We must accept a universal truth: Kids don’t like to eat the crust. An endless battle for parents, this truth is a powerful tool for meeting goals.

Be it toast, peanut butter and jelly, grilled cheese or otherwise, kids have always preferred the core over the crust. It is not hard to understand why. Experience has proven to all of us that the soft part of the bread has the best texture, the freshest taste and is the easiest to chew. Even as adults, many of us still pick the soft core out of fresh bread served in high-end restaurants. We’ll never admit it to our kids, but we all know it’s true!

I find that a child’s approach to eating a sandwich is the roadmap to success in achieving goals. To the child, there is no sorrow for what they didn’t eat. Instead, they celebrate every bite of what they wanted to eat! They eat in perfect contentment until they are full, and then they leave the rest behind. Usually, the remains are not pretty; picked over and mangled like a wild animal came and plucked all the best parts out.

The same should be true of our goals. Goals are meant to be enjoyed. They should feed the body, mind and spirit and help us grow over time. While it is easy to build a goal that looks wonderful (like a good sandwich), finishing that goal is not always uniformly enjoyable. There are parts that we really like and parts that we don’t like that much. As adults, we try to force ourselves through what we don’t like by using discipline, logic and will power. Parents use the same tactics when trying to get their kids to eat the crust. And often, like parents, we find ourselves frustrated and defeated when our tactics don’t work. Even worse, we look back on the whole experience as a failure. Rather than approach our goals like the parent, I advocate that we approach them like the child.

Our April Challenge is entering its final week. Some of us may feel proud of our progress while others may feel discouraged. If challenges or doubts tempt you to quit or feel ashamed, remember what generations of children have taught us about bread: it is better to enjoy what we eat than it is to finish it all.

We all set goals that we knew we would enjoy. We spent three weeks overcoming distractions and making progress together. We must not let shame spoil the taste now! Keep working, keep growing, and enjoy every bite. After all, the best part of any sandwich is the core – not the crust!

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History is written by those committed to the struggle, the fight – ‘La Lucha.’ While most goals do not make it into history books, there is comfort in knowing that nobody finds achievement to be easy. Meaningful goals always involve a struggle. It is in that struggle that we find courage, learn to trust our community, and expand the limits of our own capabilities.

Our April Challenge has entered its second week. For those participating, you may be feeling some of the struggle I am talking about. With nearly half the month past, progress can sometimes be less easy to quantify. My goal for April is to write 5 consecutive blog posts before April 30, 2017 that give practical guidance on how to set, maintain and achieve goals. While this post completes the third in my series of five, it has been harder for me to author this series than any other individual post on the Me.Now. blog. Organizing, researching and crafting my posts – knowing that they must all work together while also offering incremental encouragement – has taken me firmly out of my comfort zone. But despite the challenge, I remain confident that the goal was properly set (P-I-R-A-T-E) and that victory only comes after the fight!

Every goal has a midway point; the peak where the struggle is greatest and fear and doubt try to press in. As you approach your peak, know that you are not alone. I am trudging through my struggle now; hoping that this post resonates with readers, questioning if this series is making a difference, and fearful that I will fail to encourage those who trusted me with their own April goals. I am choosing to embrace the struggle; to recognize that I will learn from it only if I let it teach me. The fear and doubt that I feel are distractions. They bring no benefit and instead try to rob me of the fulfillment that the struggle promises.

Take heart during your struggle. You can achieve what you have set out to do! There are others struggling to climb the peak with you, even if you do not yet know their names. ‘La Lucha’ is hard. It is a road paved in doubt and fear. But roads are built to be traveled, not to be destinations. The place where the road ends is the goal.

Good luck, and keep fighting!

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Distractions are innumerable, ever-present and fully unavoidable. Anyone who says we should ‘avoid distractions’ is clearly not living in the same world as the rest of us. Reaching goals is about managing and prioritizing distractions without losing sight of the original objective.

Success is not found by avoiding distractions, but rather by acknowledging them for what they are – options. And like all options, distractions can be acted upon or ignored. While distractions may masquerade as obligations or demands, the fundamental difference is that distractions lose power over time.

