This is my journal entry from February 16, 2026 — my real, unedited day, shared just as it happened.
I sent out a bunch of text messages first thing this morning to reconnect with people. People I hadn't messaged in a while. And I included one of those messages to a woman I know. I hadn't talked to her in months and I was wondering what her situation was. And it was nice she updated me on what she was doing. And I messaged a few people to ask them to speak at AA meetings, to share my new book, to reach out to do coaching, and to reconnect with family members. That was a nice start to the day, which I followed by playing some Ultimate Doubles with a friend. We thought we were going to play at Crescent Lake, but I went to check it out early because it rained last night and the park, the courts are so bad. Like there's cracks, huge cracks all across them, like little tiny hills in the court. I could just see like tripping over that being dangerous. I asked everybody if we wanted to play at a local park instead, which we ended up doing. There were some puddles on the court when we got there, and opponents were asking if we could go to the tennis center, but I was telling them it was going to take too long to move, and we might as well just clean these up. So we took the dryers and swished the water all over the court, which helped it dry up a lot faster. We did a nice warm-up, and then my friend and I got started playing.
We immediately went down to them and had our first set was 3-6. We lost. We thought we might be competitive with these guys. And my friend and I were both frustrated with our inaccuracies, feeling like we had the ability to win, but we weren't executing. The next set, we got it to 4-4, but they managed to win 4-6 against us. And my friend and I felt a little defeated. But we had fun and got a good workout, and had some laughs and then I sat with my friend and talked in his car with him for a while which it was a really nice conversation.
Then I went home, showered, had a little quick snack, and then went to go get a massage with my massage therapist. Started face up today which was unusual because my quads are really stiff from the personal training like leg workout and then the power yoga and then three days playing tennis in a row. I was like moaning as she was kind of releasing some of the and going deep on some of the inner muscles and the quads and legs area. And that really helped me to feel better. And then I had a nice conversation as usual, wrapped up with her.
Then my ex-wife was picking the kids up today. So I just went back to my house and was trying to figure out like, what am I going to do with my work? It's so nice after paying for the matchmaking service. My mind is just obsessed all day, every day about business for once. And I am stuck on the idea today that maybe I could get some high paying coaching clients that I could charge higher than therapy, but lower than executive coaching, maybe like $250 an hour and sell packages for like monthly for like $750. But I'm having a hard time imagining getting clients for that because I don't know if that's the best way for me to provide my own unique value. Like that's something I could do if I had a different context. I've been thinking today the show might not work that well. It could be hard to get people to attend. I'm kind of down on the show. So we'll see where that goes going forward.
My ex-wife drops the kids off and they come over and go play with their friends for a while. And at one point, my son comes back and he's upset about something that happened, but he won't talk about it. Then my daughter comes back crying all red faced right afterwards. And then my son comes back and it turns out that my daughter took this little plastic sword away from him that they are playing with. And then my son came back right after that and was upset. And I asked him what was wrong, but he wouldn't talk about it. Then he went back over and started hitting her and they caused a fight and everything with the kids which i thought was sad. They played most of the time really nice but then like guys can't, especially playing with other kids you know, can't. Next time you know, son, if you just talked about it instead of going to hit your sister, like this would have been so much nicer for everybody. My ex-wife was there too and we helped the kids feel better.
Then the kids got ready to go to my daughter's basketball after having some dinner. Then at my daughter's basketball, I'm just playing around, having fun. I sit down for like five minutes wanting to, you know, I'm like, I'll just rest and watch my daughter play. But I have too much energy to sit and rest. So I go grab a basketball and I'm dribbling it and I'm waiting for a chance. You know, there's four different kids groups playing. There's six total basketball hoops in the usual setup where there's two shorter courts, two shorter full courts than the one full court in the middle. So I try and wait till I have a chance to shoot on some of the baskets and just dribble around. Then the one group of kids, maybe like 10-year-old boys, the coach is going to do sprints with them because he's telling them, you know, they're not moving around how he wants to see on the court and they need to have endurance and all that stuff. So I thought it'd be funny to just sprint with them. So I dropped my basketball. And when he says go, I sprint with them and I blow them away, man. Like I'm several like paces ahead of them. I finished the second like sprint back. You know, you sprint to one line and come back. I finished that one like I'm done before anyone else has gotten halfway. And I'm pretty proud of myself. I'm like, damn, I love how fast I am.
