Entrepreneur

Yes, I am new. Been a lurker for years on and off on occasion. Cheers!

I experienced peaks and valleys, good years, bad years, great years, sad years, mostly when I was younger. In my forties and fifties I have experienced more like a slow upward climb in most areas of my life that are meaningful to me. I think this is because I have made conscious decisions about what areas of my life are most important to me and have been living in alignment with those decisions. This has dramatically increased my sense of satisfaction in life. I don't think I could have successfully done that much younger in life because, I believe, that wisdom takes decades to really acquire. I have been studying human life and my own life from my later teen years up to and including now, constantly in search of truth and wisdom. Over the years I have learned what I believe to be certain fundamental truths about life, how the world works, how humans work, etc. This wisdom, acquired over decades of seeking it, has enriched my life deeply in ways that I cannot express adequately in a simple paragraph here. In these ways life has improved immensely. I have learned to radically accept certain things that are outside of my control. I didn't do that when I was young. I didn't know how. I am much better now at focusing on controlling the things that are somewhat within my control and also investing more time in the things that matter deeply to me. In these ways my life as improved immensely over the years. But, I have experienced major loss and grief that many young people have yet to really deal with. Strong, healthy, thriving relationships with my immediate family, are among my top priorities in life. Yet many of those people have died over the years including my grandparents, parents, and most of my aunts and uncles. Dear friends have died. Some have moved away and just lost meaningful contact. Mentors I looked up to and learned from have died. Other people in my family have survived heart attacks and cancer, to their fortune, but it is a sign of things to come. In my fifties, my health is actually better than it was in my 20's in some ways believe it or not. Yet in other ways it is worse and worsening over time. I feel more secure financially and emotionally than I ever have before. Yet I also feel the inevitable end of my human life approaching somewhere in the distance (only God knows when or where). I just try to keep improving the things I can improve and accepting the things that are out of my control to the best of my ability. My guess is that you will experience many of the same things. So, in some ways your life is going to improve beyond what you expect or predict, yet in other ways certain things will decline. I hope you prosper in every way that is meaningful to you. Outstanding! Well said! Agree completely!

I think the important part is that you are recognizing and conscious of your "acting like a victim". I don't think most who act this way realize they are doing so. Simply by realizing you are doing so and that it is not productive is in itself a hugely positive step. You have already trained yourself to notice it. Therefore, in my opinion, it will be much less of a burden on you in life. You will automatically try to correct yourself because you now notice it happening while it is happening. Congrats on your positive progress in life!

Great topic! For me, it comes down to learning ideas from others (authors, podcasts, videos, discussions like this, mentors, etc.) and then figuring out how I can implement the best of those ideas into my life. I think the vast majority of humanity does the first part (gathering ideas) but not the second part (figuring out how to implement the best ideas into their daily life). I am also largely guilty of doing this for most of my life. Still do it frequently, but I have definitely gotten better at implementing things. Implementing big changes has been a slow process for me. I learn, learn, learn, eventually convince myself to make a different decision and commitment, then actually make a change in my life for the better. For example, everyone has been told repeatedly since childhood that daily exercise is important for their health. Yet how many people actually carve time out of every workday to do it? Everyone knows it is important and agrees they "should" do it, yet only a small percentage does. Even rarer, I bet, is the adult who didn't already have the habit of regular exercise since their teenage years or college years, who successfully implements it later in life. In my case, I knew my whole life that it was important. Yet from age 18 until around age 35 I didn't do it very often. I took my health for granted and didn't even think about exercising. I would sit at my kitchen table and drink draft beer from my Kegerator before I would throw on sweatpants and a T-shirt and go for a run. Even when I finally began thinking I should "really" implement a daily exercise habit, the change still took me a long time and many attempts before it stuck. Leading up to that point, I read about it being important. I heard about it. I watched videos about it. I had discussions about it. But the transformation didn't occur until I firmly decided it was truly important enough. This decision then caused me to move it way up my list of priorities in life. All of those times hearing about it, talking about it, and reading about it were slowly stacking logical reasons for me to implement it. The real transformation occurred when I felt the emotional shift inside me to knowing (being utterly undeniably convinced to my core) that I must implement this habit if I am to truly enjoy life to its fullest. Now, a couple of decades later, I am a man who exercises every workday, almost without exception. In fact, the change is so profound that if I don't workout at some point during the day, I feel like my day is incomplete and somewhat unsatisfying. I must workout each day to feel like it was a good day. (Just weekdays though- I can workout or not workout on weekends. It doesn't bother me if I don't.)

My 2026 goals list is actually massive. Some of them will be life-changing if accomplished. Here are a few of my not-so-life-changing ones: * Maintain positive habits that I have already successfully built in previous years (This is one of my highest priority goals) * Get more organized in my personal and professional life * Find a better digital personal assistant (preferably AI-based) that suits me better

Welcome!

