Grit, Gratitude, & Grace Newsletter Reader 1 Insight From Me May 2024. Four months into crisis. I had a strong mind—I'd done the mindset work, the journaling, the reflection. I had a deep faith—morning Scripture, daily prayer, spiritual grounding. But my body was falling apart. I wasn't sleeping. My shoulders were in constant tension. I'd lost weight. My immune system was tanking from stress. I had headaches that lasted for days. And here's what I learned: A strong mind and a strong spirit...
10 days ago • 2 min read
Grit, Gratitude, & Grace Newsletter Reader 1 Insight From Me January 2024. Wife diagnosed with cancer. I had a choice—two ways to respond. The first way: Let it destroy me. Let the diagnosis become my identity. Let fear paralyze every decision. This would have been the easier path, honestly. No one would blame me. The second way: Let it refine me. Use the crisis as a laboratory for learning what I'm actually capable of. Let adversity teach me something. I chose the second way. Not because I'm...
17 days ago • 2 min read
Grit, Gratitude, & Grace Newsletter Reader 1 Insight From Me April 2024. Florena was in her third month of cancer treatment. I'd been unemployed for two months. We were $30,000 in debt. I had a job interview scheduled for 3 PM. The night before, I spiraled. Thoughts raced: "You won't get this job. You're not qualified. You're still unemployed because you're not good enough. Your wife is suffering and you're failing her." The next morning, I did something simple: I showed up. That's it. I woke...
24 days ago • 2 min read
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...
about 1 month 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...
about 1 month 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...
about 1 month 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 2 months 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 2 months 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...
2 months ago • 2 min read