I can’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t play sports. As a kid I played soccer, baseball, tennis, golf, and basketball but it wasn’t until I was 10 years old that I discovered the sport I was best at, squash. For some reason or another, I had a penchant for squash and soon started competing in tournaments across Ontario. I reached the top 20 ranked players provincially when I was 12 years old and the top 10 players in Canada by the time I was 14. At the time, I didn’t realize how influential playing squash was in helping me to mature and helping to shape my character in a positive way.

When I think about my days as a junior, the first thing that comes to mind are the hundreds of matches and tournaments I played in. That said, most of the time I spent on the court was spent training and not playing. The ratio of the time I spent practicing to the time playing in matches was easily 20:1. At the beginning, I was able to win the lower-level tournaments without much difficulty and it wasn’t until I reached the higher-level tournaments that I began to lose. (That sounds cocky but it’s true!) I began to train multiple times a week and, unsurprisingly, the more I trained the better my results became. After years of training, I grew to enjoy pushing myself just as hard during practice as when I played matches. Making the connection between training hard and having success was a lesson I learned that has been impactful in all areas of my life.

In the first few years that I played in tournaments, I found losing very difficult (which is a huge understatement). I would cry, break racquets, punch holes in the wall, and run away to name a few of the embarrassing things I did. I didn’t realize how ugly it looked until I saw other kids doing the same thing. After realizing how bad it looked, I decided to do everything in my power not to have ‘meltdowns’ as my dad would call them. I created strategies to use when I lost to keep my emotions under control and regain my composure (for example, I’d drop my racquet and goggles and immediately go for a walk outside). The primary thing that would make me feel better, however, was time. Somehow, knowing this made it easier to deal with the painful emotions I felt in the aftermath of losing a big match. This lesson gave me an appreciation for the old adage time heals all wounds which I’ve found to be applicable to other difficult times in my life.

Playing in squash tournaments every other weekend from October to May was a great way for me to hone my social skills with other kids and, more importantly, with adults. Being a half decent player, oftentimes parents and referees would talk to me after my matches and commend me on my match. Initially I was shy and barely spoke with adults when they talked to me but, as these conversations continued, I became more confident in myself and learned how to carry a proper conversation with them. Having hundreds of these conversations over the course of my junior career helped me develop my ability to communicate in a mature manner at a relatively young age.

Playing competitive squash as a kid helped me foster a range of invaluable skills. Training 4-6 times a week for almost a decade conditioned me to embrace and enjoy exercise. I developed a lot of self-discipline and learned to stick to a training schedule. The positive interactions and feedback I received from coaches, other players, parents, etc. helped me with my social skills and my confidence. The thousands of hours I spent training has literally ‘paid-off’ now that I’m employed as a squash pro, as well. All in all, playing competitive squash has had an incredibly positive impact on my life. I’m certain it shaped me into a stronger, better version of myself than I otherwise would have been had I not played.

Having played competitive squash from the age of 10, I had always been relatively fit as a teenager which made working out seem unnecessary. When I was 18, however, a girl I was dating at the time broke up with me and all of a sudden it seemed like a good idea to start going to the gym. (Funny how that happens, eh?) I bought a membership at a GoodLife which had just opened up in Stratford and went there having no idea what I was doing or where to begin.

When I first started lifting weights, I would compare myself to the other guys in the gym and was pretty embarrassed at how much stronger they were than I was. I had to remind myself that I was more-or-less in the same position everyone else was when they first started and that I would eventually become stronger as long as I kept at it.

I was lucky that I had a couple of friends who had been going to the gym for a few years at that point and helped me to figure things out. They taught me proper technique and emphasized the importance of developing good technique with small weights before moving up to heavier weights. They told me that using heavy weights with bad technique would inevitably lead to injuries and slow my progress down in the long run.

I’ve now been going to the gym regularly for over a decade and take a lot of pride in maintaining my fitness. I view working out as an investment in myself which will keep paying off as I get older. On top of looking and feeling healthier, working out always leaves me with a sense of accomplishment. Going to the gym has helped me develop my self-discipline and work ethic which are skills I’m able to apply to other areas of my life, as well.

