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Author: Trevor W. Goodchild (Page 7 of 7)

Power of Perception: Business & Life

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Is Struggle Always Necessary?
Have you ever heard the saying "struggle leads to success" ? 
There's a lot of talk about how life has to suck before it can get better. But is this a false dichotomy? That's a fancy way of saying, do we have blinders on and just aren't seeing all the options?
I agree working hard can produce results - IF you're aimed in the right direction. But is hard work always a struggle?
Labor of Love
"Labor of love" is often a term ascribed for when you ARE working hard but, you believe in your work, your steps to the big goal, the pay off, and every act that gets you closer is worth celebrating. 
Is THAT a struggle?
Isn't 'struggling' just mental for how we choose to think about actions? 
I mean, physical pain aside, generally, being on the grind, if you always frame it as 'a struggle' wouldn't that make it harder for you than framing it as necessary steps towards becoming that bad ass you know you already are?
We can go deep on this one. 
If you do become successful but are an a$%hole to everyone, and don't have good social skills (Steve Jobs, asperger et al) - is that success? 
  • How We Look at Ourselves
  • The World
  • Our PROCESS 
All of these things...determine how hard life is, and if work is really a struggle or just a system you use to become el jefe. If there's one super power you can opt in to having, without being bit by a radioactive spider (which would make you sick in real life), it's the power of perception. 
The Power of Perception
Being able to look at how we look at things is a strange gift I've had since I was fighting tooth and claw to not become my father, fighting for scraps living on the streets as a teenager.  It's the one thing that led to getting accepted into the University of Texas, working at Facebook, and starting my own businesses. 
It's easy to fall into a habit of if this, then that. 
This is SQL terminology for how results of a search are defined by certain parameters.
 YET... 
IRL this means we tend to start to draw conclusions before actually looking at what's happening. Our eyes are not really seeing. We are going through a series of automated emotional habits. 
However, it's mainly unconscious. And it can have draw backs when you want to innovate your company but are still coloring within the lines and not thinking outside the box. The habit-thinking of expecting the same thing despite there being different variables and inputs limits our growth, professionally and personally.
How Good Becomes Great 
Taking the time to look at your business and ask the hard questions, without sugar coating is how good becomes great. The challenge with thinking bigger is we tend to self-impose mediocrity, and creating artificial ceilings that limit our flight path. These ceilings are due to the habitual way we think about potential. The definition of identity, of a company or a person, if it's habit-based, is going to suffer adapting to a changing world.
Do your self a favor, and begin to cultivate a sense for how you look at things. For how you look at how you look at things. 
---------->Start Here<------------
What are habits you have on how you think of yourself or your business?
Are there conclusions you assume about people or situations? 
What is a new way to think about this and rewire your process?
Think, be, explore - it's an adventure. 

Secret to My Success

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The value of exploring new things can change your life. Every university likes to talk about academic "excellence" with hundreds of pages in the course catalogue of course subjects. The attitude seems to be that you can choose anything you want, as long as you do it well.
 
What's the end result of this? 
 
Many students end up staggering under the burden of student loan debts (spoiler alert I'm in it for $90,000 for just my bachelors). The student body becomes unknowing subscribers and executors of "Peter's theory," that purports a theme of getting just good enough not to suck at your role in a company, then getting promoted as soon as you start doing well. (Leaving a chain of events where everyone is always partially sucking at their jobs). 
 
The college mindset is often (tho of course it depends on the school, and your professors), 

--from an academic advisor standpoint--
 
"It doesn't matter what you do. Just graduate, and that piece of paper will get you set for life." 
 
Yet Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard to become a millionaire starting Microsoft. Steve Jobs dropped out of Reed College to found Apple Computer that is so part of our lives today.
 
What can we conclude from this? Baby Boomers often feel a sort of intangible optimism due to the rapid technological advances for the 18 years following the 1950s that seemed to infer things were always going to get better regardless of if you made plans, because success is based on luck. Which is incorrect.
 
Success is based on strategic planning and including within these plans, projecting for the future. 
 
Millennials looking back to Baby Boomers often also ascribe success to a series of fortunate circumstances, family, money, private schools, who you know etc. Yet, there is a lot more to achieving goals than just opportunity. Plenty of other people had chances to capitalize on a market gap their company could solve but failed to innovate, clinging to old designs instead of evolving to meet the changes in public preference and society (Blockbuster, Kodak etc).
 
The worth of a product today, has to be adjusted for the devaluation of the dollar, and increased cost of living that continues to rise every year to some degree. And projected technological advances. Automation right now is big and will continue to grow, voice command software, eCommerce, all these are going to grow and evolve rapidly in the coming years as an example.
 
It definitely does matter what you do. Focusing on what you are already good at, and developing this into a master skill set is a good start. But hard work and dedication aren't enough. You need to look ahead, research trends in your industry, and determine if it will be valuable in the future. 
 
You know the difference between people who have big dreams, but end up working at service-level jobs, and not making a lot of money and those who end up in Hollywood, on the cover of Forbes, or at least, making great money in either a phenomenal career or as a business owner?
Masive Action. 
Consistency. 
Research. 
Mentors. 
Massive Action. 
 
It takes actions to make things happen, not endless convos about what life would be like if you got a big break. It is not luck that changes your destiny - it's mindset combined with taking specific actions on a daily basis to move the needle. 
 
All the energy from making plans sipping jo at the coffee shop with friends, should be transferred into taking action. Being strategic, and prioritizing your dreams over drinking with friends, Netflix, socializing, video games on your phone, family drama, habits and hobbies, none of that excuse my french means shit if you can't 10X your income and lifestyle improvements as a result of:
  • Taking action  
  • Guidance from mentors already successful in your field
  • Do Research - in-depth, results-based research not a blogger's opinion of success
And this requires a real sincere dedication to breaking down the steps in between you and your goal, as well as determining, specifically, how to overcome obstacles in achieving those microsteps to the bigger goals. 
Sometimes you are your own obstacle.
Sometimes you need to remind yourself why you give a damn in the first place.
 
For me, it's family. I care about my family, and have unique gifts that will enable me to do a lot more with my life, and income earning potential than many of my fellow UT Alumni who subscribe to the "participation-award" ideology. I work hard to help friends of mine who are broke without exit plans. 
 
But I don't work hard at just achieving mediocracy. I work hard at doing the impossible. The impossible is only impossible if you don't believe it's possible. So believe in your dreams as possible. They said we'd never put a man on the moon. The telephone was laughed at by early investors as impossible. Yet - it became possible because at least one person believed it was possible. 
 
Be that person for your own dreams.
 
You need your own buy in. Give yourself permission to win. 
To defeat your own demons you have to recognize your life is worth fighting for. 
And it is, you are worth it, you've gotten this far haven't you? 
 
So don't sell yourself short by accepting less than what you deserve. Dream bigger, work harder, BUT be strategic on specific outcomes from your actions. Hard work isn't going to accomplish much if you're only working to maintain. This energy needs to be directed towards something with much faster scalability. Seriously, figure out your Why and use it to motivate yourself to do the work necessary, inner work and outside, to live a better life. 
 
You got this. 
 

Not So Secret Weapon

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What's the one thing that brings people together?

Common ground. Community. Shared Purpose.

In these trying times, it's easy to look for ways to cast judgy eyes onto those that are different from you. In business, there are seldom second chances to make a great impression. As a result, if there is contention, often this loses customers.

For good.

Ever been to a restaurant where a waiter was rude and dismissive? This makes an impression.

Impressions cost money.

One time I was in a restaurant with a friend, enjoying some chips and queso. Everything was going great, until one of the waitstaff started talking loudly to the bartender about their life. The things they had to brag about. The intimate personal details I was not volunteering to hear or participate in - like being locked in an elevator, with someone on their cell phone pouring out TMI stories as if no one else exists.

This experience cost that restaurant a customer (and perhaps more than one, if others also weren't keen to learn the backstage view of their waiters personal life).

While it may seem like a small loss, word of mouth alone can magnify this loss - if I were to say the name of the restaurant and other locals read it. Shoot, one place I ate at with another friend, she found a metal screw in her sandwich - hows that for customer retention practices???

Ironically, I still go to that restaurant. Why? Because the attitude and impression the waitstaff made on me before and after the 'screw-gate' incident was supportive and understanding.

A big contrast to self-absorbed life-story narrative waitstaff whose superpower is ignorance of the world around them. (Not sure who her arch-nemesis would be...Self-Awareness Girl? Kind of an anti-hero set up).

I can't solve national political debates, or bridge the divide between differing religions, beliefs, and social constructs - at least not with just one blog alone. However, we can all do our part both in business and in our personal lives to build community.

Community helps those with different view points find gaps we can bridge in eachother's skillsets by virtue of our shared membership in a tribe. That's our common ground. Whenever something goes down that requires team work - that sense of unity creates friendships, rebuilds relationships and helps others.

I was freestyling rhymes about living with intention at a local freestyle rap cypher here

What many may not realize is that finding common ground has to be a conscious decision to be effective. Well, I guess not necessarily if you are just a community-minded person. What I mean is most people have to make an effort to start finding what they have in common with other people.

I'll never forget...riding in the peach colored F-150 Ford truck my father drove and listening to him yell at other drivers. He'd insult them and make up all kinds of reasons why they weren't ANY good.

It always stuck with me because of the intense effort he made to find reasons to belittle strangers. I wondered if he knew how exhausting it was to listen to him yell insults. How exhausted this made his own life? I bring this up because I had a real epiphany when I was working at Facebook.

I'd take my breaks outside, and walk around downtown Austin. I started remembering my dad's judgements when people walked across the intersection at 6th and Congress entering coffee shops, jewelry stores, delis, comedy theaters and more. His words floated through my brain about how this woman is probably like ___ or that man is probably just___ [insert insult]. 

I don't know why it hit me at that moment.

I thought of how much control my dad completely let go of by doing this habitually. But I started to realize, as I heard my father's voice inside my head, that I had a NEW choice:

I could look for reasons to compliment people. I could find reasons to celebrate people.

I could choose to be positive. Being positive sometimes gets a bad rep from some who feel it's negating reality or practicing avoidance of harsh truths that need to be dealt with. But this wasn't it at all. 

It is more of a choice on what to focus on. And when your attention is focused on adding details, filling in the blanks, with the intention of veneration, the intention of giving people back their humanity from these bullshit static labels we fall in the habit of accepting - this creates a new opportunity to build community.

Even if this is silently, just watching, enjoying little moments. Not creating negative imaginary backstories for why someone appears a certain way but instead creating positive, supportive opinions about people. Believing in their goodness. Believing in my own goodness. Feeling the glow of selflessly loving strangers just because I can and I choose to.

Does this relate at all to business?

To entrepreneurship?

Yes. And to enjoying life. When we pause, and look beyond trying to make money and focus on building relationships, nurturing a community, those who receive these messages respond in kind.

Humans have an innate urge to support positive socially constructive behavior.

Taking the initiative to create this within your customer's journey will not only empower you to extend the life time value of a client and build brand loyalty - you also won't feel like a shitty human being trying to manipulate others to buy from you. 

Living with intention is not another millennial buzz phrase - when you start to fill in the details. What is your intention, specifically?

And in regards to which part of your life, or your business - how do you fill in the gaps for your intention? How does your intention manifest itself in each part of your life?

This is where you are the sculptor, molding the clay of creation, deciding to create a life that celebrates diversity, new ideas, the raw unpolished surface of the planet where all these little creatures live and die and share moments of joy.

We are part of this. We continue to choose which moments to nurture, to dwell in and continue to make. We choose which thoughts become our dominant narrative.

Yes, life is hard sometimes. We lose people we care about (RIP Kobe Bryant), sometimes money is tight, hospital bills pile up, impossible obstacles seem to face us - even if that obstacle is just waking up the next morning. I've been there. Some things we overcome quicker than others.

But when we focus on building a community, locally, within our business's customer journey, among fellow professionals, sharing hobbies like horse riding, golf, sailing, gaming, photography, education - these shared values, moments, and people create a beautiful caring network that is sustainable.

