That Mother F*cking Restart Button

The feeling can be wonderful. Everything is going good. Exercising on a regular schedule. Eating the right things. Going to bed at a good time. Then it happens. The bottom falls out. One lazy day turns into two, then five. A week goes by and now a month later exercise has gone to the back of the mind. Eating crap food. Sleep schedule starts going to hell. You've gone completely off track and the self madness starts to set in. Is it all worth it? 

Nope. Time to hit the restart button. 

We sometimes have a hard time imagining the end result. Which is life. Living longer and living healthier. It is easier to just living in the moment instead of planning for the future. But this isn't a saving account. This is life. Is there a huge difference between living to 55-60 and living to 85-90? You bet your sweet ass there is. That's 25-35 years. 25-35 years of laughing, movies, watching our younger family members grow up, and a lot more. 

I needed to hit that restart button again and I did. I've made a huge goal this time. I've vowed to run 100 miles. 2-3 miles a day for how ever long it will take me. No other focus right now except that goal. I need to prove something to myself. Pushing that restart button is not going to be embarrassing. 

Living to at least 85-90 is the long term goal. 

One thing is very clear, hitting the restart button is a lot better life choice than hitting the "power off" button.  

I must #LiveALittle

The #LiveALittle Mission Statement | Living for those who cannot

I've been thinking a lot lately. I love the #LiveALittle Project but want to see it go to the next level. What that level is I don't know. I've been advised to write a business plan & mission, vision, values statement for the project. Making The #LiveALittle Project a registered nonprofit would require those anyway. I've been stuck on the Mission statement. What exactly is the mission of The #LiveALittle Project? There’s a few of the things I have said in the last year that The #LiveALittle Project stood for but this has been the main statement:
“Encourage people to live a little bit more every single day.”
What exactly does that mean? We are all different when it comes to living a little bit more every day. Fitness, health, losing weight, more activity, have been the issues that most of the members of the project have focused on but there are so many more issues project members getting detoured with to further their “live a little” life. Dead end jobs, terrible relationships, estranged family, substance abuse problems, and the big three: lack of self-esteem, self worth, and self-love.
Then it hit me.

In high school I met a very beautiful, funny, caring, protective, loving amazing girl named Michelle. I fell in love with Michelle within minutes of meeting her. We spent hours upon hours together. She was a true friend. We weren’t romantically involved; we loved each other in the purest form, complete respect. Over time our lives drifted apart but we stayed in touch because of modern social media sites like MySpace and Facebook. The last time I saw Michelle was when I went to visit her in

Phoenix nearly 4 years ago. She was still beautiful after all those years. Now a wife and a mom our lives had changed very much but that visit we were swept back to 1992 and giggled like high school teenagers gossiping about everyone we went to school with. About 2 years ago I received an email from Michelle telling me that she had been diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer but for me not to worry because she was going to fight it and she was going to beat it.

Six months later my beautiful Michelle died.

A lot of you may have some kind of similar story about someone you love or know being diagnosed with a terminal disease. Have you noticed the amazing thing they do after they are diagnosed? They change. They wake up from the haze that all of us seem to be in. Suddenly trees look different and are more noticeable. Smells smell different and amazing. Wind isn’t just wind, it tickles and fills your spirit. Self-love starts to prevail, self-esteem become clearer, and self worth becomes one of the most important things right next to the love of others. The definition of life for someone with a terminal disease takes on a whole new meaning and I believe that meaning is what we all are striving for. Why must we wait until we are told that our death is very near before we truly start to live a little? Why can’t we do it now? We are all dying but we ignore that. What’s the first thing most smokers diagnosed with lung cancer do when their doctors tell them that their disease is fatal? They stop smoking, because they truly find that self-love to continue to do whatever necessary to possibly continue their life even if it is a tiny chance. It took me 20 years to quit smoking. Even when I learned of Michelle’s disease, and even her death, one would think I would have stopped but I didn’t.
This is where I believe the mission statement of The #LiveALittle Project needs to come from. It’s not solely about fitness, eating right, loving your work, and trying new things, loving new people and those already in our lives. It is about LIVING.

The #LiveALittle Project’s Mission Statement:
“To encourage others to live life as though they would not see next year”

From this moment on I dedicate my #LiveALittle life to my beautiful Michelle and her spirit, and I live my #LiveALittle life for myself and those who love me.

Many Ways To Commit Suicide, I was doing the Extended Version

This is the blog post that has been haunting me since I started writing about my personal journey of positive transformation. Regrets are something I don't have a lot of. Everything I have done in my life I would do again but in a healthier way. Never been a huge drinker. Drugs have never been a big thing for me either. I'm mumbling to stall so I don't have to tell you that I was addicted to cigarettes for 20 years. Little embarrassed that cigarettes controlled my life.  Jesus Christ cigarettes are expensive and possibly the most dangerous murderous things that are legal. Thinking back over the past 20 years I spent thousands of dollars on a horrible addiction. Blaming anyone but myself for having that nasty habit would be ridiculous. Smoking made me believe I looked cool and a little dangerous. Thought the girls around me were attracted to a man who smoked. Little did I know I just looked like an idiot and smelled horrible.

