50 Days...

Well, I'm over the halfway point and feeling really good. Commitments that initially seemed difficult at the onset of this undertaking, are now becoming normal, ritual, and habit. As Goethe said, "Everything is hard, before it is easy."

I officially started my Photography business, A Frame Forward, this past week and have been busier than ever. I feel more productive right now in my life than I ever have before, and I know that I have this program to thank for the extra boost in all around energy, clarity and commitment.

Here's the recap of my past 10 days...

1. PhilosophersNotes - I can't thank Brian Johnson enough for making these and sharing his passion, his diligent work, and knowledge with us. I wish everyone would take the time to sit down for 20 minutes and listen to his insightful, wisdom-packed summaries each and everyday. I am very grateful that I get to, as the wisdom is proving to be very enriching and life-changing.

Here are the books I covered this week:

Overview of Ken Wilber
Learned Optimism - Martin Seligman
Letters from a Stoic - Seneca
Love - Leo Buscaglia
Loving What Is - Byron Katie
The Magic of Thinking Big - David J. Schwartz
The Man Who Tapped the Secrets of the Universe - Glenn Clark
Man's Search for Meaning - Victor Frankl
Mastery - George Leonard
Meditations - Marcus Aurelius

Here are my favorite quotes to share from the past 10 days: (lots)

“A good character is the only guarantee of everlasting, carefree happiness.” - Seneca

"If you shape your life according to nature, you will never be poor; if according to people’s opinions, you will never be rich.” - Seneca

“Away with the world’s opinion of you, it’s always unsettled and divided.” - Seneca

“You have to persevere and fortify your pertinacity until the will to good becomes a disposition to good.” - Seneca

“How much better to pursue a straight course and eventually reach that destination where the things that are pleasant and the things that are honorable finally become, for you, the same.” - Seneca

“To be everywhere is to be nowhere.” - Seneca

“God is near you, is with you, is inside you.” - Seneca

“Man’s ideal state is realized when he has fulfilled the purpose for which he is born. And what is it that reason demands of him? Something very easy, that he live in accordance with his own nature.” - Marcus Aurelius

“The worse a person is the less he feels it.” - Seneca

“A consciousness of wrongdoing is the first step to salvation. You have to catch yourself doing it before you can correct it.” - Seneca

“Everything, a horse, a vine, is created for some duty. For what task, then, were you yourself created? A man’s true delight is to do the things he was made for.” - Marcus Aurelius

“Your mind will be like its habitual thoughts; for the soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts. Soak it then in such trains of thoughts as, for example, where life is possible at all, a right life is possible.” – Marcus Aurelius

“To live each day as though one’s last, never flustered, never apathetic, never attitudinizing, here is the perfection of character.” - Marcus Aurelius

“Take it that you have died today, and your life’s story is ended, and henceforward regard what future time may be given you as an uncovenanted surplus, and live it out in harmony with nature.” – Marcus Aurelius

“Men seek for seclusion in the wilderness, by the seashore, or in the mountains, a dream you have cherished too fondly yourself. But such fancies are wholly unworthy of a philosopher, since at any moment you choose you can retire within yourself. Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul. Above all, he possesses resources in himself, which he need only contemplate to secure immediate ease of mind , the ease that is but another word for a well-ordered spirit. Avail yourself often, then, of this retirement and so continually renew yourself.” – Marcus Aurelius

“It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion. It is easy in solitude to live after our own. But the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“O world, I am in tune with every note of thy great harmony. For me nothing is early, nothing late, if it be timely for thee. O Nature, all that thy seasons yield is fruit for me.” – Marcus Aurelius

“Time is a river, the resistless flow of all created things. One thing no sooner comes in sight than it is hurried past and another is borne along, only to be swept away in its turn.” – Marcus Aurelius

“Let your one delight and refreshment be to pass from one service to the community to another, with God ever in mind.” – Marcus Aurelius

“Cultivate these, then, for they are wholly within your power…sincerity and dignity, industriousness, and sobriety. Avoid grumbling, be frugal, considerate, and frank. Be temperate in manner and speech. Carry yourself with authority.” - Marcus Aurelius

“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself but to your own estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.” – Marcus Aurelius

“Keep yourself simple, good, pure, serious, and unassuming; the friend of justice and godliness; kindly, affectionate, and resolute in your devotion to duty.” - Marcus Aurelius


“You have to persevere and fortify your pertinacity until the will to good becomes a disposition to good.” - Seneca

“This discipline and rough treatment are a furnace to extract the silver from the dross. This testing purifies the gold by boiling the scum away.” - Rumi

“I realized that it’s insane to oppose it. When I argue with reality, I lose...but only 100% of the time.” – Byron Katie

