We spent the weekend celebrating one of my college friend’s weddings in Galveston.

After visiting a bookstore and catching up with friends from several years ago, I thought about the chapters that make up our life. We spent a night reminiscing on memories, stories, and people that were characters from that time in our book.

I love to read (when I have time), and I think books are a wonderful representation of the evolution of our life. Today, we will look at chapters, the defining ones and what to take from them.

I hope you all enjoy it!

What are Chapters?

If you separate your life into blocks of time, you can probably form several meaningful “chapters” of your life. These chapters can be quite similar in how they feel, and often represent challenges and experiences specific to that point.

From elementary through high school, chapters are mostly tied to the grade and school we are in. In early adulthood, we start defining them ourselves with milestones and life changes we often initiate on our own. Then comes the wedding season and the beginning of parenthood, before the cycle resets once again where you are now spectating your children through the same chapters.

Kylen and I are entering this final stage, which has inspired me to do some reflection on what the chapters of life even mean to me.

How I Treat Chapters

I try to treat chapters as pieces in my plot where something needs to be filled or resolved. You often hear “I’m in my (blank) era,” as if that person is manifesting the good qualities that come with that era. For me, I’d probably say I’m in my “grinding groom” era, because every day I’m working towards making the wedding happen and trying to juggle everything going on in my life.

Chapters are unique to each of us individually, but they serve as an amazing way to relate to others. Ever wonder why it’s so easy to relate to people that you have multiple things in common with? It’s because you have shared similar chapters that you both can relate and connect over.

Growing up, these were marked by: timely transitions to the next grade, changes in sports teams, and shifts in friendship. In adulthood, they are more milestone based: starting new jobs, finding the love of your life, and changing cities.

Each chapter is filled with special people who contribute to the outcome and your overall experience. There are a combination of negative and positive characters, but today I want to focus primarily on the positive characters.

The People (Characters) in Your Chapters

Your best friend from childhood. The coworker who “got you through it.” Your dynamic duo from a team you were on.

Some of these characters have a short-term role in your life. This used to cause me a lot of distress, especially after drifting apart from someone who used to be important.

There are two problems here: 1) is how much proximity influences our earlier relationships and 2) is our underestimation of how important depth is in our later relationships.

An example I go back to is my internship at Accenture. I made several great friends during the summer, where we would get the chance to see each other almost daily. We would spend time inside and outside of the office, which created strong bonds.

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Like many things, internships come to an end, and the increased distance between everyone inevitably caused some connections to drift apart. Over the next few years, many of the friendships drifted further, but a few have remained.

For the ones that ended, I try to focus on the great experiences and lessons together. There’s something healing for me when I can reflect on the past with a smile, rather than with a sour taste in my mouth.

For those that remained, they have become major characters to me, where their influence continues to make an impact in the present. These relationships are the ones that have true depth. The depth that only comes with learning about you over many years and being there through the good and the bad times.

When we get older, these are harder to maintain, but a simple “how are you doing?” or reply to a post can be more than enough to let them know you are thinking about them until the next time you see each other.

Your family, significant other, and a couple of special friends can remain in your life for a multitude of chapters. These characters are staples in your book, but their role often evolves over time.

An Essential Character - Our Mother!

Well, without one very important person in all of our lives, we wouldn’t even have a book in the first place! Regardless of your relationship, your mother has been a major part of the outcome of your story.

I am blessed to have an amazing Mom that has continued to be the number one supporter of my brother and I through the entirety of our lives. Growing up I didn’t completely understand how lucky we were, but it becomes more apparent with every passing year.

We learned how to treat people and animals with kindness, the importance of celebrating milestones and being grateful for each day, and how essential it is to take care of our health.

She participates in our excessive sports talk, shares her opinion when we need to be checked, and still wants us to send arrival texts so she can “breathe.”

While I don’t give her daily recaps of my day like I used to when I was growing up, she remains an essential piece of who I am. She has shared her loving soul with Kylen and I’m extremely grateful to have her support when it comes to building our life together.

Thank you for all you have done and continue to do Mom! I love you!

Celebrating Chapters of Life

At some point, you’ve probably heard “I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good old days before you’ve actually left them.” - Andy Bernard, The Office

An iconic quote from a classic show, but it does really hit home. How often do we let a great period or chapter of our life pass us by without being truly appreciative of it?

Revisiting the idea from earlier that chapters are pieces of our plot, when a season is nearing an end or ends, why not think back to the best parts of it? Why not think back to how far you’ve come over the last few years?

I’ve had some incredible years, some very painful years, and just about everything in between.

Did college go perfectly? Hah. My first semester greeted me with a beat down and a nice reality check. I watched my efforts of building a fraternity with my friends get ripped away without a real explanation. But guess what? Last night we got to watch one of our friends get married and we all got to celebrate together like we were back in college.

The point is, each chapter is going to have plenty of ups and downs. Right now, wedding planning has been a chaotic experience, but in four months, we will be getting married with our close friends and family. Focusing on the bad experiences or frustrations for too long takes away from the great things life has for us.

Cherish the moment you are in now, reminisce on the best parts of the past, and carry a mindset forward that the best chapters of your book are still yet to be written.

Final Words

Thank you all for making it to the end of this week’s post! The last several weeks have been filled with tons of travel, wedding planning, and busy times at work.

I’m happily settling back into my normal rhythm starting again this week! On that note, I’m super excited to announce that I will be participating in my third Substack Live this Saturday with ! We plan to discuss authenticity, comfort zones, and life aspirations which should be an amazing conversation!

Wishing you all an amazing week and once again, Happy Mother’s Day to all the amazing Moms out there that make the world go round (and a special thank you to my Mom for winning the best Mom award again this year)!

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If you missed it (understandably with multiple posts this week), here is a link to my last monthly post: Instant Gratification vs Playing the Long Game.

Today, I want to talk about something that has become a staple of nearly every conversation and day. How busy the world has become.

If y’all are anything like me, you probably need another 8 hours in your day (or alternatively wish you had 8 arms, as I told my boss that I need to become an octopus this week).

Is Time or Energy More Important?

Let’s start with defining what energy is, as I will reference it from a few different vantage points today. Energy is what we have left in our metaphorical tank (which we can fill up), mentally and physically, and also is our source of fuel to handle the obligations of life.

After my note this week on being “Behind” amidst a thousand things to do, I started spinning my wheels on the time vs energy conversation.

This morning, after spending some time catching up on some Substack articles from this week, I took Hippie for a walk. She loves being able to wander the Dallas streets with her pink pearls and you can feel how the sunny weather energizes her.

People are no different. No matter how many obligations we have in our day, there are certain things that always bring us joy and energy.

• A good TV Show (currently watching Survivor Season 50 & Running Point)

• A workout or a competition (you know how you feel when you walk out of the gym)

• A walk outside on a beautiful day (Texas is having that rare perfect weather currently)

You may have slightly different images of what is energizing, but they exist for all of us.

And I’m here to tell you today that they should be an absolute priority in your days.

Why Time Management is a Losing Battle

I’ve tried to win the time game before. I am still trying to figure out how to win.

• I woke up at 5AM for months on end to make more time in the day.

• I built entire “systems” optimized for the perfect schedule.

• I carefully managed a work and personal calendar only to have it get filled with meetings and events for other people.

All it ended up doing for me was:

• More responsibilities added… “if he’s able to handle all this, we might as well give him more!”

  • Side note: ’s article How Is He Still There? hit home. There are always freeloaders (“Jack” in her example) who take advantage of people doing the work.

• Pushing me towards burnout and caffeine dependency to survive the tasks of each day.

• Making me feel like every day is just a heavyweight fight where I’m fighting an invincible opponent (life).

Does this resonate with you?

Are you tired of Bob scheduling another Friday afternoon connect?

Are you drowning in 100+ tabs across all of your devices with far too many open loops?

I promise you that there’s an easier way. One that gets better results AND makes you feel better at the same time.

Energy Determines What You Have To Give, Not Time

If you’ve ever run a race of any sort, what determines what you are able to give?

Energy or Time?

Outside of our genetic limitations, energy determines what we are able to give based on what we have left in the tank.

If you’ve sprinted the last straightaway in a track race, you know exactly what I mean.

Energy is the real resource that we need to manage, time is just how we expend that resource.

People tell us that it’s all about time-management.

Ever notice when you have a free hour or free weekend, that time seems to vanish quicker than usual?

That’s a little thing called Parkinson’s Law, where work expands to fill the time available for its completion. My days are quite literally filled to the brim and I don’t have enough hours to do everything. Earlier this year, I acknowledged that my schedule through our September wedding would be extremely busy.

The reason for Parkinson’s Law working is that time compression creates urgency, and urgency pushes us to get things done.

I work for a demanding bank, and my high-performing peer just rotated, but guess what?

The show must go on. And it does.

I have committed to writing these every Sunday. And some weeks, my monthly post will cram three posts into an eight day span.

The show must go on.

Kylen and I are planning an international wedding this fall. If you’ve planned a wedding, you know the complexities that the process brings.

The show must go on.

Energymaxxing Your Way to a Better Life

In 2026, the world is built on a constant flow of information and dopamine maximization to the point that our time has never been more limited.

We could try to manage our time in a system that is quite literally built to take our time away from us.

Or we could stop fighting against the system. We can prioritize what energizes us.

After getting knocked off my routine during March travel, I planned how I could keep my energy up during this crazy year.

• I started being less strict about waking up before 6AM every day

• I started focusing again on my diet and workout routine to feel my best

• I started setting better expectations at work and personally

• I started prioritizing time with friends, rather than staying in and “grinding” all the time

Very oddly, I’m performing better now after focusing on my energy… how?

This sounds like I’m simply not working as hard. Trust me. I’ve never worked harder in my life.

The difference: I’m energized. I haven’t moved like this before. I’ve never felt this sharp.

Turns out I don’t need to become an octopus to handle my life. I just need to focus on my energy.

I chose feeling energymaxxed in my days, rather than trying to beat one of the most formidable foes in the history of the world: Father Time.

What was your favorite thing you did this weekend?

It was probably a combination of something that was energizing, exciting, and enjoyable. Doing these things should be a key part of every day, not just every weekend.

So many people end their weekend and feel “Sunday Scaries.” I believe this is because people are overly focused on what is taking up their time, rather than focusing on their energy.

In ’s article The Night We Almost Skipped, he talked about a night out at the ballpark with his family.

The comfortable thing would have been to stay home and have a night in. What ended up happening was a chance for everyone to get energized by the crowd, catch up with friends, and create a new memory.

Did it cost something up front? Yes, it cost their time.

But in the end, it provided an electric experience that they’ll remember as a family.

Make time for these events. Make time for the things you love.

• A favorite Netflix show to watch.

• A country concert or a hockey game.

• A vacation to the beach or your favorite city abroad.

Every moment doesn’t have to be spent doing something, but you should try to do something every day that brings a smile to your face when you lay your head down at night.

So this is how we can use our energy for a better life, but how can we manage it?

How Can We Control Our Energy

There are two core energy categories I’m going to focus on: physical and mental. If there is another type of energy you find essential, please share it in the comments!

I’m also going to focus specifically on the two areas that have made the most outsized impact in these two categories: Sleep & Social (Mental) Battery.

I’m not going to tell you that eating Doritos on the couch may not be helping you feel your best physically or going out partying every night might not be the best for your mental health.

These are lessons we all have to learn anyway! If you haven’t eaten a whole bag of chips or partied too hard before, you still need the lesson!

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Physically

I’m probably going to start sounding like a broken record… and I can hear my teenage self telling my Mom: “I don’t need that much sleep!” after staying up until 4AM playing Call of Duty…

If you do anything from this post: Please prioritize your sleep.

It is no coincidence that we spend one-third of our life sleeping. We are meant to rest, recover, and restore our energy.

I’m not going to tell you that you need a 99% sleep score, a perfect mattress, and to remove blue light for 67 minutes before bed.

What I will tell you is that finding the true amount of time you need to sleep to feel good the next day is extremely helpful. For me, it’s 7 hours from the moment I lay down in bed. For Kylen, it’s a full 8 hours… and I better not disrupt her before the process is over!

Every night isn’t going to be perfect.

• Your dog will wake you up to throw up in the middle of the night.

• The neighbors next door might be throwing another party.

But if most nights you are taking care of your sleep, you will start feeling substantially more energized each day. And if you really need it, you can be like me and pound a few iced coffees to push through the day!

