Chronicles of a Dilettante

Ever since I was a young boy I’ve been the scrapper, the tough kid, the underdog. I was tenacious as a pit bull and everyone knew it.

When I started playing hockey at 10 years old, I was the smallest kid out there. And that never really changed.

By the time I turned 17 I had only grown to 5’9 and maybe 155lbs; very small for a hockey player in the 1990s. Still, I was tough as nails and the size of my heart was no match for my small stature.

Along with that big heart came a quiet confidence (the arrogance came much later in life 🤪) that made me a natural leader. When we went to Chicago for the U18 national tournament in 1998, I wore an A on my chest with pride (A = Alternate captain for the non-hockey fans). My teammates looked up to me and I always tried to lead by example. I never gave up, no matter what. I still don’t.

Over the years I’ve played with broken ribs, a broken jaw, a broken hand, even a fractured Tibia once which I thought at the time was an ankle sprain, so I threw on a compression brace and laced back up. I’ve had butterfly bandages applied to get me through a game, then I’d drive myself to the ER afterward to get stitched up.

I’m saying all this not to brag, but to set the stage.

The fact is that I had the attitude and the grit to make me a pain in the ass and, despite my smaller size, I was never afraid to go hard into the boards or even to throw fists. I let the opposition know I was there with a cross-check or slashing the ankles and, when they turned around and laid me out, I’d get right back up and do it again. I was the very definition of scrappy underdog.

This soon became a part of my identity: The hockey player, the tough guy, small and quick, tenacious, pain in the ass, trash-talking, bruised and bloodied who wouldn’t give up until the very last buzzer echoed throughout the arena. After a fight, I’m as likely to fist bump you and say “good job” as I am to fight you again. Integrity is part of The Code and I had principles that I learned from my coach and which governed the way I played the game and the way I live my life to this day.

I had no fear, and believe me when I say, I could take a hit.

Colloquially, this type of hockey player is called a grinder, and we have many great qualities on and off the ice. When it comes to business, we can take a punch and rebuild. When it comes to relationships, we wear our hearts on our sleeves. When it comes to defending those that we care for, we are extremely loyal.

The problem that I’m facing is that, 20+ years after my brief stint playing national-level hockey, I still love my underdog story and I still believe in my underdog identity.

“Why is that a problem?” you ask. “Everyone loves an underdog.”

Well, while it’s certainly a great story to tell to others (you’ve read this far, after all), the problem is that it’s not such a great story to tell yourself. See, when you set yourself up as an “underdog,” you set yourself up disadvantaged. Right out of the gate, if you’re the underdog, you’re not as big as the other guy, not as strong, not as capable.

You’re handicapped, in your mindset if not elsewhere.

See, as Fortune here explains to Rudy, with age comes wisdom and a knowing that there’s nothing to prove to anybody but yourself. Sure it’s platitudinal, but hey if the shoe fits…

Now don’t get me wrong, I enjoy all the “comeback kid” stories. In fact, I love them. Rocky, Rudy, Pursuit of Happiness, and others of that ilk… they’re all inspirational and can make just about any grown man cry from heartache or simply hitting too close to home.

I just know that moving forward, I don’t want those stories to be my story.

Being an underdog and constantly fighting and struggling simply doesn’t coincide with living a happy, easy-going life filled with joy and love and success by any measure.

As I turn 40 this April and begin to think more about family and retirement I have to ask myself, “Is this story of me always being the struggling underdog worth keeping?”

The answer, clearly, is no. It’s time for me to grow up. Time to change that story.

I have less to prove these days, to myself or to others, and thank god I’ve been blessed with a family to think about.

And so, one of my big goals for 2020 is to rewrite my story. While there is a strong argument for Rudy being the best underdog drama ever made, it’s just not mine anymore. I’m not the underdog. I’m a 39-year old man who is handsome, strong, intelligent, empathetic, and who knows how to run a god-damned business.

So, I’m going to work on my story this year. Come up with something new, perhaps less convenient and less fun, but something which aligns with the monumental goals I’ve set for myself.

I’ll let you know how it goes. 🚀

Below is an incomplete thought.

This morning I had a great idea for a blog post. Something really simple and impactful. The idea stemmed from some article I was reading on some wiki page somewhere on the internet.

I then had a fire to put out at my agency, Boxer. Something that needed to be dealt with immediately and effectively.

I told myself I would get around to the idea I had later in the day.

Neglecting to write the idea down, I simply turned my phone off, thinking that when I turned my phone back on later in the day I would open it up to the page in question.

No such luck, as by the time I opened my phone back up again I had totally forgotten about the blog post idea and only now, 12+ hours later, am I remembering bits and pieces about it. Sadly, I don’t remember enough to find the article again.

Takeaway: Take notes, boys and girls.

Today was a rough day. Not a bad day (there’s no such thing 🌴), but a mentally and emotionally tough one.

It started with some small fires that needed to be put out. Nothing too bad.

