For the last year, I’ve been focusing on building connections, and I think I’m starting to get the hang of it.

I often reflect on my four month stint of selling solar door-to-door. I’ve always had a stutter that has a very inconvenient way of intruding when I want to talk to new people. Having to talk to a hundred new people a day helped me get over the fear of rejection, and quickly expanded my social circle.

After solar, I felt reinvigorated to pursue the career I studied hard for, Chinese Medicine. I have historically done best when I have a mentor to help guide me. Some of my classmates felt they no longer needed teachers after graduating and passing their boards, I felt I was just at the beginning of my learning journey.

With my intention to find a local mentor, I used my newfound sales techniques to start bothering the local acupuncture celebrities for a spot in their shadow. Eventually, I found someone who gave me a chance. This chance led to an opportunity, and that opportunity has become my career.

With my career and mentor acquired, it was time to start growing my network of connections. In the past I had relied on business networking events and been surprised at how little benefit it yielded my business or personal life. With this in mind, I tried to look beyond the classic networking opportunities for people and groups that organized socially.

I found a Rotary group that welcomed me with open arms and has already yielded better business and connections than any business networking group before. The difference with Rotary is that the group refers to its members as the “Rotary Family”. They exemplify this by hugging, welcoming new people and guests with excitement, and always looking to lift each other up. It’s been a great experience, finding a pocket of genuine friendliness in a world that often feels judgemental and hypercompetitive.

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I also found myself becoming a regular at the cluster of running clubs in the Valley. Running clubs have yet to yield any business benefits, but they have been great for me socially. It’s hard to be closed off after running 5 kilometers with a stranger. Knowing that most people that attend running clubs come to meet new people, it makes it infinitely easier to reach across the awkward void and strike up a conversation. As the weeks pass and I continue to appear at events, the faces become familiar, the conversations change, and the world grows a little smaller.

I’ve also found this to be true when out in the world without the structure of a club or organization. My favorite place to practice connecting has become Trader Joes. TJ’s does a great job of hiring friendly people and I’ve created ongoing conversations with a few of the regular employees I see at my local TJ’s.

I think this has been an important piece I’ve learned over the years, to connect with the people behind the desk wherever I go. Most of the time people pass by employees as if they are ghosts tasked with pulling the strings that make their lives easy. I’m not always great about this, some places and people feel less receptive to friendliness. But I’ve found that the majority of people are happy to catch a moment of friendly conversation without expectations or flirtations. Just simple human moments: a shared joke, a book recommendation, a recipe.

I’ve found that it took a big change in my mindset to start being open to these seemingly minor moments of interaction. Young Emery fully believed in the “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” mindset, that he didn’t need anyone for anything, that he could make his life as he saw fit without the help of others. After trying that for a while, it got old, and also, it’s a dumb way to live. Humans are fundamentally social creatures, everything we have in modernity is because of the collective effort of humans in community, not from the sheer willpower of any singular individual. Asking for and accepting help is the only way anybody ever improved their life. Recognizing that your neighbor knows a guy, who knows a guy, who has a cousin that knows exactly how to fix your car for $10 instead of the $3k the dealership quoted you. That’s what connection is for, for expanding your range of possibilities beyond the microscopic field of your own abilities. To tap into the world beyond your own bubble, to find people that make the world feel like the big silly family it is.

Thats all for now, thanks for reading,

Emery

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It felt like jumping into the middle of a novel. The book had fallen open to a random page and sucked me in without context or explanation.

I remember feeling ridiculous that first month. Trying to hide behind the other coaches, not knowing how to contribute or what I was supposed to say to the kids. I felt silly telling the kids what to do when I barely knew what was happening. It had been 11 years since I had been a member of the team. My memories of that time were slow to return and even when they did, they felt faded and like someone else’s stories.

It was a trying season (to say the least). There were several moments where I questioned why I contributed my time and energy to children that did not seem to care for my directions or advice. This was my first long-term commitment working with high school kids and I had a lot to learn about the transient nature of their loyalties and motivations.

Despite all of the issues, I continued on steadily, being present at every practice (minus one or two for sick days). Early on, it became clear that by being a consistent adult presence, many of the kids came to trust in my directions.

As I’ve been coaching, I’ve been plodding my way through Stephen Covey’s book “Principle-Centered Leadership”. One shortfall of my coaching that became immediately clear is the tendency to outsource authority.

I am merely an assistant coach, the head coach is the man with the plan with 20 years of coaching expertise and a track record to bolster his reputation. Early on, I would defer to him on matters of direction: “You have to run 3 more 300-meter repeats, that’s what the Big Coach says we’re doing.” As true as this statement is, it undermines my position as I become a weak manager by basing my authority on those above me. Instead, it’s better to tell the kids “We are doing x, y, and z because that’s the plan for today.” This stops the ball and creates a unified front for the coaching team to corral the kids towards the ultimate objective.

Learning From the Experienced

A big part of this introductory season has been discovering my coaching voice. There are not many situations in adult life that require projecting stern commands to a group of individuals. Since I was coming from the quiet politeness of community acupuncture where I became accustomed to speaking in a whisper 6 hours a day, finding the right volume to project across a field and overcome the conversations of small humans took a minute.

Part of this coaching voice was learning how to motivate kids towards a common goal. Watching the head coach navigate the team dynamics is like having a front row seat at a masterclass for relationship management.

The head coach is a very opinionated man in private, but when he has his coach hat on, he becomes a shapeshifter that ducks and weaves like a bird of prey untangling the Gordian knot. He can have one conversation with a reluctant athlete and suddenly that athlete is excited to be on the team and encouraging their teammates to give better effort.

No one coaches at the high school level for the money. I did the math on how much the season’s stipend would be hourly, I’d make more collecting cans and bottles from the side of the road. The money isn’t the motivation, it’s the excitement when the boys team qualifies on to the next major race, it’s the camaraderie when only one boy qualifies to state…but all the boys pack their bags to cheer him on.

It’s the simplicity of childhood. Before taxes, IRAs, or electricity bills wear down the carefree thrill of life. Having an opportunity to help guide the next generation towards self-sufficiency and their goals. That’s what makes coaching worth the early mornings and long drives.

It’s also an exercise in giving back.

For me, this team was the major turning point in my life. Before, I was a troublemaker that had been suspended from school 3 times before starting high school. Being a part of a team sport, learning discipline and how to achieve goals, and creating lifelong friendships that continue to this day, all of these were only possible because I fell into this team early in my high school life. Knowing how much it changed the trajectory of my life, the return on my time investment is beyond any monetary value. If I can help even one kid in the same way that the team helped me, that would be all the payment I need.

Fortunately/unfortunately, not every kid needs a major course correction. So seeing the effects of mentorship in this capacity is smaller, at least within the span of a single season.

I have every intention in defending this part of my life from the encroachment of the million other things that vie for my attention. Even during my job search I made sure to inform potential employers of my commitment to coaching. Most people have a positive reaction to my involvement with coaching. There seems to be an odd mix of people that fall into the coach category. They’re either trying to relive their own glorious athletic days or they like to feel powerful by commanding children what to do. I’m not sure which camp I fall into (and I hope it’s neither).

Regardless, spending time in my role as a coach every morning reminds me that there is significantly more to life than grinding for money. It’s easy to get caught in the loop of clearing everything from my schedule to make more time for work. But without the diversity of activities that life offers, do we ever truly live?

Thanks for reading,

Emery

As the days grow shorter, the nights colder, we turn inward.

The rampant Yang of summer, the days of endless sunshine and energy have been put to bed. We fight against the short winter days, wanting to continue our relentless charge forward despite the call of cozy vibes.

The gaping Yin of winter pulls us down into the heaviness of form. We remember the real weight of humanness, only what we’ve stored remains important.

The barrier between the physical and the dream worlds blurs. Somnolent adventures take on greater shape as ancestors reach across the narrow void to deliver messages they’ve been anxiously waiting to transmit.

We gather our kin and kith in the time of deepest Yin, where the weight of form has pulled everyone home to replenish and rebuild. Like a black hole that relentlessly pulls towards its middle, Yin demands homage.

We shelter together against the cold and dark, for warmth, to share in the images from ancestors, to plan for the return of Yang. We lay out our ideas, drawing blueprints and finding routes, preparing for the sun to return to make our mark on the world.

As much as we try to fight the lulling call of Yin, the ambient Yang we grew accustomed to has long since fled.

Just as we follow the daily cycles of Yin/Yang to maintain health, we adjust our lives to the seasonal Yin/Yang changes as well.

Yin is also creativity.

One of the images of Yin is a deep pool of still water. In winter, we move closer to the boundary line between life and death (think of life as Yang and death as Yin). On that boundary line we have our nightly forays into Yin through dreaming. In winter, your dreams may become more vivid, more detailed, more adventurous. As the season circulates into its Yin state, our access to the pool of creativity, of collective consciousness that lies on the other side of life, grows closer and easier to access.

As we have less time for activity during the day because of the shorter sun hours, we begin to pay more attention to the restful part of the day. Take advantage of this time of year. Embrace rest, sleep more, and eat more. Put all of this extra energy into the bank so when the sun returns you have more to sustain you until next winter.

Aging: Transforming Yang into Yin

Part of Chinese medical theory includes our evolution from primarily Yang to primarily Yin as we age. When we are fresh to the world, we are pure Yang. We run and play all day, seemingly without end to our energy. Our faces are radiant with youthful blush. We recover from injury instantly, seeming to rebound off obstacles and right back into play. When we’re young, a few hours of sleep is all we need to carry us through the day, caffeine is unknown, and we can vaporize pounds of pizza without ever seeing a shift in our waistlines.

As we age, we gradually move towards Yin. We need more sleep, it takes longer to wake up in the mornings (and more coffee). Injury takes longer to recover from, digestion slows down, we don’t have access to limitless energy every day. Our frantic scramble for RIGHT NOW transitions into a long-range perspective, seeing the forest for the trees. Our position in society changes from being valued for our doing and into our ability to provide perspective and wisdom. We become holders of tradition, passing along what we’ve learned from our time on this planet to the next group of rambunctious youngsters.

How do you embrace Yin?

Leave a comment.

Thanks for reading,

Emery

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In my younger days, all I dreamed of was seeing the world. I thought the right way to live was a life in the wind, drifting where the whims take you, seeing all the things I’d read about in dusty history books or seen in TV dramas.

I thought true independence was complete separation from anyone and everything I’ve ever known. New places, new faces, new foods, new languages, that was the real world.

I was so caught up in this fantasy that I chased it for years. I kept my friendships light, knowing I’d be gone; I shirked responsibilities, not caring for the reputation I was building. All that mattered was that I was ready to drift away at any moment.

I had my chance, I drifted from country to country, meeting new people, seeing new things, a ghost drifting through other people’s realities. When I got to the end of that road, I had a choice. I could return to the States and solidify myself in the world, or I could catch my flight to the next country to continue my ghostly existence.

I reflected on my travels, the wonderful people I’d met, the places I’d seen, and the memories I’d made. I realized I’d been looking at travel the way I used to look at psychedelic experiences, with an expectation of sudden knowledge, with the hopes of a lightning bolt of understanding that would strike me once I’d witnessed the Eiffel Tower, the Taj Mahal, or any other historical site. That lightning bolt never came. Cosmic knowledge didn’t come pouring down from the heavens, no matter how many tabs of acid I threw down, and I was denied that knowledge once again after months of searching in the corners of storied lands.

I wasn’t certain why, but I knew then that I should return to my home country. Part of it was an ache for more education. In months of travel, I’d read a few dozen books liberated from hostel libraries. The end of my journey was spent in a monastery learning about Buddhism, and even there, I craved more than the surface conversations our classes revolved around. When my choices were to continue wandering in the hopes of chance knowledge or grounding myself in education, I chose school.

Even then, I romanticized my job prospects by dreaming of becoming a traveling acupuncturist, possibly on a cruise ship or converting a bus into a roving clinic. It wasn’t until I’d entered the realities of the working acupuncture world that I realized I’d been mistaken. Anyone could be loose in the wind, drifting about, trying to make a living. The acupuncturists who changed lives and found financial freedom chose a place to anchor themselves and built a steady foundation.

