May 10, 2015 – Mother’s Day

We told the children about the life and death of their biological mother yesterday. I think that merits a dedicated post which I will do in the near future. I am really happy with how we delivered the message and how the children received it. Tanja took Chloe on a clothes shopping trip yesterday which was some wonderful mother/daughter time and afforded Chloe the opportunity to ask some more questions. Anyway – more on this later…

Yesterday was a marvelous scorcher of a day. It rained in the morning but was hot and sunny for the rest of the day. I was Mr. Productive Man and knocked off every single thing on my Daddy Do list. For those of you that don’t know me, this was a huge accomplishment. But….The Person I Want to Be would get the stuff on his list done in a timely manner. I attribute a lot of that to not skipping the Miracle Morning. I’m becoming more and more aware of how that gives me time to set my intentions for the day.

I went for a quick 19km bike ride yesterday. I felt great – it amazes me how energized by the sun and heat I am. I’m sure that is normal however I think it affects me more than others. It makes me question my decision making skills. Why does a person that loves the heat live in a place where there is winter? WHY? Regardless, I felt like an extension of my bike. I love the way my SuperSix changes gears. Right now. I love the sound. I love the way the cassette reflects the sunlight. I love the way that when I’m admiring the way the cassette reflects the sunlight that I realize I should probably be looking at the road in front of me. I also bought myself some actual cycling clothes. This process of kitting myself and my bike out seems to never end J

I’m going to practice riding with an increased cadence for a while. I have a tendency to switch to higher gears quite quickly. The other day I was riding behind a guy on the road and I was really surprised how quickly he was pedalling which made me wonder why he was doing that. I realized that I should be aiming for 90ish RPM. I’m not sure where I am at but I would think it’s closer to 70. I tend to be of the Power Through Everything mindset which probably is a result of my years of lifting weights.

May 9, 2015 – Routine

I skipped the Miracle Morning yesterday and I noticed it throughout the day. I can see that I am coming to rely on the routine and I feel like it’s a great way to start your day with a win. Not doing it left me feeling quite ungrounded and anxious throughout the day. I’m sure the anxiety is related to the conversation we’re going to have with the girls on Sunday. Actually, I’m writing this at 3:55 am and I’ve been awake for an hour and a half.

I hit a record time on my way home on Friday. I was reading one of my favourite blogs at lunch and Jim inspired me to leave nothing on the table on the way home so I dropped the hammer. I usually push fairly hard but I took it up a notch and managed to shave 91 seconds off my best time. I also completed another milestone – I smashed the 50 minute mark. My heartrate was over 170 bpm for most of the way home. It was gloriously hot which energizes me like nothing else. My next goal is to consistently average over 40kph. I’m hoping that is something that is achievable this year. I still have 5 months of cycling in which to achieve it. So far this year, since March 16, I’ve gone ridden about 1600km which is well on my way to beating my target of 5000km.

I managed to get a lot done yesterday. I rode my hybrid bike about 35km throughout the day. Going to the gym, riding with my wife to school a few times, going to the bank. As time passes I hate having a car more and more. It’s such a money pit and is unrepresentative of the kind life I want to lead. Unfortunately our current locale makes at least one car a requirement but we are making a concerted effort to have only one car this summer. It’s a good motivator to ride my bike to work each day. Actually – I’m at 275km for the week so if I can manage to squeeze in a quick ride today I will be able to get over 300km for the week which I think would be my best week ever. Until next week J We’re going camping on the weekend for 1 night – which is my limit as I LOATHE camping. The campground is about 70km away so Tanja will drive the girls and I will ride. I have a 100ikm route planned which would be my first time riding that distance this year. Actually it will be only my second time doing that distance. I’m really looking forward to it.

As I was driving my hybrid Trek around town yesterday I was absolutely amazed at what a tank it is. My Cannondale weighs about 16.6 pounds and the Trek is about 24ish. The Trek is a decent hybrid bike and well suited for its purpose but the Cannondale is a freakin’ Ferrari. I was reading one of Jim’s posts about riding saddles and the man speaks the truth. The hybrid has a much more cloud-like seat. Not ridiculous by any means but nothing like the fi’zi:k saddle. Needless to say, the fi’zi:k saddle is in another world of comfort despite looking damn tiny and uncomfortable.

