Meet My (Homeless) Friend, Mo

What do you do when a homeless man or woman asks you for something? Do you help them out or do you just keep walking faster while looking the other way? Homeless and needy people are everywhere and most of us aren’t quite sure what to do about them. In the days of iPods, iPhones and Androids it’s never been easier to ignore these them although I’m not sure that’s the best thing to do.

About a month ago I was walking through the train station on my way back home from work. It was around 8pm and I was feeling tired from a long day of using my brain. Stephanie was doing something that night and I was starving so I started heading toward the Subway sandwich shop that’s in the station.

On my way over to grab my sandwich I get approached by an older looking black guy who was obviously homeless. He had a wide 6’2″ frame and was wearing old, worn out clothes that consisted of dirty jeans that were splitting up the sides from the bottom, a grungy black hooded sweatshirt and a light beige jacket that looked darker than it should have been. After giving him a look up and down I could tell that these just weren’t his clothes, they were also his blankets while he slept on the streets at night. Surprisingly as he got closer to me he didn’t smell at all, which from what I’ve experienced in San Francisco is pretty rare.

His beard was full, graying and had grown long enough at the bottom of his chin it could be braided if it wasn’t all clumped together. His hair was balding in the front and had longer dreads in the back. This wasn’t the first time that I had been asked questions by a random homeless guy and I actually like talking to them most of the time. For some reason this guy seemed different from from the beginning and as he started asking me questions he was actually pretty funny.

“Hey man, you have any cigarettes?” he asked me.

“Nope, I don’t smoke but I can grab you some food if you want. I’m about to hit up some Subway and I’m more than happy to grab you a sandwich if you want one.”

I’m always happy to offer someone food if they’re hungry, especially if I just met them. I feel like it’s a great way to get to know them and it gives you some time to talk with them while they order.

While we ordered our food I learned that his name is Mo, he’s on probation from selling some pills to someone on the street and that he likes to put all of the veggies on his Subway sandwiches (I call that “running it through the garden”). He also really likes the Subway cookies (oatmeal and chocolate chip) and sometimes the women who work there will give them to him for free if he asks nicely enough.

We talked for another few minutes or so and I ended up giving him some money to go get cleaned up at a cheap motel that’s nearby. I had no idea if I would ever see him again, but we’ve actually met up several times since then and I’m doing my best to be there for him when he needs something. This morning I ran into him on my way to the train station. He was sleeping under a couple of blankets on the sidewalk next to a trashcan that was right up against a fence. I woke him up, he gave me a hug and I bought him some coffee at the train station before I headed off to work.

I’m not sure what Mo has planned for the day, but I’m sure I’ll see him again tonight or tomorrow. I’m not sure what’s going to come of our relationship, but it’s grown to the point to where I feel like it’s good to share it with all of you so you can follow along our journey together. I really want to help him out and he’s got a good heart, but he’s got a hard life and there are a million reasons why he won’t make it another month on the streets. I’m hoping that I can eventually help Mo get back on his feet but for now I’m ok with just being his friend.

I feel blessed to have met him and I’ll be sure to keep you updated on how he’s doing. If you feel like there’s a way that you could help him out, let me know and I’ll be sure to let him know. He’s an awesome guy, he just needs some help.

 

The Benefits Of Getting Up Early

Let’s get one thing straight, I’m not a morning person. When I was younger and living with my parents I never had a designated time when I had to go to bed. I can remember being in elementary school and laying with my dad watching Johnny Carson kill it on the Tonight Show. That guy was hilarious.

In college me and my dorm mates were known on our floor for consistently making 2am trips to the closest Steak ‘N Shake. After college I was practically paid to stay up late. I worked as a bouncer, bartender, party promoter and online community evangelist which meant that there were lots of nights that I didn’t sleep at all. Caffeine was my partner in crime and I was the farthest thing from being a morning person. I was a night owl and it was a hard lifestyle to keep up with. Would I ever get up early? Sure I would, but burning the candle at both ends can only last so long and I would eventually crash for sometimes an entire weekend at a time.

At this point I’m a different person, or at least I’m trying my best to be. Even though it’s not something I’m great at I like getting up early now. From a work perspective it makes me more productive and there’s just something about being one of the first people to the office. Getting a head start on the day has never been a bad thing, but it’s not easy to do.