As an example, an electric bill is an obligation. If you ignore it, it does not go away – your lights do. In contrast, an incoming call on your cell phone is NOT an obligation. If you ignore it, it will likely go to voicemail or come back as a text message. While I am not advocating that we ignore every call or jump up to immediately pay our electric bill, the comparison is sound.

When we work toward a goal we must give ourselves permission to prioritize the goal first. By doing so, we take power away from distractions before they even present themselves. Commitment to the goal gives us the space we need to see distractions as options rather than obligations. This is especially important when you encounter a distraction that could benefit your goal. For example, while cooking your grandma’s soup recipe you see an incoming call from grandma! Eureka! Answer the call and talk to the source directly – this distraction benefits your goal.

 Last week I invited anyone reading this blog to pick a goal for April. Many did, and I invite those participants to give us updates using the comment box below. For those that did not set a goal last week, I wonder how many thought, ‘I should pick a goal,’ only then to have a distraction divert their attention elsewhere. If that happened to you, that is totally okay! Share your goal now and commit to it – there are still plenty of days left to complete the April challenge.

Distractions can be overwhelming; we all know it. Rather than let ourselves feel obligated to them, let us instead see them for what they are – optional. We are obligated to our goals; the distractions are just jealous. Let them be.            

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Achievement is not a solo sport. While individual success presses well in media channels and on magazine covers, accomplishment always springs from community. For some, community is a team. For others it’s friends, family, partners or peers. Whatever form community takes, it is undeniable that our odds for success increase significantly when work together.

While many of us already know this to be true, we continue to make goal setting a private affair. We somehow believe that keeping our goals and ambitions secret will lessen personal risk; that the fear of public failure is greater than the power of public support. Nothing could be further from the truth. To demonstrate this point, I’m willing to bet my reputation and my blog!

APRIL CHALLENGE: I challenge everyone reading this blog to set a goal for April, share that goal in the comments section of this post, and leverage this blog as a forum to encourage others and find encouragement to accomplish that goal on or before April 30, 2017.

HOW IT WORKS: I will release a new post each week in April that builds on our collective effort to meet the goals we set. Using the comments section below the post, participants engaging in the challenge can communicate with me directly and/or with one another by selecting “Notify me of follow-up comments by email.” Our ongoing dialogue and goal updates throughout April will be available to anyone following the Me.Now. blog, inspiring readers and giving participants the encouragement of a supportive virtual community.

MY PERSONAL GOAL: I’ll set my goal now and enlist myself as the first participant!

GOAL: I will write 5 consecutive blog posts before April 30, 2017 that give practical guidance on how to set, maintain and achieve goals.   

SET YOUR GOAL: As the first post in the series I committed to above, I will share my suggestions on how to set goals that self-motivate rather than self-shame. I call this technique ‘P-I-R-A-T-E booty’!

P – Precise: Make the goal clear and concise using simple language. Clarity and precision make recall easy, and it helps prevent from the temptation to find/make a loop-hole as a way out.

I – Individual: Tailor your goal to yourself. When someone else sets goals for us, we do not fully invest in the goal itself. Instead, make your goal about you, empower yourself and ignore the peanut gallery!

R – Relevant: Life changes fast. The best goals make sense right now. While it’s always nice to plan for the future, it is often more rewarding to live for today. For this challenge, we’re looking to show success in 30 days or less – we’re pitching a tent here, not building a fortress.

A – Achievable: I am a sucker for setting goals that are unrealistic. I try to ‘stretch’ myself with a goal that is just beyond reach and then I feel like a failure when I fall short. Learn from me, save yourself the ‘booty’ pain, and set a goal that is achievable. One goal – make it realistic.

T – Timely: This one is a freebie! I set the timeline at 30 days for all of us. It is important to give a specific timeframe for goals so that we can plan, assess and make changes as needed. Additionally, clear start and end times give the goal boundaries and keep it from mutating into something scary.