I had scoffed at networking, permanence, and even deep friendship for years. Now I faced that string of decisions and recognized my naivety.

I’d been so focused on staying free of attachments that I hadn’t tilled the soil in preparation for my adult life. Sure, staying aloof is fun and works when your ambitions are to make fast friends and move along to the next party. But it does nothing for preparing a platform to build a life.

In a world where everyone is flaky and undependable, be the rock that weathers the storms. Be a constant in someone else’s life, be there when they need you. I thought it was scary and weak to be rooted in one spot when there was so much of the world to see. But once I saw the world, I recognized my fear of roots had made me weak. Connections, consistency, and dependability are the cornerstones of a strong life.

Travel Now

I still crave traveling, but for very different reasons.

I no longer seek to escape my daily life (I actually really enjoy it), but I think it is important to break out of routines and be intentionally uncomfortable.

It’s too easy to fall into an iron-clad routine. Day in and day out we repeat the same cycle of behaviors. They may be beneficial, all working towards a goal that requires that consistency, but when it becomes monotonous, and we begin to lose sight of our long-shot goals and start to resent the habits we’ve built, it may be time to hop on a plane to smoke weed and eat waffles in Amsterdam.

I’ve found that being uncomfortable: staying in a cheap hostel with bunkbeds and sketchy showers, not speaking your mother tongue, and shooting from the hip at local restaurants, is a great growing experience. It reminds you that you don’t need all of the comforts you rely on at home. Sure, maybe you’re a little sleep deprived, not quite as clean as you like to be, and your bowel movements have been erratic, but you’re still living. It turns out that you don’t need your 7-step skin care routine, your warming bidet, or your morning kale smoothie to continue living. I think it’s important not to become little routinized robots that need the same day on repeat in order to live. As much as I love habits, I also love to break them. Every time I break a habit, I discover a way to put it back together that feels better and does more for me. If I continually stuck to my habits like they were the ONLY way to do it, I would be missing out on those opportunities to learn and change.

Moreover, I don’t expect knowledge to come jumping out of the brickwork in a new country, I have to work a little harder for it. My favorite way to explore a new city is to spend a day choosing a direction and start walking. Along the way I’ll try food that seems fun, I’ll stop in to museums or check out touristy spots, and I’ll try to speak to people in their language. As fun as historical sites and museums are, I like to catch a glimpse of how the people are living and I find that the spaces in between tourist traps or commercial centers are the best places to find that. Meeting locals in their favorite coffee shop or sitting at a park, that’s where I get a sense of the city.

Where do you like to travel?

Thanks for reading,

Emery

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You see it coming. Like an encroaching mass on the periphery of your vision. You ignore it as long as you can, telling yourself it isn’t there. You don’t ask your friends if they can see it, fearing they’ll think you’re crazy. But you know it’s there, significantly bigger each day.

You check your photos. It wasn’t there last month, or last year, why has it suddenly appeared? You don’t dare face it directly, that would make it real. You’re not ready for real.

It’s started to take shape. What was once a black mass has now sprouted limbs. It stands in the corner, watching as you move about the world, following you on your errands, reclining while you work.

You work harder, longer, taking on overtime just so you don’t have to acknowledge that growing entity.

Your friends notice your stress and take you on vacation. A long weekend of relaxing by the pool, losing yourself in other worlds, drinking away your worries. The resort is nice with white Mediterranean-style buildings, a sapphire blue swimming pool, and richly tanned humans of all shapes and sizes attracting your attention.

You spark a romance with a dark-haired, bright-smiled local, remembering that deep ache of passion that had been dormant for too long. Poolside escapes into fiction have been replaced by bedsheet acrobatics. Time seems to slip away uncounted as you lose yourself in the windows of their soul.

Your friends are happy for you, but time is up, you return to the real world tomorrow. As you pack your bags, your heart aches for what could never be. You see that dark-haired local again, the smile is still bright, but it hurts to look.

The flight home is spent watching the rolling clouds as they chase each other across the pink expanse. Your body remembers the warmth of secret caresses, but your mind resents the reminders.

You plop back into “real life”, plugging away at work, running errands, cooking, and cleaning when necessary. The more you try to forget those sweet bedsheet acrobatics, the more you dive into distraction.

That mass returns, faster now than before. It already has limbs, it lounges across your new couch like it belongs there.

You hide from it by going out to eat with friends more, lingering longer at the park, anything to distract you from the grinning entity that seems to grow bolder with every passing day.

It’s not until it’s too late that you finally see its face. Its bright-smiled grin, once so full of passionate promise now turns your stomach. You beg for it to leave, but you brought it here. Every thoughtless decision enticed it closer until it rooted into your life, like a petulant weed that refuses to budge.

You scramble to look at the damage you’ve caused, rifling through ‘Past-Due’ notices and turning over unopened bags of fresh clothes. As you finally witness the damage you’ve self-inflicted, it opens its mouth, that lovely bright smile expanding beyond reason. Before a feeble scream can leave your lips, that dark-haired fling envelops you entirely.

Thanks for reading!

Emery

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Crunchy steps like walking on brittle brown glass. Hopping along, trying to match the indentations of past travelers’ boots.

The sun feels like a thousand golden hammers, tip-tapping away as you weave your way between pools of shade.

Alien growths of green sticks protrude from the ground, creating menacing tangles of barbed teeth. You duck their attacks unconsciously as you cool off in their shadow.

Here and there, you see signs of life, the buzz of a cicada, a rapid shadow of a flying creature, and the flitting of a lizard.

The rocks look like a monstrous infant had dumped his toy chest from above. Raining their odd shapes over the fluid hills of sand.

You resume your joyful trudge, ready to complete your mission. You push through the fields of sand to reach the toes of the mountain. Without looking up, you begin your ascent, picking your way skillfully through the puzzle work of rocks.

As the trail steepens, you inhale that fresh desert smell. The rain has been greedily absorbed, but its effects are clear as you climb. The previously skeletal ocotillos look like Christmas trees from a Tim Burton film. Curiously festive in their intimidating shape. The usually dry suffocation is different today, slightly more moist than expected.

You criss and you cross as you wind your way over the phalanges of this minor giant, daydreaming already about the meal that awaits you at home. The rocks begin to change; they glow with an inner fire as you climb, lighting your way despite the brightness of the sun.

Shadows begin to grow from the neighboring canyons, their sleek walls promising a joy ride to the bottom. You peer along their crests, looking for the looming glare of wildlife, but none have found you interesting today.

More green beings spring from the ground here, declaring their lives from the safety of rocky shadows. You forget you began in a desert, where brown and dirt reign supreme. Here on the slopes, green and rock are the masters.

The giant’s ankle lies in shadow as you approach, having conquered its toes with ease. You take a rest in the pool offered by its protruding shinbone, which hangs over you like the broken mast of a schooner. You lean against the fleshy rock, welcoming the cool breeze that plays across this point of respite.

You see the land you call home far below, a sea of speckled green and white stretching to the neighboring mountains. You walk your eyes from where you sit to where you began, amazed that the journey upward had seemed so short for a distance so large. You see the specks of humans as they wander about neighboring trails. Unnaturally colored clothes distinguish them from the landscape, flashes of pink and yellow whiz by on wheeled contraptions. Birds nest above you, hanging precariously from the shallow caves worn into the giant’s shin.

You pick yourself up and continue onward, eager to finish what you started, following the trail that wraps around the ankle and renews its ascent with steep stairs carved into the wall. Higher and higher you climb, winding your way through the clouds, stopping for a snack and to refill your water in the fluffy wetness. As you reach the knee cap, the stairs begin to mellow out, no longer an upward sprint, more of a ramped walkway.

The view opens up, offering a 360-degree view of the world from on top of this giant’s knee. The air is thin, the blanket of clouds lies far below like a farmer let his flock of fluffy pure white sheep out to mow the lawn. There is a collection of stones at the pinnacle where past travelers have left behind small mementos among their silent watch. Bottle caps, painted dolls, tattered photographs, too chaotic to make sense of, but obviously a place of memories.

A stick protrudes from the rocks, no more than 6 feet tall. You reach into your backpack to complete your mission, the reason you conquered this climb. A blue collar, fit for a princely pup, faded from years of adventure and mud. A single tag dangles, the words are faded, but the stamped metal still remembers its duty.

You hang the collar on the woody sentry, giving the name one last thumb stroke before turning back to the long descent.

Thanks for reading,

Emery

I made a tool that I now rely on to stay on track with my weekly income goals. Check it out here, pay a dollar or with a comment, I appreciate you.

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I have been working on and off a book for about a year. I’ll be consistent with it for a few months and then run out of things to add and feel lost trying to edit my longest piece yet.

One day, I had the flash of inspiration to drop my book into AI and have it suggest edits for me. I was excited by its suggestions and insights, so I started going chapter by chapter and incorporating its rewrites.

At first, the work was going smoothly. I’d drop a chapter into AI, read through the rewrites, take the ones I liked, incorporate the suggested edits, and pat myself on the back for moving forward on my book. But the further I went, the less the book sounded like me. Sure, the chapters sounded professional and concise, but they were losing anything that made it unique to me; my voice was being removed by my own tool.

I saw the same in my weekly articles. I would ask AI to suggest any final edits before publishing, just in case I accidentally included my social security number or my home address. I liked some of the rewrite suggestions, but the more I entertained its directions, the less my articles talked about what I was trying to say. They sounded more and more sterile and bland. It sucked the fun out of writing.

Despite all of my daydreams that using this high-powered tool would propel my writing into the upper echelons of writing celebrity, nothing changed. If anything, I was seeing LESS traffic and readers than before I started asking AI to help.

Despite my efforts to try and level up my writing with external critiques, I was finding that AI was not the writing mentor I needed.

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After a few weeks, I got tired of AI trying to change my writing, so I changed how I was using it. I prompted AI to only provide editing solutions without any rewrite examples. This way, I could have an unbiased last look at my articles to catch anything I may have missed, without the AI rewrites beckoning enticingly. This method makes me work a little more, as I have to decipher what it means by “break your paragraphs into smaller sections” or “don’t break the flow of your article by referencing ‘back that azz up’ by Juvenile.”

I recognize I have this need to legitimize what I’m doing by asking people (and now machines) to give me their opinions on my work. AI falls into this role perfectly as it promises to provide unbiased advice from its database that stretches the far reaches of the internet. Fortunately for all of us, AI is still an infant and thus should not be trusted to work towards our dreams for us.

Although AI has some great capabilities and can write for you, it is only an amalgamation of all the writing it has been allowed access to from human writers who have had their work digested into its database. Sure, it can write fun stories or turn your messy thoughts into beautiful prose, but that removes your effort, and it undermines your budding ability to write and edit for yourself. Do not rely on AI to rewrite for you, but instead use it as a mirror to learn how to edit.

You can build AI into a teacher that points towards the path, but doesn’t attempt to walk it for you. This will require more effort from you, as you will have to incorporate its suggestions and think through how best to interpret its edits, but this will help you hone your skills more than a complete exporting of effort ever will.

AI Editor Prompt:

“You are a master of editing online articles that achieve millions of readers. Your job is to examine my articles to identify improvements that will increase readership and improve the visibility of my articles online. Do not provide rewrite examples. Only provide editing tips and suggestions necessary to make this article publish-ready.”

Optional Additions:

“Provide 3-5 critical changes needed prior to publishing”

“Provide a brutally honest score out of 10 on this article’s readability and strength.”

(As a chronic student, I like seeing scores so I can have some sense of improvement, even if AI likes to pat you on the back for nonsense)

AI likes to include a slightly snarky line in its response, like “here are editing suggestions WITHOUT rewrites, as requested,” as if you’ve offended its mother for not wanting her cookies.

In Defense of Using AI

Let’s get this argument out of the way before people start leaving smart ass comments.

YES, I use AI.

NO, it doesn’t write my articles for me. At this point, it’s a glorified spellchecker (and even then, it still gets things wrong).

