dpsgotthatcrazyfit

[dpsgotthatcrazyfit]

Snipet from my book

Growing up my parents weren’t around much. My dad was an up and coming pro-wrestler pursuing his dreams while my mom worked a full time job and raised four kids by herself. The result of that was that we had to be self-sufficient at an early age. We woke ourselves up, got ourselves ready, made our own lunches and got ourselves to school as early as kindergarten and first grade. One of my most vivid memories as a kid is listening to my mom plead with our landlord not to kick us out of our house. We were sitting in the living room and my mom took the phone off the wall, which had a ridiculously long cord, walked to her bedroom and closed it. She was usually trying to get a hold of my dad when she did this so we would wait until we heard her start to talk and then we would try and huddle up next to the door to find out if he was coming home anytime soon. This was a different conversation though, my mom who is not one to cry unless she’s saying goodbye, immediately started sobbing and begging for mercy. Fear overcame me, my mind started racing with a million different questions that a five or six year old should never be thinking in the first place. I immediately went to my room and hid under my blanket. 

My mom was overwhelmed most of the time. I couldn’t have told you that as a kid but now, looking back with four kind of my own, it all makes sense. She was doing the best she could with what she had. She talked our landlord out of evicting us and somehow got us caught up on rent. My dad claimed he was sending money home, I could see the disappointment in my moms face every time she opened one and there was nothing inside. It was always followed up with a phone call where my dad would act shocked and claim someone must have stolen the money from the Fedex and resealed it. We later learned that he had a girlfriend that was actually the beneficiary of that money. 

The result of this was that I was never really taught about money. My parents to this day are still living paycheck to paycheck. When I moved out of my house at nineteen years old I had forty dollars in cash and a drum kit. I found a job and as soon as I started making money the cycle continued. I was the epitome of financial illiteracy. I knew about how much money I made and in turn about how much money I could spend. I spent the majority of my life going for months if not years without looking at my bank account. As long as a transaction wasn’t declined, I was good. 

Its no surprise that I attracted a woman who was equally if not more financially illiterate than me. The first few years of marriage were rough for me. I was constantly running into situations where my cards were declined forcing me to look at my bank account which was constantly in the red. Two adults that don’t know what the hell they are doing is actually way worse than just one. If we had money, we’d spend it. If we didn’t have money, we’d find a way to spend money. We were lucky enough that neither of us had good enough credit to get ourselves in serious trouble but we constantly living in the red. 

When my first divorce was finalized, we didn’t have much to spit other than some debt. My wife’s parents helped us buy a house and agreed that when we sold it, any equity we had it in, we would split equally. This felt like a fresh start for me but really it was just back to old habits. It was just nice to not have someone else spending the money in my checking account any more.

[dpsgotthatcrazyfit]

Why Laws are important even if you don't break them.

Aside from my values, which believe everyone deserves due process no matter what. There are other critical componants that impact all of us day-to-day with rule of law.

Economy's like China, Russia a lot of South America operate under Authoritarian rule. So if a company starts to do well but they don't fall inline with whatever the dictator want, they can kill the business. The US has due process. The laws help investors feel safe funneling money back into the economy for innovation. The richest people in the world are all heavily invested in the us economy. What we have seen in recent weeks with the tariffs and rule of law being ignored, is international investors are starting to pull money and diversify more in Europe and Canada.

When money floods out of the the market, our 401ks and investments start to become more volatile. I won't be surprised if the market rebounds enought to get stimulated, if people start to sell like crazy, that is my plan, as soon as the market comes back I'm selling all my crypto and low volume stocks and funneling into either american made companies or diversifying to Europe.

[dpsgotthatcrazyfit]

Last week, I met with a buddy who works in politics. He is the mayor of a surrounding city. He's coming up on the end of his second term, and I asked him if he was going to try to move up, take on a House, Senate, or Congressional seat. He laughed at my question.

He's done with politics. I gleaned a lot from our conversation. He wouldn't change his journey, but at the same time, he's ready to be finished. He really felt the call on his life to be a public servant. I have always felt the call to leadership but have no fucking idea what it looks like yet. Maybe with everything going on in the world, politics is my thing. It was actually recommended to me when I took my StrengthsFinder test as a career option.

I struggle in general with injustice. Whether it is happening to me or not (in most instances, it's not), it is still incredibly challenging for my heart and my mind to come to terms with unfairness or injustice. I came to the conclusion that I have two options: do something about it, or let it go and focus on something else. I think I finally landed on the latter.

I know real estate will dominate my time. It's a worthwhile investment because I'm 10 years in and finally in a place where even when things are bad, they are not that bad. But I still have additional time. Obviously, investing in my kids and my family is critical. I think that might be the thing I focus on, and then in general, really trying to wrap my head around how I can help future generations of people.