And then this mom that I talked to that was there last week, she laughed so hard I can hear her laugh from, you know, like 10 or 20, maybe 10 yards away, 30 feet away. And I felt really good about that. Like your boys out here peacocking for the moms playing basketball. It just feels so good to like have that playful energy still. And, you know, I'm the one parent that's out here like messing around, having fun while all the other parents just sit there on their phones. I'm like, that's I feel like I'm doing something right. I do get a chance to shoot as some of the kids move in closer to their baskets, but I'm shooting three pointers and one of my three pointers hits a boy in the head after it bounces off the rim. Another one of my three pointers there, they're literally like playing a game. And my ball jumps in and this kid that gets my ball just like starts playing with it. Like it's part of the game. So now they got two basketballs and that screws the whole game up. And then the coach has him do something else after that. I'm like, all right, I guess I need to chill a little bit. I'm getting to be a little obnoxious right now. So I dribble around a bit more and I'm a little careful with where I'm shooting. Although I still bounce a couple of basketballs right through where my daughter's trying to play.
I tell my son, I'm like, I think you'd have fun playing this. Like, don't you want to do basketball too? There's a group of boys that I think are just a year or two older than my son playing on the court next to us. And I think he would have a great time out there. My son starts making me laugh because he starts doing what he thinks of as pushups, but he's basically doing hip thrusts. So he's got his arms locked out straight and his legs back like he's in a plank. But then he's just thrusting his hips up and down into the floor. I'm over here next to this, not the mom that laughed, but another mom. I'm over here laughing at my son because he's like doing these hip thrusts across the gym. I'm like, that's my boy. Oh, boy.
And then I run around. I do a whole bunch of sprints too. Like I sprint all the way through the long full court whenever there's a chance. I missed this one. I'm trying to like do a full court sprint layup, but instead of laying it up, you know, on the right side. I'm like jumping to lay it up on the left side, but spinning. So I'm laying it up backwards on the left side. You know, of course, trying to show off and have fun. I miss at least 10 times before I get it. But then I get it a couple of times. And I end up getting all sweaty and having a nice workout myself while my daughter's playing basketball, which seems ideal. I say hi to the mom. And after I tell her, thank you for laughing and noticing me. You know, it felt good. And then I say, you know, bye to her at the end of the after basketball's done. Her daughter's like, how do you know him, mom? Like, well, he's a dad of the girl on your team. Making new connections. And it's nice. I'm just so relaxed. I'm just having fun being myself. It feels really good.
On the way out of the basketball, the kids want to go to a grocery store so they can get some milk so we stop at a grocery store on the way home even though it's pushing bedtime later which is a little annoying. We get to the grocery store, they both get baskets and argue over how many items each of them has in each basket as I'm putting some stuff I want to buy in one basket and well my daughter now has two more items than my son in his basket and it's not fair. We get to the checkout, my daughter realizes the organic whole milk that she grabbed seems to be leaking and there's milk all over, but I squeeze it and it's not leaking that bad. Like where there's milk shooting out or anything. So I'm like, whatever, it's fine. Let's go. It's getting late. We get home and when we open the milk, it's definitely rancid. And my daughter's like, see, I told you, dad. I'm like, you were right. And I was wrong, sweetie. You were right. And I was wrong. My daughter's like, now we don't have any milk, dad. I'm like, well, you're right. You're right. And I was wrong. Sorry. They get in bed and manage to screw around until it's almost 10 o'clock. But I'm patient, you know. I hope it's enough sleep for them. And I get a shower myself while they're getting ready for bed. And we all get into bed around 10.
If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.