Mentally

Science is great, but it isn’t the only thing we need to do to protect our energy.

You’ve probably heard people talk about their “social battery” and it being “exhausted”… or occasionally “endless” in the case of a few ultra-extroverts.

I love my friends and family. I enjoy the work and writing I do. I can talk to almost anyone. But sometimes, I just need a day or a weekend.

It starts with knowing what restores your mental energy and social battery. Once you learn how to do that, you need to know how to use the energy that keeps you fulfilled without constantly being overwhelmed or overstimulated.

Spending energy catching up with old friends, talking to my family, and meeting new people is a great way to use it.

To help restore my energy levels, I write, listen to music, and watch sports. And as I mentioned in the intro, I love a good walk outside and so do our dogs (Hippie & Roscoe). Hippie learned the importance of protecting her energy before I did. She walks, sleeps, and loves the sun. The ingredients for a happy life for our pink pearl princess!

If you are in a relationship or are parents, you have the additional task of managing the mental energy of the other major people in your life.

Kylen and I love watching shows together, going on date nights, and working out (yes, we are that couple).

After a busy week of traveling or work, the absolute BEST thing we can do for our mental energy is to have a night together where we can do one of the above things together.

When you learn to control your energy, individually and together, you start to enjoy your time, rather than be controlled by it.

Final Words

After being asked “how do y’all do it?” many times about handling our schedule, I figured this post could really hit home. We are only as good as the energy that we have, and I really hope you found something in here that can energize you this week and help you control your energy better in your life.

Thank you all again for making it to the end of this post. I was supposed to “take it easy” on this Sunday Spirit, but I just absolutely felt the passion in this one.

Energy is the resource. Manage it well and time will naturally start working more in your favor.

Have an amazing week and happy Cinco de Mayo to those who celebrate!

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A great moment was when a coworker (and subscriber) got me a cake to celebrate the 100 Subscriber Milestone this week.

My team members who were unaware of my writing life (cats out the bag now) promptly assumed that it MUST be my birthday. And then proceeded to sing me happy birthday in front of the whole restaurant.

My birthday is in July.

Thank you for the cake. And once again, thank you all for being here. It’s a joy to write this each week and I never take that for granted.

On my flight back from DC, I looked out to the evening sky and the beautiful sunset horizon in the distance. Magical, right?

This week, I was told something along the lines of “you are always three steps ahead” and “you are always looking forward to what’s possible.”

This inspired me to talk about the horizon and what is beyond it. The ability to see beyond what is directly in front of us allows us to position ourselves in the best places to grow. It’s an incredibly impactful concept that I can attest to in my own life.

I hope y’all enjoy it!

What is the Horizon?

I find the horizon to be simple, yet elegant. It’s somewhere in the distance that is visible, but not quite within reach.

In ’s article on comfort zones, she had a wonderful quote:

“Across the water is another island. You can see it from where you stand. Something about it pulls at you... the way the light falls differently there, the sense that it might finally be the right size for you.

But between here and there is water. And water is unpredictable. Water is uncertain. Water is everything the nervous system was trained to avoid.”

The island here is the horizon. Visible enough to compel you, but far enough away to make the water feel daunting and create a sense of uncertainty in what lies on the island (beyond the horizon).

The horizon is the goal you can see clearly enough to chase. What lies beyond the horizon is what becomes visible only after you reach it.

The horizon has served as a guiding light to the direction I’m heading.

Why You Should Focus on the Horizon

How often do you set annual goals?

This can be a New Year’s Resolution, a birthday goal, an anniversary wish, or a career target.

My hope is that you try in some capacity, or even better, actively set some to aim at.

I can’t emphasize this enough. This has been the best addition to actually moving somewhere meaningful in just about every area of my life.

Each year, I can look at a list of goals I set and achieved (or missed). Looking back, I am shocked by how much more challenging my goals become each year.

Don’t believe me? Let’s take a look at 2021 Chase vs 2026 Chase.

2021: “Credit Card Application”

• If you can actually believe it, I got a credit card in 2021.

2026: “Reach 100 subscribers on Substack”

• Disclaimer: This was a 2025 goal that I missed, but believed that it was possible.

• … And I just got my 7th credit card this year to continue maximizing benefits.

I call this the horizon. And what is possible beyond the horizon.

The Potential Beyond the Horizon

Imagine a time where you decided that you were going to set out for a goal. When you think back to that point, did you get to the initial goal and stop? Or did you end up going further?

To revisit the goal example from above:

• My 2021 self had almost no idea of how credit cards worked.

• My 2026 self has a full credit card stack to optimize rewards and benefits.

Also, shoutout to my friend Credit Card Claire for helping me with her credit card point wizardry.

Beyond the horizon of my initial (extremely simple) goal was a whole new level to travel and life. This can apply far beyond credit cards.

Take any major goal that takes a year, or ideally multiple years, to complete. This is where the power of what lies beyond the horizon can really come to fruition. Let’s say you want to earn a promotion at a job (same) or complete a difficult physical challenge (also same).

In the case of the promotion, your current horizon might entail a big project you are working on or improving the monthly recurring processes you need to complete.

While it’s important to do a good job on these, this is not what will differentiate you from the crowd and set you up for the next level.

In the case of the physical challenge, your current horizon may look more like the current week’s training regimen or planning a diet.

Again, these are important steps on the way to the goal, but doing this alone will not get you across the finish line (well…maybe it will but it ain’t going to feel good without some more work).

Promotions (most of the time) require you to be performing at the next level already. Completing races require you to be in the physical condition to complete them.

We have to practice seeing ourselves beyond our current situation to reap the benefits beyond the horizon. Our potential is undefined, we can truly accomplish quite impressive feats if we focus on something in the distance and keep going.

Why People Don’t Look Far Enough Ahead

Uncertainty. Think about it. How often have you been able to predict what something will look like three years into the future? Not very often.

When it comes to looking ahead, we struggle because we aren’t easily able to paint a clear picture of what it looks like. The lack of clarity makes us uncomfortable and we inherently try to avoid going out into uncharted territory.

At the horizon, there is an island waiting for you. It may just be another island, another obstacle, or another means to an end. But what if it’s not.

What if beyond that horizon, there is the exact thing you are looking for to change your life?

When I first set out to write, the horizons were often just my next weekly post. Beyond that horizon, I could see that growing and eventually creating Substack Lives was in my future. Being able to consistently look ahead, to overcome the uncertainty of the unknown, has allowed me to reach new milestones in a stable and effective manner.

There might even be a cake waiting for you when you make it there!

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Why You Should Look Beyond the Horizon

’s article from today on the Black Coffee Theory provides perhaps the very best reason for Why You Should Look Beyond the Horizon.

“So get clear.

It doesn’t have to be right. It just has to be clear. You can change it along the way. You’re allowed to course-correct. You might even land on a vision and decide to follow it for the rest of your life.”

What’s a better outcome than finding a vision that you can pursue for the rest of your life? I can’t think of many. “It doesn’t have to be right” takes the pressure off too. Sometimes we choose a path that for one reason or another, ends up not being the right one for us.

When we look beyond the horizon and really define what that is, we are able to reconnect the dots and align back to where we are today. We can confirm that our current actions are moving in that direction, towards that vision beyond the horizon.

For me, a top goal for my future is writing a book. That is beyond my current horizon, but I still visualize myself in New York City at my book release. I can see it.

I just reached the horizon I saw when I first began on Substack when I hit 100 subscribers. A new one has emerged now.

My current horizon is this week’s post. And Thursday’s monthly post. And beginning to produce multiple forms of content regularly.

Beyond that horizon is the book deal. Beyond that horizon is growing my ability to influence the world through my writing and video content. I look at this because it reminds me that there’s something bigger I’m moving towards. As long as I keep this in mind, I can ensure that my actions today align with my dreams of the future.

Keep dreaming. Look beyond the horizon.

Final Words

Thank you all for making it to the end of this week’s post! Also, thank you again to everyone that has shared their love and support following the 100 Subscriber Milestone, it has truly made this such a special week for me.

My next Limitless Blueprint post will be out on Thursday, which I’m excited to go more in depth on how Playing the Long Game has been a major ingredient to the growth I’ve seen in life to this point.

See y’all then. Have an amazing week!

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On Substack, I had my best week of growth ever and went from 80 to 99 subscribers, one away from my goal of 100 subscribers. I wrote these goals back in December, and I’m closing in on them coming to life.

Another highlight: (yes, Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck Mark), who was a major inspiration to me starting my blog, liked one of my comments this week! I rarely get excited over any person, but in a week of major transformation, it was really cool to see someone this influential in my journey play a part in it.

Amidst all the excitement, a word that has defined my thoughts this week is acceptance.

Acceptance

The inspiration began with a presentation on autism at work this week, some reflection on almost hitting milestones in my journey, and several deep conversations with new and old friends.

Acceptance affects us in two forms: indirectly, with our judgment of others and how we react to things outside of us, and directly, with how we handle our own actions and emotions.

This duality to acceptance is what I want to explore today, sharing how we can navigate the direct and indirect impacts it has on our life.

I hope y’all enjoy the post. Let’s get into it!

Indirect Acceptance

As humans, we have a natural inclination to desire control of our outcomes. Sadly for us, there are an infinite number of variables that we quite literally can do nothing about!

A sports example, which the Dallas fans understand all too well, is the Dallas Cowboys. We aren’t on the field. We aren’t in the front office. We don’t control the outcome. As much as I would love to see the Dallas Cowboys win a Super Bowl in my lifetime, it may not happen for many more years.

No, this is not learned helplessness…it’s acceptance (and potentially a numb heart).

On a serious note, sports has been a great teacher of acceptance in my life. Acceptance does not mean removing the passion or being “okay” with defeat. It’s an understanding that some situations are unable to be fixed.

This stretches beyond sports. There are billions of other people that you have nearly no influence on.

• I can’t control the person who tried to cut me off in a 2-lane turn on the way to coffee this morning.

• I can’t control the behavior of leaders causing huge fluctuations in the economy, culture, and world order.

• I can’t control the screaming kids on our 14-hour flight back from Turkey last year.

The moment we stop allowing things outside our control to dictate our mood is the moment we reclaim the precious time to enjoy the things we can control.

Who knows, maybe the Cowboys will win the Super Bowl next year?

Acceptance of Others (& Pets)

As promised in the Live yesterday, I owe y’all a picture of Hippie’s spring outfit.

Something that walks the line of direct and indirect acceptance is how we treat and react to other people (and our pets).

We are all born with our strengths and limitations, even our perfect princess above likes to eat human clothes… and tax forms (we luckily filed before she started her paper diet).

Instead of expecting perfection in every interaction, finding a place in your heart to appreciate each person (or pet) for who they are can take a substantial heaviness away from life.

In relationships, it’s acknowledging what your partner is great at (everything, of course) and what they struggle with (forgetfulness… we all have to have a weakness).

With friends, family, or coworkers, it’s truly dedicating the time to understand them. When you find what brings out the best and the worst in people, you can learn to appreciate what they bring to the table and accept them for what doesn’t come as easily.

The ability to accept others does not come naturally. It’s easy to judge or condemn. It’s a habit we have to continue building throughout our life. Other people are different from us. Other people don’t always act the same way we would in a given situation.

Showing acceptance as often as we can allows us to learn about others, which in turn helps us connect more deeply and make for a happier world.

Bonus: Acceptance on the Spectrum

In honor of Autism Acceptance Month, I wanted to dedicate a section of today’s post to the importance of acceptance of neurodivergent individuals.

I’ve watched my boss navigate life with two children on the spectrum and bring such a positive impact to everyone around him. He is an exceptional example of how to advocate for all neurodivergent individuals through raising awareness, providing support, and embodying acceptance.

I also asked someone very important to us, who has faced an adult diagnosis and works with clients navigating various conditions, for her perspective. She had an excellent response I wanted to share here:

“Awareness and acceptance go hand in hand when learning to understand and support our loved ones how they need. Stop asking people to hide their wiring and start accepting their unique strengths and needs.”

Seeking to understand and accommodate all individuals, regardless of condition or personality, helps us see the best in everyone. Once we learn to accept people for who they are and what they need, we figure out how we can best show up and support their journey.

Direct Acceptance

If you’ve ever had a situation or event go unfavorably, one of the hardest things to do is accept the outcome.