E – Entertaining: Make it fun! If you don’t like to work out, then don’t work out. If you don’t like to eat carrots, then don’t eat carrots. If reaching the goal doesn’t bring you joy, then it’s easy to decide to stop trying. Instead, make the goal entertaining and the process will be just as enjoyable as the accomplishment.

I wish all those who join me in the ‘April Challenge’ good luck! I am already excited to see our progress over the month. Help me show everyone reading now and in the future that success comes from community!

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We all have a breaking point. We don’t like to admit it, but that doesn’t make it any less true. While common conventions are that breaking means we are weak, stupid or lazy, I’d offer instead that breaking is what allows us to shed what was and build what will be. Without breaking points, snakes would be trapped in skin too small, butterflies would wither inside cocoons, and new trees would starve in shadows on the forest floor.

I was broken this week and I am thankful for it. A confluence of illness within my household left me serving as nurse, chauffeur, and janitor for my wife and son as we visited urgent care, primary care, and the All Children’s hospital over the last seven days. My son developed pneumonia after a particularly severe allergy season. His pneumonia resulted in matching sinus and ear infections over the course of his treatment – compounding his required medications and his own discomfort. My pregnant wife, having just re-discovered morning sickness in her second trimester, picked up her own upper respiratory bug along the way and found herself undernourished and painfully congested. For seven days my family didn’t sleep, barely ate, and sought what comfort they could in the light of a TV that droned endlessly in the background. I prayed I would stay healthy long enough to get one of the two of them back to normal.

We live in Florida and are a proud sailing family. Our area, Tampa Bay, is consistently recognized in the top 3 places to sail in the United States. In 2015 I took a 7 day advanced sailing course. Expecting a cushy summer vacation, my trip was rocked by 5 days of uncharacteristically blustery, cold rain storms and rough water. Any hope of rest and relaxation was gone by dawn of the third day when I dressed in the same cold, wet rain-gear from the previous two days to embark on another day of high winds and cold spray. For seven days I didn’t sleep, barely ate, and sought what comfort I could on the high-side of the boat where the seasickness was minimized by fresh breeze. I was broken.

I recalled that boat trip in 2015 while holding my son, shivering in his 103 degree fever, sideways in front of an x-ray machine at Johns Hopkins All Children’s hospital on the 5th day of his sickness. I found a certain peace when I realized that this bout of illness, like that terrible wind and rain in 2015, would pass. All storms pass.

During a storm, things break – ask any sailor and they will agree. But rather than focus on what breaks, the defining mark of a seaman is what they choose to do when the storm ends. Some are fearful of the water for the rest of their lives. They stay in their slip when the wind is up and opt for an engine over a sail when they see whitecaps on the waves. But the courageous few, those who travel across oceans in personal sailboats through squalls and seas as tall as buildings – they experience life unbridled. Rather than fold their sails and return to the dock, they pick up where they left off when the storm hit. Nothing keeps them from their destination.

Everybody has a breaking point. The question is what will you do when you are broken and tired after the storms pass?

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I graduated college with a 2.5 GPA. People who know me are surprised when I tell them my college GPA. I suppose it’s because nobody expects a C-average student to intensely advocate ambition and achievement, have held the keys to nuclear missiles or have spied for CIA. Go figure.

The truth is that my 2.5 GPA haunts me everywhere I go. Even now, 14 years out of college, my GPA is a continual headache as I apply to Graduate Schools around the country. The conversation with most recruiters goes a little like this:

                “Andrew! It was great to get your application – you have a very impressive background!”

Thank you. I appreciate the kind words. I am interested in your Graduate school – can you tell me about your programs?

                “Sure – one small thing first. All of our Graduate programs require a minimum 3.0 GPA. I see from your application you have a 2.53. That poses some problems for us.”

Yes, I am aware that I do not meet your preferred minimum requirements. I was hoping that my professional record and work history would help give a sense of who I am now rather than the student I was 14 years ago.

                “Yes, that does help. Even so, you may want to consider maximizing the GRE or GMAT to offset your GPA. It is difficult to support a candidate with your academic history.”

