The Things No One Tells You About Serious Illness

The emotional, practical, and family realities that happen outside the doctor’s office

There are parts of a serious diagnosis that people expect.

They expect the fear.
They expect the appointments.
They expect the scans, the treatment plans, the side effects, and the uncertainty.

But there are other parts no one really prepares you for.

The hidden parts.

The parts that do not always show up in conversations with doctors, in medical charts, or in the updates people share with family and friends.

No one tells you how quickly your life becomes divided into two versions: the life you were living before, and the life you are now trying to understand.

Before, I thought about work, family, routines, plans, bills, schedules, trips, house projects, and the normal chaos of raising young kids.

After, all of those things were still there.

They did not disappear just because I was diagnosed with cancer.

That is one of the first things serious illness teaches you: life does not pause when something life-changing happens. The ordinary responsibilities keep moving, even when your mind is somewhere else entirely.

The laundry still piles up.
The mortgage still exists.
The kids still need breakfast.
Emails still come in.
Forms still need to be completed.
Insurance still needs to be understood.
Bills still need to be paid.
Decisions still need to be made.

And somehow, you are expected to manage all of that while also trying to process words like cancer, metastatic, Stage IV, targeted therapy, progression, scan results, side effects, prognosis, and treatment response.

No one tells you how much mental space the logistics take up.

It is not just the illness itself. It is the scheduling, the follow-ups, the prescriptions, the portals, the authorizations, the disability paperwork, the insurance questions, the financial uncertainty, the work decisions, the family conversations, and the constant need to remember what every doctor said.

There is a physical illness, but there is also an administrative illness that comes with it.

A second full-time job that no one applied for.

And then there is the emotional side that is hard to explain.

People often ask, “How are you feeling?”

It is a kind question. A necessary question. But it is also a difficult one to answer.

Because sometimes the honest answer is not simple.

Physically, I may feel okay on a given day. I may look normal. I may be able to function, talk, work through tasks, play with my kids, or carry on a conversation.

But mentally, there is always another layer running underneath.

There is the awareness that stability may be temporary.
There is the relief of treatment working, mixed with the fear that it may not work forever.
There is gratitude for more time, mixed with the grief of knowing life has changed permanently.
There is hope, but it is not the same kind of hope I had before.

No one tells you that “good news” can still be complicated.

A good scan can bring real relief. It can let you breathe again for a little while. It can give you space to enjoy ordinary days.

But even good news does not erase the diagnosis.

It does not return your mind completely to where it was before. It does not remove the next scan from the calendar. It does not eliminate the question of how long the current treatment will keep working.

So you learn to live in a strange emotional middle ground.

You are grateful, but not carefree.
Hopeful, but not naive.
Present, but often pulled toward the future.
Functioning, but carrying something heavy.

No one tells you how much serious illness changes the way you look at your family.

For me, the hardest part is not only what this means for me. It is what it means for the people I love most.

My wife.
My kids.
The life we thought we were building on a longer timeline.

When you have young children, serious illness creates a kind of emotional tension that is hard to describe. You are still parenting in the immediate sense: diapers, snacks, tantrums, bedtime, school, toys, routines. But somewhere in the background, you are also thinking about the bigger things.

Will I be there for them?
What will they remember?
How do I help protect them?
How do I make life easier for my wife if things become harder?
What pieces of our life need to be organized now, while I still can?

Those are not abstract questions anymore.

They become practical.

And that is another thing no one tells you: serious illness makes planning feel both urgent and overwhelming.

Before my diagnosis, planning was something I thought about in the normal way. Estate documents. Finances. Insurance. Work benefits. Passwords. Medical information. Household responsibilities. All the things most people know they should organize but often push off because life is busy.

After a diagnosis, those things take on a different weight.

They are no longer just responsible-adult tasks. They become acts of love.

Making sure documents are in order.
Making sure your spouse knows where things are.
Making sure accounts, passwords, benefits, insurance, and finances are understandable.
Making sure the people who depend on you are not left trying to reconstruct your life during a crisis.

That kind of planning is uncomfortable. It forces you to think about things most people spend their lives avoiding.

But avoiding it does not make it less important.

No one tells you how much peace can come from organizing what you can.

Not because it fixes the diagnosis. It does not.

But because it gives you back a small sense of control in a situation where so much feels outside your control.

You cannot control every scan result.
You cannot control whether a medication works forever.
You cannot control every turn the disease may take.

But you can control whether your family knows where the important documents are.
You can control whether your wishes are written down.
You can control whether your finances are organized enough for someone else to understand.
You can control whether the people you love are left with clarity instead of confusion.

That matters.

No one tells you that serious illness does not only test your body. It tests your systems.

Your family system.
Your financial system.
Your work system.
Your household system.
Your emotional support system.
Your ability to communicate clearly under stress.

And if those systems were never built, or if they only lived in your head, the diagnosis exposes that very quickly.

I do not say that with judgment. Most people are not fully prepared for something like this. I was not.

Most of us live as if we will always have time to get organized later.

Later to update the documents.
Later to talk through the hard topics.
Later to explain the finances.
Later to make the plan.
Later to write things down.

Then something happens, and suddenly later becomes now.

That is one of the hardest truths serious illness has shown me.

Preparation is not pessimism.

It is not giving up.
It is not assuming the worst.
It is not living in fear.

It is an act of care.

It is a way of saying: if life becomes harder, I do not want the people I love to be left with unnecessary chaos.

There are many things no one tells you about serious illness.