Chloe had her competitive cheer tryouts for the 2015 season. She was so upset with how things went. I thought they went great but she is so passionate about this that because it didn’t go exactly like she expected she assumes she blew it. Despite winning the MVP for year team 1 week ago! She has a tendency to look at situations where she has incomplete information or not enough context and then fill in the gaps with the worst possible things that could happen and then construct a scenario where the outcomes are bad. I was the same way as a kid. I think we talked her off the ledge and I’m sure she’ll be placed on the team she wants. She is a rock star when it comes to this stuff. Honestly, I’d much rather try to pep talk a kid that is super passionate then talk some sense into a kid that is apathetic.

Sunday is the day we sit down and have our very important conversation with the girls about their biological mother. I’m normally cool as a cucumber but as the time approaches I’m feeling a little wound up. Stay tuned…

May 7, 2015 – It’s Time

We decided that is it time to have a conversation with the girls about how their mother died. They have a certain level of understanding about how she died but they do not know that she committed suicide. One of the reasons is that we want to reassure the kids, mostly Chloe, that Tanja and I are not going to split up. They obviously remember that Cindy and I were separated at the time of her death. If Tanja and I even disagree with each other Chloe can worry that we’re going to separate as well.

I’ve talked to her about this before but because I didn’t feel like she was old enough I had to tailor the message in a way that is no longer good enough. What I’ve said in the past is that what happened to me and Mommy In Heaven will not happen with me and Mommy. I’ve asked her to trust me that we will tell her when the time is right. We’ve decided to tackle this by letting the kids take the lead on the conversation by asking questions and we’ll answer them honestly. That way they can consume the information in a manner that makes sense for them. The first question will obviously be, “Why did you in Mommy In Heaven split up”? This will lead to conversations about mental illness and bipolar disorder. I can’t see it being too much further into the conversation before we get to the Big Reveal.

I’m not worried about this conversation at all. I obviously don’t know exactly how it’s going to go but I’m very confident that Tanja and I will handle it just fine. This is just the start. We’ll talk about it for as long as they want or need to and we’ll always be available to talk about it from now on. We decided to have this conversation on Sunday – which also happens to be Mother’s Day. How loaded with symbolism is that?

On another note – I set a personal best on my ride home yesterday. 50:15. I was pumped about that!!! My big goal for this ride is to get into the 49’s. I actually would have done it yesterday save for some construction which slowed me down on the way home. It sure feels great when everything comes together on a ride. When I started doing this last year my times were around 1 hour and 10 minutes so that’s 20 minutes off. That’s a lot of miles on the bike (for me) and having a full carbon fiber bike don’t hurt either!

I am so into the Miracle Morning it’s unbelievable. I set the silent alarm on my FitBit for 4:30 am. Sometimes I’m awake and other times I’m not. Sometimes I wake up and think – ugh, I’m not into this today. But that thought is quickly replaced by, “The guy I want to be would get his ass up”. I’m also cognizant of the fact that this routine is working for me in a very powerful way and if I start skipping it now my progress will be put at risk. So why would I stop?

May 6, 2015 – Inverting Introversion by Taking Time

Last week I mentioned that I was going to start having regular conversations with the person that worked for me – the one is extremely introverted. I sent her a recurring meeting request for 15 minutes each week with the description, “Trust Me”. When she walked into my office she looked somewhat….let’s say…..skeptical and nervous. I asked her to close the door and I described what I was hoping to do which was basically, “I care about you as a human being and I want us to take positive action together. So I’d like to spend time together each week talking about things that you do not typically talk about. I was thinking that today we could talk about our childhoods”. I asked her if this seemed strange to her but she was clearly very open to the idea.

We ended up spending a half an hour talking about everything from the death of her father at 3 years old to my experience the other day of meditating and feeling the presence of Cindy. I was also very open with her that I really debated in my mind whether to have these conversations with her but in the end, the person I would want to be would do it – so I did it. It was such a wonderful way to start the work day. She was more open, engaged and lively that I have seen her. I love it!!!!!

