Category: Uncategorized

As mentioned in previous posts, I used to write up daily reviews for myself and stopped posting on my blog all together after I tried to convert this website into a “professional” website with the intention of building a pipeline of “followers.” To be clear: nothing is wrong with professional websites that are designed to drum up business. However, what I didn’t recognize at that time was that (and only starting to realize now) is that — counter what other people have perceived — I’m motivated by social acceptance. In other words, I’m highly driven to reduce rejection, criticism.

Okay, with that now out of the way.

I’m taking a moment to pause, to breath, to draw in a few deep breathes and reflecting because I’m noticing that the last couple weeks, months really, it feels as though my brain is more scattered, firing off on a hundred cylinders. To elaborate, my levels of “productivity” are at a all time low. When I say productivity, I’m strictly referring to my consulting business, referring to direct income (“cash”) generating activities. Because outside of that, I’m finding myself filling the day with:

• Waves of Focus (asynchronous, self-paced) online course
• Reading several books: “The first rule of mastery: stop worrying about what people think of you”, “Good Inside” by Dr. Becky Kennedy
• Exploring myself with daily stretching, bi-weekly dance classes
• Doubling down on learning more about rhetorical structure theory (RST) – I’ve always wanted to increase my ability to see connections between spans of text AND I’m betting that with additional skills of detecting coherence relations, I can improve as a writer.

But … Maybe I’m burned out.

Maybe I’m overwhelmed with the transition from a married man to a single father.

Maybe I’m still grieving over the lost of my relationships, friends and family, back in the states.

Likely, a combination of all three (and others as well).

At the same time, I’m rooted in gratefulness. Just this morning, I was listening to Eminem’s “Mocking Bird”, a song that I used to listen on repeat when it was first released (20 years ago). The song somehow surfaced to Spotify playlist. Regardless, as I was listening to the song while walking the dogs back home from their morning walk, I found myself stopping in the middle of the side walk, tears forming in the corner of my eyes, a few lines in the song really hitting home:

Now I’m sitting in this empty house just reminiscing
Looking at your baby pictures, it just trips me out
…

But things have got so bad between us, I don’t see us ever being
Together ever again, like we used to be when we was teenagers
But then, of course, everything always happens for a reason
I guess it was never meant to be
But it’s just something we have no control over, and that’s what destiny is

While sitting in a local cafe where I work remotely, sipping on my Earl Grey Tea with a splash of Soy milk and honey, I shifted my gaze away from my laptop and saw a woman standing outside, a person I had walked past by earlier. When I had first saw her, I thought to myself: I really liked her vibe and her outfit. So I had the thought to go step outside and compliment her.

Paying people genuine compliments is a skill that I’ve been practicing over the years. Because I am sensitive to people’s responses, I sometimes feel a bit anxious as to how they will react.

I have thoughts of: will this person think I am hitting on them? Will they get offended, thinking that I am objectifying them?

These types of thoughts run through my mind when approaching both men and women (although I would say I am extra mindful when approaching women).

Before approaching anybody, I call upon my DBT (dialectical behavior therapy) skills. I think to myself: is my wise mind saying that I am behaving in a way that’s accordance to my long values?

A quick cope ahead: even if they respond negatively, can I tolerate their reaction?

At the same time, DBT wise mind skills includes a quality of “participation”, to give in fully to the moment. For example, if you are out dancing the night away, you might want to just root yourself “in the moment” without overthinking, without over-analyzing.

While juggling both wise mind “effectiveness” and “participating”, I stood up from my seat and walked outside the cafe, approached this woman and said “Excuse me. I don’t mean to bother you and I just want to say I really like your outfit.”

Her eyebrows raised, and I interpreted her response as a bit surprise. In her thick (I think) French accent, she responded.

“Um. Uh. You want this?” pointing at her scarf.

I felt so embarrassed.

Living in London, there’s so much more diversity when compared to America (where I was living). Here, one cannot safely assume that people speak English. Often just when you are out and about, you’ll hear so many different languages. Sometimes I can pick up on the language (e.g. Spanish, Russian), other times not.

Now, though I felt temporarily embarrassed, will I pay a compliment to someone else in the future? For a brief moment, I felt discouraged. But the reality it is that you can never fully anticipate how someone will respond.

Sometimes someone will appreciate it.

Sometimes someone will not.

And sometimes someone will think you want their scarf.

Over the 90 days, I’m going and aim to blog little micro entries on this website. It’s okay if I break the chain. This will be a practice in discipline.

I’ve been exchanging emails with Kit Laughlin, the pioneer behind Stretch Therapy. In addition to asking him (and his partner and co-owner of Stretch Therapy, Olivia) if he had felt comfortable about me embedding clips from their program into my stretching journey video logs (they said yes), he was responding to submission to the teacher training intensive program that they (currently do not) offer. In his reply to that submission, he shared a link to a blog post of his: the 90 day blog challenge and the 50-year test.

