled some strings and lined up some local media in SF to cover our story later that night.
Thanks to WePay we started getting some local media interest in SF.
After leaving work on that Friday I actually had plans for the weekend and was in a car on my way to Russian River with some friends when I got this email from Dave Russo, who works for ABC7 here in San Francisco. They wanted to interview me and Mo which meant I either skipped the interview for the weekend or stayed and tried to find Mo before that night so we could share his story on TV. I decided to stay so we turned around, dropped me off and I’m not sure how, but I found Mo not long after. A couple of hours after that we were interviewed down by the Caltrain station where we met and the segment about Mo was aired on the Friday night news and all weekend long.
That interview was a lot of fun and Mo really got a kick out of being in front of the camera. They only used 1% of what we shot, but that’s how local news goes. The camera guy was really cool and loved hearing about our story. He even posed for this great photo with Mo. I love this shot.
Mo cheesin’ it up and Andrew the camera guy. Mo was a natural in front of the camera.
Mo Goes From Local To National
After the crazy end of that week being topped off with our interview, the rest of the weekend was actually pretty quiet. I wasn’t sure if all of the news about Mo had died off and people had lost interest but I quickly found out that they hadn’t. The first thing that happened on Monday was the national ABC station asked me if they could post Mo’s video on their video player and interview me for a longer online story. Of course I said sure, an awesome reporter named Alexis Shaw did the interview and before you know it the madness was starting up all over again.
After playing all weekend in SF, Mo’s story quickly went from local to national.
Me and Mo looking good on the national ABC News website.
Mo on Huff Po.
Mo Gets Featured In An Awesome Video
Right around this same time a news group I had never heard called Right This Minute posted the best coverage of Mo’s story that I had seen up to that point. They’re a group of reporters who find interesting videos from YouTube and sit around and discuss them together in their newsroom. I didn’t know that they were going to create a video about Mo’s story but when I first saw it I was totally blown away. It was like I was watching a mini documentary on our relationship together and to be honest I found myself almost tearing up while watching it.
The way they brought it all together made the story even more powerful and whoever did the editing on it did an amazing job. Once again this video shows the value of having lots of other content for someone to dig into and use because they created the entire video without ever talking to me about it. That’s pretty awesome.
Me and Mo on Right This Minute — they did an amazing job telling our story.
Mo Gets Featured In Mashable
The next big thing to happen after this was when Matt Petronzio from Mashable emailed me and wanted to cover the story. Mashable is a huge source of tech and social media related news on the web and since Mo’s story included a lot of that he wanted to tell the story.
I was really happy when I saw this email come through from Mashable.
Instead of getting on the phone Matt sent me a handful of questions that I answered over email. Some writers like to do it that way because it takes up less time, they can quote me easier and they don’t have to record or take notes while chatting over the phone. Here are the questions he asked me and I answered them with everything I could and even ended up getting Mo on the phone so he could answer his questions himself. I sent over a lot of information but it’s always better to give writers a lot of information than not enough.
Matt sent me some questions over email, which can be easier for writers to deal with.
It took me a while to knock out all the answers the way I wanted but it was totally worth it. Getting Mo’s story on Mashable was huge and it was the coverage that people who already knew me noticed the most of because a lot of them check out Mashable on a daily basis or see the posts from there getting passed around on Twitter/Facebook.
When Mo’s story was on Mashable the madness started up all over again.
Mo Goes International
The Mashable post got Mo’s story in front of another huge audience and once it was live there were a lot of other posts that followed, including our first international coverage in France. I have no idea why his story spread over there, but it was really funny.
After being on Mashable Mo’s story somehow made it’s way over to France.
This particular story from France was really interesting because it’s the hometown newspaper of Dominique Lafaysse, a friend I work with who’s French. He was so surprised when I sent him a link to Mo’s story — it was really funny and what a small world. This was the only international coverage we had at that point, but there was more to come.
CNN Headline News Comes Knocking
Just when I thought that everything was done and no one else wanted to know about Mo I was emailed by a woman from Turner Broadcasting who told me that CNN Headline News (the HLN Network) was interested in covering Mo’s story. They needed permission from me to use our videos and images in the segment that they wanted to air the following day. I was really excited to hear from such a larger media source and quickly told her that they could use whatever they needed.
This was the first email that CNN sent me. They’re awful needy, huh?
The next day came and there was no segment about Mo. I emailed them to see what the dealio was and they said there was too much current news going on that day to fit in Mo’s segment but they said it would air the following day, which was Thursday. I flipped it on the next day and again there was no Mo segment to be found. I emailed them again and they told me the same thing. There was too much current news and that meant Mo’s segment was pushed out again, which they assured me wouldn’t happen again the next day, on Friday. They said they’d be in touch with more details soon and they weren’t kidding. I got this email the following morning.
Well, it looks like they’re really going to talk about Mo *and* have a live interview with me!
