Trust Yourself to Handle It There’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. How much of our lives do we spend trying to make sure nothing bad happens? We want our jobs to be secure. We want our relationships to be stable. We want enough money in the bank that an unexpected expense doesn’t ruin the month. We want the people around us to behave the way we expect, and we want tomorrow to look enough like today that we can make plans and feel safe. There’s nothing wrong with wanting...
34 minutes ago • 10 min read
How to Be a Badass Without Being a Bully For a good part of my life, I was a dick. Not because I wanted to hurt people. Not because I thought bullying was a good way to get things done. I was a dick because I was determined to be good at what I did, and I wasn’t going to let anybody get in my way. I wanted to be capable. I wanted to be reliable. I wanted to be the guy who could get things done. And I got pretty damn good at it. But somewhere along the way, I confused being responsible for my...
1 day ago • 9 min read
Becoming a Man Worth Trusting There’s a saying I often think about: It’s better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war. It's better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war. I like it because it names something I’ve spent most of my life working on. How do you become a man who can take care of himself and the people he loves, without turning every disagreement into a fight? How do you build strength without losing compassion? How do you get good at something without...
2 days ago • 13 min read
The Trust Equation:Knowing When to Protect Yourself and When to Open Up Some of the most important lessons we learn on the mat have an interesting analogy to knowing who and how to fight. One of those lessons is learning who we can trust. Think about the people in your life. There are people you feel completely comfortable around. You can speak freely, make mistakes, ask questions, and be yourself without worrying about what they’ll do with that vulnerability. Then there are people who...
3 days ago • 10 min read
I Retired From Construction.I Didn’t Retire From Building. In 2021, after a career working as a union electrician, I retired from construction. No more getting up because a contractor needed me on a jobsite. No more scheduling my life around construction projects. No more wondering how many more years I’d spend climbing ladders, pulling wire, and dealing with whatever problem showed up that day. I’d spent most of my adult life in the trade. And now I had the thing I’d been working toward for...
4 days ago • 12 min read
The People Around You Are Part of Your Wealth In 1986, I was twenty years old when I left Honolulu for Los Angeles. The beautiful playground in my backyard Honolulu was the world I’d grown up in. I had family, friends, and familiar places around me. Then I moved. And almost immediately, everything around me got bigger. Not the buildings or the freeways, though there were plenty of both. I mean the world of people. Suddenly I was surrounded by folks I’d never met, with different backgrounds,...
5 days ago • 9 min read
What Are You Building That’s Bigger Than Yourself? Have you ever walked into a place that made you feel small? Not insignificant. Not worthless. But small in the best possible way. As though, for a brief moment, you were standing in the presence of something much larger than your everyday concerns. Maybe it happened while looking across the Grand Canyon. Standing beneath an enormous redwood tree. Watching the sun rise over the ocean. Listening to a piece of music that moved you in ways you...
6 days ago • 13 min read
You Can’t Build a Rich Life With an Empty Emotional Toolbox Have you ever said something in anger that you regretted almost immediately? Maybe you snapped at somebody who didn’t deserve it. Maybe you shut down during an important conversation because you didn’t know what to say. Maybe you felt criticized, rejected, frightened, or embarrassed — and before you could figure out what was happening inside you, you’d already reacted. Then, hours later, you replayed the conversation and thought: Why...
7 days ago • 13 min read
Your Brain Is a Toolbox. Do You Know How to Use What’s Inside? Yesterday, we talked about physical wealth. Developing a body that allows you to do more, experience more, and enjoy more of your life. Today, I want to explore another kind of wealth that travels with you everywhere. Mental wealth. But let me ask you something. Have you ever found yourself facing a problem you knew you should be able to solve, only to discover you didn’t have the knowledge or the skills you needed? Maybe you were...
8 days ago • 11 min read
The One Kind of Wealth You Carry Everywhere Yesterday, I told you why I want you to be rich. Not just financially rich. Rich in your health, your knowledge, your emotional resilience, your relationships, your spiritual grounding, and your ability to contribute to the world. Today, I want to start with perhaps the most personal form of wealth you possess. Your body. Because unlike your house, your car, your investments, or your possessions, your body goes everywhere you go. You can’t leave it...
9 days ago • 10 min read