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Traveling solo with a dog can be easy, so long as you plan your exercise stops thoughtfully. Breaking the fourth wall, I thought I’d share with you my itinerary planning for my next road trip on April 25th to Itasca State Park. Including key stops at boat launch, where my golden retriever can swim, and a 6 pm stop at his favorite Buster Dog Park in Brainerd.   Traveling Solo with a Dog A trip where I’m traveling solo with a dog is a little bit more challenging than when I’m t

Me looking out at sunrise over Gardiner Valley, Montana before the start of a Yellowstone day hike. I’ll forgive you for hearing the phrase Man of Abundance and immediately picturing some dude driving a sports car, flashing a fancy watch, and wearing designer shades. Hell, I spent over 25 years in marketing helping sell that propped-up illusion.   Yet here’s the truth most men don’t want to hear. That version of abundance is hollow.   Now that I’m older, wiser, and I underst

My friend Chris, poppin' a flex on his 50th birthday, proving you are never too old to tap into the power of pumping iron. I have been dying to write this article about the power of pumping iron for a long time. A part of me wants to drop all that tough talk about banging the pig iron war drum with cast-iron, pile-driving masculinity until you can feel the testosterone dripping from my fingertips.   The internet is full of that stuff already, and most of the guys who write li

Four years ago, Eva and I took our dog Fella on this last great adventure before he lost his long battle with bone cancer. Way out on the point of Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula, Eva found this stone and kept it.   She remembered a story I told her about Polynesian spirit stones called Po Haku. How some noble families had stones that held the mana (Spirit Energy) of their KaPuna ancestors who watched over the family.   She was young and thought that human body heat was a repre

Pushing 50, I’ve spent decades listening to and making the arguments about what proves you’re a good man. So, I thought I’d bring the perspective of a grown-ass man to the conversation, to shed some light on the true measure of a good man.   I’ve heard guys talk about how it’s money; if you can pay “Straight Cash Homie”  for everything, you’re a good man. Yet I’ve seen tons of these guys cheat on their wives, work long hours, and be total strangers to their kids.     I’ve als

Nothing will shock you back to life with more voltage than watching someone you love die. For me, it was my father. Sitting next to his deathbed, listening to him rattle off his regrets, the time he wished he wouldn’t have wasted, and the last wishes he left me with struck a bolt of lightning through the grief that was to come.   I call that chapter of my life “The Dark Years.” I won’t bother you with the details, but suffice to say, I was “Existing instead of Living.” Seeing

Thirty years ago, I was standing barefoot in a Zendo looking out at Topanga Canyon, realizing that I suck at Buddhism. I was looking for peace, but all I found was a war with my own ego. I’ve since learned how to forgive myself for my trespasses against the life I wanted to live. I’ve even learned how to forgive the crusty bastard of a Roshi who stuck all those compassionate thoughts into my head.   We often think of compassion and forgiveness as this blissed-out experience w

I choose a life of sobriety with my eyes wide open. There are no doctor’s orders, court orders, or family intervention forcing me to abstain from alcohol or any other substances.   There’s half a liter of vodka gathering dust above my refrigerator right now. I could pop the cap on it, guzzle it down, and no one would give a damn except the man in the mirror and probably my kid.   I don’t go to AA meetings; no one has ever told me they’re proud of me for being sober. As a man

The other day, I was walking into a store with a small group of people, and out of the blue, a guy in his twenties asked me, “How do I get swagger like yours?” He didn’t ask this because of my perfect business casual fashion sense. Without me saying a word, he saw the natural confidence I carry as a middle-aged man who knows his true worth.   Always happy to drop a nugget of deep advice, I told him, “I lift weights, I run, I go to therapy, don't eat shit, don't chase, don't s

There’s a difference between going to therapy for an hour and showing up at therapy with emotional courage. To show you what I mean, I’m going to give you some peeks behind the curtain of my own recent experiences with the therapeutic process. There’s some deep vulnerability in what you’re about to read, but if you’re feeling “Stuck” in therapy, I think seeing authentic emotional courage in action might help move your needle.     I’ve had multiple therapists over the last for