One of my highest health priorities is getting enough high-quality sleep. I understand its importance for maintaining health, vitality, and youthfulness. I'm in my 50's. Around age 35ish I really upped my efforts to improve my health and physical fitness. I started paying a lot more attention to my sleep around age 40. Prior to that I took my sleep for granted. Here are some of the things I did that worked for me: * On days where I don't get enough exercise or my exercise isn't intense enough, I will not have very much deep sleep at all. I workout every day. But sometimes my workouts are just 20 minutes walking at 3.3MPH on a 2% incline on a treadmill. That isn't enough exercise to stimulate deep sleep for me. I think it is tied to a lack of growth hormone because the exercise isn't strenuous enough. It doesn't take that much higher-intensity exercise to stimulate deep sleep for me. Simple things like a meager 4 minutes of HIIT will do it or banging out 40 reps of a bench press with a 40lb dumbbell in each hand. Doing either of those will give me a small muscle pump (muscles feel slightly strained afterwards, but not completely spent). Then my deep sleep stage cycles combine for a total of about 1 hour of super deep sleep. Without some intense exercise, my deepest sleep is sometimes 15 minutes total or even less. * I bought an Oura ring to track my sleep and sleep stages. Prior to buying that I had no way of measuring my sleep quality other than just asking myself how I feel after waking up in the morning. Being able to track my sleep better has been incredibly insightful. It helped me learn a lot about myself and what things really matter. (Like exercise intensity drastically impacting my deepest sleep stage) * If I eat supper at or before 6PM I will sleep WAAAAAY better than if I eat later than that. My bedtime is typically 9-9:30 ish PM. My sleep gets progressively worse the later I eat supper. If I eat right before going to bed, my sleep is guaranteed to be lousy. My heart rate will remain high all night long even when in deep sleep stages. If I eat early enough, my resting heart rate gets down into the lower 50's in terms of beats per minute. If I eat late, it can exceed 100bpm during sleep. Yes you read that right - exceed 100bpm depending on what I ate or drank. Alcohol really raises it. Food won't always make it that high, but it will always be higher - often times 70-90bpm all night long or until 4-5AM. I wake up naturally without an alarm around 6AM these days, some days much earlier, some days a little later. * Food also raises body temperature during sleep. For your deepest sleep, you want your body to cool down, especially your head, as much as possible without getting so cold that it is uncomfortable. * Any more than 1 alcoholic drink after 6PM negatively impacts the quality of my sleep. One glass of wine, or beer, or cocktail, with supper is fine. More than one begins to proportionately lower my sleep quality. Obviously, going to bed hammered ruins it. You think it's better because you fall asleep instantly. But when you look at what your body was doing when you slept, you understand how terrible it is for your health. It is worse for your sleep than you think. * Keeping a consistent sleep schedule is VERY important for sleep quality. If I maintain the same bedtime (within 15 minutes) and wake time (within 15 minutes) every day, my sleep gets slightly better each day that I maintain that regularity. * I mostly avoid liquids after supper so that my bladder can be fully emptied before climbing into bed. * I bought a more comfortable and firmer mattress (Tempurpedic knock off) and an additional foam gel pad for the top. * I bought blackout curtains for my bedroom. This made a noticeable difference immediately. * I try to get natural light into my eyes as early as possible every morning to help reset my circadian rhythm. * I changed the bulb on my nightstand to a red one to minimize blue light exposure near bedtime. If I am using my tablet or phone close to bedtime, I wear blue blocker glasses to block a lot of the blue light which could otherwise disrupt natural melatonin production as well as disrupt my circadian rhythm. Supplements I take for sleep that work really well for me: * Melatonin - I have taken anywhere from 0.3g up to 5g. It all worked well. 5g used to make me wake up groggy. Now it doesn't. So I take 5g every night before bed. Really helps me fall asleep quickly. * Glycine - I take 5g every night right before bed. It helps lower my core body temperature which increases the amount of time I spend in the deepest sleep stage. * Magnesium - not sure about the dosage. It is one pill - whatever my brand's single pill dosage is (guessing 500mg). This helps me stay asleep through the night. I wake up less often and can get back to sleep more easily if I do wake up. I love my Oura ring, but it's sleep tracking isn't perfect. It is supposed to be one of the best wearables for measuring sleep. But if I watch television for an hour before going to bed, it says I went to bed when I sat on the couch. This is BS because it will say that even when I am fully awake engaged in conversation. This inaccuracy annoys me and makes me question how accurate the rest is. I ordered a Polar Verity Sense strap for my arm that is supposed to be even more accurate. It is due to arrive this weekend. I am hoping it records properly where the Oura ring has not. Fingers crossed. I also monitor my blood glucose with a continuous glucose monitor. I am not diabetic, but it runs in my family. So I want to prevent it. My CGM has also been exceptionally eye-opening for me in learning how food affects my body. My blood sugar also affects my sleep quite a bit. The lower and more stable my blood glucose is all night, the more restful my sleep is. Another reason not to eat anywhere close to bed. I want my stomach empty and the vast majority of my food digested before hitting the pillow.

I think she is attractive, articulate, and wise about certain topics. I discovered her years ago because of YouTube's algorithm suggesting a few of her videos to me. I liked some of them, but not enough to subscribe to her channel. Her videos are the type where I typically click off of them partway through for one reason or another. I do recall hitting the like button on a few of them because I fully agreed with whatever she was teaching. If I recall correctly, the liked videos were those in which she talked about relationships and how women think. I would say she sometimes offers excellent insight and advice on certain topics, yet doesn't fully earn my trust and following because of some of the things she believes and talks about that I strongly disbelieve. For example, I am not sold on the typical explanation of what many people call "The Law of Attraction". In my paradigm, it is simply the brain's Reticular Activating System at work. I believe you can manipulate it through your thoughts and intentions as well as by controlling your attitude and mood. But, to me, it is not mystical, nor the universe matching vibrational frequencies. It is your brain paying attention to what it thinks is important and then digesting that information to find usefulness in it anywhere it can. I do believe in spirituality and spiritual things. I just don't like that particular mystical explanation of how to manifest desirable things in your life. I believe that hypothesis is inferior. But, perhaps it is my hypothesis that is inferior.

What specific problems do you solve for a small manufacturer, warehouse, or trucking company? You could target specific companies by telling them what specific problem you can solve for them. If they express interest, then explain how you would solve it. The free gift is explaining how it could be solved. If they believe in your method, then you have a good chance of convincing them to just pay you to do it.