No one tells you how quickly your calendar fills with appointments.
No one tells you how exhausting it is to explain the same thing over and over.
No one tells you how strange it feels when the world keeps moving normally while your life has changed completely.
No one tells you how much paperwork there is.
No one tells you how hard it is to balance hope and realism.
No one tells you how much your mind can carry even on a physically good day.

But maybe the biggest thing no one tells you is this:

The diagnosis is not only medical.

It touches everything.

Your time.
Your family.
Your work.
Your finances.
Your identity.
Your plans.
Your sense of safety.
Your understanding of the future.

And because it touches everything, the response cannot only be medical either.

Treatment matters. Doctors matter. Medication matters. Science matters.

But so does having your life organized.

So does communication.
So does planning.
So does reducing the burden on the people you love.
So does making sure that, in the middle of uncertainty, there is at least some clarity.

I am still learning this as I go.

I am still living inside the tension of hope and uncertainty, gratitude and fear, ordinary family life and extraordinary circumstances.

But one thing feels clearer to me now than it ever did before:

You do not need to have everything figured out to start preparing.

You just need to begin.

Because when life changes suddenly, the things you organized ahead of time can become one of the greatest gifts you leave for the people you love.

What Serious Illness Teaches You About Time

A serious diagnosis changed the way I see time—not just as something to cherish, but something to protect for the people I love.

Before all of this, I think I experienced time the way most people do without realizing it. I assumed there would be more of it.

More time to get organized. More time to have certain conversations. More time to fix the things that felt unfinished. More time to think about the practical stuff I kept pushing off because life was busy and there always seemed to be a reason it could wait.

Serious illness changed that almost immediately.

It didn’t just make time feel “more precious.” That’s too simple and too clean of a way to say it. What it really did was take away my ability to casually assume that later would be there waiting for me. It forced me to feel time in a way I never had before.

In the beginning, time stopped feeling normal. Everything was moving too fast. Tests, scans, appointments, decisions, more bad news, more decisions. Every day seemed to bring some new piece of information that changed the picture. I wasn’t just trying to process the fact that I was sick. I was trying to keep up with how fast my life had stopped resembling the life I thought I had.

And underneath all of that was a quieter, heavier realization: I may not have as much time as I thought. And more specifically / realistically with ALK+ lung cancer, I may be living in the space between one treatment working and the day it no longer does.

That is a hard way to live mentally. Even on the days when I feel relatively okay, there is a part of my mind that knows this current version of stability may be temporary. The medication helping me now may not help me forever. A good scan can bring real relief, but that relief may only last until the next one. From the outside, “the medication is working” can sound reassuring, and it is. But inside that hope is another truth: I know it may not last forever, because this disease is terminal and progression is not a question of if, but when.

It creates a strange relationship with time. You try to live normally, stay hopeful, and be present, while also knowing that the ground beneath you may not stay stable for as long as you want it to. It is hard to fully relax when part of you is always aware that the timeline may change again, especially when you have young children and can’t help but think about how much of their lives you will get to be there for.

Even writing that still feels hard.

Because when you are forced to confront that possibility, you start looking at your life differently. You start noticing all the things that depend on your presence. All the things you carry in your head. All the systems that only work because you are the one holding them together. The bills, the passwords, the routines, the plans, the invisible mental load, the things no one else would automatically know how to step into if you suddenly couldn’t.

And that does something to you emotionally.

It makes time feel less like an idea and more like a responsibility.

Not just responsibility for how you spend it, but responsibility for what would happen to the people you love if your time became limited, or if your energy disappeared, or if you were simply too sick to keep doing everything you normally do without thinking.

That was one of the most painful parts for me. Not just fear of dying, but fear of leaving behind disorder. Fear of the practical mess. Fear of the burden. Fear that the people I love would be forced to navigate grief and chaos at the same time.

I don’t think people talk enough about that part.

We talk about love as emotion, loyalty, presence, sacrifice. But going through serious illness has made me see that love is also preparation. Love is making things easier for the people you care about if life turns against you. Love is reducing confusion. Love is writing things down. Love is organizing what no one wants to organize. Love is not leaving behind a scavenger hunt.

That realization didn’t come to me in some neat, inspirational way. It came out of fear. Out of vulnerability. Out of seeing how fragile normal life actually is once your health is no longer something you can count on.

And once you see that, it’s hard to unsee it. 

You realize how much of life is lived on delay. How often we tell ourselves we’ll handle important things later, when work calms down, when the kids are older, when life is less hectic, when there’s a better time. But serious illness has a brutal way of exposing how imaginary that bargain can be.

Sometimes there is no cleaner, calmer later.

Sometimes life interrupts first.

I think that’s what serious illness has taught me about time more than anything else: time is not just valuable because it is limited. It is valuable because so much can change before you are ready. Before you feel finished. Before you’ve said what you want to say. Before you’ve put things in order. Before the people who rely on you have any idea how much you were quietly carrying.

That changes the way you live.

At least it has changed me.

I still care about time in the ordinary sense. Time with my family. Time to be present. Time to enjoy normal things that used to feel automatic. But I also care about protecting time now—protecting my family’s time, energy, and stability if things ever get worse again.

Because one of the hardest truths I’ve learned is that when serious illness enters your life, time stops being theoretical.

It becomes real.

It becomes visible.

And it becomes impossible to waste in quite the same way again.

The First 30–60 Days After a Stage IV ALK-positive Lung Cancer Diagnosis

What the early weeks of a Stage IV ALK-positive lung cancer diagnosis actually feel like

The first 30–60 days after my diagnosis didn’t feel like a single stretch of time. It felt like everything was happening all at once—fast, fragmented, and hard to process.