AI is the new normal; our world has already been changed by it, and it has been integrated into almost every aspect of digital life.

You are welcome to praise yourself for being a martyr and refusing to use it. OR you can learn how to use it and grow alongside its expanding ability, so that as it continues to take jobs and disrupt industries, you’ll be in a valuable position as someone who knows how to make it do what you need done.

We’ve seen this in past technological advances. A new industry-disrupting tool comes along, and those who stick to the old ways are replaced by people who have learned how to incorporate the new tool.

Side (related) story:

I met an elderly gentleman at a holiday party years ago. He had worked in the photography and film world his whole life. For most of his career, he edited and cut film by hand.

Then Photoshop came along.

He saw its growing popularity and enrolled in classes to learn how to use it. When Photoshop became the new industry standard, he was the only editor kept on staff at his firm. All of the other old-school editors were replaced by younger people who were taught how to use Photoshop in school.

This story isn’t unique; every industry goes through this process. If you refuse to grow and change with the new waves of technology, you’ll be replaced by someone willing to incorporate the new methods.

AI is no different. Everyone likes to lament that it outsources creativity or makes people lazy. Whatever moral qualms you have with it, get over it. It is a tool. The caveman didn’t praise the virtues of the rock when the hammer became the new normal; she accepted the improved tool and explored its possibilities.

Don’t be afraid of tools; master them so you have control of your path instead of the tool controlling it for you.

Thanks for reading,

Emery

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Simple tools make the world go round, and this income tracker has helped me see how my weekly income is shaping up and keeps me on course to hit my income goals. What gets measured gets changed, and your income is no different.

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My friend is investigating a bar for sale. For weeks, I’ve been hearing about all the details of this place, so I had to see it for myself.

On my drive to the bar, I thought about how I would casually walk in, take a look around, then walk out. Or maybe I’d take a seat at the bar and order a soda so I could take a minute to get a feel for the place.

I knew beforehand that this was a dive bar with limited options and a tight-knit customer base. I knew they would not have non-alcoholic beers available- too trendy for a dive bar. The longer I thought about how I’d overcome the awkwardness of walking into this dive bar to not drink and snoop around for a second, the less I liked the idea. The closer I got, the clearer it became that I should buy a beer and sip it to blend into the scene. Is it worth letting go of 6 years of sobriety to look around a bar that my friend is so keen on buying? Nope.

While this whole internal dialogue played out, I circled the block once, twice, and now I’m idling at the corner, trying to look in through the big old-western wooden doors. Finally my decision was clear, I pulled onto the main street and accelerated onto the freeway home.

Despite 6 years of dodging alcohol, I have days I think about how easy it would be to throw back a beer (or two, or three). Most of the time, alcohol is a distant thought in my mind, there’s far too much I want to do with my time, and I have no interest in the embarrassment and problems that come when I start drinking. But for those odd days, when the urge seeps out of the depths of memory, trying to take me by surprise like a sneaky little squirrel trying to steal from a bird feeder, I have to battle the desire.

I was never a daily drinker, nor did I ever get arrested for drinking. Because of these two shortcomings, many of my peers at AA meetings would question whether I was a “real alcoholic.” Even if I wasn’t “that bad” by AA standards, I knew I couldn’t stop once I had started drinking, so I resolved never to start again.

I’ve seen too much of alcohol and its murderous effects to naively believe I could continue drinking without creating more issues. My grandmother died after destroying her liver from a lifetime of drinking. My stepmom found the same ending. I could see the appeal. When you drink, all of that noisy mental chatter gets turned down: your fears of the future, regrets of the past, frustrations of the present, all are lost for a brief moment when your old pal alcohol wraps you in his big warm hug.

It’s a shame, really. Most of us were never taught how to handle the stress of adulthood without the crutch of vice. We have a laundry list of things we can engage in that will help distract us from our world: Social media, drinking, pot, sex, shopping, and drugs. They all serve the same purpose: escape from ourselves.

When I stopped drinking, I began to recognize how uncomfortable people are without alcohol.

Over the last 6 years, I’ve had to navigate my way through social situations I previously relied on beer or weed to get me through. Without those crutches, I finally arrived at a place where I am comfortable talking with people without inebriation. I never realised how much I was dependent on it until I started going on dates or going to parties with non-sober people.

This strange thing occurs between the beginning of an event and when the first drink works its magic on people. In the beginning, people are tight-lipped, awkward and standoffish. On dates, people will be short-winded and struggle to make eye contact.

But boy, once that first drink has wriggled in between the walls of their mental defences, they are suddenly a different person.

The transformation is wild.

New male friends who introduced themselves with a stiff handshake and nod are now draping their arm over my shoulder and telling me how much they look up to their father. Women on their first date have progressed from shy, eyes-averted smiles to full-on eye contact with seductive smiles and suggestive questions.

This isn’t a judgment on anybody, only a reflection of a bigger problem in how we are socialized. As adults, we get caught up in the game of life, guarding our inner thoughts from strangers, looking for opportunities to gain anything to make life easier. The only time we pause the game is when we indulge in one form of poison or another. It’s during this pause that we release all of the things we’ve been wanting to say during the game, but there was never the right opportunity. The moments of emotional overwhelm, of prideful boasting, and pure childlike excitement for life, the moments that feel inappropriate in a corporate boardroom or misplaced in an office cubicle. The moments that make us human that we have had to shut off to make it through the days in our strange world.

Those emotional expressions don’t go anywhere; they hide in waiting until we finally hit the bar with the boys on Thirsty Thursday. That’s when everything comes pouring out: the weekly frustration, the insecurities at home, the fears of financial instability.

They can finally be released because they feel like someone else’s problems.

Thanks for reading,

Emery

Speaking of financial stability, how do you track your weekly income? If you don’t have an answer, check out this simple tool I use to make sure I’m hitting my income goals. Try it out and let me know what you think!

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I’ve spent half a year (constructively) shouting at high schoolers, and I’ve arrived at the conclusion that I hate the statement “I can’t”.

These words haunt me at night. I toss and turn as I battle them in a 1v1 cage match to the death. Every day at practice, I hear “I can’t do it, coach,” and I return to that cage match, looking for the weak spot to knock that statement into oblivion.

Why do I hate this seemingly innocuous statement? Because it is a lie. It is the biggest falsehood around. Nothing will derail a life faster than this little parasite.

I believe anybody can accomplish anything they wholeheartedly put their minds to. Any argument against this is moot, especially when you say, “Well, I can’t do x, y, or z. So I can’t do what I dream of.” Just by saying out loud that you can’t do something, you’ve already put the shackles on yourself. Before your dream could even be born, you’ve chained it to the ground.

“Can’t” is born out of fear. Fear of becoming the best version of yourself imaginable. Fear of the potential you feel pulsing through your veins, of the limitless opportunities that are just beyond your comfort zone. You tell yourself “I can’t” because it reinforces the story you tell yourself every day that you are exactly who you are and there is no changing it. “I’ll never be anything more than I was 5 years ago; I shouldn’t try to do anything more.” Your narrative keeps you in the middle of your comfort dead zone. You become immune to growth as soon as you accept that narrative. Once you stop growing, the only direction left is downward; right into the grave.

We like to use “can’t” like it’s a final stop, “But coach, I can’t,” as if I’m supposed to respond, “Oh buddy, if you can’t, then that’s okay. You don’t need to try then if you know you can’t.”

We feel our self-imposed limits like physical walls. We get to that comfortable wall and stop just as we have a hundred times before. We say we can’t because we’ve never tried to go beyond that wall. The wall is comfortable; it feels safe to stay inside of it, to not look beyond the limit we’ve put on ourselves. True freedom begins when we punch a hole right through it and let in the first rays of sunshine from the outside world. That first little glimmer of possibility motivates you to make that hole bigger until you can walk right through it and into a place of limitless opportunity. You’ve been unshackled by your own limitations. What you felt as a physical endpoint was only the beginning, merely a checkpoint on your way to your dreams.

However, how does an adult reason through the layers of limited perspectives, insecurities, and the fledgling logic of a high school kid? How do you reach through all of that to shake their core until they’re screaming, “I CAN do it!!” (Legitimately, if you have an answer, I’d love to hear it. Leave a comment.)

The best I’ve done so far is jump on every instance of “I can’t” being thrown around at practice. The kids know I hate that word. As soon as they say it, I look them in the eyes and say, “We don’t use that word here. How else can you say it?”

Correct answers include: I’m learning, I’m growing, I’m working towards it, I’m not able to yet.

Always begin with an active form of a verb because we are constantly learning and growing. As soon as we accept static (or past tense) language, i.e., I learned, I grew, or I worked on it, we stop our own growth and accept the point we have reached today.

The issue is that everybody has heard about the “growth mindset” at this point, but few practice it. Just like with anything, reading about a great concept is different from implementing it into your daily life. When your internal dialogue and your excuses echo a fixed mindset, it’s clear what your true beliefs are.

I think that this is what sets people apart from an early age. The YouTubers who became millionaires at 16, the Olympic athletes who have trained since they were toddlers, the young technologists pushing us into the future, they all were exposed to the growth mindset early in their lives, and it propelled them to greatness. It’s my sincere hope that introducing the growth mindset to these athletes in high school will give them the necessary propulsion to achieve their dreams beyond high school sports.

Because that’s all that sports are: a tool to teach all of the things the classroom does not. Delayed gratification, goal setting, long-term effort, cultivation of mind and body to achieve that which was impossible 4 years prior. These are the fruits of high school sports; everything else, such as college scholarships or public recognition, is merely the fruit of the private victories that make sports life-changing.

For every person who says “I can’t”, there are three people who do it. The only difference is the mindset. Change your mindset, change your life.

Thanks for reading,

Emery

Are you a freelancer making your way in the world? How do you track your income for the week?

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I’m nearing 2 months of being technically unemployed, and I couldn’t be happier.

I’ve been lucky enough to find consistent online work that continues to pay the bills despite the deafening silence of my email inbox.

There have been a few life events I’ve been able to be a part of that wouldn’t be possible if I were a 9-to-5er:

I was able to take care of my grandfather for several weeks and help him relocate to a nursing home.

My little sister had surgery, and I was able to drive out and see her when she got out of the hospital, as well as spend time with her during her recovery.

I’ve been able to continue coaching a high school sport, often needing a whole day each week to take the kids to races.

I’ve found an acupuncturist in town who allows me to shadow her in the clinic so I can continue to learn and grow as an acupuncturist.

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It would be difficult to take all of this time away from a regular job. The only issue I’ve found has been self-motivation. When you make your own work hours, it’s easy to find every reason not to work. The opposite is true too, on days when I’m sick or busy, I feel guilty that I haven’t made time to work.

On the other hand, the annoying part of freelancing has been recognizing that I was severely underpaid as a full-time employee!

I got tired of grinding away at the $25 an hour jobs on data annotation and somehow bluffed my way into the $45/hour jobs. It’s been great getting paid significantly more…but because my goal was to hit $100 a day, I was clocking out of work as soon as I hit my mark and celebrating by spending time on other projects.

Now I’ve reached a point where I’m making as much per week as when I was working three different acupuncture jobs, but in half the time! It’s insane and stupid that my graduate degree did so little for my earning power. Regardless, I’ve finally dug myself out of the desperate state I was in two months ago, and the time has come to reassess my daily income goal.

Because my $100/day goal was my short-term goal for survival, I knew it was a matter of time before I either moved the goalposts or landed a job.

I’ve decided to move my goals up a notch. I’m shooting for $200/day and $1000/week. With my boosted earning power on data annotation, this has been easy to obtain, and I’m hopeful I can start cutting the time-to-money ratio as I pick up more acupuncture patients.

It feels like I’ve turned around a giant Carnival cruise ship that was drifting straight towards a rocky shoreline. The ship might not be drifting anymore, but it’s still a little too close to the sharp rocks. By moving my goals, I hope the additional income will build momentum to get the ship far from the rocky shoreline and back on course.

I’ve updated the Notion tracker from my $100/day post, and I’ve added a weekly total feature that makes it easier to see exactly where you are for the week.

