We Should Be Doing More Than Just Surviving

 

This morning I met a homeless man named Trey in the San Francisco Caltrain station and he asked me if I could spare some change. This is a situation that I’m very familiar with.

I had a few minutes before my train took off so I told him I would buy him something to eat. He wanted Subway so we headed over to the beginning of the line to start the order. Before we even had the chance to say “footlong cold cut combo” the man behind the counter started yelling something to me that was a mix of English and some other language that definitely was not English.

“I will not give him sandwich — no buy him sandwich!” he said in a loud voice as we moved down the line of sliced meat and veggies.

“Hey, man — all I want is a footlong cold cut…” Trey yelled back. He didn’t seem too surprised that they weren’t too willing to give him what he wanted, which made me wonder what was going on.

I walked up and talked the Subway employee and in as good of English as possible he told me something about how Trey tried to take back a sandwich someone bought him for some money and that he had to call the cops on him. In other words, Trey wasn’t going to be getting his footlong.

So, we moved on to another coffee shop that’s next to the Subway and tried it again.

“What do you want from here?” I asked while checking my phone to see how much time I had before my train was supposed to leave. “Hmmm, I guess I’ll take a sausage and egg burrito and a large coffee.” Trey said and I got in line as he started telling me how he was from St. Louis and was staying in a homeless shelter that’s a block away from where I live.

Just then one of the guys who worked at the coffee shop walked out to where we were standing and told me that Trey had been stealing from him. He also told me that he had put a restraining order on Trey . I told the man thanks for the info, stepped out of line and confronted Trey about the accusations.

I looked right in his eyes and said “Hey Trey, have you been stealing from these guys?”

“No, man — I haven’t stole nothing from them.” he quickly replied.

I asked again, “Trey, are you sure you have never stole anything from this coffee shop? Ever? If you have, it’s ok — we all do stuff like this, but I need you to tell me the truth.”

Once again he told me no directly to my face and with that I had to say goodbye to Trey and head off to Burlingame. For some reason this interaction really stuck with me while I was riding down to work today which is why I felt like I needed to write something about it. I’m pretty sure that Trey has done some things that he’s not too proud and that he was in the middle of a tough time in his life where he feels like the only way out is to steal and do whatever it takes to survive.

But to that I would say that the only way for him to make it out of the struggles he’s facing and the world that he’s living in isn’t to only do what it takes to survive. It’s doing whatever it takes to change his heart and his mind from the inside out. For Mo that change has happened over time through the fact that he has been putting more faith in what Jesus Christ can do in his life than what he can control and do himself. Through that I’ve been able to help him and so have several others that have been brought into his life.

I might not be homeless, but I’m learning to do the same exact same thing in my life and it’s always a struggle. All I pray for is that Trey would one day do the same thing.

We should all be doing much more than just surviving.

 

Mo Shows Off His Cooking Skills

As I’m writing this with a belly full of delicious southern-style cooking I’m wondering why I never had Mo cook for me before. It’s not like he hasn’t talked about it. Go ahead, I dare you to bring up how you cook your favorite dish. He’ll quickly tell you how you’re missing something important and that he has the best way to cook it. In fact, not only will he tell you how to cook it, he’ll show you with the animation and energy that only Mo has. It’s quite a show and I’ve seen it happen many times over the past few months.

Once he starts it’s hard for him to stop and it’s actually really entertaining for me to watch. Cooking greens? Well you’ll need to make sure to let them cook this way or that way and you can’t forget to do this to them or they’re just not going to end up with the right taste. Oh, you’re going to cook some ribs? Then you better make sure that you put on the right type of seasoning and cook them for the right amount of time or they’re not going to be falling off the bone like they should be.

In other words, I had always heard about how Mo knows his way around a kitchen but for some reason I had never had him cook anything for us before. This is most likely due to the fact that I don’t really dream about food like he does and when I do eat something it usually consists of my four main food groups — hummus, carrots, salami and cheese. I guess you can throw some salads and naan from Trader Joe’s in there, too but these are things that Mo doesn’t even consider to be edible. He actually makes fun of me for the fact that I don’t have any “real” food that he can eat. Yes, that’s right — Mo, who has been homeless for four years makes fun of me for not having the right kind of food in my refrigerator. I guess that everyone has their opinion.