I talk about it occasionally, but when I found out I required hip surgery at 24, I was crushed. I still remember sitting in my car after eight months of physical therapy, injections, scans, and appointments. I was out of options. The only way to heal my torn labrum and adductor was through surgery.

Bedridden for weeks. 2 months of crutches. 8 months of PT.

I couldn’t shake the injury-prone label. I couldn’t make the pain go away immediately.

Eventually, I realized that denying my situation, complaining about my misfortune, and holding negative energy about my health served me no good.

During my recovery, and throughout the various injuries the last three years, I try my best to keep a level head and maintain a positive outlook. I go the extra mile when it comes to prioritizing my health now.

Accepting that injuries are a part of life and something I have to overcome has brought me a lot of inner peace. I roll with the punches, get medical attention when needed, and do the extra work in warmups and home treatment to stay strong.

HOWEVER… it would be nice to be healthy for the next 5 months (I have a wedding body to build)!

We all have our shortcomings. When we finally learn how to balance the difficult dance of improving at our weaknesses versus accepting who we are, we build the direct acceptance that our core self needs.

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Acceptance of You

Accepting the situation we are in is only half the battle. The challenge lies in accepting the person YOU are in the present moment.

I want to make sure to emphasize that acceptance is not the same as complacency. We are still responsible for where we are in our life, and while we can’t control every outcome, we still need to show up each day ready to give our best.

I’ve been told about fifty times in the last two years to “give myself some grace.” It’s not natural, especially with the extremely high standards I set for myself, but it’s necessary.

Acceptance allows for this grace to come into your life.

I shared this note a few days ago, which captures this sentiment: “One bad day or week is a minor part of your story. It will get better. You will get better.”

Even a good moment like hitting 99 subscribers, one shy of my goal, was a subtle opportunity in accepting progress that’s almost complete. I’ve come so far. Being proud (and accepting) of the progress allows me to appreciate all of the growth and the people who have helped me get to where I am today.

Where can you be more accepting of yourself in your life currently?

Final Words

Thank you for making it to the end of this post! Acceptance is something that does not come naturally, but can bring a lot of peace to our world when we embrace it. It builds self-esteem and calmness around both the outcomes we are responsible for and the ones outside of our control.

For those who missed it, yesterday, I recorded my second Substack Live with Nat Sang, which you can watch or listen to here: Our Substack Experience, Consistency, Authenticity, & Love.

Even though we met just over a couple weeks ago, we were able to connect deeply over our shared passion for authenticity, our journey with writing, and our respective love stories. I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity and can’t wait to continue sharing my content through more channels in the coming months!

Thank you all again for all the support lately. It has been such a blessing and I can’t wait to see what the rest of 2026 has in store.

Have an amazing week and give yourself some grace!

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I also got to catch up and see a Stars hockey game (my first in three years) with an old friend, the guest behind one of the most powerful posts from last year, Year of Sunday Spirit #24.

Today, I want to talk about consistency, specifically the edge behind it. Surprisingly, I haven’t directly talked about it yet in 2026, but it has been a cornerstone of what has allowed me to build momentum in writing, work, and my personal life.

I’m using this title, The Edge of Consistency, as a bit of a paradox. Consistency has an edge, one could say it’s a double-edged sword, depending on what side of it we are on. It can give us an edge when we truly embody it, but so many of us stay stuck on the edge of consistency, so close to progress while not close enough to see positive change.

We’ll cover both sides today, along with ways to get off the negative edge of consistency.

I want you to think about what consistency has meant to you.

Think about it for a few seconds… now let’s get started.

The (+) Edge of Consistency

Consistency in its greatest form truly gives us an edge on those around us. Think about the greatest performers in the world. Their greatness is almost always built on a consistent routine.

• Steph Curry didn’t become the greatest shooter in the NBA without an ultra-consistent routine.

  • He utilizes multiple volume-based shot routines, focusing on consecutive makes from various shots to simulate game pressure. Making two shots in a row is hard enough!

• Taylor Swift didn’t become the incredible artist she is without immense consistency in her work.

  • Her singing cardio routine helps her perform incredibly long setlists. Most of us are out of breath after a flight of stairs!

These are two examples, and while we are not all aiming to become world-famous, they showcase the power of consistency in practice.

Consistency allows you to stack wins. In finance, they call it compounding. In skills, they call it development. With people, it’s strengthening relationships.

• If you are consistent with your finances, you’ll see that account grow (we need this for our wedding…)

• If you are consistent with skills, you’ll end up doing things that were previously not possible (apparently I can code now?)

• If you are consistent with people, you’ll have a healthier relationship and stronger friendships.

Consistency is one of the great separators in life. Consistency builds trust. Trust builds influence. Influence allows us to have impact.

If you want to become a better version of yourself and separate yourself from the crowd, find your way to the positive edge of consistency.

The (-) Edge of Consistency

Unfortunately, a lot of the time, we are on the negative edge of consistency, meaning we are almost consistent.

• We start a diet and maintain it for a couple of weeks before we revert to junk food.

• We start doing that one project, and then procrastinate again.

• We pick up a reading habit, only to fall off the habit as soon as we get busy.

But we started doing the thing! We were consistent for a couple weeks! We just stopped because we didn’t see results.

That’s not good enough. The best things in life take time. If it only took a few weeks or only took doing one area of something well, then everyone would be successful. The reason it takes time is that there are so many variables that go into succeeding at something, most of which cannot be replicated or copied.

Success requires experience. Success requires disappointment. Success requires learning.

In my case, I was ultra-consistent with my long-form, but completely inconsistent with how I handled the rest of Substack. I didn’t prioritize my profile aesthetic and bio. I would like and comment on a few posts some days, post a Note most days, and still expect things to work. It did not work.

What Edge Has Consistency Given Me

I used to sit on the negative (-) edge of consistency.

Many people I see on Substack have begun somewhere in the last three to six months, yet they have grown much faster. I used to let this bother me. I used to complain that I worked so hard with such limited results. Not anymore.

At the beginning of the post I asked you to think about what consistency has meant to you. I had to do the same.

I think that the greatest form of consistency I’ve displayed recently is directly on Substack. I read an article this morning by Andrea Ram, and she talked about the phase of work “where the effort is undeniable, yet the results remain invisible to everyone.”

“The ability to remain steady during the ‘invisible results’ phase determines whether something real survives long enough to exist.”

My journey is unique. I started writing on Substack in September 2024. I haven’t missed one week.

A lot of people don’t know what it’s like to build in silence. A lot of people don’t know what it’s like to build with nearly no growth on the platform. I know what it’s like and I’m stronger because of it.

Disclaimer: I am so grateful for everyone who has been with me since the beginning, and welcome everyone who is now joining the journey.

That’s my edge. I’m resilient. I show up every week. My journey took longer, but I’ve arrived.

Consistency has defined my writing, but it also extends to my personal life in the project I started this weekend.

Projects Can Inspire Consistency

Last year I had a goal to “Clean up my personal email.” I had over 10K Yahoo emails and I couldn’t leverage a tool to directly process it for me. I promised myself that as I learn how to code, this will be my first use case.

So this weekend, the first weekend all year where I could be at home and create, I built a Python script. It read through all my unread emails and classified them into buckets, so I can rapidly go through them.

If something is too difficult, we will get stuck on the negative edge of consistency until we either: 1) become skilled enough at the task itself or 2) we find a way to make the task easier.

In Shalini & Dido’s Substack Live today, Shalini mentioned the importance of: “Incrementally stepping up the challenge every day.” It’s extremely challenging to be consistent at something we are not good at. Our brain shuts down, we get demoralized, and we end up stopping (like the first time I tried Python…). We need to be honest with ourselves and meet ourselves where we truly are.

If you are trying to learn something that’s challenging, find a use case or project that is causing heavy friction in your life. My frustration with my personal inbox helped motivate me to consistently read my Python Crash Course book, watch videos on IDEs (Integrated Development Environments - a simple place to handle code efficiently), and create prompts in Claude that help polish my code.

And would you look at that? It worked!

If we want to be consistent, we need to raise our skill or lower the difficulty to start.

This email project showed me the value of handling a daunting task, but what if we are consistent at the wrong things?

How to Get Off the Edge Into True Consistency

The first step is taking inventory of where you are at and facing the harsh truth of where you fall short. I can’t emphasize enough how important this part is.

• For me, this has manifested in looking at my engagement patterns, the quality of my website and profile, and the readability of my posts.

The second step is seeking true feedback from peers and from loved ones. This can be directly asking them questions or indirectly observing what other people are doing that you are not. We naturally have blinders on to certain perspectives, so this can help us see an angle we had never looked at before.

• In my case, I got feedback on readability from some peers and loved ones, observed the habits of people growing effectively, and created a plan for how I could engage more consistently.

From there, the last step is making small adjustments to your process.

• For me, it was increasing the volume of connecting with creators, pushing myself to my writing limits (monthly posts), and embracing the challenge of doing Live content (more on this later…).

Revisit step one until you find a system that works and go back to it anytime you stagnate.

Doing the above helped me grow 50% in 50 days, along with reaching my 80th subscriber this morning.

This process loop teaches us to be consistent at the RIGHT things, rather than being consistent in a way that’s not moving us forward. Loops inherently reinforce consistency because we see the incremental improvement that our brain loves to see to make us enjoy doing something.

When you are making strides towards the person you want to become and the goals you want to achieve, consistency can do wonders for your life.

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Final Words

Thank you all for reaching the end of this post! This was a really challenging post for me because I find consistency to be a delicate topic due to the incredible effect it can have on our lives. Mitigating inconsistency while finding your way to the positive edge of consistency is a lifelong challenge.

I hope this provides a blueprint that moves you toward the positive edge of consistency in whatever endeavor or goal you are pursuing!

In very exciting news, I will be having my second Substack Live next weekend with the wonderful Nat Sang. We plan to talk in more depth about consistency, building upon this week’s post, and our respective journeys with love. We hope y’all can tune in for a great discussion!

Have a wonderful week ahead and stay consistent!

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Today’s post will be shorter since I already posted a monthly special and a Substack Live this week.

• If you missed my monthly post, you can see it here: Milestones and the Challenges Behind Them.

• If you want to tune in to my first Substack Live video with , check it out here: Why Authenticity is Important for Creating Meaningful Change

I want to talk about hope, and specifically why you should never give up hope in pursuit of your dreams. Easter carries a great message about hope through the Resurrection of Christ, symbolizing the power of new beginnings along with finding meaning in our suffering. Let’s get into it!

Hope For Better Days

Something that I’ve learned the hard way is that you’re going to have your fair share of tough breaks, whether you “deserve” them or not. These are unavoidable and painful, and we have to remind ourselves to remain hopeful despite the circumstances.

• You suffered another injury while training for a competition.

• You invested your time in a relationship, but it failed.

• You took the jump, but the business didn’t work out.

These are just three examples of so many areas of life that we can’t give up hope in despite a setback. We’ll discuss these areas later in the post with how to continue to find hope in your situation.

I started my diet and cut for our wedding on Wednesday. I injured my achilles while running on Thursday. You can’t make it up. I’m praying it’s not severe, but things like this are heartbreaking to me.

After a major knee injury in college and hip surgery at 24, I am easily frustrated when injuries come back to haunt me. Those closest to me know the physical pain I’ve endured, but it has built a resilience that carries me through the brutal aspects of life.

Through any tough circumstance, we can choose one of two paths:

1. Complain, sulk, and play the victim (Disclaimer: I give everyone a one-day pass to do this after something very unfortunate).

2. Find hope in your situation and plan how you can make it better.

It’s hard to internalize bad news, an injury, or a missed opportunity. If you aren’t super down about the result, then you probably don’t care that much about it anyway. If you are truly down, give yourself time to process what happened and sleep on it. 9 times out of 10, I wake up with a clearer perspective on the situation and can rationally decide the next way forward.

But let’s focus on #2 (the healthy option), since we only get a one-day pass to do #1 anyways.

Finding Hope in Your Situation

Once I sleep on it, my emotions often calm down enough to think about how to logically move forward.

After an injury, we probably need to take the time to research what it likely is. Dr. Google or Dr. ChatGPT now may give us an idea, but take it with a grain of salt. If you’ve suffered a major injury before, you know that eventually, you can recover. Maintaining that hope that you will be “back” and thriving again is the best way to keep your mind from suffering during the setback.