Download it, check it out, let me know what you think!

How do you manage yourself as a freelancer? How do you track your income? Leave a comment!

Thanks for reading,

Emery

I’ve had it ever since I was a small human.

My sentence would start normally, but it tended to get stuck in the space between my brain and my mouth. I’d finally spit it out after a visible struggle, long after everyone lost interest.

It’s come and gone throughout my life. Sometimes it’s so strong I choose not to talk so I can avoid the hassle. Other times, I forget about it, and my words flow like water, and I remember how much I love chatting with people.

What Triggers It

Having a stutter is like having an enemy in your own head. You know what might call him out of the cave he’s dug in your cranium, so you avoid certain phrases.

For me, I knew it was 3 things:

1. Repeating myself (If you didn’t catch what I said the first time, we’ll be here for a while)

2. Speaking under pressure (If I think you’re cute or I’m intimidated by your authority, my words will get stuck)

3. My name

I love my name, but when I’m having a stutter streak, I really hate having to correct people.

“Henry? Emerson? Avery?”

There was a time in college when my stutter was so bad that I gave up correcting people. If they didn’t understand me on the first round, they would forever believe my name was Henry.

Stuttering is a positive feedback loop. Every time I stutter, I get embarrassed, which makes me anxious about stuttering again. But the more anxious I am, the more likely I am to stutter. You see the problem?

I could be having a great week, I can’t even remember the last time I stuttered, and then I run into an acquaintance that I think is cute. I’m caught off-guard, my head spins, “Is she really talking to me?” and I can feel that little enemy crawl out of his hole and grab my throat. I try to act cool as my turn to speak comes up, carefully picking my words to wiggle my way through the enemy’s trap. But, I was so focused on avoiding the stutter, I spoke too quietly, she didn’t hear me, “Huh?”

Oh shit, here comes a repeat. I try to barrel through the enemy’s blockade, but he’s caught me. My words get stuck in my throat, and I blush a violent red as the girl stares at me, struggling to speak. Finally, the words slip through and out of my mouth. She nods, a curious curve to her eyebrow says, “What was that?”. Now red, sweaty, and embarrassed, I wish her a good day and walk quickly to a dark corner to hide.

That situation will play on repeat in my mental TV room for weeks. Afraid of repeating it, I’ll avoid conversations when I can, and when I can’t, I’ll be very conscious of the tightness in my throat, the enemy waiting to trap my words again.

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What Has Not Worked

I’m not sure when, where, or why I first stuttered, but it’s been a lifelong journey ever since.

I’ve tried a lot of tricks to work around it.

I’ve had periods of being more silent than I’d like; that works for a while, but it gets lonely.

I’ve tried pushing aggressively through my stutters in the hopes I can break through. This does not work and is uncomfortable for everybody involved.

I self-medicated with weed for most of college. This helped for a little while, until it became a hindrance. I used to get stoned and be able to talk with anyone. Then, little by little, being stoned felt like my vocal cords wouldn’t work, so I’d sit and nod along to conversations before retreating to solitude.

I tried alcohol for a minute, which caused more problems than it solved. Sure, I could talk to anyone when drunk, but then I’d get so loose I’d start saying crazy shit to people. I’d remember (or be told) what I said the night before, become painfully ashamed of myself, and the stutter monster would be right there, ready to keep me silent.

What Did Work

Once I reached graduate school, I learned what could help. I wasn’t drinking, and I stopped using weed, two huge sources of anxiety now gone. I also had to talk to a lot of people, mostly strangers, usually in front of a group. I’d say this was exposure therapy.

If you’re anxious about talking to people, get a job where you have to talk to a lot of people, and you’ll stop being anxious very quickly.

The stutter monster comes back in some situations, usually it’s when I’m tired or feeling very unrooted in my life. When I’m well-rested (and it’s before 6 pm), and I’m feeling calm and collected about my life, the stutter stays away.

The piece of the puzzle that finally brought the whole stutter cycle to a halt was self-assuredness.

When I was a child, I had no concerns for who I was or what I’d be; I was just existing. As I got older, and I believed I had to be someone other than who I was, the anxiety between just existing and trying to become someone created a tension that led to my stutter.

Annoyingly, it took well over a decade to finally settle into my own being. Anxiety doesn’t have a place to live when your sense of self is secure and your desire to impress others is extinguished.

I don’t think anyone could have taught me how to reach this point. I think I had to crawl through the mud, make a lot of mistakes, and break a lot of rules to finally reach a point where I was ready to give up. Once I gave up trying to control my stutter and let go of trying to be anyone but myself, suddenly I didn’t need to control it; it drifted away on its own, like a pain-in-the-ass ghost of anxiety past.

I do think a big component of reaching this point has been learning to turn towards discomfort. Anxiety and stuttering feel better when we avoid being uncomfortable. But by avoiding it, we make it so much worse. By avoiding discomfort, we build it up; we make it worse by choosing to let it grow in importance and scariness. Once you decide to do the things that make you afraid or uncomfortable, you’ll discover how unscary they actually are. This is something sales has taught me.

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How Working In Sales Helped

When I was in door-to-door sales, it took a lot of doors to feel comfortable in the job. In the beginning, it was scary knocking on a stranger’s door and waiting for it to be answered. When I was a kid, we would ding-dong ditch houses by ringing a stranger’s doorbell, then gleefully sprinting away to hide and see their reaction. For the first week of door-to-door, my body would say, “RUN! You rang the doorbell, it’s time to hide!”

Unfortunately, you’re supposed to wait for the homeowner when you’re trying to sell something. I had to become comfortable ringing up to 3 times and counting a minute between each before I moved on. By that third ring, you’re hoping the person inside the house is either at work or having a good day.

The beauty of sales is that you have to practice talking with everybody. Cold prospecting will make you come face-to-face with the most intimidating and the most beautiful people you’ll ever meet. Whatever internal battle you have, you have to do your job and pitch the product. Once you’ve pitched the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen, all while keeping your composure, you’ll be less anxious about talking to your gym crush.

Or once you’ve pitched a very big man after he’s threatened to grab his gun, you’ll be less worried about asserting your place in line at Disneyland.

The hardest part of door-to-door was always the first door of the day. Even if it was my 6th day in a row knocking on doors, the first door took the most effort to knock on. I had some days where I’d circle the neighborhood 3, 4, 5 times before I finally knocked on a door that I secretly knew nobody would be behind. It was the fear of a nasty interaction or unfriendly rejection that made the first door the hardest. I could be having a great week full of lovely conversations, but the self-protective part of my brain would whisper, “What if someone yells at us today?” and I would actively avoid choosing my first door until I couldn’t avoid it any longer.

Once that first door was knocked, whether or not somebody answered, the spell would be broken, and I could knock every door on the street without hesitation.

This shows how powerful our anxiety can be. You may have every piece of evidence you need that a good thing will happen, but our anxiety will convince us not to step past the threshold of comfort. You have to willfully push through that anxiety and cross the threshold and be fully uncomfortable. Once you are in the land of discomfort and nothing bad happens, you’ll say, “Oh shit, what was I so afraid of? This is great!”. Then next time that sticky veil of discomfort tries to hold you back, you’ll have a little more power to push through it, until every time you see that veil, you’ll be excited to run through it.

This is the same with stuttering. When you stutter, every conversation has a thick veil of discomfort hanging over it. You get bogged down by the what-ifs before you even say hello, so you avoid conversations. The more you avoid, the bigger that discomfort grows until you enter a conversation you can’t avoid, and all of that discomfort comes out in a stutter. Don’t let the discomfort grow; trim it daily like an annoying hedge by turning towards the conversations you don’t want to have. This will lead you towards self-assuredness and a life after stuttering.

Life Post-Stutter

It’s very freeing to navigate without the constant fear of stuttering. Occasionally, that old sensation grabs my throat, when it does, I don’t feel that old drop in my stomach, fearful that I’ll be doomed to 2 more weeks of silence. Instead, I recognize it, acknowledge it, pick my path around the obstruction, and let it go. I’ve found that the more I stress about stuttering (or really anything), the bigger problem it becomes. If I reduce it as soon as it occurs, it never has a chance to take over my week.

The relief of living free of the yoke of the stutter monster is tremendous. Stuttering can make you feel dumb or inadequate in the world. Because it is difficult to have conversations or participate in social situations without feeling overwhelmingly embarrassed, it is easy to retreat into solitude and avoid overcoming the mental barriers that trip your speech. Living with a stutter is not a reflection of your worth. It took me a long time to learn and accept that.

Choosing to turn towards discomfort will do more for your growth than avoiding it and telling yourself, “I’m not ready yet, I’ll do that later”. When you find an area of discomfort, go immediately into it; you’ll surprise yourself at how easy things are once you get through that first veil of discomfort.

My stutter taught me more than I ever thought possible about overcoming discomfort and growing in confidence. I’m thankful that I’ve had this impediment to learn from; I don’t think I’d be who I am today without it.

What personal obstacles have you learned through? Share in the comments below, I’d love to hear your stories!

Thanks for reading,

Emery

My dad was “the car guy”.

When I was a kid, the garage always smelled of gasoline, fresh paint, and imagination. There was always the carcass of an old VW bug, waiting to be reborn as a loud yet very slow machine. We frequented car shows on the weekends. I remember wandering through rows of beautiful machines, everything from bugs to muscle cars.

When I asked my dad to teach me how to work on cars, he handed me a book before he disappeared into the garage.

Despite never learning how to work on cars, I’ve always loved the beauty of old cars, how much care and attention people put into maintaining their piece of history. I always meant to loop back and learn, possibly sometime after retirement, when I’d have time for it. That was until the Matrix came into my life.

How it Started

The Matrix is a shaky boy, with windows that look like the tint was DIY’d by a blind monkey, complete with peeling paint, and a leaky oil pan. The passenger side interior door had no handle, so passengers either had to reach through the open window to let themselves out, or I’d have to revive chivalry to open the door for them. Turning on the AC causes a concerning cloud of black smoke to rise from the engine. To add spice, the driver’s side airbag may or may not be functional.

All in all, the Matrix isn’t winning any beauty contests. But it was a free car.

Shortly after my ex-fiance and I split ways, she called me to pass along an offer from her dad, “Do you want his old Toyota?” The answer was immediately yes, I didn’t know what it looked like or its condition. But I was broke and living the public transit life in the Bay, any car would be helpful for grocery store runs and cutting down on commuting time.

After picking it up in Southern California and gently encouraging the Matrix back to the Bay, I arrived at my first mechanical problem. The check engine light came on just as I entered the East Bay, and I still needed to get it smog checked to finish transferring the car into my name. Long term, it needed a new catalytic converter, a repair cost that I hear people complain about all too often. Needing to transfer the car quickly, I relied on Cataclean to get it registered in my name.

Repairs Big and Small

When my life fell apart in the Bay, I moved back to the desert, and the check engine light returned. Thankfully, my brother-in-law is a car guy who is happy to share his workshop and is always down for a project.

We ordered a new catalytic converter and got to business.

Up to this point, cars have always been an enigma to me. I learned how to change tires, check engine oil, and replace windshield wipers as a kid, but that was the extent of my car knowledge. I was too anxious to mess with anything mission-critical, afraid one wrong move would ruin a perfectly good car.

We got the car up on blocks and got underneath it. To me, it was a sea of iron; all of it looked important. BIL pointed out our target, handed me a wrench, and we started doing car guy shit.

Once the cat was mostly unbolted, BIL pulled out a Sawzall and started slicing through the old cat. In my head, I thought “Welp, this car is never running again, there’s no way we can cut out this much metal and it’ll still live”.

After some maneuvering and a run to the parts store, the new cat was bolted into place. It felt like we’d performed a lung transplant. I pictured the Matrix taking its first big exhale through its brand new and completely unobstructed exhaust. The car sounded happy for the first time since it changed hands.

Unbeknownst to me, the car-guy-bug had bitten me.

The Matrix and I have returned to the BIL autoshop two more times. The first was to replace the brake rotors and pads on the front wheels. (With fresh brake rotors, braking didn’t involve a quick rollercoaster ride.)