That could look a bunch of different ways. Obviously, I'm going to continue to write and hope that I can narrow my focus to a point. That's the biggest struggle at the moment: who am I trying to connect with? Who is the audience that will gain something from the knowledge and experiences I have had in my life?

Once I have narrowed down the who, or at least have an idea of that, then I can figure out the best mode for me to impact or help a few people out. The goal is to leave the world in a little healthier place than when we arrived.

I am thankful to be here. I'm thankful to be in a place where I'm struggling with this because for years of my life, I was just trying to hold it together. Now I can generally focus myself on being great at something.

Communication and storytelling. I love that shit, and I want to be excellent at it.

[dpsgotthatcrazyfit]

I'm fucking furious!

I think for the first time in my life I can honestly say that I'm ashamed to be an american. It's one think to have a political party you disagree with on policy, that is every president ever. There is a completely different situation where we are generaly ruining the foundation of everything America has built over the last 200 years.

The US has a dark past but the beauty is that we recognized it and pushed for change. I have always felt like the majority of americans were generally against hate. The human condition is one that it will never be fully flushed out, but that is why most of us believe in heaven, an afterlife where justice is served perfectly. That those who come humbly to God are forgiven and those who wanted nothing to do with love get exactly that, no love. Eternal serepation from hope.

My real faith is being tested more than it ever has been before. If I'm being honest, it might be because as a white guy in the US its the first time I have had to wrestle with terrible injustice in my own country. I remember the feeling of helplessness I had when I got home from Kenya the first time. We spent a couple weeks in Kibera, serving children in the slums. Watching the horrors they went through daily, kids raising kids, rape, drugs, abuses, infection, no clean water, the list goes on and on.

I'm sad, I'm scared and I'm fucking furious. This isn't america, this is a handful of power hungry racist billionaires running our country now. Finding the balance of processing what we are going through in real time and disconnecting for my mental health has been brutal. It leaves me in a place of uncertainty. Maybe this is what I need, the real veneer is coming off and we are seeing how flimsy the rules we live by actually are. The fact that we have made it this far as a civilized society is crazy. I guess it just took a power hungry TV host to usher in the of the world.

My prayer is that it doesnt get as bad as I think it will and that we can come out of this setting up protections for the future of our democracy. I don't know my roll in all of this yet but I'm processing through. Maybe a run at city council, maybe not, maybe making as much money as I can so we can keep our family in the upper class, fuck, I hate saying that out loud. Whatever it is, its going to be tough but I have been through enough that I can shoulder this. Its just finding the right path forward.

[dpsgotthatcrazyfit]

"Owning Libs" more important than my own well being.

I'm more moderate than liberal but since trump has taken office you might as well declare me a full on Democrat. I tend to prefer smaller goverment and less regulations on non-environmental impacting business. Meaning, lets create opportunities for new insurance companies, tech companies, clean energy companies to come in and help drive pricing for consumers down. Trickle down economics is a bullshit fallacy. We need real competition in the market and it doesn't happen when you continue to hamstring the little guy and give giant tax breaks so the wealthy can continue to horde the majority of the worlds wealth.

Whats blown my mind as of late is the desire for poor disenfranchised people to support billionaires in their adventures to continue to oppress them. The fox news rhetoric runs so deep. I get it, I read through the leopards ate my face subreddit and it makes me feel good for a second to see instant karma taking place. Like you voted for and supported this, now burn with it as it comes down on you.

The sediment for vengeance might not be a new thing but wanting to see people hurt ,who in general, only have the desire to help and make your life better, that is somewhat new.

Liberal policies, like having programs in place to help those who are struggling, to help people get back on their feet when they have lost their jobs, the ability to find reasonably priced health care and creating opportunities for vetrans, all of these are only helpful.

So the lie that is being told here is that your hard earned tax dollars are being squandered by the Federal Government and it needs to be blown up is complete trash. Sure auditing every sector of the government and figuring out how it can move more efficiently to help the american people, we can all stand behind that. Throwing out thousand and thousands of jobs, where the primary beneficiaries of those jobs are verterans, people with disabilities and people of color, this doesn't help our country at all.

This last election showed me one thing more than anything else. The dollars is God, its been true since the bible was written, the biggest warning of the bible is that people will try and replace the need for God with money. It's our biggest jouney has humans. We want safety, we want comfort we just want to know that we are going to be ok.

People have been so quick to throw their values out the window at the expense of their soul. This is where I have to check myself not to deeply desiring a counter attack. It feels good to watch a bully get punch in the mouth but very rarely does it actually settle them down, it just escalates the fight until people get more seriously hurt.