Anyway, today after we went down to church I decided to skip the usual trip to Chipotle. Instead, Mo and I made our way back up the 101 to San Francisco and made a stop by good ol’ Trader Joe’s. I told Mo that I wanted him to make us some dinner and that he could buy whatever he wanted/needed to make that happen. I gave Mo a blank check for what I’m sure was his first trip to Trader Joe’s and after seeing all of the things he could pack into one of their hand baskets I started to wonder if it was the right thing to do. Here’s some of what he ended up buying:

  • Corn on the cob
  • Flour
  • Smoked bacon
  • Chicken legs (he couldn’t find turkey feet)
  • Multiple bags of different types of greens
  • Broccoli
  • Seasoned salt (which unfortunately wasn’t Lawry’s, his favorite)
  • Macaroni and cheese
  • Chips
  • Canola oil
  • lots of other stuff that I can’t remember

About 45 minutes and $80 later we’re walking out of Trader Joe’s with all of the ingredients for a meal that even Mo would be proud of. He was already talking about how good it was going to be and I was willing to skip lunch so I was hungry enough to enjoy it.

Soon after we got back to my apartment Mo took total control over the kitchen and it was impressive seeing him go from one thing to another. He filled up my sink with greens that he chopped up and before you know it he was cooking those down in a huge pot. It didn’t take long before delicious smells of whatever he was working on started reaching out into every corner. He was all over the place and for someone who hasn’t cooked a full meal like this in about ten years he seemed to know exactly what he was doing.


At this point Mo had taken over my kitchen and I just got out of the way. 

As the greens were cooking he started working on the fried chicken. He covered each of the chicken legs with some flour and seasoning and laid them carefully in the hot canola oil that was already heated up in a pan on another burner. Soon, all four burners will filled with some of Mo’s magic — greens, corn on the cob, macaroni and cheese and fried chicken. The whole time he seemed to be having a lot of fun and even started singing while paying half attention to his cooking and the other half to the NFL game on the TV. I could tell that Mo was cooking up a masterpiece and it didn’t take long before I was filling up my plate with a little bit of everything that he had to offer.


The proud chef and his masterpiece.

Fried chicken? You know it. Mac ‘n cheese? Yes, please. Corn on the cob? Bring it on. Greens? I thought you’d never ask.

I piled it all on my plate, we gave thanks and then I finally experienced the awesomeness of Mo’s down-home southern-style cooking. Mo ate, I ate, Mo laughed at me while saying “look at the white boy eating greens”. It was pretty epic.

I quickly cleaned my plate and went for seconds before Mo could start to think about it. Every single thing he made was stupid good and even though I had heard him talk about how amazing his cooking was I felt a little ridiculous for not doing this sooner. Mo has some serious skills and I can’t wait to see what he cooks up next.

 

Explain Yourself

For a long time in my life I never had to explain myself. If I made decisions I just did whatever I wanted and that was it. No reasons were needed whenever I did this or bought that. When I went here or went there. I had no one I reported to. I never had to explain myself. I’m guessing that most people’s college years and twenties were/are similar to this. Do what we want, when we want.

At this point in my life though that’s changed a lot. One of the places I notice it the most is my job at isocket. Working at a startup is a lot different than working at a big company. At a big company you’re told what to do most of the time and have a very specific role you’re filling. This means that there’s not a whole lot of explaining why you make certain decisions and most of the time you’re not making them on your own. At isocket it’s the complete opposite.

An example of explaining myself at work would be communicating to the team that we need to add a certain feature to our product as soon as possible. Once communicated, I would be asked why I feel like we need to add it, the evidence that I’ve seen in the market, the impact that adding this feature to our product would have on our business and why this certain feature is should be prioritized ahead of other features that we already have in our roadmap. In other words, I would need to clearly explain myself and why I felt the way I did about this new feature. Conversations like this happen multiple times a day at isocket and it’s something that any early employee at a startup needs to be able to handle.