“If I think that someone else is causing my problem, I’m insane.” – Byron Katie

“The greatest stock market you can invest in is yourself. Finding this truth is better than finding a gold mine.” – Byron Katie

“We never receive more than we can handle, and there is always just one thing to do.” – Byron Katie

“Everything happens for me, not to me.” – Byron Katie

“Here is the first step toward success. It’s a basic step. It can’t be avoided. Step One: Believe in yourself, believe you can succeed.” – David J. Schwartz

“The more successful the individual, the less inclined he is to make excuses.” - David J. Schwartz

“Go deep into your study of people, and you’ll discover unsuccessful people suffer a mind-deadening thought disease. We call this disease excusitis. Every failure has this disease in its advanced form. And most ‘average’ persons have at least a mild case of it.” - David J. Schwartz

“Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination are omnipotent. The slogan “press on” has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.” - Calvin Coolidge

“Just enough sense to stick with something—a chore, task, project, until it’s completed pays off much better than idle intelligence, even if idle intelligence be of genius caliber.” - David J. Schwartz

“Stickability is 95% of ability.” - David J. Schwartz

“Fear of all kinds and sizes is a form of psychological infection. We can cure a mental infection the same way we cure a body infection—with specific, proved treatments. Condition yourself with this fact: all confidence is acquired, developed. No one is born with confidence. Those people around you who radiate confidence, who have conquered worry, who are at ease everywhere and all the time, acquired their confidence, every bit of it.” – David J. Schwartz

“Action cures fear. Indecision, postponement, on the other hand, fertilize fear. Jot that down in your success rulebook right now. Action cures fear.” - David J. Schwartz

“To think confidently, act confidently. Act the way you want to feel.” - David J. Schwartz

“Motions are the precursors of emotions.” - David J. Schwartz

“You see things and you say ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were and I say ‘Why not?’ - George Bernard Shaw

“Be an experimental person. Break up fixed routines. Expose yourself to new restaurants, new books, new theatres, new friends. Take a different route to work someday, take a different vacation this year, do something new and different this weekend.” – David J. Schwartz

“The best way to get a good idea is to get lots of ideas.” - Linus Pauling

“Don’t let ideas escape. Write them down. Every day lots of good ideas are born only to die quickly because they aren’t nailed to paper. Carry a notebook or some small cards with you, when you get an idea, write it down. People with fertile, creative minds know a good idea may sprout any time, any place. Don’t let ideas escape, else you destroy the fruits of your thinking.” - David J. Schwartz

“We must be willing to make an intelligent compromise with perfection lest we wait forever before taking action.” - David J. Schwartz

“Do you know your particular fears? And what do you usually do with them? You run away from them, don’t you, or invent ideas and images to cover them? But to run away from fear is only to increase it.” - Krishnamurti

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.” - Frank Herbert

“I never let the thought of failure enter my mind. My knowledge of my unity with the Universal One and the fact that I must do this thing, and the inspired belief I should do it as a demonstration of my belief in man’s unlimited power, made me ignore the difficulties that lay in the way.” - Walter Russell

“The Life Triumphant is that which places what a man gives to the world in creative expression far ahead of that which he takes from it of the creation of others.” - Walter Russell

“I believe that every man has consummate genius within him. Some appear to have it more than others only because they are aware of it more than others are, and the awareness or unawareness of it is what makes each one of them into masters or holds them down to mediocrity. I believe that mediocrity is self-inflicted and that genius is self-bestowed.” – Walter Russell

“Mediocrity is self-inflicted. Genius is self-bestowed.” - Walter Russell

“Concentrate all your thoughts on the task at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.” - Alexander Graham Bell

“Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things that matter least.” - Goethe

“Every successful man or great genius has three particular qualities in common. The most conspicuous of these is that they all produce a prodigious amount of work. The second is that they never know fatigue, and the third is that their minds grow more brilliant as they grow older, instead of less brilliant. Great men’s lives begin at forty, where the mediocre man’s life ends. The genius remains an ever-flowing fountain of creative achievement until the very last breath he draws.” – Walter Russell

“You can become a great creator or a little one as the intensity of your desire is little or great.” - Walter Russell

“If you are alone long enough to get thoroughly acquainted with yourself, you will hear whisperings from the universal source of all consciousness which will inspire you.” - Walter Russell

“Lock yourself up in your room or go out in the woods where you can be alone. When you are alone the universe talks to you in flashes of inspiration. You will find that you will suddenly know things which you never knew before. All knowledge exists in the "God-Mind" and is extended into this electrical universe of creative expression through desire. Knowledge is yours for the asking. You have but to plug into it.” - Walter Russell

