Hola Amigo,

Fill up your cup of joe and let’s go.

• Kaitlyn Osmond Fight to Skate Again. This is an insanely powerful clip of an athlete I’ve always known about but frankly, never knew much about her story.

  “Unless you’ve had a failure that has literally taken what you know away from you, you don’t understand how hard it is to convince yourself to get over the mental blocks, the fear. You don’t understand how alone it feels and how much you want to say that you’re fine when you know that you’re not. There’s a lot of fears that I had. It got to the point where I was questioning why I was still skating and putting myself through that. But then I go to competition and realize how much that pain and torture was worth it. My body knows that I’m happy with it. I’ve done everything I can do.” – Kaetlyn Osmond. ** Bonus points if you can name the arena in YEG this was filmed in. Safe to say many Mailbaggers have scored a few here 🙂
  

• Free Solo – a National Geographic documentary about Alex Honnold free soloing what is considered the most impressive wall on earth. The center of the rock climbing universe. Find the biggest, baddest big screen you can and tune in. While the documentary focuses on the climbing, one of the deeper story-lines the film explores is the fundamental difference between humans who live their life in pursuit of performance versus those in pursuit of comfort and happiness. In my experience (and the film’s), this dynamic often plays itself in romantic relationships. I found it really interesting to watch this dynamic play out between Alex and Sanni…
• If this isn’t the greatest hockey commercial of all time, I don’t know what it is! Kicking it back to 1998 with nothing but Labatt’s Blue and the Canadian spirit that lives inside all us all.

What I’m Pondering / Struggling With / Grown From:

The power of impermanence. The impact of the two letters “im” on the word “permanent” are a lifeline like no other. If you find yourself in a tough headspace or life has decided to give you the short end of the stick for longer than you’d like, it is very easy for your patience to go out the door. Often times, you expect change / results / to feel a different way immediately. You want the pain, discomfort, and struggle to just go away and magically feel better. However, life just doesn’t work that way.

That’s where impermanence comes in. And it came to my rescue many a times in 2018.

Remind yourself, nothing is permanent for good or for bad. Let’s say you’re flying high and opportunities & great people are abundantly attracted your way, be grateful and continue working hard to immerse yourself in situations where luck can find you. On the contrary, if you feel stuck, don’t define your entire being by how you feel in that very moment. Emotions and feelings are fleeting. They’ll pass. They’ll only define you if you let them.

“Tough times don’t last. Tough people do” – Robert Schiller (Nobel Laureate). Remember that, amigos.

Words I’m Pondering: “Nobody achieves anything great in the world by being happy and cozy.” – Alex Honnold. Man, this hit me in the face like a 2×4 to the side of the head. My head is still ringing…

What I’m Listening to: “So Free” – Bahamas

With Gratitude & Fire,

– Wilkesy