I also like to get up early on weekends, especially now that I’m running more and training for the San Francisco Marathon. There’s really nothing more energizing then getting up and getting an early run in before you start your day.

Seeing the sun starting to come up and getting a workout in before most people are hitting snooze for the first time just makes me feel good. It also takes the pressure off of squeezing in a workout after work which can be a real pain and often ends up in me skipping it altogether. Knocking out my runs in the morning guarantees that they get done and gives me energy for the rest of the day. I walk into work feeling like a boss and I can do whatever I want once I clock out for the day.

Tips For Getting Up Early

Say what you want, but there are some serious benefits to getting up early and I’m just starting to get to a place where I’m taking advantage of them consistently. I’m no expert when it comes to getting up and moving, but here are some tips that might help you get there:

1. Set early calls/meetings: If you set early meetings you’re motivated to get up early. There’s no sleeping in when you’re locked into an 8:30am conference call about this month’s TPS Reports.

2. Don’t hit snooze: The snooze button is your enemy and it’s benefits definitely don’t outweigh it’s costs. If you need some extra motivation to not hit that extra ten minutes of nap time these four tips by Austin Hatfield might do the trick. It also never hurts to move your alarm across the room so you physically have to get out of bed to turn it off. It might sound crazy, but it works.

3. Go to bed early: You want to get up earlier? Go to bed earlier. We all need different amounts of sleep and you know more than anyone how much that is. Shut off your Facebook, Netflix video games or whatever else you’re wasting time on at night and go to bed.

4. Start running: Running (or walking, biking, working out, etc.) is an amazing way to wake up in the morning and it will give you some extra motivation to get yourself moving. There are some pretty sweet benefits to getting your Forrest Gump on in the morning, too.

5. Drinking only makes it harder: The only thing harder than getting up early is getting up early after you’ve been drinking.

Do you have to be a morning person? Of course not. If you feel ok about staying up late and getting up later then more power to ya. I personally feel better when I get up early and I know it’s the best way for me to start the day and that’s why it bothers me when I don’t follow through with doing it. We’re all different and figuring out how you work best is the first step in getting the most out of your day and feeling like you can take on the world with the energy you need.

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Thanks to the guys at Fangbot for the photo and more awesome tips on getting up early (and feeling like you can slay a dragon).

 

Are You Ready For A Relationship?

You know I’m married when I’m writing about things like this. Who would of ever thought that I would be giving relationship advice? Mr. non-committal himself has now turned into Dr. Phil. Awesome.

But there is something to be said about having experience with a fully committed relationship and the things you learn from it. I’ve been married for almost three years now and our relationship is far from perfect (believe me, we have our moments) but I’ve learned a lot of things along the way that I think could be helpful for those of you who are still looking for that Mr. or Mrs. Right.

Here are a few things I’ve learned up to this point. I’m by no means an expert but I do feel like I know a lot more than I did a few years ago. Take it or leave it and who knows, it might just be what you need to hear.

We’re All Selfish

This is a simple fact of life and part of being a human. We’re all programmed to take care of #1 before all else and to make things worse our culture is always telling us this over and over again. We can take care of ourselves, we don’t need anyone else’s help and I want what I want when I want it (or else). In a relationship you’re going to have to chip away at this little by little and eventually you’ll need to get to the point to where you’re giving more of yourself than you ever imagined possible. This might sound like a scary thing, but it’s actually a great place to find yourself if you can make it there.

The things in your life that you think make you who you are will need to become less important, which is going to be a hard pill to swallow. Your workouts will be harder to squeeze in, your work will have a beginning and an end time and you’ll find yourself doing things that your significant other cares about that you never paid attention to or ever wanted to do before. Oh, and you’re going to be communicating more than you ever have in your entire life. Sounds awesome, huh? (it actually is if you can get it all figured out)

Are you losing who you are? No. You’re just becoming the person you never knew you could be.

Relationships Take Work

This sounds really bad when you say it to someone who’s single but anyone who’s been married for longer than a year will tell you that there’s a lot of work needed to keep a relationship going. A lot of people think that things will just happen the way they should in a relationship, but that’s just not the case. Can it move along smoothly for a while without too much effort? Sure, but that’s going to eventually fade away and then it’s time to get to work on what you really want.

This isn’t the traditional roll-up-your-sleeves kind of work. This is being aware of what you need in a relationship and communicating it to others in a way that can be understood. It’s also understanding what the other person in your relationship needs and how to make sure they’re getting what they need in a way that’s healthy for your relationship as a whole. It takes planning, forethought, being intentional and communicating in a way that the other person in your relationship understands (not just in a way that you do).