“There should be no distasteful tasks in one’s life. If you just hate to do a thing, that hatred for it develops body-destructive toxins, and you become fatigued very soon. You must love anything you must do. Do it not only cheerfully, but also lovingly and the very best way you know how. That love of the work which you must do anyhow will vitalize your body and keep you from fatigue.” - Walter Russell

“A menial task which must be mine, that shall I glorify and make an art of it.” - Walter Russell

“I have had my share of what one calls defeat, in plenty. I have made and lost fortunes and seen great plans of mine topple through my own errors of judgment or through other causes. But I do not recognize these as defeats. They are but interesting experiences of life. They are valuable stepping-stones to success. Defeat is a condition which one must accept in order to give it reality. I refuse to give it reality by accepting it. In my philosophy I have written these words: Defeat I shall not know. It shall not touch me. I will meet it with true thinking. Resisting it will be my strengthening. But if, perchance, the day will give to me the bitter cup, it will sweeten in the drinking.” - Walter Russell

“Success is the result of good judgment, good judgment is a result of experience, experience is often the result of bad judgment.” - Tony Robbins

“We fail to realize that mastery is not about perfection. It’s about a process, a journey. The master is the one who stays on the path day after day, year after year. The master is the one who is willing to try, and fail, and try again, for as long as he or she lives.” - George Leonard

“Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out they’ve got a second. Give your dreams all you’ve got and you’ll be amazed at the energy that comes out of you.” -William James

“Could all of us reclaim lost hours of our lives by making everything, the commonplace along with the extraordinary, a part of our practice?” - George Leonard

“A human being is the kind of machine that wears out from lack of use. There are limits, of course, and we do need healthful rest and relaxation, but for the most part we gain energy by using energy. It might well be that all of us possess enormous stores of potential energy, more than we could ever hope to use.” – George Leonard

“Much of the world’s depression and discontent can ultimately be traced to our unused energy, our untapped potential.” - George Leonard

“If you’re planning to embark on a master’s journey, you might find yourself bucking current trends in American life. Our hyped-up consumerist society is engaged, in fact, in an all out war on mastery.” - George Leonard

“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one, the being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no “brief candle” to me. It is sort of a splendid torch which I have a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it over to future generations.” - George Bernard Shaw

“Do what you say you are going to do, to yourself and others, again, and again, and again.” - George Leonard

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing; the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” – Viktor Frankl

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort but where he stands at times of challenge and discovery.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

“The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same.” – Carlos Castaneda

Become a possibilitarian. No matter how dark things seem to be or actually are, raise your sights and see possibilities. Always see them, for they’re always there.” – Norman Vincent Peale

“I don’t want to be saved, I want to be spent.” - Frtiz Perls

“What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.” – Viktor Frankl

“Be not afraid of going slowly but only afraid of standing still.” - Chinese Proverb

“Success, like happiness, cannot be pursued, it must ensue.” – Viktor Frankl

“Again and again I therefore admonish my students in Europe and America. Don’t aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success. You have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long-run, in the long-run, I say, success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it.” – Viktor Frankl

“Your work is to discover your work and then, with all your heart, to give yourself to it.” - Buddha

“A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the ‘why’ for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any ‘how.’” - Viktor Frankl

“What is to give light must endure burning.” – Viktor Frankl

“Brother stand the pain Escape the poison of your impulses. The sky will bow to your beauty, if you do. Learn to light the candle. Rise with the sun. Turn away from the cave of your sleeping. That way a thorn expands to a rose. A particular glows with the universal.” – Rumi

“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no ‘brief candle’ to me. It is sort of a splendid torch which I have a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it over to future generations.” - George Bernard Shaw

“If he desired to know about automobiles, he would, without question, study diligently about automobiles. If his wife desired to be a gourmet cook, she’d certainly study the art of cooking, perhaps even attending a cooking class. Yet, it never seems as obvious to him that if he wants to live in love, he must spend at least as much time as the auto mechanic or the gourmet in studying love.” - Leo Buscaglia

“I would not want to form a partnership with an architect who has only a little knowledge of building or a broker who has a limited knowledge of the stock market. Still, we form what we hope to be permanent relationships in love with people who have hardly any knowledge of what love is.” - Leo Buscaglia

“What we think is less than what we know. What we know is less than what we love: What we love is so much less than what there is, and to this precise extent, we are much less than what we are.” - R.D. Laing

“To love others you must love yourself. You can only give to others what you have yourself.” - Leo Buscaglia

