Canucks, Cuba, Carla and KARMA!!!

I have had an outstanding week after giving out free hugs last Wednesday.

EVERYTHING seems to be working out.

Wednesday: I have an older gentleman come up to me at Deuce Bungallo and say "I really like your music!". We chatted for a half an hour and at the end I found out thats its Francesco Aquilini who is reportedly worth over $2 Billion and owns the Canucks.
Even though nothing has directly come of this yet, it is a great connection for the future. I'm greatful that people like this are being put along my path!

Saturday: I am hanging out playing tunes at Deuce and in walks this friendly guy. He's short, he's black and he walks right up to me and gives me a hand shake. He introduces himself as Cuba and I'm thinking....this guys looks familiar. It turns out it is the superstar actor Cuba Gooding Jr from Gerry McGuire. He ends up buying me a drink and grabbing the camera off of the desk and taking a picture with me. Its cool to hang out with someone that is living the dream!

Later on in the night my buddy Darcy brings in two very nice girls to hang out at Deuce. Both girls are cute but one in particular caught my eye. I hung out with them after my shift @ Deuce was done and then we headed down to Ginger. The one I was interested in, C, and I got seperate from the group walking to Ginger. We had a great conversation and we ended up meeting everyone at Ginger. It was a big Dj so the lineup was huge. My Dj status couldn't get us past it because there were new bouncers. This gave "C" and I a chance to talk more (for an hour) and we really hit it off. This girl is beautiful, funny, well traveled, educated and has an extremely high status job. Her sister seemed like an awesome person too which is a great sign of a good family. The more we hung out the more we got along.

I am sharing this because it feels good to know that I am now so comfortable and confident with myself that I can the girls I've always wanted to. In the past I've dated girls that were beautiful but were extremely insecure and crazy. Now I am consistently hitting it off with girls of high quality. It feels great to hang out at Deuce, look around at all of the STUNNING girls that I work with and say "not my type" because they are party girls (into a lot of drugs) or they don't give off an outstanding energy.

Who knows what will happen with this girl but I am not in a rush to get involved with anyone. Taking a step back from dating has allowed me to figure out what I really want has been one of the best things I have ever done.

Lets keep the good times rolling guys. Lets keep spreading the love through events like FREE HUGS to spread joy and also for outstanding Karma!

MASSIVE ACTION!!!

Came across a recent article off of the Dumb Little Man blog, which focuses heavily on self-improvement. I found the post inspiring so I’m sharing it here with you guys. You can find the original article here: http://www.dumblittleman.com/2008/11/how-to-take-massive-action-to-meet-your.html

I’ve been planning to write an ebook for over a year. While that project is still in the planning phase, I managed to write a full ebook last week that went from the planning stage to a finished product in only 3 days. Taking massive action allowed me to step away from the timeless planning stage and finally get things done.

“The path to success is to take massive, determined action.” ~Anthony Robbins

It all began on Tuesday when I was contacted by Jordan Harbinger, from Maxim Radio’s show on SIRIUS Satellite Radio. We had previously discussed doing an interview towards the end of November but when a a time slot opened up, we moved things up.

It was very important for me to have a downloadable information product (ebook) prepared in time for the show because I knew that offering it for free would greatly increase my blog’s subscriber numbers. This left me with the end of Tuesday, all day Wednesday, all day Thursday, and half of Friday to write the book and prepare for this interview. If that wasn’t enough, I still had to work take care of my internship!

That left only the evening and late night for getting things done. Once you add the fact that I had zero experience in putting together an ebook and less than stellar graphic design skills, you’d have to agree that I was in trouble.

I had three days, and I mapped out 2 major tasks that needed to be completed.
I had to create enough content for an ebook, and it had to be quality.
I had to find a designer that would be willing to work overnight, and at a tiny budget.
Since the topic of the radio show is dating and relationships, I decided to write my ebook on dating. The title ‘How to Get a Girlfriend’ automatically came to mind. I remembered that I had written a series of guest posts on this topic. I quickly contacted the site owner, who is a friend of mine, and asked him for permission to reprint the work with attribution to his website within. He agreed.

On my bus ride into NYC Wednesday morning, I began to compile articles that I had previously written on relationships. Luckily with 330+ articles on my site, with a decent amount of them being on dating and relationships, I did not have any trouble picking out relevant content.

On the bus ride back I continued this work, and then again when I got home. At this point I started sending out bulk e-mails to my online friends asking them to recommend an ebook designer that could work pronto and cheapo.

The replies started pouring in and I got at least 10 responses. I then took those e-mails and began to send a generic message asking for their assistance. I ended up speaking on AIM with my website designer, Nate Whitehill, and he personally introduced me to the man that would become my knight in shining armor, Joshua Denney.

I ended up working late into the night Wednesday, editing and revising many of the articles that I had previously written. I finished and worked closely with Josh in order to ponder the creative approach he would endeavor upon in the creation of this ebook.

After staying up a good portion of the night, I took a nap and then woke up to go to work. The day passed slowly as I constantly checked my iPhone for e-mails from Joshua to work on the book. Thursday night we ended up staying up all night, but we (mostly him) finished the ebook by deadline.

