THE DRESS SHIRT REVOLUTION

14 Notes To Self

1. Provide Value 2. Brand > Sales 3. Document > Create 4. Tell People About Your Stuff 5. Be Patient 6. Practice 7. Show Love 8. Track Stats 9. Do The Dirty Work 10. Workout 11. Wake Up Early 12. Pushups 13. Be Kind 14. Set The Standard

Confidence

Are we naturally confident? Or is confidence built? What makes a person confident? Yesterday, I posted a clip on Instagram from my recent podcast episode talking about how basketball is life. I often look to basketball whenever I am navigating through different decisions or self-reflecting. As a basketball player confidence in your ability is everything in order to perform at a high level. One thing I love about basketball is how fast a player can go from being confident to not confident. We hit a 3 from the corner on one possession and the next possession we are eager to shoot the ball again. At the same time if we airballed our last shot, when we get open for another look, maybe we hesitate. A key thing as a basketball player is accepting failure and practicing short term memory loss. If we don't forget about our failures during the game, we can't continue to perform at a high level and help out our team. I don't think that being confident is a thing that we either are or are not. Confidence is a consistent battle that you are going to continue to face no matter what you are pursuing or going through. I believe that there are two types of confidence: Long term confidence and short term confidence. One question that you can ask yourself is what I am confident in? We all want to be successful and it takes a lot of confidence in yourself to be able to a point where you consider yourself successful. But, what does being successful even mean? To me, being successful means waking up and spending your day however you would like. In the long term, I am extremely confident that I am going to be successful because I know that I am in control over my definition of success. To answer my question before, I think that confidence can be a natural thing because everyday I am extremely confident that I will wake up tomorrow. Today, no matter if you make good decisions or bad decisions, your track record for coming out alive is undefeated. Therefore, naturally we have to be confident in the fact that everything happens for a reason and in the long term we are going to be okay. Short term confidence is something that is built. Our actions throughout the day are directly dictating how confident we are. Think about basketball for example, if we made our last shot, we are more confident to take our next shot. I think that you built short term confidence by taking on hard tasks and checking off those boxes. For example, today is Wednesday and I wrote about how hard it is for me to wake up on Wednesdays and have a good day. When my alarm sounded, I could have either gone back to bed or got out of bed and started my day. When I got out of bed, I checked off the first box of the day. Next, I had to decide to either go to the gym or not go to the gym. When I went to the gym and completed my workout, that was another box checked. As the day goes on if I continue to check boxes that are important to me, that is the same as making shots throughout a game. I am more confident in my ability to hit my next shot. However, days where I face those same tasks and do not check those boxes, I am naturally less confident. It is like missing a shot and hesitating on your next attempt. Just like in basketball, short term memory loss is everything and we can't let one failure in the day carry over through the rest of our day. Therefore, if you woke up today and maybe didn't check off that box, well you still have a lot of other boxes you can check off the rest of your day. Therefore, forget about it and move on. Like I said before, made shots= confidence, missed shots = hesitation. The best thing about life is that we are in control over whether or not we shoot in the first place and in life unlike basketball, we are actually in control over whether or not we make or miss the shot. Therefore, today go out there and average 20 and see how you feel. To conclude, long term confidence is a necessity and is something that hopefully we all have naturally. If we aren't naturally confident in the long term, then we have to practice short term confidence by consistently shooting and making shots. The more shots we make, the more confident we will be in our ability, and the more likely we are to be naturally confident in our future.

F*ck Wednesdays: Part 2

A year ago, I wrote a blog post entitled “F*ck Wednesdays”. At the time of the post, I had bad habits and was not consistent at all. I think that it is important to pick and choose battles to take on throughout the week that can keep you going. For the past year, my battle has been against Wednesday’s and I have been kicking it’s a**.   On the topic of Consistency: I interviewed over 50 people in the past year and the common denominator in most of the interviews was the importance of Consistency. A few things that have helped me become the disciplined and consistent person that I have always dreamed of are: Waking up at the same time every day Going to the gym Really, it is having a set Morning Routine. A morning routine is a consistent task that you can complete every single day. It gives you time to work on yourself before worrying about anything or anyone else. The same way basketball players have a free throw routine, a morning routine for creators and entrepreneurs is truly a game changer. Book Recommendation: The 5am Club by Robin Sharma Here is a video on how this book has impacted my life.     An entrepreneur that I have been watching a lot lately is Bedros Keuilian. He has an incredibly powerful message that we can all benefit from. Check out episode 1 of his latest podcast. You will not regret it.    Brand Update: I am naming my dress shirt brand: Maxwell Murray. Name Reveal Developing a Collection My Plan / Muslin Follow along for the sample reveal at the end of the week!   Have a great rest of your week!  

