Thank You MLSE

I can finally write this. Thank you Leafs. Thank you Raptors. Thank you MLSE.

I started working there thinking that it would be an opportunity to do great work on cool brands. Mainly the Raptors. My wife got an awesome job in Toronto and I had to find work from New York. So I cold applied to MLSE. I didn't know anyone there, but I figured it was worth a shot.

I was there for five championships (TFC, 905, Marlies, Argos and Raptors). Full disclosure - I didn't have to do with any of them. That was all the front office, the players, the coaches, the analytics teams, the training staff and the GMs. They won their rings through hard work, determination, vision and strategy.  

To sit at the feet of greatness and to hear from the people that made those decisions ... that was life changing. To hear how Kyle Dubas was willing to leverage the Marlies to experiment with things that were locked into tradition - like the five forward power play or individualized player development with Adam Brooks. Or to listen to Masai talk about being able to make a decision with the best information that you have in the moment and ignoring the noise. Small glimpses into the minds of these people allowed me to start to understand how they think. The mental models they use. How they made decisions.

I left having had the opportunity to lead three amazing marketing teams - (1) Raptors digital, (2) Leafs & Marlies marketing, and (3) Live & Lifestyle. The best part of it was watching the people on my team grow. Grow into smart strategists. Grow into strong leaders. Grow into good decision makers.

Seeing people move up with promotions they worked hard for was one of the most rewarding things that I experienced as a boss (or ex-boss, I guess). Being there to support team members battling through tough circumstances and see the them come out the other side stronger ... that sort of thing imbues a weird sort of paternal pride. Knowing that the confidence that you had in them, they now see in themselves. And having the teams you lead clean up at the awards shows ... well, that's always a cause for an ego boost and champagne celebrations. Or was it donuts? Probably both.

And there were bumps in the road. Structures to navigate. Relationships to build. Tough conversations to have. Real talk - who the fuck thought it was acceptable for an 8 second load time for a website? At my most exasperated, I remember having everyone in the meeting room sit in silence and watch the clock for the full time it took the website to load. Uncomfortable? Yes. Rude? Absolutely. But why would we expect our fans to do it if we wouldn't? It got fixed.

With every mistake, I strived to learn. Where the boundaries of the brand were. Where our fans needed us to lead them. How the process could improve. If we were really listening to what our partners wanted, or playing broken telephone. I remember the crash course in how an unrealistic narrative can be built from a couple of hand selected Tweets from anonymous fans on a slow day for sports news in Toronto. 

People think that the value of MLSE is their brands - that they are able to build cultural artifacts so powerful that they lead conversations instead of following them. Or the people who buy tickets. Or the players they’re able to attract. Or the championships.

But it's really their fans. They legions of people that get whipped up into a frenzied obsession. It doesn't matter if you've been ride-or-die with the team for 20 years. Or if you've never seen the end of a game because your mom makes you go to bed before the 3rd period. That audience is the true value. They're the people who keep the lights on with their passion, demand championships and hold MLSE accountable.

I may be oversharing compared to what people normally talk about when they leave MLSE. But I had a great time there. I had some great bosses. I led amazing teams.  I learned a lot. I wanted to share it. So sue me.

- Christian

PS. To read about where I landed, click here.

A Personal Essay On The First Principles & Parenting

Parenting is hard. I don't give a shit if you and your partner have the chillest kid in the world. If she's sleeping in a $600 basinet or a laundry basket. If she eats when she's supposed or refuses food. If she undertands the concept of nightime and "sleeps like a baby" or "sleeps like a fucking nightmare" ... it doesn't matter. It's rough.

The sleep deprivation. The strain it places on relationships. The perpetual fear that you might be fucking up a human life with something that you accidentally said or did. (Yes, that's real) Fighting the urge to compare your kid to the rest of the toddlers running around out there. And tantrums are a fact of life as kids discover the limits.

And the inevitable question becomes ... why? Why are we doing this?

And not "biologically" why. I get that.