Money aside - this is the legacy we can build and contribute to - the networks and communities we build and are a part of that nourish each member with a sense of belonging and support.

This is the not-so-secret weapon against apathy, isolation, pain, ads that don't convert into sales, and brick walls we hit sometimes when deciding on our next move.

The people I know, friends, family, fellow entrepreneurs - all have given me great ideas and vice versa because we chose to listen to each other.

So keep listening. You may learn something new. 

Are You On the Right Track?

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Bonjour!
The world is changing at a rapid pace and as we enter the next year the often trivialized concept of "specifies survival" has become an intriguing concept in business.
 
The popularity of sustainability is indisputable.
But it's a paradox.
As many celebrities, and social movements have popularized "going green" there are often disconnects. People with "don't support the war" signs in their yard after 911, and the invasion of Iraq for their oil, still continued to buy oil guzzling SUVs.
 
Consumers still mindlessly buy products from companies that dump toxins in local tributaries (Walmart has had lawsuits threatened by the EPA for doing this in Texas - it isn't just 3rd world countries suffering). The motivation to actually do a little bit of research - I promise you, it's not any more time than you spend scrolling the FB newsfeed per week - is very little. 
 
That's kind of mysterious. 
 
The survival of the human race appears to depend on how popular an idea is, which Kardashian endorsed it to their fans (like the fires in Australia destroying an entire country ignored by the west, until more celebrities jumped on board and publicized it), and if it's convenient. 
 
If there was some sort of complete trust in political leadership, around the world, to:

  • Care more about the long term survival of our species than getting re-elected
  • Prioritize resource preservation over doing arms races
  • Look at impacts of companies more than business deals subsidizing the very companies dumping toxins into our water supply
...then active citizenry wouldn't be as pivotal.
 
The World Grows Smaller & Bigger
 
Increasing access to technology and education are providing greater opportunities in developing countries and contribute to the expansion of the middle class as well. India is rapidly becoming more of an industrialized nation than ever before. New issues such as pollution are going to come to the forefront with this progress as well. 
 
Per to the World Economic Forum, the world has fewer people living on less than $1.25/day by one-half. We are on the path to meeting the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) 2010 forecast that the global middle class may double by 2020 and triple by 2030.
Many say this is a result of urbanization, the increased access to education (no doubt increased by access to the internet as well), tech and growth expansion opportunities.
 
So while Walt Disney may have banned plastic straws from its theme parks we the people have a ways to go for changing our buying habits. It is from within society that lasting change happens.
 
Change starts with us. 
 
For most people it's incredibly difficult to analyze their own buying behavior in relation to large changes in the world. We have 2 contradicting mindsets:
 
1. I don't matter, I can't make that big of a difference by myself
2. Everyone is looking at me, I have to be careful not to embarrass myself
 
The latter is called the spotlight effect - the idea that more people are staring at us than actually are (as the mass self-absorbed public rarely stares long at each other before power walking on).  
 
The majority of consumers resist change to habits & established behaviors. The comfort of ignorance, the benefits and luxuries of not taking responsibility for anything we do with our money is the luring siren call of a real zombie nation.
 
Unthinking, feeding, breeding in large comfortable chairs like Wall-E's cast of characters or Jabba the Hutt (By the way Mandelorian is a great series..no Disney did not pay for that name drop)...we march on into oblivion. But wait. There's more. Hope. 
Entrepreneurship+Sustainability = Opportunity
 
Entrepreneurs have discovered the benefit of sustainability as a business model due to it's popularity in pop culture. New ideas for new products that are eco-friendly pour out in the thousands every day.
 
Jason's Deli has little cards on the table talking about their sustainability work, more notices about where and how GMOs are used are no longer hidden but front and center.
 
Stating that your vegetables are organically grown not GMO isn't just an About section; it's a marketing tool and brand development asset.
 
I take heart in these type of changes. It's more than a business opportunity: being conscious of how what we do affects the world and being motivated to act on this knowledge helps save the world.
Saving the World
 
More than a general hippie euphemistic statement - but actually implement sustainable systems for land, air, and water and solar - it's simply incredible what is available now.
But the turning point, before we reach another critical mass for resource deprivation, deforestation, and water scarcity is going to come from a value shift in buying habits.
 
The 3 seconds it takes to make a buying decision based on the business practices in relation to resource-management is going to be what really helps us as a species survive.

These little decisions multiplied by the billions add up.
 
Every choice you as a person make - adds up. You are not alone. You are part of something greater. 
 
Consumers are smart. Startup founders can make use of the growing consensus that companies should do more than tout 'sustainable' as an empty slogan. People are now expecting facts and data to back up a business's sustainability claims. The fluff just isn't enough anymore.
 
I take hope from this.
 
It's new opportunities to do a new kind of business: one led by less selfish money acquisition and more global heart-conscious decision-making skills. Entrepreneurs have can build partnerships with environmental organizations, 501c3 nonprofits and sustainability research groups to verify the sustainability claims of a product, service or company.  
 
I like this. I like this a lot. 
 
My thoughts are that once it becomes a core value, inherent as 'do no harm' and 'try to not be a douche bag if you can help it' that we'll see values and companies align easier and in greater quantities. Yes, fossil fuels will fight this every step of the way until they start building better cars with less of a carbon footprint.
 
While there may be a dark before the dawn, the way things are trending is that we, as a global consciousness are continuing to evolve. I tip my cap to you, sip my Texas Pecan Coffee, and wish you a good day!

When do I get to buy a Ferrari?

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What's your dream car?

Ferrari's are high on many people's lists - personally I would rather have a Bentley. When you start a business, and get an early windfall, it's often tempting to blow all your money on a big purchase like a Ferrari. But if there isn't an infrastructure and a way to diversify your sources of income this may be taking valuable funds from other areas of your business.

As a business owner you have to make hard decisions. When first getting started, sometimes these decisions take the form of:

"Do I want to buy food this month or keep my phone turned on?"

Financial education is not included in most people's high school experience. Even college, unless you are majoring in a field like economics, doesn't teach much about money management.

Balancing a checkbook
How to invest, or even
The difference between an asset and a liability

are still skillsets the majority of people do not have in America.I remember the first time I learned about assets and liabilities...I was 19 years old, just made it off the streets into my own apartment. One of my classmates from highschool had a sister who was into a MLM type company. Essentially a pyramid scheme, as many MLMs are, like Avon. The company was called Quixtar - which years later renamed itself as Amway.

I was supposed to convince people to join, and buy groceries wholesale price from a website, which would deliver things like toothpaste, toilet paper and other nonperishable goods. I was 19, and pretty lazy, so I never got too into it. But, the required reading for the program was Robert T. Kiyosaki's Rich Dad Poor Dad. Reading that book was probably the best part of the program before I quit it.

The Rich Dad Poor Dad book defined what a liability is (what you owe other parties - like a student or business loan that's an investment into higher returns ideally) and what an asset is.

Assets add value to your company and increase your company's equity, while liabilities decrease your company's value and equity. The more your assets outweigh your liabilities, the stronger the financial health of your business.
Wallstreet Mojo gives a good breakdown of them here. 

Being good in business means having financial smarts, not just a degree from the McComb's school of business (which, by itself without a vision and strategy can often equal just being a manager at McDonald's).Learning how to make wise investments in time, money and a blue print for the future is something everyone can benefit from, not just entrepreneurs.

At a recent entrepreneur conference I was at, I was exposed to the money smarts of Ezra Firestone who is a multimillionaire. We're friends now on Faceobok at least, and I remember one of the key takeaways I got from his presentation:

Use the money your business makes to reinvest capital into that business, and sell the company, liquifying your assets, and then with the extra time and money you have now, invest in a new better company.

Rinse & repeat.

I think about his presentation, and a recent conversation I had with a friend of mine. We were talking about my plans for launching another business and getting into a bigger house as a result.He warned me to not spend too much money on it and cut costs where I can.

It was good advice.

I mentioned this and that I wouldn't make this decision until I had revenue above certain margins, and ideally multiple streams.I need to figure out the amount of investment capital I can get to jumpstart this project but I wouldn't be able to do this unless I spent time first looking within.

The way to become successful is to figure out yourself first.

Developing healthy routines for introspection, life path planning, and how to get to those first milestones is crucial to maintain momentum.So when do I get to buy a Ferrari? Or perhaps an Aston Martin?

The answer is when you're able to put money back into your business to grow it bigger and see that return, with more than once source of revenue - then it may be time to splurge.

A promotion doesn't equal a business. Big wins are great - but the follow up plan is how you stay winning. Daily routines, mental, and emotional are how we get there - babysteps to creating a better future.
 

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Exciting New Era of the 20s

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As the new year approaches, we make our resolutions for the next 365 days, and reflect on the past year. But, it's a special time; we are concluding a decade.
Seems crazy right?
I don't know about you but for me this feels like the first official decade of the 2000s. 2000-2010 still seemed like just the year 2000 extended. The teens, (which is what I consider 2010 - 2019), gave the feeling of still being the year 2000 extended - era wise. 
Is it just me? 
 
Did you feel a sense of "we are living in the new 70s, 60s, 80s, 90s" ? 
I didn't. But now, after society has adapted to all the new innovations in technology it feels like the start of a new era.
With the ever present smartphone, how that shapes art, music, the club scene, schools' Edtech ventures, the accessibility of media, the rise of Netflix as an ever present background for home entertainment, the normalizing of online dating apps, the prevalence of rideshare companies like Uber and Lyft now becoming a household term
- it feels like we've balanced out to a distinct way of life that has its own culture.
 
The last era I remember having its own sense of zeitgeist was the 90s. But with the 20s - this is the new decade complete with new ways of living. 
 
A New Era
The past 20 years seemed like an experiment but now, there is kind of a balance. We've adapted with new mores, and a way of talking about things that is unique to post 90s. Socially though - I would say we still have a ways to go. New habits have created new problems in the new era.
 
Younger people - from babies given iPads to stare at for hours, to 9-18 year olds are all heavily co-dependent on technology to communicate, socialize and feel connected. The ability to focus on one thing will full attention is on a sharp decline.
 
Even sitting still isn't as common. Critical thinking, using our brains for more than googling has been suffering. Online behavior has given many an excuse to be mean, hiding behind the screen.
 
Social media is used to validate the youth's sense of SELF-ACCEPTANCE- which is a real problem given the trolling, fake profiles, and artificial community social media giants like Facebook have created.
 
At the same time, incredible community efforts to assist those in need for wild fires in Cali, to floods in Houston, Texas have been assisted by social media. People have literally been rescued from rooftops because of posts they made online - that is a win and it's a...err...haha rather 'new' as a way for helping folks.
On the flip side, among the youth, there is a huge issue of substituting attitude for integrity - I have a phone, I can call a rideshare, I can talk back and organize my escape from any discipline for crossing boundaries by coordinating with friends and questionable characters on my smartphone.
"I do what I WANT mom and dad!"
 
"I will public shame you online if you don't let me just live my life!" 
 
Sense of Purpose
Rampant drug use amongst the Asian communities, small town white suburbanite communities, in addition to the generally accepted state of ghettos and impoverished grottos - is on the rise.
Young people are also doing a lot of drugs - not just marijuana but bath salt, barbiturates, molly, X, etc. The irony here is, often the spike in drug addiction is amongst successful college graduates with profitable careers in industries like software engineering.
 
Part of it is ease of access in our ever increasingly connected world, but much of it is due to the same issues the youth face with technology addiction - a lack of purpose. A missing place inside for a sense of why we are here.
 
Some fill this hole with staying busy all the time working, or with drinking going out to bars almost every night of the week. Others turn to tech, and obsess over the newest gadgets, turning hostile if the social behavior this creates is ever put into question.
Tech has become the new religion - if you question validity, or suggest a balance in turning the black mirror screens off, many act like you insulted their god - just as defensive and scared. 
 
Others use religion to fill the missing pieces inside with a consistent whole, to define life purpose with. This can be benevolent and based in compassion - actions speak louder than words - other times it's predatory.
It's a way of not accepting people who don't think, feel, and believe the same way, thus creating a false moral superiority.
 