“It’s never too late to learn anything for which you have a potential. If you want to learn to love, then you must start the process of finding out what it is, what qualities make up a loving person and see how these are developed. Each person has the potential for love. But potential is never realized without work. This does not mean pain. Love, especially, is learned best in wonder, in joy, in peace, in living.” - Leo Buscaglia

“To the extent to which you know yourself, and we are all more alike than different, you can know others. When you love yourself, you will love others. And to the depth and extent to which you can love yourself, only to that depth and extent will you be able to love others.” - Leo Buscaglia

“You were born with potential. You were born with goodness and trust. You were born with ideals and dreams. You were born with greatness. You were born with wings. You are not meant for crawling, so don’t. You have wings. Learn to use them and fly.” - Rumi

“One does not fall in or out of love. One grows in love.” - Leo Buscaglia

“We need not be afraid to touch, to feel, to show emotion. The easiest thing in the world is to be what you are, what you feel. The hardest thing to be is what other people want you to be.” - Leo Buscaglia

“Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.” - Leo Buscaglia

“Birds never sing in caves.” - Henry David Thoreau

“Change and growth take place when a person has risked himself and dares to become involved with experimenting with his own life.” - Herbert Otto

“For both excessive and insufficient exercise destroy one’s strength, and both eating and drinking too much or too little destroy health, whereas the right quantity produces, increases or preserves it. So it is the same with temperance, courage and the other virtues. This much then, is clear...in all our conduct it is the MEAN that is to be commended.” - Aristotle

“A human being is part of the whole, called by us "Universe". A part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison.” - Albert Einstein

“In the heart of Emptiness there is a mysterious impulse, mysterious because there is actually nothing in the heart of Emptiness, for there is nothing in Emptiness, period. Yet, there it is, this mysterious impulse, the impulse to create. To sing, to shine, to radiate, to send forth, reach out, and celebrate. To sing and shout and walk about, to effervesce and bubble over, this mysterious exuberance in the heart of Emptiness.” - Ken Wilber

"Think of the great yogis, saints, and sages—from Moses to Christ to Padmasambhava. They were not feeble-mannered milquetoasts, but fierce movers and shakers, from bullwhips in the Temple to subduing entire countries. They rattled the world on its own terms, not in some pie-in-the-sky piety. Many of them instigated massive social revolutions that have continued for thousands of years. And they did so, not because they avoided the physical, emotional, and mental dimensions of humanness, and the ego that is their vehicle, but because they engaged them with a drive and intensity that shook the world to its very foundations." - Ken Wilber

"The great yogis, saints, and sages accomplished so much precisely because they were not timid little toadies but great big egos, plugged into the dynamic Ground and Goal of the Kosmos itself, plugged into their own higher Self, alive to the pure Atman, the pure I-I, that is one with Brahman. They opened their mouths and the world trembled, fell to its knees, and confronted its radiant God. There is certainly a type of truth to the notion of transcending ego. It doesn’t mean destroy the ego, it means plug it into something bigger. Put bluntly, the ego is not an obstruction to Spirit, but a radiant manifestation of Spirit." - Ken Wilber


2. Jump Attack - I enjoyed my completion of the first of 3 phases of the program, which gave me one week of rest. My legs needed it and I enjoyed getting to play basketball with fresh, and stronger, legs. I started back into Phase 2 of the program which intensifies, as the weights increase. I've felt strong in my workouts and know I am getting closer to being able to dunk the basketball with every workout. I am looking forward to reaching that goal but more importantly in being an all-around better basketball player. I've always shot a high percentage from the field, and being more athletic will allow me to get in position to get off more, and better shots...and hopefully the occasional dunk too. I'm excited to keep at it, patiently, diligently, and persistently until I can report back with the good news. Soon...


3. Nutrition - I've been staying strong with my plant based diet and feeling really good. I have been enjoying my latest discovery of Seitan. It is really good and can be incorporated in a variety of dishes. I've experimented with a few new recipes this week, including a Tofu Taco and a Teriyaki Stir Fry meal. I love eating really well and feeling good because of it. I look at food in a different way. I see it more along the lines of nourishment and nutrition as opposed to fun and filling.


4. Yoga - I've still not been consistent with the Yoga. I've taken on a huge commitment with this program and I this is the one area that has suffered the most. I still do it, but not even close to the way I had hoped I could, which is daily and routinely upon wakening. Life's demands, work, kids, etc have kept me from being consistent. I'll keep getting it in whenever I can however.


5. Sweets and Refined Foods - Doing good and staying strong. This is the longest I have ever gone in my entire life without caving into my sweet tooth. It makes me feel good knowing that I have, with integrity, stayed with my commitment. It is empowering.


Thanks for listening, caring and being who you are. Best wishes with all your goals & dreams, and joy along the way to reaching them!

