I am blessed

 True friendship is something that's hard and takes work but when the relationship is at that level it is something truly special.  I choose to be friendly with a lot of people but I carefully choose who I let in.  True friend ship is something that doesn't require anything from the other person.  In fact I would say that true friendship is more giving than receiving.  

I had a great conversation with my friend Tim this morning.  We've gotten to know each other through work and have known each other for almost five years.  Tim's a person who's very genuine and our conversations and time spent with each other is effortless.  The last time we spoke with each other was at the world junior championships before they got shut down because of Covid.  Those couple of days where spent watching some great hockey but we spent more time just talking about our families, life and just anything that came to mind.  The conversations we have together are often deeper than we realize but the way we have them is so effortless.  We don't judge each other's views we just listen to each other and enjoy the differences.  

What I value the most about our friendship is how we lift each other up and most of the time we don't even know were doing it.  We have this way of talking and sharing with each other things that are important in our lives.  So many times the same things are relevant in my life so to be able to share them and understand the impacts to our lives is incredible.  

I am blessed to have friends in my life like Tim.

Mr, Ian Repay

Struggling but not hiding

 Only a few weeks in and things have started to get a little off of the path.  It's been tough to keep a routine in place because I'm traveling every single week.  I would thought that by now I'd have figured out a routine as my job hasn't really changed for years.  However I've come to terms with my self that I'm not a creature of routine, its not in my DNA.  What I'm doing now is taking advantage of small windows of opportunity.  I'm at my best when I squeeze in a few minutes of training between meetings, pushup and sit ups after breakfast and before my next coffee (BTW I'm a HUGE espresso fan).  I used to get upset with myself for not "scheduling" my training for a set time of the day like early mornings.  I found that this would work for a while then when I wasn't able to get to this time it was especially de motivating.  

Coming to this realization helped me to smooth out the "ups and downs" and realize that any amount of training is still training.  In my business world I have the perfect mix of structure and randomness.  This is who I am and this is what works for me.  

I used to get envious of people that had structure in their lives.  It must be so much easier for them to accomplish their goals, on the surface it seemed effortless.  I've come to realize that what's on the surface can be very different to what's bubbling underneath.  It's easy to get caught up comparing myself to these kinds of people and then trying to change who I am.  I won't do that anymore because that's not who I am and it almost derailed my entire Kung Fu life last year.  I got caught up in comparing myself to others and when I felt that I wasn't measuring up I retreated and retreated and retreated.  I retreated so far the I was a breath away from pulling the pin and giving up for good.

So here I am, less than a month into the year of the Tiger and I'm struggling.  I'm behind on some of my requirements and to be honest I'm behind on most of them.  BUT I'm not comparing my progress with anyone else's.  This is my journey and I'm not going to hide under that glass rock.  I'm going to admit when I'm struggling.  I'm going to struggle and I'm going to fail but I'm not going to let those struggles and failures de rail the real progress that I'm making this year.  I'm still moving forward and the best part is, I'm having fun doing it.

Mr. Repay