The third visit was to replace the transmission fluid.

Every oil change I’ve had since picking up the car has prompted the mechanic on duty to plead with me to replace the transmission fluid.

It wasn’t until the car died and I had to call a mobile mechanic out to revive it that I found out how bad the transmission fluid was. Once the car had a new starter, the mechanic checked the transmission fluid and looked at me in shock, “This fluid should be red…. It’s black. Get this replaced as soon as possible before it causes problems… if it hasn’t already.”

The transmission fluid was significantly easier than I anticipated. Every shop in the desert was charging about $300 for the service; it cost me $70 to DIY. The job was done quickly with only one run to the parts store required. The transmission fluid is now a beautiful cherry red, and the black sludge circulating in my transmission was finally purged.

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A Quick Side Story

When I first got the Matrix, it had a body kit that made it look wider and lower to the ground. Despite its aesthetics, it was 22 years old, and the plastic clips that kept it connected to the car were brittle.

One night while driving home on the freeway, the car jumped as if I’d run over a large bump in the road. I was worried I had run over an invisible road obstruction and listened to my tires to see if I had a flat. Everything seemed fine, so I continued home.

For weeks after, I would look at the driver’s side of my car and wonder, “Wasn’t there more plastic on this side?” After weeks of not giving it much thought, I realized… I had run over my own degrading car! The section of plastic along the driver’s side of the car had broken loose on the freeway and was sucked under my rear tires. Soon after that, the remainder of the body kit was unceremoniously removed. A quick tug was all it took to break the brittle plastic clips, and the Matrix was suddenly looking trim, as if it had gotten in on the Ozempic fad.

Little by little, the Matrix has evolved from a decrepit problem car to a fit and reliable commuter vehicle.

I’ve had a lot of fun learning how to be a car guy. I get excited thinking about the next upgrade or repair that will make the car a little more comfortable or last a little longer. The stakes are low; if I seriously mess up, the car was free and has a low resale value. It’s the perfect car to learn how to fix.

The Matrix’s value has gone past its convenience and into community building.

Beyond the Repairs

Masculine friendship has always been an odd phenomenon to me. I’ve primarily been friends with women since I was a kid, but always with a rotating cast of male friends who come and go with mutual activities.

Working on this car has brought me closer to my BIL, and I can see now why it’s a typical masculine activity. You get dirty, you flex your muscles to pry metal, but you can also have roaming conversations while focusing on a mutual activity. Too often, young men don’t want to chat without having some activity that is the “main focus”, as if talking about their goals and dreams is too intimate to discuss without something to distract their full attention.

In addition to friendship, the garage became a bridge back to my father.

It feels like I’m closer to my dad when I work on the car. He was always working on one, talking to his car guy buddies about their cars, or playing a video game about racing cars. When I accomplish a minor repair, like unplugging a broken window control unit and plugging in a new one, the dopamine hit has me thinking, “My dad would have loved to hear about this.”

When I was younger and estranged from my dad, I always thought, “One day we’ll reconnect; after we’ve both done some growing.” When he died, I beat myself up for years for waiting for that “one day” that would never come. Working on the Matrix, it’s like time and space have contracted, and I’m a kid again, asking my dad to show me how to fix his beloved cars.

Learning about his hobby feels like I’m learning about him. It feels like a sort of ancestral dance, a tradition of honoring those who have left the physical world by taking part in the things they loved to do.

My dad is gone from this earthly plane, but the more time I spend working on my little rust bucket, the more I start to understand him.

Working on a car feels like performing medicine between man and machine. Investigating, listening, and testing an inanimate object to figure out how to bring it back to life or to restore its function is incredibly satisfying.

On the one hand, it feels like I’m Dr. Frankenstein yelling, “IT’S ALIVE, IT’S ALIVE!” as my steel companion roars back to life. On the other hand, it grows the bond of ownership, knowing that the vehicle that carries you across miles of bumpy roads is in working order by your two hands, “This car works because I make it work, I have kept it alive”.

I would hesitate to fully identify myself as a “car guy”, but I’m beginning to see the appeal. There are very few things we truly have control over in our lives. But, for those hours you’re in the garage fiddling with a car, suddenly you have full control.

I was never able to control my relationship with my dad. Now that I’ve dabbled in the car repair world, I feel like my dad and I are more similar than the differences that pushed us apart. If I could send this letter back in time to my younger self, maybe things would have been different. Until we discover time travel, I’ll have to settle for taking care of the Matrix as my bonding time with my dad.

Cars are simple machines with simple laws; every piece has been designed to be replaced or repaired. When there is a problem with a car, it is solvable. We can’t say the same about most things in life.

Thanks for reading,

Emery

You wake up with a start. “How can I sleep this late?!” Half-dressed, you fumble for coffee, cramming down food while your anxiety shouts, “You should have been writing already!” “Everyone else puts out 2 articles a week, I need to hurry up!”

Time is up; you have to run to work.

Driving is the worst time; your rusty steed shivers as sleek new cars breeze past. You jump from your day job back to your side jobs, eating while you frantically type away, “I need to catch up; if I work harder now, maybe I can take a break next week.”

Over and over again, we get caught in cycles of chasing “what everyone else has.” Our leisure feels like a waste of time. Our hobbies have become side hustles. Every dollar spent is agonized over. The inner critic grows in volume, constantly reminding us that we should be better, do better, and catch up because we are behind everyone else.

Every day feels like a race until we realize there is no finish line.

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Truth 1: There is No Path

The belief that we’re all on the same timeline is one of life’s biggest lies.

Life isn’t a linear path. Social comparison is a trap that sucks the life out of our happiness.

When we’re in school, it feels like we’re all on the same conveyor belt. You have the same major as your friends, you all make about the same money in your various student jobs, and everyone is about on the same level, just trying to push through to the end of college. This is an illusion. You might need to work two jobs to cover rent and pay toward your tuition while your friend collects an allowance from the family trust fund. Or another friend flips sneakers online and bought their first house as a sophomore in college, while another sells feet pics and never says how she can afford the latest gadgets.

Someone has a pregnant girlfriend; they stay up all night, stress-eating because they never imagined they’d be a 19-year-old parent. Another started college at 25 while raising two kids and holding down a bartending job.

You never know how someone’s story intersects with yours. Everyone fights invisible battles to arrive where they are. Appreciate the battles you fight and know that everyone has their own to handle.

Furthermore, comparison is an illusion; you can’t compete with someone’s highlight reel.

When we compare ourselves to what people post on Instagram, we’re comparing our worst moments to someone’s highlights. Rarely do people post their worst moments online.

Everyone has their own timeline; stay focused on yours.

Truth 2: We Don’t See the Whole Picture

People never share their whole reality.

I’ve found that when you have a real heart-to-heart with the people who seem to have it all together online, they let you peek behind the curtain, and the full picture comes into view. Sure, they’re posting pics of their jetsetter lifestyle, flights to New York for high-profile meetings, fancy dinners in Europe, all the while they’re barely paying rent or haven’t had health insurance in years.

The more we try to compare ourselves to how we think other people are living, the more miserable we become. That feeling of “being behind” is this idea that we are all on the same narrow path; some people progress down it faster, while you seem to go more slowly.

Instead, your path is only walked by you. You will always be crossing paths with others, but you’ll never know how they intersect or how far they’ll run together.

I picture a huge mountain with thousands of little footpaths crisscrossing its face. Some paths are steep from the beginning and then gently climb to the top. Others meander around the circumference of the mountain before making their ascent.

There is no map for this mountain. Every turn is blind, every climb is different. The only option we have is to keep our eyes on the road ahead of us and enjoy the journey.

Don’t become so fixated on the end of the path that you forget to enjoy the view on the way up or the people you meet along the way. The path will always be walked; there’s no option to jump to a different one.

Enjoy the path for both the ugly and the beautiful sections.

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Truth 3: Enjoy the Struggle

Struggle well on your journey; don’t look for excuses or cop-outs.

It’s easy to focus on the past: “If I did something different, life would be so much easier.” Nor should we focus on someone’s life, “they have it so easy, they must have x, y, z benefits to support them.” This kind of thinking reduces your focus on your path. It’s all distractions. It’s easier to complain that you don’t have what someone else has instead of working on your next step forward.

Don’t seek out distractions. Keep your eyes on the step in front of you and get excited to put in effort for your goals.

We love to default to the easy tasks, the things that feel productive but don’t move us forward. The hard tasks move the needle the most, but they’re often the most dreaded. Learn to love the difficult tasks. Enjoy being uncomfortable. When we’re uncomfortable, we have found the space between where we are and where we want to go. That is the space we grow in, where we see change occur.

When the going gets tough, that’s when we grow, not when we quit.

There is no singular path. We each have our own journey to stumble along. Focus on the road in front of you, enjoy the struggle, and subscribe for more :)

Thanks for reading,

Emery

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I’ve always been the skinny guy - until I learned how to eat and train for my body.

Over the years, I failed countless times by running into injuries, setbacks, and frustration. I still get the “You are skin and bone!” comments, but after changing how I eat and train, the scale finally moved - and so did my confidence.

1. How to Build

For whatever reason, my teenage brain had latched onto calisthenics as the “right” path to building a body. For about 10 years, I was hyper-focused on pullups, pushups, one-leg squats, etc. I lost count of how many workout routines I quit after months without results. Or how often I hurt myself rushing into advanced movements. (It was frequent.)

In grad school, I joined the local gym and started learning how to lift weights. Still ignorant of my limits, I mixed calisthenics and weights too quickly and injured myself performing weighted pullups. I had to stop again, even lifting a cup of tea triggered sharp pain in my right shoulder.

After a few weeks of trying to fix my shoulder on my own, a doctor sent me to physical therapy for 6 visits. From physical therapy, I learned basics I’d been ignoring, like warming up before a workout.

Despite everything I learned, physical therapy didn’t solve my pain. That’s when I went back to “Convict Conditioning” by Paul Wade. I skimmed through it in high school and a few times since to find my next pushup and pullup progression, but I had never taken the time to read the sections on training. I realized I’d been a huge fool!

The author clearly talks about the importance of beginning with the easiest regression of every movement to teach the body how to move and to build the tendons and accessory muscles. After facepalming myself a dozen times, I got back to work.

I started with the easiest regressions of every major calisthenics move. These were the very bedrock of future movements, but my ego had me practicing in the early morning so no one could see me.

For pushups, I began with wall pushups, only scooting my feet an inch further at a time once I could complete 50 perfect pushups in a row. Pullups began with door frame pulls (I used the bannister of the staircase). With my weight mostly in my feet, I would lean away from the bannister and concentrate on pulling with my whole back.

I spent months on the basics, with a minimum of 4 weeks for each step. It was slow and unexciting, but it returned strength to my shoulder and allowed me to keep training.

Everything I learned in those months about my body and how it wants to move and progress remains invaluable to my understanding of the body and athletics.

Lesson 1: Focus on regressions, the flashy movements come later

But learning how to build basic strength wasn’t enough; I also had to face the fact that I was starving myself.

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2. How to Eat

During grad school, I found myself working out in the mornings, attending school all day, mountain biking once a week, and attending a martial arts class twice a week.

It was after a busy day of 3 hours of martial arts and 3 hours of mountain biking, that I finally realized: I wasn’t eating enough.

It suddenly made sense why all those attempts at working out ended in frustration at not seeing any results. You can’t expect to build muscle when you’re barely eating enough to stay awake!

This led me to stage 2 of my fitness education: if you want to get big, you need to eat big.

After tracking my calories, I found I was eating about 1500 calories on a good day. At 1500 calories, I wasn’t just skinny, I was dizzy, hangry, and exhausted. No wonder I wasn’t growing! My new goal was 3,000 calories a day. Eating that much was harder than the exercise!

I crammed extra calories into each meal, choked down a 1,000-calorie shake, even scarfed down flour tortillas at the end of the day to hit 3,000. I felt sick for weeks.

Eventually, I started to find things that worked for me. First off, I realized I couldn’t eat a 1,000-calorie meal in one sitting. So I started having 4, 600-800-calorie meals a day. With a couple of extra snacks and an intentionally overcaloried protein shake, I was right at my 3,000-calorie goal.