So where do we go from here. I think we need to start talking about all of us wanting the same goals and just having different ideas on how to get there. We all want the best country possible, we want to make money, enjoy time with the people we love and continue to build new opportunities for growth and wealth. When someone tells you constantly that immigrants are raping our children or that transgender athletes are destorying sports, what they are communicating is that I don't feel safe or I desire fairness for my children.

There is a middle ground in that communication. It doesn't have to be riddled with hate and exclusion but rather leaning on the desired outcome. I have to do this when my wife and fight all the time. We want to go on vacation and have a great time, both of us want to be with each other and experience a great time together, sometimes we have very different ideas of what that looks like. Sometimes she gets her way and sometimes I get mine but we usually end up with a compromise at somepoint.

It think the one thing we need to be very careful with is embracing our own how as the only way. This ignites forceful behavior by the opposition. I have some friends that have gone full trump and now I can't stand them. Not because they support trump but because they hate people. They desire to see people just hurt. The liberals are starting to respond in kind and if it continues we are headed towards a civil war.

The answer is love. It sounds cheesy as fuck but it is the truth. We need to find a way to end the cycle of hate disguised under the free speech banner and remind people that hatred doesn't breed a good life, you might feel good for a second but once that seeds starts to grow its the beginning of living in hell.

[dpsgotthatcrazyfit]

I Might Run For President

God damn it! I'm so mad at where things are at with our country right now. I'm mad that we elected a pathological liar and now he is upending our democracy. When you get to a point where you are claiming that your executive power should over ride that of a judge who has spend their entire life studying the law, you are in a bad fucking place. Here are the things I stand for and wish were different.

Every vote should count. For presidential elections, the electoral college should be thrown out. It should be popular vote across the entire country. Our president should be someone that has to reach across the isle from time to time to connect with people that have different view points. The United States has always been about comprimise.

Transparency, this shit is how we make goverment actually start to work for us. We need to increase what our congress men and women make but exclude them from putting their money in any secondary makets and kill anyone's abilitiy to accept any sort of lobby money. Special interests have ruined our country, and will continue to do so until we stop it.

Transparency for taxes. This doeesn't have to be fucking rocket science. No tax write offs. Lower the tax rates to off set and the gross income of households and businesses is what you get taxed on. You pay per your bracket depending on how much money you made. Further more, the government with give you a breakdown of where your specific money is going so that in the future, if you want change, you can vote for it.

Transparency for education. This isn't fucking rocket science either. When you make being a teacher a sought after proffession, you end up with great fucking schools. Every teacher should make a six figure salary, its one of the hardest jobs in our country and one that we need the most for the future. We off set the cost by making weed legal across the country and us any weed taxes to go right back into paying our teachers directly, the best investment you can make. Also, who doesn't fucking love the irony of weed making out country a better place.

I personally believe in womens right to choose what to do with their body. I also believe the same thing about parents with their babies. I'm prochoice (to a degree) but also anti mandatory vaccine. Parents should be able to choose if their kids get vaccinated as babies or not. Delayed or youth schedules should be explored for anyone that is worried about what a vaccine can do to a new born (which is a legit concern). I'm not anti-vax, far from it but I also don't think vaccines are the whole story (specifically here in america). I also don't believe pharmacutical companies have peoples best interest at heart.

I believe in gun ownership. I am about to purchase one for myself. I don't believe everyone should have access to one though. I think if you are going to buy an automatic weapon you should be required to take classes equal to or harder then getting a drivers license. Hand guns and shot guns should have a basic operational class requirement as well. After that, you should have the right to protect you and your family from intruders.

I believe in business. We want to make starting and running businesses as easy and lucrative as possible. The wealthy in our country snub out innovation by getting far enough ahead that they can just buy start-ups that are going to invade their space. I don't want to prevent business from being bought out if thats what they desire but we keep costs down through competition so we need new companies coming into the market regularly to make an impact for consumers.

I believe peoples personal lives are their own fucking business. I'm a Christian and I don't feel like I should be forcing my faith or beliefs on anyone, because if I know one thing, its that I know no one knows what happens when we die, so we are all living by faith to some degree, how ever you choose to do that, if its inside of the law, you should be left alone and there should be no laws restricting what to consenting adult humans can do with each other.

Transgender is a little different. When it comes to trans playing sports, I'm out. That is genetically taking advantage if you are a male turned woman, out side of that, transgender people should be left alone to live the life they want to live. I can't imagine what it would feel like to be trapped in a body not made for me so I fully support them doing what they need to do. I don't think the government should support the financial part of it, you should flip the bill for your own personal investment and they should be done after you are 18 years old and confident that is the life you want to live.