There was no real pause between hearing the word cancer and having to make decisions. Serial tests, scans, consultations—it all started immediately. CT scans, MRIs, bloodwork. Each one revealing something new, and almost always something worse than what I had understood the day before. It wasn’t just about confirming a diagnosis. It was about figuring out how far it had spread, how aggressive it was, and what could be done—if anything—to slow it down.

But it wasn’t just the illness—it was everything around it.

The pace of the medical side was only one part of the experience. Running alongside it was a constant stream of logistics that didn’t slow down just because life had changed. Scheduling appointments. Coordinating between specialists. Trying to keep track of who said what, and what the next step was supposed to be. Paperwork that needed to be completed. Forms that required decisions I didn’t feel equipped to make.

At the same time, I was trying to understand an entirely new language. Medical terms, treatment options, risks, probabilities. Words like “Stage IV,” “metastasis,” and eventually “ALK-positive” became part of everyday conversations. Decisions had to be made quickly, often without feeling like I fully understood the implications. There wasn’t time to sit with anything for very long before the next step was already in motion.

And underneath all of that was a constant sense of uncertainty. Not just about the illness itself, but about everything connected to it. What needed to be done now? What could wait? What might I be missing?

Physically, my body was going through more than it ever had before. Procedures, medications, chemotherapy. After nearly a month in the hospital, I was physically weakened. I had fresh wounds from the drainage of the pericardial effusion and a PICC line for chemotherapy. I had lost a significant amount of weight in a short period of time.

Some days I felt relatively stable. Other days, everything felt unpredictable—chills, night sweats, fatigue, discomfort, the lingering effects of treatment, and the constant awareness that something serious was happening inside me.

Even something as simple as breathing had become something I paid close attention to. With any small change—a twinge, a moment of discomfort, a slight pain—it was hard not to think it was connected to the cancer.

But what stands out the most from those first 30–60 days isn’t just the medical and physical side of it—it’s the mental and emotional shift.

I cried every day until I could begin to process the gravity of everything. And even now, I still find myself tearing up at unexpected moments.

There’s a point when the reality fully sets in. Not just that you’re sick, but that your life has fundamentally changed. The future, which once felt open-ended, suddenly feels uncertain. Plans that once felt automatic begin to feel fragile.

And you start to think differently—not just about yourself, but about the people around you.

For me, that meant thinking about my wife of 11 years and my kids, my 2 kids under the age of 3 at the time.

I found myself thinking about things I had never seriously considered before. Not just “what happens to me,” but “what happens to them.” How do you prepare your family for something you don’t fully understand yourself? What do you prioritize when everything suddenly feels important? What decisions matter most—and which ones just feel urgent in the moment?

Because in those early days, everything feels urgent. So how do you spend your time? 

Life didn’t stop. There were still routines. Conversations. Moments that felt surprisingly normal. And in some ways, those moments stood out even more. Sitting together. Talking. Just being present. Things that used to feel ordinary started to feel significant.

Looking back, those first 30–60 days weren’t just about diagnosis and treatment.

They were about navigating chaos. Managing logistics. Trying to stay afloat in a constant state of overwhelm while everything—medical, personal, and practical—was moving at once.

They were about trying to make sense of something that doesn’t fully make sense, while still being responsible for decisions, coordination, and the unknowns that come with both.

I didn’t come out of that period with clarity or answers.

But I did come out with a different perspective.

A deeper awareness of how quickly things can change. A stronger focus on what actually matters. And the beginning of a mindset I’m still developing—one that’s less about control, as difficult as that is, and more about intention.

If there’s one thing those first 30–60 days made clear, it’s this:

You don’t always get to choose when or how your life changes.

But you do get to choose how you respond when change is out of your control.

The Night I Came Closest to Death

A rapid response, an emergency heart procedure, and the moment my diagnosis became real

At some point during my first night in the hospital, I came closer to death than I ever had before. I woke suddenly from sleep to the coldest chill I’ve ever felt in my life. It was paralyzing. The call button was right next to my hand, but even reaching for it felt like a struggle.

When I finally pressed it, the nurse came in, took one look at me, and immediately called a Rapid Response. Within seconds, there were what felt like 10 people in the room. They took my blood pressure and it was 70/30. It was almost certainly even lower before they got there, while I was still lying there trying to understand what was happening to me.

I kept asking one of the nurses why it was so low. I couldn’t take my eyes off the blood pressure reading as I asked. She wouldn’t answer me. I must have asked a hundred times. I took that as a bad sign.

They rushed fluids into me—maybe a different kind than before, I still don’t know—and whatever they gave me eventually stabilized me, though my blood pressure stayed much lower than normal. Then I had to wait until the following morning to get more answers.

But that night stayed with me. The cold. The helplessness. The look on the nurse’s face when she saw me. The silence when I kept asking what was happening. It was the first time I truly felt how thin the line can be between being here and not being here.

The next morning, I was seen by a cardiologist. A technician performed an echocardiogram, and not long after she left, the doctor came rushing in after reading the results.

He told me I had a pericardial effusion—fluid surrounding my heart. That was why my blood pressure had dropped so low. The fluid was compressing my heart. I remember thinking: what was this fluid, and how had it gotten there?

He told me I needed an emergency procedure to drain it. As soon as he said it, I was wheeled off to the OR.

I was awake for the entire procedure. They used local anesthetics to numb my chest, so I didn’t feel sharp pain, but I could still feel the pressure—the jabbing, the pulling, the pushing. Most unsettling of all, I could hear everything.

I heard the conversation in the OR. I heard every tool they called for. I heard the nurses question the doctor’s call for a certain needle size. I heard disagreements over other parts of the procedure. At one point, I even told the whole room that I was not happy being awake and able to hear everything that was happening.