Jesus in the gospels said a bunch of helpful things, that regardless of religion, if practiced, would make us all better people. Walk a mile in someone else's shoes, be forgiving, understanding of those different from you.
It is simply a tool, and how it is used depends on the user.
 
Dozens of Ways to Look @ the Same Thing 
 
Philosophy, humanism, and rational thinking have addressed questions of purpose and meaning for centuries. Whether there is one cohesive solution found or not the underlining theme is to be open.
Be less rigid, more curious and to be adventurous in exploring our own perspectives.
 
To be brave enough to find out what is beneath the surface of roles we play and attitudes we hold. To balance one's self by not getting too attached to one way of thinking. To cross reference sources, til you feel something that feels right. It's an intuitive, instinctive moment.
Reading philosophy for 20 years now, I've questioned my own beliefs many times - not motivated by self-doubt but simply asking,
 
"Is there a better way to do this...living, being, adulting thing?"
 
This led to revelations, understanding the world, who I am, and added a sense of direction to where I am going. By asking, "What's really possible for identity if I get better?" and evaluating different view points - I found my center.
Many live and die never exploring who they are. Because it's a paradox - on one hand accept who you are, on the other also ask, "What can I do to improve?"
 
Body, heart, spirit, mind, life.
 
All of it. 
 
Realizing..when looking out, how few have gone this deep, compassionately questioning their beliefs, wanting to give back
- I see there's a gap in many childhoods.
With this increased access to resources, through the internet, smartphones, laptops, video conferencing, texting, social media apps displaying entire lives - the real sense of meaning for living is often lost if kids don't have an underlining sense of right and wrong.
So they turn to drugs, even after becoming successful, making money, but having no real inner sense of direction.
 
At The Very Least...
 
The hands off approach of let kids raise themselves (which Will Smith has, as a scientologist, for his kids - and the results speak for themselves) doesn't really work because how easy it is to influence children through social media, blogs, rando websites and such.
At the same time, indoctrinating a child into a religion from an early age steals the freedom of choice - they should be allowed to decide once they are of sound body and mind what they believe in.
 
Yet - at the very least kids should be taught the value of compassion, the value of active listening and validating other people's view points, to lend a helping hand when possible, not be self absorbed but appreciate what we have and look for opportunities to improve one's self.
I feel...at a bare minimum, these traits will at least create a blueprint for self discovery less self-destructive than many students I observed when substitute teaching.
 
Reflecting on the 20s
 
I, haha, will not attempt to solve this entire issue in one blog post.
But, something really strikes me when a friend of mine last night was telling me about her friends with successful careers but drug addiction problems.
As I sip coffee I got for Christmas and watch the sunrise this morning I am thankful for my sense of purpose. 
 
Reflecting on entering the new 20s, the 'roaring 20s' of the previous century, I wonder what this new decade has in store for us.
Will we finally get hoverboards? Teleportation?
Will values re-enter social dialogue as a worthwhile focus for the youth? How will we continue to evolve as a species?
We have neat benefits of information being shared like plastic eating bacteria to clean the oceans, solar and wind renewable energy becoming more easily available and cheaper each year.
Yes, there are still challenges, but I remain hopeful as humans still have the ability to amaze. 
 
Happy New Years!

 

Fitness FTW

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Sunday August 12th 2018 Press play to hear the music that goes with this blog

Jesse Cook : Tempest

Maybe it was almost dying in New Orleans  that finally pushed me to seriously commit to living healthier, eating more nutritiously an adopting a rigorous swimming regime. Perhaps it was all those years of body-shaming I endured, both from my friends who’d make fun of me in good spirited jokes, or from my inner monologue staring in the mirror and really being unhappy with what I looked like 

Certainly throwing up blood violently, passing out, waking up, and throwing up more was a gut check on how I lived my life. The unexpectedness of almost dying from blood loss on my summer vacation slapped me in the face. RUDE. I felt like the world was spinning out of my control. Standing up in the AirBnb and having waves of pressure hit my head on the left side, now the ride side, and the blackness creeping up on the edge of my vision affected me more than I care to admit. 

I’ve come close to death many times in my life. Car accidents, comas, allergic reactions, guns being pulled on me at 16 years old and being threatened by homeless people with knives. Somehow, I was able to cruise through it, in some sort of functional shock that pushed the emotions of what I had to deal with far below the surface. This time it was different. 

I have more to lose now & bigger dreams than simply surviving until tomorrow morning. Authoring my first book, writing the second book, teaching myself Spanish to prepare for going to UT this month, working at Facebook and absolutely loving my job, I’m on the cusp of greatness I feel, now more than ever. I have so many creative inventive ideas for business that haven’t been put into play yet. 

Entrepreneur Blues

It’s like, I feel like I’ve made my forays into the mindset of an entrepreneur but I am still filling out the application. I don’t feel like a true entrepreneur yet until I have a steady income each month from my projects. But getting into better physical shape, and enjoying what I look like when I look in the mirror are part of my vision of myself as an entrepreneur. So when I almost kicked the bucket in June this year and spent 3 days tied to a hospital bed with IV tubes, something inside of me snapped. In a good way. 

Enough bullshitting Trevor, you can and will do better than this. On all fronts. Be a better son, be better to my son, be a better coworker, be a better friend and take better care of my body. Be better at this life mastery type ish. Taking the time to work more authentically on my goals, my business and journey into entrepreneurship is intrinsic to the person I’ve decided to become. Fitness is something I have put off for far too long. 

Diet Progress Fitness Goals

4 Weeks and 4 days ago I began a 6 Week Eat To Live challenge: I’ve given up dairy, all bread except for once or twice a week pita and hummus, all oils, and eat only fruits and vegetables. Part of it is I can’t really afford to see an internal medicine doctor the docs in New Orleans wanted me to see in Austin so I figure just eat as healthy as possible and the rest will fix itself. So far so good. 

After the 3rd week of eating only fruits for breakfast and greens for lunch and dinner I began to feel ravenously hungry for the first time. Really hungry. It’s a wonder that I made it 3 weeks before missing full meals with bread, cheese and um…Creamy Creations Mint Chocolate Chip! But I made it. I didn’t cheat. I just added heavier things to my diet like portobello mushrooms, seasoned with lemon-pepper and basil, sautéed to perfection in an iron skillet. Near the end of the 3rd week I developed a craving for Green Tea. I’ve never been a huge fan of Green Tea, but I bought some and drink it on the reg now. 

I work out 5 to 6 days a week, cardio, weights, and calisthenics. I meditate almost everyday. I go swimming twice a week. For 45 minutes I do front crawl laps and then 4 laps using a kick board. I feel better. I am better. Inside and out. I’ve lost 14 pounds, and am on track to becoming the fittest version of myself yet. I’m still overweight right now with a belly:

I want to be as cut as Mark Walhberg is (we have similar body types), and sport a six pack of well defined rectus abdominis,  Transversus abdominis (TVA), and serratus muscles.

When will this happen? Realistically? Given my progress so far, around 3 months or less. I’ve seen more definition in my biceps from both weight lifting and swimming laps, I feel a square beneath my belly forming but my body fat percentages are way too high to show any muscles yet. But that day is coming, sooner than you think. 

Eating salads everyday has an ancillary benefit to losing weight and getting in better shape: you are mofreaking healthy. I enjoy feeling good inside and out. I have more energy to do the things I love and am aligning with my goals more intuitively than ever before.

Yes, I still have a belly, but not for long. Them washboard abs are on their way, express delivery. And the lifestyle to go with it, sailing on yachts, becoming a book author, driving my Mini Cooper. I have lots to work on. But I’m motivated by the consistency of the dedication I seem capable of now, and see bright things in the future. Until next time SpaceCowboy…

Dr. Robert Young

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Press Play: Back To The Rivers Of Believe: Way To Eternity/Hallelujah/The Rivers Of Believe

Wednesday April 18th 2018

Real Life Heroes

It’s not often you get to meet your heroes. Its even less seldom that you become friends with your heroes. I’ve gone through many iterations of who I am over the years. Each new experience bringing to light a new view of the planet and how one small person can make a huge impact. All through my life I’ve had a surreal feeling of living in a dream. The habits that make us walk through our daily routine on autopilot without questioning why we are the people we become sing a seductive lullaby. This is punctuated by catalysts that shake me into periods of being awake, aware, and purposeful.

It’s hard to predict falling asleep because you’re not aware of it while it happens. I feel this is a modern dilemma which plagues many of the deep thinkers of our time. The comfortable embrace of forgetting introspection, and continuing to stimulate our senses rather than our mind, or that intangible spark which ignites our spirit into active engagement. In the spring of 2015 in many ways I was asleep. I’d done years of work for many Ralph Nader organizations and volunteered in my local community. I’d been a public speaker for the families of minorities shot by Austin Police Department officers under questionable circumstances. Speaking at City Hall, the Human Rights Commission and the State Capital about the ethical use of tasers, and the divide between east side grottos and law enforcement, I did my best to become involved and make a difference adding honesty and truth to the public dialogue. I’d studied environmentalism and to a small degree, sustainability. But, nothing could prepare me for how much taking Dr. Robert Young’s Green Cities course at UT Austin would change, and evolve my perspective.

I had the type of arrogance which comes from too often being a big fish in a small pond. I was used to being the most outspoken person in the room, and the one most engaged in realistic practicalities for, well, not just complaining about the woes of the world but finding a real solution. When selecting this course, it was not done with much forethought, I just knew I needed a Signature course for my degree requirements. I really liked the name “Green Cities,” it appealed to my love of nature. My curiosity was peaked, so I thought, “Why not? Let’s explore!” 

First Day Of Class

I remember the first day of class, January 20th I think, 2015. Dr. Young’s classroom was held in kind of a basement floor of a pharmacy building on campus. The feng shui was less than ideal. I walked in, with my REI backpack full of notebooks, and slid into a seat midway between the front row and the back row. Dr. Young began speaking about the basics most classes covered. Then he got into the course curriculum. I was struck by how relevant, dynamic and interesting everything he was saying was. Dr. Young seemed to know what he was talking about on more than a purely academic level. I was intrigued. 

After class was over, I approached Dr. Young and introduced myself. I gave a short synopsis of some of the volunteer work I’d done and how fascinated I was with his class. He was short with me and reserved, not really knowing who I was and if I was just another student who was going to drop out in the first 3 weeks of class. Curiosity, and a genuine interest for where this class was going made me eager to attend the next. Over the course of the next couple of months, my appreciation for Dr. Young and what he was teaching grew immensely. We eventually moved to the Sutton building and got a much better classroom. 

I met some of the other students in his class and there was quite a range of people who were taking his course. I made a couple of really good friends who changed my life for the better many months and years later. This is the course description from the syllabus: 

 

This course examines the history and future of the ecological city and the technological and social forces that continue to shape it. Metropolitan transformation is explored in conjunction with alternative transportation, renewable energy, green infrastructure, recycling and resource management, and sustainable economics as means toward advancing cities to become the basis of an ecologically sound and socially just society.

The first part of the course introduces students to the long, but often overlooked, history of environmental city development in the western planning tradition. Specific emphasis is placed on the classic period as well as 19th century garden city planning and encompasses early efforts to establish solar design, mass transit, and green infrastructure as the basis of urban systems that still inform contemporary green city strategies.

The second part of the course reviews present-day efforts to apply these approaches in the face of modern metropolitan challenges to creating ecologically responsible cities. Specific case studies are studied within the theoretical context and political struggles that frame them.