But let's get back to first principles. Why are we doing this? And knowing that, how does that inform how we approach each day?

Everyone is different. But most people living in developed countries have a choice when it comes to having children. Whether it's contraception, abortion or something else ... there are choices. So, why do we make the choice to have children? And why do we make the choice to continue parenting? What are our expected rewards from engaging in this biologically helpful, but immensely difficult task?

THE CHOICE TO HAVE CHILDREN

The choice to have children is entirely selfish. I did it for me. I made the choice because I thought that my life would be better with a kid. Or happier. Or easier. Or have less pain or annoyance.

People can blame social pressure. It's what society or their families expect. That's still a selfish choice - you made the decision that bowing to that pressure would make your life easier. Even if it's just for the short term.

People can blame their partner. They just wanted to make him/her happier. Gilded in an altruistic "I'm doing this for them" lies a paradox. You want to make them happier ... but you're doing it because making them happy makes you feel good. Or you're hoping that some of their happiness will rub off on you.

The truth of the matter is that the choice to have children is 100% selfish. And it has to be. We are not forced to have children. We choose to have them.

Knowing this, what does that mean? Does that mean that I'm forced to back up my choice for the rest of my life? No. That too is a choice. 

THE CHOICE TO BE A PARENT

As there is a choice to have children, there is the choice to be a parent. To show up. To do that hard work. To contribute to your child's life.

So why do it? Why make that choice? Once again, we find that it's a selfish choice. I parent because kids add joy to my life. They make my life better. On the shitty days. On the good days. In the short run. In the long run.

The things that I experience as a father put me through an crazy range of emotions. I feel proud. I feel safe. I feel like a happy. I feel curious. I feel like a fucking man! When you realize that it only takes a kiss on a scraped knee to make a tiny human being feel better ... you feel like the best person in the entire world. It's as if someone has begged you to solve a humanitarian crisis, and you're the ONLY person in the world with the skills to do so. It's fucking rad. 

THE NEW FRAMING

I've chosen to have a child.
Today, I'm chosing to be a parent.
I've chosen these things because my life is better with kids than it is without them.

So I need to lean into the things that make my life better - in the short and the long term. Pride in myself for actually being able to enforce discipline. Revel in the excitement of my children learning something new. The admiration of being someone that they look up to. And the pure joy that erupts when my son takes a shit in the toilet. 

FURTHER MUSINGS

This essay may feel like a smattering of disorganized thoughts. It is. This is part of my process of figuring out how to be a good dad. And part of that is taking the time to step back and figure out why I am doing things. Why I'm hoping for certain outcomes. Why we - as a family - are driving towards certain goals.

Too often, I find myself stuck in a pattern of parenting and I don't step back to ask why. And with how quickly kids develop, I could be reinforcing bad habits for 25% of my son's life before I realize it. Fuck. That's sobering.

So the next phase is taking time to ponder what sort of people that I want them to be. Because each type of person requires different characteristics, skillsets and values to develop.

Do we want them to support us when we get old? Stability, guilt, loyalty and obedience are important.
Do we want them to be happy? Self-awareness, experimentation, humility and social skills are important.
Do we want them to be successful in a competitive field? Drive, grit, hard world and a competitive nature are important.
Do we want them to be a productive member of society? Empathy, curiousity, service and a moral compass are important.

Truthfully, I just don't know where to start.

- Christian

Learning To Make Better Decisions

Life rewards goods judgement. Making the right call on what system to invest in. Where to live. How to allocated your budget. How to play your cards given the pot odds, betting position and opponents. Choosing the right people to be in your social orbit.

Good choices win out over time. Bad choices don’t.

But how do you tell if you're smart … or just lucky? The bias of fundamental attribution error suggests that we are prone to thinking that when good things happen to us, we created them. But when bad things happen, then it's just shitty luck. We blame external forces for bad circumstances and take personal credit for good ones. Basically, we are shitty at understanding when we made the right moves and when we were in the right place at the right time.