Fear

Fear is the number 1 deterrent of success. The best artist, musician, fashion designer, or entrepreneur can be out there right now with amazing ideas in their head, but never live up to it, only because of fear. I am terrified of my dreams. I wish at times, I didn’t obsess over accomplishing my mission and being the person that I want to be. I am scared that I will never live up to the dreams that rotate over and over again in my mind. For the longest time, fear prevented me from accomplishing and impacting the world in the way that I so deeply aspired. For the first 12 months of building FITS, I did it in complete silence. Kept it a secret from the world and was reluctant to tell anyone about my ideas. When I look back at it, I was scared of 1) being embarrassed 2) getting my idea taken. Due to this, I with held my work from the world and tried to wait for the perfect finished product to finally showcase. During this time, I recorded numerous podcast episodes about my journey. Episodes that will never come out (only because we didn’t know about mic covers) but those episodes, I never thought about putting out at the time. I always wanted to submerge myself in the social media game and spread my message to more people but I was scared that my business wasn’t developed enough. How can you make entrepreneurship content without being one of the best entrepreneurs out yet? I would always tell myself that when x happens, I will do y. However, looking back, it was just fear. Fear of judgement. Fear of failure. Fear of myself and my own ambitions. Rob’s tagline is “Fortune Favors The Fearless”. To flip the switch and truly become fearless, you have to make 2 bold decisions. 1) You have to actually acknowledge that you want it 2) You have to be relentless in your pursuit to get it What do you really want? Who do you really aspire to become? The truth about these two questions is the the hardest possible answer. The answer that you can barely even tell someone because they will look at you crazy is normally the right answer. Once you find the answers to those questions, you probably will be looking up at something that you think is completely unattainable. That is when you have to make one of two decisions. Am I going to accept the fact that this is a dream that I want to pursue? Or am I going to fold on this? If the answer is that you want it, the next step is starting. This day in age, we glorify famous people and overnight successes. This is because we open our phones, go on social media, and see people that have a lot of money or a lot of followers on Instagram. We see them living it up and smiling and talking about how you two can accomplish big things if you work hard. If there was a video that could teach you the key to success and everybody in the world can sit there, watch it, and become successful as a result. We would all be mad at words within that video. I sit around and watch motivational videos all the time, thinking that I am going to learn something new or learn some type of secret to success. The reason why we would be mad at these videos is because everyone says the same thing: work hard and be relentless. Being relentless is not fucking easy. I question my entire life and think that everything I am doing is complete ass, at least once a week. I started my business and thought after a few posts it would just blow up and everybody would love the product that I built for them. However, what we fail to realise is that the best things in life are results of the hardest possible journey. What is the most challenging way to get to where I want to go? What are the things that 95% of people do not do? What ideas do I have that seem so hard that it makes me scared to even try? The truth is that we have got to accept the fact that we want something and stop at nothing to get there. Being relentless means being obsessively consistent. It means that no matter how tough things get, no matter how much you fail, you keep going and stay on the path that you set out for yourself. When I decided to truly start building out FITS and start really posting on social media. I told myself that there are people that I want to impact. People that I think could benefit greatly by hearing my message. People that I need to learn from. People out there that together, we could build something that apart wouldn’t be possible. I told myself that I want to be the 50th President of the United States. I can’t believe that I just wrote that. I am scared to tell anyone because I know they would be like yea, ard. But the truth is, that is my number 1 goal. That is the dream in my head that I so deeply want to silence. Truth be told, it just keeps coming up in my mind, so much that I can’t do anything but plot out my next 20 years to be able to make that happen. Dame Dash said “People would traditionally think I was crazy, they all did. Unless you have a dream that people think are crazy then your dream is wack. I dream big bro and everybody around me that dreams big, that I have taught to dream big, you are reading about them in Forbes”. Fear is motherfucker. Fear prevents people from being successful. So decide, am I scared of this dream? Do I actually want it or not? Then be relentless in your pursuit of that dream. You can’t be the top designer out if you only have 1 or 3 collections out. You can’t be the best musician if you only have 4 singles out. You can’t be an entrepreneur if you don’t obsess over your business for the next 10 years. And you will never be the President of the United States, if you don’t try. S/o Rob: Fortune Favors The Fearless

