Glad to be here having this life experience.

Happy to help you.

Honored to know you and be able to spend time connecting with you.

Regret not giving that a shot because I was debilitated by fear.

Hopeful I will square my shoulders up the next time I face those feelings and push through.

Sad because of all wonderful people I’ve lost over the years, but so very grateful to have them be a fabric of my life.

Ready for the next endeavor and curious how I will respond.

Astounded by the sheer intensity and beauty of my waking day.

Humbled to have the opportunity.

But, what about the rest of us?

I come from a generation where hard work, discipline and grit has value. Not only from your own point of view, but others as well. It was viewed as sort of a badge of honor to only get 5 hours of sleep the night before and still be able crawl out of bed and stumble through your day.

Nowadays, study after study show how unhealthy a consistent lack of sleep can be for us in the long run. Bringing on diseases and ailments due to the absence of valuable REM sleep in order for your body to repair and recover.

In fact, with today’s technology you can track (with precision) your body’s workout, recovery and sleep performance by wearing a monitor on your wrist synced to an app your phone.

Times have changed. When I was a teenager during the school year my father would make sure I wasn’t sleeping in too long on the weekends – even though I played three sports and probably needed the rest. After all, it’s been said teenagers need up to 12 hours of sleep at night due to the major changes their bodies are going through.

I guess I didn’t need it. I was wicked.

How are you supposed to know what you don’t know?

There have been so many times where I’ve looked back and wished I would have known that piece of information 20 years ago, or 5 years ago or even yesterday. I convince myself it would have been a difference-maker and everything would have changed.

I’m not so sure of that, but no doubt, the more we know in the moment, the better choices we tend to make about our future.

I realize we can’t go back in time and focusing on the past doesn’t help our present moment and so we move forward taking what we’ve learned and do the best we can.

Maybe if we become more curious, learn to love the process and find a way to learn, grow and evolve everyday, then we’ll know just a little bit more than we did the day before.

Depending on who I’m around, I may spout my “wisdom” way more than I ask questions. My bad.

As a student of life, I know we can learn more by asking questions rather than flexing our trivial knowledge. Of course there is always a time and a place, but more times than not, I find myself focusing on my response rather than listening to what the other person is saying and diving deeper into what I just heard by asking a follow-up question.

I know better.

And so I will look for opportunities in the moment of conversations with friends, family, co-workers and clients to ask more questions rather than spout my advice.

If they ask for my input, I’m happy to chime in, but my focus is always to grow, learn and evolve. I can’t do that while my mouth is yapping.

It seems to me the British believe any challenge can be overcome or problem can be solved as long as they’re able to sit down and discuss it over tea.

I was fortunate enough to go to London a few years ago with my family and decided to jump on board the tea train as well (Full disclosure; I was already a fan of green tea). It appeared that most people chose English Breakfast and the rules were basic and I committed with all of my being: Any time was a good time for tea.

We would tour the town by walking the streets of the bustling city with cafe’s around every corner where one could get their fill. One of my favorite delight’s about London are all the parks where you can lounge on a blanket, stroll the winding paths or people watch from a bench – while of course – sipping on tea. There seemed to be a cute little building that sold the cup of goodness straight-up (that’s how I like it) with a croissant of course, in every park we visited. How lovely.

What I’ve come to realize about the English is this: It’s not about the tea as much as it’s about the time you take to sip it while connecting with others. That’s the secret. It’s just an excuse to take a time-out and look at each other in their eyes and ask another human being, “so, how are you doing?”

Tea anyone?