Now imagine if we could improve our decision making. What would the bottom line of your business look like if you removed your worst investment decisions? A lot different.

Denise Shull is a performance psychologist and the real life inspiration for the character of Wendy Rhoades on Billions. The promise she makes to her hedge fund clients is not to make them super-human. But to have them center their decision making process to remove their bottom 10% of decisions. Calls that they make when they're emotional. Or when they're relying on hope instead of facts. Or when they're exhausted and not thinking straight. To them, good judgement pays. Millions of dollars.

To be successful over time, we need to develop good judgement. But how do we improve ours? It's not easy. But it is straightforward.

The key to developing good judgement is the same as improving any skill. You learn by doing. You learn by doing, getting feedback on whether you made the right call, learning from it and adjusting for next time. And then you do it again. And again. And again.

It's a constant practice.

One of the best tools to leverage in developing this practice is a sytem to track your decisions. A system allows you to catalogue the variables that were impacting you when you made the decision. Were you tired? Hungry? What time of day was it? What was your emotional state?

A system enables you to revisit and input the results of your decisions. Were employees happier as a result? Did revenue increase? Were there more repeat customers?

A system helps you to identify patterns - those that lead to good decision and those that lead to bad ones. And once you understand what variables influence your decision making, you can make adjustments to optimize for it.

For example, Jeff Bezos adjusted his schedule such that he now will ONLY take important meetings that require high impact decisions at 10AM. He understands when his mind is in peak form to make intelligent decisions. And he has shifted his schedule to optimize for it. If he is asked to make an important call in the afternoon, he pushes it to the next day at 10AM. It's more valuable to make the right decision the next day than to make a the wrong decision at 4PM.

A tool to leverage in the pursuit of improving your judgement is a decision tracker. It creates a simple system to track, codify and revisit important decisions you are making. That way, you’re not subject to the bias of your own memore - cherry picking, dwelling on the negative or the other stories we like to tell ourselves.

*Download the decision tracking template PDF here. Apologies for not crediting the original source, but I lost where I adapted it from.

--

I don't claim to be an expert on this. I still make plenty of bad judgement calls. By tracking them, I can better understand the patterns that led to those decisions. And by calling those out, I have a better shot at changing them for the next round.

Our minds are fickle. Our memories are constantly being overwritten and tweaked every time we recall them. Our stories change. By having something written down and revisiting it over time, it allows us to have a concrete record of what we thinking. Feeling. Hoping for. And that lets us improve.

- Christian

How To Win The Waiting Game

You did it.

You rocked the tryout. You aced your univeristy application. You killed the interview.

It's done. Now you can go out, grab some drinks with friends and eat a full Dominoes pizza without feeling guilty. (Just me?)

And now comes the frustrating part - the wait.

The time where you sit around and wait for the results. It could be a couple of days. Weeks. Even months. That's enough time to contemplate if you really did put forth your best effort. Second guess yourself and the moves you made when it mattered. And then wallow in a puddle of anxiety and disappointment. Fuck.

Waiting sucks. There's no two ways about it. When we put something out into the world, we want feedback immediately. Did it work or not? Am I good enough, or do I need to improve something?

The mentally challenging aspect of the waiting game anchored in the fact that you have no control. Your time to influence the outcome has passed. You answered the questions. You submitted the test. You ran the 40. And now you're stuck in an ocean of uncertainty with no control when the waves are going to hit you.

Keep busy. Think positive. Don't think about it. It's out of your control. Those are the tropes that people will tell you.

Sure. Because it's easy to do all of those things. It's a classic White Bear Problem. When people tell you NOT to think about something, you're going to think about it. And then you're going to double down and "try harder" to distract yourself. You will end up spending a lot of energy on avoiding specific thoughts. That's not how you win.

In wrestling with this, I found it helpful to flip the script. Instead of avoiding the uncertainty, sit with it. Dig into to it to really understand how you feel, what is causing you to worry. Once you face those thoughts, you can strategize on how to accept and deal with them.