Happiness

I am sitting here on my rooftop looking at the New York City skyline. I see 57th street with these huge skyscrapers that people live actually live in. I’ve been in a few of those buildings over the last few years and have seen people actually live in these huge boxes in the sky. 3 years ago, I came to New York because growing up my mom and I would watch million dollar listings. When I first got to the city, I would go around and stare at every building. I romanticised my life, living there, and calling a place like that my home base. I wanted to make a lot of money. When I first moved here, I studied finance because of how much they got paid out of school. I would look through salaries from Goldman, JP Morgan, and McKinsey & Co. Wow $150,000 a year after a bonus hits sounds pretty great to me. A few months ago, I was in org comm and we had to pick slips of paper out of a hat and give a speech on whatever it said. My slip of paper said “Why do you do what you do?”. I stood infront of my class, took a deep breath, and said “I am here to do 3 things”. First, I am a public school student. I feel like when I first got here at NYU, I was behind. It felt like people always knew things that I just straight up didn’t. I believe that there are two things inherently wrong with public school. 1) If we are good students, we aren’t prepared for college. 2) If we aren’t good students, we aren’t prepared for life. I think that we sit in this grey area right in between where they tell us that we need college but don’t truly prepare us for college. On the other side, college is a lick and for people that aren’t good at school, they aren’t prepared to take on life right out of high school. We sit in that school for 7 hours a day and it truly feels like a passage of time. Therefore, my first inspiration is to find ways to better educate my community. Second, the racial wealth gap in America is so ridiculous that when I said it to my class, they were in disbelief. The median white family has a household income of about $188,000 and the median black family has a household income of $24,000. This is a result of years of oppression, slavery, Jim Crow, and prevention from education and housing. I am disgusted by this stat and want to find any way to help change this. I am an entrepreneur because I want to build businesses that can uplift my community financially. Business inspires me because companies like uber can connect so many drivers with opportunities to put food on the table for their family. Therefore, the second thing that I am relentlessly pursuing is uplifting the black community financially through business. Third, I look around and don’t see anyone in this class that looks like me.I have a hard time finding inspirations and people that are in positions that give me the confidence that I can do or be that. I want to show the younger kids behind me that their dreams and aspirations are tangible. Someone from their school, city, and state that looks like them, made it. I want to show them what it looks like to create real change by being relentless with a pen and a notebook. I want them to believe that they can accomplish everything that they set their mind too. I think about quitting entrepreneurship sometimes and using this stern diploma to get myself a nice comfy job. But the truth is that’s cap. I don’t. That’s not my path at all. That doesn’t abide by my ambitions and doesn’t relate to the change that I want to create in this world. I started this piece by talking about million dollar listings New York. For the last 3 years, I have been inside too many million dollar cribs. I look at the people that live in them and see how comfortable they look. Then I think about where I live, in the East Village with my two roommates. I look at my bed, desk, chair, and whiteboard. I have a couch, a tv in the living room and I think to myself, I don’t really need much more. Yea, I’d love to live in a nicer spot, a million dollar listing. But I know the people that do. I think to myself are they happier than me just because they live here? Almost every time the answer is no. If they are happier it's for a different reason. So I sit here on my roof right this second, look at billionaires row from a distance, write this blog post, and think that I will be there one day. However, that isn’t going to make me happier then I am right now, it is only going to be a reward for change that I have made in this world. I will be happy when I build a school, have people making upwards of $3,000 a month on FITS Create, and when I am able to show the kids behind me the true power that they have with their two hands. Actually... (I actually wrote that above) I am happy right now, I built the Power Struggle Movement, an online school for creators that teaches Crypto, Entrepreneurship, and Creative Arts. I didn't even know it was a school until I wrote about wanting to build a school. I am building a platform that empowers creators. I feel guilty that my product doesn't help people as much as I want to yet but the people that we are working with give me life and confidence to relentlessly stay on this path. At this point if I quit, I am quitting on them. Finally, I am showing people from back home that you can make it all the way to NYC, go to a big school like NYU, but still say fuck the easy life and take a path that has a huge change of failure and a tiny chance of success. I know this blog post is just heavily about me. However, I hope that you can realize that happiness isn't some tangible thing that comes when you reach a certain point. As long as you are doing something that makes you happy and fulfils your dreams: you are living a great life :) My happiness comes from solving problems.