For relationships, these can be the most painful, especially if it was someone that was very important to your life. Our identity and lives are heavily shaped by the people we surround ourselves with. For me, I try to always maintain hope that the right people will find me at the right time in my life.

Something I always find solace in is that people are in our lives for seasons. I’ve met some truly amazing people that have been in my life for a few years before going our separate ways. The magic is in what you learned while they were in your life.

With businesses, there is unfortunately no guarantee that it will “work out.” I’ve put thousands of hours into my Substack at this point. The climb was excruciatingly slow at many points, but I never lost hope.

I talked about it in the Substack Live yesterday, but I have two why’s for how I could be consistent for over 1.5 years.

1. I want to write a book and fulfill my lifelong dream.

2. I want to have more time to be involved in our future kid’s lives.

With effort comes hope. I trust in my consistency and output. I believe that the outcome I deserve will eventually come my way.

Yesterday felt like a major sign of hope in my journey. I put my heart and soul into this and it felt great to have some amazing feedback on my first Live.

I never lost hope, I never stopped fighting, and I am able to build something that I am so proud of every day. It doesn’t get much better than that.

Find hope in your situation.

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Final Words

Thank you for making it to the end of this post, and for all of the support this week. We are a quarter of the way through 2026 and it’s certainly been off to an eventful start. I posted my third monthly post, finished my first Substack Live, and hit 75 subscribers yesterday which is a testament to maintaining hope that my writing will grow over time.

In a year that has started with a lot of injuries and long hours working, but also plenty of travel and great times connecting with people, it’s certainly been a ride. Along the way, I always remind myself to remain hopeful and trust that everything will work out, even if it doesn’t seem that way at the moment.

Happy Easter to all who celebrate. I hope everyone has an amazing day and a wonderful week ahead!

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This week, I want to talk about life direction and specifically why checking our compass is the most important step to me when moving towards a goal. My March monthly post, which I preview at the end, is coming Tuesday, and I can’t wait to share it as well. This post is near and dear to my journey on Substack. I hope you all enjoy the message. Let’s get into it!

Where are we truly going?

When we imagined where we’d be today five or ten years ago, I bet we would be somewhat or completely far off what reality is. My freshman in college self would’ve literally never guessed that I’d be writing a blog on this Sunday night and my newly single self five years ago wouldn’t have dreamed that I would be marrying my life partner in Spain this September.

There are too many iterations and variables at play that can completely shift the direction of our lives. However, what if I told you that reflecting on your direction, on your compass, could make the version of you five or ten years from now much happier?

Speaking as someone who has seen the power of appreciating and neglecting Life’s Compass, I can attest that there’s tremendous value in reviewing your trajectory on a regular basis.

What is our compass saying?

What’s the direction of your compass?

How often do you stop and think about where you are going in life?

Something I hear a lot from self-help or business gurus is the phrase: “just start.” Often followed with, “you’ll figure it out along the way.” While indecision and procrastination can absolutely get the best of us at times, I think that the “you’ll figure it out along the way” following a change is what truly stops us.

You took the first step.

You started the blog.

You moved to a new job.

You changed cities.

You found a new relationship.

Did everything get solved?

If yes, that’s awesome. You were one thing away and you took the action needed to be successful.

Most likely, though, you are now in a new environment and may feel somewhere between a fish out of water and the new and improved you.

Why do many of the things we start not get finished?

It’s because we didn’t make the necessary adjustments to our direction (to our compass). When you start any endeavor, you are likely ignorant to what is required for success, while simultaneously possessing limited experience. You build your initial habits in this period, which if they are off-base, then you will have a lot to correct later.

This can happen even with the best intentions, the hardest workers, and people who are more than capable intellectually or physically at the endeavor they pursue.

I can attest to this. The change we need to make has multiple levels to it. It’s a new job AND a new way of advocating for your worth. It’s writing your story AND knowing how to get people to care. It’s going to the gym consistently AND keeping a disciplined diet. Not just one of them. That’s what gets us.

My Substack journey applies perfectly to a compass, and after realizing its importance, I’ve grown 4x faster in the last five weeks than I did in the previous 73. Just from a minor adjustment to how I use the platform.

My (Formerly) Neglected Substack Compass

Disclaimer: For my email-only subscribers, the next section is a more Substack-specific example, but the lesson applies far beyond writing. The story holds a powerful depiction of what I’ve gone through since September 2024.

Working Harder, Not Smarter

For those that have been supporting my writing since the beginning, one thing I can’t be knocked for is consistency. I’ve shown up every week and haven’t missed once (although I’ve had several post-midnight posts). I care so much about the quality of the content I’m sharing that I spend several hours every weekend writing and editing.

I thought that, over time, this effort would translate into platform visibility.

I thought.

My growth was almost entirely from the amazing people in my life that chose to support, with almost no traction on the platform. I didn’t understand.

I was playing the wrong game. My compass was aimed in a direction that limited my visibility.

“Your Compass Must Have Been Pretty Broken”

82 NOTES. 101 POSTS. 15 MONTHS of SCREAMING into the void.

I missed my opportunity for early engagement. Hesitated to promote my writing. Focused on the posts over Notes. Failed at marketing entirely. Didn’t connect enough.

To those that are discouraged. I lived it. I began posting Notes (Substack’s Version of Status’s in Layman’s terms) on April 29th and never got more than one like on a post until Christmas Eve.

I spent more time with less results than nearly anyone else.

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How I (Painfully) Fixed My Substack Compass

Here’s where you probably think I’m going to say, “just use Notes every day” or say “Dear Substack” and get 1,000 likes instantly. Not quite.

On vacation earlier this year, I once again looked at why I was stagnating. I was commenting and liking a few posts a day, I was posting Notes consistently, and nothing.

1. I worked on my Profile and Home Page. Turns out the ‘finance guy’ didn’t care enough about aesthetics. Not anymore. If people click your profile and it looks like you don’t care about how it presents, *shocker* it’s a lot more difficult to incentivize people to subscribe to you.

2. I upped my volume of interactions with other creators on Notes, but primarily with people whose stories or topics resonated with me. I also started reading and sharing more content from other creators, which actually brought more inspiration to my work and great people into my circle.

There is still so much work to be done to grow my content into something that can impact the world, but I can feel the momentum coming. It took a couple of small changes, but I’m beginning to see traction and meet some pretty great people along the way.

Special thank you to and for their support in recent weeks, y’all are awesome and a big part of the reason the last month has been the most enjoyable one on here.

It all started with a look at my compass.

Final Words

In life, we are all moving in a direction. In that journey, we need to find opportunities to pause and glance down at our compass, to make sure that we are still moving in the direction we need to. A 1-degree adjustment (speaking in 360 circles here) over time can lead you to a completely different destination.

Yes, there are times in life where we need a complete 180 or to just start something new. Most of the time, it’s the small adjustments that alter the course of our lives and bring us to where we ultimately end up.

If you aren’t going in the direction you want in life, Check Your Compass.

Monthly Special

On Tuesday, I will be publishing my monthly post, this time on Challenges & Milestones. I officially will hit my two-year mark at Capital One on Wednesday, and I just reached the 1.5-year mark of writing on Substack this month. I want to tell the story of these journeys and the mental model I have used to stay resilient and consistent in the face of adversity while facing challenges & milestones in my life.

See you again on Tuesday. Have a great start to your week!

You know what also feels good? Seeing the #11 Seed Cinderella Horns win their THIRD game in March Madness! Sports and school are great connectors, and I always enjoy the storylines and passion that bring the world together through the love of the game and love for your team.

This week, I’m going to try something new (or rather, revisit something old). I saw a Substack Note about how revisiting old posts with new perspectives can be a really rewarding experience, and figured I could give it a try for myself.

To keep the post at a reasonable length, I’ll focus on the first question I asked our guest, but I can assure you there are plenty of great takeaways from her response. She is someone who embodies the best of connecting with others and the world around her. I will maintain components of the Year of Sunday Spirit #11 post in italics, with my new commentary (2026 Revisited) layered in.

Let’s get back into it!

Year of Sunday Spirit #11 (Connection)

Question 1: What skill or trait are you most proud of possessing and how has it impacted your life in the last few years?

Answer 1:

“A good question — I would say the trait or skill that I am most proud of possessing is the ability to maintain long distance friendships. To be friends with someone who lives across the country, or in a different state, and see them maybe once, twice, three times a year at most (if that), and still every time we talk or hang out it’s like no time has passed. Every time we text or hang out, it’s like we saw each other yesterday. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not always the easiest to manage, but we have communicated openly and found ways to make it work — and it’s so worth it.

I feel like this has definitely impacted my life the past few years, especially as we’ve all matured and grown out of our early 20s college era and into our mid-to-late 20s. Just being able to stay connected with people who were so important to me, in a different chapter of my life, without the same level of interaction due to location or life is so rewarding. At the end of the day we all have priorities, responsibilities, and things we have to do — but still being able to have a wide network and such authentic, solid friendships and community across the country is the best feeling.”

2025 Analysis: Connection

We are more connected digitally than ever, yet there are so many connections that falter due to a lack of effort. In Year of Sunday Spirit #4, I highlighted the development and fragility of friendships over time. “One sad realization is that some formerly great friendships will be ‘outgrown’ and that person may no longer be a part of your life. These always sting, but not taking them personally is critical if you want to continue living life on your terms.” Losing friendships leaves a void, and it’s never easy.

2026 Revisited

I believe connection is becoming more important with each passing day. With everything hyper-automated and digital distractions running rampant, we can easily lose sight of how to be ‘in the moment.’

Something I noticed again at the Houston Rodeo last week, which I was guilty of growing up, is recording entire concerts. Are you EVER going to listen to it again? I know I certainly won’t. And even if you do, it won’t be the same as being fully immersed in the environment.

I say this because social media has turned so much of life into a performance rather than an experience. If I wanted to sit behind a screen and listen to music, I’d put my Beats on and play something on Spotify or YouTube.

As knowledge and information become increasingly accessible, experience is becoming the great separator. We have to live our lives, we have to connect with other people, we have to experience the highs and lows.

2025 Analysis

How often do we see this play out in our lives?

• You hear “we are so busy” and we’ll do something once “things calm down.”

• The plans never leave the text chat.

• The one friend asking to hang out got called “needy” or “too attached”.

• You think about texting someone—then convince yourself, “it’s not worth it”.

Personally, I struggle the most with the last one—despite making an effort to check in with people weekly. Even this week, I caught myself hesitating before reaching out. That hesitation is disappointing because I know how much a simple text can mean to someone.

2026 Revisited

One year later, the bottom three bullets above and the additional top bullet still play out daily. Our calendars have become tighter and tighter, we are expected to do increasingly more, and the word “busy” is thrown around like an expectation in society.

“Grind culture” pushes us to fill our schedule up and leave no time for decompressing. If I could give one piece of advice to everyone: Take your foot off the gas sometimes, zooming through life leaves you with burnout and limited enjoyment.

My favorite memories from work, writing, and life have come from working hard for something, then celebrating the results with the special people in my life.

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2025 Analysis

Choosing Connection

Truthfully, we are all busy, and we all have a responsibility to maintain our own relationships in life. You may think it’s ‘cool’ if you don’t reach out—but it’d be a lot cooler if you did. It’s special to “have a wide network and such authentic, solid friendships and community all across the country.”

2026 Revisited

• In 2025, this principle carried me through a full 52 weeks of Year of Sunday Spirit and helped me reprioritize making time for the people in my life.

• In 2026, this principle has introduced me to a lot of creators and opened doors to new opportunities that I would not have found otherwise.

Wedding planning, working in finance, maintaining a blog, and handling life’s obligations with two dogs all take time (a lot of it).

We are busy. But at a certain point, I don’t think it’s an excuse. We are responsible for managing our time, and if we do a poor job of it, we have to live with the results.

Change your priorities and you’ll see how your life improves in those areas. Cherish the moments where you get the gang back together or when you get to catch up with an old friend. Celebrate your wins and the wins of those close to you.

Most importantly, stay connected and in tune with the world around you. Make time for rest, time for fun, and time for the people that matter. What’s the point if you can’t smile and be present at the end of the day?

Final Words

Thank you all for another great week of Sunday Spirit. I enjoyed going back and revisiting an older post. Thank you again to our wonderful guest from Year of Sunday Spirit #11 and thank you to Anthony Huerta as well for the inspiration!

If you enjoyed this, please leave a comment below! As I try unique twists on the blog, it truly helps to know what is resonating with you, the reader!