Suddenly, I wasn’t hangry. I could go hours without eating because now I had a small store of energy, and I could do all of my activities without getting dizzy!

Now that I’ve broken past the mental block of chronically undereating, I can’t go back. Now my four meals a day are strong habits. When I work with people in the clinic or in the field, I always check in to make sure people are eating enough of the right things.

Lesson 2: What you do in the kitchen is more important than what you do in the gym.

Now that I had the building blocks to develop lasting strength and the calories to keep it, it was time to put on weight.

3. How to Grow

Learning how to eat was 90% of the battle; the final 10% began when I learned how to grow.

About 2 years after figuring out how to correctly feed myself, I was living in a one-bedroom apartment in Oakland with my then-fiancé. Unfortunately, we wanted different things, and broke up. But neither of us could afford to leave before our lease was up, so we resolved to play nice.

Needing to spend time out of the apartment, I joined a local gym and threw myself into a new lifting habit. I found a program for “hard gainers” such as myself (aka, people who struggle to put on weight). It split the week into 4 workouts: Chest, Back, Legs, Shoulders + Arms. After a few weeks of using this program, I wanted to balance it out a little bit and include a leg day in between each upper body day (I always think it’s funny when men have huge arms and little legs). But I also wanted my skinny arms to grow faster, so I added arms on complementary days. My new schedule looked like this:

Monday: Chest + Triceps

Tuesday: Quads + Calves

Wednesday: Back + Biceps

Thursday: Glutes/Hams + Calves

Friday: Shoulders + Arms

I applied Lesson 1 and built up slowly by staying with each weight for 4 weeks before adding more. For example, when I found that I could dumbbell bench press with 30lbs, I kept 30lbs as my heaviest weight and continued to increase my depth of motion and increased repetitions for 4 weeks before I moved up to the 35lb dumbbells.

For new exercises, if I couldn’t get the deep range of motion and stretch I wanted out of an exercise, I reduced the weight until I found the balance.

This kept me from injuring myself early on. It let me tune in my form without flailing around with weights that were too heavy.

At the beginning, any exercise I tried made me sore. After a few weeks of continually raising the weight and keeping the same range of motion, some exercises stopped leaving me sore. Whenever this happened, I turned back to YouTube to find videos on correct exercise form and to find exercises that worked the muscle more efficiently. This allowed me to hone in on the exercises that felt good and that I could feel making progress.

Most importantly, I kept exercise a priority, I used methods from Atomic Habits by James Clear to keep exercise a naturally occurring habit rather than a daily decision, and I kept it fun. Because it was fun, I rarely missed my 5 days a week. Because of that consistency, I started to see my body change little by little.

This was the first year I started to see real changes in my body from working out. With my calorie intake dialed in and consistent weekly volume, my body started to change. After years of failed routines, friends and family noticed the change. It validated everything I had learned to finally put the pieces together and go in the right direction.

Lesson 3: Make exercise a fun habit and find movements that feel good for you. Start light and increase slowly. Stay consistent.

Once the habit is consistent for a long time, you’ll know what works for you and where you want to make changes.

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4. Moving Forwards

Now that I’ve made it through my first year of consistent weight training, I’ve learned a lot about where I want to go next.

Now I’m changing my weekly volume - the sets worked per muscle per week. For the first 9 months of this last year, I would do about 3-4 sets per exercise, expecting it to be enough, and I was usually sore after each workout. By month 10, I stopped being sore despite increasing the weight of each exercise. After going back to my YouTube gurus of Dr. Mike Israetel and Jeff Nippard, I realized my weekly volume per muscle was only about 8 or 9 sets, pretty low after a year of training.

A few weeks ago, I started hitting 15 sets per muscle per week, and now I am pushing more weight and waking up sore more often.

Another limitation is that my workouts are too focused.

I have 1 day for each: chest/triceps, glutes/hams, quads, back/biceps, shoulders/arms, with forearms, calves, and abs thrown in twice a week each. This has worked for me so far because I haven’t had to worry about any muscle group being too tired before being worked again, except occasionally biceps or triceps.

But fitness experts say that muscles grow best when trained 2-3 times a week … and my current plan isn’t flexible enough for that. I’m already spending 1.5 to 2 hours a day in the gym!

So my next project is to devise and test a modular workout plan that rotates through every muscle group 3 times a week. My goal is to see more growth.

If you’re frustrated with your progress, remember: eat big, start small, and stay consistent. Do that, and the skinny guy you see in the mirror today won’t be the one you see a year from now.

Thanks for reading,

Emery

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Brick-and-mortar banks have gone the way of the dinosaurs. Despite a growing gap in amenities, 65% of Americans still prefer traditional banks.

In 2021, I decided to change my bank. After years of paying fees I thought were mandatory and receiving pennies as my “interest”, I decided enough was enough. Why am I paying $15 a month for “account maintenance”? Money has been digital for years; there is nothing to ‘’maintain”.

They add insult to injury by providing a “competitive interest rate” of 0.01%. Let's get this straight…I pay you to keep my money safe while you use my money to make loans to people …and I get a penny while you make billions every year? That’s insane.

I thought this was the only way it could be. I’d been with Wells Fargo since I was 8 years old, when my dad took me to open my first savings account. I thought 0.01% interest was amazing. My money grows while I do nothing! I never thought too much about it again, not knowing what lay just beyond those red-walled banks.

Before you spend another decade stuck in the traditional banking trap, I implore you to take a look at what online banks can offer.

Three Reasons to drop brick-and-mortar banks:

1. Garbage interest rates - most big banks offer 0.01%

2. Monthly fees - you pay $10+ a month for maintenance of digital money

3. Bare bones account features - No automation or division into individual vaults

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Reason 1: Interest rates

When my dad passed away, I received a small inheritance. At that time, it was a huge amount of money to me. I had no idea what to do with it (now I know that many people make this amount in a month or even a week). I researched and asked around for advice on what to do, not wanting to spend it, but not sure how to preserve it.

That’s when I stumbled on something that felt like a financial cheat code: high-yield savings accounts. Banks that offer 5% interest?! A thing of fantasy. I instantly opened an account and patted myself on the back for my internet sleuthing skills.

A few years after parking my gold pebbles in wonderland, I realized I could benefit from the same interest rate in my daily bank. Wells Fargo had charged me their poor people tax for the last time, so I found my new bank, Sofi, and transitioned over.

The dream life of 4% interest and no poor taxes was mine.

I try to save friends and family from the matrix of brick-and-mortar banks. Violently shaking them while screaming “GO ONLINE”. No one listens, it's a pain to change primary banks, and people are skeptical of online-only businesses.

I don't subscribe to the belief that because a business has survived a hundred years that it is the best option. If a business relies on reputation to maintain customers instead of competing to provide the best customer experience, I don't want to bank with them.

When you look at a list of brick-and-mortar banks and the interest rates they offer, you see right away they’re all garbage: 0.01% APY for Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Chase, and US Bank. To add insult to injury, they also charge monthly service fees to cover the costs of the physical locations.

With Sofi, my savings account gets about 4.5% interest (at the time of this writing). That is a 450% increase in earning potential on liquid cash.

A lot of personal finance influencers talk trash about saving by saying, “Savers are losers”. What they mean is this: because inflation is constantly eroding the value of your cash by about 3% every year, holding a significant amount of cash in anything that isn’t generating a return above 3% causes you to lose money daily.

When you stay with a bank that offers 0.01% interest, you are losing money every day. Stop losing, and start earning.

In one year at 4.5% interest at Sofi, I earned over $100, which would have been a few pennies if I had stayed at Wells Fargo. What could you do with an extra $100 a year? That’s a meal with friends or a tank of gas, all paid for by your money working for you.

Reason 2: Monthly Fees

Commonly called the “poor person tax”, many traditional banks charge an account maintenance fee that is only charged when your balance falls below a certain threshold or you don’t run a minimum number of transactions.

This tax was a real pain in the caboose during college and graduate school when the end of the semester started to get financially tight. When you only have $200 in your checking account to survive the month before student loans are disbursed, paying $15 to keep your bank account is a big hit.

Fortunately, it is a choice to pay those fees. Switch banks so you’re not nickel and dimed into (deeper) poverty.

Also, most traditional banks charge when you complete more than 6 transactions in a month in your savings account. I think this is dumb. It’s your money. The bank is there to provide you with a service. Yes, they need to make money too, but not at the expense of the little guys of the world. You shouldn’t have to pay to use your money.

Cut out the fees and get away from the toxic financial relationships that are keeping you down.

Reason 3: Account Features

When I was with Wells Fargo, I had two accounts: my checking and my savings. I had to check my budget before I moved anything around, as I couldn’t partition my accounts any further.

With my Sofi savings account, I can set up dedicated “vaults” that hold money that has been set aside for particular budget items. This means that when I get my paycheck, I split it into:

- Student loan repayment

- Retirement

- Savings

I put these allotted dollars into their own subaccounts so I can instantly see how much I have for each goal.

Also, with these individual vaults, you can create triggers that grow the vault without having to remember to log in and do it yourself.

These automations can be a simple “round-up” that auto-deposits the difference between your card transaction and the next whole number into a vault of your choosing. For example, I paid $3.40 for a snack with my debit card, $0.60 gets auto-deposited into my student loans vault. It's a small addition, but it helps build those vaults over time.

You can also automate parsing out your paycheck, ie, set up a rule where 5% of every paycheck gets automatically deposited into your retirement account. This removes the emotion when it's time to divvy up your paycheck. When your bank automatically divides your money by following the rules you set, you can’t balk at the sight of cutting your $1,000 paycheck down to $700 after your money has been placed into vaults. Our emotions may tell us “I need every dollar from this paycheck this month. I’ll save whatever is left over at the end of the month”. We all know how that goes: the end of the month arrives, and you have found things like “self-care” or “child support” to pay for, and there is nothing left.

Don’t delay your retirement or debt paydown goals; let your bank account divide that paycheck up before your emotional brain can talk you out of it.

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These things feel minor at first, but they substantially streamline your personal finances, especially when you’re migrating from a bank that gives you zero control over how your account functions.

If your bank is paying you pennies while charging you dollars, it’s not your bank, it’s your enemy. Open a high-yield savings account today — your future self will thank you.

What do you like about your bank account? Leave a comment!

Thanks for reading,

Emery

I’m tired of begging for a job.

I quit my door-to-door solar sales job at the end of July with no plan for what came next. After a month of unemployment, about 50 applications sent out, and only 3 or 4 rejection emails, I’m tired of waiting for someone to pay me.

I hate job hunting because it always feels like I’m begging employers to give me a chance to make them money. I don’t dream of working for $16.50 so the owner can make 6 figures off my labor; it doesn’t inspire me to write a convincing cover letter.

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I’m fairly confident I can do any job that doesn't require specialized knowledge, ie, medical doctoring or lawyering. But, the annoying part of job hunting is that if my resume doesn’t have anything about a particular job, ie, making coffee or renting out cars, then employers think I am incapable of learning the secrets of pouring coffee or following the prompts on a checkout software.

In spite of my inherent disdain for employment, I like the consistent paychecks and benefits that come with the indentured life.

However, as I’ve been waiting for any employer to respond to their email, I am running out of financial runway. My months of selling solar burned the remainder of my savings, and I am out of big-ticket personal belongings to sell on the internet. I haven't been this broke since college, and I didn't have all of the bills or the student debt back then.

As much as I would like to sit happily idle and enjoy my unemployment, I cannot.

Idle for me these few weeks has been working on all of the side projects I didn't have time for when selling solar. I started my first real attempt at a YouTube channel, I opened another Etsy store, I’m trying to get a new acupuncture business off the ground, and I’m back to writing consistently. Unfortunately, my writing is my most profitable side project, and it brings in only a fistful of dollars per month (on average), so I can’t wait for that to keep me floating. The other projects are in their infancy and need more time to see if they’ll make daddy a dollar.