Parliaments were my huckleberry. Almost two packs a day. It was time to break up with Mr P-Funk. That's the cool name Parliament smokers called their cigarettes. P-Funk is a shorthand term for the repertoire and performers associated with George Clinton and the Parliament-Funkadelic collective and the distinctive style of funk music they performed (thank you Wikipedia). Cold Turkey worked once for me in my 20 years of smoking. "Worked" probably isn't the right word to use since I only stopped smoking for about 3 months. Using a e-cig helped me stop smoking for 30 days. Nothing truly helped me quit for good. I had noticed television commercials for Chantix, the stop smoking medicine prescribed by a doctor. Like all other pharmaceutical commercials the side effects disclaimer at the end of the commercial scared the BeJeezus out of me. According to the Chantix' website these are the possible side effects:

Some people have had changes in behavior, hostility, agitation, depressed mood, suicidal thoughts or actions while using CHANTIX to help them quit smoking. Some people had these symptoms when they began taking CHANTIX, and others developed them after several weeks of treatment or after stopping CHANTIX. If you, your family, or caregiver notice agitation, hostility, depression, or changes in behavior, thinking, or mood that are not typical for you, or you develop suicidal thoughts or actions, anxiety, panic, aggression, anger, mania, abnormal sensations, hallucinations, paranoia, or confusion, stop taking CHANTIX and call your doctor right away. Also tell your doctor about any history of depression or other mental health problems before taking CHANTIX, as these symptoms may worsen while taking CHANTIX.

When I see that a pill could cause "suicidal thoughts" it gets my attention and a big fat NOPE. My best friend had his doctor prescribe to him so I thought I'd sit back and see how it worked. He mentioned that it was giving him crazy vivid dreams but other than that he would forget to take the pills & eventually he stopped taking the pills altogether. Meanwhile I was still determined I would quit. Many times I would get a wild hair and proactively throw away a half packs of cigarettes proclaiming that I was done done done only to buy another pack two hours later. Struggling was full on but I knew something had to give. Either I go full throttle on quitting or give up and wait for the lung cancer to set full in. I needed to at least give Chantix a shot. In all actuality continuing to smoke cigarettes was basically committing long term suicide anyway. 
"Whoa, expensive." My first thoughts after arriving at CVS Pharmacy to pick up my Chantix. Insurance paid for nearly nothing. Some insurance programs, I've been told, will cover a lot of the cost. Unfortunately my insurance did not but after weighing the amount of money I have spent on cigarettes over 20 years the price didn't seem so bad anymore. The prescription cost me about $240 out of pocket for a month worth of medication. 
Started taking the meds the very next morning. One a day for the first week and I could continue to smoke. I didn't feel any different that first day. It was like I never took the pill but I still had hope. The second day I took the pill again in the morning and went on with my day. I was anticipating feeling different so I don't know if the light headiness I had later that afternoon was from the Chantix or just from another stressful work day. Took the third pill the next morning and noticed that my morning cigarette tasted slightly funny. Didn't taste as good as the night before. It was just a slight change. Throughout the day all of my cigarettes tasted different but not horrible enough that I didn't want to smoke. Day 4 was pretty much the same as day 3 with all of my cigarettes now tasting even worse. Day 4 consisted of smoking nearly half of what I had been smoking. There were no side effects kicking in. No noticeable changes except the taste of cigarettes was changing. No weird dreams or thoughts of killing myself so something was going right! 
Day 5. I will always remember day 5. This was the first day in 20 years that I did not want or crave a cigarette. I took my pill in the morning and continued my day without smoking once. When I say there was no craving I mean absolutely zero want for a cigarette. I felt amazing. To this day I have not smoked again but the Chantix journey would continue. You don't just stop taking it after you lose the cravings. It apparently needs to get deep into your system and that would take anywhere from 30 days to 6 months according to the doctor. 
On the 8th day is when the instructions say to start taking two pills, one in the morning and one before bed. Taking the pills now became fun for me because I realized they were working and I was having zero side effects. That was until the 9th night. Took my before bedtime pill and laid down for bed. I fell asleep easily but completely woke up at 3am. By completely woke up I mean wide eyed and bushy tailed, ready for the day. After laying in bed wide awake until 4am I finally got up and went through my morning routine, just 3 hours earlier than normal. The 10th night I was so sleepy at 7pm that I went to bed only to wake up at 11pm then 2am then 4am. Each time I woke up I felt like I was wide awake. Luckily I could fall back asleep a half hour or hour later. This sleeping pattern continued the 11th, 12th, 13th, and 14th night. My sleep was really being effected and it was starting to effect my work and personal life but I still wasn't smoking. It was a complete bitter sweet feeling. 
I'm not a doctor but I pulled a doctor making decision and decided that I would stop taking the pill before bedtime and only take the morning pill. I didn't want to start smoking again so I had to really manage this carefully. My plan worked. The weird sleep patterns stopped and I still wasn't craving any kind of cigarette. Another bonus is no other side effects were apparent. I had finally kicked this habit. I was going to win. 

Day 24 was the last day I took Chantix. I can't remember why I stopped taking the pills before I was supposed to but I did. Could of been that I was worried about the other side effects taking hold and I wanted to head them off at the pass before they attacked. So officially it took just over 3 weeks of Chantix to finally break free of one of the most disgusting and life consuming legal habits there is. 

My #LiveALittle lifestyle was really coming together. Healthy was a new word for me but I was doing it. Losing weight, eating better, exercising, getting out more, making new friends, and now no smoking. The world was mine. What was next? What mountain could I climb metaphorically? It was time to finally sit down and read something I'd been telling myself to read for a long time. I was officially ready to read the words of Grant Cardone. One of the most energizing, hard working, no excuses, not taking average as a lifestyle, 10X living son of a gun's working in the same industry as me that I have had the chance to meet.  I was ready to educate myself. 

What would Grant Cardone do?