Decisions that would take other companies weeks or months take us only a few minutes. But, with this speed and freedom comes a lot more accountability. Being able to articulate why you want to do something and what it will mean to our business is critical when making important decisions very quickly. This is really what being at a startup is all about. It can get a little crazy at times, but I can guarantee you’re never going to be bored.

Another good example of explaining myself is when I make decisions in my marriage and other relationships that are important to me. Making a decision is easy, but thinking about why you made it and being able to explain the reasoning behind it is what’s hard. But, the more you can facilitate these types of conversations in a healthy way the more you’re going to be able to understand others and the more they’re going to understand you.

Explaining yourself in a personal relationship is actually pretty similar to how it happens in business but the topics are going to be much different. For example, my wife might wonder why I took a certain route to IKEA instead of the way that she would usually go. This doesn’t seem like something that’s a big deal, but being able to explain even the smallest of decisions is important. Being able to say that I took a different route because I thought that there would be a lot of traffic the other way due to the time of day would be a simple and straight-forward explanation. Of course, how she accepts my explanation is important but that’s not in my control. I gave my honest explanation and it’s up to her how she handles it.

Sometimes going through this process isn’t easy and being asked to explain yourself can make you feel like you’re being attacked for no reason. More times than not this isn’t the case and it’s up to you to be able to give the reasoning behind the things that you’re doing. If you can’t explain your decisions or simply don’t want to that’s your choice but your viewpoint or way of doing things won’t be nearly as respected as if you did.

Between being married and working at isocket over the past few years this has been a real learning experience for me and I still struggle though it sometimes. But I know that figuring out a way to confidently give my honest reasoning behind the choices that I make will only help me become a better and stronger communicator. Boo yah.

 

Being Productive vs. Being Destructive

In this life there are different choices that you can make and paths you can take. One is being productive and the other is being destructive. Usually we’re not all one or the other but we’re all living at a certain point on a sliding scale between the two. Here’s how I define both of these extremes.

Being productive is fulfilling your potential in all areas of life, given your current abilities, environment and restrictions all while feeling a strong sense of contentment (not complacency). It’s not just a work thing, it affects all parts of your life.

When you’re productive you’re intentional about the things you do day-to-day and take action to make things happen that in your mind and heart you know are good for you. You don’t let culture, peer pressure, jealousy or any other force dictate who you are and what you do.

Your personal relationships are strong and you surround yourself with people who are going to speak truth into your life and truly care about you in a deep and meaningful way.

Being destructive is choosing to live out your life in a way that’s harmful to your relationships, personal health or overall well-being most likely for some type of unattainable expectations you’ve set for yourself.

You let your emotions pull you in different directions and depending on the day you let the current of life sweep you in whatever way it wants. You complain and are frustrated about things that in your heart you know you can change, you just don’t have the discipline or understanding of how to do it. You feel like you deserve better and get upset when others are doing things you feel you’re entitled to. You have a serious case of FOMO (fear of missing out) and you’re more worried about what others are doing than yourself.

You make the assumption that you can do everything without anyone else’s help and your motivations to succeed are based on what you feel like other people want you to be.

Every decision we make and everything that we do can be bucketed into these two different types of outcomes. Sometimes we make a decision knowing which way it’s going to lead us, but others we have to make the decision first to find out. Then it’s up to us whether or not we make the same decision over and over again.

You’re not always going to make productive decisions but you should be aware which way each one is going to take you. Also, how do you feel after making each one and why should you/shouldn’t you make the same decision again? Take some time to think though what you’re doing and why it’s making you feel the way it is. Then you can decide whether or not it’s a decision you want to continue making in your life.

It sounds simple, but in the world we live in there’s always something else that we can distract ourselves with instead of focusing on the things that really make a difference in our lives. Knowing if the things you’re doing are productive or destructive is a great way to take that focus back and make some positive changes in your life.

