The Journey to Who I Am

It has been long and short. Sometimes easy but mostly hard. Not to say that hard is a bad thing. Quite the opposite actually, hard is really the only way. When I look back on the defining, memorable and important moments in my life they were all hard in their own unique way.

Nothing defines that better than having a daughter. Enter Katie. That is probably actually where my journey starts. Once you have a child it just feels like everything else was practice and the game starts when you set eyes on their beautiful little face.

I will get into the ins and outs of the hard stories and why my journey truly starts when we had Katie as soon as I can grasp the words and context needed to articulate it. For now this is who I am…

I love (and loathe) fitness in any shape or form. I forgot this for a while but found it again, mostly I realized it’s easier to loathe a workout instead of the fact I could no longer get my ass up the stairs without trying to hide my heavy breathing from my wife at the top of them.

Speaking of the wife. We have somehow waded through all of this muck (mostly my fault) for almost 10 years and come out the other side better and stronger each time (mostly her fault). Tam is my best friend, my truth giver (even when I don’t want her to be) and the second most important person in my life but she is totally ok with that because I know I am hers too. She is also the most talented person I know, she taught herself how to sew and subsequently started a kids clothing company called PennyandKate within 2 months of learning. All while managing about 35 piano students and you know not losing our child amongst the piles of fabric in our dining room.

I do a lot of things, I try to do them all to the absolute best of my ability (and typically fail often enough to not be sure why I keep trying). My new(ish) love is golf and I am currently stuck at a 6 handicap. My old love is basketball and it will always be the thing that got me through everything up until I met Tam. I love to run even if 20 year old me would think my tights and short shorts were the epitome of embarrassing. I have a goal to run a sub 40min 10km and am just dumb enough to start training for a triathlon but not so dumb to commit to anything more than a sprint.

I run a bar (not a divey one, we allow kids and make our food in house not in bags). Hospitality is in my genes and I love partnering with my team to do everything we can to take care of our community. Best part is I am part of a larger group of stores in Edmonton and area and 90% of what we talk about is how to be better leaders, how to better take care of people and what the next charitable event we are doing is. Not sure about you but that sounds a lot cooler to me than most businesses. The guy who hired me was in my wedding party. We are different.

Hospitality has led me to a lot of personal development and I love reading. I am sure I will misquote many books and may start some poorly formed reading/review list here in time.

Reading has led me back to writing for which I am not sure I am grateful for but I keep trying and well I guess that’s the whole reason this is here. Just my outlet.

So I guess thanks for reading. I hope it didn’t stink but I am not taking it down so it really doesn’t matter.