How to Develop a Fashion Collection in 30 Days!

Watch Full Process   Cut and Sew vs Wholesale Blanks: When developing a fashion collection, designers can choose Blanks or Cut and Sew. Wholesale purchasing of blanks is the simple route. Already established cuts and styles of clothes are available to the public for purchase. Then, designers can print their logos, designs, or other graphics onto the blanks. Cut and sew is the trademark “designer” way to produce clothing. It is called cut and sew because fabric is cut out to resemble the shape of a pattern. That cut up fabric is then sewn together to construct the garment. Cut and sew is for designers who want to develop their own signature look and shape of their garment. The truth about cut and sew vs. wholesale blanks is that it all depends on what type of project you are venturing into. If you are just trying to mass produce t-shirts with nice graphics, using blanks makes sense because it’s cheaper. It is important to think about what product you are trying to develop, how much you are willing to spend, and the overall vision for your business. Developing a Collection   5 Step Process To Develop a Cut and Sew Collection:   Step 1: Choosing Fabrics   Once I decided to start a dress shirt brand, I immediately started sourcing fabrics. This is where everything starts and was the foundation for the garment that I was trying to produce. At first, I found corduroy and cotton from the fabric store and sampled them. They were both too heavy so I needed to find something a bit lighter. Luckily, I discovered a featherwale corduroy that I absolutely fell in love with. Finding Fabrics Developing a Sample   Step 2: Pattern Making A pattern is a template used to create the shape and structure of a garment. Patterns are used to ensure that each piece of a garment fits together correctly and that the finished product is the desired shape and size. Developing a signature look and fit for my dress shirts was the most important part. I wanted to create something that looked completely different than anything else on the market. I am half filipino and was extremely inspired by kimonos and barongs. So I decided to go with a slightly oversized look with a chinese collar. My Inspiration / Plan Developing a Pattern   Step 3: Muslin / Fit Sample   Since a pattern is a piece of paper, a muslin is a great way to see how your garment is going to fit. A muslin is a piece of cotton that you can use as a fit sample for your garments. This helps you save money, fabric, and make quick adjustments. I tried on my muslin and immediately made a few revisions. I took in the chest and width of the elbow. I extended the length of the sleeve and torso. Muslin Correction   Step 4: Trim Trim refers to buttons, zippers, or any materials that you add to the base of your garment. To develop my sample, I needed to find 11 buttons that go well with the fabric that I was using. This was a pretty fun process. Buttons   Step 5: Samples Now, you are ready for your samples. All you have to do is bring your fabrics, pattern, and trim to a sample maker and they will handle the rest. For my dress shirts, I needed to supply 2 yards of fabric and 11 buttons. My first sample came back and I loved the fit but the corduroy was super heavy. I then took the cotton to the manufacturer for a second sample. A few days later, a mentor of mine threw me a gem by directing me towards a fabric wholesaler in the garment district. I found a featherwale corduroy, fell in love, and immediately took it to the manufacturer to get sampled. Final Samples Dress Shirt Reveal   Next Steps: Pattern Grading: All you have to do is develop 1 size and then get a pattern grader to scale out the additional sizes. Bulk Fabric & Trim Order: I am only starting with 100 dress shirts so I had to buy 180 yards of fabric and 1,100 buttons. Full Production: Recently, I put down a deposit for my full cut and sew collection. We are looking to drop the Practice Shirts in early May. Designers: If you are looking to develop your own cut and sew fashion collection, we have everything that you need at FITS. We can help you develop your collection by sourcing your fabrics, making your patterns, muslins, and final samples. After development, we can manufacture your full batch as well. Free Consultation   To watch the full development & production process: Instagram - maxwellmurray3 Tik Tok - maxwellmurray3 If you have any questions, feel free to reach out! Good luck :)