 

Don’t Let A Speed Bump Throw You Completely Off The Road

Lately I feel like I’ve got it all figured out. I’m going to bed early, getting a lot of work done, running like I want to be, praying like crazy and staying connected with the people I care about. Well, except for last week. Last week didn’t go as planned.

I had thought through everything I would be doing during the week and was ready to take it on. That all worked well until I ended up staying at my office one night later than I wanted to on Tuesday and didn’t go to bed to bed until 2 am. That threw me off for my run on Wednesday (which I missed), got me into work later that day (feeling groggy), made me feel all tired and I didn’t end up running for the rest of the week until Saturday. I slept in later every morning of the week after that trying to catch up on my sleep but it never really happened. I was thrown off my game.

“Did you run this morning?” my co-worker Rex asked me on Wednesday when I got into work later than usual on Wednesday.

“Nope.” I said as a feeling of shame and guilt hit my gut. “I didn’t get up in time, but it’s all good – I’ll get back into it.” I was disappointed in myself.

You see, Rex has been on top of it lately. He runs after work and I can’t remember the last time he’s missed. He’s losing weight and seems to have more energy than ever. We’ve been keeping each other accountable and it was hurting my pride a bit when he asked me about my recent slacking. Rex is like a whole new man and I didn’t want to let him or myself down.

The reality for me was that I was thrown off my schedule by a speed bump and needed to get back on the road. I didn’t end up running the rest of the week but I knew Saturday was going to be the day to get back to where I needed to be. That’s what I had to keep telling myself, I had to adjust my schedule this week but that doesn’t mean I’m totally off my plan. The plan stays the same and it’s a matter of when I can get back in synch with it.

Sometimes we let our head tell us we’re way worse off than we really are and that’s dangerous. Don’t let the feelings you have about accepting adjustments or making mistakes take you out of the bigger plan you’ve put together for yourself. Keep telling yourself that you’ll get back on track and eventually you will.

So, today is Monday and I woke up early and ran this morning (it felt awesome). This means I’m back on my schedule that gives me the best chance to do the things I want to do this week. I’m not sure what’s going to happen after today, but for now I’m on track and it feels good. Now, onto the rest of the week.

 

Keeping My Emotions In Check

 

I should never be complaining about anything. I’ve got my health, an amazing wife, good friends, a great job, a growing relationship with Christ and a Pug that’s about as awesome as they come. But, for some reason that doesn’t stop me from getting down on myself sometimes and feeling like I’m doing it all wrong.

I don’t even know why and how it happens, but it does. In my head my emotions are telling me that I’m not doing enough, that other people are doing things that are better and that my relationships should be something different than they are. It’s hard to stop these thoughts from getting into my head and unfortunately it’s a reality that I have to deal with.

Depending on what’s going on in my life sometimes my emotions can be better or worse, higher or lower. One day my emotions can motivate me and another day they can make me feel worthless. My emotions can be all over the place and I guess the thing I’ve learned is that they’re always going to be changing. I think this happens to a lot of people and it’s a major driver why so many people are on antidepressant or other mood-altering meds (which admittedly I was on a few years back).

Here are some things I do to keep my emotions in check:

– I make sure I’m getting the sleep that I need for the week. The number one way for me to get in a bad emotional mess is lack of sleep. This might be different for you but you need to learn what you need in your life and what you don’t. Here’s some more detail about how I set these types of boundaries in my life.

– I share how I’m feeling with other people as much as possible. This is something that’s new for me and it still doesn’t feel natural but it always helps. No one likes to seem like they’re vulnerable but letting someone else know how you’re feeling is the first step in healing.

– I make time for prayer as much as I can. As a follower of Christ I rely on prayer and it’s not always easy to make the time. I’m working on proactively making time in the mornings for some silent prayer time so that I’m able to get my day started with some quality time with my man Jesus.

– I exercise a few times a week and now that my toe is healed up after breaking it I’m starting to get to the point to where I can crank out some decent morning runs. I run in the morning because it’s when it energizes me for the rest of the day and I don’t have to squeeze it in later, but that might be different for you.