Required Reading:

Civilizing American Cities – Olmsted (Sutton-ed.), Da Capo Press
Garden Cities of To-Morrow – Howard, MIT Press
The Great Financial Crisis: Causes and Consequences – Foster and Magdoff, MR Press The Ecology of the Automobile – Freund and Martin, Black Rose Books

 

The Big Picture

Each successive class, more of the big picture became clear to me. Much of the work I’d done in the previous years laid the groundwork, on top of which Dr. Young built a magnificent shining city of sustainability, agriculture, economics, and urban planning. The group discussions were animated and full of insight. I learned that Robert created a company called American Soil and was instrumental in helping America set up recycling systems and much of his passion came from practicing what he preaches. I expressed this feeling of admiration and being able to connect the dots in an email I sent him the 2nd month of class: 

Thursday, February 12, 2015 11:30 PM

To: Young, Robert F
Subject: Re: Toronto’s Ecology Park Today
 

Hey Dr Young, I was just thinking about your class, it was such a random choice, after being forced

to take a freshman class due to my academic plan aging out, I had the option of choosing other UGS courses that better fit my schedule, and allowed me to have Tuesday and Thursday off to work.  I decided, ultimately and on a whim to take your class instead because it seemed so interesting and worth sacrificing the ability to work during this semester for the only two days i would have off.  
I am glad I did, today I really had one of the biggest realizations of my sustainable-activist-public speaker-volunteer career, and although it was a point already reinforced earlier in the course, it finally dawned on me, this is what I have needed for so long; an appeal to the decision makers in business and politics to associate capitalistic value to the sustainable approach…in a less wordy way…
I have been working for a long time on changing the world for the better, through many MOs,
and the road block consistently was, how do I make those in industry who are for lack of a better
term, morally depraved when it comes to a global view and doing things for the good of the world
rather than self interested motivations—ok I was too optimistic on this being less wordy–
But that was again a wall I beat my head against time and time again, in different sectors of business, the self interested projections of futures shaped by big business, came down to a social more they simply did not share, and a foolishly so in my opinion.  
It dawned on just now, listening to the Floyd track attached and thinking of your class: 
Green spaces ensure a quality of life that attract and keep companies like Mercedes in New Jerz 
which therefore ensure jobs for workers, and circulate worker’s capital in local economies creating
windfalls for local and national chains of business that all benefit ultimately from protecting the environment in a psychosocialogical and monetary manner rather than the simplistic but true epithet of “why kill that which keeps us alive,” the natural habitat, and resource sustainability.  The latter seems simple but still is not grasped by Forbes top ten lists, who have politicians in their pocket. 
This is the gap I have been needing to connect; how to appeal on a economic level for preservation 
of ecosystems which we are connected to and need anyways to survive, but that low level thinking
and motivations of greed have often blinded those with the power to change the world for the better
from changing it. But to connect economy to ecology like this does a lot for my ability to use 
the talents I’ve already developed in this field to further reach different diasporas I perhaps would
not have otherwise, so thanks.  Someday I will learn how to write in cliff notes lol 
Trevor  

One Person Actually Can Make A Difference

It felt amazing, the joy inside of me growing, that changing the world for the better wasn’t just some anachronistic adage from the 70s but something that can really happen. We’d have the lecture with Dr. Young, and then on another day of the week, we’d meet with his assistant, a graduate student of City Planning named Katharine. There were many animated discussions in those meetings and they offered a chance to get to know my classmates better. One of the classmates I had was a young Russian girl, who sat in the front row during Dr. Young’s lectures. She had an interesting way of speaking, as she was very intent on exploring where her ideas and understanding met Dr. Young’s knowledge. I felt there was something different about her, that she came by her world experience in a way which wasn’t as traditional as most students. One day after class, I introduced myself to her when we were standing outside of class together. For the sake of her privacy, we’ll call her D. I started sitting in the front row next to her and another student named Nathan who I became good friends with. 
Dr. Young had a thing about punctuality, no matter what your excuse was, he really didn’t like it when you got to class late. This is because he was literally dropping gold mines of how to effectively sustain the planet and felt that if you didn’t share his passion or respect it at least, it was an insult. In a way it was comical, how worked up he was about people arriving late. Also, if you were looking at your cell phone during his lecture, this was a big no no as well. When you consider how valuable what he was sharing is, it’s easier to understand how intense Robert got about the class he was teaching. 

Hip Hop Scholar 

We had what was called, Journal Reflections due each week. The format was up to us, whether we wrote something down that was poetic, or artistic, Dr. Young wanted us to put what we learned in our own words, or creative format as a way of synthesizing the material. It was a smart move because when you teach something you learn it even better, and essentially he was getting us to teach him what he was teaching us. After one class, one day, before the first Journal Reflections were due, I approached Dr. Young and explained that I am a hip hop artist, a rapper. I’ve made mixtapes that I’ve gone to Rock the Bells with and handed copies to Souls of Mischief, Big Krit, and Cypress Hill. Some of the local shows I’ve done had headliners including Devin the Dude and Prince Paul of De La Soul. Could I perhaps create a hip hop song for my reflection, instead of a journal? Surprisingly, Dr. Young whole heartedly agreed.
By this time, we were more well acquainted. I frequently spoke out in class asking for clarification or adding knowledge to a topic he was covering. We met often in his office hours to discuss the course and the issues of society. I didn’t realize it at the time but I had made a huge commitment to write, record, and release a new hip hop song every single week. Due to my course load, it became a challenge to do, but I always delivered. I’ll always remember those Wednesday nights, half way delirious, half way asleep, rapping into my microphone after spending 2 hours creating the instrumental, another hour or 2 writing the rap that implemented topics of the class that week. To be honest, it was not some of my best work. The Rep My City mixtape released in 2018 is a better representation of this, but, still, creating those raps was all part of the experience of attending the Green Cities class. How many professors would let you create a rap in place of an assignment?? I was super grateful he was so open minded and appreciative of my efforts. It made me think outside the box trying to write raps about the Auto Industrial Complex or Wall Street Economics. 

Unforgettable Moments

I’ll never forget our heartfelt discussions in his office in Sutton Hall. He had plants on his balcony that I think technically weren’t allowed there and the sunshine silhouetted their leaves. We talked about the inevitability of fossil fuels transitioning out into renewable energy and how there was a fight to the finish from the oil kings to keep things the same even if it was killing the planet. We talked about hip hop, and I helped educate Robert on the topic as he didn’t listen to much but a few old school groups like Public Enemy. He and I talked about my journey from being a homeless teenager, living in an alleyway, to getting into Austin Community College and eventually accepted into UT with a recommendation letter from the President of ACC at the time, Steven Kinslow. Often we spoke of Dr. Young’s feelings being hurt by the students that he felt didn’t take his class seriously. It was such an incomprehensible idea to him that students would rather look at their Facebook status on Android or iPhone smart phones than pay attention to Fredrick Law Olmsted and how Green City open space planning emerged in response to the Industrial Revolution.
Personally I was riveted in my seat for his lectures. I took as many notes as I could and even recorded many of his lectures on my iPhone. I attempted to convince him to forgive these students for not having the wherewithal to realize how important I knew what he was teaching is. I’d say things like:
“Consider this Dr. Young, these kids haven’t perhaps had the catalysts you and I have had to help them recognize the significance of well, taking care of the thing that keeps us alive, the Earth. Instead of resenting them for not really giving a damn, have compassion, like you would for a wounded animal, that perhaps they aren’t strong enough right now to digest everything you have to say. Give them time. It may be next year they think back and something you said dawns on them and suddenly they have that “ah ha” moment.”
He’d say something along the lines of, “I haven’t thought of it that way, that makes sense.” I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was like an older version of myself with the same unshakable faith in humanity but the same critiques of apathy. Me if I was born a few decades earlier. We were kindred spirits and I felt that instinctively. There are so many people who are just talking heads, reciting points they heard on a syndicated talk show or radio show without really sincerely investing their heart. I found someone who, at least for the few moments we shared, could see the same world I did. And give hope that we can work together to make it better through the power of City Planning and Garden Cities. 

Green Cities

Before Green Cities, I never knew how influential City Planners were, and how much power they held over how culture, race, economic livelihood, schools, transportation and local businesses developed. City Planning was a Graduate course and I was still an undergrad. It made me rethink my entire Geography degree and wish I knew about City Planning before I started going to UT. Learning about edible furniture, solar architecture, urban ecology, Cuba’s mastery of urban gardening, green infrastructure, rooftop gardens reducing AC bills and of course, Green Cities.
A Green City is a a sustainable city that by its very design can feed itself without a lot of reliance on the surrounding countryside for imports. Having a kind of perpetual farmer’s market of agriculture surrounding the city to provide both fresh vegetables and fruit as well as a source of economy is one of the cruxes of a Green City. Using solar or wind or hydrology the city can power itself with renewable sources of energy. The core concept is create the smallest possible ecological footprint, as well as producing the least amount of pollution possible. Balancing pedestrian walkways with automobile routes and efficiently use land. Composting, urban gardening, recycling, or converting waste-to-energy.
The Garden city movement was first established by Sir Ebenezer Howard in the United Kingdom. 
Our class’s syllabus describes a Green City as also supporting world peace with less involvement with resource conflict:

A green city is a city that manages resources cyclically for renewal and regeneration, thus improving the prospects of peace. Note, this does not mean it is completely self-sufficient or autarkic, i.e. it is self-sufficient to the degree that it never engages in any trade or produce tradable surpluses. It does mean that it has set up systems for the responsible management of its own resources such that they are enhanced or made continually available rather than consumed and destroyed.

The Feeling Beneath It All

The energy that vibrated in that class was something beautiful to witness and it changed my life forever. Finally, I understood feasibly, how we can create a better planet, a practical utopia. The tempting cynicism of the current times was pushed at bay, and I could finally hope again. I wasn’t some idealistic but a catalyst for change. When the semester ended, I made it as clear I wanted to stay in touch with Robert and find some way to help him create the reality of Garden Cities. D and I became much closer friends than I think either of us had expected. She is super intelligent, majoring in engineering but also interested in the esoteric. We introduced each other to new reading material and concepts. Some of the things we talked about in deep conversations at coffee shops changed my life, and helped to evolve how I saw the world. We both shared Dr. Young’s sincere feeling that we too can improve the planet and that it’s worth caring about, in our own unique ways. 

Green Cities Epilogue 

Dr. Young and I met several times after the Green Cities course concluded. While he gave me an A, I did not do so well in Geographic Information Systems, and Spanish. I became academically dismissed and could not continue my education at UT until the fall of 2018. We touched base every few months at the Crown and Anchor, having a beer and some black bean tacos while discussing how we could work together. He also kept me updated on his adventures, meeting with the Waller Creek Conservatory for something that I think was going to be kind of like a winding greenbelt through the city (Waller Creek stretches pretty far distances across Austin). It was always a treat to see Robert, we’d catch up about our lives, and world issues. He told me about his peripatetic since of wandering, and not being sure if Austin was a city that he wanted to live in. But when his wife Katherine, got tenure at UT, that solidified Austin as his home base. Dr. Young didn’t know what to make of this, and we commiserated about gentrification and hipsters. Being a Native Austinite, I championed my city to him and let him know that he would grow to love this city too.