Why didn’t they put me under? My understanding is because they weren’t sure they’d be able to wake me back up.

After the procedure, I was in intense discomfort. It felt like I was having trouble breathing. They sent me for an immediate CT scan. Thankfully, there was no additional damage. The procedure had gone exactly as the doctor intended. What I was feeling was my body reacting to a foreign object—a tube inserted into my chest to drain the effusion.

The fluid was sent to the lab for analysis, and I was moved to the Intensive Care Unit for monitoring. That specimen is what identified the cancer. We would later learn that the fluid itself was being produced by the cancer.

A few days later, I was transferred to another hospital in preparation for a possible pericardial window, in case the fluid did not stop accumulating. Thankfully, the initial chemotherapy worked and the fluid stopped building. But by then, I had already crossed a threshold in my mind. I had felt how close death could come.

But the medical emergency was only one part of what was starting. What I did not understand before this happened was that a life-threatening event does not just create a medical emergency. It creates a continuity emergency. Family, finances, childcare, work, legal documents, decision-making—everything suddenly matters at once. Living through that changed the way I think about what families need in place before crisis hits.

When My Life Hung in the Balance: My Stage IV ALK+ Lung Cancer Diagnosis

A personal account of my Stage IV ALK-positive lung cancer diagnosis and the moments that changed everything

In June 2025, my life changed in a way I couldn’t have anticipated. What I thought would be a routine medical issue quickly turned into something far more serious—a reality I was completely unprepared for.

Ten days before I was admitted to the hospital, on Father’s Day 2025, I went to the emergency department with pain in my upper abdomen. They ran scans, found some nodules in my lungs that I was supposed to follow up on, and ultimately diagnosed me with pneumonia. I went home thinking it was temporary—something treatable. But by June 24, everything had changed. I had been struggling to breathe for days, and when they scanned me again, the doctors told me it looked like the nodules had “exploded” throughout my lungs. What had seemed contained was now everywhere.

That same day, I learned that fluid had built up around my heart—a pericardial effusion that had reached a dangerous level. I didn’t fully understand the severity in the moment. I had even driven myself to the hospital. But very quickly, things became urgent. I was hours from death.

A cardiologist performed an emergency procedure, inserting a tube into my chest to drain the fluid from around my heart. I was awake for the entire procedure, and while I was numb, I could still feel the pressure—the push and pull of the tools, needles, and tubing inside my body. A sample was sent off for testing, and the tube remained in place for days, continuously draining fluid, as they monitored me and tried to understand what was happening.

Three days later, the results came back: cancer. Stage IV lung cancer. How could that be? I'm not even a smoker, nor was I ever around it for prolonged periods of time. Further imaging showed that it had already spread—to my brain, to two areas of my vertebrae, and to my liver. Before we even knew the specific type, the situation required immediate action. On June 28, I underwent an emergency chemotherapy treatment.

On July 1, I was transferred to another hospital because there was concern that if the fluid around my heart didn’t stop accumulating, I might need surgery. While I ultimately didn’t need the pericardial window procedure, the move—and the possibility of it—shook me even further to the core. Around that same time, word began to spread about me being in the hospital and my initial diagnosis. People started coming to visit. I know it came from a place of care and support, but it also felt like something else—like people were bracing for the worst.

I was between two hospitals for two weeks before being discharged on July 7. I had my 2nd chemotherapy treatment on July 21. And just as I was beginning to adjust to being home, I was readmitted on July 23 with a persistent fever that no one could explain. I spent another week in the hospital undergoing tests, but no clear cause was found. Ultimately, the fever was attributed to the cancer itself or the chemotherapy treatment—a diagnosis of exclusion—and I was discharged again on July 28.

Three days later, on July 31, I got a call that changed things yet again. An infectious disease doctor told me I had CMV—cytomegalovirus—a virus that can be dangerous, even deadly, for someone who is immunocompromised. What had gone undetected during my second hospital stay suddenly had a name, and it required immediate treatment.

In the weeks and months that followed, there were countless needles, scans, and tests—CT scans, MRIs, and bloodwork—revealing more about what I was facing. Eventually, we learned that I have a rare mutation: ALK-positive non-small cell lung cancer, found in only a small percentage of patients. But in those earliest moments, lying in a hospital bed with a tube draining fluid from around my heart, everything came down to one simple realization: life is far more fragile than we allow ourselves to believe.

I’m sharing this not because I have all the answers, but because this experience has reshaped how I see time, family, and what it means to be prepared. There’s a clarity that comes from facing something like this—one that’s hard to explain unless you’ve lived it.

When life hangs in the balance, what matters most becomes impossible to ignore.

My hope is that by sharing my experience with Stage IV ALK-positive lung cancer, I can help others better understand what a diagnosis like this feels like—and maybe encourage someone to think about life, family, and preparation a little sooner. I had no idea how unprepared we actually were for what came next.

What inspires you to read, reflect, and journal (or blog)?

Reflection - Mt. Fuji, Fujikawaguchiko, Yamanashi, Japan - Circa May 2016

The following is an MS Teams conversation with a colleague after learning that we each enjoy reading, reflection and writing: 

T: What inspires you to read, reflect, and journal (or blog)? 

J: I think I was inspired to read by just my curiosity of everything in the world. In my past, I never read that much. I only started reading heavily in the last maybe 3-4 years. Instead of reading, I traveled a lot. I learned a lot that way, from talking to people, observing, feeling, and experiencing. But as I grow older, my responsibilities grow and so travel (although I still do it often) is now not as often as I would want it to be. Reading (specifically non-fiction) has kind of opened up those other avenues to learning and education about things foreign to me while I cannot travel as much.