– I’ve started to plan more things on a proactive basis instead of just hoping that they’ll fall into place. I’m all about being spontaneous, but nothing will cause more problems than not planning out your week and workdays at least a little bit a little in advance. You don’t have to get too granular, but at least know what’s going on at a high level.

I could keep going on but this should give you a good idea of the amount of time and effort it takes me to keep my emotions in check (and sometimes they’re still really hard to deal with). I just never want to be in a situation where I feel like they’re getting the best of me. That’s how larger problems get started and it’s all a downward spiral from there.

Listen to what your emotions are telling you and do your best to understand them, but don’t let them control you.

 

Awesome People Friday: Marc Draws Something

A while back I told you about my friend Marc and how he’s always doing something creative. He paints, he draws, he stacks rocks (seriously, he does) and he’s always doing something. He’s just got one of those creative brains that doesn’t ever shut off and he’s this week’s awesome person of the week.

Marc’s been sending me a ton of the painting’s he’s already made but I don’t think that they tell the full story of his art. Most of his paintings have multiple layers and take several days for him to finish. If you just look at the finished painting you might be able to tell some of the work that’s gone into it, there’s always a lot more.

To better tell the story he’s also starting to send me step-by-step photos of his new paintings and drawings. This past weekend he sent me some some quick shots of a drawing he threw together and I although his drawings don’t have the same process of his paintings you can still get a better idea of how he puts them together from beginning to end.

Here’s one he sent over to me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I really like seeing each of these steps and it adds more depth and understanding to the art he creates. I’ll keep posting up more as he sends them over and hopefully he’ll give me some shots of a painting, too. Marc. Is. Awesome.

 

Typing 64 WPM And Waking Up At 5:30am

Whenever I set goals I tend to be really hard on myself when looking at the progress (or lack of) that I’ve made. I’m not sure why, but I feel like I should be able to achieve the goals I want faster than what is actually possible. This sets my expectations all wrong which then makes me feel like I’m not doing what I need to do in order to make my goal happen. Frustration then follows and before I know it I’m not making any progress towards the goal was trying to reach in the first place. Sounds crazy, but it happens.

Losing track of my goals really sucks and most of the time it ends with me being disappointed in myself, but I’ve decided to finally make a change and it’s starting to work. It’s nothing that seems mind-blowing, but to me the results have been.

Here are two goals that I’ve recently set and how I’ve somehow stuck with them to the point to where I’m starting to see some real results. These might not sound like life-changers but they’ve already made a big impact on my life.

Learning To Type (and to type faster)

I’m not sure how this ever happened but for some crazy reason I never learned how to type the right way. This means that I couldn’t use the home row and only typed with like five of my fingers. This not only made me a slow typer but it also meant that I always had to look down at my fingers on the keyboard. This was terrible for my posture and didn’t allow me to use a larger monitor along with my laptop. It wasn’t healthy for me (my neck was starting to hurt) and it slowed me down and frustrated me any time I had to type on a keyboard (which is pretty much all the time).

I knew I had to do something about this over four years ago but for some reason two years ago I got more serious about it and spent some time over Christmas vacation learning some of the basics like what finger is supposed to type what letter. I first used a program called GoodTyping and once I made it through that I found another one called TypingWeb that I still use up to this day.

Once I grinded through the initial awkwardness and frustration of leaning to type the right way I started to make some serious progress. I just kept going and even when I felt like I was “good enough” I didn’t stop. The one thing that is keeping my progress moving along is the fact that I practice typing every morning before I start working. It gets my fingers warmed up and my brain thinking in a good way to start off the morning.

How well has all of this worked? At this point I’m typing around an average of 64 words per minute which is over double what I was able to do less than a year ago. I still have a ways to go (I’d like to type around 80 WPM) but I’m going to keep working on it a little bit at a time every day and before I know it I’ll be there.

Going To Bed Earlier (and getting more rest)

Another goal I’ve talked about lately is going to be earlier (and getting up earlier), which has always been a struggle for me. I wrote about some of the structure and boundaries I set up as a way to make this goal happen and I’m happy to report that after only two weeks I’ve seen some amazing results.