With one hour of sleep, I woke up early to finish doing the necessary blog posts and newsletter preparation to have everything go smoothly.

I continued to work while traveling back into NYC for the interview. I took the train in, and worked out different topics that we could possibly speak about during the show. I’m not going to lie, I think I sounded kind of bad, mostly because this was my first radio appearance and I didn’t know how to control my pitch in the microphone.

You can listen to the personal development podcast if you want to laugh at me, but I’d still say that the whole endeavor was absolutely successful. Over a year of planning brought me no result. Three days of action brought me amazing results.

Sure, I used content that I already had to put this ebook together and I couldn’t have written such a high-quality book from scratch in the same amount of time. That doesn’t matter, because I did what I had to do and took massive action.

The moral of the story is that when the pressure is on, the work gets done! The key is to this success, as so eloquently stated by Anthony Robbins, is to determine what action needs to be taken, and then to put 100% into taking this action.

Free Hugs Follow Up

It was cool that we were able to snap them out of the stressed / tired mindset of a busy day at work before they went home to their families!

Its understandable that a lot of people gave bad reactions. Society via the media conditions us (or tries to in the case of outstanding beacons of life like us!) to believe that making money and things of that nature will bring happiness. The result is that there are a lot of people out there working their asses off to make money….which ends up not making them happy. So they go day to day…work their lives away…all with the idea that one day they will be happy. They become bitter, jaded and seeing happy, loving people like us only reminds them of how miserable they are.

This coupled with the fact that most of them sit in their cubicle, type on a box, talk into a box (phone), listen to their box while walking down the street (ipod), get into their box and drive home to their tiny box apartment. There is no connection here. There is no love. No interaction. No wonder they don’t know how to react to us! We were the only real genuine interaction they had all day.

I too had a few instances where I wanted to snap on people. Here we were investing our time in other people and to do great things in the world and these guys in suits were telling us to fuck off and that we are gay. I think its very powerful what you said Patrick: “those who hurt are hurting.”

I’m realizing more and more that true fulfillment is in giving. It is in connecting. It is in living abundantly in all areas: not just money but money, relationships, emotions, giving, health etc.

Since this first one a lot of my friends have been asking me about it. 90 percent of them are blown away and want to do it with us next time. Some people I really look up to want to be involved next time.

I can’t wait to do this again next week! Should we set a regular day / time so we don’t start making excuses?

Also, I think commercial / broadway sound great. One thing I liked about our last location was that it was prime time business area. In my opinion,these are the people that are in the zone the MOST and need to be snapped out of it the most! Hugging hippies sounds great and I’m down but for some reason I am in love with the idea of catching serious business people on the street corner, giving them some love, and letting them take these great vibes home to their families.

Binge Eating & Getting shit done!

I spent some time doing some Tony exercises (decision making, dickens process etc) and I have now got my eating habits back on track. It feels great to have the power to make decisions and changes like this!

There are still two things that I would like to change:

1) Binge eating late at night. I am still doing this even after having a great, fulfilling day. I come home from being out or I am relaxing at home and I get a snack. It might not be that bad for me but then I go from that to some chips and salsa, then to crackers, then to a bagel (worst thing to have at night), and then to ice cream. I don't even want to eat / taste the food. I noticed that I just want to feel full..... I think this stems from 2 things:

a) Its partly just a habit. I have always had the habit of late night snacking. I think I'm going to set a rule that I can't eat anything after 8:30pm.

b) I think the reason why I need to feel full is because I am not getting shit done that I need to during the day. I spend a lot of time doing things for other people. I waste a lot of time as well. This causes me to get stressed and frustrated with myself. To feel good my body looks for instant gratification: eating food to feel full, masturbation, TV etc. I am going to limit the amount of instant gratification activities that I will allow myself to do. After all, true joy isn't in things that give you instant gratification, its in large accomplishments!

2) To elaborate on this I notice that I am trying to tell myself I am getting stuff done when I actually am not. I frequently visit business related websites, check "facebook for school / business purposes", spend time writing long self-improvement posts like this and talk on the phone with people. All of these things make me feel like I am getting important stuff done (like learning) but the reality is that all of this is to just make me FEEL like I am getting stuff done.

Getting important, life changing, stuff done involves setting priorities, leaving the phone and the internet off until I get these priorities done. This also includes letting myself give in to instant gratification.

When I get up in the morning I MUST be getting large internet business and school related tasks done. I shouldn't tackle anything else until I get these done. I shouldn't book myself in for anything else. Afterwards I should be doing other less important but more urgent matters that need to get taken care of (important phone calls, emails, scheduling etc). After this I must be doing something physical to give my mind a break. Then I must get my third priority of the day done. Lastly I will do something that I love: work on music, socialize with friends, play hockey, scheme my dream life.

A big part of this is having my priorities set before I go to sleep the previous night. I think another HUGE part of this is having cues to keep me motivated. Visual cues. Note cues. This will help tie my emotions and motivation to these important daily tasks. This is a MUST for me because it seems as though I forget extremely quickly the reason why I MUST be prioritizing and getting shit done.

Free Hugs!!!!

