Embrace Failure

One thing that I’ve been trying to push for is to have more meaningful conversations with the people that I surround myself with. Sure, we can talk about the normal, more light-hearted things in life: movies, Game of Thrones, the dynasty that is Alabama football, but I want to know more about the goals and ambitions that people have, as I’m on this mission to fine tune those things myself.

Along those lines, I had a good conversation the other day and the topic of complacency came up. I’ve always put complacency up there as one of my bigger fears in life. The reason being is that it’s not always obvious: it may try to disguise itself as stability or things being as good as they can be, but it’s neither of these things. It’s not growth, and if you’re not growing, then what are you doing? And it’s even more dangerous because it can seep into any aspect of your life.

As a result of this conversation, I started thinking and I came up with the perfect combatant to complacency: embracing failure. It seems simple enough, and it’s entirely possible that I’m just not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but it was a lightbulb moment for me.

To some degree, my personal philosophy has always been to do things and see what happens. When people tell me stories about things they’ve tried I don’t care if they failed, I’m impressed that made an attempt. It’s so easy to talk ourselves out of things and over analyze situations, but everything isn't meant to go under the microscope; we just have to trust our instincts sometimes.

And, because it’s easy enough for me to type this and not follow my own advice, I’m vowing to personally embrace failure in all aspects of my life going forward. I encourage you all to join me on this mission.  I’m sure you've been over your New Year’s resolutions for some time now, so you need something to fill that void anyway. If this doesn't improve your life, then your next drink (of water or something else free) is on me.

Cheers to failure!

-JIP

How to Be a Gentleman

A couple of good pieces of advice on being a gentleman courtesy of Esquire:

"Being a gentleman in the modern age is about protecting the craftsmanship that goes into these beautiful things [clothes, shoes, accessories], and about living in a considered way. It’s about being an interesting human, about being inquisitive, about understanding things and knowing about the things you’re surrounding yourself with in life. And it’s also about allowing yourself to get drunk at lunchtime and have a great afternoon."

"How you go about living your life is what sets you apart as a gentleman, rather than necessarily the things that you wear. I think anyone can wear these clothes."

This is part of a Q&A about men's style with Patrick Grant; here's the link to the full interview

Wait, how did that part about lunchtime drinking get highlighted?  Completely accidental...

A Homeless Veteran's Transformation

If you know me, you know that men’s style is something that I’m passionate about. I’ll spare you the details of why, but the long and short of it is that how you present yourself to the world not only influences how others look at you, but also how you look and feel about yourself. That is why this video is beyond amazing. It might just be a small step in the right direction for this gentleman, but it’s a step nonetheless.

Keep Things in Perspective

A simple truth: life is all about perspective. The easy thing to do in life is to focus only on ourselves and our individual issues. If we broaden our scope, however, we realize that there are oftentimes much more serious issues that exist in the world. It’s not a bad thing to focus on ourselves and improving our respective situations, but we have to also realize that someone else has it worse. Sounds straightforward enough, but life has a way of making sure we truly have our perspectives straight.

Just this past Sunday I found myself complaining about having to go to work on Monday, how the weekend’s too short, and a bunch of other nonsense. Later that night, I found out that a high school classmate of mine lost her long battle with cancer. The next day, I found out that my cousin had a successful kidney transplant and the results are positive to this point, but he’s still suffering a lot of pain. And I’m sitting here complaining about having to go to work?

As cliché as it may be, that doesn’t make it any less true: our job on this earth is to live life to the fullest. We should be doing this for ourselves anyway, but at the very least we should do it for those who haven’t been afforded the same opportunities to do so. Nothing is guaranteed to us, so we shouldn’t squander the time that we have. Again, life is about perspective; go back to the old adage that if we all put our problems in a pile and saw everyone else’s, we’d grab ours back.

So let’s appreciate and enjoy the time we’ve been given, help others, and maybe throw a smile or two in the mix along the way. That sounds like a good life to me.

JIP

Herm Edwards Gets It Right

I promise I'll use this blog for writing again at some point (for better or worse), but for now I'll just leave you to listen to Herm Edwards talk to the Alabama football team.

Don't care for Alabama?  Misguided, but that's okay.  Care about getting a little motivation in your system?  Then this is worth checking out.

Part Uno:                                                                                                                                                    

Part Dos:

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This is dope...congrats to the Heat.

Yes, Practice