And so it goes, for about 30 minutes each time, where I try to highlight my real-world achievements and a school administrator keeps reminding me that my ‘empirical scores’ are not well suited to their program. I’ve had 25 year-old grad school interns and 60 year-old admins give me the same speech. I’m beginning to think there is an online training course called, ‘how to deal with empirical dunces applying to grad school’ – the arguments I encounter share much in common.   

While my recent experience is with academia, similar stories permeate American culture. We put so much value in numbers that we often lose sight of the purpose behind why we starting counting at all – to build a better future. Whether it’s a grad school recruiter fixated on a 3.0 GPA, a hiring manager hung-up on an applicant’s years of work experience, or a doctor firing off prescriptions based on partial diagnoses, too often we sideline common sense and current assessment in favor of historic trends. But why?

I challenge that our habitual reliance on numbers is less a matter of preference a more a matter of programming. We live in a world of inputs and outputs. Bank accounts, social media profiles and ‘personal branding’ is at the forefront for most people and requires constant cultivation. We are a culture obsessed with controlling how we are perceived by others rather than simply being who we are. As a result, we lean on past studies and documented trends to guide our current decision making. Consider my graduate school example: I am certain that it was ground breaking when an enterprising scholar in the 1970s identified the relationship between undergraduate GPA and graduate school completion rates. But since then, multiple competing systems have come into play – college rankings, school profit margins, research/grant awards, and many other metric-derived priorities. The original purpose has been so diluted that scientific journals and leading edge companies now REJECT traditional academic ranking altogether as a predictor for future success!

We have the option to build our lives based on where we want to go instead of where others think we come from. It is difficult when we encounter someone who refuses to value our potential over our past. Take heart in knowing that innovators have already started to leave behind notions that the past can predict the future. History is a tool for learning, not a road map for the unknown. I believe I am an excellent candidate for any Graduate Program I choose to attend because I genuinely want to succeed. Any institution that thinks they can predict my success tomorrow based on who I was yesterday is failing to account for today. Your potential is equally as valuable to those who have vision. 

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Me.Now. is proud to celebrate International Women’s Day (IWD) with our weekly blog post! I am the product of 3 generations of dedicated, high-achieving women and I am hopeful that I will get the opportunity to raise a daughter to carry that proud heritage forward. IWD is committed to the goal of full gender equality for women around the world. Like IWD, Me.Now. recognizes that the only future worth pursuing is one where gender equality is beyond question.

IWD’s commitment to gender equality started in 1908 when a group of 15,000 women rallied in New York to demand voting rights, better pay and healthy work conditions. 109 years later, IWD’s goal for gender equality still has not been reached – but it is getting closer. IWD exemplifies the perseverance and the unstoppable progress that can be achieved when courage and commitment meet. Me.Now. strives to emulate the community and encouragement shared by IWD and millions of women around the world.

My father died when I was a toddler. I have no memories of him. My memories are of my mother and grandmother, who raised me together until I was 5 years old. While I admit to having the cultural advantage of being the first-born boy in a Hispanic family, my childhood was framed by responsibility and independence as much as it was by hugs and kisses. My mother and grandmother were the picture of discipline and determination. My mom, an Air Force veteran and widow, worked two unskilled jobs to support the two of us. My grandmother was born in Mexico and worked as a small business book-keeper in Arizona to build her English skills and raise her family as proud, first-generation Americans. Growing up with these two women as my guides, I had to learn to dress myself, feed myself, and care for myself from a very young age while they worked countless hours to break through cultural and gender stereotypes in the early 1980s to earn a living wage. I could not have asked for better examples of courage and ambition than my mother and my grandmother.

My mom has two sisters and one brother. In a funny coincidence, she went on herself to have two daughters and one son. Every woman in my family, from my youngest sister to my oldest aunt, fosters the tenacity and fearlessness of my mother and grandmother. As a result, our family gets to celebrate the stories of these women – all of them educated, self-made successes – and see first-hand how ignorant stereotypes crumble in their wake. Even more valuable, the men in our family have the benefit of growing up from a foundation of gender equality. A foundation paved by 109 years of courage.

