Nearly 3 weeks after my return from an epic trip to the Southwestern United States, I'm finally back with a recap of my key takeaways from the journey.

Processing grief, a nagging startup idea, and reconnecting relationships were some of my key takeaways beyond the re-establishment of my relationship with food and the past addiction and hold it has had on my life.

On the heels of a 4-hour conversation with some Pekin High School friends tonight here in Lehi, Utah, I've come to realize the importance that the reconnection of relationships has had on my journey.

I've been lucky enough to so far spend 3 of my stops (6 by the end of the journey) with people that have had varying levels of involvement, but equally valuable levels of impact throughout my life. With that in mind, my encouragement to myself, and hopefully to you, has been to cherish those relationships and prioritize their consistency.

Back at you with a quick update on my journey and coming to grips with the reality of my grief. I've also had time to process the career component of my life and have some solid direction for the best way to manage and organize 4 separate buckets of work.

Here's the book Atomic Habits referenced during the vlog: https://jamesclear.com/atomic-habits

Grief is a complicated and complex set of emotions that can best be described as waves in the ocean. After 14 years of marriage to my first wife Rebekah, I have faced multiple circumstances and made some choices that have not allowed me to fully process grieving her loss since she passed in August of 2016.

As part of my rediscovery trip, one of my goals and encouragement I have received is to find time to process my grief. And while it will never go away, I hope that over the next 5 days there will be an opportunity to navigate the hurricane I have ignored for so long with the hopes of some smoother sailing ahead.

Food addiction has long been considered taboo in the medical world, but recent research shows that the things we eat and consume can sometimes have the same (if not worse) addictive properties as drugs and alcohol.

In this episode, I talk about my personal struggles with food addiction, the conditions and symptoms I've experienced, and the difficult decision I made to pursue weight loss surgery and the withdrawals that followed.

Greetings from Las Cruces, New Mexico! After a 12+ hour drive, I tried to keep this video a little short, but wanted to review the prompts from last night and today.

Yesterday: "What chapter headings best organize your life story thus far?" If you haven't done this exercise yourself, I would encourage you to do so as it's a great reminder of what you've been through leading up to where you are today.

Welcome and thanks for coming back to view Episode 2 of the Rediscovering Me vlog. Based on the book

Leading with Character by Dr. Jim Loehr, this episode takes a deeper dive into some of the key concepts discussed in the first 27 pages; primarily around Performance Character and Moral Character and the key differentiations between the two.

Have you or has anyone in your life struggled with grief, trauma, depression or addiction?

In an effort to be vulnerable to not only others, but to myself, I’ve embarked on the creation of a vlog to share my thoughts and experiences as I’ve navigated this journey called life over the last 5 years.