We are nearing the end of March and this has been the best month of growth on Substack yet. I’ve met some brilliant creators, shared my writing within my network more, and have learned new ways to improve as a writer. Welcome to everyone who has joined the journey recently and thank you to those who have been there since the beginning!

In exciting news, I am planning on doing my first Substack Live with Dido Torchi in the next two weeks. It will be my first video content on Substack, and although I’ve done a couple podcasts with Two in the Teal (which was awesome), I’m looking forward to the opportunity to build on my own platform.

Have a wonderful week, and Hook’Em (Cinderella) Horns!

With that being said, I want to talk about focus, something that is poorly leveraged because of all the noise that constantly surrounds us. From every excuse in the book for why we can’t focus, to a lack of clarity around what we need to do, to environments that actively work against us—it’s genuinely no wonder that so many of us are overwhelmed. I share this post now because if there’s a time in your life to channel some focus for the sake of your future, 2026 presents that golden opportunity.

World of Anti-Focus

If you’ve noticed over time how many things are intended to take our attention away, you may realize how valuable focus has become. In today’s day and age, I’m starting to feel like a majority of people I talk to say they have some form of ADHD. This is not to say many of these cases are not real, but I do find our ability to handle distractions has diminished substantially.

An article from 2022 by HPC Wire featuring an OpenText survey, Workers Experiencing Information Overload, mentioned that nearly 80% of U.S. workers were already stressed by information overload. This was BEFORE widespread AI availability through LLMs and Generative AI adoption. I have to imagine that number is creeping up into the 90s, if not well into them already.

This is what we are facing in the world: an overflow of information that so many of us are struggling to manage. The most common response to ‘How are you doing?’ being ‘Good, just busy!’ feels like a direct downstream impact of this.

What can we do?

You’ve probably heard the gurus talking about deep work or fancy Pomodoro techniques or monk mode. I’m not here to mock these, but a one-size-fits-all approach is too abstract and doesn’t encompass what focus means to each of us individually. For me, my focus is sitting down at my desk, headphones on, unable to be distracted, and generating extremely high output. For you, it may mean delivering a speech without error. It could be executing a routine or being in the zone during a sport or physical activity. Finding whatever ritual gets you in the zone takes time, but it is incredibly rewarding when you see how powerful you can become when focused.

Why do we struggle to focus?

The Data Community 2025 article stated that nearly 20% of the world’s existing data was added last year. That is an absurd number, and one that can be dangerous if we aren’t careful. Infinite data creation is now possible through technology and we must find ways to manage the intake. With immediate access to statistics on our favorite topics, algorithmically catered content, and the power of LLMs on our phones, we are asking our minds to become Eddie Mora from Limitless, but sadly, we can’t access that level of clarity and focus.

I do find the trouble with focus to be rooted in a lack of clarity and an inability to protect our attention. If you know what you need to do in your day (go to the store, work on a project, or clean the kitchen), we are substantially more likely to complete it. We know what we need to do and so our mind can constantly remind us of what to focus on.

This is only half the battle, though.

Having clarity can guide us, but we still need mental strength to overcome distraction. A source of strength can come from willpower, but many scientific studies have determined that willpower is finite. If you notice as the day goes on, your ability to maintain focus among distractions diminishes. It’s why at night so many of us watch TV, catch sports games, play on our phones, and so on. We lack the willpower remaining to say no.

I was formerly a night owl, and then over about the last 10 years I’ve become an early bird. I can still stay up late, but I do find myself fading as I get closer to 15 or 16 hours awake. I don’t take any medication, I do drink some coffee, but I have found that after a long day’s work I can maybe churn out a couple final productive hours in the evening. Once it turns to about 9 or 10 PM, I should just be relaxing or getting ready for bed.

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How can we individually focus?

I think a real key to focus is knowing yourself. If you have a problem with scrolling for an hour each morning or each evening, try to start building the habit to put your phone away in another room (I put it on a bookshelf out of reach). Recently, I’ve gotten into the habit of morning scrolling. This hasn’t been a habit for years, but after a couple vacations, I got knocked off my routine. I am aware of it now and I’m going to actively work to fix this habit in the coming weeks.

Awareness is huge because it allows us to give attention to what’s taking our focus from us. This is not to say that any of us should be locked in or have a limitless mind every second of every day. We are humans with a limited capacity for focus each day. I do believe that we can build this focus, but it takes time and deliberate practice. Rest is super important to this equation, our subconscious solves questions while we sleep, and we think much more clearly when we are rested.

If you notice your focus is dwindling, you’re reaching for your phone more, or you can’t seem to get as much done as you have in the past, think about what distractions are taking away from you. Additionally, think about what you want to do so you have a clear object to focus on as you move through each day. I talk about clarity a lot, simply because I find it so essential in the current day. Our brains weren’t built for this much information going on around us, so we have to help ourselves so we can live life to the fullest.

Final Words

Focus can be fleeting, almost like lightning in a bottle. When there is a lot going on, or a lot on your mind, focus is not easy to come by. Learn when in your days, weeks, and months are most optimal for focus. If you need caffeine or prescription help, make sure you find what works best for you.

This year presents opportunities at every corner. Choose three things to focus on each day that align with your goals and your capacity. Construct your days and weeks so you can capture the power of focus, but please make sure to recover as well. Burnout doesn’t have to be the negative byproduct of too much intense focus.

We are finally back in Dallas tomorrow, and I’m grateful to start working on building my focus back up.

Have a great week ahead and good luck with your March Madness brackets to those who participate!

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Last week I wrote a Letter to My September Self, and alluded to my desire to talk about authenticity, which I will bring to the fold today. It’s a term that gets thrown around often, and I’ve begun to see how challenging it can be for people to live authentically. Authenticity is a trait that shows up in your actions and behavior when you are unapologetically yourself. It’s the version of you that, without thinking, is completely aligned with who you are at your core.

What Authenticity Means to Me

The other day, Kylen told me I play a “fair game” when it comes to life. I believe that’s why authenticity is so important to me. I like things to be earned. I want to do the right thing. I don’t want to cheese the system.

I’ve operated this way throughout my life. That mindset has challenged me to work very hard and appreciate a good day’s labor. It’s easy to cut corners, to do a half-ass job, to not take notes, to be on your phone instead of learning. That’s just not who I am. I’m not lazy. I’m not a quitter. I always give my best and I don’t stop until the job is done.

My first job was in facility operations at Lifetime (a fancy way to say janitor). This taught me a lot—not just about doing great work, but staying true to who I am at my core. I cleaned the studios thoroughly each day and began getting feedback from visitors about how much cleaner the studios had become.

I’m a Longhorn, so inevitably you’ll see McConaughey quotes from time to time. This one completely embodies my view of effort: “If you give it your all and don’t half ass it… at least you’re not going to have to wonder ‘would the outcome have been different?’” I try to live my life this way, because what’s the point otherwise? Of course, be strategic and don’t sprint at the start of a marathon, but it’s the principle.

Show up each day. In each interaction, in each opportunity, give your best. You’ll never have to doubt the outcome being determined by your lack of effort.

Influence from Others

A key component of authenticity is how you are able to handle external influences on your behavior. A prime example would be peer pressure: are you able to still act in alignment with your true self amidst social pressure? Another major example is conforming to your surroundings: if you are around people that are judgmental or flashy, and you are not, acting like those people would be inauthentic.

There is a balance we must manage and we are all exposed to it over time. The person we are at work, at home, and with friends is often not exactly the same. Different situations call for different versions of ourselves. In my experience, we can still remain true to ourselves while adapting to the people and environment we are in. When you know yourself deeply, you know what additional traits to couple with your core traits based on the situation.

The other day, Em Birch restacked a great Note from Michell Clark on authenticity, which I saved for this exact post. The notion of there being a “tax” on acting against your core self to seek approval is eye-opening. Disappointment is a byproduct when you don’t follow the expectations of others: whether it be upsetting family, friends, or peers. This is not saying act maliciously or negatively, but don’t be afraid to bring your full self to the table as you go throughout life. There is a peace of mind that comes from acting in accordance with what you believe, and a great freedom to do things your way.

Authenticity in Writing

Writing has been really hard. I grew up most of my life thinking I wasn’t a great writer. Turns out, you improve noticeably after journaling for multiple years and starting a blog where I haven’t missed a week for a year and a half.

The special part of my writing, though, isn’t how prolific or consistent it is. That is important to me, but there’s something that has meant more. I have remained authentically me in every post. All of the writing comes directly from me. I don’t have to pretend to be someone else or rely on AI to write for me. Through writing I’ve built clarity of thought and I truly believe in the words I put to paper.

Then there’s a whole other dynamic: the social media, engagement, and website design side of content creation. Outside of briefly being “insta-famous,” as my high-school peers called it, I have rarely posted regularly since. I also deleted that Instagram when I had no idea what social media would become, so here we are today, trying to grow again from scratch.

You may notice my new and improved banner and welcome page for those directly on Substack. Who would’ve thought building a better profile would make you look more professional? On it, you’ll see three words: authenticity, resilience, and clarity. When you read my work, that is what I want to stand by. That is what I want to help you build.

Final Words

I’ve done a lot of great things in my 20s. I’ve failed at many things in my 20s. However, I can truly reflect and feel proud of the life that I am building. I remember sitting in my room when I was around five years old, dreaming about how I could change the world. I won’t give up until I make that come true.

This post embodies the authenticity I prioritize and intend to protect. Authenticity is not easy. If you stay true to yourself, don’t shy away from the challenges, and remain grateful—the blessings will come your way.

If this post resonated with you, I’d love to hear what authenticity means to you in your life.

Have an amazing week!

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Also, if you missed my first monthly post on environments, you can find it here: How Addressing My Environment Restored My Mental Clarity.

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I was planning on writing about authenticity today, because of its value as a trait when so much is becoming automated and robotic. However, after spending the entire weekend working on writing, weddings, and budgeting… I needed something different. We have just over six months to go until our wedding, which inherently comes with many stresses that are difficult to handle.

This is a completely different style post and may be a little cringey, but honestly, that doesn’t even matter. What matters is that I’m writing each week to become a better man, someone who is consistent and shows up for the people in his life (readers included), and someone who continues trying to make the world better. If you’ve ever reached the point where the stress is engulfing you, when you feel like you are paddling for your life, grab a pen (or keyboard) and let your feelings out. I promise it will help ease your mind.

“Here we go!” - Dak Prescott

Letter to My September Self

It is all going to work out. The big day, and the entire wedding trip, will be great, not because it’s perfect, but because of the people who are there. The finances and logistics challenged you to the fullest, but you found a way through, got everything squared away, and took care of everyone. (Note to everyone: planning a wedding is extremely challenging… even if your partner is a wedding planner!)

Your consistent effort on Substack and growth as a creator opened new doors and introduced you to some incredible people and minds. You hit your subscriber goals and become an up-and-coming creator in the lifestyle and business space, helping hundreds of people navigate the AI-revolution and the complexities of life in 2026. You continued the great momentum at work to hit a major personal milestone, and smoothly navigated the changing business environment for yourself and for the team.

You got to see your best friend (the other half of the center back duo) get married to the love of his life. You got to see another great college friend get married too, and reunite with a ton of people who made Texas special. There were several great birthday celebrations for friends and family over the last few months (went to Arizona again), including yours and Kylen’s 29th. There were wonderful parties to celebrate the upcoming wedding, and through all of the traveling and craziness, we still found time for plenty of W-words (walks, in dog language) with Hippie & Roscoe.

Now you’re fully packed for the Bachelor trip to Mallorca, about to take off for what will be a trip of a lifetime with some of the most special people in your life. Your great SRT team at work continues to build resiliency, and your boss promised to take care of everything (with a request for a bottle of Cava for their troubles). You’ve pre-planned your next three weeks of Sunday Spirit so you can truly step away and be present.

It all worked out in the end.

“Don’t worry, be happy.” - Bobby McFerrin

Final Words

Here’s to manifestation, and to making 2026 an amazing year. After a long first week back, and working almost the entire weekend, I needed something like this to lift me up. Writing is therapeutic, and if you find yourself hit by a barrage of stress and doubt, it doesn’t hurt to put your thoughts onto paper.

This week, I’ll be traveling to Arizona to celebrate one of my best friends turning 30, which I’m super excited about. We’ll be back next Sunday for a “normal” Sunday Spirit again (the 10th one already this year), after what is hopefully an amazing trip!