Immigration shouldn't be open. We have a boarder problem with Mexico, that needs alot of attention. At the same time, we need immigration for our country to run at the highest level. There is a place for people to make a better life here then they would in their own countries and the path to citizenship shouldn't feel impossible. I don't think mass deportations are the answer but doing something to keep drugs and cartel coming from mexico would helpful. Thats a lot of real esate to cover so I think it needs a solutions that is more tech savvy. There has to be a way to put up an invisible wall that notifies us when people are crossing. That way we can limit the investment in man power it takes to control it and spred it out across the whole thing. I could be wrong on this but I think their is a solution better then what we are currently doing.

Foreign policy - we need to cultivate trade partners with the countries that we rely on for goods. Basic business principles, our generosity should be known across the world. This is how you build strong allies. We have to stand against genocide and dictators threating to destroy the world. We don't need to police it but there should be clear boundaries around what sends the US into help and what doesn't.

[dpsgotthatcrazyfit]

What do you actually want?

Most of us can give a run of the mill answer to that question but I think very few of the people in my circle actually know what they want. We are always pursuing a bunch of different means to an end but when and how do we get clear about defining what we are actually looking for?

"I just want a good partner" one of my girl friends told me last week. "I just want to feel like someone wants me" a buddy of mine told me over coffee the other day. Is that what they really want though? By saying you just want a good partner insinuates that something in your would be fixed by having a good partner. Or that you would feel full if you were wanted. I don't think these things are true. I think what we are looking for is deeper than that. I personally believe that God gave us a small piece of himself. I say him unknowing if God has a gender, I would actually assume God doesn't but in this case I will still refer to God as a he. If we have a perfect God and he placed a piece of himself in us (the holy spirit) then we would constantly be longing to be whole again. To connected to the source that we feel in us. The thing that makes us feel good.

I would argue most of us have moments in life when we feel so close to God, inexplainable moments where we have peace and its like the rest of him was their for a minute and then it left. I know for me, these moments in my life are ingrained in my mental and emotional states. I'm always longing to get back to them.

The challenging part is the world has a way of presenting fake solutions to real problems. The world wants us to feel like if we just lose that weight, or get our teeth fixed, have the car, the house or the girl/guy on our arm that it will answer the deeper needs we aspire to get met. They don't though, so many have come before us preaching against the falacy but the lies just get better and more nuanced, harder to discern truth while we in return push further away from the actual goal as a result.

A great partner can absolute greatly improve your life in a number of areas but I think the biggest is it gives you the opportunity to learn how to love like God loves us. That holy spirit that makes us feel empty because we know what it feels like to be full, we have the unique opportunity in this life to do that for others. To love in meaningful deep ways that show Gods love to those around us.

True connections often times comes at a price, the giving of yourself in a way that may not benefit you in the moment but brings about true connection in the long term. When two people are routinely living this way for one another I do believe it becomes something special and potentially points us back to God. The downside is you see the humanity of it, the failures and flaws, the good days and bad. The times they remember you and the times they don't. Our instinct is to proect ourselves so when our partner falls short, we often want to punish them by falling short ourselves but love would say otherwise.

What we really want is love, true sacrifical love. The kind that hurts to give at times and can be harder to receive at other times. But when we are present in it, we have moment where we feel like the puzzle is almost finished and those are the blessing of life to point us to what we hope is a forever of feeling whole.

[dpsgotthatcrazyfit]

Psalms 1

"Instead you thrill to God’s Word,

you chew on Scripture day and night.

You’re a tree replanted in Eden,

bearing fresh fruit every month,

Never dropping a leaf,

always in blossom.

4-5You’re not at all like the wicked,

who are mere windblown dust—

Without defense in court,

unfit company for innocent people.

6 God charts the road you take.

The road they take leads to nowhere.

Biblical wisdom, whether you claim to be a believer or not, is relevant almost always. I find Psalms one more relevant today than I have ever before. With social media, news, podcasts, etc our minds are almost never chewing on the mysteries of the universe. Our universe now is so small, its all packed into our phone. If that is our world, no wonder we are depressed, it fucking sucks.

But God, heaven, love, generousity, peace, patience, kindness... These things, when digested regulary are life changing. People can tune into your vibe immediatly. Usually the first words out of peooples mouths are what they have been thinking about for the last few minutes, hours or days. Negativity resonates faster then love. Think about something that stresses you out for ten minutes and then pay attention to your first interaction another person right after. It's usally not great, I notice this with my kids all the time. I'm not frustrated with them but they feel like I'm frustrated with them all the time. What I am doing is taking out my negative mindset on them constantly.