Growing up, my family had two Labrador Retrievers at different points in my childhood. Our first Retriever, Max, was a big, black Lab that was around before I was born. A few years after Max passed we got a second, yellow Lab named Spirit who was aptly named. When I turned 25, I decided to get a dog of my own and naturally chose a Chocolate Lab to complete the set. I named him Ben and picked him up in the summer of 2015 when he was 8 weeks old.

Before I brought Ben home, I read four novels on dog training and searched the internet for training tips so I could be as prepared for him as possible. In retrospect, my preparation helped but it certainly didn’t paint a complete picture of how life changing getting a dog would be. I quickly realized that owning a dog was a never-ending onslaught of walks, cleaning, training, cleaning, lugging home 50lb bags of dog food, cleaning, etc. When I trained him, there was a soul crushing pattern of progression, regression, progression, regression. To train him properly, I had to learn to become more patient but at the same time dole out discipline in a timely and effective manner to help him learn.

At the start, the hardest part was adjusting to the fact that there was no time off from the responsibility. Ben had to go out for a walk regardless of the weather, my schedule, or how I was feeling. I was forced to become better at planning ahead, budgeting, staying organized, etc. I had to cut out a number of time and money wasting habits from my life to take care of him properly. It was a difficult adjustment but one that we both benefited from in the big picture.

Taking care of Ben has been one of the most difficult yet rewarding things I’ve done in my life. When I’m feeling down or alone (say, during a global pandemic), having him around has been a life-saver. The love and companionship he gives to me pays me back tenfold for the work I do to take care of him. There’s no doubt in my mind that Ben turned me into a stronger, happier, more disciplined, and more responsible person than I was before getting him.

In the summer of 2017, things were going well for me but I felt like I needed to be doing more to improve my future. After thinking about it for a while, I decided one thing I could do was read more. My thinking was that reading more would strengthen my communication skills and make the reading I had to do for work easier and less burdensome. I could also read about topics I found interesting which would potentially spur new ideas of things I could do to brighten my future.

I sporadically read a handful of books that summer and fall, but there was no structure to when or how much I would read. To make it more habitual, I decided to set myself a New Year’s resolution in 2018 of reading a book a month. I decided each book could be any length which would let me start small and work my way up to longer books as I got better at reading. The first few months were tough but, as time went on, I became more comfortable with reading and started to choose more difficult books. There were a few times I finished reading just hours before the deadline, but in the end I accomplished my resolution and read all 12 books before the end of each month.

In no particular order, the twelve books I read were:

1. On Writing Well – William Zinsser
2. How Not to Die – Michael Greger and Gene Stone
3. Cash Cows – Gary Lintern
4. The Brain That Changes Itself - Norman Doidge
5. The Millionaire Mind – Thomas J. Stanely
6. 12 Rules For Life – Jordan Peterson
7. Presence – Amy Cuddy
8. The Happiness Effect – Shawn Achor
9. The Total Money Makeover – Dave Ramsey
10. The E-Myth Enterprise – Michael E. Gerber
11. Sapiens – Yuval Noah Harari
12. How We Talk – Nick J. Enfield

Working through this resolution helped me develop my time management skills and my self-discipline. I became a better reader and now find reading much less daunting than I did before. By the end of 2018, I’m certain my vocabulary and ability to communicate with others improved. Most importantly, completing this resolution made me realize I’m capable of setting and achieving long-term goals if I come up with a solid plan and commit myself to it. This has had a big impact on my confidence when I think about my long-term goals.

(For those wondering, the two books I found the most interesting were Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens and Norman Doidge’s The Brain That Changes Itself. The book that had the biggest influence on me, however, was Dave Ramsey’s The Total Money Makeover.)

In 2017 I started subscribing to a few different YouTube channels and began watching them on a more regular basis. I slowly I started to find new, interesting channels to watch and, before I knew it, YouTube had replaced Netflix for me. In early 2018 I came across Jordan Peterson on YouTube, a professor of Psychology at UofT, and began watching and listening to his interviews and lectures.

When I watched these videos, I admired how articulate and well-spoken he was. I soon became much more interested in the advice he was giving rather than the notorious and contentious interviews he was a part of. The two pieces of advice that I’d frequently hear him speak about which resonated with me the most were:

• The meaning you can find in life is proportionate to the amount of voluntary responsibility you’re willing to take on, and
• To have a meaningful life, you should aim to reduce the suffering in the world for as many people as possible starting by taking care of yourself, then by taking care of your family, then your friends, then your inner community, then outer community, and moving outwards from there.