Have a great week and an awesome start to March!

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To start 2026, I’ve given a lot of thought to what systems are essential to my life. This, combined with a long-term habit of reflection, has pushed me to reevaluate how I need to think and how I need to operate. I’ve been formulating a “blueprint” that is catered to who I am and how I need to improve. This post will help you form your own blueprint and build systems that are designed for you and the change you want to see. Let’s get into it!

Systems

A long-term system of mine, one that I referenced in How Addressing My Environment Restored My Mental Clarity, is how I leverage Apple Notes. I have always been a note-taker, and when I first adopted Notes as a system in college, I noticed something groundbreaking. My ability to prioritize and keep up with responsibilities drastically improved. As time has gone on, there have been periods where my system suffers, and the downstream impacts spread beyond just the screen.

This happens because our systems can collect too much chaos during certain times, creating a compounding effect of disorganization across other areas of life. If you lack an effective system for managing personal projects, don’t have a clear method to track wedding obligations, and have a massive collection of “things to learn,” you probably need to find one. Totally speaking generally here…and definitely not about my situation. I decided to commit to an overhaul of how I manage my Notes, my priorities, and my time.

I have once again polished my system to encompass seven main areas of my life:

• Priorities & Projects: Actions & Projects in Order of Priority

• Wedding: Everything Related to Our Big Day in September

• Learning: Sources, Principles, and Material to Review

• Health: Everything Spiritual, Mindfulness, & Health

• Finance: Purchases, Budget, and Investments

• Content: Inspirations, Frameworks, Ideas, & Expansion

• Goals: Long-Term and Annual Aspirations

These, along with a Blueprint note of “How I Think” and “How I Operate,” serve as my guiding light for the biggest priorities in my life. Embedding my personal and work goals allows for my actions to be intentional and aimed in the direction I want to go. When your system allows you to be intentional and focused on your objectives, time becomes easier to manage and starts working in your favor, rather than against you.

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Reflection

If there’s any habit that I’m most grateful for establishing earlier in my life, it may just be reflection. On a daily basis, I’m pretty hyper-reflective about most conversations and interactions I have, giving myself instant feedback like: “That part of the presentation was weak,” “I could have been more personable,” or “That was not a good joke,” (we all miss sometimes okay). Over longer timeframes, I have done monthly and annual reviews for many years, which are super helpful for tracking progress and identifying areas for growth. As the speed of the world continues to increase, I’ve started more weekly cadences to get more timely feedback on my direction, which has proven to be very useful.

I believe people are devaluing the importance of reflection given how much life has become overly optimized, instantly gratifying, and easily accessed. I remember the days when searching the internet, using our flip phone in certain areas of the school, or running out of data were constant frustrations. When an answer is at our fingertips to 90% of life’s questions, it’s quite easy to lean on that crutch and neglect deep thinking. Notice I’m saying “an answer” and not “the answer,” as AI-driven responses often give you the common response rather than the best one.

I have a deep concern for future generations (and the current generation) relating to the capacity for critical thinking. While technology has successfully raised the floor for everyone, a reduction in critical thinking will separate the true thinkers even further. If you are a true thinker, someone who evaluates outcomes and can form opinions autonomously, you are in good shape. If you feel like you’re losing touch with the world and your future, take some time to reflect and see what you can do to build a better life moving forward.

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Final Words

Thank y’all again for another great week, and I hope my Barcelona-inspired thinking brought a unique perspective to this blog post! I am as committed as ever to designing systems for success, so if you have any questions about how I’m building for the future—please feel free to comment below! I also urge you to reflect on your life and the direction you are heading. If you are off the course, look for the change you need to make to get back on track!

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We have one more day before returning home to Texas, and we are super grateful for the opportunity to travel here and experience the culture. In last week’s Sunday Spirit, I mentioned: “Culture is one of the most magical gifts the world offers.” We are so excited to share the wonders of Spain with our wedding guests later this year. Sharing culture with others can create lifelong memories that they can bring to their friends and family, which is one of the most special gifts of all.

¡Saludos desde España!

On theme, I want to talk about two things that have always mattered to me: the importance of love, and the magic of travel. Love has carried me through injuries, through disappointments, through loss, and through doubt. The people who truly love you give you strength, help you keep the faith, and remind you you’re going to make it through. Travel is a different kind of love—a reset, a place for curiosity, and a chance to explore the unknown. I want to share why both have been meaningful in my life, and hopefully spark some reflection (and maybe an upcoming vacation request) for you! Let’s get into it.

Love

Think about the things you love: the nostalgic music, childhood video games, milestones in business, your favorite sports memories, your school. These are experiences that stick with you over time and become part of your identity. Never stop experiencing life. You want to always be adding to the list of things that give you that special nostalgic feeling. You know what they are, so go out and make more memories!

Now think about someone in your life that you truly love: your spouse, siblings, pets, parents, or friends. That feeling where you can’t imagine your life without them because of all that they bring to it.

When Kylen and I started dating, I knew almost instantly she was different. We had immediate chemistry and we spent almost all our time together for two straight weeks. That is, until I got hip surgery, which I had to tell the girl I really liked: “Hey, I want to keep this going, but you’re going to have to meet my parents…after two weeks, because I will be bedridden at their house for the next month.” She not only showed up then, but has continued to show up and be the best supporter and partner for over four years now.

Love is about prioritizing people beyond yourself, genuinely wanting to learn about what makes people happy, and being thoughtful. Kylen does that all in abundance, and it’s what makes her so loved by many, especially by our dogs and me.

Last summer, I watched a video of someone who had lost their dog (a pitbull like Hippie) and it hit me like a rock. The voiceover said something along the lines of: “Don’t be mad at me… my favorite part of the day is when you come home.” It’s probably cheesy to some people, but it really made me reflect. We have two amazing dogs, Hippie and Roscoe, and they have been our constants throughout our entire relationship. They embody what love is to the fullest, which is an unconditional joy and loyalty to their people.

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Travel

One of life’s greatest blessings is being able to travel and see the world beyond your normal environment. I have always been this way, enamored by the lifestyle and scenery of foreign places, grateful for the opportunity to witness the beauty of the world. I’m a Texan, and as much as I love Dallas, the metroplex does not grant the same “easy on the eyes” scenery that you find abroad.

That’s not to say I don’t enjoy my everyday life here. Our dog walks around the city can be healing too, simply from being outdoors in a sentimental spot. The other day, Hippie and I were walking by Harwood Arms, and a group of young girls saw her beautiful red sweater with pink bows and her pink pearl necklace. They were obsessed. When Hippie turned around to hear their chatter, she stopped in her tracks as the girls started clapping and calling her beautiful (she sat there for a good 30 seconds, loving every second). This was a really special memory, especially as she’s getting older, one that I’ll always carry with me (thank you Dallas girls)!

One of the most humbling parts of travel is realizing the world keeps turning whether you’re home or not. Stepping away from daily responsibilities can remind other people why they miss you, and it can remind you why you miss them too. It also gives you space to rediscover some parts of yourself that get muted by your normal routine. On vacations, I read substantially, cherish the food I eat, and spend a lot more time reflecting. Those moments help ground me in where I’m going, who I’m becoming, and what my place is in the world.

Culture is one of the most magical gifts the world offers. Realizing that other people don’t live like you opens your eyes to a plethora of new perspectives. Sometimes those perspectives are simply interesting… other times they’re transformational, and they stick with you long after you get home. Today we were talking with my parents about our first beach vacation and how important it is to reward yourself after hard work. A margarita next to the ocean will remind you of that real quick.

Final Words

Love and travel are two of the biggest blessings the world has to offer. By sharing love, you connect with others and make everything a little brighter. By traveling, you open your eyes to the perspectives and cultures of other people, which can transform the way you view life.

As we fly to Spain this week, I’m especially excited to return to a place that’s become really meaningful to us. We will see new places, new landmarks, and some familiar beauty from previous trips. A good vacation can be rejuvenating, and with Kylen and I’s schedule, any time to get away and travel with her is something I don’t take for granted.

Have an amazing week! ¡Vamos a España!

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For me, this past week was challenging as I reflected on the results of 2025 at work and personally. It wasn’t challenging because of the outcome, but rather because it marked the end of a great chapter. It’s now on me to step up again to climb the new mountains and embrace the journey ahead of me in 2026. A dosage of positivity is necessary when faced with any daunting climb, and today I will share how I’m moving along the path. Let’s get into it!

Mountains

As we go through life, we will encounter our fair share of what can best be described as mountains. These are places where the distance between point A (where we are today) and point B (where we need to get to) is immense. It’s easy to reject another climb, because you know of the struggle that is imminent. I’ll give some examples of current mountains in my own life to paint a picture of what mountains may exist right now for you as well.

The Chase Alps

• Work: Continuing the momentum from 2025 to reach the next level in my career

• Love: Planning our wedding this year by navigating difficult decisions and conversations

• Health: Pushing through injuries to hit my goals for my dream wedding physique

• Brand: Expanding my blog to other mediums to share my content with a wider audience

• People (& Pets): Making time for who is important amidst an overwhelmingly busy slate

• Finance: Managing our money effectively to execute this year and plan for our future

On Friday, I was reflecting on my journey over the last year and although I hit many of the goals I aspired to reach, there was a feeling of slight discontentment. A note I shared yesterday captured the feeling:

“Once you make it to one peak, your journey can become daunting. The next peak is far away and you know you have another mountain to climb.

That’s exactly when you need to call on all the strength to keep going.”

After a year of pushing myself to my limit, I stood (figuratively) on the top of 2025’s mountain, but all I could see now was how FAR the top of 2026’s mountain was from here. The day hit me hard and I couldn’t help but feel demoralized about how far I am from where I want to be. I’ll use a football analogy of the two NFC Championship quarterbacks who are on different parts of the mountain. This year, Matt Stafford won the MVP and was sensational for the Rams, but despite his very best throughout the season, it wasn’t enough to make it back to the Super Bowl. On the contrary, Sam Darnold’s return to prominence the previous season was overshadowed by poor performance in his two biggest games. This year, he returned with a new team, a new vengeance, and brought the Seahawks all the way to the Super Bowl with an opportunity to rewrite the narrative.

Undoubtedly, there’s a lot of pain associated with failure and knowing that you’re going to need to climb the mountain again. Life is a journey that will have its ups and downs, something that we need to remind ourselves along the way. Whether you are training for a championship, building the skills for a promotion, or striving to be a better person—the mountain in front of you presents an opportunity. Who can you become? Who would make it to the top of the next mountain? When you know who you need to be to rise to the occasion, tap into positivity as a boost to get you going.

Positivity

To begin the day on Saturday, I got after my daily habits right away and made sure I had time to journal before we went to the gym. Yesterday, I planned to write about one thing specifically: to be positive, to be proud of myself. I spent ten minutes writing down some of the characteristics and outcomes that I’ve achieved in recent years that made me proud. The simple action of writing down these positive thoughts helped spark some energy going into the weekend.

When was the last time you thought about your best characteristics and the best outcomes you have created along your journey?

• What personality trait continues to make a positive impact on your life?

• What went into your highlight reel from last year?

• What is a recent challenge you overcame that was weighing on you?

There’s another component of positivity that is equally, if not more, powerful—which is spreading positivity with others. I’m not a “hey, I like your shoes man” guy, but I can be a supportive listener and provide positive feedback when people share their journey with me. If someone who has been a supporter of you takes on a new life challenge themselves, providing a simple positive message is a great way to say thank you and pick them up in the process.

After feeling down Friday, I woke up to a message from one of the earliest connections on Substack, , who reached out to check in. This small action gave me a massive boost after having a quiet few weeks of growth on the blog. The simple things: a positive message, a thoughtful check-in, or a kind gesture are some of the ways you can lift the people around you. I challenge you to find something this week where you can share positivity with someone who needs it in your life. A seemingly insignificant gesture to you can be the exact thing someone else needed in their day!

Final Words

Thank you for reading this week’s post and I hope you found it as powerful and timely as it was for me. Life is full of mountains and valleys. As you navigate to each new peak, do your best to appreciate the journey to get there. When you feel down, take some time to share positivity with yourself, but also spread it to others.

If you haven’t read January’s monthly post, How Addressing My Environment Restored My Mental Clarity, take a moment to read it along with your morning coffee this week! In exciting news, I purchased a microphone as I plan to begin audio content soon alongside the blog. Stay tuned!