I was listening to a podcast the on the way home and I’m going to start doing a few little things each morning to take some positive actions that are small but will contribute to my feeling like accomplished something. I’m going to make my bed. I just have a duvet (German wife) so this action will literally take 12 seconds. The other one is that I’m going to write on the board hanging on my daughter’s door. She really wants me too and I want her to see an uplifting note from Daddy each morning when she gets up. I know that she is going to check for it as soon as she opens her door.

Yesterday was so glorious weather-wise!!! 25 degrees, not too windy and sunny. It was the first time I’ve gotten off my bike drenched in sweat. I love that feeling so much. It wasn’t too windy either. I rode back and forth to work. I averaged 30.36 kph on the way there and 31.84 kph on the way back. I’ve ridden my bike about 1400km since March 16. I’m well on my way to smashing my goal of 5000km for the year. I’m curious what I will end up at. I’m planning to do my first club ride ever this weekend so I’m looking forward to reporting back on that. Tomorrow is supposed to be warmer still.

All in all – a glorious day.

May 5, 2015 – The Person I Want to Be

I’ve been practicing a simple exercise lately where when I am confronted with situations throughout the day I asked myself, “How would the person I want to be handle this”? For example, normal Jay procrastinates about things he doesn’t care about. Like renewing the license plate sticker on my car. As a stark raving libertarian the idea of going into a government office to interact with a person whose job is to take my money drives me slightly batty. However, my wife also drives the car and not having the sticker up to date stresses her out. I got it done yesterday and one of the methods I used to do it was telling myself that the person I want to be would not knowingly do anything to cause my wife stress. Granted I was still late in doing it but I was much less late than in the past J I’m finding that checking my actions against the actions of the person I want to be is a good reminder throughout the day to be positive and make a conscious effort to make my interactions with people a win-win.

I felt very good about offering to help a friend yesterday. Without going into all the details to protect the innocent, I used some of my expertise and connections to coach him on how to set himself apart from his competition in a job hunt. It’s important to realize what this job means. He is currently working far out of town on a contract and hardly ever sits down for dinner with his family due to the fact that he gets home so late. My best friend happens to be in a leadership position in the place he is applying for. Connections don’t get much better than that. I’ve been pushing this guy to set any pride aside and leverage his network (me in this case) to help him. That’s the way that the world works and that’s one of the reasons you build a network in the first place. I’ve also been pushing him to follow up with the company and make him understand how competitive the marketplace is and the importance of differentiating yourself from the competition. Most importantly I’ve reminded him a number of times that this is not about a job. This is about his family. Go after this opportunity for what it is – a chance to be with your wife and kids instead of sitting in a car alone – every. single. day. I know he appreciates what I’m doing despite the fact that I’m irritating and pushy. His wife emailed me last night and told me that I’m wonderful. That felt good.

I’ve noticed that the Miracle Morning is best done in order as specified in the book because the activities seem to work synergistically. Over the weekend I had mixed them up and didn’t do them all at the same time and I noticed that I didn’t feel grounded during the day. Grounded? I sound like a hippie! So I went back to it today and it felt much better.

Listening to some of the podcasts I’ve been listening too – Achieve Your Goals and Smart Passive Income – keeps reinforcing that I need to take positive action. So for example, I am thinking that I might ditch this blog and start a new with the objective of building a brand. I think that would be a really cool exercise to go through to understand how that all works. This way I still have a creative outlet but I can combine another personal growth exercise with it. This would of course mean that I would have to actually proofread my posts before I publish them. That would also probably be a good thing to get better at. Regardless, I think I have a fun idea that I could try to build a brand around.

The other thing I think I am going to do as a social experiment is to take a couple of chairs to the park downtown with a board with a big sign on it that says, “Free Encouragement” or something to that effect. I need to think about that a little more. I’d love to see what happens. I might end up sitting there for a few hours and talk to no one. But I bet a few people would sit down and it would be a great opportunity to expand my network, create some human contact and do some good in the world. The point is that it is a positive action. That will happen soon. I need to roll it around in my mind a little more.

I had some wonderful conversation with The Senior German (my father in law) last night. We talked for a long time. He has a lot of experience and wisdom to pass along and I love to soak it up like an over engineered German sponge.

Tomorrow I’m going to listen to a new podcast on the bike ride to work – the Art of Charm. Can’t wait.