This work shouldn’t scare you away from being in a relationship but it should help you set some expectations so you’re not completely blindsided by what it takes to keep one going in the right direction. Communicate on a ridiculous level to each other even when it feels so awkward you want to throw up. That feeling is you being molded into someone who can help build something special with another person. Embrace the work and it will pay off, just don’t shy away from it or avoid it. It’s the easy way out and it’s tempting, but you’re better than that.

Don’t Be Who You Think They Want, Be Who You Are

One of the early mistakes I made in my marriage and even in some of my earlier relationships was becoming who I thought someone else wanted me to be and not who I actually was. With the other relationships it was just an easy way to keep things smooth, exciting and moving along at a pace I liked but it can only last so long and it was exhausting.

This isn’t necessarily being a completely different person when you’re around someone else — it can simply be not speaking up about things you feel you should talk about or avoiding conflict for the sake of not upsetting someone else. This is something I dealt with in my relationships with women, my close friends and even family and I still struggle with it today. I feel like this topic could be an entire series of posts for me, but we’ll leave it at that for now.

I think the reason why I always did this was simple, it got me what I wanted quicker. Whether it was getting a girl or a group of people I just met to like me faster, it just made things easy. I could turn on the charm and it would fast track me to where I wanted to be. I still find myself doing this in certain situations and to be honest it’s a great quality of mine but it’s only good for getting people’s attention should never be a long term way to manage my relationships (great for networking events, traveling, etc.). I’m figuring all of this out even today and it’s exciting to learn more about myself and how I create, build and manage my relationships with my wife, family, friends and co-workers. I’m learning to be who I am and to be ok with it. More and more I’m finding my identity in my faith, which is another topic I’ll write more about in the future.

If you’re going to be in a relationship that lasts you need to be who you really are — the good, the bad and the ugly. You can change some of the things that need some improvement, but you need to do that together. That’s part of the messiness and what will bring you closer to whoever you’re sharing these types of things with. Someone once said that people admire you when you seem perfect but they love and respect you when you’re open with your own weaknesses. None of us are perfect and I think they might be right.

I’m not sure if all of this makes sense but it does to me and I’m realized that whatever I’ve gone through others have or are going through the same things, too. If you’re someone who needs to hear what I’m saying I hope it helps and if you have any comments for me I’d love to hear ’em.

Patience, Persistence and Passion

In the four years I’ve lived in California I’ve met a lot of what I would call “successful people”. Some have been successful in business, some with their marriage/family and others with various personal goals they’ve set for themselves. With each of these people I’ve noticed some traits that makes them different from others. They have something driving them that most don’t have access to. They have patience, persistence and passion and a mix of these three is what gives them the seemingly superhuman power to do the amazing things they do.

This isn’t something that is only unique to a select amount of gifted people. If any of us can get this mix right with the things that we’re trying to accomplish we can have similar success, too. It’s usually not all one or the other, but it’s a nice mix of patience, persistence and passion that keeps them moving along. Here’s some more detail about each of them and how they can help you get to where you need to be.

Patience

No matter what you’re doing you need to be able to see it through to the end. This requires more patience than most people have access to and no one wants to spend a lot of time doing something that has a high likelihood of failing. Time is always against those who are trying to do something new, innovative and important but if you can wait it out longer than others then you’re much more likely to be rewarded.

From a business standpoint this is being able to outlast your competitors or waiting for a market to mature despite all signs saying it probably won’t happen. Personally this is having the patience to lose weight the right way, with good nutrition and exercise and not with stupid diets and weight loss pills. Giving yourself the right amount of training on the way to running a marathon and not ditching it a couple months in. This is also having the patience to stay in a relationship that doesn’t seem to be working at the time and needs some time for issues to be resolved and not pulling the plug just to make it easy. Valuable, sustainable things don’t happen quickly and you need patience if you want them to be successful.

Persistence

If patience is being able to wait for the right things to happen, persistence is doing all of the right things (and some wrong things, but pushing through them) along the way and sticking to a plan of action no matter what happens. Patience without persistence is just dragging out the inevitable result of failure and persistence without patience will burn you out and take away your focus. I guess this would be a good time to give an example so this makes more sense.

