Don Kowalewski
Writer. Ad Sales and Marketing. Social Media Content Creator. Aeropress Coffee. Makes the best salsa in the world.
No Regrets
I don’t know what’s more powerful. Fear? Or regret? Or fear of regret (if that’s a thing).
It actually all kinda works together. For me, I regret some things I’ve done, but more and more, I’m regretting the things I haven’t done.
I regret every time I made my mother cry and regret I never had a chance to apologize for that, as she passed away 12 years ago. Which makes me regret not telling my Dad “thank you” for not giving up on me when I was a real asshole for a few years there. And I don’t want to regret not telling him how much I appreciate him and how lucky I am that he’s my Dad.
I regret that I haven’t been to Confession since I was 14 years old, and I walk around calling myself a good Catholic.
I regret every time I fight with my wife.
I regret I never really went all-in on my salsa business. Or my writing. Or my website, spunkybean, and that I really dropped the ball and let down the talented Myndi and EJ.
I regret that I can’t ever seem to actually stick to a diet. And not necessarily a “diet” but avoiding splurging and gorging on fast food and cookies.
I don’t want to regret telling someone I love very much that he should change his ways immediately or he’ll die too soon.
I regret that I don’t get enough sleep. I regret that I only give it about 75% effort at work. I regret that I don’t exercise and that if I don’t exercise, I’ll never play soccer again (because my lungs will never be strong enough).
And this is a problem. Because some day I’m going to regret that I never wrote the screenplay that’s in my brain and I’ll never know if it was as brilliant as I think it is, or not. I won’t ever have the book I know I can write and while it may not ever be a New York Times best-seller, it will be loved by my family.
We’re about to go into Lent, again, and I’m vowing here and now to make …it …count! I’m going to use Lent to right all the regrets I have. It’s going to be great and I can’t wait to start living life without regrets.
Need to Simplify
For the past 5 weeks, I’ve been displaced from my home. Nothing bad, don’t worry. We’re remodeling our kitchen and it’s a pretty major project, so major that our family-of-five had to move out. Blessing of blessings, my Aunt, who lives 1.9 miles away from us, was spending January and February in Florida and we’ve been able to live at her home.
Because her house is only 1.9 miles away, we pretty much were able to move out of our house in a matter of hours (my wife might argue otherwise, but trust me, compared to many doing major renovations, we had it easy). My Aunt’s house is fully furnished. We grabbed enough clothes to last us a week, loaded it into a suitcase, and we were out. I think we brought some pillows, some food essentials from our fridge to her fridge, and that was it.
Again, my wife would argue it was much more complicated, but for the point of this Blog entry and the point I’m trying to make, I’ve lived the last 5 or 6-weeks with much, much less than what I have at home. I have 5 wash-n-wear dress shirts. I have 5-shirts. I have one pair of athletic pants. A couple sweatshirts. Some socks and underwear. Pretty much, I have about 25% of my wardrobe with me, and it’s been more than enough.
I think I’m learning I …have …too …much …stuff. I’m American. We’re consumers. Having “too much” is very much our way of life. We work to make money to buy stuff. As George Carlin famously said, “we buy houses to put stuff in it.” And then we buy bigger houses when we eventually have too much stuff in our smaller houses.
Please don’t scroll back through my Blog and see the many, many entries with my Christmas and birthday wish-list, because, um, well, my life has been about acquiring “stuff.”
In six weeks, living out of a suitcase and cardboard box, I’ m rethinking what I need to live moving forward.
Like, what if I donated everything that I didn’t bring with me to my Aunt’s house during the renovation? I’ll bet I’d be fine. I can donate things to people in need. I can sell some things. I’ll have less things to take to the dry-cleaners and less things to clean around. I’ll feel more calm because I’ll have less clutter to contend with.
Things will be simple. Simpler. Here goes another 2017 initiative.
Betcha wonder how #Project44 is going? More on that, tomorrow. But “simplifying” is going to be added to that. Thinking, “44 items of clothes.” Something like that. More on this as the year moves along.
Beginning Again
I’ve let some things slide. I don’t make and sell my Donnie Jalapeno Salsa, anymore. It’s the best salsa that anyone has ever made, anywhere, and I owe the world my salsa (did that sound dirty?).
I don’t write, anymore. I used to write for myself, for @spunkybean.com, for clients, and other random stuff. I wrote random articles on a variety of topics through a site looking for website content. I wrote two books. Two. Books. Dammit. I’m not the best writer in the world, but if you give me an hour, I’ll churn something out.
I miss the “old me” who would get home from bowling on a Thursday night and then make 30 or 40 containers of salsa and sell it all weekend. It gave me some nice walking-around cash. I miss creating and telling stories.
I think my happiness level would increase if I got back to doing some of these other things.
Oh, and I used to run 5Ks and train for triathlons. Really. I did stuff like that. Now, I do nothing like that.
