Kaizen

Blog

26 posts

Driver vs Passenger Princess

Driver vs Passenger Princess

The world is hell bent on keeping you driving. Keep pushing things forward, keep grinding, keep hustling. Rise and grind. I’ll sleep when I’m dead. No rest for the weary. Dream big, hustle harder. While you’re sleeping, someone else is working. But the mind does not work this way. If you just grind endlessly, eventually you’ll grind your soul to dust. There doesn’t need to be a finish line, some point where everything you’ve worked toward has been achieved and you can live in perfect harm

It’s Always Sunny is a Frame of Mind

It’s Always Sunny is a Frame of Mind

Day 1 of the Europe trip I’ve been looking forward to for months, and I’m stuck at an airport hotel in Philadelphia. I don’t know what happened, but it reeeaaaally feels like airlines have collectively become incompetent blubbering idiots since COVID. The number of flight delays/disruptions/overbookings/missed connections seems to have skyrocketed, in both my personal experience and that of my friends. But I digress. As cathartic as it is, bitching and moaning about airline fuckery isn’t helpf

O

On Extremism

0:00 /2:12 1× When someone's already said it perfectly, there's no need to add commentary. Much love, Brandon

A

An Obvious Addiction - Rage

Addicted - exhibiting a compulsive, chronic, physiological or psychological need for a habit-forming substance, behavior, or activity. As I wrote in a previous post, one of the goals of for profit media is to make people angry. Angry people stay glued to the screen for longer which leads to more advertising revenue. The chain from incentive -> action -> outcome is pretty straightforward. While left-wing media might outwardly rage at the idea of another Trump presidency, I suspect that in

A

A Curious Addiction - Excessive Naval Gazing

From merriam-webster dictionary: Navel-gazing(noun): useless or excessive self-contemplation I've spent much of my time over the last 2-5 years navel gazing, particularly since I returned to Denver in January of 2023 after 4 months back in Medellin. I began therapy (which I've done consistently since then), studied philosophy, journaled, started a men's group, and generally focused on becoming a more content, happy person. Ironically, it had the opposite effect in many ways. Looking at

O

On Living to Oneself

I'm borrowing a practice that Sam Torode used in his writing of The Manual: A Philosopher's Guide to Life. It was actually his version of another translation, which he wrote by spending some time every morning reading a piece, pondering it, and explaining it in a concise way that made the most sense to him. This morning I listened to letter 10 from Seneca's Letters From a Stoic, titled 'On Living to Oneself'. The piece ends with this nugget of wisdom, which is where my commentary starts: Li

R

Responsibilities and Priorities

I was recently referred to the same article by both my barber and therapist about dating in Denver being a dumpster fire. Weirdly serendipitous, but I guess they're both the people that you bitch and moan to about this sorta thing. In it, I was introduced to a new term that's been on my mind a lot lately: Peter Pan syndrome. From wikipedia: Peter Pan Syndrome is a pop psychology term used to describe an adult who is socially immature. It refers to “never-growing” adults who have reached an

W

We Are All Complicit

Here are a number of statements made by each side about the opposition during the build up to the 2024 election. Read each one and think about which you agree with, and which seem absolutely preposterous: * "(Trump would) ban abortion nationwide, restrict access to birth control and put IVF treatments at risk and force states to monitor women's pregnancies. Just Google project 2025 and read the plans for yourself." * "Kamala Harris supports the execution of a baby after birth. That’s the kind

W

What Are You Pretending to Care About Today?

Our collective cultural short term memory is fucked. Causes and crucial issues pop up and hide away like a game of whack-a-mole. With each instance a new cycle of outrage begins, but the end result is the same: nothing changes. If it's not important 3 months from now, it was never important. Any time some pundit, influencer, or algorithm shows you something that pokes at your attention, DEMANDS your outrage, ask yourself: am I willing to commit to caring about this for the next year of m

P

Put It On The Calendar

While conducting a past year review of 2023 I was unable to complete one part of the assignment: to look back at my year and analyze how I spent my time. Which things did I love? Which did I loathe? Which lead to personal growth? And which did I feel caused a regression? I was able to look at the broad strokes, sure. I: * Moved back from Colombia. * Started going to therapy. * Did a 3 week jaunt through Europe for a friends wedding. * Camped a bunch stateside. * Went to the Colorado R

S

Supporting Men

Much of my thinking about the world is influenced by evolutionary psychology. I’ve previously referred to many of the issues modern people face as existing downstream of the disconnect between the primitive ‘hardware’ our minds function on clashing with the latest ‘software’ the modern world requires our minds to execute(various sources). I’ve also written about the importance of having a close group of friends who you can turn to when times get tough, or that simply spending time with helps yo

O

On Instant Gratification (and Worthwhile Rewards)