We would communicate through emails fairly frequently. He used to have a phone but he got so frustrated with it, not being too hip on modern technology, that after leaving it at an airport accidentally, he just swore off having another cell phone. Getting in touch with Robert was a task as I’d have to wait until he checked his email or hope that he’d be around his office at UT to answer. In August last year I watched a Ted Talk one time where the founder of Lyft was telling Tony Robbins about how Robert Young inspired him to create Lyft and emailed Dr. Young excitedly: 

Turns out Dr. Young was meeting with John Zimmer the next day, how funny is that? Dr. Young was always in a juggling act, balancing his career, with taking care of his 3 kids, helping his wife, trying to make tenure at UT and the frequent traveling he did working on various projects. I thought at one point, because he hadn’t responded in a long time, if I may have said something offensive to him. I emailed him, apologizing and asking him what was going on. He wrote the kindest reply:

The Last Supper   

On Sunday March 26th 2017 I saw Robert for the last time.We had dinner together at my townhome. Our plan was to create a global network of students who had taken his Green Cities class, as many of them had risen in business and were now influential. I had suggested the idea to him a year or two back, over a beer at Crown and Anchor. We were talking about the potential of all these students who really cared about the world, pooling their resources together to create Garden Cities, and implement these concepts into every day life. Rob had to go to the University of Oregon where he used to teach and find a way to get class rosters for who attended. I had created a Facebook Page for this community, but not much more happened as he was too busy with other projects to ever follow up. Last March we had a wonderful conversation and had a great time catching up. Little did I know that it would be the last time I saw Dr Robert Young before he unexpectedly passed away from a hemorrhagic stroke on January 6, 2018. 
I didn’t find out until a few months later, through my friend, D. the Green Cities classmate, who texted me saying, this is not our Dr Young right? She’d gotten an email (and I had too, I just hadn’t checked my UT email yet) inviting us to a tree planting ceremony in Robert’s memory. I had a hard night that night. I was overcome with grief and it’s challenging to even write about it now. One of my real life heroes, who has done so many incredible things for the world, has now left the world. The last time we spoke was in an email was 2 weeks before he died. I was telling him how I made one of my son’s dreams come true. I asked my son in 2016 where he’d like to go if it was anywhere in the world, he said Hawaii, so in December 2017 I took him there. I emailed Rob about it in December:

Coping With It 

I didn’t know what to do, my heart was hurting and I asked why we would lose such an amazing person. I didn’t have any answers. Robert Young was more than a professor to me, he was my hero, role model, and friend. As a way to cope with this welling of emotions and the feeling of powerlessness, I created a Facebook post as my own sort of eulogy, to reach out and tell someone about how much this man meant to me. I wrote:

I cannot describe what this man meant to me to ever fully give him justice, Robert Young, more than just the professor of the Green Cities UT course i enrolled in, was a mentor, an inspiration, a dreamer who made those dreams come true.

A man who not only motivated John Zimmer to create Lyft who took the same Green Cities course i was in, but also created the foundation to the recycling program America uses. Robert Young passed away January this year I just found out today.

I loved him like family, I wouldn’t be the man i am today without his positive influence.

Dr. Young changed so many lives for the better with his burning passion to help this world become a better place through city planning, economics and the sustainable architecture of Garden Cities.

His sincere desire to enrich the lives he touched with the knowledge, energy and realistic blueprints gave the gift of faith and hope in his beautiful vision of the future. My heart goes out to his surviving wife and children.

Dr. Young and I met several times in the years after I graduated his course and made many plans to change the world together through Green Cities and the community of talented professionals who took his course.

I stay committed to his vision, and will dedicate my life to helping to make this a reality. The world has lost one of the greatest people to ever walk this planet but i will never forget his words, his wisdom, and the fire that burned so true inside his soul.

The last time I saw Robert we had dinner together at my townhome and strategized future plans to bring people together, and create a Green Cities intelligentsia to change the world, by augmenting various strengths of each individual has towards creating an organization comprised of those who shared the passion for bettering the planet through sustainable city planning, architecture, permaculture, IT, social networking, economics, transportation, solar power, urban ecosystems and global interdependence

This photo was taken that night, may peace
be with you old friend.

We took that photo together in front of my home library where all the books of his Green Cities course are kept.

Tree Planting Ceremony

D. and I, we went to the tree planting ceremony in Rob’s honor together, she picked me up and we car pooled to UT. We were late to the ceremony and D. joked, “Dr. Young would be so mad at us for being late!” We laughed quietly in heartfelt nostalgia. I chatted briefly with Robert’s wife Katharine and let her know how much Rob inspired me. How I’m going to dedicate a significant portion of my life to helping make his dreams of Green Cities a reality. I mentioned that now that I have refined my musical talents more, I’m going to do a remix of all the Green Cities raps I created for Rob’s class. This is a promise I’m going to keep.
  
 
Afterwards, we were invited to a subsequent ceremony mainly of UT staff in honor of Robert Young. As I made small talk with various people including the Dean of the Architecture school I think, I found it hard to feel present. Seeing pictures of younger Rob with his children, in various cities, at younger ages made me feel like tearing up again. I didn’t feel up to social pleasantries but did the best I could with my Green
Cities classmate at my side. 

Robert’s Future

Drinking a beer and walking slowly around the room, circling back to the table my friend D. was standing at, I was filled with sadness but also hope.Hope that I am a good enough person to help manifest Robert’s vision of sustainability. I emailed him when I recently finished writing my first book, on personal development, because his approval meant just as much to me as blood relatives.I don’t have a pithy platitude to make the loss of Rob any more bearable but over time a perspective develops. Instead of sadness, I’m gradually starting to feel more and more gratitude that I was lucky enough to meet Dr. Robert Young. You only get to meet a person like that once in your lifetime. The lessons of interdependent relationships between agriculture, transportation and city planning and the forever shining hope in his heart I share with my son. I’m grateful to have been there at the right time, to have felt his sincere caring for the planet and the people who live on it. And I’m grateful for the chance to pay it forward, however I can.

-Trevor

Sleeping Dawgs Don’t Lie

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Tuesday April 3rd 2018 Read more blogs here: https://jetskishaman.com/blog/

Press Play if Music Doesn’t Start Automatically – Band: Alt-J Song: MS

Sleeping Dogs Don’t Lie

2 months ago a new neighbor moved in next door to me. At first, I thought he was going to be a good guy. A neighbor I could hear that pressurized pop of opening beer cans with while we shot the breeze and enjoyed our respective domiciles.

How wrong I was.

Little did I know he had a huge doberman pincher who was a trained attack dog. Within a couple of weeks, he brought the dog into his place and it started barking all the time. I endured it because I thought, “Hmm, ok, well it’s a new place. I’m sure his dog just needs a little time to adjust.” Keep in mind there’s no yard, it’s just an indoor townhome. The barking didn’t stop, in fact, it was increasing everyday. 

I’m a fairly reasonable guy, so I don’t make an issue of this. But it got to the point where the doberman was smelling me through the walls and barking when I entered my kitchen. Barking when I closed the refrigerator door. Barking when I bumped into my trashcan. Barking when I put a pan on the stove to boil water for coffee. Barking at my mother when she knocked on my door to visit me. Barking at night, 10pm, 11pm, 12am, 1am, 2am, 4am. 

I would come home from work, and it would lunge at me charging into my neighbors front door…THUMP…THUMP….THUMP. Remember, I’ve never interacted with this dog, it’s new, I’ve never told it to shut up, or anything. For some reason, perhaps thinking it was protecting it’s territory, the dog targeted me, the next door neighbor with it’s aggression. A big black dog who was above my waist in height. 

 

I’d be walking by my place on my way to do laundry and it would follow me throughout the neighbor’s townhome, running, charging into their glass patio door it could see me through. Barking, growling, slobbering like some demonic Cujo intent on its pound of flesh. I was starting to get a bit concerned. This wasn’t normal behavior.  

The breaking point came when I was walking to check my mail, and a friend of my neighbor’s was sitting in a lawnchair outside. She was loosely holding on to a leash this big angry dog was on and not paying attention to it. As I walked past, the huge doberman jumped forward, snapping the leash, with its open jaws slamming shut within inches of my exposed left thigh ( I was wearing shorts). The slobber hit my legs that’s how close it was to sinking its long teeth into my flesh. I didn’t say a word, I just kept walking, pretending I wasn’t almost violently bitten by a trained attack dog.  

I notified my property manager immediately upon returning home, after getting my mail, that I couldn’t even check my mail now without this dog attempting to bite me –and coming close to doing so! I notified the leasing agency that if I’m bitten by a gigantic dog attacking me right outside my home, I’m going to seek legal actions against my neighbor. I mentioned that I won’t be paying the legal fees as the suit would include their property, for not providing a safe living space and vetting their residents properly.  

I got a prompt response – the property manager wanted to help. I was relieved because sometimes the leasing agency you rent from can be apathetic or unreliable. Not the case here, they wanted to investigate the lease agreement my neighbor had for pets. A month goes by, the dog still stalks me through the windows and glass patio door, still barks with real angry emotion when I unlock my front door. Now, this was more than just a minor irritation; it was disrupting my ability to enjoy being at home. 

I check back with the property manager, and his assistant responds that basically they are working on it, without any more info. I write back, professionally, but passionately:

“Today the neighbor’s dog started barking aggressively at me when I walked outside to carry clothes to laundry room. It was barking through their front door, and ran around to their patio doors lunging against the glass at me. This is beyond disturbing, the big dog clearly wants to attack me, it’s very different from the small dogs that other people own here.

Last night it was barking at 12 am midnight, and there have been many days like this.The dog continues to smell me through the door and lunge at their front door, ramming against the door when I leave my townhome.

Does that seem..normal to you? Or something I should have to deal with?

This dog continues to disturb the peaceful environment that so enchanted me with living here when I moved in. My uncle raised rottweilers, when I was younger, I worked at a dog kennel, I know what normal dog behavior is.There is something wrong with this dog, either it was mistreated, and/or it was trained to attack people.”

I even offered to pay their pet deposit if my property manager got the dog out of there. Turns out – my neighbor never let them know he was bringing a dog and didn’t pay the deposit. Another month goes by, the barking doesn’t stop. I’m now getting beyond frustrated. It’s like having your smoke detector go off but you can’t find it to turn it off. I’m not able to sleep as well, and every single morning the dog barks at me through the walls when I’m making my morning coffee – so before I get one sip, there’s a barrage of short bursts of barks that cut through the walls like butter. The dog starts barking later and later at night. My neighbor isn’t doing anything about this except leaving so he can escape the barking too.

So I write an email to the leasing company, letting them know how miserable being at home has become and how much I used to love living here. They write back, surprised I’m still experiencing this issue, because, a month ago, they told my neighbor to either get rid of the dog by the end of the month or find a new place to live. I was shocked. I wasn’t trying to get this guy evicted, I just wanted peace and quiet. Apparently since he never informed the property that he had a dog, didn’t pay the deposit, combined with not doing anything to stop the barking, and it almost biting me added up for them to drop the hammer. This was a month ago. 

Nothing changed. Headaches are the norm, walking on tip toes so the dog doesn’t hear me and bark again, is the norm. A couple of weeks ago, I let them know the conditions have worsened, without improvement, and ask for help. The property manager writes back to tell me they’ve now said eviction is the next step since he refuses to listen to the leasing company’s instructions. The dog is clearly really unhappy being cooped up in a small place when it’s huge, young, full of energy and is mad about this, taking it out on anyone else daring to cross its path. 

Day before yesterday my neighbor stopped me outside my place and started cursing me out. He’s a skinny white dude with tattoos and shoulder length hair, and had a girl I’d seen holding the dog when it almost bit me, standing to the right. I was blocked in and couldn’t get past him without becoming physical. He blamed me for the eviction notice and said I was a pussy for not talking to him first before going to the leasing agency.

I was calm and reserved, as I’m not mad and didn’t want this to escalate. Since his dog got within inches of physically attacking me, which I would have taken legal action against him for, I felt a neutral 3rd party was best to mediate this situation. I apologize to him for not talking to him first. I explained that I was upset at having my peace and quiet stolen every day, at all times of the night, and didn’t want to come at him angry about this. My neighbor continued to curse me out and wanted to fight in the parking lot.

I won’t lie, I love to fight, I’m a brawler. I’ve sparred with the best of them taking 3 years of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, some boxing, an aikido class, Shaolin Kung Fu, and street fighting. But not with this guy, I felt bad for him. Kicking his ass in the street wasn’t going to stop the damn dog from waking me up in the night barking nonstop or improve this situation. 

I said to him, “Look I have no problem fighting you in the parkinglot if that’s what you want. I enjoy fighting and usually win. But what happens then? No matter who wins, we both lose when the cops come and take us both to jail. I’ve outgrown that shit. Just find your dog a better place with a yard rather than get evicted. Everyone wins, your dog is happier, no one else’s peaceful homelife is disturbed, and you’re not kicked out of a sweet townhome.” 

His response? He called me bitch and stormed off. I got on my blue bicycle and rode to the gas station to buy something to eat because the grocery store was closed for the holidays. Happy Easter haha.

 

Awkward

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Thursday March 15th, 2018

Awkward

Ever had an intense conversation with someone and their words continue to echo in your ears long afterwards? And it’s like you can’t stop feeling this lack of closure that beats on your mind like some kind of Edgar Allen Poe Raven on the window chirping “Nevermore, Nevermore!”