Sure. I coach two of my children’s soccer teams, and the three kids and their activities keep me busier than I was 4 or 5 years ago, but I still feel like I’m making excuses when I don’t do my “side hustle.”
What’s a “side hustle?” It’s something the great Gary Vaynerchuk talks about when you have a full time job and a dream. The “dream” is your “side hustle.” He also has great thoughts about actual “hustle.” I can’t find his definitive blog post on “side hustle”, but essentially it’s respecting that 8:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m., but your “side hustle” is that passion project you do from 5:00 p.m. until midnight when you can’t go on another minute, and then you go to sleep for 6.5 hours, wake up, and start the “hustle” over again.
So? The question for myself, and maybe you, is what is that thing you always dreamed about?
For me, it’s . . .
- Write my memoir (don’t laugh, it’s actually more than a memoir)
- Establish a Donnie Jalapeno business model
- Write again for money
Now. How to fit that into my world. Give me #44 days.
It’s Simple, Really.
Saturday. I slept in. I woke up and had a bowl of peanut butter Cheerios’s with whole milk. Sat around and was lazy. And the entire day was a lazy day.
Sunday. I sprang outta bed at 6:44 a.m. Took a hard charging 22-minute walk with the dog. Came home and swung my kettlebell around and then had my coffee and do I have to tell you which day is going to be better? Which day will I get more done?
It never fails. Never once have I regretted the mornings where I get up early and exercise and get my brain-melting and brain-stimulating time in to start the day.
It’s simple. Really! Make a plan. Stick to that plan. Avoid distractions. Repeat.
Below is a picture of my 22-minute timer on my watch which, if you do the math, is half of “44” and my #Project44 year-long self improvement project. And below that, a great video from one of the best – Mel Robbins.
My Headphone Obsession
The start of my headphone obsession stems from the fact I hate the standard issue iPhone earbuds. I love all things Apple, but hate the earbuds. They’re hard plastic, hurt my ears, the sound quality sucks, and using them makes me a conformist and just like everyone else.
But I love being able to answer the phone by the inline remote control, hang-up a phone call, and control audio volume.
Luckily, a man can spend hours on-line researching and looking for the better alternatives. And when I was exercising, I found the Adidas-Sennheisers OCX 685i pair, and loved them – even though the over-the-ear design, and blue color, made them a big obnoxious looking.
Then I slammed them in the car door, and they were toast.
I became obsessed with sound quality, and it led me to the 
Sennheiser MM 70i which I have to say made me happy every time I listened to music – brilliant sound quality, comfortable in-ear silicone buds, and an in-line microphone that pointed up at my mouth versus out or toward my chest. I should mention something else – I really don’t like holding an iPhone to my ear. My arm and hands get tired (actually my right hand falls asleep quite easily from years of video gaming and repetitive movement). Anyway, the microphone design, in my opinion, was superior and I felt I had found the last set of ear bud headphones I would ever need …and then I lost them. I don’t know how, or where, but they’re gone.
Now what? Along with my 7 pairs of Bedphones, I have burned through 9 pairs of ear buds and I’m starting to think I don’t deserve nice things. So today I bought a $6 pair of Sentra ear buds with a microphone from T.J. Maxx and that will be good for talking on the phone, and I have another pair of Sennheisers ear buds without a micrphone or in-line controls, and I’ll need to think twice before shelling out another $50 or more.
This is the type of the thing that will haunt me.
#Project44
I’ve lost some weight. I’ve exercised every day (not quite 44-minutes, but I’m getting there). I’ve moved a whole belt loop. My skin looks good. The 44th day of 2017 will be Monday, February 13th and I’ll make a “First-44 Days” analysis (kinda like how the media is big on Trump’s “First 100 Days” and tracking everything).
For someone just stumbling onto this blog, my #Project44 coincides with my turning 44 years old this year, and how I’m designing my year around the number 44. If you want to read all about #Project44’s origin, go here.
My most recent list looked like this:
- B
e in bed by 9:44 or 10:44 - Wake up at 4:44 or 5:44 (depending on when I went to bed) and 6:44 on weekends
- Work up to 44 pull-ups
- Do 44 push-ups daily
- Publish 44 pieces of social media
dailyweekly around my career and passions - Exercise for 44 minutes daily (even if 22 minutes in the a.m., and 22 minutes at night)
- Listen (or read) something motivating 44-minutes each day
- Make calls (cold-calls) at 8:44 a.m. for 44-minutes (this might be evolving into starting my day at 8:44 a.m.)
- Get my weight to 144
- 44 new business calls per month (11 per week)
- Increase my billing by 44% (and my income by the same)
I’m probably hitting about 44% of the goals, which sucks, but I’m not giving up. #Project44 won’t be an overnight success, even though I wanted it to be.
But the year is young and I think 44-years-old is fairly, young, too.
Have you picked your magic number, yet?
Millennials
I’m not breaking any news, here, but my sister shared this video with me and I can’t stop thinking about it and, actually, can’t stop thinking about how it applies to my 13, 12, and 10 year old? Hell …how does it apply to me? Based on Simon Sinek‘s observations, I’m morphing into a Millennial. So is my wife. So is my sister.