The flip side of that coin is how refreshing it is to meet and interact with people who's mind is focused on hope. The people that operate on this level, that don't allow themselves to sit in negativity but manifest all the beauty in life, you are just drawn to them, you want to be around them. This doesn't mean we need to be oblivious to the negative things in out world, it means that we don't let the negative things control our thoughts and emotions. We build a process to get back to positivity quickly realizing we can only contol what we can control.

We live in a more polorizing world then ever before. Information travels fast and the people that creact the disciple around their behaviors about consuming negative information are the ones that will start to seperate from the pack. There are millions of people that will look up from their devices one day only to realize they have wasted so much of their life on nothing, meaningless bullshit and thats time they will never get back.

Contemplate the things of heaven. Why we are here, the purpose for being alive. The beauty in these moments is amazing and it kills the minutia of the world feeling like it is about to fall apart.

[dpsgotthatcrazyfit]

Operating System

Most of the people I know are operating from a place of trauma and hurt. It's borderline impossible not to at times. You can see it pretty quickly if you pay attention. Most people will tell you who their are in the first few minutes of a conversation by telling you who they are not. Like, if someone says "yeah, I'm not the kind of guy that just wants to sleep around" most likely they are exactly that guy and further more, believe they are not because havent actually fought the meaningful battles from their past that allows them to fully embrace their values. I have no problem if someone just wants to fuck around. I have a problem with people who pretend thats not what they want and bait others into short relationships because they genuinely don't know themselves well enough to accept who and what they really want.

When you are operating from trauma and hurt you are operating from a place where you are subconsciously trying to get your needs met in a very immature way. Immature because most of us wrote these stories in our subconscous when we were very young. The thing about the subconscous mind is that it cannot take a joke. So when you are dealing with pain as a child, those stories are comforting and allow you to press forward in your current time but they also start to change the direction of the ship. It's a slow moving ship so you don't even notice but all the while its happening but the course is changing.

Being curious is the best way to bring this out of another person. If you just ask questions people are so happy to tell you exactly who they are. The problem is we are all doing the same shit, we are all trying to impress one another to get our own needs met so we are meeting people and trying to fit them into the box our subconscious mind created when we were children.

The scariest people to be around are the ones that start down the path but genuinely don't have the courage to change. These are the people that will read self-help books, and by read I mean they will half heartedly listen to them in the car or at the gym while they are doing something else just so they can tell other people they have read them. They will listen for phrases and sentences that validate their own insecure operating systems and neglect everything else.

This recently happened to me. I had a friend that I recommended a book to. I saw this friend two weeks after the recommendation and he said he was reading for the 3rd time already. After a couple of questions, sure enough he had listend to it twice and bought it because he wanted to have a hard copy for home. Two weeks after that, I was at breakfast with a group a friends and this friend was there. The book came up and one of the key points of the book was being discussed, this friend didn't even know it was in the book. Meaning, if they had read it 3 times at this point, the either they had terrible reading comprehension or they were full of shit.

If you apply this to finding a partner, this is so dangerous! People want to know that thier potential future mate did work coming out of past relationships to figure out what actually went wrong, meaning, they want them to be able to own their own shit. I do, it is in my circle of values. If you aren't capable of owning your own BS, I will keep you at arms length because I have no desire to get dragged through the drama of your future insecure life.

Operating sytems are critical, I believe there are two and we ebb and flow between them at times. Values and insecurities. People that are honest with themselve will spend most of they lovely lives operating within their values and those that don't will feel like they are on the roller coster of their own insecurities.

[dpsgotthatcrazyfit]

Oh Shit! Back again.

“Its not the long walk home that will change this heart but the welcome I receive with every start” ~ Mumford and Sons

Doing anything meaningful in life takes consistency and practice. I have failed in this with my writing. Granted I have four kids, three dogs, a wife and I'm running a business. I'm back though and as excited as ever. I'm going to continue to write ideas about the chapters of the book I'm working on here so I can work out some of the ugly redundant shit.

I want the terrible shit and the amazing highs in my life to mean something. We spend a life trudging through hell to find purpose and so many of us do it alone or basically alone. I wish I had better mentors and books that I could have read that would have spoken directly to my heart earlier in life.

I found my faith at a young age, that was critical. God literally became the dad I never had. I guess since that point, I have been focused on being the dad my dad never was.

We all want our life to meaningful. Some of us impact a lot of people on a more surface level but most of us impact the people closest to us on a very deep level. Change can be generational when someone that has known you for a long time sees growth. It can not only inspire them but change the outcome of their lives and their kids lives.