You start to go over the things that you could have said, should have said, and if you’d kept your cool more, would have said. The imaginary conversation replays in your mind only this time you are poised, calm, questioning of the other person’s motives for kind of attacking you -intentionally or not.

We all go through a situation like this, and whether or not we are in the right, there’s this nagging feeling that this could have been handled better somehow. Writing a letter about this experience, and stating what you would have said if you’d had that inner space can definitely help.

The other day I ran into someone that is part of a mean social clique I had the misfortune of being around last year. She is not an architect of the social engineering or mean spirited bullying that went on, but is friends with those who are. We had a heated discussion on why I deleted her off of Facebook. I felt put on the defensive right away, as if I had to justify anything I did to someone I didn’t know that well.

How often do you run into people you deleted off of Facebook in real life and are asked “Why did you delete me?” 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Being honest is always a good policy. I was candid with her straight away, which took more balls than I felt I had at the moment and let her know I had to distance myself from everyone part of the rude social clique she’s a part of.

It didn’t take long for the conversation to get to a boiling point. She started randomly shifting the conversation to my life coaching program and demanding I justify starting a business. While I kind of shift my feet like with my best Katt Williams impersonation:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Exactly where does her opinion of what I do or anyone else’s permission to be an entrepreneur come into this? Ironically she’s got her own business on the side so it was an odd thing to be called out on like it was a bad thing. 

Awkward wasn’t even half of what I was feeling right now. It was so out of place and random, to suddenly be discussing my business ventures with a person who I didn’t know that well and who is part of a group of people known to bully folks they judge as not worthy of their “coolness.” 

Fast forward, I decided to get some space and shift my working environment, because I have location-flexibility. Walking away my last words to her kept replaying, “Just try being more honest, it may do you some good.” Not exactly the harshest thing I could have said and to be honest, I actually never had anything against her. We always had positive social interactions, even if her regular crowd tends towards toxic. 

This is a good moment, where if you’ve had this experience as well, to take a word from the wise: We don’t (at least yet) have a time machine (and if we did – would we mess up the timelines trying to fix things like Continuum?) so it’s good to let things go. If you can’t, get a notebook, and write out all the things you wish you would have said but didn’t. This will help you get the stress, and trauma of the interaction out of your system.

Deep breath, tuck your abs in on the exhale, hold for a count of 10, release. Rinse and repeat. Woosa! It helps. Thanks for reading, and I know your day will get better now. Say it with me:

 

 

 

 

Sail Away

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Thursday, March 8th, 2018

 

Press Play for mood music of this blog: David Gray – Sail Away

One of my favorite authors is John D. MacDonald, I only recently within the past year started reading his books. Classic reads like the Brass Cupcake and the Empty Copper Sea. The main protagonist is Travis McGee, a rough around the edges, but introspective gun-for-hire private detective. A self described “Salvage Consultant.” Travis is the last of the great knights-errant. He lives on a his yacht called The Busted Flush, named after a poker hand containing four cards of the same suit and one of a different suit, in the Fort Lauderdale Marina in Florida. 

Travis drives a bastardized 1936 Rolls-Royce he’s converted into a pickup truck, & is accompanied by his best friend and next boat neighbor Meyer, a highly regarded economist. MacDonald’s concerns over the ecological destruction of Florida and his disgust for the greedy, corrupt forces driving it are reflected in his portrayals of villains McGee faces off and inevitably defeats. 

“Travis McGee is the last of the great knights-errant: honorable, sensual, skillful, and tough. I canít think of anyone who has replaced him. I can’t think of anyone who would dare.”  — Donald Westlake

My father once told me as a child that he wanted a sailboat to sail in. It was nothing more than a random comment 20 plus years ago. He’s had enough time to buy one but never has because of limiting beliefs he holds about himself and what he’s capable of. Transcending these same limiting mental habits is one of my life goals I continue to achieve everyday, by getting into college, getting a better and higher paying job at Facebook and keeping the promise I made to my son October 2016 to go adventuring in Hawaii by the end of 2017, last year. And we did.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reading these noir Florida detective books has played a central theme in my life as of late which seems to revolve around large bodies of water and boats. I flew across the Pacific ocean with my kiddo for the first time December 2017. Seeing the endless stretch of waves beneath the wings of the airplane was magical. Standing on a cliff’s edge and watching the ocean stretch endlessly into the distance from the South East corner of the Big Island does something to a man’s soul. It fills you with possibilities, and the rusty chains of mental jail cells are broken as you roam freely as the seagulls.

Thoughts racing along the surface of the water, faster than the speed of light, filled with a wonderment, and the powerful curiosity that achieving your goals gives birth to, asking persistently, “What’s next? What’s next?!”

Perhaps Dad will never achieve any of his dreams for the simple fact that he doesn’t believe he can or will. I never felt like I adopted his dreams as my own, because we are very different people, growing up in different generations. And yet, 20 years later, I find myself fascinated with what it would be like to own and sail a yacht like a Hallberg-Rassy 94.

I remember the 1st time the ocean truly moved me on an emotional level. I was a reporter for the Accent Newspaper, when I was a student at Austin Community College. We competed in the Texas Intercollegiate Press Association with other colleges for front page news stories, news photography and other categories. I won honorable mention for my college in news reporting. The local swat team had been commissioned to tear gas bomb a car in the parkinglot of a hotel in Corpus Christi, Texas. It was a sight to see, I still can recall the vivid details of the canisters being shot into the car, purple smoke spewing out the car windows, as a mock news story event we competed for being the best reporter writing up a news story about this event, fictionalizing the circumstances. 

One of the days there I went to the beach with my friend and fellow Accent news reporter Jenessa. We walked along the beach for hours, seeing and hearing the ocean waves hit the sandy shore. The sun beat down on us something fierce and we both got sunburnt, as it was a random urge we gave into instead of planning a trip to the ocean. But it was worth every second. Many hours later, after we had gone back to our hotel, I could feel the motion of the waves, rhythmically crashing against the shore, inside my heart. It’s hard to explain, it was as if, somehow, I, without intending to, internalized the giant movements of the ocean in synchronicity with my circadian rhythms. That was the first time I ever felt that way.

Standing on a cliff’s edge hundreds of feet above the south shore of the Big Island Hawaii, was another moment where the majesty of the ocean reach out and gave my soul a hug, in this quiet, powerful, sense of sentience. Smoking a cigar, my last night in Hawaii, on the northern tip of the Big Island in Kohala, watching the sun set on the ocean, with Maui in the shrouded distance, I felt the flame of possibility burn blue on the strength of keeping a promise. I plan on keeping more promises, especially the ones I’ve made myself.

While I cannot say the exact day I will get a sailboat, I know that this is part of the destiny I’ll choose for my future path in life. Whether or not I’m a real life Travis McGee remains up for debate. But like David Gray says, someday  I’m going to sail away. Remington Brand typewriter on board, to type the stories inside me, my classical guitar to give voice to the songs I hear in the infinite poetry of the waves, lapping against the side of my sailboat. 

Dolphin at Dawn

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coffee Adventures

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Tuesday Feb 27th, 2018

 

 

 

 

Press Play for added atmosphere -Dennis Kuo’s Midnight Coffee

I love coffee – I grind my own beans and I never drink preground coffee. Blech! A year ago I had no idea what the wonders of grinding my own beans fresh would be, or how much better this made coffee taste. I was working at Facebook (that’s my day job) and one of the managers named David P. showed me how to make espresso. I expressed to him when the topic of coffee came up, that I didn’t drink Facebook’s coffee that was provided because I no longer got any caffeinated buzz from it, to combat the post lunch food coma. David offered to show me how to make espresso to up the ante.

That was the beginning of my journey into the coffee intelligentsia. I started making espresso every day at work, grinding the beans, frothing the cream, pouring hot delicious super caffeinated espresso into paper cups. After I was briefly laid off, before being hired again a few months later, I went through withdrawls from not having freshly ground coffee.

I was freelancing as a social media marketer at the time & decided to buy my own espresso machine. It was nothing special, just a Mr Coffee espresso machine, but it got the job done.I discovered how much I love Cuvee after reading many coffee reddit threads & forums about the best coffee in Austin. I learned about finding beans that were roasted within 3 days of my purchase. And then, I learned a new way to brew.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pretty soon, I had perfected making the best espresso that little machine could make, and quickly impressed my friends who happened to stop by in the morning with just how full flavored and packed with a punch my espressos could be. I don’t follow the traditional small cup espresso route, making just a couple of shots. I usually fill up an entire glass like it was coffee because, well, I enjoy drinking coffee beverages so much, why skimp on the amount? 

I found myself going to coffee shops like Epoch, and becoming disappointed with their espresso skills, being too spoiled on how I like to make espresso, and the beans I like to use (Cuvee Meritage is phenomenal). But, it was all for the best, because now, I could produce coffee at home that was much better, imo, than any coffee shop I went to. Fresher, tastier, more full bodied, and so on.

Fast forward a few months later, I’m working at Facebook again, and have a long discussion with one of the IT guys, Eric G. about coffee. I share my experiences making espresso and we talk about the different caliber of grinders and machines for making espresso -which can get pretty pricey. Eric advised me to focus more on making a high quality cup of coffee than on buying a $500-$1000 espresso machine.

The Aeropress 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eric introduced me to the Aeropress, made by the manufacturers of the Aerobie ring. Having thrown the Aerobie ring, a super long distance frisbee, as a child, I was nostalgically surprised to find out the same company made their own version of a French Press. My friend Jeff had given me a French Press years ago but I somehow lost it when moving to my townhome I currently live in.

So, I took Eric’s advice, bought an Aeropress, and used the burr grinder he recommended (technically everyone takes Eric’s advice since he works in IT). The coffee I made was above par in excellence, and I appreciated his suggestions. Grinding coffee by hand was a unique experience, I hand ground beans I used to make espresso and coffee grinds and I am pleased with the results.

Now, drinking coffee via Aeropress, espresso machine, and regular cone filter but grinding my own beans via burr grinder or my electric grinder, I was pretty happy…for a while. I tried many flavors of Cuvee as well as 3rd Coast, but, eventually wanted to try something new. At my friend John L.’s house, celebrating his wife LeeAnn’s birthday, I met a woman there who was the girlfriend of John’s old roomate from college. She suggested I try out Anderson’s coffee.

Last weekend I rode my new blue bicycle my mother gave me for my birthday, to Wheatsville, then to Anderson’s Coffee where I bought a pound of their house blend to start off before trying more expensive blends.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was an interesting looking place with a wall of coffee mugs for sale on shelves. I love buying new coffee mugs and made a mental note to buy a new mug on my next visit. I rode my blue bicycle to Central Market and bought Cuvee’s Spicewood blend as a fail safe in case I didn’t like Anderson’s coffee. I have to have good coffee people! I wake up every morning at 6:20am to study Spanish, and that cup of jo really helps me become focused faster on learning indefinite article pronouns and the future tenses of ir: Me voy beber cafe todas las dias en la manana (I’m going to drink coffee every day in the morning).

I could barely wait to get home & try the new coffee:

 

 

 

 

 

 

I measured out a cone full of whole beans & poured them into my electric grinder:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then started pouring the Anderson Houseblend beans into the grinder:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The freshly ground beans are now cascading beautifully into the coffee cone:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Pour: Less than 30 seconds later, the boiling water was poured:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While some schools of thought advocate the water poured on coffee to be of a temperature between 195 F (91 C) and 205 F (96 C) – I choose to boil the water mainly because I haven’t seen a sacrifice in taste to equal coffee going cold faster. And I love cold coffee -when I’m deciding to have cold coffee (I’m actually drinking cold coffee right now as I write this). Not so much for a glass of hot coffee to go cold faster, hence, my boiling the water.

