About This Website

Everyone has internal struggles, big and small, that slow them down on their way to achieving their goals. Every person can use a booster or pick me up from time to time to combat the negative thoughts and desires for procrastination and the easy way out. Without a doubt my biggest passion in life is to motivate people. The heart and soul of this website is to provide weekly motivational boosters for everyone that can use them. Whether you are down in the dumps ready to quit and throw in the towel, or whether you are already super motivated and feel the need for that little extra edge.

Over the past few years, I have shared my motivational approach to life with people through several means, whether it was a blog on a fundraiser website, a social media post, or a personal conversation. Sharing how I get motivated with folks that may need a little help doing just that has become a sincere passion of mine. My goal with this blog is to share weekly posts on Monday morning that will help you get motivated and become the best possible version of yourself. These are quick write-ups and links to external material (articles, podcasts, videos etc.) to will get you fired up so you can tackle the week ahead. This site will also be a blog for some of my other interests, such as STEM outreach, aviation, and fitness.

Becoming the Best Possible Version of Yourself

The focus of this website is to provide motivational boosters for you to become the best versions of yourself. Whether your life goal is to become a doctor, a business owner, or simply the best parent you can be, all goals have one thing in common: it requires you to be the best version of yourself.

Over the past 9 years I have forged a mindset that has motivated me to become the best possible version of myself every single day. And I have done this through developing 5 basic rules of life (I will expand on these in later posts):

1)   Put things in perspective.
2)   Do those things you are not sure you will succeed at.
3)   Time is the most valuable resource in the world; don’t waste it.
4)   Your greatest achievement should never be in your past.
5)   Self-improvement shouldn’t be something that you do; it should be something that you are.
Bonus: When you feel like putting something off till tomorrow, just get started today.

Becoming the best version of yourself is not a short-term endeavor, it’s a journey without end, since perfection is unattainable.  Everyday should feel like a fulfilling grind. It shouldn’t be something that you do, but something that you are. The type of grind that causes you to reflect at the end of a long day, tired to the bone when putting head to pillow, and being satisfied that you did not waste time to take another step toward becoming that best version of yourself.

Like a perpetual motion machine, this feeling will motivate you to progress even further and push yourself harder the very next day. As this is a daily grind, the process of becoming the best version of yourself should become a daily mindset. It should not be something that you do, but something that you are. And with every passing day, with every passing grind, you will start to hardwire your mind to become more and more resilient and relentless.

The key enabler for this mindset to take hold is having a mission. A mission will light the fire to your potential. You need to take a few moments every day and remind yourself of what that mission is, what is it that you were put on this earth to do.

If you have not yet found your mission, you are not alone. This takes time, and a lot of self-reflection. Missions can be broad, or they can be narrow. Even if after a lot of inner thought and self reflection you are not yet sure what your mission is, don’t waste any further time and go out and help others. There are countless of tremendous non-profits that can use dedicated and passionate individuals. In many cases, these are the types of activities that will open you up to areas of interest you may have never thought of before.

My Personal Journey

I consider my personal journey to be pretty broad, to become the best possible version of myself. It started 9 years ago, when I was contemplating what I wanted to do with my life as a college Junior. I had just started training Mixed Martial Arts, was working a challenging and rewarding full-time engineering internship, and was taking part-time college classes. After just a few months of this grind, I had a revelation which kick-started my current lifestyle. I craved challenges. It wasn’t that I was afraid of challenges during the previous 20 years of my life, but I didn’t necessarily seek them out. I just responded to them when they were put in front of me. After I flipped that switch however, I didn’t want to hide from them, but wanted to run towards them. I sought them out and fully embraced them.