Let’s say you’re training for a marathon that’s six months away. In your head you really want to run the race the best you can and you’re prepared to do whatever it takes. That’s a good first step, nice job. You decide to make some time for your training and you’re going to run in the morning. You look up a training schedule and start to follow it. You have a long time before you’re running the race and the training moves up your mileage slowly, so sticking to it will require patience. If you run on all of the days you’re supposed to and get up in the mornings you’ve got the persistence taken care of, which is great. But, you also need to follow the training and not push yourself too much, too quickly. You need to have the patience to follow what the training says and even if you feel like you can do more you should stick to the plan.

If you don’t have the patience and push yourself too much and don’t follow the plan you’re going to get injured or burn yourself out. If you don’t have the persistence to run when you’re scheduled to run, keep the pace you’re supposed to or run the right distances you won’t be prepared for your marathon and the results will show it. Will you finish? Most likely, but your time won’t be the best it could be and you might hurt yourself in the process. Be patient, be persistent and you’ll be prepared and perform like you should.

Passion

Personally I feel like this is the most important of the three because being passionate about something can all of a sudden give you the patience and the persistence that you never knew you had before. Passion is what keeps you up at night playing around with that thing you’re building or that canvas you’re painting or that video you’re editing. You love it and what you’re doing gives you the energy you need to keep on going, even when other people think you’re crazy.

Whether it’s public knowledge or not, nothing and no one starts off awesome. It always takes patience, persistence and some real passion to keep pushing through pain, failures and setbacks but the ones who do get rewarded for it. Need proof? Just look at some of the most famous people who you admire the most and find out their story. The things they’ve done and the time it’s taken to get to where they are is nothing short of insane, but they somehow made it through. It’s awesome and intimidating at the same time.

So, I ask you — what goals do you have and what things are you pushing for right now and how does your mix of patience, persistence and passion look? Are you missing one of them with what you’re doing? If you are it’s likely that you’re not doing the right things with your time. Take a good, honest look and see where you’re at. It’s something we should all be aware of.

Also, I wanted to give a shout-out to Dan Oshinsky and Brittany Lauren for helping me get some insight for this post. Thanks!

 

It’s More Than Just Communicating

You hear it all the time, right? Communication is key. It’s the most important part of any relationship and without it there’s bound to be trouble. I totally agree, but I think there’s something missing. You don’t just simply need to communicate, you need to communicate the right way.

I used to not communicate at all and that was a problem. If there was something I didn’t like I could brush it off or ignore it. If I thought my opinions and feelings were going to upset someone I would just rather keep them to myself. If I could simply avoid the situation altogether that was probably the best option for everyone. I wasn’t communicating and it caused lots of problems for me that I’ll have to go into in another post. I didn’t realize it at the time, but now it’s easy to see how my lack of communication was an easy short-term solution but unsustainable in the long term.

If you’re not communicating the way you should be to other people in your life (especially the ones you know and love the most) you need to fix it as soon as possible. Open up, speak your mind and when that feeling in your gut tells you that something isn’t right, do something about it. Don’t ignore it — it’s there for a reason. Making this change is worth all of the uncomfortable feelings you’re going to have in the process and then some. It’s not going to happen fast, I’ve been making changes for the past 3-4 years, but you need to start. Now.

Now that I’ve seen some positive changes in how I’m communicating to the different people in my life there’s something that I’ve found to be just as important (if not more important) than the act of communicating itself. The more important thing is *how* you’re communicating your thoughts and feelings.

Just because you’re communicating doesn’t mean you’re doing it the right way. There’s a balance of grace and truth when it comes to communicating and you don’t want to be on one side or the other. You want to have a good balance of both. Yes, you should tell the truth, but if you tell it without any grace you’re going to come off as too harsh or with a sense of not caring. Basically you’ll seem like more of an jerk than someone who actually cares about the other person. The truth is always needed, but taking some time to speak the truth in a way that’s loving and full of grace will go a long way.

Not giving enough truth can be just as bad. This is also known as sugar coating and while it makes the truth easier to communicate, it doesn’t have the intended effect on the person you’re talking to. I used to do this all the time and still find myself wanting to soften up the truth when having a discussion with my friends, family, wife and even strangers. Don’t take the easy way out and not tell the full truth, it’s only going to make things harder in the end.

One last thing, avoid sarcasm at all times when communicating something you feel strongly about. It never helps get your point across and only make the other person feel like they’re being attacked. Skip it and do your best to communicate with some grace and truth.