So here we go. Daily writings until I have enough for a book. Thanks Tumblr for always being here when I come back. You are like that shirt that fit when I was super skinny 15 years ago that I refuse to throw away because I swear someday it will fit again.

[dpsgotthatcrazyfit]

I always end up coming back

I wrote a book. It took me about 8 months to finish it. When I was done I took a few months off of writing and went back to start re-writing it only to find out how much it sucked. The early chapters were rough. I had a few good moments but overall it made just want to scrap the whole thing and start over. I generally feel like at this point I need to use the outline of it and re-write everything.

I notice a significant improvement in the actual writing towards the later chapters. This shouldnt' come as a surpise to me but it did. When I started I hadn't written consistently ever before in my life and when I was finished I had been writing every day for 8 months.

I think reading the first few chapters made me feel like I wasn't a writer. It wasn't great. After 8 months of disciplining myself to write daily and try and get my message out, re-reading it for the first time was gut wrenching. I expected it to be better.

The by product of that was that I almost gave up. Well, I did give up and now I'm back. I'm back and I'm going to start the process of re-writing the book I believe I can write.

I have no aspirations for the book outside of creating something I'm proud of. I read alot so I know good writing when I read it. I want to create that feeling for myself. I want to sit back and read what I wrote know that I was able to transcribe my thoughts and feelings clearly enough that if my kids read it when they are adults they could say, I understand my dad and where I come from a little bit better.

I don't know if that will ever happen but for some reason I always come back to writing. Maybe its because the barrier to entry is so low and I feel like its becoming more of a dying trade.

With AI being able to take what we do and regurgitate something similar in no time at all, skillful writing will potentially be something of the past one day.

I enjoy the discipline of it. I enjoy doing hard things and pushing myself to become a better communicator. I think it might be part of who I was meant to be, a communicator. Maybe not but I won't know until I have actually written something I'm proud of first.

So, lets give it another try, blog style.

[dpsgotthatcrazyfit]

Chapter 1

I fucking hated Thursdays when I was in third grade. My mom worked a full time job growing up and my dad was traveling most fo the time. That meant we had to get ourselves to and from school. That year I had got a new huffy bike, grey with Huffy written in Graffiti like writing down the center bar and clear grips. It quickly became my preferred mode of transportation because it cut my walk to and from school into minutes rather then a half hour trudge home. My mom usually left for work at 6:30am so if she dropped us off, we would get there so early that we’d be sitting out when the janitors unlocked the school and the teachers started pulling in for the work day. Walking sucked as well because really we had to leave the house about 15 minutes after my mom left to make it on time so it was a pick your poison situation. 

Biking was by far the best option but presented its own set of difficulties. 

I was different and being different as a kid growing up in Orem Utah wasn’t a to be desired by any kid. Orem was was the 

[dpsgotthatcrazyfit]

What I want

I want to be the best. The best version of myself, the best Realtor in the world, the best husband to Tamara, the best father to Ellis, Martel, Cameo and Rocco, the best pet owner, the best crossfitter, the guy that has it all together. 

This creates alot of pressure but it also creates drive. So in the midst of that, how do I deal with the let down. The let down of not being the best? 

Historically, I haven’t handled it well. My let down has driven me back to my vices for comfort. But there has been progress, slow, hard fought progress. It comes in the form of little recognitions of change. Like before I did X, now I do the less harmful version of X, identified as Y. 

I would say I have identified a couple of things that are important. If you know about Maslows Hierarchy of needs. Food and water are first, then shelter, then love and affection. Once those basic needs are met we can focus our attention on other shit.

For so much of my life I supported myself, physically and emotionally. This created drive but it also made the stakes feel so high that if I failed, it was all over.

What I have learned is that those first needs really do need to be met, and met honestly if you want to make progress in other areas. Not to say that you can’t but unless you can separate from needing to feed yourself and your family and having confidence that you are loved, you will struggled to hit professional and personal goals and sustain them. 

[dpsgotthatcrazyfit]

Know and be known

The crux of all intimacy. I was foolish in my younger years. I thought what people were looking for was the perfect person. Someone always doing cool shit and had it together. There were a couple serious side effects to this. 

1. I was not relatable. I created a persona that was see through. People knew I was full of shit. My lies and omissions created situations where everything I said was questionable. The subtleness of this is crazy though. If you would have asked me at the time, I never would have believed that I was lying, but I was. I was always leaving out portions of the story that made me look bad... or not as good as I wanted to look. It also destroyed the highs of my life. My legit high points were about as good as my fake stories so when I was genuinely excited to share those experiences with friends, they came across as no different from my norm so my excitement was always met with the run-of-the-mill responses. 