For a long time now, I've been working on the self-help project called Life Unchained and The Art of Living Deeply. It’s a smattering of core life lessons that I’ve learned through real-world experiences, personal work with therapists and professional work with psychologists and neurologists.   The core of it is essentially a treatise on how to un-fuck your life. I'm not offering 90 days to get a new body. There are no promises about being able to improve your sex life, and I

High-intensity interval training (HIIT) cardio has become my new jam. For the better part of four decades, I hated cardio like poison. If you’d told me five years ago that I’d be pushing fifty and love doing cardio, I would’ve laughed in your face.   Now, I’m still not a fan of steady-state cardio. I see it as just burning calories for the sake of burning calories, with the increased risk of catabolism compromising muscle mass when you force it into a deep caloric deficit. Ye

Motivation is a challenge for anyone embracing personal growth, as it requires a level of consistency fueled in part by a deeper sense of personal understanding. After losing my parents, the last two and a half years have been a healing journey for me. Suffering one loss after another, recalibrating and rebuilding. Living every moment of my life walking toward healthy personal integration.   Part of this process has involved running and getting back to weightlifting. Two thin

Affiliate marketing is an increasingly popular way for content creators to build passive income. It seems as simple as publishing content, placing links, and watching the commissions roll in.   Unfortunately, the reality is that sustainable affiliate revenue is rarely the result of simply slapping together articles with cleverly embedded links. Long-term success usually requires strategically structured SEO content strategy that’s designed to build traffic-generating assets o

The rise of AI has fundamentally changed how digital marketing content is researched, drafted, and produced. Popular search engines like Google have become more sophisticated in evaluating content quality, originality, and usefulness. This has led to widespread confusion about whether AI-assisted content helps or harms rankings.   The thing you need to understand is that AI itself isn’t the problem. The issue is how it’s used. When AI replaces human judgment, expertise, and i

Search behavior is evolving with the speed of AI-driven tools like Google’s AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Gemini. The advanced algorithms they employ can now summarize information in a way that’s curated to the user’s search intent, rather than simply listing links.   This has caused a seismic shift in the world of digital marketing, where content creators now wonder if they need to abandon traditional SEO to stay visible in AI search.   The short answer is no.   SEO is still im

The way Amazon uses product listing information has quietly changed with the rollout of its COSMO algorithm. In the past, successful Amazon listings relied heavily on keyword density and strict formatting rules.   COSMO (Common Sense Modeling for Optimization) now operates as a knowledge graph, connecting product features, use cases, buyer intent, and real-world outcomes. This reduces the value of keyword stuffing and can actively hurt rankings when product content lacks clar

I’ve hiked in a lot of environments, and I’ve learned that desert hiking requires a next-level hydration strategy that goes far beyond what a simple water bottle has to offer. If you’re hiking in the American Southwest a good hydration backpack needs to do more than just hold your gear and a simple water bladder. In desert environments, there is no real shade to hide in, the sun feels more powerful, and the air is extremely dry. This dehydrates your nose and mouth even if yo

DSLR cameras have evolved to the point where they let amateur photographers capture professional-quality landscape and wildlife photos. Top digital single-lens reflex cameras come from competing brands like Nikon, Canon, and Sony. Each comes with key features like autofocus speed, burst rate, low light performance, and other technical jargon. These features matter but can make it hard to know which DSLR camera is right for your style of wildlife photography. As an outdoor adv

Non-Alcoholic champagne that 0.0% ABV is a great sober alternative to alcohol. I embrace an alcohol-free lifestyle by choice. There are no doctor’s orders, court orders, or family intervention governing my sobriety. I simply looked at the man in the mirror, decided I wanted to live the most fulfilling life possible, and honestly knew that alcohol had no place in that complex equation.   It’s the best choice I’ve ever made, and I’ve learned a lot about the benefits of sobriety