If you have 15-minutes, watch it.
I wonder if it’s true, or he just makes it sound like it’s true. My sister showed it to her 12 and 11 year old. I immediately thought, “I’m going to show it to my kids,” and then I thought, well, maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll figure out how to make them undo what they’ve done (or what I’ve allowed them to do).
Is it an epidemic, or just the new reality? I grew up in the 80s in the dawn of cable and MTV and Nickelodeon, and when Atari evolved into the Commodore 64 which evolved into Nintendo and then Sega Genesis. I spent …so …much …time …watching TV and playing video games. I’m sure my generation was labeled an older people said we were ruining ourselves. Is the video an overreaction to something new that will pass? Or should I really think about the irreparable harm that devices and social media might be having on my kids and will they be depressed and suicidal?
Or should I trick them by saying, “only a 1/2-hour of devices at night and NO DEVICES within a half hour of bedtime?” Should I limit devices on the weekend? I spent the hours of 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. almost every Saturday morning watching Saturday morning cartoons. I spend, I’ll bet, and hour or more every day after school watching cartoons. I had a favorite sitcom or show every night of the week and always watched a show before bed.
It’s not just Millenials with that cell phones in meetings – that’s everyone.
Anyway, really, really interesting.
#Project44 #Pullups2 #Sadness
It’s not all feel-good and “yay me” on the #Project44 experiment. This morning, I wanted to see how many pull-ups I could do.
Here’s a multiple choice quiz…
Tomorrow I’ll reveal the answer and I’ll probably tell you about how I can’t raise my hands above my waist, but let’s just say if you select “3”, you’re being generous.
I tried the pull-ups where my palms were facing me, because I thought the wide-grip palms-facing-away was more for getting a ripped upper back. Where pull-ups with palms facing toward my face is all about my bi-ceps.
Two pull-ups!!! Back in the day I could do 20+, and it didn’t matter if palms faced away or palms faced toward me.
(I know, I seem to be obsessed with palm direction).
I 
might be hoping to do a collective 44 pull-ups by the end of the year. Or end of February (2 pull-ups per day, 28 days in February …oh, I can get there). Then I got a chair and did some reverse-resistance (I don’t know if that’s an actual exercise term) pull-ups where I jump into the pull-up position and then as slowly as I can, lower myself until my arms are hanging straight, then I jump back into the pull-up position and slowly lower myself. And I did this until I could no longer “slowly” lower myself and until I would just drop. I hope you’re following this, because I won’t be posting a how-to YouTube video on this old-man/weak-man exercise routine.
My shoulders, back, bi-ceps, and tri-cep are still quivering and tomorrow as I struggle to shampoo my head (because I’m pretty certain I won’t be able to move my arms), pray for me.
Oh, and “44 social media posts per day” is evolving into “44 passion and work related social media posts per week, with a strategy.”
Thanks for following along and pretending to care.
#Project44
Remember my focus for the year 2017? I call is #Project44. This year I will celebrate my 44th birthday and I want to make this year matter. Here’s my list…
- Be in bed by 9:44 or 10:44
- Wake up at 4:44 or 5:44 (depending on when I went to bed) and 6:44 on weekends
- Work up to 44 pull-ups
- Do 44 push-ups daily
- Publish 44 pieces of social media daily around my passions
- Exercise for 44 minutes daily (even if 22 minutes in the a.m., and 22 minutes at night)
- Listen (or read) something motivating 44-minutes each day
- Make calls (cold-calls) at 8:44 a.m.
- Get my weight to 144
- 44 new business calls per month (11 per week)
- Increase my billing by 44% (and my income by the same)
And I’ll even give myself 44-days from the day I invented this (January 4th, interestingly enough) to create the full plan and the map of #Project44.
It’s a rallying cry. It’s a mission. It’s fun. It’s something to focus on. It’s just the sort of crazy obsession that works for a guy like me. Will it work for you?
A friend is turning 30 and she launched something similar. If you’re 49 and about to turn 50, get creative with your magic number. My son is 12 and will turn 13 (a teenager!!!) later this year, and he wants to earn $1,300 selling his toys and collectibles on eBay and CraigsList.
Pick a number. Make some goals. Get started.
2017 is for #Mission44, Ending Procrastination, and Finding Flow
We’re nearing the end of January, and having themes for 2017 is already paying dividends. My themes are my own invention, #Mission44, along with minimizing procrastination in my life, and, finally, finding “flow”.
“Flow”, as I understand it, is that mental state when everything seems effortless and you feel in total control, you feel your creativity is at its peak, and stress doesn’t enter the picture. More on that in my next Blog entry.
This morning, Mel Robbins boiled procrastination down to its basic level – stress. Take a look. See if you agree. She calls it her 5-Second Rule, which leads to the 5-Minute procrastination fix. In a word – brilliant.
Don Kowalewski 