Reflection is something pretty new to me too. I only really started reflecting on my life when I took a sabbatical from work. That really allowed me to take time to think of my past and my future in great detail. I started to understand better what I was doing, why I was doing things, and what I could do to change or improve my future. The reflection is so important now. I feel like if I didn't have that time (sabbatical) to reflect, then I wouldn't have grown in all the ways I feel like I've grown in the past 5 years. I was out of work for nearly 2 years.

The journaling and blogging has always been a part of my life. My dad used to journal when I was a kid. I grew up on notebook journals and writing events down. I had a calendar that I would just fill in all the boxes with tidbits. So I always did these little things, albeit not as consistently as now. But now I find that my blogging has allowed me to just put my thoughts out there. To not just contain them in my head but to make it "real" by making it public. It helps kind of relieve my brain from just constant thought. And if anyone reads it, then great. If not, then at least I can look back on my thoughts to see how I've grown. And because they're "tangible" I'll never have to wonder what I've possibly forgotten. 

And more recently in my life, writing / blogging is a way for me to pass on my life to whatever children I may have in the future. I looked back on the lives of my parents and thought, I don't really know what their day to day life was like. You get to hear stories and tidbits of whatever they can remember. But those memories are few and far between and obviously not nearly enough for you to understand who your parents are and what they really went through. If they had written it down, you could read it like a book and imagine and fully feel what they experienced and lived. I think that more than anything now is my motivation to write. 

And then kind of as an aside, I feel like the more I put out there for people to read, the better the chance that others get to know me and understand me. And maybe my thoughts will help others in their lives somehow. But that's existential. 

But let me turn it back to you... what is your inspiration to read, reflect, and/or write (if you do all of the above)?

T: That's powerful. You're so right--often times we don't know our parents. We know what they did for us throughout rearing, but we don't know simple things about them like their favorite color or greater things like what they experienced in their lifetimes. I hope your future kids find comfort being able to read about their dad throughout their life. You inspire me to do the same. 

In college (the fist semester of my junior year, to be precise) a profoundly impactful professor told us to never stop reading if we wanted to grow. He said, "You are the sum of two things: the books you read and the people you meet." As someone who craved growth (and still do), it was enough convincing for me to stick my nose in books from that point forward. Similar to your sabbatical, I took a few months off after I graduated and before I started work at [XXXX] and solo backpacked SE Asia. During this time, I required myself to journal each day; so quickly can we forget life-changing experiences--whether we realize it in the moment or in hindsight--if we don't pause from our busy lives to make sense of the what we experienced that day. I reflect on my journals from that trip and can track back to key catalysts and see how they've shaped the man I am today. So, I now live by a slightly amended version of my professors quote: "you are the product of three things: the books you read, the people you meet, and the journal you carry, for your journal is the free-space where you can make sense of your books and experiences." The reason I read, reflect, and write is to make the most of my precious, limited days on this beautiful planet and to wake up with the goal to be a better version of myself from the day before. 

Short Life Advice

I recently started to read a book called Tribe of Mentors: Short Life Advice from the Best in the World by Tim Ferriss. It's exactly what it is says it is - short life advice. It's short because each person included in this eclectic collection answers just 11 questions about life. Tim Ferriss' set of questions were carefully chosen and ordered to foster the best responses from some of the most successful people on the planet. 

I sent these same questions to my closest friends, family, and colleagues because they are no different in my eyes. So I'm using the same set of questions and order. 

I thought it would be even more interesting to read the responses from the people who are closer to me than the company that Ferriss keeps. 

Call it somewhat of a social experiment, but my objective is to continue to learn about this tribe, my tribe, in ways that I don't already know and add their answers to my collection of books because their collection of knowledge and experience is no less important than the authors on my shelves. 

While waiting for their responses, I've already gotten calls to share my own answers. So here they are: 

What is the book (or books) you’ve given most as a gift, and why? Or what are one to three books that have greatly influenced your life? 

The Alchemist by Paul Coehlo 

The Richest Man In Babylon by George S. Clason

These 2 books are really easy to read, but the messages are deep and complex. One speaks to finding the treasure within yourself after overcoming obstacles in life and along the journey. The other conveys the wisdom of logic, time, interest, and putting yourself first. Together, these books are a great 1-2 punch out of the gates of college and entering adulthood.

What purchase of $100 or less has most positively impacted your life in the last 6 months (or in recent memory)? Be specific.

Blood Pressure Monitor ($44.99 on Amazon) - It’s gotten me to pay specific attention to my, well, blood pressure and pulse. It took a change in medication that caused my heart to beat out of my chest and cause discomfort for me to make this purchase, but it was much needed even before that. Although my diet has been pretty consistent and healthy, the blood pressure monitor has served as my checkmate. I’ve become very conscious of the decisions that I make because this device sits in front of me on my desk in my office. It’s a daily reminder not to abuse my body. 

How has failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Do you have a “favorite failure” of yours? 

I’ve failed so many times in my life, it’s impossible to count. But none more life changing than the series of what, at the time, were the most depressing chain of events I could ever imagine. After choosing to leave a comfortable job, after being employed for 14 years, my wife and I decided to take 6 months off to travel around the world. When I came home I had great hope and positivity about quickly re-joining the workforce. While we were planning the trip, throughout the trip, and even when we first came home, I had little doubt I’d be able to find a job and get right back to it - continuing my professional career. I was never so wrong in my life. 