At the time I would have blamed this phenomenon on my friends not really knowing me and not wanting to connect with me. The truth was, my friends didn’t know me and didn’t trust much of what I said because I had chiseled away at that trust with my over exaggerated stories. 

2. My lies kept other people from being honest with me. My presentation of the perfect Derek immediately set the standards with my friends to mirror the level of intimacy I was capable of. My immature friends would tell me similar stories and often try and one up my (somewhat fake) experiences. My mature friends would listen, call bullshit (in their heads) and usually just walk away from the conversation. 

Those moments were always trying to get my attention. Like a siren going off. I muted them for as long as I could. It feel so uncomfortable to present yourself as better than you are and have someone leave the conversation knowing your full of shit. And I knew that they knew I was full of shit. Their body language was screaming it at me.

Lack of decent friends and the intimacy I wanted got me exploring who I was. I remember trying this out with my ex wife. Coming clean on a few things that I had been lying to her about. It was fucking devastating but liberating at the same time. Maybe subconsciously I knew she was the kind of person that couldn’t handle real vulnerability but when the subconscious became conscious, I was validated. Keep in mind, this was years of keeping things from her, so her responses were to some degree correct. The flip side of that coin was that this was not how I wanted to live anymore. I need to stop presenting the best version of myself to people start presenting the real one. 

Whats terrifying about that is that my vulnerability gets used against me. The very thing I was so terrified of facing. What if people don’t like me because of “X”. Well, emotional maturity tell you, thats the best fucking thing that can happen. If someone sees you for who you are, and doesn’t like you, that means they were never going to like you anyways. I spent years in friendships with people that didn’t actually like me because I figured out how to present a version of myself to the that was palatable. 

How fucking silly is that? I wanted people to like me so badly that I would say anything to make it happen and ultimately fail at getting what I wanted anyway because they didn’t like the real me. 

So, I started learning how to be the real me all the time. When people don’t like me it hurts, especially when its someone that I want to like me but I will not sacrifice my values any longer to feed my own insecurities. 

What this has done over the years is given me the very thing I was looking for. The feeling of being known. I have friends and a partner that know all the ugly, all the things I was ashamed of, all the real shit and they still show up for me, You know why? Because I do the same for them. I don’t judge them, I don’t criticize there mistakes or make them feel bad when they are vulnerable. I go out of my way to show up for them the way I need to be shown up for. 

It’s a beautiful thing and maybe the most meaningful thing in my life. 

[dpsgotthatcrazyfit]

The Perfect Day

I’m always chasing it. The perfect day. I wake up every morning in hopes that today is that day. 

My eyes start to come into focus and my body feel amazing. I’m energized as my feet slide out from the covers and hit the floor. I quietly put on my cloths and make my way down stairs. I pour a quick cup of cold brew and start my quiet time. An hour of reading and reflection later, I’m ready to jump into my work day. I sit down at my computer, crush my work day as expected. I have an amazing mid day workout and by 4pm I’m ready to be present with my kids. I eat healthy, make dinner for the family, after the kids go to bed I connect with my wife for an hour then have unbelievable where we both cum at the same time. We fall asleep cuddling and wake up to start again the next day. 

What it actually looks like is this. 

I wake up feeling like I have been hit by a train because of the previous days workout and sugar binge. I stroll down stairs in pain where it take about 20 minutes to even have a positive thought because the coffee hasn’t kicked in yet. At that point, my kids start rolling down the stairs so any hope of actual quiet time is killed by incessant questions about watching TV or eating breakfast. Frustrated, I look at my phone and see all the missed text message from clients from the previous night. At that point my brain starts to swirl and the rest of the day is honestly holding on to dear life. 

So if the ideal and reality are so far off, how do we make progress? How do we hope for change. For myself, so often when the ideal is not met, I throw progress out the window. I want all or nothing. 

Thats where real change comes in. Real change is messy, it means keeping a commitment to yourself because you made it. Like, “fuck I said I was going to do 50 pushups today” as I roll out of bed at 9pm because I was just about to fall asleep watching football. Yeah, I had planned on doing those pushups in the morning but they got away from me. I got sucked into the work vortex and spaced. I remembered at 9pm and I’m confronted with the choice of upholding my word to myself or letting it slid. 

Those pushups might not do anything to your overall fitness and strength but they will build trust with yourself to keep your commitments. I see an epidemic amongst my male friends with victimization. Whats really happening there is they have let themselves down so many times they don’t trust anyone else either. It’s typical to say but you have to love yourself before you can love someone else. I don’t think that means pampering yourself with massages and nights out. I believe it starts with keeping your word to yourself, then keeping it to others. Learning how to not over commit yourself to yourself so you don’t tell other people you’ll do things that you’ll never actually do. 