May 5, 2014 – Purpose

I had a technical difficulty yesterday and my lovely daily blog post was quickly and unceremoniously erased by the blue screen of death. I didn’t know that actually still happened. I think I will rewrite that one because it’s important. I want to write down what I learned about purpose in the last few months. I learned this from my wife.

We send our kids to a Waldorf school in London, Ontario. We’ve chosen to do this for many reasons and we couldn’t be happier. It’s the right place for our children and it’s the right place for our family. My wife has embraced everything about the school from the philosophy behind it to the community of people. She goes to reading groups, attends yoga and meditation classes, and participates in financial conversations at the school. She is all in. I tend to look at the tuition as my contribution. It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to realize Tanja’s approach is more nourishing for the soul.

Every year in May there is a festival at the school called Mayfair. The Grade 4 class does a performance and then it is filled with fun and games. A great time is always had by all. All this fun takes a lot of work in planning. Tanja was part of the team that did the planning. This year was much more than just planning. It started by reimagining what Mayfair could be and taking an honest look at if there were any existing paradigms and believes that could be discarded. This caused some serious consternation within the group. Change can be scary. Mayfair is also a big fundraiser for the school which needs every penny it can get so the consequences of coming up with a concept that didn’t resonate with the audience could be serious.

Naturally the group came to a consensus and the ball got rolling. I won’t go into all the details of the planning – mostly because I don’t know them. I am in no way to trying to minimize the herculean effort of everyone else involved either. It’s just that Tanja is my wife and she is one of my favourite people to talk about. I really want to talk about how amazing it was to watch Tanja work her magic. She poured her heart and soul into this for months. From writing brilliant copy for the communications, to making signs to hand chopping 3 million heads of lettuce for salads – she did it all.

She was committed to levelling Mayfair up. She helped create an event where more people came, they ate better food and everything was grounded in love. During the last few days she put in a one 17 hour day and on the day of the event she probably worked another 12. What a success it was! There were tons of people having a wonderful time. All the volunteers knew were they needed to be and when and were committed to what they were doing. There were many times I stopped and looked around me and was simply blown away by the fact that Tanja helped created something that created so much good for everyone involved. We had at least 3 families express interest in joining the school, the kids had a memorable day and Melody talked to me afterwards and told me she couldn’t believe Mommy did this.

I guess my point is that this is what you can accomplish when you have a purpose. Not just a task or target, but a purpose. Tanja didn’t just create an event. She added beauty to the universe. She grew and nurtured our community. She filled people’s bellies with food made by hand and with love. She created a sense of abundance and people repaid that abundance in spades. Those are the things that are important to her and she never lost sight of what she was trying to create and why. That is purpose and when you have clarity of purpose and commitment to execution we are capable of achieving anything.

I’m damn lucky to be married to someone that reminds me of this. It makes me be better.

May 2, 2015 – Feeling her presence

This was the first day where it truly started to feel like summer. It got to about 24 degrees and was gloriously sunny. I kinda mixed up my Morning Miracle routine but I did get it all done. I realized that I prefer doing it all at once but this is a busy weekend so some concessions needed to be made.

I did have quite a powerful and unexpected moment when I was meditating in the morning. Cindy appeared in my mind and I swear I could feel her presence. I’ve never felt this before and it was quite unexpected but it gave me an opportunity to say some things that I had never said. I felt like she was at peace and was happy for me. Was she really there? I guess it doesn’t matter one way or the other but I felt a real sense of calm afterwards. Weird. It reaffirms my believe that meditation has the potential to help me realize significant changes in my life

I woke up at my typical 4:30 and was at the gym for 5:45 for a workout. Later in the afternoon I went for a 28k bike ride. I bought a new helmet yesterday – more on that in another post. I decided to tackle Snake Hill – ooooohhhhhh scary sounding. It’s one of the steeper hills in London. I did it 5 times and my elevation summary from MapMyRun looks a bit like something a drunken Scotsman might mistake for Nellie. My helmet performed brilliantly and I felt quite strong. I’m going to do that more often.

