Grit, Gratitude, & Grace Newsletter Reader 1 Insight From Me February 2024. One week after losing my job when I disclosed my wife's cancer diagnosis, medical bills started arriving. Then more. Then more. By December, we were $60,000 in debt. I remember a day I sat at the kitchen table, staring at the bills, thinking: "How can we get through this?" And then I realized something that changed how I thought about money forever: The debt terrified me more than the cancer did. And that told me...
10 days ago • 2 min read
Grit, Gratitude, & Grace Newsletter Reader 1 Insight From Me We're halfway through 2026. Most people will sprint into July without pausing to look back at January-June. They'll keep doing what they've been doing—whether it's working or not. I learned the hard way in 2024: You can't learn from a year you never reflect on. June 2024, I was six months into the hardest season of my life. Wife's cancer treatment. Unemployment. Financial stress. I could have just powered through to the second half...
17 days ago • 2 min read
Grit, Gratitude, & Grace Newsletter Reader 1 Insight From Me My father, immigrated from South Korea and built a restaurant in Missouri with nothing but determination and work ethic. He passed away years ago, but in 2024, when everything fell apart, his lessons became my lifeline. I never fully understood what my father went through until I faced my own impossible season. He left everything familiar—his country, his language, his culture—and built a life in a place that didn't always welcome...
24 days ago • 2 min read
Grit, Gratitude, & Grace Newsletter Reader 1 Insight From Me April 2024. Month three of Florena's cancer treatment. Month two of unemployment. I was drowning. I had convinced myself I needed to handle everything alone. Be strong. Be independent. Don't burden anyone else with my problems. Then my best friend Eddie showed up at my door—unannounced—with two bags of groceries. "I know you said you're fine," he said. "But I also know you're not eating right because you're too focused on Florena...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Grit, Gratitude, & Grace Newsletter Reader 1 Insight From Me March 2024. One month into Florena's cancer treatment. I had a choice every single day: Stay in the comfort zone (let fear keep me from learning about her specific cancer type, treatment options, nutrition protocols) or step into discomfort (research things I didn't understand, ask doctors questions that made me sound ignorant, try nutrition approaches I'd never heard of). I chose discomfort. Every single day. I researched medical...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Grit, Gratitude, & Grace Newsletter Reader 1 Insight From Me I was about to walk into my first day at my new job after ten months of unemployment. I stood in the parking lot, heart pounding, thinking: "I'm not confident enough for this. What if they realize they made a mistake hiring me?" Then I remembered something my martial arts master told me when I was testing for my black belt 33 years ago: "Confidence doesn't come from feeling ready. Confidence comes from doing it afraid—and...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
Grit, Gratitude, & Grace Newsletter Reader 1 Insight From Me November 2024. The interviewer asked: "Tell me about a time you faced significant adversity." I had a choice: Give a safe, sanitized answer about a work project. Or tell the truth. I told the truth. "My wife was diagnosed with cancer in January. I lost my job one week later. For the past four months, I've been her primary caregiver while job searching. Some days I make her smoothies at 5 AM, take her to treatment at 9 AM, and have...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
Grit, Gratitude, & Grace Newsletter Reader 1 Insight From Me April 2024. Month three of Florena's cancer treatment. I walked into the bedroom and snapped at her over something completely minor—I don't even remember what it was. She looked at me with tears in her eyes and said quietly: "I know you're not actually mad at me." She was right. I wasn't mad at her. I was terrified of losing her. I was frustrated by my powerlessness. I was exhausted from caregiving. I was anxious about money. But I...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
Grit, Gratitude, & Grace Newsletter Reader Here's 1 insight, 2 quotes, and 1 challenge to consider this week... 1 Insight From Me When my wife was diagnosed with cancer and I lost my job in 2024, people kept telling me: "Just be grateful. It could be worse." I wanted to scream. Grateful? FOR cancer? FOR unemployment? FOR the worst season of our lives? You don't have to be grateful FOR your circumstances. You can be grateful IN your circumstances. I wasn't grateful FOR cancer. But IN the...
2 months ago • 1 min read