And now, drum roll please, the finished cup of Anderson Coffee House Blend is held up to the sky, steam wafting up to the ceiling, pre-1st sip, to marvel at its glory:

 

I got that cup from the top of Mauna Kea mountain, at the Visitor Center on the Big Island, Hawaii. It’s a special cup to me, I remember walking down the mountain for a mile or 2, in 25 degree temperatures, carrying this cup, staring at the stars with my son. The stars were super bright and close, I’ll always remember that moment when drinking out of my Mauna Kea coffee cup. 

The Verdict

It was ok. I liked it. Was it great? Hard to say. Perhaps it will grow on me. The first moment I sipped freshly ground Meritage I was in heaven, and it never changed, that flavor of Cuvee has always been the most pleasing to my palate. Next week I shall try the more expensive blends and see if one appeals to me. The kind barista offered to drink sample sips of each blend before I purchased, so I think I shall do that.

Even if this flavor isn’t amazing, and didn’t wow me, I’m still drinking Anderson Coffee House Blend every other day to variate from Cuvee, which was my main goal; to find another kind of coffee I liked, to shake up the routine. This goal I achieved.

Cheers!

 

 

To Kill A Mockingbird

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Monday, February 19th, 2018

Background Music Press Play for Added Atmosphere 

I like animals but there’s this mockingbird that wakes me up in the middle of the night, just going nonstop with a strange amount of chirps, it sounds psychotic. The other birds, even grackles, are less annoying because they pause between chirps and there is plenty of quiet between their chirping sessions. This mockingbird just goes on for hours and hours. 

There are even other parts of my neighborhood that I’ve seen and heard mockingbirds that don’t have this bizarre frantic energy that the mockingbirds in front of my townhomes have. Perhaps the electromagnetic energy from the electrical devices nearby affects them crazy? Maybe the street lamps outside throw off their natural sense of day and night and this also…somehow…makes them psychotic chirpers? 

It’s strange how aggressively they go at it. So I decided, fuck this, I have to do something about it. I bought a wrist rocket sling shot on eBay.

It reminds me of my Dennis the Menace days as a rebellious youth, or memories of watching the Sandlot movie. I started shooting rocks at the mockingbirds to get them to go away. 

But it didn’t work. No matter how close I get to hitting them, no matter how many times I sling rocks at these loud non stop noise making birds, they keep flying back to the same places on the telephone wires, stop signs, and trees in the front parkinglot, where my townhome is. 

The irony is there is a whole neighborhood with creeks and plush trees to fly to that is so much more of a suitable habitat than a parkinglot made of concrete -yet these little bastards keep coming back. I’m a vegetarian, supporter of animal rights (though not PETA they go too far hurting animals in their videos to try to gain attention), an environmentalist, love me some sustainable permaculture versus a forced agriculture approach. But these mockingbirds won’t shut up!

It bears mentioning that I work from home, as a tech for Facebook, so I spend a lot of time at home. This leads to a lot of times I have to hear these mockingbirds. I think they are kind of pretty with the patterned design on their wings, but they are also aggressive af. 

Before I bought the wrist rocket slingshot I ended up running outside in my boxers, in the parkinglot, throwing bottled water into the trees, brooms, anything I could find to get them to STFU at 3am in the morning when I was trying to sleep. There’s no cause for that. 3am? WTF!! I found an article from 1987 on the Los Angeles Times website where the biologist who wrote the piece suffered as I do from the nonstop night noise:

http://articles.latimes.com/1987-01-25/magazine/tm-5613_1_mockingbird-sings

I found it interesting that I wasn’t alone in experiencing this (even back in the 80s these mofos were interrupting sleep with their racket). Also, I found it interesting that mockingbirds don’t sing like other birds, for joy, often they chirp because they are pissed off little shit heads and chirping isn’t a song as it is a filibuster of complaints in bird language. Somehow, I’m not surprised. 

Now, I sometimes go out into the parkinglot shooting up at the trees, trying to scare the mockingbirds away. What the hell happened to a sense of survival??? I’m trying to establish a perimeter, to keep them away from the front of the parkinglot since they have an entire neighborhood, including several parks. But the loud bastards won’t take a hint.

Fast forward 6 months, I drove most of the mockingbirds off, and they don’t wake me up at 3am anymore, sitting outside my 2nd story window with their wretched chirping. For the past 3 months or so I’ve had relative peace and quiet from the mockingbirds who moved on to somewhere else. 

I spoke too soon! Now there are THREE mockingbirds that have come back to harass me. I think my aim is getting better now. The whole thing doesn’t make any sense. Why come back to a place where you’re going to get shot at? The mailman yesterday saw me trying to shoot the mockingbirds out of the tree and stopped to ask me if I’d had much luck. I explained my reasons why I was trying to drive them off and we had a good laugh. Even if it sucks to have to deal with it’s still a funny story.

To be continued…

 

 

 

 

 

 

We Live Forever

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 Background Music: Press Play For Added Atmosphere Petit Fleur 

Today I was writing my upcoming book, The Beauty of Now, & there are moments  that strike me with a special poignancy. Keeping a journal, somewhat consistently for the past 19 years of your life yields a unique perspective on your life. 

I was at a birthday party for my friend LeeAnn last night and I said to the parents of her husband, my friend John Leavitt, “Leonard Cohen once said you can never teach wisdom to the youth.” John’s father said in reply, “Truer words have never been said.”

Young Trevor, I don’t know how much of the truth he would have listened to. I think it’s a matter of timing. If I felt I had to prove I’d earned my stripes, and felt someone was challenging my intellect, I’d puff my chest out and over compensate for imagined injuries to my ego.

Yet if the timing was more ambiguous or poetic, I’d have considered a much wider spectrum for what the truth was about who I used to be back then. This time portal that I step through when chronologically going through these hand written paper journals, is emotionally significant. Because I feel the echoes of that child inside of me still, thirsting for recognition and still in love with the magic that circles like a halo around every experience your heart is awake enough to feel and experience on a deeper level, once the ego and pride are transcended all there is, is NOW.

I feel like that world, which I detailed so exquisitely on paper pages with bent corners, little drawings, phone numbers, and notes to myself about that era, somehow still lives. One of my favorite mystery authors, Johh D. MacDonald captured this feeling perfectly in the dialogue between 2 of his characters, Melody Chance and Cliff in the Brass Cupcake, narrated by Cliff in the 1st person. Melody, the woman Cliff falls in love with, talks about her youth nostalgically and it rings true:

“When I was 20 I was a gay little bride. Now, Cliff, I’m 27 and I’m not very gay.”

[Cliff says] ‘When I was one and twenty’ I said softly.

[Melody says] ‘Tell me about you at one and twenty, Cliff. Don’t you get the feeling that they’re still back there, in the past, the people we were once upon a time, still laughing and loving and not knowing what will happen?”

Sure feels that way, looking at the words of younger me. I even wrote stuff like “10 years from now…” and I wasn’t too far off the mark with some of my predictions of the future. Well, the future is right now, so what…now?

We continue to strive, wax poetic, and stare at the night sky imaging what it would be like to walk the surface of stars. What it would be like to see the stars from a life lived when money is no object and our sailboat rocks back and forth, waiting in the marina, for another adventure. 

 

Texas Longhorns Vs Ole Miss Rebels 1-27-18

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Sunday January 28th, 2018

I have always liked Basketball more than any other sport save martial arts and Bball is by far the best sport to watch. Yesterday was an historic moment, a day I put on my calendar as the first day i went to see a basketball game live in person.

I saw the game at the Frank Erwin Center in Austin, Texas, it was Texas Longhorns V Ole Miss. And true to their name Mississippi missed more shots than they scored.

I first got into basketball when I was in NYC watching the 2008 Summer Olympics. Team USA defeated Spain 118–107 in the gold medal game on August 24, 2008. America won its first gold medal in a worldwide competition since the 2000 Olympics. 

This was an historic moment and I remember it well. Jersey City, New Jersey is where I was staying while visiting Manhattan everyday and other parts of New York City. I discovered Broadway, and saw a Tale of 2 Cities. I remember taking the Path Train every day into the Big Apple, and walking with thousands of people even simply through one alleyway, that’s how densely packed the population is.

Couchsurfing is a network where you can sleep on other people’s couches, sometimes bedrooms, for free as part of a cultural exchange across the world. I used this network to travel to many states, and I was staying in an apartment near the center of Jersey City at the time. I’ll never forget that game. 

 

Kobe Bryant was a beast on the court, scoring 20 points, 6 assists, and at more than one point he grabbed the ball and ran so fast to Spain’s basket that Kobe was literally alone scoring 3 pointers like free throws in the middle of the game.

I knew basketball was my sport of choice after that game.

January 27th 2018, the Longhorns played well. It was a memorable moment when I first walked into the Frank Erwin Center to see my first live game:

As I walked towards my seats, I marveled at the whole environment. The vendors selling hotdogs, cotton candy and beer. The people wearing their favorite player’s jersey and a sea of orange Ts representing UT Longhorns. The framed photos on the wall told a story that was still being written about the games the Erwin Center hosted:

Dylan Osetkowski scored many 2 point shots, and lay ups, with a number of free throws from Ole Miss fouls.

Dylan had an in your face energy and a drive to win that we could all feel from the bleachers. Early on he got several free throws in:

AIRBALL! 


The band played interesting tunes, almost ragtime at moments:


What happened to real cheerleading? The pepsquad took center stage most of the time and didn’t have any real dance moves aside from standing still and shaking their pom poms back and forth. I was disappointed and felt the Longhorns need to fire their dance choreographer.


In the rare moments we got to see actual cheerleaders, they were true to form. 

Watching cheerleaders doing backflips across the court was all part of the magic.

Being there for the moments Mo Bamba got the rebound shots was really nice.

Mo Bamba’s reach is incredible to watch:



 

Coach Shaka changed strategies to a full court press this allowed Mo Bamba to shine

 

 

 

 

And if there were any players with star potential it’s no surprise my #1 draft pick goes to Longhorns Center Mo Bamba who scored 25 points and 15 rebounds with an honorable mention to Dylan Osetkowski.   

Mo Bamba helped turned the tide mid game with his impressive 7 foot 9 inch wingspan controlling the interior. It seemed like the refs were purposefully trying to foul Bamba to get him out of the game.

And yet, despite it all, the Longhorns brought home a decisive victory

1st live basketball game verdict: success.
I took one last look at the court before exiting, thinking, “This was great.” 

Wax On Wax Off

Autor

Sometimes I question the good things in my life, and get anxious that something is going to take them away soon.  My life has been consistently sprinkled with so many boom-bust cycles that I’m trained to feel like good, isn’t normal. Pain, regret, forgiveness, tentative hopefulness, and success is the ugze.

Rinse and repeat. This went on for years, my soul kept getting battered with one self destructive cycle after another. But to younger, less aware Trevor, it just seemed like I was being tossed about in this gigantic storm I had no control over. Everyone else was to blame. 

As I grew past my own arrogance and gained more self awareness of what I was doing to contribute to losing a job, which led to less money, housing instability, and questionable decisions on how to make money.

I started to see the world as something I could control. At least, my own world. The small piece of heaven that I strut my stuff on, wasn’t just going to blow away with a whimsical fancy. 

Things evened out. College helped a lot, seeing professors who had healthy social skills and a good heart. I was able to lessen the anxiety, often irrational, but other times with just cause if I was acting like an asshole, that somehow all the good things in my life would abruptly slip away.

I realize that for everyone happiness has a sort of transitory nature. We feel like, really happy and then the other shoe drops. Whether or not we were waiting for it, sometimes shit happens. But, I think the qualitative difference is that, how you handle your shit, when shit happens, determines whether you are shit faced drunk the next day to not have to feel shit, or…have your shit together. Shit, I’ve probably over used certain phrases. 

If life was a lesson from Mister Miyagi, then, instead of waxing a car to show karate moves, I think the movements of life, the ebb and flow in the flux of circumstance, teaches us the graceful path towards cultivating our own wu shu of serendipity. Adversity is merely the tool through which we develop our neijia, the internal martial arts of those on the path.

The way I learned to handle the unexpected bullshit that may drop in my lap, that wasn’t actually self created, assisted in bouncing back quicker. Getting my footwork right, doing the Ali Shuffle in the ring, bobbing and weaving when life threw a left hook.