While I wait for those projects to bring home the bacon and for an employer to smile upon me, I recognize I need to cover my expenses. I thought, “If I could just make $100 a day, I could be okay for a while”.

If I were to jump into minimum wage hell, $100 divided by $16.50 equals 6 hours.

6 hours a day is a long time, especially when you’re getting paid peanuts for your time. As much as I want to be paid, I have a couple of responsibilities that I value more than a minimum wage job, such as coaching at my alma mater and taking care of my grandfather. Because I already have these time constraints and I want to treat people with acupuncture again (there are no acupuncture jobs where I’m at, so I need to create my own work), I need to find something flexible that can fill in the income gap until I start getting patients and my side projects start carrying their weight.

This led me to start my $100 a day challenge. Every day, I have to find a way to make at least $100. I have a couple of odd jobs that pay decently but are inconsistent, so I needed something I have some control over.

After looking at other remote work options, I went back to Data Annotation (referral code: zbojvOo). I previously wrote about this work; I find it dreadfully boring as you read very long instructions and figure out what they want you to find wrong in equally long AI prompt-and-response chains. Because it is so boring, I always feel averse to doing it, despite it paying between $20-30 an hour (IF there is available work).

However, beggars can’t be choosers, and since I still had access to the site, I decided that making $25 an hour reading minutiae and still having time to coach and work on my own projects is a far better deal than working for $16.50 and having a 19-year-old manager preach about his god complex.

With this path ahead of me, I decided to make it a game and include a few rules on what I can and cannot do to reach that $100 minimum.

Rules:

1. $100 has to be made 5 days a week, minimum.

   1. Extra is good, but doesn’t cancel out deficient days

2. Money from investments does not count towards the daily minimum

   1. This includes stock dividends or gains from trading. That money stays in the stock portfolio, so it is not available as gas money

3. Crypto games or staking don’t count because they're not immediately usable

   1. I like playing little crypto games because I like the potential to make a few cents while I’m getting my dopamine hit for the day. However, that money is also unusable for gas, so it does not count

4. Excess money from one day can’t cover the deficiencies of another day

   1. I want to begin with $100 a day and steadily grow that minimum. To prevent laziness, I can’t count the $400 I make on one day as 4 separate days.

I created a simple Notion calendar with days that turn green when I hit the $100 and red if I’m below $100. That way, I have a nice visual of what I did or didn’t do in a month.

My goal is to quickly bypass the $100 a day mark. As my current jobs shift around and I get some data on $100 a day, I can raise the minimum to $200. If I can maintain this minimum while I start a new sales job and build up my acupuncture business, I can keep myself afloat and not worry when I need to put gas in the car.

At 29 years old, I’m really tired of being in this financial situation. This is not how I imagined life after graduate school would be. However, we carry on. Life could be a whole lot worse, so if being broke but able to work is where I’m at, I’ll take it.

What do you do when you’re unemployed? How do you manage your existential dread? Leave a comment!

Thanks for reading,

Emery

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I told myself I would never go back, “I will never live in the desert,” I said 100 times.

The walls of the valley used to feel like stone guardians, silently holding me in this fishbowl. “You have everything you need right here, no need to go beyond the walls,” the purple mountains seemed to whisper with every sunrise.

I always dreamed of what could be beyond those walls:

Adventure? Maybe.

People leading exciting lives? Possibly.

The opportunity to be anybody I wanted to be? Yes.

I always thought the desert was the most boring place in the world. That had to be why everybody came here to retire, right?

It felt like everybody already knew me. The person I had been was the only person I could be.

Once I left the valley and lived without the boundaries of those purple mountains, the possibilities felt endless. Finally, I could see to the horizon, watching the sun dip over the edge of the ocean and slowly creep up across the fields and forests in the morning.

Even there, in a new state with new people, I felt like I was missing out on something. There was more to do in this city, and I could create my own identity here. But it wasn’t as exciting as I had imagined. “They must be doing something more in other countries,” I thought.

I went out to see the world. I circled Europe, drinking and eating (and sometimes dancing) my way through Paris, Berlin, and Rome.

I saw the remnants of the Roman Empire, catching a glimpse of its enormous power while standing in awe of the massive buildings that have survived the burden of time.

I finally visited Venice, a city I had dreamed of since I was a child, after reading a book about a gang of orphans that survived in the margins of Venice through petty theft.

I bore witness at Auschwitz, seeing the scarred walls of the gas chambers, feeling the presence of tortured souls still lingering in the ruins.

I rode the tube and wandered the streets of London, and climbed a million miniature steps to reach the top of golden cathedrals.

I ate tapas in the mercados of Madrid and watched the beautiful improvisation of flamenco.

I ate noodles and broth out of deeply stained pots that have never stopped boiling in the streets of Hanoi.

I saw the Pyramids of Giza, the Great Sphinx, and a whole lot of mummies.

I wandered through Old Jerusalem to witness the Wailing Wall, the Dome of the Rock, and the Israeli colonization of Palestine.

I dodged cow pies and tuk-tuks to see the Taj Mahal. I sat under the tree at Bodh Gaya, where Buddha observed the truth behind reality.

Finally, I sat in reflection at a monastery for a month in Nepal, eating momos and deciding what came next.

Lesson 1: I went out into the world looking for something I thought was missing in my life. I thought by going to alien lands, surviving traveler's diarrhea, and taking selfies with landmarks, I would find what I was missing.

Instead, I found people who were living their lives. But despite the difference in social norms and unique food, it was the same life as anywhere else. “Same shit, different day” is a universal truth, no matter where you live.

Life outside of the fishbowl was the same as life in it, just in different locations with different food and (better) weather. I realized that it doesn’t matter where you live, only how you live.

When I was concerned about missing out on the rest of the world, I was missing what I had right in front of me: a loving family, supportive friends, and a safe place to start over. The world is an exciting place, but you can search it for a lifetime and never find what you think you’re missing. This reminds me of the quote,

I had a poster of Buddha quote’s in my room in highschool and college, despite seeing this same quote for at least 6 years, I was still searching for my peace out in the world.

It wasn’t until I came home after a decade of chasing my tail across the world, undergrad and grad school, and a dozen relationships later, that I finally realized the sense of belonging I was searching so desperately for, was waiting for me back in the fishbowl.

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Lesson 2: The Importance of Community

When my partner wanted to stay in the Bay Area, I decided to commit to living in Oakland for at least 5 years so that I could establish myself. When I started my clinic, I realized I was missing a major piece; I had zero connection to the community. I was just some transplant invader who thought he could outwork the people who have generations of connections to the area. People take a long time to warm up to acupuncture in general, but especially when it's with someone who just blew into town last week.

When my housing situation and relationship fell apart in Oakland, I saw my choices very clearly in front of me: I could use the remainder of my dwindling savings to move into another shithole apartment and try to scratch out a bigger piece of pie for myself in Oakland, or I could take that same savings and use it to pack my life up and move back to the fishbowl.

Once I was back in the fishbowl, I was surrounded by the love and support of my family and lifelong friends. It finally dawned on me why people live close to family.

During the difficult years I had living far from family, major issues and changes had to be handled alone with limited choices. I feel blessed because now I see my family every day, and I have family and friends that give me all the time and support they can provide to help me get back on my feet. Without these people and their support, I’d be in a significantly worse position.

So when I was faced with the choice between staying in the fishbowl and searching the outside world for any job, I finally came face to face with what I want. I want to stay.

Instead of getting back on the soul-search treadmill, I realized this is the best place for me at this time. Once I got over my idiotic sense of defeat for ending up right where I started, I recognized that all of the growth and experience I’d collected from my time away gave me a new perspective to finally see what the fishbowl could be. It was no longer a trap designed to keep me away from the exciting outside world, it is instead the right place to build a steady foundation. The ground had been prepared for years, just waiting for construction to begin, and now I am at a point to see the potential in what I once thought was useless.

Lesson 3: Importance of Consistency

For a long time, I was caught up with the narrative that life needs to be chaotic to be worthwhile.

When you look at the lives of the biggest achievers, they succeeded through consistent, regular action over a lifetime. When there is structure, you can manipulate your choices within that structure to optimize for what you want to achieve. When there is no structure, your ability to achieve becomes random.

This is another lesson I’ve slowly come to recognize as powerful: the long, slow game. I always get caught up with impatience. I want to be rich NOW, I want to have my dream job NOW, I want to eat ice cream NOW. Sometimes those things are immediately achievable; usually, you have to wait. I always thought being rich would happen suddenly, one day you wake up with a million dollars in the bank. The steady wealth I read about comes from those who focus on the regular activities that slowly grow their potential for wealth and achievement without relying on an explosive expansion. “The harder I work, the luckier I get” said Samuel Goldwyn of MGM fame, emphasizing the importance of consistent work to be in a position for that explosive growth we dream of.

This feels like a classic Hero’s Journey from Joseph Campbell. I had to leave on my quest before returning to discover that the life I wanted was the life I began with.

I know that if I hadn’t gone out to explore, if I had stayed in the fishbowl without seeing the world outside of it, I would always wonder what my life could be rather than seeing what my life is.

I like the life that I am shaping in the fishbowl. I am finding my way back into the community, finding where I can apply what I’ve learned, and how I can help. I love seeing my family and life-long friends more often. I’m excited to see what I can build on this foundation.

Moving home after being out in the world for 10 years felt like a failure. Instead of dwelling on everything I did wrong, I’m focusing on the opportunity I have to start fresh.

Thanks for reading,

Emery

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Photo by Maia Habegger on Unsplash

I discovered that online dating is easier for women. I’ll show you the proof later.

Online dating as a man is a classic feast or famine situation; either the matches are rolling in, or we wait through silence.

Depending on where you live, the internet agrees this is normal for men. (If you ask the incels, it's because someone named Chad has claimed all the women? I’m not sure who he is, but I respect the rizz.)

For the women on dating apps, they have a completely different story. I’ve heard tales of too many matches with only a few worthwhile dates.

I wanted to confirm the hot girl stories…so I became a hot girl.

Becoming The Hot Girl

I curated a selection of open-source photos to forge my hot girl persona. I wanted the boys to come running, but I didn’t want to harm anybody's reputation if the experiment turned sour.

I made a brief bio with the requisite height and astrology sign included, and opened the floodgates.

Within an hour of becoming a hot girl, I had over 100 new matches and messages. I was shocked at the flood of attention.

Is this what it feels like to be hot?!

Reminding myself I was a fake hot girl, I got back into character and started observing the incoming messages.

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Feedback for the Boys

Most of the messages were low-effort hey’s and “you’re cute”. Some men tried to stand out from the crowd with a fun pickup line. A few promised various sexual experiences that would be “the best you ever had,” with uncomfortably explicit descriptions.

In my experience, and depending on who you are flirting with, sending sexually explicit messages to someone I’m not in a relationship with has never resulted in a good response. It feels lazy. If you want to get into my imaginary hot girl pants, you’ll need to buy me dinner first, at the very least.

Sexy talk tends to work better when it's non-explicit: Flirting and acting casual while building tension and anticipation of what sex could be. When you cut straight to telling someone you’ve never met that you’ll do x, y, and z, the game is already over, you’ve lost all tension, and now it's just weird.

We want to want things. Desire is fun, but it needs to be built up. Play the game! You don't need to deny that you want sex; only put that desire behind a veil of playful banter so there is a level of mystery and fun.

This type of flirting isn’t for everyone, and it doesn’t work on everyone. But I see it as being respectful of people wanting to play the game, and it leaves room for respectful disengagement if desire never accumulates.

A Note to the F*ckboys

I started to understand the complaints I've heard from women about online dating (the shit some of these men say is wild). I should have taken a poll on how often their explicit openers worked to get them a date (this was Tinder, so maybe it was more effective than I’d think).

But just being a guy and seeing these messages, I understand now why there are so many incels in the world. Of course men are “involuntary celibates” when they talk to women like this. It’s like these guys don’t have mothers or sisters. Or they believe all women are as desperate for sex as men are.

Let's get something straight: men are historically shitty to women.