See you in 10 more days...

40 Days...

I am 40 days in and approaching the halfway point. I reached two milestones over the past 10 days. The first was completing phase 1 of my Jump Attack training program and the other was turning 31 years of age. It's funny, as I am getting older I am actually heading towards being in the best shape of my life. Things are starting to become habit more, and as John Dryden says, "We first make our habits, and then our habits make us." I'm trying to turn back the clock and build something I can be proud of and feel great while I'm doing it. And of course I'd love to be an inspiration to anyone else wanting to do the same.

Here is the rundown of the past 10 days by section.

1. PhilosophersNotes: I missed a couple days of notes and had to do multiple ones in a single day to catch up. I was really busy this past week and needed to get rest, so I had to postpone a few. I didn't like the feeling of straying away from my daily practice of listening, meditating, and journaling on an amazing, life-changing book summary every day. Nonetheless, I am caught up and back on track and have some awesome quotes to share.

Here are the books I covered this week:

The Gifted Adult - Mary Elaine Jacobsen
Happier - Tal Ben-Shahar
Happy for No Reason - Marci Shimoff
Harmonic Wealth - James Arthur Ray
The How of Happiness - Sonja Lyubomirsky
How to Stop Worrying and Start Living - Dale Carnegie
How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci - Michael Gelb
Integrative Nutrition - Joshua Rosenthal
It's Not ABout the Money - Brent Kessel
A Joseph Campbell Companion - Joseph Campbell

Here is the list of quotes that stood out, to me, the most.

"Your current level of results, your appearances, are nothing more than the residual outcome of your past thoughts, feelings, and actions." - James Arthur Ray

"Integrity, from the same root as the word integrated, comes when a persons words and behaviors match up. True integrity, the true test of character, is to live what you say is important to you, even when you don't feel like it. To live your values above and beyond your moods." - James Arthur Ray

"It's easier to have courage and trust the process when you feel you are making headway. Mastery is not persistence when you see a light at the end of the tunnel. True mastery is persistence when you don't yet see the light." - James Arthur Ray

"Energy goes where attention flows." - James Arthur Ray

"I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor. If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams and endeavors to live the life he's imagined, he will be met with a success unexpected in common hours." - Henry David Thoreau

"Our self image and our habits tend to go together. Change one and you will automatically change the other." - Maxwell Maltz

"There's surely no point in being a person of vision unless we have the will to act. Daydreams and inklings about taking our personal mission statement seriously must be translated into action or be lost in the dust of, could have, but didn't." - Mary Elaine Jacobsen

"The difference between a creative person and a creative producer is hard work." - Mary Elaine Jacobsen

"50% of our happiness set point (level) comes from genetics, 10% from circumstances, and 40% from our habitual thoughts, feelings, words, and actions." - Sonja Lyubomirsky

"Becoming lastingly happier demands making some permanent changes that require effort and commitment every day of your life. Pursuing happiness takes work, but consider that this happiness work may be the most rewarding work you'll ever do." - Sonja Lyubomirsky

"We found that the happiest people take pleasure in other peoples success and show concern in the face of others failures. A completely different portrait, however, has emerged of a typically unhappy person. Namely as someone who is deflated rather than delighted about his peers accomplishments and triumphs, and who is relieved rather than sympathetic in the face of his peers failures and undoings." - Sonja Lyubomirsky

"People who strive for something personally significant, whether it's learning a new craft, changing careers, or raising moral children are far happier than those who don't have strong dreams or aspirations. Find a happy person and you will find a project." - Sonja Lyubomirsky

"When you come to a roadblock, take a detour." - Mary Elaine Jacobsen

"In the end, the only people who fail are those who don't try." - David Viscott

"Life shrinks and expands in proportion to ones courage." - Anais Nin

"Incremental change is better than ambitious failure. Success feeds on itself." - Tony Schwartz

"Helping ones self and helping others are inextricably intertwined. The more we help others, the happier we become, and the happier we become, the more inclined we are to help others." - Tal Ben-Shahar

"Our brains are Velcro for negativity and Teflon for positivity." - Rich Hanson

"You can either bend with the inevitable sleet storms of life or you can resist them and break." - Dale Carnegie

"Balance is not a noun, it is a verb. Balancing." - Osho

"Do that which is assigned to you, and you cannot hope too much or dare too much." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The greatest mistake physicians make is that they attempt to cure the body without attempting to cure the mind. Yet the mind and the body are one and should not be treated separately." - Plato

"You do not get stomach ulcers from what you eat, you get stomach ulcers from what's eating you." - Joseph Montague

"Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand." - Thomas Carlyle

"Knowledge isn't power until it is applied." - Dale Carnegie

"The secret of being miserable is to have the leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not." - George Bernard Shaw

"Get busy, keep busy. It's the cheapest kind of medicine on this earth, and one of the best." - Dale Carnegie

"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle, the other as though everything is a miracle." - Albert Einstein

"Every man is damn fool for at least 5 minutes every day. Wisdom consists in not exceeding that limit." - Albert Hubbard

"Great minds ask great questions." - Michael Gelb

"This is an absolute necessity for anybody today. You must have a room or a certain hour or so a day where you don't know what was in the newspapers this morning, you don't know who your friends are, you don't know what you owe anybody, you don't know what anybody owes you. This is a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be. This is the place of creative incubation. At first you might find that nothing happens there, but if you have a sacerd place and use it, something eventually will happen." - Joseph Campbell

"Neuroscientists estimate that your unconscious database outweighs the conscious on an order of 10,000,000 to 1. This database is the source of your creative potential. In other words, a part of you is much smarter that you are. The wisest people regularly consult that smartest part. You can too, by making space for incubation." - Michael Gelb

"I never tire of being useful." - Leonardo da Vinci

"Just as iron rusts from disuse, and stagnant water putrefies, or when cold turns to ice, so our intellect wastes unless it is kept in use.” - Leonardo da Vinci

"Genius is made, not born." - Michael Gelb

"The very best are those who balance analysis and intuition, seriousness and play, planning and improvisation, arte (art) and scienzia (science)." - Michael Gelb

"We are free when we move from a focus on getting love, abundance, peace and freedom to being love, abundance, peace and freedom." - Brent Kessel

"Though outer wealth rarely leads to inner wealth, inner wealth often leads to outer wealth." - Brent Kessel

"Let us more and more insist on raising funds of love, of kindness, of understanding, of peace. Money will come if we first seek the kingdom of God, the rest will be given." - Mother Theresa

"We get what we think we deserve." - Brent Kessel

"Now that all your worry has proven such an unlucrative business, why not find a better job?" - Hafez

"60% of Americans are overweight. Overweight people now outnumber undernourished people. Americans consume, on average, 100 pounds of sugar each year and only 8 pounds of Broccoli." - Joshua Rosenthal

"Health is a vehicle, not a destination." - Joshua Rosenthal

Here are the 12 keys to Joshua Rosenthal's "Integrative Nutrition"

1. Drink more water
2. Practice Cooking
3. Increase Whole Grains
4. Increase Sweet Vegetables
5. Increase dark leafy Greens
6. Experiment with Protein
7. Eat less meat, dairy, sugar, artificials, toxins, tobacco and alcohol.
8. Develop easy and reliable habits to nurture the body
9. Have healthy relathionships that support you.
10. Find physical activity you enjoy and do it regualry.
11. Find work you love or a way to love the work you have.
12. Develop a Spiritual practice.

"Primary food is more than what is on your plate. Healthy relathionships, regular physical activity, a fulfilling career, and a spiritual practice can fill your soul and satisfy your hunger for life. When primary foo is balanced and satiating your life feeds you, making what you eat secondary." - Joshua Rosenthal

Joshua Rosenthal's 90-10 Diet: "90% of the time you eat what is healthy for you, and 10% of the time you eat whatever you feel like eating."

"Add years to your life and life to your years." - Dan Millman on exercise

"So that's what destiny is, simply the fulfillment of the potentialities of the energies in our own system." - Joseph Campbell

"Follow your Bliss." - Joseph Campbell

"Nothing is exciting if you know what the outcome is going to be." - Joseph Campbell

"The old skin has to be shed before the new one will come." - Joseph Campbell

"What you don't experience positively, you will experience negatively." - Joseph Campbell

"If you bring forth what is inside you, what you bring forth will save you. If you don't bring forth what is inside you, what you don't' bring forth will destroy you." - Jesus

"We must be willing to get rid of the life we planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us." - Joseph Campbell

"The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are." - Joseph Campbell


2. Jump Attack: Completing the first phase of Jump Attack brings me to a well needed week off from training, as prescribed by the program. I've been working really hard and feel accomplished to have established a good base and rhythm to my workouts through the first phase. I'm getting stronger for sure. I'm looking forward to playing basketball with 'fresh' legs for the first time in a while, and also a chance to gauge any gains in strength, quickness and jumping ability. Next week the program intensifies further so I will enjoy giving my body (legs) the rest and recuperation they will need for the next phase.