At 9:30 I had a call with my biz/life coach, Doug Holt. I started working with Doug about 10 weeks ago, and recently we’re getting into some deep mindset work. Today we talked about heavy stuff, stuff that affected my physiology and forced me to reconsider a lot of the ideas I’ve carried with me for the past 39 years.

I’ve discovered, and am still exploring, some of my limiting beliefs. They include guilt as means of protection from complacency and homeostasis, and a rather serious fear of failure to reach my potential. It’s a no-win situation because I’ve flanked myself like a smart war general: I’ve got my guilt pushing me to move forward, pushing me out of homeostasis, pushing me to make my big plans happen, pushing me to do just enough to feel like I’m doing the work… Then I’ve got the fear of failure: What if I work my ass off, try super hard, and then fail? Then I lose my identity as the smart guy in the room, the one with lots of potential.

Between the guilt and the fear, I can’t win. This is my struggle.

It’s the stuff that “fragile masculine egos” are made of. I don’t generally care for SJW types, and the idea-du-jour that cis white men are to blame for all of society’s problems makes me rather ill… But damn, they may be onto something with this fragile ego thing. 😂

This is, for me, akin to not being able to sit down after you’ve done some wicked heavy back squats. Everything hurts like hell, but inside you know that everything is changing and the fact is that your muscles are growing.

So I’m trying to just get comfortable with the pain.

It’s a sign that I’m heading in the right direction. 💪

R.I.P. David Turner 1/2/2020

It’s a great book on meditation by Jon Kabat-Zinn [affiliate link].

It’s also something I’ve recently noticed to be true in my general reality.

Let me explain.

Today is January 1st, 2020. Last night was New Years Eve, and many people were celebrating and making resolutions and posting meaningful quotes across various social media platforms. One post that found its way onto my Facebook wall read…

“Never forget: Years ago you dreamed of getting to where you are now.”

To me, this quote means a number of things.

1. Years ago, I dreamt I would be happily married, healthy, working from home and making my own hours, and living a generally comfortable and happy life. Here I am, living that dream.

2. Years ago, my facebook feed was full of a very different type of New Years post. Quotes like, “Thank god this fucking year is over. Here’s hoping the next one is better! 🍻” Hope is what you do when you buy a lottery ticket. If you’re not taking action to make this year better than last, well, good luck to you. Keep hoping, you’ll need it.

Clearly, I’ve changed the type of people I associate with and the kind of media that I expose myself to.

This took years of strategic Facebook feed grooming. I taught myself to Like certain kinds of posts while ignoring others. There was a lot of tongue-biting and forcing myself to not get involved in Comments melodrama, and a healthy dose of using the “See fewer posts like this” function. I even unfollowed a number of friends that, though we were once close, I had begun to realize were toxic to my personal growth.

I like the vibe of my new Facebook feed better.

3. As I sit here on my beautiful chocolate leather couch (I’ve always wanted one, and we finally pulled the trigger this year) with my beautiful wife next to me and each of us with a dog resting her head on our arm or leg, the fire is roaring in the fireplace, and it’s about 3pm on a Wednesday when most people have to be at work, I realize that not only is this now a run-on sentence, but this is also the life I was dreaming of way back in 2015.

That’s an accomplishment worth acknowledging.

It’s easy to forget how far you’ve come because wherever you go, there you are. Even now, I’m in the midst of a 90-day intense coaching program as well as a digital agency academy program, constantly thinking about personal and professional growth, and building a bigger and better future.

If you’ve got big plans that sometimes consume you, it’s nice—and probably important—to spend some time thinking about how you’ve managed to reach the big goals you set for yourself some years ago.

Reviewing past performance helps orient you for future performance. What would the you from 3–5 years ago think about where you are now? Have you grown personally and professionally? Have you contributed? Have you hit your goals? If no, why not? What can you change or do differently to make a positive impact and begin seeing changes in your life starting today? New Years resolutions are bullshit, there’s no doubt about that. But if you didn’t plant your tree last year, plant it today. Your future self will thank you.

As for me, in 2025 I’ll be writing these blogs from the 2nd story balcony patio overlooking my Pacific Northwest horse ranch and getting ready to take the Cybertruck into town to have a slice of cherry pie and a damn fine cup of hot, black coffee.

“Harry, I’m going to let you in on a little secret: every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don’t plan it; don’t wait for it; just let it happen. It could be a new shirt in a men’s store, a catnap in your office chair, or two cups of good, hot, black, coffee.”

Dale Cooper, Twin Peaks

That’s End of Year for those in the cheap seats.

In the past two days I’ve spent a grand total of six hours or so on the phone, in user portals, and talking to my expert tax, bookkeeping, and payroll team, getting some last-minute planning done for 2019 taxes.