In a span of 17 months, I applied to 181 different jobs. 112 did not respond. I was informed that I was not selected for 61 of them. I interviewed for 4 but was never contacted ever again. One of my applications was withdrawn. I was given 3 offers, 2 of which I had to decline after weighing all the options. The more time that passed without a positive response, the deeper the depression I would get into and the more I questioned my previous actions. Every response, or lack thereof, was a failure to me. 

A change of scenery and an employer’s need to fill a role quickly finally gave me the break I needed. But because I was filling someone else’s need before my own, this job was ultimately a failure too. I couldn’t stay there. It wasn’t worth the time I was losing, the sacrifices I was making, or the stress I was enduring. 

The brightest side of that failure was that it enabled me and gave me the determination to finish my studies for the CPA exam. And in the last quarter of 2019, I passed my final part and earned my certification. 

My success today is based on the fact that I never really gave up, despite how awful it felt along the journey. It’s the most common failure/success story (the CPA part), but it’s mine. I lived it. I toughed it out. I am still learning from it because I still look back on it when I need motivation. 

If you could have a gigantic billboard anywhere with anything on it - metaphorically speaking, getting a message out to millions or billions - what would it say and why? It could be a few words or paragraph. (If helpful, it can be someone else’s quote: Are there any quote you think of often or live your life by?)

"The biggest room in the world...is the room for improvement."

Education is the most valuable intangible in the universe. Big data, oil / energy, investments, and cash don’t even have the fraction of value or importance that Education has. It’s so important that I’m going to capitalize the “E” in Education from now on - because it’s that proper and necessary. 

Everyone has room to grow, learn, and improve. My wife always says that it’s not that you don’t have the time, it’s that you haven’t prioritized what you want to do. 

And as I would say, “Failing to learn, is learning to fail.” Has anyone ever said that before? I don’t know. But I always have. 

What is one of the best or most worthwhile investment you’ve ever made? (Could be an investment of money, time, energy, etc.)

There’s not one. There are collections. And those collections grow all the time. My favorite, though, are the ones called “Life Experiences.” In this collection are eating and traveling memories. My wife and I used to say that we travel to eat, and when we eat, we travel to the origin of that food in our minds and the memories from the places we’ve been. 

Eating daal reminds me of 14 days trekking through the Himalayas to Mt. Everest Base Camp. When I eat sushi, I can’t help but imagine sitting in front of Jiro. A taco puts my mind on a stool at a street stand called Taqueria Honorio in Tulum. A hot dog throws me back to a bite at Portillo’s in Chicago. Or halal food places me on a street corner in Manhattan at 2AM waiting on line for the Halal Guys to serve up a platter with white sauce. 

Every life experience I’ve had has been an addition to my collections and they’ve all been worthwhile. Even the bad ones, because of #4 above. 

What is an unusual habit or an absurd thing that you love? 

I love a play on words. That’s probably why I enjoy rap/hip-hop music so much. The wit, humor, and quickness of the lyricism is fascinating to me. I feel intelligent when I can digest what artists are saying. It’s a combination of history, poetry, logic, and grace in a rhythmic manner making music catchy, smart, and colloquial. Rap/hip-hop have a bad rep for negativity. But if you really break down what some of the songs are about, it’s genius. You have to know about a variety of things both in popular culture and history to really get it. Maybe that means I have just enough knowledge to be cool. 

In the last 5 years, what new belief, behavior, or habit has most improved your life? 

Reading / studying early in the morning. It started out just to improve my retention when I was studying for my CPA exam, but I’ve found that reading in the morning has really allowed me to enjoy the content of my books, whether fiction or nonfiction. I purposely make time for reading in the morning. 

Also, I’ve gotten into coffee in the last 2 years. And taking it in the morning with a book I’m reading is almost always the perfect start. 

I actually think that the combination of the two has produced far better results than I initially hoped for and created a better lifestyle, one that I can really enjoy. 

In the near future, I’m going to try to incorporate writing into my routine. Maybe that will be once a week. 

What advice would you give to a smart, driven college student about to enter the “real world”? What advice should they ignore? 

Two things. Find a fitting mentor. Find balance. A mentor can help you find your balance in the long run, but of course, not directly. When you figure out what you want to do or have a direction you want to point, someone can help you navigate how to get there. You will have to do a lot on your own but rely on your resources to speed up the process some. 

I tell the people whom I work with or whom I mentor that I may not have all the answers, but I am sure as hell that we can find someone who can help us get to the ones we need in the order that we need them. 

When you combine the guidance with your own hard work, you will eventually find the balance you need in work, life, and pleasure.

What are bad recommendations you hear in your profession or area of expertise? 

“Fake it until you make it.” FUCK THAT. I hate that so much. The only person you’re hurting is yourself. Yea, sure, you can fake knowing how to do something or why something is done, but eventually you will end up at a dead end. Someone is going to come to a realization that you’re a fool. And your reputation is going to be tarnished for the foreseeable future. 

I’d much rather be upfront and tell someone that I don’t understand or can’t figure something out than fake it. 

I think what I hate so much about it is that people get away with it. And then when you go to rely on those people, they end up being unreliable. My trust in them is busted. That person is no longer a resource but a drag on my well-being. Go ahead. Try that shit on me and see how quickly I drop you like dead weight. 

Ain’t nobody got time for that. 

In the last 5 years, what have you become better at saying no to (distractions, invitations, etc.)? What new realizations and/or approaches helped? Any other tips? 

Sugar. For years, doctors and the media have hyped the detriments of salt. High blood pressure, heart attack, stroke, dementia, kidney failure, brain damage can all result from too much salt. I get it. It’s a well known fact and to some extent, we’ve gotten that under control. 