3. Nutrition: I've been staying strong on the plant based diet and feeling great. I came up with a couple new recipes to add to my collection by the end of the 100 days. The latest was a Hickory Smoked Tofu Stir Fry that is awesome. As for any results of my diet, my weight has stayed the same, surprisingly, having eliminated sugars, lots of fats and many calories daily. I'm pretty sure I am turning that old fat into new muscle from the workouts. But I've also been getting less aerobic cardio as I am not able to play basketball as much due to my legs needing more rest. This could be why I am not dropping weight like I thought might happen. Losing weight was never really my goal but I did think it could happen pretty fast on a strictly plant based diet. We'll find out what the results are at the end of the 100 days when I re-test my body fat.


4. Yoga: Yoga, Yoga, Yoga I am still having a hard time making a regular practice of you. I get it in, in small increments, usually post workout to get a good stretch. I have still not made it a daily routine practice but will keep it front and center until I can make it happen. I think I need to go non-negotiable with it, so there is not a choice. Just do it, right? No ifs, ands, or buts...


5. Sweets and Refined Foods: I have stayed strong keeping it pure and nutritional. I did, however, have a piece of Muddy Paw's Vegan Cheesecake that was unbelievable. My family got it for my 31st Birthday as I had mentioned I loved it, having it once at Galactic Pizza in Uptown. It is made out of Tofu so I guess it's not quite an empty dessert but dang it is good nonetheless. My family who usually would gag at the sound of the word 'Tofu' even loved it. My sweetheart Natalie, who is one of those not so suited for Tofu, said it is the best Cheesecake she has ever eaten. I'd have to agree.


Thanks for taking the time to read this, it says a lot about who you are, and is a confirmation that you, indeed, are on the path of positive progress as well. Either that or you are thinking what the hell is this guy up to, what an idiot. ;-) Either way, best regards.

See you again in 10 more days...

30 days...

Well, I've made it 30 days now and I'm starting to see and feel more noticeable changes. I'm feeling stronger, sharper and more and more empowered each day. 70 more days (or a lifetime) of continued growth ahead, but here's what I have to share from the past 10 days.

1. PhilosophersNotes: I continue to really enjoy my daily practice of listening, meditating and journaling on a great summary of a super-awesome book each day, that is packed full of wisdom. The past 10 days have brought me a bunch of sweet new ideas and quotes to share.

Here's a list of the Books I've covered this week:

The Dhammapada - Buddha
The Diamond Cutter - Geshe Michael Roache
Emotional Intelligence - Daniel Goleman
The Enchiridion - Epictetus
Everyday Enlightenment - Dan Millman
Flow - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Focal Point - Brian Tracy
The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand
The Four Agreements - Don Miguel Ruiz
Living & Loving Workshops - Gay and Katie Hendricks

Here are some awesome quotes I gathered the past 10 days.

"Good habits are hard to develop and easy to live with. Bad habits are easy to develop and hard to live with. The habits you have, and the habits that have you, will determine almost everything you achieve, or fail to achieve." - Brian Tracy

"Among the most important personal choices you can make is to accept complete responsibility for everything you are, and everything you will be. This is the great turning point in life. The acceptance of personal responsibility is what separates the superior person from the average person." - Brian Tracy

"You can dramatically improve the overall quality of your life far faster than you might think possible. All you need is the desire to change, the decision to take action, the discipline to practice the new behaviors you have chosen, and the determination to persist until you get the results you want." - Brian Tracy

"The great truths of life are simple. It is amazing how many problems both personal and social could be resolved if everyone decided to treat other people the way they would like to be treated. Listen to people the way you would like to be listened to. Sell your products and services the way you would like others to sell their products and services to you. Be courteous and respectful to other people just as you would like other people to be courteous and respectful to you. Be patient and understanding with people when they make mistakes just as you would like them to be patient ad understanding with you when you make mistakes." - Brian Tracy

"The goal of business and ancient Tibetan wisdom, and if fact all human endeavor, is to enrich ourselves. To achieve prosperity both outer and inner. We can enjoy this prosperity only if we maintain a high degree of physical and mental health. And over the lengths of our lives we must seek ways to make this prosperity meaningful in a larger sense. We should see that we have conducted ourselves and our business in a way that has had some lasting meaning, that left some good mark in our world." - Geshe Michael Roache

"For better or worse, intelligence can come to nothing when emotions hold sway." - Daniel Goleman

"Worries become self-fulfilling prophecies." - Daniel Goleman

"Do what you need to do despite of your feelings." - Dan Millman

"Seek not that the things which happen should happen as you wish, but wish the things that happen to be as they are, and you will have a tranquil flow of life." - Epictetus

"Accept, then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it. Make it your friend and ally, not your enemy. This will miraculously transform your whole life." - Eckhart Tolle