After reading that post, I wanted to challenge myself to see if I can blog for a consecutive 90 days. As mentioned in (almost a year ago) blog post titled “A brief life update”, my blogging habit stopped when I tried to start monetizing the content. In a separate post from this, I’d like to dig into it but for now, I had unexpectedly added self-imposed pressure and overwhelmed myself; that combined with my sensitivity to criticism basically crippled me.

And now, I’m trying to jump back on the proverbial horse, so to speak.

I’m not going to “force” myself to blog 90 days. I’d like to gently encourage myself to write everyday. Add an element of play. See how it might complement my video blogging (on YouTube and Instagram).

So for the next 90 days, I think I want to practice and blog about things where my curiosity currently leads me:

• Improving my breathing – I’ve been fighting off a lingering lung infection for the past 12 weeks and tackling the problem with a multi-faceted approach with visiting salt caves (google view link here), practicing Buteyko Breathing (took this online course) after reading the book Breath
• Reading “Good Inside” by Dr. Becky Kennedy – After following her Instagram and watching (twice) the podcast episode of her on Huberman Lab, and feeling like her Instagram content resonates with me, I started chipping away at the book that I rented from the Merton Library (for free). Though I’m no longer in dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), I’d still like to continue practicing mindfulness and other skills and become the father that I envision for Elliott. I’m a great father. And I can do better.
• Chipping away at Waves of Focus online course – my capacity for being “productive” has dropped substantially over the past few months and I suspect that my body and brain are responding to the major life change of going through a divorce, moving to a new country, etc. So I’m both extending self compassion (this really is a hard time and anybody would find it difficult to go through a rather drawn out divorce process) and at the same time, developing skills to work with my wandering mind. So I signed up for a one-week trial of Waves of Focus, a program developed by Koroush, who I worked with 1:1 last year when building up my productivity system. Just today alone, I blasted through about 10 modules because I felt so much joy, excitement and hopefulness of a more controlled future regarding productivity
• Stretching and Pilates – I’m on a personal journey to overcome body stiffness. This journey, I suspect, will take about 5-10 years (trying to set the reasonable expectations for myself) and in the short term, increasing my ability to crawl around on the floor with Elliott, perform certain dances moves that I’ve avoided out of fear of pain. Also, I’d like to get teacher training in both stretching (through Stretch Therapy) as well as Pilates instructor training as well. In another blog post, I’ll talk about how I want to transition from working behind a computer (which I think I’ll always do) to something more physically active and more human interaction based.
• Dancing – Every Tuesday and Thursday I take a house dance class at The Pineapple and Base Dance Studio, respectively. In addition to this, this upcoming weekend July 20th and July 21st, I’ll be attending the Mighty Mover Seminar, followed by a monthly jam hosted by Indahouse UK, then on Sunday I will be attending a dance workshop.

Okay, so writing this blog post absolutely surprised me. Often I think I’m not going to be able to write more than a few sentences. But after just sitting here and typing away for about 20 minutes, I’m on a roll. Okay next 90 days: let’s go!

Rhetorical Device: Sequence

1. After stretching my hamstring this morning, I was surprised when I experienced that the the intensity of IT band reduced
2. I was perusing the stretch therapy forums, searching the word “IT band” and stumbled on this post
3. Kit Laughlin said he spotted a video once with Kelly Starlet (a name I recognize, author of the “Supple Leopard”) and how there’s some video online that Kit had saw which he found valuable
4. Another person posted a comment on the thread, providing a link to the YouTube video
5. When I played a few seconds of it, I spotted another guy I thought I recognize on YouTube, the person who owns and runs Squat University
6. I did a google Search of “Squat University Kelly Starrett” and landed on a Twitter post and learned that Kelly Starlet was hugely influential on his career
7. Turns out that although Kelly Starrett is influencing to his work, the squat university dude is NOT the person in the video so I feel a little embarassed that I mixed up two Caucasian men

Feels like forever since I last posted on my blog. Looking back at my post history, it’s been close to 5 months. Time flies. In the last half year, nothing and everything has changed.

Since my last post, I’ve launched my own company: Crossbill. It’s a software consulting company and boy, am I learning a lot. Not just about technology (it’s never ending and I enjoy learning), but also about how to run a business. A few things I’ve learned so far:

• How to write a proposal
• How to invoice
• How to keep stake holders in the loop (varies on a per client basis)
• How to negotiate (getting better)
• How to pitch and sale (everything is perceived value)
• How to stay positive
• How I’m willing to go out and have people say no to me since that’s what it takes to put food on the table

Some feedback on my business so far:

• My frequent and open communication (verbal and written)
• The quality of work (software, documentation, presentation)

On a completely different tangent, one of my core ethos is: always do the right thing. Treat people right. Yes — it’s a business at the end of the day, and sometimes, feels like I’m short changing myself. But I won’t take advantage of people. Ever. Period.

Hope to come back and post here more often.