So, not only were they going to air the segment on Mo’s story but they also wanted to do a live interview with me. Of course I agreed and was once again excited to tell our story in front of an even bigger (and much more live) audience.
Friday quickly came and around 2pm I left the isocket office and headed up for the interview which was going to be done remotely from San Francisco. My buddy Henry Sun who is an amazing photographer met me there and he snapped some great pics of the action. I was interviewed via satellite which meant I was sitting in a room all by myself staring at a red light while answering live questions from an earpiece. To make it even better I was doing all of that in front of a super cheesy San Francisco skyline backdrop. You gotta love TV.
There’s nothing more fun (and weird) than doing a live interview via satellite.
Mo Gets More International Coverage
The interview went great and you can check out the video of it over here on the HLN website. Once that interview was over it was what I thought would be the end of the the week and half press blitz, but we I was wrong once again. For some reason the following week ended up being filled with all kinds of international (mainly French-speaking) media outlets covering Mo’s story. There was a a lot of interest in what Mo and I were doing and to this day I’m still not sure why. Large newspapers and TV stations covered it in France and I even did an interview with a reporter from Switzerland who wanted to know more (see a photo of the hard copy of the story below).
A media request from Switzerland. She called me at 4am for the interview.
Oh, no big deal. Just me and Mo in a Swiss newspaper.
I found most of the links to these stories through all of the new French speaking people who were starting to like Mo’s Facebook page. There was a flood of people who came in from France and it was actually kinda cool. They were very supportive and many of them donated to Mo’s cause. There were so many French speaking people who were now fans of Mo I even had Dom translate a status update for me so I could post it on his page for them.
Mo speaks French to his new Facebook fans.
Mo Gets Featured In Over 40 International Media Outlets
You can take a look at some of the international sites that Mo’s story was featured on below. Be sure to watch the video, it’s a really popular Frech TV show that covered Mo’s story (or at least that’s what Dom told me). I can’t understand what they’re saying, but I can tell they did a really good job sharing Mo’s story with the French.
The End Of The Buzz And Beginning Of The Catch-22 Crew
After a few days the international love affair (and the rest of the news interest) with Mo finally ended but there wasn’t any time to sit around. The very next day on Saturday Mo, me and some other friends put together the very first Catch-22 Crew which you can read more about over here (and I’ll tell you more about it later).
I think this is probably enough for one post and if you made it down this far, thanks for reading. This has been an amazing experience and I think there’s lots more to come when it comes to Mo’s story so stay tuned. Oh, and one more thing. Mo wanted to say thanks for everything you’ve done for him.
It’s hard to believe, but it’s been three weeks since I first broke my pinky toe. Breaking your pinky toe isn’t a major injury by any measurement but it was enough to kill my hopes of running the San Francisco Marathon and has kept me from running since it happened. Although missing out on the marathon is a bummer (I really wanted to run it) I’m much more affected by the fact that for nearly a month my daily running routine has been non-existent. Really the only reason I was running the marathon was to make sure that I stayed consistent with my running (and running a marathon just sounds cool). It was my means to an end and that means has been nowhere to be found since kicking the leg of my coffee table while only wearing socks on that fateful Sunday.
So how do I feel? To be honest it hasn’t been too hard on me considering that I went from running like a maniac to completely stopping. I definitely miss the natural energy that running gives me in the morning and I’ve tried to substitute in Mountain Dew for the endorphins, but it’s a cheap, weak and temporary option. Oh, and I’ve been staying pretty busy keeping up with Mo so that’s helped me keep my mind off it. More on what’s up with Mo later.
The one thing that running does for me is give me some structure and outside-of-the-workplace responsibility that’s important for anyone to have. No one is paying me to run and no one is going to care if I stop (at least no one has for the past three weeks). Running is something that I do for myself and although the benefits of me knocking out a few miles on foot five times a week can touch others besides myself it’s ultimately me who determines whether or not I’m doing it consistently. It also motivates me to get to bed earlier so I can get up and run before work which is how I prefer to start my day. In case you can’t tell, I like the challenge of running and and really miss it.
So, what now? I’m planning on running for the first time in three weeks before this week is over. It’s not going to be far and it’s not going to be fast but it’s going to be a run and that’s all that matters to me. My toe is still healing and has a little bit of swelling here and there but I don’t have any pain at all when I walk. I’ve also busted out some short jogs with Frank to test it out and it feels fine. As far as I can tell I’m ready to go for a run and I can’t wait.
I had to link to this video that Right This Minute put together about Mo’s story. It’s amazing when you see it put together like that and they did an incredible job with telling the story in an interesting and honest way. Thanks to all of the team over there for doing this, Mo really appreciates it.
If you landed on this blog after watching the video, welcome. If you’d like to find out more about Mo you can check out his donation page over here or give directly below. Thanks for stopping by and leave a comment if you want me to tell Mo anything for you — I’ll be sure to pass along the message.