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For those watching the Super Bowl for commercials, the game, or Bad Bunny’s halftime show—I hope you enjoy the evening! Valentine’s Day is coming up next Saturday, so we’ll have a nice themed post to share next week.

Enjoy your Super Bowl Sunday and have a great week!

Given that I dropped a novel yesterday, How Addressing My Environment Restored My Mental Clarity, I will be shortening this post today. If you haven’t given it a read, you’ll want some caffeine, but I promise you will find it worth your while! Today, I will cover one topic instead of the normal two, but its importance can absolutely carry its own weight for a weekly post. I hope you enjoy it!

When You Rest Matters

Am I really about to say set a bedtime in my first sentence… yes, but I promise there’s intention behind it. I saw a piece not too long ago about how by thinking about our wake up time, we are getting it backwards, and I decided to test it out. You probably know exactly how long it takes for you to get ready for work each morning to leave and make it just in time for your first meeting. My two cents: I highly encourage building in a buffer (it has dropped my commute stress substantially and I’m not playing from behind once I arrive). Also, I’ve determined that I need seven hours from the time I get into bed to feel rested.

I’m an early riser, so if I want to be up before 6AM, I work back from having a bedtime before 11PM. When I’m winding down for the evening, I try to wrap up by 10PM, that way I have enough time to get ready for bed and feel sharp for the next day. It starts with knowing how much sleep YOU need in order to feel your best. For too long I convinced myself I could “function” with five or six hours, which frequently took a toll on my physical and mental health. Tomorrow starts with today, and the best way to be kind to your future self is taking care of yourself each night. However, rest doesn’t just exist on a daily timeline, and this is what can catch people out if they aren’t careful.

How often do you catch yourself saying: “I need a vacation” or “I need a day off?” We spend so much time working and focusing on the next deliverable or to-do, which can quietly detract from our enjoyment of life. In Year of Sunday Spirit #15 our guest had a great insight on this: “Our lives are often busy doing the mundane day-to-day things and the things that we have to do, but having something on the calendar that we WANT to do and are excited about makes every day a little brighter.”

If there’s one thing that has helped me navigate the craziness of life, it’s maintaining an appreciation and excitement for the opportunities to experience life beyond my normal day-to-day. This change of pace can be restorative, as it gives us a break from the grind that can wear us down over time. If you have a favorite place to relax (a beach, mountains, or the ranch), prioritizing this in your budget will be healing. It’s well worth every dollar when it comes to keeping your energy bar full.

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Why We Overlook Rest (and Why It Costs Us)

I used to overlook it because I had the misconception that being awake 18+ hours a day was the path to success. You’ve probably heard about your banking friends, entrepreneurs, or consultants talking about how they are working “100 hours a week” or something rather ridiculous. My “hot take” is that this is one of the biggest wastes of people’s time and performance, but it’s too ingrained in the hustle culture for it to be easily resolved. Stanford professor John Pencavel found that productivity per hour declines sharply when a person works more than 50 hours a week (Pencavel, John. “The Productivity of Working Hours.” The Economic Journal, vol. 125, no. 589, 2015, pp. 2052-2076.) There are times where working beyond 50 hours is necessary, don’t get me wrong, but it does a lot more harm than good on our stress, fatigue, and overall mental health.

In 2025, I had 52 amazing guests participate in the Year of Sunday Spirit series and navigated an extremely busy season at work. At times, this called me to work well beyond 60 hours in some weeks and I could absolutely feel the fatigue, stress, and drop in efficiency. Kylen and I had a trip planned to Spain, in which I intentionally left my phone on airplane mode for the duration to completely disconnect. This proved to be an effective way to “rest,” which helped me return energized and ready to go when I returned.

When you are working, actually work, and work hard—rest is most rewarding after putting in a shift and continuous effort over a period of time. However, remember that there will always be more work to do. Most of the time, things don’t spark a crisis if we don’t finish them today. Check in with yourself (and your boss) and if you are starting to feel burnout, look for an opportunity to rest in the near future. When you are “off,” actually be off and do the things that give you joy and fill you back up, you’ll thank yourself later.

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Final Words

Thank you for making it to the end of this post (and for those that read this and the super post yesterday)! Rest is too often overlooked, but prioritizing it across both short and long-term timeframes will be a major boost to our overall health. I’m going to take my own advice and actually rest for the remainder of the weekend. I will also do my best to bring the great Scottsdale weather back to Texas when we return!

Have an amazing Sunday and week ahead!

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In honor of tomorrow being my Dad’s birthday (which we have to delay celebrating due to Dallaska), I want to highlight a couple principles that have served as a consistent reminder of how to be a great leader and father. This is not an all-encompassing list, but rather a couple of topics that we have discussed together that have made a lasting impact on my worldview.

Recently, my Dad shared some comments on Year of Sunday Spirit #48, which was from a business partner I’ve grown to respect for his brute honesty and true care for his people. Directness has great power when used properly and intentionally. Curiosity is a trait that continues to grow in importance as the information age becomes ever more prevalent. This week dives into the importance of each and how it can impact us both personally and in business. Let’s get into it!

Curiosity

When I was little, one of my favorite books and subsequent movies was Curious George (play Upside Down by Jack Johnson). Is it a coincidence that my Dad has emphasized the value of this trait? Naturally, I have an inclination to do things a certain way, my own way, which has brought its fair share of lessons over the course of my life. However, with age I realized that without curiosity towards others, I’m missing out significantly on the perspectives that allow for a comprehensive worldview. Curiosity here is golden, because it has the ability to serve both the business and personal fronts.

In business, this manifests in a few ways, particularly when it comes to being a thought leader or taking on a new role. From Year of Sunday Spirit #6: “Curiosity is not being comfortable with the status quo, the way things have been done, the way they will continue to be done.” I am a proponent for process improvement and am thoroughly impressed by those who can detect problems and create widespread solutions. With the rise of AI, there has never been a better time to be “curious” and seek to learn deeply about the world. Those who can nurture this trait and push themselves to stay at the cutting edge of technology (while developing sound people skills), will inevitably find themselves in positions of influence.

Personally, curiosity has been a crucial trait that has helped maintain many of my personal relationships during my twenties, despite a compression of my available time. When I was 18 I read How to Win Friends & Influence People, and one of the key concepts has remained a daily principle to my life: Remember people’s names, birthdays, and important things to them. It’s genuinely the little things that matter, and we often get so consumed in ourselves that we can’t even build a connection. The world is a lot more pleasant when you can bond and relate with others over the things that they care about, because you display genuine care that others will want to reciprocate for your passions.

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Directness

“People carry a growing fear of how they’re perceived, which makes them avoid the direct messaging that could genuinely help others.” The world today is a little more sensitive, which has both its pros and cons. The pros are embodied in the improvement of how many people are treated, and while there is still lots of work to do, we have come a long way. The cons show up in how we can deliver constructive feedback directly, without causing too much harm to the receiver. If you have ever had a boss deliver “keep doing what you’re doing,” in a performance review—you probably know what I’m talking about. This honestly gives little value (especially if you are striving to level up), because you have no idea what to change in order to improve.

Something I’ve appreciated at Capital One is the intentional performance cycles that always have an area of growth to focus on. This directness gives me the feedback to target areas to improve in, and has allowed me to transform rapidly in under two years. If you are looking to improve in any aspect of business, embrace feedback from peers and mentors. Look for people who are progressing quickly and making a positive impact on those around them. For entrepreneurs, look at other creators and business owners who have walked the path before and be a sponge—there’s always something to learn!

In my soccer days growing up, there was a game in particular where I had bronchitis and was doing my best to play through it. During the game I was going for the ball and I took a knee straight to the middle of the thigh. Wheezing and on the ground in agony, my Dad yelled: “If you don’t need to go to the hospital, get up!” Looking back, not only does it make me laugh (and yes I did get up), but it was his directness that I needed in that moment. Directness should be used sparingly, because it carries the risk of striking the wrong chord—however, it can spark tremendous action when used properly with others (or yourself). And when I actually did go to the hospital to get hip surgery a few years ago, he was incredibly supportive.

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Final Words

Thank you all for making it to the end of the post, marking the end of the first month of Sunday Spirit in 2026! Being able to continue growing as a writer is always rewarding, and I’m grateful for everyone who continues to read, reply, and support this journey! Also, Happy Birthday to my Dad who has been a great supporter of my writing and my development into who I am today.

To everyone, look for ways to demonstrate curiosity (learn something new while you are stuck at home is a great start), and make it an ongoing trait. If you have a goal or skill you want to reach this year, be direct with yourself as you look for a way to make it happen. Lastly, once the weather clears up, try to show curiosity with someone in your life or at work. This can make someone’s day, and it takes minimal effort to ask one question with genuine interest.

For those of you navigating the icy Texas terrain, be safe, and stay warm. Have a great week!

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Also, happy 29th anniversary to my parents. Thank you both for embodying what love means and for your unwavering support of my journey! In a timely fashion, this morning’s church sermon was about how “God is Love,” which is a simple, yet incredibly powerful statement. To know love is to know God, which is foundational to the spirit that allows us to connect more deeply with everyone around us. When given the chance this week, share the love: send a thoughtful message, buy someone special flowers, or give your time to help someone who needs it.

This week I want to highlight perseverance and progress, two concepts that were critical to the success of 2025. They go hand in hand, as perseverance is an essential ingredient to seeing progress through to the point of success. I’ll share a bit of my journey, as well as what helps me find the extra push to continue working towards my dreams. Let’s get into it!

Perseverance

This week was a very special one, because it was a culmination of a year of intense effort. At the beginning of 2025, I set out to deliver high levels of performance at my job, while beginning a guest-driven weekly blog series. When your team or business faces change, a great opportunity to step up may present itself—and that opportunity came my way at the start of last year. I recall driving into work in February and asking myself: “What if you could pull it off? What if you could find a way to succeed with the odds stacked against you?”

Fast forward to this week, and I know the answers. I pulled it off. I succeeded when the version of myself less than a year ago had no business doing so. This is where having a greater purpose becomes extremely powerful at pulling you forward. My most immediate purpose is our wedding, which required me to reach new heights in my career and writing. The days where I was sick, or not thinking clearly, or simply busy, I reminded myself that I still needed to show up.

I was asked by a friend not too long ago: “How do you stay consistent with your Sunday Spirit series?” The response was easy: “Since I’ve always had a long-term goal of writing a book, starting a blog to 1) improve at writing and 2) build an audience seemed like a great start.” Some may call it a “desire for permanence or fame,” but that’s not why I write. I can write with authenticity, because I have conviction in my desire to inspire others to live better. This allows me to persevere through high degrees of adversity. At the University of Texas, the mantra: “What Starts Here, Changes the World,” is something I strive to bring to anyone who interacts with what I create. I want my orbit to bring a better world to those who find their way into it.

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Progress

If you have ever felt stagnant or uncertain if you are making improvements, I encourage you to find a meaningful way to track progress. Kylen, who is a planner in every sense of the word, bought me a Clever Fox planner, and it has been a huge boost to how I see progress. The planner has a weekly habit tracker and a monthly wheel of evaluation for areas of your life. This visual tracking gives my mind immediate feedback when I’m slacking on a habit, reinforces the good weeks, and lets me know which areas of my life to give attention to.

If you’re thinking “great, another planner or journal that promises change,” I have to remind you that you are an essential piece of this equation. When we discussed habits in Sunday Spirit 2.2, we mentioned that “they should be behavior-inspiring and are reinforced when you complete them.” No planner, system, framework, touchpoint, or model will get you to where you need to unless it is adopted by you. To be completely frank, we have all the information we could possibly need swirling around us in a sea of opportunity. Our issue is synthesizing that information into something that actually works for us.

I’ll share my form of tracking progress, which is by no means revolutionary, but has been very effective in my own life.

• Monthly

  • Look at the main categories of your life, identify where you thrived and what needs work. Highlight the wins, reflect on the missteps, and determine what you need to focus on next month. This works for quarterly or annual reviews as well!

• Weekly

  • I spend almost every Sunday at a coffee shop now, which has become a ritual in my life’s operating model. Clear your mind of open loops and review the place(s) where you keep track of things to get done to plan for the week ahead.

• Daily

  • Write down your three main priorities for the day and a goal to keep in mind. Look at weekly objectives and fit what you can into your day’s available time. At the end of the day (or throughout if you have the habit), check in on your progress and what still needs to be done to make it a great day!