Monday Motivation: Be a Revolutionary

When you’re a Revolutionary: You can be a fashion designer, musician, youtuber, podcast host, author, video editor, and CEO at the same time because you start with purpose.

Monday Motivation: The Next Step

“Everyone must choose 1 of 2 pains: The pain of discipline or The pain of regret.” When I started my journey as an entrepreneur, I was undisciplined and inconsistent. I worked when I felt like it, went to the gym when I felt like it, and relaxed when I felt like it. At the time, I was an immature kid with big dreams and no execution. My roommate was the most disciplined person that I knew. He would handle his business regardless of how he felt and I looked up to him because of that. He inspired me to take that next step by forcing me to come to the gym with him. Throughout the next year, going to the gym completely revolutionized my life. It became a keystone habit that changed all of my other habits. Over the next year and a half, I launched 3 businesses, started documenting my life on social media, and became the person that I always wanted to be. Yesterday, when I went to the gym with him for the first time since last summer, I was the disciplined and consistent person that I always dreamed of. Dreams are delusion without Sacrifice. Sacrifice starts with: Building Good Habits Removing Addictions Practicing Delayed Gratification Most importantly: Showing up for yourself, regardless of how you feel. Remember: “The top 5% do, what 95% of people won’t do.” - Robin Sharma   I want to continue this talk about sacrifice in a business context. In business, I have learned that it is better to do the things you don’t want to do, than the things that you do want to do. Let me explain: Things I want to do: Marketing: Recording and Posting Content Sales Calls: Trying to close new clients Build Products: Creating Cool Sh*t Playing Offense: Attacking the market Things I do not want to do: Marketing: Editing Videos Sales: Prospecting and Dm’ing 50+ people / day Finance: Budgeting to make sure we have runway to stay alive Playing Defense: Putting out fires and solving problems The things at the top are results from the things at the bottom. When planning out my calendar, the actions at the bottom will get me to where I need to go. Not the fun and pretty things at the top.   Podcast Rec: Alex Hormozi on The Diary of a CEO The Diary of a CEO hosted by Steven Bartlett is one of my favorite podcasts in the world. Steven is a successful black entrepreneur that took his social media marketing agency public at $500+ million. He has had great guests recently from Richard Branson to Cole Sprouse. Today, he aired an episode with Alex Hormozi. Hormozi is a successful entrepreneur that has been all over my social media feed for the past year. He gives extremely digestible business advice based on what he has done and accomplished in the past. If you are building any time of service business, his book $100m Offers is absolutely life changing. He presented an equation to provide your customers the most value possible. Here is a video of me explaining the value equation: Watch $100m Offers by Alex Hormozi Brand Update: Yesterday, I revealed the final sample for my dress shirts. Here is the video: Watch Next, I have to put in my full production order. I recently purchased 180 yards of the featherwale corduroy fabric that I am using. I still need to buy 1,100 buttons (each shirt requires 11 buttons) and then we are good to go. A few recent developments: Branding Moodboard Fit Sample Corrections Revealing My Brand Name I hope you all have a great week! “Top producers make it a habit to do the high-value activities that average ones don’t feel like doing - even when they, too, don’t feel like doing them.” - Robin Sharma

