You may have heard the term before: mutual funds. But what is a mutual fund exactly? How do they work? And why should you care? (more…)
January 12, 2018
January 5, 2018
So like I mentioned in my last post, one of my New Year’s Resolutions this year is to write down one thing that made me happy each and every day this year. To symbolize my commitment to that goal, I was shopping around for a nice leather journal to write my happy thoughts in. (more…)
December 29, 2017
Like every year, you can choose to remember 2017 however you like: the good, the bad or the ugly. For me, I like to take a moment this time of year to remember all of the good things that happened in my life over the past year, and use that to set up next year to be another great one. (more…)
December 23, 2017
The holidays are supposed to be a time to eat, drink and be merry. So why is it that they usually come with nothing but stress for so many out there? (more…)
December 16, 2017
Vancouver is a beautiful city. Nestled against the Pacific Ocean on the west coast of Canada, it has views of both the ocean and the Rocky Mountains. What more could you ask for? Well, how about one of the most amazing Christmas light displays in the world? (more…)
December 9, 2017
This is a continuation of an earlier post on the journey to black belt. The grading felt like it was over as soon as it began. One minute we’re warming up, and the next we’re bowing out. I knew it would go quickly, but not that quickly. I mean geeze, I don’t even remember parts of my grading.
I’m told I threw knees during sparring, yet I have no recollection of that. I thought I performed four katas, when I really did six. What I do remember is that the warm-up was tough, designed to exhaust you before the grading even began. If you didn’t pace yourself, you were in for a world of hurt. So what else happened at our black belt grading? (more…)
December 1, 2017
I hear people complain all the time about how they don’t have this, or how they wish they had that. What I find interesting is that, when I ask them what they’re doing about it, they usually hum and haw and make up some sort of excuse about why “now’s not a good time for change.”
Well, news flash – there’s never a good time for change. We’re creatures of habit, we hate change by default. But if you want things to be different in your life, you need to do things differently. I saw a great comic the other day; in it, a leader stands on a stage asking an audience, “Who wants change?” Everybody raised their hand. Then, in a second image, the same leader asked the same audience, “Who wants to change?” Crickets. Everyone had their eyes to the floor. Two images, one striking message.
Change starts with you. And there’s three things you can do to bring it about. (more…)
November 26, 2017
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It’s a phrase that gets thrown around a lot. There’s artisanal food, artisanal furniture, and artisanal mining – yep, that’s a thing. So what does the word actually mean? And why does it seem to be thrown around so carelessly? (more…)
November 18, 2017
My wife and I recently made the decision to get rid of our mattress and bedframe, and switch to sleeping on Japanese futons (called shikibutons) full-time. If you don’t know what a Japanese futon is, it’s basically a bed made by folding layers of brushed cotton over and over again and covering it with a layer of fabric. They sit right against the ground – no boxspring, bed frame, nothing. It was a decision that took time to come to grips with, and we did a ton of research before getting to that point. So what made us choose to sleep on the floor?
November 10, 2017
If you’ve trained in a dojo for any period of time, then you know that there are times where you work with a partner. Most drills require partnership – after all, you don’t learn the physical side of karate just by hitting air. What isn’t immediately apparent to new students though, is that there’s an art to partnership. (more…)