You want to win the waitng game? Here's what to do:

1/ EXCITED, NOT ENTITLED
It's easy to get lost in anxiety and forget the fact that you're chasing an opportunity. That's fucking exciting! You're making moves to bring amazing new challenges into your life. And the healthiest mindset to get through this is one of excitement, not entitlement. Excitement, not entitlement.

You're not entitled to shit. 
The General Manager is trying to build a championship roster. They don't owe you shit. 
The admissions officer is trying to cast the best student body. They don't owe you shit.
The boss is trying to hire the best person. They don't owe you shit.

Don't be a brat.
Be excited.

Be excited that you get the opportunity to try out for THE team. (Fred VanVleet undrafted tryout footage)
Be excited that out of everyone that applied, you made the first cut. 
Be excited that out of 1000+ applicants, they wanted to talk to you. 

Frame your mindset as excited, not entitled.

2/ PREPARE TO FAIL
The core challenge of the waiting game is uncertainty. The unknown leads to anxiety. And the anxiety breeds suffering. The good news? You can dramatically reduce the uncertainty. It's by going through an exercise that feels uncomfortable at first, but will lift a giant weight off of your shoulders. It's an exercise stolen from Tim Ferris called "fear setting".

The premise is that you don't need to plan for success. If you're successful, the steps forward are easy, enjoyable and obvious. Instead, plan for failure.

You need to sit with it. Take the time to visualize failure. What does it look like? How do you feel? Who do you call? What do you do next?

Let's say that you don't get the job. What is the worst that could happen? 
You get cut from the team. What do you do next? 
You don't get in to your dream school. What's your backup plan? 

By drawing out in excrutiating detail what failure looks like, it takes it from an nebulous cloud of uncertainty to a solid scenario. You can't fight a cloud. You can plan for the pain of a real world event. And often,  you find that the "worst case scenario" isn't that bad at all. It's short of disasterous. You can recover from it. And you can plan your next moves. That's how you win.

3/ SHOW GRATITUDE
After each tryout / audition / interview, I try to take the time to appreciate the journey. To show gratitude for the process. To take stock of what I learned from the experience. And the science on gratitude is pointing to it making us happier and reducing stress.

The goal is to never walk out of the process as the same person who walked in. There is always an opportunity to find value. Whether it's the practice reps you got in. Whether it's the connections you made. Whether it's identifying the mistakes that you won't repeat. Appreciate the value you gained from the experience. So that even if you don't get the result you're looking for, you're still walking away with something new.

--

The decision making process a black box. Even if you have a clear scorecard of evaluation and understanding of the process. There will never be full transparency in the process. Because the humans making the decisons are not perfect. They're succeptible to their own bias. They're influenced by context. They can be moved by group dynamics.

You can never predict. You can only respond.

Knowing this, that doesn't mean that there is nothing that you can do. That you have to be 100% reactive. You can take charge of your time in the waiting game through (1) your mindset, (2) visualizing failure and (3) appreciating the opportunity.

Even if you don't get the result you're looking for, you will come out the other side with the win. 

- Christian

A Day Without Data

I bought a dumbphone. Or a burner. It sounds better if I call it a burner phone. For those of you born after 2001, that means a phone that can only call and text. And not even "text based apps" ... just text. Like SMS.

It was $40 and I used it as a backup when I had to give my iPhone back. It ended up being an experiment to see what I would do during a couple of days without data. It turns out, not having a smartphone automatically cuts out a lot.

It cut out distractions. 
No Twitter
No Whatsapp
No Instagram

It cut out useful shit that I used.
No Googling stuff that I didn't know the answer to.
No Google Maps. 
No ability to search my email for forgotten details of an appointment.

It cut out learning.
No podcasts. 
No Kindle.
No YouTube.

It forced me to be present. 
I had nothing to look at in the elevator. 
At the crosswalk waiting for the light. 
Or while waiting in line.

It created an abundance of these micro-gaps of time. And I was without dopamine hits from my smartphone. But I was hopeful that the abscence of datat would create space. Time without stimluation. Time to be bored. Time to think. Time to observe.