But sugar… no one talks about how bad it is for you. It’s an empty calorie. Sugar causes weight gain. It can cause tooth cavities. Sugar increases your risk of fatty liver, diabetes, and eventually heart disease. It’s just as bad as salt. 

I’ve curtailed my sugar intake so much. It’s changed the way I can maintain my weight. I eat more fruits and vegetables, rather than processed / packaged snacks (which is another thing I’ve said no to). My life is much improved. I feel better. I have more energy. And I don’t pack on the pounds or have a hard time getting rid of them. 

With regards to processed food, I’ve learned that if I want to have processed food, the organic stuff has worked better for me. I’ve found that processed products that are more water soluble are easier to digest. The best visual example I can give is… take a regular jar of Smuckers jelly or jam once you’ve pretty much emptied it. There are, of course, some remaining bits stuck to the side or bottom of the jar. Fill that jar with water, shake it up, and pour it out. More often than not, there’s still jam/jelly stuck to the jar. That’s your insides with processed food. 

Now try that same experiment with organic jelly or jam, and you’ll find a completely different result. You will see that the residue slides right out with a quick shake of water. 

Say no (more often) to sugar and processed food. Your insides will thank me. 

When you feel overwhelmed or unfocused, or have lost your focus temporarily, what do you do? (If helpful: What questions do you ask yourself?)

I step away from my desk, stretch, drink water, and go for a walk. If that doesn’t clear me up, then I go to sleep. Sleep can help re-energize the body's cells, and most importantly in this situation, clear waste from the brain. That feeling of being overwhelmed or unfocused... that’s the waste. 

35 Is In The Books

Yesterday, I was surprised by my beautiful wife in collaboration with my ever-engaging, well-read family and friends. Together, they all conspired to amass 35 or more books for my 35th birthday. I have to say, it was an elaborate scheme, and I am the lucky beneficiary. In total, I received 49 books.

Apparently, this started back in January after a conversation that her and I had in passing. We were on the topic of gift giving, and I had said something to the effect of... "the only gift I want for my birthday from you is a book from my Amazon Wishlist."

Well, she got me a book alright. And a whole host of friends and family joined the campaign.

To organize the efforts, a set of instructions were posted to a Google Docs Sheet:

Everyone chose a book or two or three or 10 and listed them on the shared document to avoid any duplication. Smart. Over the course of 2 months, Lucy and Jake (Carolyn's accomplices lol) accumulated packages on my behalf in their apartment.

Then this past Sunday afternoon, Lucy, Jake, and Carolyn somehow coordinated during a window of 12 minutes, while I was out of the house walking the dog, to unload a trunk filled with boxes full of books from all corners of the country traveling by USPS, Amazon, FedEx, or UPS into our garage and managed to escape without being seen. The rest is history. And a world of thanks goes out to them for helping execute the plan. Without you guys, I would have known about the secret back in January. LOL.

Thank you 🙏🏽 😊 ☺️ to all who thought of me today!!! One of the #greatest set of #birthday #gifts ever received... 📚 📖 #educate #education #read #reading #readingisfundamental #readingisfunandmental #nonfiction #fiction #knowledgeispower Where do I begin?!?! #bookclub #bookshelf #collection

A post shared by jessereynesgo (@jessereynesgo) on Mar 12, 2018 at 9:46am PDT

There are two awesome components to each gift I received.

First is the idea that the gift giver has to read the book so that we can talk about it at some point in time. I like this because it offers me an opportunity to communicate more often than I normally have in the past. We'll have something to chat about (not that we don't already), and hopefully become more regular about it.

Secondly, the inscriptions that people left me on the inside covers have turned a relatively inexpensive commodity into a priceless possession that I will keep until death do we part. Some notes offer advice, insight, and reminders. Some jog the memory of time when. Some are like journal entries. But all of them touch the heart. Truth be told, I held back some tears. 

All in all, this is one of the most thoughtful gifts with use and purpose. I hope to continue to improve my reading habits and vocabulary. I look forward to reading each of these texts to learn more about the diverse topics they cover. I look forward to chatting with everyone about the books they selected. And I am so happy to have a wife, family, and friends who support me and my literary adventure. 

Thank you all so much! 

35 is in the books!



By the way... if you're wondering where I'm starting, it's with: 

Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts

Pen Pals

Did you ever have a pen pal?

It's not so common these days. But back in the day, there was simple entertainment and fun in having a friend on the other side of the globe. It was usually someone your age (if done through a school exchange program) or someone you knew from a random trip and the both of you decided to keep in touch. It started with the exchange of addresses. And every once-in-a-while you'd send each other a letter in the mail. Yes, snail mail. You'd pay the postage for wherever far off land you new friend was, and you'd exchange stories about your lives.

My first pen pal was my aunt! She was still living in the Philippines at the time. This was in 1989. I was in first grade, and we had just gotten our first computer and dot-matrix printer. The operating system was MS-DOS, and there was a very crude word processing program available. I'd type up a short letter for her, most likely about nothing special, then print it out and mail it to her.

Some weeks or months later, I'd receive a hand-written letter back from her. It was always written on yellow legal pad paper in her excellent, teacher-like penmanship. She wrote in script, so mom or dad had to read it to me.

I will never forget the one story she relayed to me. A typhoon had recently passed through the area and severe flooding was occurring throughout. My aunt and family owned and lived on a farm with various animals. She described to me how terrible the weather was for the animals and what sacrifices she made to secure them. But at one point, despite her efforts, the pigs escaped! And they were swimming in the flood waters. My aunt had to swim after them to save them. What a story!