Out of all the influences in my life, Mixed Martial Arts training has been without a doubt the most powerful. It taught me to become comfortable being uncomfortable really quickly. I was completely new to any type of martial arts, and unlike most sports, any type of slacking or not paying attention will get you into trouble and get you hurt real fast. Even with all the education I have had and I continue to pursue, nothing has been as intellectually stimulating as MMA. You are learning at the very minimum 4 different, extremely technical sports (Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Boxing, Muay Thai, Wrestling) and combining them into one, all while needing to react to extremely fluid situations. The combinations and techniques are truly endless. 

The discipline, relentlessness, and physicality (of both mind and body) of MMA formed the bedrock of who I am today. I highly recommend it to anyone. It is one of the few sports that i can think off that just by being in the (relatively safe) training environment pays tremendous dividends, without running the higher risk of injury by stepping into the cage for competition. Though I am sure you will unlock another level of insight by competing in MMA, for me the risk-reward scenario played in favor of grinding hard in training. Nonetheless, I hold those that step into the cage to test themselves in the purest forms of competition in the highest regard.

MMA unlocked a level of fitness that I had never been able to access before in my life. And I am not only talking about physical fitness, but an intellectual, mental, and spiritual kind of fitness. It is an all around fitness. A robust form of well-roundedness and resiliency, that allows you to tackle any challenge in front of you and become the best version of yourself. Whereas knowing your mission is the spark that lights the fire, fitness is the fuel that keeps it burning bright hot. 

As I was contemplating my future professional career options, I knew I wanted to do something really challenging. Something that would require me to be the best version of myself. At the same time, I stumbled across the NASA short documentary “Remembering Columbia – The Best Among Us” after a short but powerful trip down the YouTube rabbit hole (who hasn’t gone through that one). As an Aerospace Engineer, I had already been interested in shuttle operations, yet this documentary focused on the crew. This made me realize just how talented each of them were, and how incredibly hard they had worked for their entire lives to have the opportunity to turn their dreams into reality.

With selection rates to the astronaut corps being as low as 0.06% (just look at the 2017 class), you will not be close to being competitive if you are not the best version of yourself. I fell in love with the concept of being at the pinnacle of professional achievement, only to then discover there are many other levels to achieve. Delving deeper into astronaut training, I found out they are a jack of all trades and a master of many. They fly supersonic jet training aircraft, they learn foreign languages and complex medical procedures, they become prominent public speakers and skilled scientists, and they become explorers and ambassadors for the human race. Many astronauts may have to wait 10 years or more before they even get assigned a flight, but during that time they learn, they become sharper and more accomplished, and they constantly become better versions of themselves.

I fell in love with the training, the self-development, and the down to the bone hard work aspect of being an astronaut more than the idea of actually going into space. Don’t get me wrong though, riding a controlled explosion and millions of pounds of thrust into space also sounded exciting. Looking at all that training sealed it for me, I found what I thought was going to be my mission in life, I wanted to become an astronaut.

I started checking off the typical boxes, SCUBA certified, pilot’s license, PhD in engineering, EMT certification, etc. After about 3 years going down that road I started to feel a change. I realized that all the hard work I was putting into expanding my skill sets wasn’t necessarily because I wanted to become an astronaut. Becoming an astronaut became another check-box, albeit a big one (without a doubt the biggest one), in my life’s work. Through all the hard work I was putting in, I realized that all I wanted to do in life was become the best possible version of myself. This mission has no finish line, just like life should have no finish line, as there are always opportunities to become better no matter how high up the professional ladder you are.

So that brings us to today. I have waken up every single day since that initial transformation eager and excited to grow as a person, to learn new things, and to become a better version of myself. And the beautiful part of this journey is that is all crafted by you. You decide the direction, the activities, the subjects of learning, and the version of yourself that you want to be. When things get crazy and overwhelming, you will always have control over that.

Motivation goes a long way in helping you stay on this daily, life long grind. Although the internal/intrinsic motivation should be your mission, external motivation (like looking up to role models and those that lead by example) will help you boost your potential stay on the right path. That is why I made this website, to share with you some of my external motivators to help you unlock your unlimited potential.