So I went out into the real world untethered. And noticed how quickly that my habit to check my smartphone ... just moved into a habit to check my burner phone. I mean, was that a buzz? What if someone had texted me? (They hadn't). What if I missed a phone call about something important? (I didn't). I was conditioned to reach for my pocket whenever I wanted to avoid being present doing whatever it was that I was doing.

Want to avoid writing? Reach for my phone.
Want to avoid eye contact? Reach for my phone.
Want to avoid conversation with a stranger? Reach for my phone.
Want to avoid work? Reach for my phone.

Yeah, so my desire to use my phone as an enabler for avoidance was pretty clear. But over the course of a week, I learned about my relationship with my phone and how it was impacting my interactions with the world.

1/ Habit loops are hard to break. One day is enough to notice an unconscious habit, but certainly not enough to break it. It's tough as hell. And breaking a bad habit is the same process as forming a new one. It's never complete. You have to continue to reinforce it day after day. The easiest way to break a bad habit is to make it hard to do. And that's what I was doing with a burner phone instead of a smartphone. Sure, I could check it a million times a day. But there's less of a designed response. Why? Because the stimulus just isn't there.

2/ Boredom is a blessing. Being bored was uncomfortable at first. But then my unstimulated brain began searching for stimulation. It let me think through problems. How to frame tough conversations that I needed to have. How to structure systems differently. How hypothetical scenarios might play out. How I needed to prepare for different meetings. It gave me space to think. And it gave me space to write.

3/ I engaged with more people in real life. A smile. A simple greeting that turned an automatic response into a real conversation. I was more present. That allowed me to connect better with strangers.

4/ I felt happier. The increased connections with strangers were part of it. And there was reduced stress from not being tied to email. And there was an increase in my presence in the real world. Removing the constant connection doesn't actually have you missing out on a whole lot. It's a misperception that the world will collapse is we are not connected to it. (And a little narcassistic - I'm not that important.)  Plus, if something is important, people will call.

5/ I felt like Jason Bourne. I mean who else carries a burner phone? Spies, that's who. From my last stroll around the city, I noticed that even grandparents and homeless people are rocking the iPhone 5. If you're carrying a burner in 2019, I'm going to guess that you're a spy or an eccentric billionaire who doesn't want to be tracked.

6/ I needed a notebook to write stuff down. My mind was racing. With questions to ponder. With things to think about. With new ideas to investigate. And I had a special mistrust of my brain to remember the fleeting brilliance that crosses my mind. I didn't want to lose all of that inspiration in the next cycle of thoughts. Quotes. Inspiration. Ideas. I needed somewhere to write them down. It started with scrap paper, and turned into a notebook. I love writing on a page. I can see my mistakes. I can see my rewording of sentences. When I write with a pen, it's slower. But I can see the evolution of my thoughts instead of just deleting and retyping them.

7/ The withdrawl is real. And it will hit you in funny moments. You don't even realize that your hand is reaching for your phone before you're looking at it. The irony with a burner phone is that then you just end up starting stupidly at an unchanging screen. Cool. It's 10:47AM. Got it. Next. But there are also times when you are just drawn to it. You REALLY want to check Twitter to see the reactions to the evening's NBA games... but you can't. It's annoying as hell. You curse yourself out for not having your smartphone. You beg your wife to borrow hers. It's not a pretty sight.

8/ Presence is a present. You see what I did there? Trying to keep my #dadjoke game strong. But seriously, without being fed the constant dopamine hits from my smartphone, I found myself being much more present with the people that I normally engage with. I was quicker to understand what they wanted. I was faster at snapping back from distraction. I was more efficient at work. I was more able to truly enjoy my time with people. Especially my son. Normally I bring my smartphone as he messes around in the bath during bathtime. But being able to mentally be there, participate and observe as awesome. Not everyone may not have noticed a difference. But I did. And it was worth it.