Jordan’s said the feedback he often receives from listeners is that he puts words to things they know to be true but can’t articulate themselves. I’ve felt this way many times when listening to his interviews and lectures. As an example, he often talks about potential and says we all have it within ourselves to be more than we are and that, deep down, we know we should be working to live up to our potential (by our own definition) as difficult as it may be. (That was a mouthful!) He makes this point in one video by examining The Lion King, explaining that the fundamental narrative of that film is that things in our lives will deteriorate if we don’t take on responsibility and try to live up to our potential. Before listening to Jordan’s dissection of it, I had watched The Lion King dozens of times and perhaps subconsciously understood that message but had never consciously connected those dots until listening to that lecture.

Overall, Jordan’s had an enormously positive influence on me. His videos have motivated me to come up with a plan for my future and encouraged me to stick with it. Following his advice, I now take much better care of myself and, as a result, feel much less stress and anxiety than I did before. Where I used to feel aimless and lost, I now feel like I have direction and am making progress towards my goals.

I started becoming more interested in business and economics nearing the end of 2018. I told a friend about this new interest of mine and he suggested I read the magazine Bloomberg Business Week. At the time, I was just about finished my 2018 New Year’s resolution of reading a book a month and decided my 2019 resolution would be to subscribe to Bloomberg Business Week and read every weekly issue from cover to cover.

There were a few reasons why making this my resolution seemed like a good idea to me. I knew I wanted another resolution that involved reading but wasn’t keen on reading 12 more books so I figured a magazine subscription might be a good alternative. Secondly, reading one magazine a week felt like I had 52 miniature goals to get through as opposed to a single giant goal which somehow made it seem like it would be easier to accomplish. The main reason for going with Bloomberg, however, was that it seemed like a great way to learn about business, the economy, and current events all at the same time.

Initially I found it difficult to get through each issue before the end of the week. This was mostly because I struggled to decipher all of the business and economic jargon littered throughout the articles. I would look up the words and phrases I didn’t understand and, after a few weeks, I was eventually able to get through the articles much more quickly. The more I came to learn about business and the economy, the more I appreciated how fundamental they are to our society. In a weird way, I started to see the world as a giant game of Monopoly. I also started to see similarities between running a profitable business and having good personal finance, another interest of mine.

Getting through the first few issues when I didn't understand the business jargon being used helped me develop grit. One thing I didn’t expect was that reading Bloomberg taught me a lot about politics, making it seem less mysterious and much more interesting to me. I began to understand how influential politics is on the economy and vice versa. I finished the year reading every issue from front to back which, again, gave me a huge sense of pride and accomplishment. Finishing a second straight New Year’s resolution strengthened my belief that I can accomplish my long-term goals as long as I come up with a plan and commit to it.

When I left home in 2009 to go to university, applying for OSAP and taking out a bank loan seemed like a no-brainer. Taking on ~$30k worth of debt appeared to be a normal part of the process and I didn’t think much of it at the time. After I finished school and was only working part time, however, the value of $30k suddenly took on an entirely different meaning to me.

Before I started putting extra money towards my debt, I decided I needed to have an emergency fund. For many years I lived paycheque-to-paycheque and relied on debt to buy food and keep a roof over my head. I was constantly stressed out and vividly remember two occasions when I was completely broken, bawling my eyes out because I didn’t have enough money for basic necessities. Thinking about those times scared the shit out of me which was what motivated me to have an emergency fund. I’m grateful to have learned why having an emergency fund is so important, but it was a lesson I definitely learned the hard way.

One of the most useful things I did to pay back my loans was some basic ‘back-of-the-envelope’ math. I calculated how much money I was making, how much I was saving and, therefore, how much money I could afford to put towards my loans on a monthly basis. I avoided doing the math initially because it meant facing the painful truth of how long and difficult it was going to be to fully pay back my loans. Once I did the math, the problem and the solution became clearer which made it less overwhelming. I was then able to come up with a realistic plan and timeline to pay off my loans and, in doing so, became even more motivated to get them paid off ASAP.

