So you have found the Happiness Trifecta and are starting to learn more about improving mentally, physically and spiritually. You’ve been learning about waking up early, doing hard things, minimalism, stoicism, FIRE, how to save money, aggregation of marginal gains and accomplishing meaningful goals. I commend you for your diligence.

Now, you’re probably wondering…. “Who is this guy and what exactly are his qualifications?”

My answer is this, I have zero formal qualifications. I am not a “life coach”. I am not a “guru”. In fact, I believe there’s no such thing as a “guru”. I believe we all came built with the internal workings for greatness. We just have to learn how to find and release our hidden potential.

I’m a regular guy, a father of 3 boys, a husband and a pediatric dentist. I love learning new things and implementing them to see what results I achieve. Through the method of learning and implementation, I have accomplished a lot over the years (and failed even more), and in the process learned the principle of the Happiness Trifecta.

Here’s a timeline of a few things I have accomplished since I began the journey. (please forgive me if this sounds like bragging, that is not my intention. Rather, I wish to show a framework of the Happiness Trifecta in action):

• Served in Honduras for 2 years (2002). An accomplishment that set all the others in motion. Living in a third world country, learning a completely new language, serving the people, and doing it all at the age of 19 was the first moment I realized that doing hard things is the secret sauce to a meaningful life.
• Learned to speak Spanish fluently (2004). Late nights, wet pillows from tears and a red face from embarrassment were a few of the things that added to the struggle of learning a new language. As they always do though, the hard difficult times melted away to reveal a new language that I now use every day.
• Started daily exercise habit (2005). Returning home from 2 years of 100% focus on the tasks needed to assist the people of Honduras, left me with a body that had been neglected and rundown. Skinny-fat would be a good word to describe the situation I was in. I made the conscious effort to do something physical for at least 30 minutes each day for the rest of my life. 14 years later and I’m still going strong.
• Became a professional athlete (2005). A culmination of hard work, late nights, early mornings, missed parties, strikeouts, home runs and everything in between combined to allow me the opportunity to get paid to play a game. It was something I strived for my entire childhood and look back at it with honor.
• Began waking early (2007). In order to work on spiritual, mental, and physical improvements I started waking up at 5 am. This, most definitely, is one of the keys to not only getting more done but a key to freeing up time to spend with my family.
• Completed a triathlon (2009). Another goal that was set to push me outside of my comfort zone. Nothing quite like the adrenalin rush of the start of a triathlon.
• Found minimalism (2010). I found minimalism via a simple google search on how to simplify my life. The first two pages caught my eye and have been regular “go-to” sources ever since. A huge thanks to Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus who both write at theMinimalists.com and Joshua Backer who writes at BecomingMinimalist.com. Minimalism helps me focus on what’s important by eliminating the clutter that society can throw at you.
• Became a runner (2011). Decided to give running a try after years of heavy lifting for college sports. I needed a change. Running was the answer. I started small and now crave running like an addict.
• Completed half marathon (2012). My first marathon wasn’t fast. It wasn’t pretty. In fact, I hated most of it. However, I loved the feeling I had after I was finished. Since then I’ve done multiple others and plan to continue until I can’t.
• Bought nothing for 1 year (2013). Difficult? Yes. Worth it? Absolutely. Food, consumables, and gifts for others were all ok to spend money on. Everything else was delayed until after the year was up or repaired.
• Became a doctor (2014). I’m a dentist, actually, a pediatric dentist. I love what I do. It allows me the time and funds to focus on other passions and projects all while helping kids overcome their fears of being in the dental chair.
• Found the Happiness Trifecta (2014). After years of practice and implementation of different routines to cultivate contentment, I stumbled upon something simple yet powerful to assist in daily improvements coupled with contentment. The aggregation of marginal gains, each day, of the body, mind, and soul.
• Simplified my life (2015). Cut out Netflix and cable. Started saying no to anything outside of my zone of contentment. Threw away the television. Deleted all social media outlets, yes, even Instagram and especially Facebook, and it made a huge difference in my contentment.
• Continued my education (2015). Went back to school to become a specialist in the field of pediatric dentistry. 2 years of studies to become a board-certified specialist was a goal with continual rewards being reaped to this day.
• Started the FIRE path (2016). After all was said and done, 4 years of dental school and 2 more years of speciality training, we found ourselves with a mountain of debt. Luckily we found the FIRE (financial independence retire early) community that lead us down the path to freedom of financial stress.
• Tripled my income (2017). All the years of delayed gratification finally paid off.
• Began a meditation practice (2017). Meditation has become a non-negotiable part of my day. It centers my mind and sets me on the right path each morning. There is something magical in the stillness of early morning meditations that brings inner peace.
• Took control of my finances (2018). Started tracking spending more closely. Eliminated a huge portion of debt and started to funnel money into retirement plans, college funds for the kiddos, emergency funds and IRAs.
• Began walking to work (2018). Moved 4 blocks from my office to simplify my morning routine and to see my family more. I’m home for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for most days I work.
• Lost weight (2018). A nice perk to moving more and eating less via intermittent fasting. As a professional athlete, I was always looking for ways to get bigger, faster, and stronger. Now, I look for ways to become leaner, flexible, and content. We all have our ideal weight where we just feel good. I’m finding mine now.
• Saved a sizable emergency fund (2018). Thanks to the advice from the peeps at ChooseFi, Mr Money Mustache, and Dave Ramsey we stepped up our emergency fund to give us some financial leeway to pursue other passions like this blog.
• Started the Happiness Trifecta website (2019). A huge goal that has been in place since I first found the practice of the trifecta. I’m ecstatic to share this journey with you.
• Completely eliminated debt (2019). On March 20th, 2019 we will be completely debt free. A ginormous goal that has weighed down on us like a million bricks. Actually, more like 327,500 bricks that we have had to carry around and acknowledge for the past 2 years. It was something we hated, but something we knew we had to tackle full steam ahead. So we did. And it feels so good.
• Move to Hawaii (2020). We want to be intentional about where and how our three boys are raised. We chose Hawaii to allow them the space and freedom to be wild. No shirt, no shoes, no constraints, in the outdoors is how I want my boys to live…wild and free. 
• Became a millionaire (2021). At 38 years old I became a net worth millionaire. A simple path led us to this goal by living bellow our means, and investing the rest in low cost index funds. This has shown to be the secret to a simplistic path to wealth. No crypto, no day trading, no secrets. 
• What’s next? (2022 & Beyond). Continuing this blog. Podcast interviews. Moving intentionally toward FIRE. Spending time consciously with family and friends. More goals and more failures. Stick around and see what’s next.

Looking back on these things I have accomplished I can’t help but become overwhelmed with gratitude. Gratitude for the pain, the struggles, the late nights, and many many failures along the way. As I said before, I’m not perfect and am not a guru but I am not afraid to try new things and take risks along the way. As I look down the list I realize that there was an added benefit that strung these accomplishments together. When I accomplished one goal, the next goal was teed up with the help of previous achievements. This snowball effect of marginal gains ends up being a big win when you see how far you have come in the long run.

How have I accomplished these tasks? No special life coach, no paid program, and certainly no sacrificing the things that are important in my life. Straight forward methods, the types of things I talk about on this blog and methods I continue to test. Small improvements mentally, physically and spiritually is what it’s all about.

Life is a journey. Life is a long, hard journey. Enjoy the difficulty. Embrace the suck. Live for the challenge because that is where the secret sauce to life is found. We have a lot to discuss and even more to learn, my friends. Join me. Together we can accomplish great feats and have fun doing it.