The successful among us delay gratification. The successful among us bargain with the future. -Jordan Peterson I (and many close friends of mine) are constantly looking for ways to optimize productivity, professional output, and improve chances of long term success. Yet I often feel like this magical box I always have in my pocket saps away short and long term focus. In exchange, I get frequent micro-hits of dopamine that make me feel good for a second, but always leave me looking for the next

G

Goals and Consequences: Post Mortem

Well, I made it through the month long challenge I wrote about in my last post, and the fact that I'm just now writing this(about 3 weeks after I finished it) should give a good indicator as to how it went. The good news: I did manage to hit 80% or better every week, so I didn't have to donate any money to the anti-charity! The bad news: I ran myself into the ground with that level of output, and the camping trip that took place the weekend following the challenge was the final nail in the cof

G

Goals and Consequences

It's that time again! Time to impose a stupidly fastidious/rigorous ruleset on myself in an effort to ingrain some better behavior. Those who know me well know that I do this sort of thing with some regularity. Life moves so quick these days it can seem like it's flying by, so much so that it's easy to forget (or not have the time) to stop and think if you're doing things the way that you want, or if you're even doing the right things in the first place. I've found these exercises useful in th

O

On Catharsis

I don't know what the move is here, I honestly don't. This can't really be the point where everything collapses. It's too absurd. Too fast. There's too much pushing all of us forward. The stock market is plowing ahead despite the chaos. Covid-19 panic seems to be dying down. Places are reopening and it's going relatively well. Everything's going to continue forward, the maniacs from both fringes are just stirring up some madness right now. But that might be my own echo chamber reflecting back

T

The Chimps Have Taken Over

10 years ago I certainly never thought I'd write something like this. Early 20's, college-student Brandon spent much of his time listening to Rage Against the Machine and bitching about the overreach of a political system he barely understood. He'd watch documentaries like Religulous and rail on faith, saying such things were only for podunk hillbillies whose parents were related before they were married. He thought watching The Daily Show made him informed about what was really going on in th

O

On Camaraderie and Constancy

"We've never been more connected, but never felt more alone." Pretty sunny outlook to start a piece with, eh? I don't recall where I first read this quote, but it's a problem I feel has been getting worse as technology has become more enmeshed in our lives. Communication has become more impersonal; we've gone from talking in person, to phone calls, to texting, and I only assume what comes next will be some pseudo-sign-language where we communicate solely through gifs and emojis. With social m

S

Stress, Sleep, and Asceticism

I really hope I do this subject justice. It's important for all manner of reasons. To me personally, yes; but also for life in general. In my personal life I've dealt with a great deal of stress over the years. The life of an entrepreneur is never dull, that's for sure; but combine that with someone who's a perfectionist with a decent sized ego (I know I know, working on it) and you've got a recipe for unrealistic expectations and the ensuing stress/anxiety bomb that follows. But these things

R

Returning to Civilian Life

Writing this is going to be an interesting exercise. I've told people before about my struggles with living nomadically, and the responses from people who live this way usually fall into one of two camps: * Some people say: "That's preposterous! You get to live in perpetual summer, experience different interesting cultures, and be your own boss while living on a fraction of what it would cost in a western country!" * While others respond: "I know what you mean. I've found myself traveling slo

H

How to Save Your Attention From the Social Media Vampire

This is a very odd post for me to write. On one hand as an entrepreneur and marketer, advertising on Facebook is potentially one of the most lucrative and targeted methods of getting your message in front of the people who could most benefit from your product, and by extension are most likely to buy it. On the other hand, I have this gut feeling that it's a blight on humanity that's making people angrier, more divisive, and allows people to be more or less brainwashed by clever copywriting and

H

Having Spent 10 Days in Silence...It's Overrated, IMO

This took longer to do than I thought. It didn't really, but the procrastination is strong in this one. I definitely didn't have a legitimate reason for putting it off, that's for sure. But I have been lamenting the lack of creative outlets in my life, and my creative brain was working at 110% coming up with excuses not to do it! So I guess that's a win?... Anyway, here I am, post-Vipassana, feeling way less zen than I was hoping to. But such is life, eh? It was definitely a beneficial experie

D

Diet (re)Iterated

As Brendon Burchard says, "common sense does not always equal common practice". The things we claim are obvious, or appear obvious to us, don't always lead to taking the corresponding best action. Case in point, I know a great deal about nutrition and what constitutes a healthy diet. I have a maxim that I like to live by in this area (and many other areas) in life, which comes from the French philosopher Voltaire, who said that "perfect is the enemy of good". The best approach is the one you'

W

What Drives a Man to Spend 10 Days in Silence

There's a quote I've heard repeated many times, that perfectly sums up my reasons for choosing to spend 10 days sitting in silence with a bunch of monks in Thailand. It's by the French philosopher Blaise Pascal, who wrote "All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone." Like many things, that statement is probably more true for some people than others, and I definitely think I land on the (MUCH) more true side of that continuum. In some of my previous (as