April 2016

Sometimes in life you can be going your own way, doing your own thing, and just be on cruise control. It happens to all of us. We start getting into routines and before you know it, a week, month, or even a year has passed by and you wonder what happened.

Routines are good. They give us confidence, help stabilize our emotions, and provide the structure for becoming more self aware and in tune with our surroundings. Routine is what I needed after my time in Canada. I needed to get back to that core stability in order to fully accept what had happened and to get focused on future business.

But without milestones and longterm goals, routines can slip towards a path of least resistance. Just like when a river meanders and curves looking for an easy path to the ocean. It’s the laws of Mother Nature after all. So this month I altered my routine towards two new goals: Marathon Training and Game Development.

For marathon training I knew mentally what I had to do.
Just get off my butt!

Luckily the day before leaving Montreal, my father made a delicious batch of muffins – the perfect sustenance for morning runs. Then there is the bragging routine – See! Another routine! This is where you need to talk with your friends over a good meal and tell them that you are training for a marathon. After all, it sets up accountability which is an important motivator for difficult challenges.

So the week after returning from Montreal I got out to the beach or the park every single morning to do at least 5-6k. After gaining some weight in Canada, it was nice to shed some of those pounds by being physically active. I then set up my marathon training schedules and placed them on my 101marathoners web site.

For game development I enrolled in a 4-month online specialization with Michigan State University via Coursera. It involves all aspects of game development, including business management, hiring, story design, programming, and raising capital. Between high concept documents, game bibles, and budget sheets, I feel that I’ve already learned a lot. I even had to make a 1 minute pitch video for an assignment. It was a little out of my comfort zone, but positive stress is always good and it’s what I need to make my routines exciting.

All in all I’m pretty confident in my decision to take this ‘Capstone’ project. I have feeling that this specialization is going to be a lot of work. But I love the challenge, and learning something new is always fun.