Rhythm. Connection. Direction

The 3 keys that help me live a complete life

Last week, I wrote about a team that I was on in high school that helped me navigate a difficult time in high school. I’ve been ruminating on this over the past week and I’ve determined there were three things I needed to find in order to become the man I am today.

I cringe at the idea of someone reading this and thinking “What the hell is this guy talking about? Does he think he’s some kind of self-help guru?”

I believe advice is commoditized. Just go to LinkedIn, podcasts, other newsletters, anywhere and you’ll be drowning in mass-produced wisdom that doesn’t consider the individual.

So, remember, while you’re generously dedicating your time to reading this, I do not expect these traits, this story, to be the antidote to all of your problems. If anything, since most of you reading this are friends and family and not miscellaneous fans, I hope this colors in what you know about me.

There are three things I believe have helped shape who I am today. They are not conscious goals I continue to try to meet, but they are important in defining what I believe is a complete life. I believe, in particular, this trio is what gives me a strong work ethic.

Rhythm. Connection. Direction. Finding each of these took some time, but once I did, everything clicked.

I had an unshakable melancholy in my teen years. Yearning for a future where everything fell into place yet pining for a past where I had nothing to be responsible for.

I struggled socially at this time. I had the same friend group for much of my primary education years. I have fond memories of those pals, but I think our personalities clashed as all of us got older. Our friendship was based on teasing and light-bullying. I take ownership here, I wasn’t some innocent bystander, but as a foundational principle of that friend group, it wore on me.

I had a class schedule, so there was definitely a routine of sorts, but the rhythm of my day was usually dictated by how quickly I could get through it so I could get to volleyball.

But it was in my high school physics class in Sophomore year where it all seemed to go wrong. I loved my teacher, she was clearly dedicated to the subject. You could feel her excitement, her passion reverberating in odd catch phrases and memorable quotes. She’d often say “heavens to murgatroyd” which I associate with her more than the cartoon cat who made it famous (I even had to google that to confirm).

Unfortunately, there was a loophole in our home assignments that let me skate by academically. You could just turn in a piece of paper, any piece of paper with scribbles and nonsense on it, and get a “stamp” of approval. At the end of the semester, our teacher would just count the stamps, and that would go towards your grade. I struggled immensely to find direction as I aimlessly passed the time in class with glazed eyes.

For someone who identifies as a huge Slacker (hence the namesake), this was the dream. However, as you can probably imagine, being so aloof with actually completing school work meant I had no knowledge of the subject when examinations came to pass. For me, the tests didn’t so much come to pass as they did come to fail. I was not eager to ask for help. The class was fun, and it felt easy, so what was wrong?

My parents invested in tutoring, and we had many arguments over my educational performance. I probably would have been better served with a few therapy sessions rather than tutoring. It wasn’t that I didn’t care about the school work, I just had a disconnect from the subject. I felt lacking in direction, in rhythm, in connection…

This class was sort of a microcosm of my high school career. I didn’t fail every class (I didn’t even fail that class, surprisingly), but I rarely found joy in school. It served as a duty, required by the state, not something I believed in.

If it were up to me, I wouldn’t have gone to college. Fortunately, with much persuasion and a generous donation, my parents insisted.

The solace I found at that time was not completely in failed volleyball teams. The true routine that worked for me was in my fledgling YouTube career. I was a fan of daily vloggers of the time, ShayCarl and Charles Trippy, to be specific. Here they were, just sharing their life, one day at a time, no matter the circumstances. I thought to myself: Why not me?

I set a goal to make a video every day for 100 days. After that, I went for a year.

Those videos still exist somewhere. If you’re lucky, maybe I’ll share them with you. I look back on them fondly, not due to their content, but due to the rhythm I found that worked.

Make a video. Every day. No matter what. It taught me a valuable lesson in showing up and getting the work done. Even though I couldn’t find the rhythm in schooling, I found it in my passion. This wouldn’t fully materialize until much later.

Look at that magnificent goatee

The first few years of college were not too dissimilar to my high school years: some shitty volleyball teams and that familiar yearning to move both backwards and forwards. I was still searching for connection and direction. Fortunately, college courses came much easier to me than high school, and part of the reason has to be because I got to focus on, essentially, getting a degree in YouTube.

It felt like things really started to take a turn when I saw the school counselor. I had never been to therapy. I thought it was something reserved for “broken” people. To go would be to admit that I, too, was broken.

Even though I no longer believe you need to consider yourself broken in order to get help, believing I was a member of that group is what finally pushed me to go.

Finding myself in a similar place to 4 years ago, once again a sophomore but this time in college, I broke the pattern by asking for help. The school offered a service for free, so I figured I’d give it a go.