This will take time to get right and I’m still trying to figure out how I communicate to others in the ways I should. If you take some time to think and don’t just react when you’re in a conversation you’ll be able to get the balance of grace and truth you need. Take a second before you respond, think about how you’re going to communicate and go from there.

Any thoughts or questions, I would love to hear from you. Let me have it and here’s to having better communication!

What Communities Are You Investing In?

Something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is community. Being part of a community is about as human as it gets. We all want to belong to something and at some point we all choose who our community is made up of and what it’s focused on.

Building a community is extremely fulfilling and being part of one can benefit you both personally and professionally. Even though many of them seem attractive, not all communities are healthy so it’s good to be aware of what ones you’re part of and why.

It’s taken me a few years to realize this, but the communities you choose to invest your time in is one of the most important decisions you make on a daily basis. They influence how you act, where you go, what you do and who else you interact with. This is why it’s crucial to make sure you’re willingly part of the communities you associate with and have thought through why you’re there in the first place.

It sounds like that’s a no-brainer, but I’ve found that I’ll become part of a community, invest my time and energy there and I don’t really know why I’m part of it or what I’m getting out of it. Or, I might be part of the community but I’m only involved at a surface level and I’m not really committed to being a significant part of it. This can easily happen with certain groups of your friends, the people you work with or even the staff at a restaurant you go to on a regular basis.

It’s easy to do the minimum required to stay loosely connected to a group and some people prefer being an insignificant member of multiple communities than a valuable member of just a few. This is how I was when I lived back in Indianapolis. I was part of just about every community I could possibly commit to and the result was that I didn’t get to really connect with any of them. Did a lot of people know who I was? Oh yeah, tons of people knew Ryan Hupfer but they only knew a very small part of me and I wasn’t providing a whole lot of value to any of them.

Why did this happen to me and ho does it happen so easily to us when we’re choosing where to spend our time? I can think of a few reasons, but the main one is that it’s risky and a lot of work to truly invest in a community. You need to spend a lot of time getting to know other people and as a result you also need to open up yourself up more than might be comfortable for you. The more you get to know people, the more they know about you and the more you know about them and not all of us are ok will people knowing our business.

But that’s what a community is supposed to be, right? I know it’s been hard for me to open up to the communities I’m choosing to be part of right now (church, work, friends, family to name a few), but I’m getting better at it. It’s really hard at the beginning, but the payoff has been awesome and I would suggest you do the same. Just make sure you’re in the type of community that’s healthy for you and realize that it’s going to take some time and investment to become a valuable part of it.

What communities are you part of? I would love to hear more about them in the comments sections if you have some time to let me know.

I’m Back From Congo And My Head Is Spinning

Sometimes you just need to start typing and see what happens next. I think that’s what I’m going to do today since my mind seems to be thinking about a million different things at the same time. If there was a better way to organize the inside of my head I would be more than happy to do it, but that’s just not the case. Instead I’m going to ramble a bit and see what comes out. Yeah, that seems like the best way to do things at this point.

First off, I’m just a couple of days back from my trip to Congo, which is a little hard to handle. Not only am I physically tired from the two week trip and the 30+ hour travel home, but the juxtaposition of that world vs. the reality of San Francisco is shocking to the system. We have so much and they have so little. We’re always looking for more and they’re just trying to survive. We have order and infrastructure and they have complete chaos. We’re always trying to squeeze our faith into our lives and their faith in Jesus Christ is off the charts.

Being one place and then hopping into a few jets and being in the other can really make your head spin with questions, which is what I’m feeling right now. I want to make the most of my experience in Congo, but at this point it’s hard to explain what I’m feeling in a way that makes sense to someone who wasn’t there with me. I guess I just need to keep processing and do my best not to forget the people I met and the things that I saw.

Stephanie and I went to Congo together last year and it’s something that neither of us will ever forget, but this year I headed there solo. This makes it harder to talk through, but I’m doing my best to share the experience with her and I’m hoping that the videos and photos that we have will help me tell a better story to her. I know it’s never easy being the one who stays home while the other is out on an adventure of a lifetime, but that’s how it happened this time around and I need to make sure that she still feels like she’s a part of the trip. It’s not going to be easy, but that’s my goal.