My son will never know bias against women until he encounters it from his peers. When that day comes, I can only hope his mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and father have prepared him to reject sexism, advocate for equality, and advance our world to a better tomorrow.

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Me.Now. completes its first 100 days tomorrow. While those 100 days feel like they have passed somehow both fast and slow, what has been accomplished is owed to all of you who continue to participate in our growing Me.Now. Movement. It is with humble thanks that I share the benefits I’ve seen from Me.Now. in these last 99 days.

Me.Now. is built on the principle we can achieve more together than apart. This principle has manifested for me in ways I never thought possible. The Me.Now. Movement has carried my ambition to be an entrepreneur from bar-napkin doodle to reality. I’ve found encouragement, business connections and practical guidance in the last 99 days that have enabled me to develop a product and launch a business with international ties. Trust Ema LLC is primed to begin sales in April 2017 and would not have been possible but for those Me.Now. early adopters in Washington, Oregon, Arizona and Florida who lifted me up every time I stumbled. While I do not know what the future holds for EMA, I know that I am surrounded by support.

Me.Now. advocates that commitment to passion and ambition will lead to new confidence and new opportunities. I found out this week that I was awarded a full-ride scholarship to the US business school of my choice. I applied for the same scholarship last year and did not receive the award. In my previous application, I researched and prepared a package that modeled every pillar of the scholarship’s ‘ideal candidate’ attributes. I was stressed throughout the process and greatly discouraged when I found out I was not chosen. This year, leaning on Me.Now. principals, I built an application designed only to represent me, not the ‘ideal candidate.’ I felt almost no stress because I knew that my success was not dependent on the scholarship. While I do not know why my package won the scholarship this year and not last, my confidence and commitment are redoubled to both the Me.Now. Movement and my own entrepreneurial journey.

Me.Now. encourages all people to stand firm against doubt and fear. A few weeks ago I wrote a post about ditching discouragement and noted that I and other members of the Me.Now. Movement had suffered recent setbacks. As I write this post, the same members I referenced then have overcome their adversity and built bridges to new opportunities through personal courage and collaboration with other Me.Now. members. The Me.Now. Movement has seen new job opportunities, new goals, new supporters and even new babies in the last two weeks simply because we do not let doubt and fear steer our course.

Thank you for letting me share this good news through a blog usually dedicated to storytelling. I believe it is very important to celebrate the victories whether big or small and simply couldn’t let these first 100 days go by without thanking this group for what you’ve done for me and what our Movement continues to do for one another!

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I was a covert intelligence officer for the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) living and operating under cover for nearly a decade. SPOILER ALERT – spying is not like you see in the movies. Yes, we get code names. Yes, we travel around the world on someone else’s dime. No, we do not drive nice cars. No, we do not get cutting-edge tech that fits inside a watch. But the most important thing to understand about spies is this – we are alone and we hate it.

In 2011 I was called to serve in a countersurveillance operation in a large metropolitan city in Asia. I was briefed only on the details I needed to know and given two pictures – one of the foreign agent and one of a fellow CIA officer traveling to meet the agent. My objective was to blend in with the crowd and keep a watchful eye from a distance for anyone taking a suspicious interest in the agent meeting.

Another difference from the movies is that spying is not glamorous. We do not wear bespoke suits and drink martinis while rubbing elbows with social elites. Spies are more like drug dealers, digging around in dark, dirty places selling treason to bad people. By virtue of the people we do business with, security is the top priority during operations. A spy that gets caught is an international incident. A spy that gets away lives to spy another day.

I tracked my targets on foot as they travelled through public venues engaged in hushed espionage. After nearly two hours, the two parted ways and I continued my look out to make sure neither was followed in their departure. Success – my mission was complete and I could start my own trip back home.

On that trip home I was struck by an urgent idea; I needed to leave CIA. Spies do not live in the real world. We operate in alias names, operate in cities where we do not live, and befriend people we do not like. Because of this parallel existence, spies only do what has to be done to maintain security rather than take risks to pursue great achievements. There are of course exceptions to the rule; the few outstanding officers who are selfless and uniquely dedicated in service to their country. But as with any other workplace, the few are not the norm.