What did I learn? Well, first of all, I learned that 2019 was a year of learning and planning for me. I didn’t do much client work this year, and I spent a bundle on education and coaching. Most of the year’s working hours were spent in planning and building systems for massive growth in 2020. Yes, 2020 will be the year when the rubber meets the road and my business takes off like a rocket into the stratosphere, if you’ll pardon the mixed metaphors. 😉

At any rate, if you run a business, try to manage everything yourself, and want to scale at some point, you’re going to learn sooner or later that you’ll need to hire a team of experts for the business periphery; things like bookkeeping, taxes, payroll, HR, and so on. All the stuff that is part of running a business, but isn’t usually an entrepreneur’s area of expertise.

One thing I might suggest is outsourcing that stuff sooner rather than later. I recommend Anderson Advisors for tax law and planning. They also do contract reviews and offer many other services for their USD $35/mo Platinum service.

For Payroll, I’m currently using ADP for cost and simplicity reasons, but I’m already planning my switch to a more concierge payroll experience with Shannon Theis at Payroll Solutions Plus later this year.

And finally for bookkeeping, I’m using the awesome Deepika Yeldandi at DRY Financial.

I only share these resources with you because they have been great for me. None of the links above are affiliate links, nor do I get any kickback from referrals. However, I would love it if you would drop my name if you talk to any of the above businesses as I do like them to know that I am out here spreading the word! 😁

That’s it for now. Godspeed, and happy new year!

So I’m going to try journaling publicly five days a week. Two coaches that I’m working with are pressing me to do this, and they are both far more successful than I am, so I suspect I can learn a lot by listening to them.

The point of this exercise is to work through problems via writing. By making it public, I’m held accountable and, perhaps, you can learn from my mistakes along the way.

Lately, I’ve been working hard on building out Boxer, my marketing agency. One thing in particular that has been difficult for me is the decision to niche down and work with a specific subset of clients.

For now, I’m going to focus on high-ticket life coaches. Why? Because since I hired Doug Holt as my coach, my life has improved dramatically, especially in terms of sales success and my ability to focus on important things.

One of my all-time favorite quotes also defines the way in which I would like to operate my business. Napoleon Hill once wrote, “I fully realize that no wealth or position can long endure unless built upon truth and justice; therefore, I will engage in no transaction which does not benefit all whom it affects.”

So I thought about it and hassled some peers and mentors for advice on the subject, and I think working with life coaches and possibly financial and investment coaches in the future would fit the bill nicely.

That’s all for now. It will be interesting to see how deep or shallow these blog posts are in the future. I suppose they can’t all be gold.

Last week I made the mistake of purchasing a “.us” domain for one of my businesses without doing the proper research.

Because you must be a US resident to purchase a .us domain, they don’t allow any kind of whois protection which means that my company information is on record and searchable in whois databases, as associated with this new website. My company is small enough at this point that the phone number is just a Google Voice account which forwards to my cell phone.

Since purchasing the domain last week I’ve had dozens of phone calls from would-be web developers and desigers, and hundreds of emails from people trying to tell me that they’re the best web designers on the market, and that only they could help me build my new website.

Sales and marketing are at their absolute worst when the strategy is spray and pray. These people haven’t delivered any value, and in fact they’ve immediately given me more work to do in going through their unsolicited pitches, thereby making my day more stressful.

Call me crazy but when I work with clients we only look for ways to deliver value, to become the prospect’s friend and servant, and to figure out how to show up in their email or voicemail box as a helper rather than an enemy of the people.

But this… What a waste of time for everyone involved.

Permission marketing evangelism and thought leadership is a worthy pursuit, my friends. Sales and marketing is supposed to feel good when it’s done right. Everyone’s is supposed to be a winner.

Not like this, though… oof.

On the 28th of December, I flew to Atlanta to help my future sister-in-law move across the country. She, having found a job in New Mexico after graduating with a Doctorate in Physical Therapy, needed to make the move from Pittsburg to Albuquerque. We all decided that a road trip through the South would make the move more fun. We were in Baton Rouge on New Years Eve. I watched the clock tick over to midnight from the kitchen counter of an AirBNB, working quietly on my laptop.

A close uncle of mine passed away yesterday, on his birthday, after a long and difficult battle with cancer. He will be missed by many, but it is good that his suffering has ended.

And this. What is this?

This morning I stumbled upon this strange adult-contemporary/lounge/Caribbean folk hybrid…. From Weezer….. and RAC…. ….and ostensibly Toto?

And yet it is neither Weezer, nor RAC, nor Toto. It’s at once both strangely disturbing and comforting, an odd synergy of the three bands that sounds something like a chance conversation between Paul Simon and Sade at a coffee shop in Seattle late on a rainy January morning.

2019 feels…..good. I have a quiet optimism for the personal development and professional growth that will come this year, to say nothing of getting married to the love of my life and focusing more on what our future together will bring.

I think this song encapsulates my 2019 vibe so far. A little strange, but nice, and comforting. It’s also a pretty great song for a drizzly, overcast Vancouver morning.