My beautiful wife has been engrossed in planning our school’s Maryfair festival. It’s an annual event and she has really thrown her heart and soul into creating something truly wonderful and levelling it up from years past. It’s been wonderful to see. I ran some errands yesterday to support her. I function best in these situations when I am given clear and specific instructions. Issuing one instruction at a time is also contributes to a preferable result.

I think my most meaningful part of the day was talking to Chloe about her upcoming cheer tryouts for next year. She wants so badly to make it on to the next level team. SO BADLY. She has this tendency to analyze the hell out of everything but sometimes it’s from a negative perspective. Usually when it is something she feels stressed about. In other words, she spends a lot of time thinking about what can go wrong. To get onto the next team she has to be able to do a back handspring. She is so close to getting it. In her head it’s very simple – no back handspring, no moving up so she’s already defeated in her head. This is not to say she is not working her ass off – she is. We had a long conversation about visualizing success and how getting wrapped up in negative thoughts has a tendency to make them come true. I told her to picture herself on Blaze (the team she wants). Picture herself winning competitions with them and what that would feel like. Picture how you are going to feel when you find out that you’ve made it. We also talked about different ways of looking at it. Again, to her – no back handspring, no Blaze. So I pointed out that:

  • She just won the MVP for her team
  • She brings her A game every, single time. Always.
  • She is soooooo close to getting her back handspring
  • Her coaches love her
  • She’s in a tumbling class starting right after tryouts where I’m sure she will get it
  • The first competition is not even until November.

You get the idea. I also told her that instead of moping around she should get working to give herself the best chance possible. Which led to her busting her ass for 45 minutes. I would tell her what to do and she would do it and respond with, “Make it harder.” She pretty much collapsed when she was done. I’m so proud of her.

I didn’t feel overly productive and spent a lot of time enjoying the sun but it was a great day overall.

 

 

May 1, 2015 – Wow

What a day! I had a lot of amazing happen yesterday. First of all one of the teachers at the school said she read my blog post about my being grateful to my wife and it brought her to tears. She also mentioned that she thinks those thoughts often but doesn’t say them. Man, I felt great about that. My beautiful wife also told me that my inspiration helped her consciously make some better choices around her own behaviour throughout the day. This is powerful – I can feel it. Whatever “it” is. I’m hoping that’s the next step is figuring that out.

I rode my bike the 60km to and from work and the weather is finally turning beautiful. I listened to fantastic podcasts from Smart Passive Income. He has such interesting content and I believe I will benefit a great deal from listening. What a win – I get two hours of exercise that I love every day and I get to simultaneously learn and grow. Perfect!

I switched up the Morning Miracle routine because I decided to do the “reading” and exercise as part of my bike ride. So in other words I replaced the reading in the morning with listening to the podcast. I think it’s a good idea and it will work. I am reading a wonderful book on customer service which really just reaffirms the power doing good. The book is called Hug Your Customers and really is a good read. It can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/Hug-Your-Customers-Personalize-Astounding-ebook/dp/B003YCPBUK/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1430570187&sr=1-1&keywords=hug+your+customers

In the evening I had the honour of taking Chloe to her semi-formal year end cheerleading banquet. She looked so beautiful but was soooooo nervous. Chloe likes to have all her ducks in a row and is not big on unknowns. Tanja really helped her by taking time out her organizing this huge event at the kids school to buy her a few dresses so felt good about what she was wearing. That was a big win and a really thoughtful, caring thing to do.

We got there and it was great. I got to sit with Shannon, my long-time friend and truly one of my favourite humans. That was really nice – we had some great laughs. Chloe sat with her teammates at their own table. She won a door prize and then she won MVP of her team!!! I was so damn proud and happy. I didn’t actually care about the award very much at all. I cared about the fact that it was such a powerful lesson about the fact that hard work and dedication will get you the results you want. Their team also won the national championships in April after pretty much finishing last in every competition this year. One of the mom’s on the team put together this incredible slideshow that was played on the big screen. Chloe told me on the way home that it was the best night of her entire life.

I came home and Tanja and I talked for quite a while about how she completely rocked her entire day. Those are great conversations to have.

Tomorrow: some birthday shopping for mama whose turns 37 on Sunday!

Oh yeah: I also called a local organization called Junior Achievement about possibly volunteering with them. I only left a voicemail but that still counts as a positive step. I will follow up with them on Monday.