Men want to have sex and “show women a good time.” But when that woman gets pregnant because the man is “allergic to latex”, suddenly you become a child and deny any responsibility. Because this drama plays out a hundred times a day, women are suspicious of you. Sure, maybe you know some sex move that will rock her socks, but more than likely, you’re just trying to bang and leave before shit gets real. Women have to be 100 times more careful about who they have sex with because they get stuck with the baby when things go wrong.

Because of that, when you begin with fuckboy energy, she can see the problem from a mile away and stays very far away (unless she likes having problems with fuckboys).

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Experiment Results

My experiment ended very quickly because I had so many fake matches and no desire to sort through the horde of drooling men (I may have made my profile too hot).

Granted, I swiped right on every person because I wanted to see what would happen. I assume if I were a real hot girl (and based on what I’ve heard from women about how they decide who to swipe right on), I’d be much more careful with my right swipes and end up with far fewer matches.

Even then, I’d have significantly more matches to explore than when I'm swiping as myself.

The low-effort conversations I’ve experienced on Tinder with women make sense now. Why put effort into a text when you have 10 other texts you need to reply to?

This goes back to my realization about opening lines, the amount of hey’s and “how you doin'” was about 90% of the total openers.

This leads me to the conclusion that, to succeed as a man on Tinder, you must:

1. Lead with an attention-grabbing first message

2. Swiftly transition from app to public first date

3. Don't be creepy/sexual off the bat

(These tips have not been tested; they are purely hypothetical.)

The issue with transitioning to in-person is that people tend to be wary of people they've met online, especially at first. If you go for the date too soon, you might come off as a serial killer. But if you wait too long, you might come off as wanting a pen pal.

This experience reminds me of when I was in India. Any time a solo woman was hanging out in the hostel, all the Indian men would form a semi-circle around her to chat with her. Even though Indian women are beautiful, my internal social norms (and anxiety) wouldn't allow me to join the circle of men.

Social norms in the US deter men from surrounding women IRL, but we do it on dating apps. We all vie for the same small population of women who choose to put themselves on dating apps, hoping to stand out from the crowd and get picked for a chance to show our gentlemanliness.

Because there is an imbalance in the number of men who are competing for the same group of women on dating apps, men need to find ways to stand out and break the mold of irresponsible fuckboys that have paved the way.

Be the nice guy who reminds her that men can be decent human beings. Do it for the boys.

Thanks for reading,

Emery

You are at your funeral.

Your friends, family, and all of your ex-girlfriends (gulp) made it out today to say their goodbyes.

They’re sitting in rapt attention as the next person steps up to your open casket and takes the microphone to talk about their memories of you.

What do they say? Are you happy with the story you hear?

Will they talk about the years you spent chasing a job that kept you away from your family? Or will they remember how you made it to every one of your kids’ soccer games, always the loudest cheerleader on the sidelines?

Deciding when to leave a job or when to buckle down and push through a rough patch at work is never an easy choice. You start to question who you are, what you’re working so hard for, or if this job is truly your passion.

This article attempts to provide some guidance in these tough decisions. First, we will go through a practice that will make every career decision significantly easier, then we’ll look at when it is time to quit and when it is time to stay.

1. Before You Begin

In the Compound Effect, Darren Hardy says to begin by writing down what you want your life to look like. Start with everything outside of money. What kind of marriage do you want, where do you want to live, and what hobbies do you want to pursue?

Only after you’ve painted a picture of the life you want can you fill in your financial goals around that ideal life.

He reasons that we focus on our financial goals and sacrifice everything else to achieve them. We’re left unhappy and burnt out because we pursued money rather than the life that we dreamed of.

This goes into what Stephen Covey talks about in the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, as well as Robert Greene in the 48 Laws of Power:

“At the beginning, think about the end.”

In this practice, you visualize what you want at the end of life. Covey suggests imagining your funeral and figuring out what you want people to say about you (try writing your eulogy).

You can apply this to shorter goals as well: where you want to go with a job or how you want a relationship to progress. This way, you have a direction to aim towards rather than allowing yourself to be pulled in any direction the wind takes you.

With this practice, you know exactly where you want your adventure to end. Once you know how your story ends, you can work backwards and figure out how to reach that ending.

If your current job doesn't lead you to where you want to end, then the decision is an easy one. If it does lead you to your ideal ending, then maybe you are experiencing some short-term friction. Only you can figure this out.

TLDR: Before you begin a journey, ask yourself if this journey leads you to where you want to be at the end of your life.

2. When to Quit

Some decisions are easy; you skim the review page of a 3-month meditation retreat and sign up on the spot.

Others are not so easy. You stay with the wrong partner for years, telling yourself you’re just one conversation away from being on the same page. Or you stick with a job that you love, but it barely covers rent, telling yourself that once you get that raise or hit that sale quota, the lean nights of eating 99-cent ramen were worth it.

My therapist hates when I say this, but I get stuck in the “It’s just easier to keep doing this” even when I’m miserable and I know what I need to change.

Our lives aren't perfectly segmented into separate arenas for finances, social, and health. If one part of life is dragging us down, everything else will be affected. It’s like spotting mold on one side of a tomato. If you don’t cut off that mold quickly, the whole thing will be a mold ball before you’re ready to enjoy it.

Cut off the mold before you miss out on the whole deal.

I spent three weeks struggling to decide if it was time to quit a sales job.

The advice my salesman cousin gave me is, “Look at the top salespeople in your office, do you want their lives?” For the last four months, I was hellbent on achieving the financial abundance of those top dogs, but the more I heard about their personal lives and their work/life balance, the less appealing it became.

This goes back to the first exercise. If the life you want to end with and the life of your coworkers who are 5-10 years down the road are not aligned, then your decision is easy: this is not your road, keep looking.

TLDR: When a venture doesn't lead you to where you want to be in the end, don’t hesitate to move on.

3. When to Stay

It’s impossible to see the road beyond our immediate decisions.

We try our best to look into the future and anticipate the next step that might follow each decision. Unfortunately, life isn’t a game of chess where you can narrow down your choices by the probability of each subsequent response to your move. Life is a wild rollercoaster that enjoys taking you in directions you never thought possible.

Change is scary; we prefer to cling to our normal rather than the unpredictability of change. We never know if good news will arrive soon, or if we’re deluding ourselves by waiting for good news to be around the next corner.

Knowing when to quit is also knowing when not to quit. The differences can be hard to pinpoint, but they become very clear the more you unearth them.

If you are having a hard time at work or in your career, take the time to complete the exercise in this article: Write out the life you want to create (do you want to be inside all day, do you want to volunteer at your kid’s school, do you miss painting?) and then fill in your financial goals around this ideal life. If that ideal life and your current job are aligned, then figure out what you need to do to push through the rough patch you’re in. If they aren’t aligned, MOVE ON.

Life is hard, and we often try to hide from the difficulties. Growth happens in the space between where we are and where we want to go. Lean into discomfort, push yourself to grow a little bit every day. One day, you’ll look back and realize you overcame more odds than you ever dreamed of.

It could be that your career is aligned with your life goal, but the company or position you’re in now is not. It is okay to change companies or job titles as long as you stay on the road to your goal.

Don’t give up on your goals. Failure is never failure if you learn from your mistakes and continue to grow. Failure becomes defeat when you give up on your dreams and stop growing and adapting. It’s encouraged to fail, but never be defeated.

TLDR: If your venture leads you to where you want to go, but it is difficult, focus on making small, daily improvements. Your difficulties will soon become easy.

I hope that the insights here can help you decide where you're going, who you want to be, and if grinding out that job is truly worth your time.

How do you decide when it is time to throw in the towel or strap in to get the hard work done? Share in the comments!

Thanks for reading,

Emery

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Dearest Oakland,

It is with a light heart that I bid you adieu.

It’s only been a year since I’ve resided in your land, and that was all I needed.

It took that short time for me to feel like an alien observer when I visited towns without mountains of trash on the sidewalks or car-destroying potholes lining the roads.

I moved to your lands in a different life, with a different dream. That life is long dead, and my only dream is to escape the crushing hustle. When I first arrived here, I thought the wave of people fleeing Oakland were crazy, I said, “It’s great here!”. Now I realize how right they had it, It’s time to get out of here!

I appreciate the people I met here, the fun I had, and the food I savored.

It's amazing how nice the people are in Oakland. Despite all the craziness you hear on the news or the aftermath you see on the street, the people who go about their lives in Oakland are the nicest folks I’ve ever met.

The food (I could afford) was some of the best I’ve had. With cuisines from across the world, Oakland is a foodies dream. Too bad it costs a kidney anytime you want to eat out!

I won't miss your insane housing market ($1,200 for a closet with a shared bathroom, a hot plate, and a mini fridge). Or my newfound skill of walking while simultaneously watching the ground for poop (human or animal? Who knows) and looking around to make sure no weirdos are coming my way.

The high rents seemed reasonable when I first arrived, now they look like a sad joke. Sure, you’re “Bay area living”, but what's the point in living here when 90% of your income goes to paying the landlord? Who wants to live like that, only to proudly say, “I live in Oakland”?

In all its messiness, I loved Oakland. Its people are cautious but friendly, strong, and interconnected. Despite my love for the Town, working 6 days a week (plus cramming in any writing or side hustling I can) to eke out a living in dank basements has grown old.

I hear stories of cities to the east where homes are affordable, wages are livable, and the streets are clean. My desire to find my success in this city has hit its final roadblock: “Why am I here?” was answered with a resounding silence.

I was talking to a friend about my education plans (yes, more school, I can’t get enough), and I was telling them it felt like I was preparing to climb a mountain. I was gathering tools, reading trail stories, and imagining the view from the top. But, there's always the question, “Do I need to climb this mountain? Why this mountain?”

Living in Oakland has come down to the same question: Do I need to be here? No, no, I don’t.

I’ve been trying to leave for months, but my opportunities out of here either didn’t work out, or I let them go because I wasn’t ready to leave yet.

Now feels like the right time to leave. I’ve been standing a mile up the trail, looking ahead, looking behind, and trying to decide: 1) is it worth it? 2) Do I want to climb this mountain? 3) Is there a different mountain I would rather be climbing?

After seeing the 6th shithole apartment I could barely afford in the area, I realized that, no, I do not want to be on this damn mountain and, yes, there are many other mountains I would rather be climbing (and yes, the grass is indeed greener somewhere else).

Once it finally hit me how much I’ve been wanting to leave, I finally gave in to the ultra-secret backpocket plan that I swore I would never take…moving back to my hometown.

I’ve never criticized other people for moving back home; it's always an option for a reason. I swore years ago that I would never move back, that there was nothing for me in that desert. And now, I am eating those words.

As soon as I made the decision to move home, it felt like I had finally put down a backpack full of bricks. I felt lighter, less stressed, and no longer anxiously seeking out the next hustle to pay for groceries.

As I pack my books and sex toys, I’m excited to see those mountains that used to feel like silent guards, limiting my dreams to remain within their stony embrace. Now, those same mountains feel like a welcoming embrace, beckoning me home to reassess and plan my next adventure.

I’m excited to be around family, see my moody teenage brother more than our usual 2 to 3 times a year, laugh with my sister, and convince my mom to try mushrooms.

Home is only a trap if you let it be; it can also be an opportunity to get out of survival mode and plan your next adventure.

With that, goodbye Oakland, I’m going home,

Emery

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PS: As I get closer to leaving, and more people know of my plans, I hear more reasons why I should stay.

Friends are shocked that I would leave the wonders of the Bay for the duldrums of the desert.

The patients I've seen every week for the last year break my heart. Some react with shock and tears, some ask frantically for me to stay, and others accept it and wish me well on my next adventure.

When I saw the sad faces of my patients, I started looking at housing options again, seeing if there really was a chance to stay.

I realize this is one of the pains of making decisions that are best for yourself; some people will want you to change your decision to benefit them, and others respect the need to find your own path and take your decision in stride.

I realized I've been leaving the door open for my decision to be changed: a surprise affordable housing situation, a substantial raise at work, a lottery winning. Any of these things would convince me that the “right decision” is to stay.

PPS: (Unsurprisingly, none of those things happened, and moving away was still my best option.)