Patrick, Chris, Jerin and I went out Wednesday evening just after work to give out free hugs downtown on the busiest intersection in Vancouver: Burrard & Georgia. It was such a rewarding experience! We made so many people smile!

We had people run across traffic to give us hugs! We hugged bus drivers that stopped to see what we were doing. We hugged elderly people in wheelchairs. We hugged power business people. We hugged people that were super stressed and needed a hug!

We hugged for almost 2.5 hours and we wanted to keep going! It was so much fun and so interesting to see people's reactions.

The thing that I found fascinating was that if we just stood there with our sign, we didn't get many hugs. But as soon as we started singling people out, pointing at them and saying things like "You want a hug...I see you smiling! Bring it in....give me a hug!" they would crack a big smile and give you a hug! You really have to call on people to get them out of the mindset they are in.

It was cool that we were able to snap them out of the stressed / tired mindset of a busy day at work before they went home to their families!

I'm slipping!

Hey guys,

Its been 22 days since UPW and I am stoked that I have kept such a high for this amount of time. We took the 10 day challenge and we more than doubled it.

That being said, as most of you know I am currently living with my parents. Late last week they decided to corner me and UNLOAD on me. I won’t get into the details but they basically were putting down all of the new habits and beliefs I had built at UPW and also a lot of my goals and desires.

Since then I have been slipping. I have been doing my hour of power every day. This starts off my day on a super high. I get in my greens for breakfast, oils, water and I’m stoked. But then when it comes to getting work done towards my goals I don’t seem to be stoked about it like I used to be a few days earlier.

I know that only I can change it but I believe that a big part of me slipping the last few days is due to my parents imposing negitive bullshit onto me. The old adage is that sticks and stones will break my bones but words can never hurt me…. I’m sure that we can all agree that this isn’t 100% true with parents.
They seem to have emotional power over me that can be held back at first but whatever they criticize me on always seems to come back to haunt me soon after.

I have made the decision to move back into my apartment by the end of December. As Tony says, “Love your family but choose who you spend your time with”.

More importantly though, I think that getting in person support would have helped kept me on track with this. The same goes for all of us.

We have been conditioned over the last 20 years to think the way society wants us to think. We are surrounded by people every day that think this way and force their opinions and beliefs on us consciously and subconsciously. These two types of conditioning are effective. Its natural that we will slip a little…

The thing that would help us stay on track a lot more would be to get our IN PERSON peer group started on weekly or bi-montly meetings.

What days / nights are your free later this week? When are you free most weeks?

Jerin, Patrick, Stefan, Cheyenne and I have all voiced a need for this. Lets make it happen!

Today I made a difference!

Hey guys,

I hope you are doing well.

Today I decided to head down to the Rememberance Day Ceremony here in North Vancouver. I have always been intrigued by war and have great respect for those who fought and those who never made it back.

The ceremony was beautiful despite the pooring rain. It was great to see Veterans from all sorts of wars honored. I have always wanted to sit down with a Veteran and ask him what was was like and hear some of his stories but I have always been too shy to do so.

After the ceremony I hung around and looked at all of the names of soliders from North Van that have been killed. I looked to my right and saw some veterans in uniform with shiny medals talking to each other and to other people that just wanted to say thanks.

I saw one very old gentleman sitting down in his wheelchair. His chest was covered with medals and he was looking around but nobody seemed to want to talk to him. I really wanted to talk to a veteran of a big war. I just wanted to meet someone that has been through such an intense experience and still make it out the other side.

I walked up to the lonely looking veteran and said “wow…you have a lot of medals. Where are they from?” His face lit up and he started to go through the medals.

“This one is for landing in Normandy on D-Day” he said. I was shocked. This frail looking shy man had been one of the first men off of the boats into the biggest military operation ever launched in history. He had to run up the beach amidst an inferno of machine guy, mortar and tank fire while hearing and watching his friends dye beside him.

“This Medal is the victoria cross…awarded for outstanding bravery”. WOW. There are only a handful of men who got this medal while living. The reason being that it was only awarded when men did something so brave and so selfless that it usually gets them killed.

We talked for a good half an hour. I couldn’t help looking at his soft big blue eyes and thinking “I can’t believe those eyes saw war”.

After our half hour his son came and had to take him away because everyone was getting damp and cold. My new friend and I parted ways. I said “Thank you for serving for us and more importantly, thank you for your stories. I will never forget them and nor will I ever forget you.”

He smiled like crazy and then started crying happy tears. His son wheeled him away and as I walked away I started crying. This man I just met has been through so much. He is a hero more so than anyone I have ever met. He is braver than I will ever be. He sacrificed the prime years (19 – 24) of his life. Here I am at 24 chasing girls, trying to finish school and making money playing music….and when he was 24 he had already lost all of his friends, had seen so much and must have gone through so many strong emotions that we can’t even comprehend.

Being able to talk with a real living super hero made my day and the best part was that I made his week just by saying hello and listening to his stories.

While reflecting upon this morning I was reminded of what Tony said: “Life is not about how much money you have or the things you get. Life is about Love and sharing love”.

It feels sooooo good to spread the love!!!!