I love Stephanie more than anything and it’s been hard to be away from her for so long (SXSW for a week, then Congo for two weeks and tomorrow she leaves for her spring break for a week). We haven’t had a ton of time to talk through what’s been going on in our lives, but tonight we’re having date night which I hope will get us on the same page. We’re not the best at communicating with one another, but we’re getting better and we both know it’s important to let each other know how we’re feeling, whether it’s good or bad.

Heading back to work the day after getting back to the US might not have been the best idea, but it was good to see the isocket crew again. It’s only been two weeks since I left but in the world of a startup lots of things can go on during that seemingly short amount of time. My workday consisted of attempting to explain what my trip was like in the span of a short conversation and catching up on my emails.

From what I could tell things have been going well while I’ve been gone and isocket continues to grow in ways that I could have never imagined back when I was hired as the first employee a couple of years ago. It’s exciting and fun to be part of a team that’s trying to do something that’s never been done before and I feel blessed to have the opportunity to help make it happen. It’s a roller coaster, but I guess that’s what I signed up for.

Other than that it’s been great to have warm showers again and to snuggle up with Frank (our Pug). It’ll be nice to have this weekend to get things cleaned up and washed and to have some time to get more of thoughts together. Oh, and the Final Four is this weekend, too which is pretty awesome since I’ve missed all of the March Madness up until this point.

But, until then it’s back to work and I need to get off on the next train station so we’ll catch up later. Here’s to an awesome rest of your Friday and have a fabulous weekend (I know I will).

 

I Hit My Fundraising Goal For Congo!

[box type=”note” style=”rounded”]I wrote this post last night on my flight back to San Francisco from SXSW. [/box]Just a couple of days before I headed to SXSW in Austin, TX I was blessed with an online gift that put me over my fundraising goal of $2,600. I decided to raise money with WePay which was super easy to setup and a simple way to collect online payments if you ever need to raise some money.

I was also mailed a few checks the old-fashioned way and with those my total is actually over $3,000, which means that my church won’t have to pay as much toward my trip as they had originally thought. This means they’ll have more money for the next person like me who’s planning on going somewhere on a mission trip and needs some support.

Over 20 people threw some money my way and I appreciate every single penny of it. I’m now going to be able to fly all the way across the world, love on some people who need it and I’ll be doing it all in the name of Jesus Christ. If that’s not awesome I don’t know what is.

As I’m writing this I’m on a Southwest flight back to San Francisco (through LA) and I’m feeling a little worn down from all of the action I’ve had over the past few days. Thanks to a small amount of self-restraint at open bars and the morning runs that I intentionally scheduled in the mornings while I was there I don’t feel too bad. Tired? Yes. Hungover? Heeeeecks nah.

It feels good to be able to sit down for a while and type on my laptop without having to ask someone who they are, where they’re from and what company they work for. I love meeting new people as much as anyone, but talking to strangers (and some friends) from 8am-midnight tends to wear me down. Not to mention my feet were killing me from just walking and standing all day. I know, it’s a rough life but somehow I found a way to manage.

Enough about SXSW, I’ll talk about that some other time — it’s time to get ready for Congo and I’m really getting excited about going. It usually takes me a while to get excited about things, but with only 12 hours until my first flight it’s too close not to.

I’ll get back to San Francisco at 9pm tonight, pack and get all my stuff ready tomorrow and then head back to the SFO for the first leg of the 30+ hour trip. I can’t wait to start the adventure and I guess this would be a good time to learn some Lingala.

That’s all I have for now, but there will be much more coming soon. Thanks again to all of your who gave me some of your hard-earned cash so I can make this trip to Congo happen and please keep me in your prayers for both betting ready and while I’m over there.

 

The Magic Of Running 5 Miles


photo credit: Sarah Windham

Running is a funny thing that takes some getting used to. For most people running is something that should only be done when being chased by someone/something and others (like my homie Jason Shen) runs whenever he can because he loves it. I’m more like Jason, I love to run and I can’t get enough of it, but that doesn’t mean that it’s always easy or enjoyable.

For me, running is really hard (and usually pretty painful) until you get to the point to where you can go out and run 5 miles without stopping. I’m not sure why this is and if it’s just a thing that’s specific to me and my running, but there’s always been something magical about getting to the 5 mile mark.

I’ve thought about this a lot and I’ve shared it with a few different people, but for some reason once I get over the hump of being able to throw on my running shoes, head out the door and put in 5 miles without worrying whether or not I can make it, I feel like I’m a real runner.