The first week that I got to bed earlier I felt energized throughout my 10-12 hour workdays, even when working on things that I didn’t like doing. I didn’t need to rely on caffeine to keep me going and I kept up a good pace of getting things knocked off my to-do list. I did start to feel a little tired toward the end of the week, but I think that’s normal considering that I’m still getting used to waking up early every day and I’m starting to run again.

That first week went great, but the second week (and now into my third) was freaking amazing. Something started to happen to my body during the second week and I got on a consistent sleep schedule that had never happened to me before. Not only did I go to bed early every night but on three of the mornings I woke up at 5:30am without an alarm going off. Yeah, you heard me — I woke up at 5:30am in the morning without an alarm. The first time it happened to me I swear it felt like an out of body experience. I’m not even kidding. I woke up, looked at my phone to see what time it was (my alarm was set for 6am) and I felt wide awake. At that point I woke up, ran and felt great for the rest of the day. Then it happened two more times. Mind blown.

My mood has better, I can think though things better, I get more work done and I’m getting all of my morning runs in without feeling rushed. I would say that it’s working, wouldn’t you?

Now I just need to keep it up.

—
photo credit: labnol.org 

 

Say Hello To Sara, The Blind Dog That Loves To Play Fetch

This past weekend I took Frank to a dog park that’s by my apartment so he could go hang with some of his peeps. It was a beautiful Saturday morning, the sun was out and the air was nice and cool. This is normal for San Francisco but it’s still a treat in August for someone like me who grew up in the ridiculous Summer heat and humidity of the Midwest.

After being there for about a half-hour Frank was already tired and hanging out in the shade so I directed my short attention span elsewhere. The first thing that caught my eye was a woman playing fetch with her Labrador Retriever.

The dog seemed very floppy and was bouncing all around the ball after she threw it. It didn’t go right after the ball like most dogs, it would wait for just the right time to strike. Once it grabbed the ball it would bring it back to the woman, drop it by her feet and then jump out about ten to fifteen feet and wait for her to throw it again.

After watching for a few more minutes something clicked and I had to ask.

“Is your dog blind?” I asked hoping that her dog wasn’t just acting really weird.

“Yeah, she is.” she said back quickly while still throwing the ball for another fetch.

“That’s amazing how she fetches.” I said. “She loves it!” I then watched her go clumsily grab another ball in her mouth after sniffing around on the ground for a few seconds.

“Her name’s Sara and she lost her eyesight after being hit by a car. The person who hit her took her to the SPCA and no one wanted to adopt her because she was blind. They were going to put her to sleep and when we saw her we knew she was the one. We love her so much.”

I then watched Sara play fetch for about the next twenty minutes. What an awesome dog and a great story. Check out Sara playing fetch below or over on YouTube.

 

Awesome People Friday: The Kruithofs

The different types of wonderful and amazing people I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know in my life blows me away. Some I’ve met randomly on a train, some are friends of friends and others I’ve worked with at different jobs over the years.

A couple who falls into the category of amazingly awesome people are Brent and Katie Kruithof. They went to college with Stephanie and have lived in Cincinnati, OH up until a couple of years ago when they moved to the Cayman Islands for Brent’s accounting job (he likes numbers).

Since moving there they’ve documented a lot of their adventures on the island through a blog they created called The Grand Life. Katie, who happens to be both an amazing party planner and photographer, would post updates about the things they’re doing and their experiences while living in an exotic place like the Cayman Islands. They even included plenty of stuff about their dog Walter, who seems to have the largest personality of all of them.

They stayed in paradise for two years and now they’re back in the good ol’ Midwest (everyone now O-H-I-O!). The good news is that they’re back home with their friends and family. The bad news is that they don’t get to hang out in one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen in my life — and apparently their arrival home also means that it’s the end of their blogging, too.

Unfortunately I guess I’m done living vicariously through their adventures, but at least I’ll still be able to go read back through them if I ever feel the need.

Welcome home Katie, Brent and Walter and thanks for letting us share in your life on the island. Next up, a Kruithof baby blog? No pressure.