[dpsgotthatcrazyfit]

Negative Loop Cycle

I remember going through my second divorce. It got ugly and she was lying to a lot of friends and past clients of mine about what was happening. I was so insecure about the situation that I was running different scenarios in my head about what to tell who so it would get back to her in a timely fashion. So much of my energy was trapped in this negative loop. The vengeance loop. I wanted Justice! 

Honestly though, my version of justice at that time would have been having her burned at the steak. It was the first time in my life i had ever had someone put their energy into destroying my reputation and I was fucking furious! I thought about it so much that any sign of a conversation with anyone that was struggling, I would unload the whole story from my perspective. 

And then, through a fuck ton of conversations with friends and a few really good books, I realized what I was doing. 

I was doing exactly what a toxic person wanted me to do. Giving her control by caring about what she was saying. This was tough though, because I was married to the woman! I had spent the last year and a half trying to learn how to love her for who she was, no shifting to not giving a fuck was going to be an up hill climb. 

The first step for me was noticing it. Catching myself when I would living out retribution with her in my head. I learned that when I could catch myself, if I stopped and started to say things out loud that I was thankful for in that moment, I could shift my focus just enough to end the negative loop. 

What this didn’t look like was, “I’m thankful that she said all that shit about me and can burn in hell”. That’s not something present or in my control and fed the loop. What it did look like was this. “I’m thank for the seat warmer in my car on a cold day, I’m thankful for this car, I’m thankful I have enough money to pay for this car, I’m thankful for the kids I pick up in this car, I’m thankful I get to see my kids tomorrow, I’m thankful for the time I get to spend with them, etc.”

As you can see, thankfulness creates a different kind of cycle. A positive loop. A loop that doesn’t leave me bitter and angry but one that is hopeful and present at the same time. Now, this wasn’t easy and still isn’t. The negative loops come back but what I have found is I’m quicker to get myself out of them. This takes work, work that you want to do. 

The negative cycle has one path. Victimhood. I can tell you right there is no more disrespected, unloved grouping of people in the world that the victims of their own mind. The people that yeah, they went through something hard but they decided to stay in it and milk it for all the attention it is worth. I was becoming one of these people and I could feel other people distancing themselves from me. 

The negative loop is designed to keep us safe but it can be comfortable to live in a place where you feel like people owe you something. You know what the truth is though? No one owes you shit. 

[dpsgotthatcrazyfit]

When theres a problem, we know there is a problem.

Growing up with one parent working full time and the other traveling 10 months of the year creates a whole slew of abandonment issues. I had to walk the mile and a half or so to school when I was in kindergarten and first grade as a result of my parents work schedules. 

I remember there were days I would walk so slow from being tired or cold that I would stroll up late. At the time my teachers genuine concern went right over my head... or did it? I obviously don’t remember all the subtle and snide remarks other kids, parents and teachers made but they had an effect on me. My family was different, we were poor and I was fat. Those things were being communicated to me constantly with other peoples words, actions and just general disposition towards me. 

It was probably somewhere around second or third grade I started coping with being different by slamming food into my cranium and quickly and privately as possible. Things my mom bought for the entire family I would eat alone, in my closet.... in my comfort zone. 

It got bad, I went over 200lbs when I was in 5th grade. I was a huge kid which put a huge target on my back. I was constantly being pushed around by everyone. Kids half my size, kids twice my age, laughed at by girls and looked down on by adults. 

It was about 5th grade I started to address the problem without any guidance. I would hear shit on TV or from some random source and take it as gold. Nothing like getting life advice from random sources that don’t know what the fuck they are talking about but at some point, I heard from someone that I needed to start working out. 

I remember walking up at 5am in the morning and walking my ass the the Junior High School track at 5am before school, running three or four laps and then going home before my family was awake. I didn’t want them to know what I was doing. I was eleven. 

Now, I don’t know where I got my ability to self reflect, to own my own problems, to resign myself to getting better but it’s likely just a gift from God. The other gift is understanding the hopelessness of feeling hated. 

I understand how when standing at the fork in the road of despair, if I had access to a gun that path would have look much more enticing than the never ending mountain of self improvement the path. I’m happy I chose the latter.  

All that to say, how I was being treated was obvious, it was clear and very few people gave a fuck. When there’s a problem, we know there is a problem. It takes time and energy out of our lives to step into someone else’s story but if you just ask a fucking question, someone teetering on self destruction will likely show you their cards. And if they don’t, it likely means they already pick their path.