Self-Awareness

I watched one of Gary Vee's posts and he talked about pointing your thumb instead of your pointer finger. When you take whatever is going on in the world around you and assess your circumstances, before anything else, point your thumb. I was nominated a team captain for my junior year basketball season. The year before I started on varsity but was really limited in what I could do on the court and as a 15 year old, didn't really have an ability to speak up to my older teammates. My junior year was the first time in high school where it was really my team. I think that one important thing to always know is that you practice how you play. During this season in practice, I was extremely immature. I would talk excessive amounts of trash, slap a teammate after hitting a 3 in his face, and conduct myself in an erratic manner. As a result of that my teammates did the same exact thing. Joked around in practice, left early after practice, and flat out didn't take excellence very seriously. We failed that year as a team and our season actually ended with me sprinting for a late close out and chipping the shooter, sending him to the line for game winning free throws. The next season, I was locked tf in. I set the tone by sacrificing my numbers for the better of the team. Junior year I averaged 9.4ppg and with two new transfers, I knew that I would have to be way more of a facilitator. Each time we ran sprints, I was first or second. I would run next to the big men and force them to keep up. We took every practice seriously and stayed hours after practice to keep shooting and working out. As a leader, I became a lion and our teams culture resembled that. One game we were playing the second worst team in the county. It was kinda far out and none of us were excited to play since we had a huge game later that week. I remember turning up the aux and clapping crazy. Everyone followed, we hit the court and were screaming during warmups. It intimidated the living shit out of the other team. First play we ran a backdoor for a lob and I threw it up and bang! We beat them by 40. My team went 19-2 that year and even though we lost early in the playoffs, I felt like my team resembled my drive and personality. I was willing to die on that. Running a company is a big switch up for me. There isn't practice and there isn't any real games. I felt like for a little while as a team, we were going through the motions. My team has my friends in it and I remember even sipping on a beer during one of our meetings. I am obsessed with FITS and trying to get it off the ground. However, I felt like myself and my team wasn't performing the way I thought we should. Instead of pointing the finger, I pointed the thumb. It made me think about junior year and how I was acting in practice. One thing about me is that I would rather die than fail. In order to get to the next level, I had to show my team that they are lead by a lion and not a sheep. I started waking up at 6am every single day. Making numerous instagram, blog posts, tweets, youtube videos, tik toks. I obsessed over building product and finally took the create idea and made it into a reality. I realized that as the CEO nobody is going to work more than me. Therefore, I have to set the bar so fucking high that people are sprinting and jumping to touch it. Self-awareness is everything. You have got to understand why you didn't perform the way you wanted to. Instead of looking around and waiting for other shit to happen, you have got to set the mf tone every single day. What am I doing wrong? What can I do better? I remember when we first started, everybody wanted to know exactly what their role was. I gave them titles and explained what I wanted out of them. However, I didn't write it down. Therefore, there is way too much room for interpretation. People may be stepping on other people's toes, or might not know what they should do on a daily basis. Instead of blaming them for that, I realized that it was completely my fault. I wrote down full job descriptions with one common goal, list of expectations, metrics, their process, and an example of their daily week. I feel like in order to accomplish anything, it takes you understanding that you came up short. I set out a 3 part strategy for our business. In order to succeed we have to do x,y, and z. However, I can't say that and expect other people to come up and execute. I need to incorporate all aspects of x,y, and z into my life and show how its done. Shane texted me yesterday and said "If I can't believe this is the way 100% then I need to change what I'm doing". Life is about self-awareness and execution. Everything is in your control and in order to get to that next level you have to carry yourself to that standard.

The One Secret To Success

When I received my acceptance letter from NYU, I was shocked. Maryland, Fordham, UChicago, and a few other schools had just rejected me. I never knew that I was capable of getting into a good school without playing basketball. Just like everyone around me, I was convinced that it was luck. But it happened. At first, it was overwhelming academically. It seemed like all of these private school kids knew so much more than me. Nobody looked like me or came from where I’m from. I felt really out of place and wondered if I was truly meant to be here. Then I realized that I was here for a reason. I started a business at 16. I got excellent grades while playing varsity basketball. And most importantly: I applied to the school. "You can’t win the lottery if you don’t play” - MM Reach out to that CEO, apply for that dream job, post that youtube video, start your own business, or create something amazing. You never know where that can take you. When something fortunate comes your way, a lot of people will call it luck. You will be one of them. But it happened, and anything can happen if you take action. Luck Rewards Action

