#1: The Blog: Numbers That Work - It's about Optimization

Some say this place is life school. There are difficulties everywhere. Personally, professionally, in all part of life. Some difficulties are self-inflicted. Others are put on us. 9 out of 10 it’s a beautiful combination of both. Either way, life can be a Cat5 Shit-show. I call it, affectionately, Earth School.

The purpose of this blog/book/whatever-the-blank-this-becomes is to navigate this world with tools and tricks to get life a little better, stronger, optimizing our time here. What does that lead to?

• Fewer Headaches

• Better use of your time

• Greater Ownership of your Life/Work.

My relentless pursuit of optimizing life has always operated in the my life, subconsciously or not. Have I succeeded? sometimes – Yes! Have I failed? – Yes, and spectacularly at times! Have I always optimized? No. Am I the absolute authority? No, I’m a fellow student and always will be. The key with optimization? You’re never done. Until you are done. The Buddhists have a saying that you should always keep learning until you no longer can (because you’re dead or incapacitated). Write that one down.

When I’ve gone through very difficult times, things have happened to me, something outside my control, I used to see it as a “why me?!” moment. I still do. The difference is that I've learned to see the opportunity within the chaos.

Example. Last year, I was diagnosed with cancer. Pretty serious stuff. The surgery was no joke. The renowned surgeon, a pioneer in his field who pioneered the robotic surgery I underwent said that it is one of the most painful/difficult surgeries to recover from. That part terrified me. But once I came out of surgery, I was in recovery dealing with the pain, I knew I was on my way. I just started….recovering. As the physical pain slowly faded away, I was left with an appreciation of how fortunate I was....to be alive! I came to see the experience as a gift. Would I like to repeat this experience again? Umm...no (though it can easily happen again and may well). However, the cancer awarded me a perspective that my 19 year old brain which still resided in my 57 year old body, couldn't fully appreciate: You’re going to die pal. Stop wasting time. So now I don’t. I wish I could have gotten this perspective at say at the age of 47 or 37 or even better, 27, but I didn’t. I got it now. And that’s cool.

So see, I optimized this cancer experience. Used the difficulty to give me another perspective. I’ve been given another chance at life and I’m not going to blow it. I’m here to help others (and help myself too). I’m here to optimize my time, my resources, my gifts (which are still evolving) to serve people and the organizations they steward.