"Failure is only the opportunity to begin again more intelligently." -Henry Ford I remember having an employee once who was so damn sure that the reason his pitch was ignored time after time was because of the reporters covering the client’s beat, as opposed to anything he was doing. He was convinced of it. I asked him how he knew, wondering what secret he had about every reporter in the space. His reply? "They all just don’t get it." "So every single reporter in the space doesn’t understand your pitch? All 22 reporters are just too stupid to understand your pitch?" "Yup." "OK, then," I said. About three weeks later, he came over to me to say, "hey, one of [...]

Hashem Ietz-uv. Loosely translated, "God has a plan." I spent about 10 hours in Temple yesterday learning that God has a plan. This isn’t anything I didn’t know, of course, I’ve been going to Temple since I was a matzoh ball. Over the past five or so years, I’ve been paying closer attention – it’s actually fun to learn. So yesterday’s Yom Kippur found me entering Temple as the holiest day of the year began, and leaving after sundown, as the day ended. Of course, I’d been fasting the entire day and evening before, as you do on the holiest day of the year. It’s fun. Take 200 Jews, put them in a room, and watch them get crabbier and [...]

The email came in around 7:30am this morning: After some pleading by some past students, I’ve decided to hold a class in NY Oct. 8th-19th/ 5-6:30 am Oh, yeah. For those not indoctrinated to exactly how high my level of insanity goes, about once or twice a year, I take part in a "bootcamp" class, taught by a former US Navy SEAL. It’s two weeks, from 5am to 6:30am (usually goes longer) of the worst pain you ever thought possible. Muscles on fire, breath coming in short spurts, (when you’re not dry-heaving) and more sweat and hard work by 7am than the rest of New York City will produce the entire day. It’s an amazing two weeks. You will do [...]

Missed a Personal Record today in Central Park by ONE SECOND! Ran really strong for the NYRR Team Championships today – Ran a solid 38:46, or a 7:45 mile – My splits, if you care, were really decent… 7:50, 7:30, 7:42, 7:46, and 7:11, averaging out to 7:45. I’ll take it. One thing I am happy about – check out my heartrate below – that I held an average 162 tells me that my conditioning is paying off – and that my weight is dropping! That thrills me to no end. Also – note that I floored the last mile at a 7:11 – which makes me think it’s possible to do that more – perhaps not for a full [...]

So earlier this week on Facebook, I came across the LaGuardia High School Bike Club. "How cool," I thought. "I have a bike, and I’m a LaGuardia alum! I’ll just email them, and perhaps I can join them for a ride." Stupid Facebook. Well, as it turns out, the club is only open to current LaG students, but that’s ok – the group leader said he’d be happy to meet me for a ride in the park. "How cool," I thought. This will be fun! "How cool!" always seems to get me into so much trouble. I mentioned that this is a high school group, right? Average age, 16? Right. OK, just checking. I’m 35. OK. Just putting that out [...]