--

I realize that my phone is a tool. And I LOVE certain aspects of my phone. I love that I can take high quality pictures of my son. I love that I can use it to play stuff on my TV without having to get off the couch. I love walking and listening to podcasts.

But I want to be the one weilding the hammer. I want to leverage my phone to enable my good behaviours - like meditating, reading, writing and learning. I don’t want to be sucked into hours of wasted time, additonal anxiety or mindless scrolling.

I wish I could tell you that I figured it out. That I had a grand plan of how to move forward. A new system that built a firewall between my smartphone being a distraction device and boxed it into a being a tool. Do I bring a camera and a burner phone for a weekend? Do I bring a notebook everywhere instead of typing stuff into my phone? Do I wait until I get in front of a computer to search for the answer to a question?

Truthfully, I don't know what the right balance is for me. I'm still working on that. But I do know that I want to be more intentional about how I spend my time. And one way is to take a break from this super sexy, super convenient, super useful smartphone.

- Christian

Lessons I’ve Learned From My (Almost) 2 Year Old Son

I’m not the first person to go through this. Not even close. 107 billion humans have been born here on Planet Earth. Being a new dad brings me into a elite fraternity with over fifty billion members. 

But when you’re a new dad - even with the amazing resources of the healthcare system, community and internet - sometimes you feel alone. Well, not alone. You’ve got someone to care for. And that little person is forcing you to play a new role. Skip out on some sleep. Teach them. And show them the world. 

A new baby wants to discover things. What is that smell? What does it feel like? What happens when I climb this? What does dirt taste like? Should I put it in my mouth to find out? (The answer is always yes).

They are filled with boundless curiosity as they seek to learn the way the world works. The way gravity works. The way an action garners a response. 

And that’s the appreciation my son has brought out in me - by teaching him about the world, it forced me to develop whole new perspectives. I walk by a brick wall that I pass everyday. He stops and wants to feel the textural difference between the brick and the mortar. I’m trying to get us to the elevator. He wants to spend time sprinting down the hallway and testing how high he can jump. I bring him on his push bike down the sidewalk. He wants to launch it off the curb and into the street. (My wife was super happy about that one). 

As we continue to grow as both father and son, he’s going to teach me infinitely more. In the meantime, here’s five lessons I’ve learned so far:

1. ALWAYS BE CURIOUS

The world is a wondrous place. A light turns on. What did that? Where did it come from? The TV didn’t just turn on by itself. Look behind the TV. Is that where the image is coming from? Where is that sound coming from? How does it work? My son is constantly looking behind things to see how they work. Pretty soon, I’m sure he’s going to be looking inside them and start poking around. 

Curiosity is the drive to discover and learn. When we step off the path of learning, a large part of it is because we’ve lost the joy. Our brains are set in our ways. We want to stick to the easiest thoughts and neural pathways. Our brains are trying to conserve energy … why waste is on learning new things? 

Because it’s the joy of learning that keeps us young. It keeps our brains elastic. It makes life fun. And at the core of that is curiosity. Curiosity is the heart of lifelong learning. And it’s something that we can practice everyday. 

 2. ASK FOR WHAT YOU WANT

Especially you can’t reach something. I want milk. “Milk please”. I want to be up. “Up please”. I want to go outside. “Outside, outside, outside!” I don’t want to wear shoes. “Shoes no!”

These are the words I hear every single day. It’s helpful. When my son makes a (semi) clear articulation of what he wants, life is easy on all of us. It’s easy to decide whether it’s negotiable. It’s easy to get it for him. It’s easy for him to (most of the time) get what he wants. 

As we grow older, we stop asking. Maybe we grow shy. Maybe we’re embarrassed. Or afraid of rejection. We rely heavily on external expectations and unspoken social contracts. And when we don’t explicitly ask,  we are often disappointed. All because we didn’t ask. 

So ask. Most often, the worst thing that can happen is that we hear “no." 