Paying back my loans completely changed my perspective on money. I had to use a lot of self-discipline to stick with the plan and become better at not comparing myself to others. After a few months had gone by, seeing my loans get smaller motivated me more and more to keep going. When I made my final payment and was finally free from the debt, I understood the value of sacrificing the present for the future and appreciated how this concept can be so empowering in the grand scheme of things.

To pay back my student loans, I realized I needed to put myself on a weekly budget. I had read a few books on personal finance and knew that creating a budget would make saving money much more feasible. I had never been on a budget before and was worried about how restrictive it would be, but I knew I had to give it a shot if I ever wanted to pay back my loans.

I began by creating a spreadsheet in Excel where I listed all of my monthly fixed expenses. I included everything from rent, taxes, and utilities down to the small things like dog food, Netflix, and even haircuts. I estimated the cost for a handful of once- or twice-per-year fixed expenses such as Christmas gifts, vet bills, dentist appointments, etc. I then came up with a weekly budget for variable expenses such as groceries, clothes, etc. and added it to the bottom of the Excel Sheet. From there, I found the sum of my fixed expenses and weekly budget, subtracted that number from my average annual income, and was left with an approximate amount of money I could save per year and put towards my student loans.

(Average Annual Income) – (Annual Fixed Expenses + (Weekly Budget * 52)) = (Total Savings Towards Debt)

In addition to the spreadsheet, I used a notebook to keep track of how much money I spent on variable expenses. I’d break each week into 7 days and kept track of the separate purchases I made on each day. I also bought a calendar and used it to mark down how much money I spent at the end of each week. I kept track of the cumulative amount of money I was above or below $0 from week to week. (For example, if for two weeks in a row I was below my weekly budget by $10, the cumulative +/- for those two weeks was +$20 since I saved $10 both weeks. If my weekly budget was $100, I viewed myself as having $120 to spend on the third week, if I wanted to.)

The process of creating and sticking to a weekly budget taught me a lot about how to maintain good personal finance. Once I got in the rhythm of it, sticking to the budget wasn’t nearly as difficult as I thought it would be. Planning my meals in advance and cooking my own food was a key factor, and cutting out coffee shops and convenient-store purchases made a big difference, as well. Writing everything down helped me organize things in my head and gave me a target to aim at. Considering that it felt like a punishment at the beginning, I didn’t expect saving money to feel so gratifying. In the big picture, having a budget is constraining but I find it easier to deal with than the stress and anxiety I used to feel when I didn’t have control over my finances.

(As a side note - A book on personal finance that helped me plan my weekly budget was Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey. This book lays out an easy to understand, 7 step plan to save money and build wealth. It starts with saving a $1000 emergency fund, moves on to paying off debt, then saving for retirement, and ending with giving money away to charity with a few other steps in between. He breaks down all of the 7 steps and explains why they’re each integral to having success. The book emphasizes why it’s so important to have a budget in order to save money. I highly recommend this book if you’re new to personal finance and are looking for some advice!)

I first started drinking when I was 15 years old and got into it pretty quickly. I drank just about every weekend in high school, then drank twice as much throughout university, and continued that way into my mid-twenties. It wasn’t until my late twenties that I began to cut back. At the end of 2018, I felt like I needed to stop drinking for a number of reasons; I wanted to look and feel better, I wanted to save money, and, most of all, I wanted to prove to myself that I had enough self-control and self-discipline that I could stop if I wanted to.

At the beginning of January, 2019 I got the flu and didn’t drink for a few days to recover from it. After about a week of not drinking, I didn’t notice my usual desire to drink beer in the evenings. At that point, I realized it was a good opportunity to stop drinking indefinitely. My goal was to convince myself that I was in control of my relationship with alcohol so I figured I would need to stop drinking for at least a few months to prove that was true.

After drinking regularly for ~15 years, I was caught off guard at how much healthier I began to feel. My body felt awake with more vitality and energy. My mind felt sharper and I could think more clearly. As the weeks turned into months, for the first time in my life I enjoyed waking up earlier, something I never thought would happen. I started setting my alarm earlier and (to my horror) began turning into a morning person. That’s when I realized I’m 10x more efficient working in the morning than at any other time during the day. Learning this has made a huge difference in my productivity.