The funny thing is, bad shit started to happen less and less to me. I don’t think there was a day where I suddenly said, “Wow, I’ve reversed the polarity of magnetism and no longer attract bad stuff!?” It was more of a gradual adjustment to a new attitude, that:

“You know what? Yeah, everything will be ok.” 

And not in some cliched platitude that has been said so much that it doesn’t have meaning anymore But in a sincere meaningful “I am the captain of my fate I am the master of my soul” sort of way. It was a transition through environments as smooth as the gradient of horizon line of light faded blue to the deeper purple of the post sunset skies. 

As gratifying as that is, we all need reminders. Habits are a bitch, and creep up on you when you’re not looking. We get comfortable with what other people so graciously allow us to do, and don’t always pay attention to when we cross a line. There are no lines in the sand, but there are moments when we need to check ourselves and ask, “Am I taking advantage of a situation and half assing who I am capable of being? Or am I actually doing the best I can?”

That’s the only protective layer I can think to play the odds in your favor against the unexpected. And be gracious. Accept a windfall, not as a portent of some bad shit that will eventually happen, but just as what it is, a really awesome experience. Thank the heavens, thank your mom, the world, whomever, for being there for you and allowing you a chance to be more of yourself. 

We sometimes have to teach ourselves the basics all over again.

But I promise you, it’s ok.

 

                Everything is going to be ok. 

 

 

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Wonderful Future

Autor

 

Sunday January 21st, 2018

 

 

 

 

One of the things that I’ve learned on this crazy tight rope walk and balancing act that life can be is that: Memories of the past make me change for the future.

I know I wasn’t a child prodigy playing concerto violin professionally before reaching 10, but I also know there’s solid gold potential in each of us. All it takes is a catalyst, a few well timed moves, and haha…a winning lottery ticket to turn it all around.

Maybe I’ve been a fool so long I cannot tell the difference between an imaginary future and what I’m headed towards. Or maybe I’ve finally reached the critical mass of serendipity and as much as forces inside myself tell me to give up, now is the time to grind harder than ever.

We all face set backs.

Sometimes I feel like they all pile on top of me and regret bitch slaps me like a pimp on the corner of some god forsaken alley of lost dreams. And then I suck in my gut and man up.

Laziness is so easy to give in to. And to be honest, aside from parents who don’t believe in you, friends who are too caught up in their own drama to give a damn about supporting your dreams, and the luck of the draw, laziness is the cherry on top that is the ultimate dream killer. Because it takes work. It takes the gumption to get up, get out there and DO SOMETHING. Anything as long as it keeps that forward momentum going. As Outkast raps, “Get up, Get out and Do something!”

Hangover Reconnaissance

Today I wrote 8 pages in my upcoming book, The Beauty of Now. I’d rather have written 22 pages, but shit, it’s better than Net Flixing and chilling the entire day, and nursing a wine hang over from the night before. I had such a crazy fight with my son’s mother last night. Without discussing it with me at all, she sent a sheriff to my door with official forms to change my son’s name.

 

Huh?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was a slap in the face and then some. It’s a challenge to have to deal with the struggles of burgeoning entrepreneurship, student loans, and planning a trip to New Orleans but now..out of the blue…she wants me to just check a box without having a discussion first??

Somewhere along the way, when she decided to up and move my son and her to a border town by Mexico in South Texas, she made the decision that I wasn’t allowed to parent our son in any way and excludes me from everything in our kid’s life. Whether it’s the clothes he wears, the food he eats, the school he goes to, or his behavior, she forbids me to parent our son.

It’s been a long road to develop trust with my son and we’ve made great progress, but events like this show me that my son’s mother is still stuck in the past 8 years back or something. Which is ok, to each their own, but when it hurts the quality of life my son has, it becomes an issue.

Apparently he’s been going through off and on, some bullying about his name. But instead of tell me about this, and let me help and support my son, emotionally and as a dad, I just get this constable at my front door handing me legal papers to change his name. She threatened to forbid him to go on a father-son trip to New Orleans we are planning this summer unless I just agreed – without talking about it.

Perhaps I’m crazy for thinking that a child shouldn’t get tattoos, or make any other life long decision and wait until he’s actually old enough to legally change it himself. I expressed to her that this seems inappropriate to demand me to change my son’s name legally without ever bringing the issue up beforehand.

If there are bullies at his school, making fun of his name or harassing him, shouldn’t this be something we both talk to his school’s administration about? This is a bigger issue than a name if our son is getting messed with at school. We should be talking about that, right?

Why is this the first I’ve heard of it? Changing his legal name, based on what may be a childish whim of his, seems more of an issue of not being able to tell him no when he wants something than actually about bullies.

Either way, it seems reasonable to at least have a conversation about this before sending a constable to my door with name change papers and commanding me on the phone to sign them or else she’ll take me back to court for child support. Doesn’t this seem a bit off? Can I be involved in my son’s life and help him through this before we make a decision he may regret as an adult?

SNAP…0 to 100

She starts yelling at me on the phone about what a horrible person I am and how if she could she’d never have told me anything. It got so bad and mean, I have to disconnect saying “You are being mean and hateful right now, I cannot continue this conversation, goodbye.”

After about 6 years of not being able to see my kiddo on a regular basis, being denied basic visitation rights, and being stood up numerous times, even on his birthday, halloween, and other holidays, and having be constantly insulted for…wanting to be in my son’s life? Attempting to be a good dad, be present, and teach my kid healthy social skills?

I realized that no matter how hard I tried to be kind and patient, there was a line she kept crossing and it was getting abusive to sit there, be ordered to do things, excluded from any decisions for how my son grew up, and be the recipient of a filibuster of “I hate you” like statements.

So, when she started going down this path, I realized that it was up to me to say no to being yelled at and insulted and to proactively end our conversations when they went that way.

That’s what happened last night. And I was super depressed, feeling like I had done something wrong. She always made me feel that way, like I was someone that didn’t deserve to be alive or in my son’s life. But I know this isn’t true. The last text my son sent me last night was:

In the Aftermath…

I make myself dinner, and pour a glass of wine, a nice merlot, trying to process what happened. Trying to figure out if I was really a bad person and how exactly was asking to be part of my son’s life such an…offensive request?

It’s easy to get discouraged about your life when you have someone in your life that is a negative force. My dad was like that, always very condescending and insulting me constantly. It took me years to heal from his emotional scarring. Now I find myself triggered in the same way that he used to make me feel bad all the time.

Today I had to take 20 minutes and remind myself, that I’m a good person, worth loving and caring for. The shockwaves of the previous night were so intense, but I knew better. I’ve been down this road before. Never take someone trying to demean you seriously, never take their words as the gospel.

To Zone Out Or Not To Zone That Is The Question

As much as it was tempting to spend the entire day zoning out on Person of Interest, Continuum, Aquarius or Jerry Seinfield’s Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee, I got myself out of the house. Walked a mile or so to Central Market, and bought some delicious grape leaf dolmas and Cuvee Meritage coffee beans.

Walking to my townhome rain fell softly around me.

It used to rain often after I had fights with my baby’s momma. I always thought in the past it was a sign of bad things but today I rediscovered the rain as a source of life and refreshment to the plants. I found myself watching David Duchovny’s Californication and almost tearing up when his daughter said her one wish was that her parents could get back together.

My son has expressed the same thing to me. I can’t wave a magic wand and make that happen, but I can continue to work on my dreams, and not give up. David Duchovny’s character in Californication is a somewhat deadbeat but with style writer, and I found myself becoming inspired. I sat down, got out my source material, one of the journals from 2003, and wrote 8 pages.

Ironically it was detailing the day Tina and I first got together and started dating. I looked through this window into the distant past and realized no matter who she is today, and no matter how ugly and mean she acts towards me, she once had a light that shined within her.

I hope she finds it again. I appreciate the good moments we shared in the past 15 years of our life and that’s what I celebrate. A few things I’ve learned in this crazy walk of life is that being appreciative is the key to happiness and leading a fulfilling life.

I’m keeping my promises

I’m keeping promises to my son, and my promises to myself to follow this path of being an entrepreneur, using my talent to write to author my first book and build my own business.

Onward and upward, with no glances over my shoulder at could have beens or would have beens. Just appreciation for the present moment and how much beauty I see in myself, the world, my son and a wonderful future.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Glistening Panther Infinity Pool

Autor

 

August 14th, 2017

I Will Not Be Treated Like An Animal,

Unless It’s A Glistening Panther

Emerging From An Infinity Pool

It Was The Best of Times, It Was The Worst Of Times

Most people right now are going nuts emotionally about what’s going on in national politics. I expect to turn this political disillusionment into spiritual action, for ultimately it is the hearts of humankind we need to change.

Politics is mostly the practice of managing and regulating the limitations of humans. But if we were living up to our potential, and we should be, government could be a positive force that guides our priorities rather than doling out punishment and rewards in a futile attempt at creating equality from the outside in.

When we learn to accept the elements of existence moving with the flow of what IS and our place in it we can begin to grow as beings rather than be lost in a whirlpool of anger and frustration because of unrealistic expectations. It’s a good idea to…still GIVE a damn, but not become TOO emotionally invested.

What Should We Do?

Collectively each and every one of us shares this task and in the individual is where the task begins. No one is superior to another. Not the politician or CEO because of their greater responsibility or large sums of money. Nor the political activist because they tout noble ideals such as purity and justice.

We all share in the destruction or creation of this world and so respect must be given to all, by all as a starting point or no progress will be made. Mercy and understanding is the only path to a unified, stronger human race.

A government can punish those who have transgressed but unless we can understand what made them relinquish their good for bad, shining a light on the darkness, more bad will fester and grow from that darkness.

Revolution

A revolution in how we organize ourselves as social equitable beings relies on shared values inherent in how we live our lives. It’s a challenge when religion, and class amongst other things divide human beings from realizing that we must all compassionately build this world together as sustainably as possible.

If everyone in the world had these shared values, we would not have war, poverty, homelessness, starvation etc. As much as it may seem self evident not to kill what keeps us alive (ie the planet, plants and animals, natural resources, eachother etc) this is a truth often rationalized into irrelevance by many in and out of positions of power, as they service only themselves instead of understanding even they would benefit from this kind of honesty.

Simple Cause & Effect

Choosing to try a little harder as opposed to giving up, does not mean you don’t accept you are human, it is integral in realizing ourselves fully as a means to evolve perception and better our own capabilities to improve and enhance the quality of life we experience.

Applying a generic label to just finding positivity in everything, is much different than consciously shifting our inner attention and energy towards overcoming the easy way out, which will always be the negative self talk, and thoughts of helplessness. When you push past your comfort zone, and ask more of yourself; it is a worthy investment that yields a much greater return than justifying staying the same.

Be also careful about attachment, when you become so strongly attached to a goal or even your own perspective, it limits the sight, inner and outter sight, as well as potential for growth.  It is good to recharge, by pausing, stepping outside of emotional habits, and tuning in to the intuition inside, and letting go.  Sometimes to have something we have to let it go first.

We are always in the process of waking up to the next level of awareness.

What Kind of Awareness Is Good?

The self awareness to take a candid look at one’s perspective, without becoming so attached to it that growth atrophies, and see how one’s self can grow, evolve and have the humility to see beyond false attachments and appreciate the people in our lives not for the purpose they serve us, but for being themselves.

To not be confined to a rigid set of ideas or concepts, the consistency of compassion regardless of another person’s skin color, or political beliefs, to recognize eachother’s humanity not as a convenient tool of self congradulations, but as a method to bring peace to the world through leading by example. Just being a good person for the sake of being good.

Closing Thoughts To Open Minds

What if…we can draw from this infinite knowledge like a data base through wordless frequencies that we perceive unconsciously through light strands permeating our dna and by using our thoughts we can spur an exponential growth of awareness that both reunites us with the infinite perception of the all of everything while still maintaining individual receptors to function as gateways thru microscopic wormholes for others to #levelup to a new frequency capable of perpetual sustainability by virtue of intention ?

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