Doing these at a smaller scale allows my brain to have constant reinforcement and a subconscious awareness of what matters to me. When you review your day, week, or month, you are reminding yourself of what matters.

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Final Words

Thank you for reaching the end of this week’s post! This was a time that I will reflect upon with a feeling of justice and triumph, after an arduous but rewarding journey. Celebration is a reward that we earn through sustained effort, and I will enjoy this while I’m getting laser-focused on my 2026 goals!

Look at something you want in your life and channel perseverance by identifying greater purposes in your objective. To maintain progress without the feeling of stagnation, incorporate recurring reviews and habit tracking, so you can reinforce to yourself what is most important.

Have a wonderful MLK Jr. Day tomorrow and enjoy the rest of the holiday weekend!

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In exciting news, as of today, I finally reached my goal of 50 subscribers on Substack! On a day that I’ve felt under the weather, this has been a great lift and reward. This journey has taken time, but I’m very proud of the perseverance and the results that are beginning to show. The opportunity to share my writing is not something I take for granted and I hope to continue growing this to a wider audience to make a positive impact on the world.

There are not many better times to start and focus on habits than at the beginning of the year. You are surrounded by people with the means to become better, you (hopefully) set some resolutions or goals, and you are entering the new year with a blank canvas. This week, I watched the Huberman Lab podcast featuring James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, and it was a great inspiration for how to start the year.

Habits

Habits in their simplest form are actions that we repeatedly perform. “Habits are a solution to the recurring problems in your environment.” If we want to develop new habits, we need to adjust our behavior. From Atomic Habits, the Four Laws of Behavior Change list out the steps to create (and break) habits.

Four Laws of Behavior Change

• Make it Obvious (Invisible)

• Make it Attractive (Unattractive)

• Make it Easy (Difficult)

• Make it Satisfying (Unsatisfying)

A personal favorite mantra when it comes to habits is ‘Don’t Put Up Zeroes.’ This concept, while simple in nature, has incredible value in maintaining progress. When I first started habit tracking, I was very much “all or nothing” with my approach. If I had a 20 page reading goal or a 7500 step goal and I didn’t reach it, I felt like I “failed” at my habits. Habits should not be so rigid. They should be behavior-inspiring and are reinforced when you complete them.

Let’s say I have a crazy day at work and I decide to walk our dogs and watch a show when I get home. If I read 10 pages before bed, I mark down that I did half my habit, which for me, reinforces my prioritization of the habit and allows me to avoid putting up a zero on the scoreboard. Create habits that inspire positive change, start slow and build up as you show consistency, and understand that while not every day is perfect, some progress is better than none.

A quote I loved from Atomic Habits read: “When friction is low, habits are easy. When friction is high, habits are difficult.” A very applicable example is our phone usage. The average phone time for adults is 5 hours per day! How can we try to reclaim some of it back? With my phone, it starts by having it away from my body and out of reach. When I can’t just grab my phone at any impulse, I reduce the likelihood of distraction and can maintain focus. This applies to any habit and meets the ‘Make it Invisible’ and ‘Make it Difficult’ Laws of Behaivor Change. Foster low friction for good habits and elevate friction for bad habits!

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Identity

A key element of habits and who we become is the concept of identity. Think about the things you do the most throughout every week, specifically your work, hobbies, and passions. These are the characteristics that make up your identity. I would bet that your current identity is different than what it was five years ago as well. We change, our environment changes, and our habits change. If you want to achieve a new goal or become a better version of yourself, you will need habits that serve that new identity.

These are what I like to call Identity-Based Habits. These are fluid, similar to how you progress or regress when you don’t practice a language or sport. These require consistent “votes” or supporting evidence to grow over time. When you go for a run, you are putting a vote towards yourself being “a runner.” For any goal that you desire to pursue, you need to look at what votes you need to cast to form the identity that someone with your goal would possess. This can be reinforced by surrounding yourself with groups who have your desired behavior. Joining a club, organization, or anything larger than yourself can make this identity come to fruition.

Your identity can be strengthened by the people you spend time with, but you still require alignment at your own core being. If you don’t believe you are a runner, or a reader, or a chef—you’re still going to struggle with habit consistency. Solidifying your identity takes time, so you will need to give yourself grace as you establish habits. Once it becomes a part of who you are and what you do, it’ll become a true identity that you can believe in.

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Final Words

Thank you all for reaching the end of this post and for your continuous support. My identity has slowly turned into a writer, which I think is a perfect testament to what was shared in today’s post. Set your mind to something, determine the identity of who could achieve that thing, then build habits that support progress towards it.

While I’m 11 days late to my goal of reaching 50 subscribers, I’m so incredibly grateful for each and every one of you. The first ten days have been off to a great start and I hope that each of you has had a great beginning to 2026. Whether you are starting new habits, building on old ones, or just hoping to maintain during a busy season, do your best to remain consistent! Stringing together weeks or months in a row of consistency can bring substantial development in anything!

Keep it up and have an amazing week!

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For those who began reading last year, I will retain core components of the Year of Sunday Spirit series, but focus more directly on my own experiences. Each year (since 2023), I try to choose a word or two that I want to give special attention to for my own life. 2023 was Clarity; 2024 was Tenacity; 2025 was Discipline and Consistency. In 2026 I’m focusing on two things, Alignment and Environment, which will be the focus of today’s blog. Let’s kick off this year right!

Alignment

I remember the days when I first had a cell phone, where being a “fast texter” and having plenty of people to talk to was a flex. Somehow, over the last two years, I’ve become—kindly speaking—an abysmally slow texter. Now, here’s where I will declare officially that being a better texter is “IN” for me in 2026. While I won’t be sending out a whole bunch of “what’s up” texts, I will be intentional in my response time with one core reason in mind. Alignment. In a year where communication is essential (Kylen and I are getting married in Spain), I figured this would be an excellent focus for the year.

On the communication front, we have an endless stream of messages that are constantly hitting us from every direction. Ensuring the information we share is simple and effective is a great first step in building alignment with those we interact with. Also, limiting the number of channels that information is flowing in and out of can be a massive help here. If you track some items in G-Suite, others in Apple Notes, and then a vendor uses something completely different—you are lacking alignment. This makes a lot of additional work for everyone, which I highly encourage having a discussion on expectations and determining the best ways to track things and communicate.

On the personal front, alignment can also embody how in touch you are with yourself and what’s going on in the world around you. We spent substantial time over the holidays not only working on our 2026 goals, but also planning out what we want our longer-term future to look like. This exercise is a great start, but without revisiting these periodically, you don’t reinforce alignment. Today, we spent the morning looking at our calendars and reviewing some of the wedding items at a coffee shop. These recurring reviews, which we discussed doing each Sunday, I believe will be an incredible help at improving communication and alignment going forward.

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Environment

If there was one additional area that I recognized needed improvement, it would be how I manage my environments. We’ve likely heard some books reference the importance of the environment around us, but have probably found ourselves with a messy desk, too many tabs open, or an onslaught of unread emails. Just me? I doubt it! The real cost here is the number of open loops that we carry, quietly consuming mental space. We cleaned a TON over the holidays and while it was painful, I’m already feeling lower residual stress. The other piece is building a system that helps you maintain organization, so you can maintain control of your weeks rather than them controlling you.

In Year of Sunday Spirit #48, I referenced how “when you can limit the number of things that compromise your time and attention, you free up your capacity for the extremely valuable items.” I have to admit, the algorithms are incredibly effective these days. My Instagram has been filled with extra cute pitbull videos, my X feed is flowing with football posts, and YouTube knows exactly what video I’m interested in watching within the first few listed. The issue here, which we are all aware of to some degree, is how well it captures our attention. Every minute these apps capture is a minute we lose for everything else that matters. So what do we do?

Our environments have to be improved to reward the difficult desired behavior and disincentivize the counterproductive behavior. We can do this in a few ways, which I have seen tangible success of each in my own life.

• Add friction to the habit, to make it less incentivizing (remove an app from your home screen).

• Set time-based restrictions, to limit total usage (no video games on certain days).

• Place yourself or your distraction in a different environment, to negate the urge for instant gratification (like checking my fantasy team every five minutes).

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Final Words

Thank you for reaching the end of the first guest-free Sunday Spirit in over a year! I hope my personal focuses for 2026 can serve as some inspiration as you get back into the rhythm of things this year. Alignment helps us match actions, priorities, and energy to what is most important. Environments shape our behavior, which we should intentionally craft ours to propel us rather than hold us back.

Have a wonderful week and a great start to your year!

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In this blog, I will give an overview of the primary “Year in Review” categories I use, some examples, and my plan for this blog in 2025. Let’s get into the 2024 Year in Review!

I break up the yearly review into the following six categories:

• Physical

• Career

• Finance

• Social

• Intellectual

• Fun

Each of the categories encompasses most of the main areas of my life - if you prefer to have a separate category for “Romance”, I can get behind that. Overall, I try to stay mostly positive when doing these reviews. If there is a negative component, it normally represents a difficult situation or circumstance that was overcome during the year. I will provide a shortened version of each category below, with a guiding question or two for your own personal review.

Physical:

• Key Question: What was your main fitness goal this year or did you complete any competitions that you are proud of?

• Chase: Kylen & I started the year with a goal to begin running and ultimately compete in a half-marathon by the end of the year. I completed two 5Ks and one 10K, where I finished 1st among my age group in the 10K despite having Covid during the race (found out after I’m not a terrible person).

Career:

• Key Question: Did you make any changes, start something new, or get promoted this year?

• Chase: I made my first career change earlier this year after making the shift from Accenture to Capital One. I overcame a lot of volatility in my teams and challenged myself to grow and step up in those situations. I also began writing on Substack, which was a major step towards my eventual dream of writing a book.

Finance:

• Key Question: Did you reach a savings, investing, or earnings target during the year?

• Chase: I was able to achieve a major retirement income goal during the year and I began my first Health Savings Account (HSA) as another means to save for the future. I managed a very complicated year where expenses were much higher than normal and maintained consistency with contributing to my Roth and savings.

Social:

• Key Question: What was your favorite event or vacation from the previous year?

• Chase: I was able to plan a full proposal day for Kylen with nearly 50 of our friends and family, which was awesome. We got to experience the Dallas Mavs make a run to the NBA Finals. Kylen and I joined a church group and became friends with five other great couples. Went to the Red River Rivalry game for the 10th straight year and saw us dominate which was amazing, and UT is in the CFP for the second straight year!

Intellectual:

• Key Question: Did you hit your reading goals or learn any new skills?

• Chase: There was a lot of learning necessary this year, shifting jobs and beginning a blog gave a lot of opportunity to learn. I completed a course earlier in the year for SQL and gained experience with Snowflake as the year went on. While Python proved challenging, I discovered that Tableau would be a better fit for my goals, and I’m excited to get into it next year.

Fun: 

• Key Question: When you look back on this year, what were your favorite memories?

• Chase: Kylen and I got engaged, which was a massive milestone, and we had a great year together. We watched a lot of great shows (Shrinking, Abbott Elementary, and Love is Blind), we completed multiple races together, and we got to go to a few concerts as well. Continued doing trivia with our friends, had a great time watching the Mavs and Longhorns, and had a ton of fun playing NCAA 25 with friends.

There's my mini-review of 2024. I hope it gives some inspiration for areas to look at in your life. I highly recommend doing these types of check-ins, because without having some feeling of progress, life can feel stagnant. I perform these on a monthly basis with my journal, but you can choose any cadence that helps you feel in tune with your life and how things are going.

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Final Words

2025 is here in a couple days and I have to say I’m super excited. I started writing as a means of putting my thoughts and journals into something that can help people and maybe bring a smile or laugh to whoever reads this. As mentioned at the beginning of this blog, my goal is to eventually write a book, and I want to make the first step towards that with my blog posts next year. 

I will be reaching out to friends, family, coworkers, and others who are interested and asking them “What is your biggest challenge you are facing in your life?” I will keep anonymity of course, but I want to find inspiration and help others more directly through my writing. If this vision comes to fruition, I will have addressed 52 life challenges that I would love to turn into a book. It’s only just a dream (Nelly) at this point, but you have to start somewhere! If you would like to be a part of this journey next year, please comment or reach out to me directly and I will find time to chat with you.

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To those who have made it to the end of my lucky #16 Sunday Spirit, thank you and have a wonderful New Year.

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