Here are a few reasons why I think this happens:

>> Once I’ve been running for 5 miles/30+ minutes it’s long enough to be considered aerobic exercise, which means that my heart has been beating at a relatively high rate for a given amount of time. This means that I’m burning more calories (almost 600 in total), kicking up my oxygen intake and really working some of my major muscles.

>> Hitting 5 miles allows me to cover more distance and gives me more options when I run outside, which makes running much more enjoyable. I like taking different routes and seeing different things and the more distance you’re going the more flexibility you have as far as where you can go and what you can see along the way.

>> I feel like once I make it to 5 miles it only gets easier for me to add on additional mileage to my long runs and usually before I know it I’m out running for an hour (which is another awesome milestone).

>> The simple fact that being able to tell other people that you just ran 5 miles is pretty awesome.

It’s not easy to make it to the magical 5 mile distance, but once you get there you’re going to feel like a totally different runner. You’ll be in better shape, you’ll feel good about running longer distances and before you know it you’ll be running for distances farther than you ever thought possible.

To make it to 5 miles I have just a few simple tips:

>> Run 2-3 times during the work week and plan for one long run on either Saturday or Sunday.

>> Completely take off the the day after your long run — your body needs to rest.

>> Never run more than two days in a row during the work week.

>> Do whatever you can to never miss a work week run. Even if you only have the time to get a short run in, still get dressed and get out the door so that you’re not losing your momentum and habit building.

>> Track your runs with something like Nike+, CardioTrainer, MapMyRun or RunKeeper so you know what you’ve ran and what your pace is.

That’s all I have for today, but if you have any questions about anything please let me know and here’s to making it to the magical 5 mile mark.

 

How I Taught The Congo About Computers And High-Fives

[box type=”info” style=”rounded” border=”full”]I’m going back to Congo in March and need your help! Check out more about what I’ll be doing and donate some of your cash over here. Thanks for being awesome![/box]When I went to Congo last year to teach a computer course at one of their local universities I didn’t know what to expect. I’ve trained hundreds of people how to use software over the years, but I’ve never officially taught students in a classroom setting.


The outside of the university

I’m using the term “university” loosely, as it’s not what most of us Americans would think of when hearing the word university or college. The university that I taught at consisted of three cinderblock rooms with no electricity, bathrooms or anything else that we’re all used to having inside of our schools.

Even though they had a few computers on hand (that our church donated five years before) none of of them worked, so before I could teach them anything on the computers I needed to fix them. I hadn’t fixed a computer in probably ten years, but it all came back to be and before you know it we had fifteen of them up and running.


Somehow this generator powered my entire classroom

Of course I also needed electricity in my classroom so we used an old worn-out generator that pumped in the juice I needed to power my projector, computers and the mobile phones that all of my students kept trying to plug in whenever they had the opportunity.

Even though most of the students had a mobile phone, getting a good charge is still a luxury in Congo. I even used it as motivation to answer questions during my class. Want to get a charge? Answer a question correctly and you’ll get yourself a couple hours of talk time.


The students never missed a chance to charge up their phones during class

Before going to Congo I had never spoken Lingala (a Congolese trade language) or French (the Congo’s educated language), so I used a translator who had trouble speaking English, but could translate everything I said into French. His name was Remy and he wore a suit every, single day. Up until then I had never used a translator and Remy was more than awesome. I have to admit, it was hard to begin with but we figured it out together and got into a groove in no time.


My translator Remy and I were a good team


Remy always looked good — check out that suit!

Mix all of this with the fact that the students didn’t even know what a mouse was, how a keyboard worked or how a computer even turned on and you have a situation that could go from bad to worse to horrible in no time. But, God helped me pull it off, the classes went better than expected and I ended up bonding with the students in a way that I could have never imagined.


The students couldn’t get enough of the computers


This is one of my best students, Karl — he would help me teach the class, too

I even taught them how to high-five, which they loved. So much, in fact that we all did a high-five fest at the graduation ceremony once our classes were finished.

When I received my certificate for the class I taught I surprised my students with a little bit of Lingala I learned and screamed out “Nalingi Bino Mingi”, which means “I love all of you very much!”. The students went crazy and the only reaction I felt was appropriate was to high-five as many of them as I could as they screamed in excitement.

Check out the video below for how it went down. [view on YouTube]