"The universe has a pulse and rhythm of its own, and wants to carry you with it. So if you dance with spirit, just remember to let it lead." - Sonia Choquette

"Man's ideal state is realized when he has fulfilled the purpose for which he is born. And what is it that reason demands of him? Something very easy, that he live in accordance with his own nature." - Seneca

"The ignorant are cocksure and the intelligent full of doubt." - George Bernard Shaw

"Whatever form fear takes, your willingness to face it squarely will determine your fate in the high country of human potential." - Dan Millman

"The mind itself can make a heaven of hell, or a hell of heaven." - John Milton

"Nothing has meaning outside that which we give it. Nothing has any absolute meaning because if it did, everyone would experience it exactly the same, all the time." - Geshe Michael Roache

"What's the best way to teach young children how to lead an ethical life? At that age, said his holiness, it doesnt matter what you tell them to do, they will watch and imitate you. They will do what you do, and so you are faced with the hardest task of all, to be ethical yourself." - Geshe Michael Roche

"Of all the people I know who are serving society, those who are making the greatest contributions and alleviating human ails and wants are those who have themselves in hand." - Melvin Seal(?)

"Everything is hard before it is easy." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"To have more, you must first be more. To achieve more in your outer world you must first go to work on your inner world, on developing yourself. There are no lasting shortcuts. There is no other way." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"If I had 6 hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend 4 of them sharpening my axe." - Abraham Lincoln

"Don't help me or serve me but let me see it once, because I need it. Don't work for my happiness my brothers, show me yours. Show me that it is possible. Show me your achievement and the knowledge will give me the courage for mine." - Ayn Rand

"Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors, try to be better than yourself." - William Faulkner

"You enter the forest at the darkest point where there is no path. Where there is a way or a path, it is someone else's path. You are not on your own path. If you follow someone else's way you are not going to realize your potential." - Joseph Campbell

"Don't pay attention to the critics, don't even ignore them." - Samuel Goldwyn

"The secrets of this earth are not for all men to see, but only for those who will seek them." - Ayn Rand

"Nothing other people do is because of you, it is because of themselves." - Don Miguel Ruiz

"The first step towards personal freedom is awareness. We need to be aware that we are not free, in order to be free. We need to be aware of what the problem is, in order to solve it." - Don Muguel Ruiz

"The worse a person is, the less he feels it." - Seneca

"The only one to blame is ones self." - Joseph Campbell

"Repetition makes the master." - Don Miguel Ruiz

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit." - Aristotle

"You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with." - Jim Rohn

"Our life is shaped by our mind, we become what we think." - Buddha

"If you find no one to support you on your journey, walk alone." - Buddha

"If anything is worth doing, do it with all your heart." - Buddha

"As a solid rock cannot be moved by the wind, the wise are not shaken by praise or blame" - Buddha

"Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back. Always ineffectiveness concerning all acts of initiative and creation. There is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans, that the moment one definitely commits oneself then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole new stream of events issues from the decision raising in ones favor all manner of unforeseen events, meeting and material assistance which no one could have dreamed would have come their way. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's Couplets, "Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness had genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now!" - W.H. Murray

"Work diligently, work patiently and persistently and you're bound to be successful." - SN Goenka


2. Jump Attack: I'm entering the fourth full week of the program and have been feeling stronger with each workout. I'm starting to feel a little 'pop' in my jumps. My feet feel strong and in control. It's amazing how when we put work on our bodies (and mind for that matter) they adapt and become stronger in relation to what we are trying to do with them. What an awesome tool. That being said, I foresee some serious gains of strength, flexibility and jumping elevation on the not-so-distant horizon. :-)


3. Nutrition: Still been eating really good, and feeling great. I've noticed that I need to eat a little more frequently, with my new diet and workout routines, but as long as I keep well fed I feel phenomenal, especially during my workouts. I'm starting to put together some recipes, ideas and a product list to share in the future. I'll post those up by the end of the 100 days.


4. Yoga: Still struggling with my consistent daily Yoga practice commitment, but I will not give up. I will just have to keep re-committing and figure out how to get it in each day. This is a lifelong goal anyways, not just a 100 day deal, so I will incorporate it eventually and make it habit. As soon as this post is done, I'm going to do some Yoga. What better time to start than now, right?


5. Sweets and Refined Foods: Seems this week has brought the odors and sights of tasty treats and cheesy foods into my awareness more frequently. They sure do look good but I haven't even come close to cheating. I am committed and it is not an option. The same mentality of 'non-negotiability' helped me quit smoking cigarettes over 10 years ago, and will continue to see me through for more of what I really want in the long run, not just right now.

Honored and blessed to share...see you in 10 more...