Back then, that was part of their livelihood. The enormous pigs were cash cows, figuratively and literally. The sale of a pig could generate a considerable sum of money, so saving the 100+ pound beasts from raging flood waters was imperative. I remember the written descriptions made me feel fear; then it made me smile and laugh. And the story taught me a lot about life in a different place.

I digress.

Since those days, it's been so much easier to keep in touch with people you've befriended. The internet has simplified it through email, text, chat apps, Facebook, Instagram, and the like; and to some extent has made it more safe. (Although you've all gotten that email from the Nigerian Prince or the Prince of Zamunda, right? Haha.)

I have new pen pals these days. People we've met along the way throughout our travels - we try to keep in touch with. We exchange emails every so often coordinating potential joint trips, checking in on the goings-on of their seemingly close locales with regards to politics / economics / stability / tourism / etc, and asking about their families or significant others or spouses. Pen-pal-ing is much easier to do in this day and age. Although, should we coin a new name for it? Hardly anyone puts pen to paper anymore for these purposes...

Did you have a pen pal? Do you still keep in touch with them? If not, aren't you curious who they've become and what they're up to now?

2 Flew The Coop And The Nest Is Nearly Empty

Yesterday when my cousin's children left (one to go back to Dallas where she now resides, and the other to his college in Eastern Texas), I got a taste of what it's like to be a parent.

For the better part of the long weekend, we were all together here in Cypress. We went out to eat, caravaning 2-3 cars just to get to the restaurant. We played badminton or threw a football around. We played board games like Jenga and Taboo. We cooked meals together in the kitchen. We shared stories around the dinner table. We were lazily on our phones while sitting on the couch together.

And for the 4-5 days that we were all hanging out, it was a ruckus. People yelling across the house. Random people awake at different times of the day, then dropping off to bed at different points in the night. Kids going in an out of the back door to the yard. Someone coming and going to the store to pickup supplies. It was organized chaos, but it was fun and lively.

Then all of a sudden, on Sunday, it became like the end of a reality tv show like The Jersey Shore or Real World or Road Rules or something like that. All of the other visitors had departed already, and the last 2 kids were getting ready to leave. They packed their bags; picked up supplies from the house pantry; their mom gave them food to take with them. Then one by one, at different times, they would leave, timing their departure in line with the traffic pattern to their final destination.

When the first child left, it was a hug and a kiss for everyone around the room, followed by an exit where everyone would clamor through the front door to give a parting wave goodbye as the kid drove down the street. Then the same exact thing happened when the next child left. It was easily a made for tv movie ending and the credits could roll almost immediately.

The house became quiet. The action had left with the visitors and children. And had my wife and I not been here, it would just be the 3 of the family members left in this big brand new house. When the kids left, they took the fun with them. They took the excitement of their lives out the door, and we became the old adults with the boring repetitive lives again.

I imagined that this is what parents feel like. I felt something when they left. It was weird. They're not my kids, but because we're so close it was like a part of me left too. That's got to be what my cousin and her husband felt like. Two-thirds of their kids were off on their own, so two-thirds of themselves were no longer in this house. It's nearly an empty nest. And it's no wonder why parents get the empty nest syndrome. One can easily feel sad or lonely. Luckily for my cousin and her husband, they still have another 8 year old and have many years left before he flies the coop.

Su Casa Es Mi Casa Tambien Ya'll

We've been in Cypress, TX for 5 days staying at my older cousin's house with her family. Thanksgiving was celebrated, games were played, visitors would come and go, and food was in abundance. It's been a great time so far. But we leave on Wednesday to drive up to Dallas to attend my brother's wedding this coming Friday.

As I sit here and look back on the past few days, I realize that I'm way more comfortable here in my cousin's home than any other person's home that I've visited, stayed, or overnighted. It made me wonder how this came to be. How come I'm so at home in a home that's not my home?

At the very base of it all, it's because despite our age gap (14 years), we are very close. It helps that when I was a kid, she used to care for my brother and I for a short time. Our conversations over the years have become deeper and more meaningful, insightful and shareable at every step of our aging process.

We've always kept in touch no matter where she moved to. While she was still living in New Jersey, I visited the family often after I got my drivers license. I'd spend a weekend with them, toting my other cousins with me for the getaway. And when she moved here to Texas, we kept in touch most often by phone calls. We'd chat while she or I was at work; I'd sometimes even help her with her Excel problems.

I took care of her eldest daughter when I was around, made grilled cheese sandwiches for her first son, and am the godfather of her 3rd kid (who I played Nerf wars with today - he's 8, and I had fun!). Now that her kids are older (the first 2), they are able to chat, joke, and eat together with me and discuss more adult things but, at the same time, keep me young with their goings-on in their collegiate lives. In many ways, I treat them like the uncle I'm supposed to be, but at the same time, I am comfortable with playfully jousting with them verbally. It's an interesting dynamic. Not only have I become so close to my cousin and her husband almost equally, but I've also developed really loving and caring relationships for their kids.

I guess what I'm trying to say through all of this is that I love the bonds I've formed with this family. Their home is actually my home too. And because of this, I'm able to just be myself around them all the time. I say what comes to mind; I rummage through the fridge and pantry; I wash the dishes no matter who has used them; I take out the trash; I drive their cars; I test the youngest's math skills; I tease the middle child about girls; I ask the eldest to help me grocery shop; I dole out the family gossip to my cousin and exchange stories, then share some life insights to her kids. And in return, they all welcome my wife and I whole-heartedly into their home, treat us with respect, and love us as much as we love them.