It was 5 months later in the middle of June when I finally decided to have a beer. Although I was happy to drink again, I was grateful for the experience of being sober for a number of reasons. I saved money and paid off my student loan faster, I looked and felt way better, and, most importantly, I proved to myself that I was in control of my relationship with alcohol and could maintain self-control and self-discipline if I put my mind to it.

By the summer of 2019, I had been working on my self-improvement for about 2 years. I was reading a lot more, I had more control over my drinking habits, and I felt like my life was beginning to move in a more positive direction. Even so, in August of that summer I had a pivotal conversation with a co-worker that motivated me to work harder. My co-worker asked me how many hours I typically worked in a week and, doing some quick math in my head, I told her it was somewhere between 20-25 hours. As I thought about our conversation over the following few days, I became more and more irritated with myself about the answer I gave to her.

Thinking about how often I worked, I was grateful to earn a livable income working such few hours, but I felt like I should be doing more with my free time to improve the outlook of my future. I decided to dedicate 10-15 hours per week educating myself on a subject or skill that I could use to improve my future, but I wasn’t sure where to begin. I began watching videos about economics on YouTube and eventually came across a playlist created by a website called Khan Academy.

What I liked most about the Khan Academy videos was how easy they were to follow along with. I found their format and production made the concepts being taught easy to understand. As I went through the series, I realized that if I wanted to get a solid understanding of economics I would likely first need to understand calculus. Luckily, Khan Academy’s website also offered an extensive series of videos and exercises dedicated to teaching math. That's when I made the decision to spend 10-15 hours per week using Khan Academy to learn math in hopes that one day I could use it to benefit my future.

The conversation I had with my co-worker was a big turning point for me. It made me consider how much free time I had on my hands and how much time I was wasting doing non-productive things. Regarding my future, deciding to study math shifted my psyche from feeling passive to proactive. I felt like I was taking more control over my life and improving my odds of achieving my goals. That shift in mindset has given me more confidence which has made a positive impact in all other areas of my life.

When I decided to use Khan Academy to try and learn calculus, I doubted myself for a few reasons. For one, I was afraid I wouldn’t be smart enough to understand what was being taught. I was also concerned I might lose interest and quit after just a few weeks. On the flip side, I always enjoyed math in elementary and high school so I felt like I had a chance at pulling it off. I began to keep track of my work on Khan Academy on September 2^nd, 2019 which was the first day of school for most students that year.

Before I began, I came up with a system to make things as simple for myself as possible. From Tuesday to Saturday, I planned to spend a minimum of 1 hour each day using Khan Academy for a minimum of 5 hours per week. I started at arithmetic and worked my way through the videos and exercises in chronological order. I also made a blog (this is getting meta) and used it to keep track of my progress. I wrote a weekly post that summarized what I learned each week, the concepts I found difficult to understand, or anything else that seemed noteworthy. My initial goal was to write ~500 words per blog post which, at the time, seemed like it would be difficult but doable. I would start each blog post on Sundays, then finalize and post them on Mondays. The purpose of the blog was to:

1. Keep track of my progress.
2. Help me stay motivated.
3. Help me better understand and retain what I learned by putting it into my own words.
4. Have blog posts to use as reference material when necessary.
5. Improve my communication.

On Khan Academy, subjects are divided into courses, and courses are further divided into units. I eventually began looking ahead and setting due-dates to get through certain courses/units. Setting these deadlines motivated me to work harder but it could also be demoralizing at times if I didn’t meet a deadline. When this happened, I reminded myself that I was further ahead than I would have been if I hadn’t set the deadline in the first place. This has been helpful to remember when thinking about all of my goals, whether related to Khan Academy or not, especially when I feel like my progress towards them is slow.

Using Khan Academy has had a positive impact on me in a number of ways. I can do arithmetic much faster in my head, reading business and economic articles has become easier now that I understand statistics, and I’ve become a better writer and improved my ability to communicate. The best thing that Khan Academy has done for me, however, is made me more confident in my intelligence. By learning calculus, I feel like I'm capable of teaching myself a myriad of complex subjects that could all be used to better my future.