I left CIA because I believed that ambition and passion would lead to a better life while security and secrecy would end only in loneliness. I believed that I needed genuine relationships to shape me into the person I was meant to be. Complacency is a slow infection – it robs us of creativity, passion and purpose and convinces us that we cannot be who we want to be; cannot do what we want to do; and cannot achieve what we want to achieve.

Just like popular movies glorify the life of spies, popular culture glorifies the life of those who ‘fit in.’ Both are works of fiction. Many of us live like spies, choosing to conceal our identity in order to blend in with the world around us. Rather than commit ourselves to great achievement, we instead do only what we must to maintain a sense of security while surrounded by people we do not like, engaged in work that does not challenge us. We justify our actions by calling them ‘responsible decisions,’ or ‘social obligations,’ or ‘necessary steps’. In the end, however – just like so many spies – we feel alone and we hate it.

Me.Now. invites all people living like spies to realize the possibilities of a deliberate life; to write a story for ourselves. Complacency is a perpetual foe that seeks to divide rather than unite. Like a spy, we are only alone for as long as we choose to stay in hiding. Once we choose to give up our cover and step into reality, we can find a community that enables us to achieve great things and a better future.    

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Discouragement is difficult and very real. It is often the elephant in the room, standing alone and unmentioned for fear that acknowledging its existence might make it rage. While looking away from it might help us feel safe, the fact is that we benefit more by facing it head-on and forcing it out of our space.

This week was painfully discouraging for me. Even while celebrating my son’s 4th birthday and seeing him well over with joy, my heart was suffering from multiple conversations that had shaken my confidence, courage and optimism. My work to grow the Me.Now. Movement was at the core of my discouragement after feeling the movement come under criticism, doubt, and even perceived attack from outside. In addition to my own setbacks, I saw some of my closest friends and peers experience hurdles of their own professionally, personally and with loved ones. From within my turmoil I felt compelled to confront my discouragement openly in this post, in the hopes that others might find comfort in knowing how I deal with discouragement.

In January of 2011, less than six weeks after moving to Thailand with my wife, I contracted Dengue Fever from an infected mosquito. Known as ‘Bone Break Fever’, Dengue Fever infects up to 100 Million people each year and has no known cure. Symptoms vary slightly but share one common factor – extreme pain. Headaches, joint pain and muscle pain are at the core of dengue symptoms along with uncontrollable fevers, rashes and bouts of fatigue. A healthy 30yr old American male, the disease wrecked me physically. I spent 7 consecutive days sleeping in fits, fighting off a 104 degree fever, and rejecting all food. All my wife could do for me was mix water and Gatorade together to keep me from dehydrating while the fever ran its course. My weight dropped rapidly and my confidence went with it. When I finally pulled myself out of bed on day 8, the mirror looked back with hollow cheeks and sunken eyes.

My fear that first day out of bed was that I would never get back to the level of health I had before dengue. Also on my mind was the fact that should I contract Dengue Fever a second time, my chances for survival would drop by about 5% and leave me vulnerable to a hemorrhagic fever – one where the autoimmune system cannot fight off the disease. I was overwhelmed with discouragement. Unlike the United States, Southeast Asia never implemented mosquito control measures to fight off or eliminate the disease. Living and traveling in Thailand would pose a constant threat of repeat infection.

I had two options at this point: give in to the discouragement and live in fear of another infection, or face my discouragement head-on to live the life I wanted. When facing debilitating fear, there can only be one answer – fight. Only fighting gives you the hope of winning. Giving up is a guaranteed loss. So I fought.

My body recovered fairly quickly in terms of energy levels and flexibility. While it took me 2 years to gain back the weight that I had lost, I was able to start running again within just a few months. When I look back at photos before and after my stint with dengue, I see the impact from that one little bite. But when I look back on the story of my life, I am so glad that I did not let discouragement change my course.

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