3. TEST BEFORE YOU STEP

Take a look before you leap. I’m not sure if my son is overly cautious for his age, or a quick learner. But when he’s on his own two feet, he's often tearing around. Until he nears a ledge. Or something that he has not seen before. And then, I can see the actual calculations happen in his mind. How far down is it? Is the thing I’m about to climb on stable? I’ll test it with one foot first. Let me poke it for a bit. Alright, seems good(ish). Let’s go! BOOM!

It’s a balance. A balance between the desire to keep moving forward and the desire for safety. Between the excitement of the new and the security of not injuring yourself. A measure of caution is never foolish. Just don’t let it ruin your day or stop you from achieving your goals. 

4. THE TOOLS TO GET WHERE WE WANT TO GO ARE ALL AROUND US

Need to to climb onto a chair? Reach reach reach. Hmmm … that doesn’t work. Oh look, I can move these books and then stand on them. Now guess who’s on the motherf*cking chair bitches! 

That’s my life. My son will climb on anything. And he moves stuff around to do it. What it illuminated to me is that everything is a tool. Just because I see a book as something to read, doesn’t mean that it can’t also be a step. Just because I see a box as packaging, doesn’t mean that it can’t be used in a game of peek-a-boo. 

The tools we need to achieve our goals are all around us. They might not look like tools. They might be labeled as something else. It just takes a little creativity to unlock their potential. 

5. START BY IMITATING. THEN MAKE IT YOUR OWN.

Learning a skill starts with getting a sense of the pattern you want to create. You see something you want to do - let’s say kicking a ball. And then you imitate. My son stepped on the ball. Then swung his leg at it. Then ran past it. Then kicked it. Followed by thunderous applause and encouragement from me.

Words. Movements. Actions. All get imitated. That’s how they're learned. But once you have mastery of a skill or a concept, make it your own. Interpret it as you will. Mold that new skill to whatever whims you want. Just because everyone runs a race one way, doesn’t mean that you have to. Experiment with your strategy, your preparation and your execution. That’s where the joy of real discovery lies. 

FINAL THOUGHTS

This one little man is changing my life every day. I just have to remember to keep on learning from him and appreciate every moment. 

- Christian

Rediscovering Happiness

There are times in your life that you don't even realize that you're unhappy. There are no big problems hounding you, so you think you're fine. And you are fine. Day to day. Week to week. Month to month. You're fine. You're okay. But you're not happy. 

Sure, you have happy moments. Joyful incidences. Times to celebrate. But from an overall perspective, you're not happy. You're just okay.

Not too good. Not too bad. Just okay. 

This happened to me. I got stuck in a rut. I had moved to a new city, started a new job and I was struggling. Despite all of this "newness", I had a good life. I had a nice apartment, a wonderful girlfriend and was in decent shape. From what I would admit to myself at the time, there was only one big challenge - work. And I thought that the way to get out of it was to push through the plateau. I was wrong.

I kept telling myself that I was okay. I would need to just focus on the tough stuff and push through it. But I'm not cool with just being okay. Who wants to settle for "okay"? 

My girlfriend could see it. My family could sense it. I knew it in the back of my head, but I couldn't seem to face it. I was stuck with a shitty situation working desperately to make it better. I focused on trying to fix the problems directly in front of me, but was continually stuck with minor improvements and whole lot of disappointment. 

It wasn't until I realized that I was ignoring the other facets in my life that I finally figured my shit out. 

Happiness is contagious

Happiness is contagious. It can start from one person, and affect everyone around them. People feed off of that energy and shift their mood. Similarly, happiness in one aspect of your life easily transfers to others.

A big win at work can lift your mood and cause you to double up on the round you're buying at happy hour with your friends.

A great workout can fuel passionate attraction with your lover. 

A good *ahem* morning with your significant other can certainly lead to a productive work day. (I'm talking about morning sex).

What I found through my journey is that the key to rediscovering happiness is not to focus your search on one pillar in your life. It is to build out as many opportunities as possible.