It wasn’t in a single session or even over multiple visits, but by going to therapy, I was able to do the work and figure out what I was really missing. It happened at the exact time I needed it to happen. I didn’t want to finish my college career without finding some sort of purpose, a career marriage between something I like doing and something I’m good at. As luck would have it, I found that at the end of my college career (more on that later).

It was also around this time that I found the second of the three resources I needed. I had just returned from a study abroad program in Europe, meeting people at a volatile time when I was feeling very open to new friendships. Skipping ahead a bit, the people I met there are still my closest friends to this day.

I found people who thought like me, were open like me, and had the same sense of humor. Most importantly, it wasn’t a friend group rooted in teasing one another. There was an admiration I found, an unspoken “hey, I’m glad you’re here” in our camaraderie.

Boy howdy was this the perfect blend. I found my people right around the time I was finding myself. With therapy and openness, I landed in a tribe that is supportive and kind. To top it off, the connection I built here also had relevance with my passion. We all wanted to make movies to varying degrees. I found friends who were editors like me, producers like me, filmmakers like me.

Granted, I mentioned before how I decided to essentially major in YouTube. That’s not what my degree says, but I was able to cater my classes to get a holistic understanding of the filmmaking process. I truly wanted to make YouTube videos for a living, my friends wanted to make films. So while I found connection with friends with a similar interest, there was still a directional piece missing that would not materialize for another couple years.

Cut to the second semester of my senior year. I was fresh off of a stint at home where I attended Emerson’s Los Angeles program. While there, I interned for a YouTube Multi-Channel Network (or MCN). An MCN is about as close as you can get to being in Hollywood without actually being in Hollywood. I learned a lot about optimizing YouTube videos for the platform, but I definitely realized this was not exactly the direction I wanted to head. Many of my friends graduated a semester early, I went back to Boston for one last ride…

Don’t even try to find two cooler cats than these

I had interned at a sports startup called CoachUp the previous summer. I managed to secure part-time work with them during my last semester, where I got to focus on making sports YouTube videos. We’re not phoning in physics homework anymore, folks! I found the direction I desperately needed.

This part-time job would eventually be my full-time job after graduation. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would work for a start-up directly out of college. I didn’t plan it that way at all. Boston was supposed to be the stepping stone on my journey back home to L.A., but now it seemed like the ticket to everything I had worked for.

The materialization of the direction I found came about in a miraculous way. I don’t discredit the work I did on myself to get there, but I’m grateful for the situations and people that said yes to me in the same way I accepted them. But here’s where it all clicked:

While many seniors would take their last semester easy, the work I had done over the past few years meant I knew what I wanted to do with my life, and I would not be skating by.

My schedule sounds pretty, in hindsight, grueling. Most days, I would leave my apartment in Allston at 7 am only to return by 11 pm. But I didn’t feel like it sucked at the time because my day was broken into focusing on subjects I enjoyed. It filled my cup and then some.

I had the rhythm down with school, work, and sports, each day rotating between classes, my job, and volleyball practice. I found connection with the people in all those places. I found the direction with a career opportunity that let me focus on making YouTube videos professionally without begging for subscribers while building a personal channel (which, as you can see by this Substack, I still keep going on the back burner).

Rhythm. Connection. Direction. They are what I only just recently defined as the things that keep my engine moving.

When one of them is lacking, it brings the others down, and I tend to overcompensate, thinking focusing only on one of them will bring me peace.

There have been times when only focusing on the rhythm of my life has been a disservice to me. I can’t tell you how many routines I’ve started just to say I did have led to nothing. Building up routines just to have a routine is not the answer to happiness…

I’ve also found that when I only focus on connection, I have not been complete. There’s a relationship I had in my life that became my entire focus, the wounds of which I’m still recovering from. I’m in a good place now, but being obsessed with and fixated on connection is a dangerous concoction.

And, of course, when I am only thinking about the direction I am headed in, the blinders cause me to miss the routine and connection that I so desperately need. That’s been my number one contributor to burnout. The best way to solve burnout, in my opinion? Do less. Simple, but it’s true.

I hope this piece has helped you. Whether it’s a simple reflection on the times these three things have impacted your life, or maybe you disagree wholeheartedly and decided to unsubscribe, that’s fine, I’m glad you’ve been moved, which is all I can hope for.

I’m enjoying writing this. I’ve started to figure out the rhythm of this project: the goal is to show up every Saturday at 5:05 am PST. I’m not so much sure on the connection, but I’ll keep searching for it. (your response to this in the form of a comment or reply definitely helps)

I also feel the direction of this project could use some work. Ideally, it’s got some sort of monetary benefit in the long run, but above all else, I enjoy having an outlet to see my thoughts laid out in the open.

Let me know what you think. I’ll see ya next time.

I’m glad you’re here.