Ramon’s Greatest Hits of 2018

Current 9-5 Job – that provides more room for career growth, filled with a lot of experts I can learn from and a supportive boss.

Meditation – has been added to my daily routine. More clarity on my daily activity.

Improved Writing – less time required to write. Better positioned to send a clearer message to my readers.

Improved Productivity – 10% better at dealing with indecision. No more waiting for the “starts to align” before taking action. No, not acting on impulse, but more on the removal of petty excuses that causes me to be complacent.

Generally Happy-er – 30% happier from all the blessings, challenges and stories I acquired this year. I’ll keep that vague because it’s too personal. However, if you really wanna know then I suggest we meet up for a cup of coffee or breakfast 😉

Books Read on 2018

Principles by Ray Dalio – because I wanna become a more effective employee in a big organization (and life in general) [summary here].

Brodo: A Bone Broth Cookbook by Marco Canora – because I wanted to cook something easy and nutritious. With soup, all you need to do is dump all the ingredients, let it sit there for a few hours, add salt and pepper and you’re done. However, the Brodo cookbook is a little more complex than that. I don’t follow it exactly, instead, I use it as a guide. [more about it here].

Contagious by Jonah Berger – because I’m looking into ways to improve the ideas I have for my artwork and blog and for a better way to spread the word on the world wide web [more about it here].

This Book Will Teach You How To Write Better by Neville Medhora – because (for obvious reasons) I wanted to become a better writer. Why Neville? Look him up. Read his stuff and you’ll understand why [more about it here].

The Happy Body by Aniela and Jerzy Gregorek – because I wanted to improve my posture and physical health. It’s easy to follow and very different from hitting the gym or treadmill for hours [more about Jerzy Gregorek here].

Ogilvy On Advertising by David Ogilvy – because I wanted to learn more about creating images for ads. This book goes hand-in-hand with copywriting [more about David Ogilvy here].

The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday/Stephen Hanselman – because I wanted to become better at dealing with the unforeseen shit that could happen any time in my life [more about it here].

Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker – because I needed to be healthier and have better focus. Without sleep, I can’t function properly. If I can’t function properly, I wouldn’t be able to achieve all the goals, success and stories I came up with this year [more about it here]. So…

What Happened in 2018?

*all the blue text are links to the post. Hope you enjoy reading them 🙂

Week 1 – add meditation and exercise to my daily routine

Week 2 – thought about fasting on my birthday. No, I ended up not doing it.

Week 3 – confessed to my boss (manufacturing start-up company) that I did not want to stick around with the company.

Week 4 – job interview at one of the previous companies I worked for. Yup, full 360. I’m going back.

Week 5 – updated my goals to make them WAY easier to achieve. Why would you set yourself up to fail if you can set yourself up to win? Unless you like losing.

Week 6 – tried online grocery shopping. My reasoning? Time is more expensive than money. So why bitch about paying $5.00 extra so you don’t have to wait in line, walk around and get irritated by people who have 50 items in their cart at the “express” counter?

Week 7 – I bought Principles by Ray Dalio (book). Books are cheap investments that could 10x the quality of your life. But that only happens when you apply the lessons. You’ll never learn how to swim by reading books or increase your I.Q. by reading.

Week 8 – unemployed. Again. Officially stopped working for the start-up. I’m “nomadic” when it comes to my career. Complacency kills (your career growth).

Week 9 – how I view and deal with anxiety. Watch the Youtube video at the end to understand my analogy. Hint: it involves a dog running on the beach.

Week 10 – the return of the prodigal son employee.

Week 11 – burned out…

Week 12 – officially added meditation to my daily routine. Now I can put more focus on becoming more physically fit. That’s why I bought…

Week 13 – The Happy Body: to make my body…happy LOL. Lame I know.

Week 14 – “three 1’s”: 1-on-1 catch-up, 1-month review, and that 1 time I almost drowned because of excitement.

Week 15 – fell out of sync: the struggle to stay on “the path”.

Week 16 – me. Angry. How I dealt with “The Hulk” that lives in me.

Week 17 – meditation: check. New job: check. Workout: check. Not sure what I should do next.

Week 18 – misunderstood the phrase “Don’t work hard. Work Smart”.

Week 19 – working with dicks and bitches: the 10 stereotypes.

Week 20 – virtual possibility: what running with a marathon runner reminded me.

Week 21 – I’m no superman or spider-man that can address multiple problems – all at the same time. I don’t cater to everyone or everything. I go by what’s listed in my priority list.

Week 22 – I was reminded of the pain of wrong ASSumptions and the benefits of teamwork.

Week 23 – Hide-n-Seek with the turtle + lessons from the “Freshmaker”.

Week 24 – Sobriety at a bachelor’s party day. 

Week 25 – general check-up + imaginary sickness? Imaginary whaa?

Week 26 – hiking at Joffre Lake and impulsive planning.

Week 27 – purchased a discounted meditation app for a year of Headspace.

Week 28 – on dealing with guilt + addiction. And insights from observation.

Week 29 – how news of a friend’s sudden death reminded me that there’s a reason why God does not want us to know how much time we have left – to push us to live our lives to the fullest every f*n day!

Week 30 – memories stored in the house I grew up in was washed away by the flood…

Week 31 – the last 3-weeks were pretty heavy on my psyche. This week was about starting over.

Week 32 – going back at it: MSPainting and all that jazz.

Week 33 – started a new MSPaint art series: Female Anime Characters. Art promotion. Brainstormed ideas to exercise my “creativity”.

Week 34 – stress and the acid reflux that made me paranoid.

Week 35 – how I poorly dealt with awkward meet-ups.

Week 36 – closed my first business venture. Then signed up to do another one – sell life insurance.

Week 37 – realization: life will go out of its way to make you better. Run and you will suffer from it OR face it and you gain a lot from it.

Week 38 – ideas are cheap. Turning the ideas into reality = expensive on time and money and patience. Released my first E-Magazine for my MSPaint art.

Week 39 – my week in Alabama.

Week 40 – tough week: the girlfriend’s dad had a stroke…

Week 41 – suffering from deafening silence + feeling lonely…

Week 42 – distracting myself from the challenges that are happening behind the curtain scenes – I had to keep going.

Week 43 – day-dream happens when you don’t really care about what’s happening.

Week 44 – experimenting with new ideas for my MSPaint art: Profile Pictures.

Week 45 – I’ve been spending a lot of my time to read the resources on selling insurance.

Week 46 – bad customer service + missed coaching call + getting burned out on studying for my insurance broker license.

Week 47 – received tough feedback for my website’s About Page: it was confusing af.

Week 48 – attempted to pass the practice quiz on ethics (for my insurance license).

Week 49 – accidentally used a credit card I did not even want.

Week 50 – conducted my first training + running an exercise to engineering managers at work.

Week 51 – I wanted to use the Christmas break to get some work done. But I ended up just relaxing and did nothing anyway. All talk no action.

Week 52 – first Round-Up Post: Summary of my 2018. Played Black-Ops 4 til I get sick of it. Started thinking about what I want to accomplish next year.

What about you? What did you do this year?

What stories of success/failure have you collected/created?

Are they worth sharing?

Regardless of the number, I hope you’ll come up with more stories next year.

Have a Kick-Ass New Year!!