I’ve been reading Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing on and off for the past few months. I recently bought some new clothes taking advantage of a Black Friday sale on Bonobos and also a sample sale by our client Gitman Bros. I thought it’d be a good opportunity to reassess my wardrobe and get rid of some things. One thing that was immediately apparent to me […]
I’m working my way through Toughness by Jay Bilas. It was recommended to me by one of our designers at Barrel. It’s an excellent read so far, and I decided to look up the article that inspired the book. Jay Bilas is an ESPN basketball analyst, and he wrote about toughness back in 2009 that became a very popular piece. The article is hidden behind the paywall, but you can check out a saved PDF here. […]
For our Grove Ave venture, Welton and I have been working through a concept that we’re calling “Foundation of Growth”. As we begin to build up the Grove Ave brand and philosophy, we’ve been looking for ways to articulate the company’s mission. I wanted to jot down some of our thoughts here and explain how the Foundation of Growth tie into the Grove Ave mission. Over the past couple of years, Welton and I have talked at […]
This is a reminder for myself to reassess my day-to-day activities and to focus my efforts on areas that will have greater positive impact on the company. In recent months, I’ve had some difficulty prioritizing and identifying the areas where my efforts will have the greatest impact. As a result, I’ve found myself frustrated, scatter-brained, and also uncertain about a number of things. While this feeling has been on my mind, I’ve also been evasive […]
I just finished taking my 2-week antibiotic treatment for an H.Pylori infection. For over a month, I felt sharp stomach pains whenever I finished a meal or went running. I got myself checked out, got a diagnosis, and quickly started the treatment. Fortunately for me, the pains are gone, and I feel pretty good. I’ll have to start loading up on probiotics to build up the good bacteria that the antibiotics destroyed. My ordeal was fairly […]
June felt particularly eventful this year. I jotted down some of the memorable moments over the past few weeks and thought I’d reflect on my favorite happenings. I can’t tell if June was actually more eventful than other months or if it was because I took the time to think about my experiences more so than usual. I wouldn’t mind if it was the latter. Too many months go by in a blur, one indistinguishable from the […]
Last Saturday, I participated in the Brooklyn Half Marathon. It was a 13.1 mile run that began in front of the Brooklyn Museum, looped around Grand Army Plaza, circled through Prospect Park, and made its way down Ocean Parkway to Coney Island, where it finished up on the boardwalk. I thought I’d jot down some of the things I remember about the race as well as some of the prep leading up to it. First of […]
As I gear up for my Sunday evening routine of prepping for the week ahead, catching up with my inbox, and making sure all my projects at work are on track, I realized that it’s been a while since I updated my blog. In fact, it’s been a while since I paused to reflect on some of the things that have happened. The weeks, it feels like, have progressed at an unceasing, unrelenting pace. This […]
Today was President’s Day. Our office was closed, so I slept in. I finally got up at 10AM as Sidney’s whining reached peak levels and I had to take him out for a walk. I went to bed late the night before, around 2:30AM. I had been binge watching episodes of Mozart in the Jungle on my laptop. Let’s say I finally got into a sound sleep mode around 3AM and started waking up around […]
It was around 20 degrees fahrenheit this morning when I arrived at the LeFrak Center at Lakeside in Prospect Park. I had dreaded the moment ever since I started seeing weather forecasts a few days earlier. The Prospect Park Track Club Cherry Tree 10 Miler sounded like fun when I signed up a few weeks ago, but that was when I was enjoying temperatures in the high thirties and low forties. But as with most of my […]
I’m happy to announce that I’ve teamed up with a few friends and launched a new startup. It’s called Grove Ave, and our mission is to empower individuals who want to achieve more. Through our products, content, and tools, we aim to help our customers accomplish their goals. Right now, we’re in the early stages of validating and testing some product concepts. It’s been a great learning experience as we’ve been going back and forth […]
I recently finished Dale Carnegie’s classic How to Win Friends and Influence People. At the core of the book is the importance of empathy and the ability to see things from the perspective of the other person. What I found particularly engrossing about the book were the many detailed and memorable examples of interactions that people have day in and day out where the degree of empathy shapes how we feel and make others feel. The book […]
I’ve been sticking pretty closely to a plant-based diet for the past five months. I feel great, and I enjoy the food I eat. In fact, I don’t really crave or miss the stuff I used to eat all the time. I also recently finished reading How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease by Dr. Michael Greger, and it’s inspired me to continue trying new vegetables, fruits, spices, beans, and […]
I jotted down some lessons I picked up in 2015. Most of these relate to my work at Barrel. I wanted to post them in case others out there may find them relevant or helpful. Structure and Planning Can Be Liberating I believe more and more that “playing things by ear” is overrated and that the notion of freely figuring out what to do on the go can actually get in the way of spending […]
In 2015, I picked up a few new habits that I’m pretty proud of and hope to continue into the New Year. I want to share some of these, as they’ve had a very positive impact on my life. Reading List I started keeping a list of books that I finished as well as a backlog of books to read next. Whenever someone tells me about a book in passing or I come across a […]
I really enjoyed this season’s Hard Knocks on HBO, a 5-episode series that takes viewers behind-the-scenes of a different NFL team’s training camp each season. This season, Hard Knocks focused on the Houston Texans. Bill O’Brien, in his second season as Texans head coach after his stint at Penn State, made the show very compelling for me, and I thought there were some good takeaways in his leadership style. One thing stuck with me is […]
I really enjoyed the variety of books I read in July. I’m naturally drawn to books that I can directly apply to my work (typically leadership/management/business books), but I know that I have much to gain by exposing myself to ideas and topics beyond what feels professionally relevant. Bitter Brew: The Rise and Fall of Anheuser-Busch and America’s Kings of Beer by William Knoedelseder You don’t have to care much about beer to enjoy this story. It’s […]
I’m hoping to post every month a list of the books I’ve read along with a few thoughts and some memorable quotes. Some of these books were consumed via audio and others were read in physical book or Kindle formats. As I’ve spent more time riding my bike or going for 3-5 mile runs, I’ve been able to get through quite a bit of audio books. I also try to listen when I walk the […]
A couple weeks ago, Barrel turned 9. In 2006, Sei-Wook and I decided to incorporate our business and made the commitment to build a company together. Over the years, we’ve experienced our fair share of exciting wins and crushing disappointments. There are many things we’re both proud of and also things we ruefully wish we had handled better. For me personally, the past 9 years have been an incredible learning experience, and the opportunity to […]
I’ve been slowly going through all of Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholder letters by Warren Buffet. I love the way he writes about investing, finance, and accounting with such easy-to-understand clarity and an easygoing tone. I’ve been thinking a lot about Buffet and his Vice Chairman Munger’s approach to business, good managers, and decision-making. One takeaway is the adherence to the fundamentals, and to keep things simple and to patiently stick with an approach in a […]