The Only Way is Through

<“If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.” - Milton Berle We do not live in a fair world. We are not all born equal. We do not all start with the same opportunities and resources. That’s life. Knowing that, we all have a choice to make. Are we going to let others gatekeep our success? Or are we going to create the life that we want to live in? For too long, people had the power to gatekeep our success. Whether that is college apps, jobs, grants, investments, etc; we have had to ask others for an opportunity to get put on. Those days are over. You have the power to be so good at what you do that nobody can deny you success. You do not need netflix to create a show. You do not need a record label to start your music career. You do not need ESPN to publicly talk about sports. You do not need an investment to be a CEO. You do not need a publisher to write a book. You do not need an opportunity, you can build the door. Unleash your power. Be the person that you wish to see in this world. Create the life that you want to live in. And punch above your weight. You are so capable. You can accomplish whatever you set your mind to. You are special. You are the only person on this earth with your talent and skill set. You are unique. Your challenges, failures, and setbacks have only made you into the person that you are today. A world-changer and perhaps, even a history-maker. You are too powerful to leave opportunity up to chance. Build the door.>

The REAL Tea is Presence

The real tea is presence. More than ever, our minds are fixated on the future. Lusting the next step that zips us towards our dream outcome.  The next step after college. The next job. The next book. The next product or service that can bring our business to the next level.  It is not easy to quiet the mind. To tell the ego to stop fixating on what it can’t control. And so we think, contemplating the different paths that will lead us to the promise land.  One way forward is to be where your feet are. To surrender the outcome and play present. Instead of planning and strategizing, maybe it would be useful to reflect and look around.  “Nothing will ever happen in the future; it will happen in the Now.” Relax and breathe. Silence the mind with a sip of tea. Tell the ego that the path is under your feet. And that all this sh*t that we lust is not that deep. 

You Faked Your Pushups

I started playing football at the age of 5.  I have two older half brothers that are 7 and 9 years older than me and I remember going to all of their games growing up. Every other week they would come stay with us and we would play kickoff football from couch to couch in the basement. I was like 4 and so they would both go on their knees, throw the ball to me on the other side and I would have to get past them and score by making it to the other couch.  They used to kill me. There was something called high-low, where Marcus would go for my legs and Myles would go for my head and I would literally just get flipped over and destroyed. I remember falling on my neck and shoulders, being in pain, and crying. But I loved every single moment of it.  Growing up Sunday football was such a big deal for my family. We had this 3 TV setup in the basement where we could watch the Eagles on the big screen, game mix or another game on the left, and redzone on the right. I fucking loved football and I loved the Eagles even more. One Sunday night, Marcus dressed me in his full Silver Spring Saints uniform and pads. I was obsessed with football and was finally old enough to play. My first football game ever was against the Ellicott City Patriots on a gray Saturday morning. The Patriots kicked the ball off and it was finally my time to shine. We ended up losing the game and afterwards I was distraught and crying my eyes out. Not because we lost but because I only played the league minimum, 7 plays.   I got into the car after the game with my parents and was crying and complaining about my lack of playing time. Why wouldn't the coach give me a chance? Why me? Why this, Why that? My dad turned around and looked at me dead in the face and said "You faked your push-ups in practice". That day in the car, instead of coddling me, my dad was on my ass. "How do you expect to play if you are faking your push-ups in practice".   It is so easy to fake your push-ups in practice when the coach can't see you. However, who are you cheating? The coach or yourself? See, I was so busy faking my push-ups because they were hard and they hurt, that I didn't think about why I needed to do them in order to get stronger so I can hit this running back on the jet sweep. If you fake your push-ups that running back is hitting you on that jet sweep.   All of us have crazy dreams that we so desperately want to accomplish. We often think about the end goal or end person that we want to become. However, in order to get there you have to become better and stronger every single day. Especially (I will say it again), Especially when you are all by yourself and nobody is looking. If I go on the street today and ask 100 people if they are working hard to accomplish their goals, all 100 of them are going to say yes. Of course, we want other people to think that we are getting stronger and better everyday.   But, today I want you to think to yourself: Am I really getting stronger? Or am I faking my push-ups?