Five basic outlets

I've found that there are five outlets that everyone needs to have in order to create happiness throughout their life. They're basic. You might know them to be true and have just not considered their importance. If you're feeling "just okay" about your life, you need to jolt yourself out of a rut. And here is I recommend to start the self-examination:

1. A Social Outlet

Human beings are social animals. We need contact, conversation and community. We need social outlets in order to feel connected, feel heard and feel happy. Those can be friends, family, co-workers or a significant other.

It is not about the amount of social connections that you have, but about making sure that the relationships that you have are healthy. That you feel happy when you hang out with your friends, not anxious. That you are excited when speaking with your family, not frustrated. That you're comfortable, not nervous. 

Cultivate, select and grow your social connections so that they are ones that add happiness to your life, not anxiety. 

2. A Physical Outlet

Our bodies are designed to move, not to sit at our desks. And our bodies are incredible machines. When properly trained, we are capable of amazing feats of strength, agility, flexibility and endurance. But like a beautiful sports car, you can't just leave it in the garage and let it rust. You need to take it out on the open road and push it to its limits. You need to sweat. 

Because when you sweat, when you push yourself, your body rewards you. It rewards you with endorphins that make you feel amazing. It rewards you with aches and pains that remind you that you went and did something. It rewards you by adapting, so that you can better tackle the same athletic achievement next time around. 

Your physical outlet can be as simple as taking a dance class or tackling your first 5km. It can be as adventurous as hiking a mountain or learning muay thai. It can be social. It can be individual. But it will be rewarding. 

3. A Spiritual Outlet

I will admit that the first time that someone suggested a spiritual outlet, I was a bit skeptical. I thought that it would be leading down a path of religion, or some woo woo hippie nonsense. But the purpose of this outlet is to allow your mind space to create a mental break. For your brain to take a deep breath and reset. 

The world can be a crazy place. It's full of stress, demands and deadlines. And sometimes we compound the chaos by adding in our own expectations and stress. A spiritual outlet is designed to give you a break. 

Whether it be mediation, a long walk or even just some alone time with nature, you need to give yourself permission to disconnect from your worries, stresses and thoughts. You need peaceful recovery time. It allows you to reset so that when you dive back into the crazy world, you can bring some perspective. 

4. A Creative Outlet

A creative outlet is a means of expression. It is a way of you flexing your brain and pushing yourself. It doesn't need to be perfect or professional. You don't even need to share it with anyone else. It is for you. 

Paint. Dance. Write. Doodle. Take pictures. It doesn't really matter. But having a creative outlet (or two) forces you to take stock and observe the world you are in and how your are feeling before you look to express it. 

5. Sleep

The last one is sleep. Get enough of it. And make sure that it is good quality. It is a basic human need that we often gloss over in favor of one more episode on Netflix or an extra half an hour wasted on the internet. Your body needs it to function at its peak level.

Getting the proper amount of high quality sleep improves your mental function (better memory, attention spans, creativity and decision making abilities), allows your body to physically repair itself (lower inflammation, lower stress, burns fat for better body weight control) and increases happiness. 

So instead of trying to groggily hit snooze a couple more times, treat yourself and go to bed an hour earlier. You'll feel happier in the morning. Guaranteed. 

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It is easy to put your head down to push through the challenges of the day / the week / the month. But the danger of doing so is that you never take the time to step back and evaluate the situation.

It is easy to get caught up in being busy and push that self-reflection to the side. You think that by being a workaholic and being addicted to busyness provides a valid excuse to avoid it. That's bullshit. 

For me, it took time for me to even realize that I wasn't completely happy. Yes, there were amazing moments and parts of my life that made me happy. But overall, I realized that I could achieve so much more. 

In rediscovering happiness, I found that you shouldn't rely on your happiness to come from only one thing. That's too much pressure on that part of your life. You can't rely solely on work accomplishments. Or a great partner. Or travelling. Happiness should come from all aspects of your life. 

It's not about perfection. It's about realizing where you are focusing most of your effort and where the opportunity is to diversify the happiness in your life. 

- Christian