Category: Spiritual

Why Focus is My Word of the Year

Every year, I pick a word. The first one was at the end of 2022; I picked “honesty” retroactively. Because I wasn’t really being honest with myself about my personal and professional development. As I continue using these words, I’m realizing that both of those forms of development help each other. It’s a symbiotic relationship. When I develop myself professionally, my personal life benefits and vice versa.

Previous Years Words

You can review previous posts that I created in January to read up on my path. Others were “Consistency“, “Integrated“, and last year was “Novelty“. This year I will Focus.

I’ve got to the point where I realize that I’m not choosing these words. It’s not really accurate to say that these words choose me, either. Seeing as they’re just a verbal representation of ideas. It’s more like the ideas have found me, and I’m allowing them to shape me. (If you can subscribe to the ideas of Elizabeth Gilbert and Rick Rubin; that ideas exist separately from the humans that find them.)

Why Focus after Novelty?

Last year, I spent time remaining mostly sober and seeking out novelty. Novelty is about saying yes to experiences, seeking out new opportunities, and doing as much as you can. Then those experiences leave impressions or memories on your mental timeline. This, in turn, expands your perception of time. Since time is a construct of the mind anyway, our perception of it is all that matters. Broadening our experiences in the name of making our lives feel longer may be the closest thing we will ever get to time travel.🧘

I: spoke at conferences, pretended I started my own conference, started a podcast, recorded live podcasts, continued certifications in Game Learning, and developed a card game about my industry… …all while spending time with my family, updating a rental propery and learning how to play Pokémon Go.

Screenshot

You can read my post from 2025 if you want to learn about novelty.

I have noticed my “words of the year” tend to expand and then contract. Go out, try new things, and then reel it back in. Like an ebb and flow, like an inhale in an exhale. Like contrasting values to create a physical form on a two-dimensional surface.

Novelty was about expanding, saying yes to new things, whereas Focus is about contracting. I selected focus, and then the word opportunity came to me; something about that didn’t feel right. Having a year of novelty and then a year of seeking out opportunity. Somehow it seemed to distort the balance like a double yin and not enough yang.

Focus

I need more focus. I need to focus more on what really matters. Spending time with my kids while they are still young and still need me. I need to focus on opportunities that provide a return. In this way, it’s all connected anyway, but this is a better way to frame it.

Was it not enough that my wife shared, “You need to focus, David.”

My mom also said, “You are always running somewhere lately. You are always in a hurry.”

That’s not like me. That’s not how I naturally am. The year of Novelty turned me into a scattered runner. Trying to do more novel things, and I need to round that off. This morning I had a realization after an early set of yoga with some black coffee. I had a good feeling, and it came to me as a visual… I tried to recreate it with Adobe Firefly, and it isn’t half bad…

A yellow raft floats in a dark oily water filled with sharks and squid. It floats effortlessly below the clear blue sky with puffy white clouds.

This morning, I had a realization. This place I am visualizing has a certain mental buoyancy. You effortlessly float above all the sludge. All the worry, all the dread, all the ignorance, and all the drunkenness. Like a small raft floating over an ocean of beasts, poison, and misdirection. Not hydroplaning over the ocean, and not sinking either. Between the layer of dark oily liquids and the thick air, hovering, balanced.

Focus = Relaxed + Aware

I was listening to the first episode of 10% happier, the podcast by Dan Harris. He had his master instructor, Joseph Goldstein, on the show. They were talking about a new book. They’re writing where they’re using. Dr. Goldstein‘s catch phrases on how to be better at meditating… things like “When you are sitting, realize you are sitting.” Or “Just try again, just keep trying.” Or “Mara, I see you.” Mara here being the embodiment or physical representation of ignorance or temptation.

The part of the discussion that really stood out to me was absolutely fundamental. The idea of being both relaxed and aware. That really is the goal of meditation, isn’t it? It’s the goal of all religions. If you’re too relaxed to get all spaced out. If you’re too aware, you start to get too deep and start worrying about things. Things that don’t matter or that you can’t control. It is obvious, and it is easier said than done.

This Must Be the Path!

I wanted to find a single word that represented both of these things: being relaxed and aware. I’m not 100% certain that when I went back to the word, focus, I hit the mark. I do feel it fits the bill. I really don’t feel like I’m forcing a square peg into a round hole. Feels more like I loosely inserted a round peg into a square hole. It fits, but there’s some empty space around it. It doesn’t wiggle, there’s still room for improvement, and if you’ve read any of my stuff you kind of know that that’s my thang.

I SEE YOU MARA!

GAMELAYER: Behind the Scenes of a New Radio Show 📻

My Unexpected Experience with Riverside.FM

I recently conducted a test recording using Riverside.FM, and it exceeded my expectations. The platform asked dynamic, open-ended questions that really got me talking. Although it was just a demo, I had a blast creating it, and the end result provided a great description of my upcoming radio show, #GAMELAYER.

Riverside.fm Test Recording

Why Publish Unrehearsed Content?

Initially, I had no plans to publish my first experience with Riverside.FM. However, I was pleasantly surprised by its capabilities. It offered high-definition recordings for multiple participants and provided a range of video editing tools and open-source music. While I couldn’t add transitions to images or videos, I could fade music in and out. Overall, it was impressive for a free platform. As someone who loves using free software (much to the dismay of my computer engineer friends), I was thrilled.

What’s Next?

I’ve been working hard on editing the first episode of #GAMELAYER, which features a series of phone tag audio messages sent via text. I’m torn between using the original low-fi recordings to emphasize the casual nature of phone chats or enhancing the audio for a more professional sound. I think I’ll publish the high-quality version as a podcast and host the low-resolution version on the transcript page of my Substack newsletter.

Gamelayer.fm

I recently purchased the domain Gamelayer.fm but haven’t successfully linked it to my Substack account. Instead, it redirects to Substack’s main page, which isn’t very useful. I’m considering building a landing page with Parallax animations on Amazon AWS, but I’ve read that the process might be similar to linking to a Substack account, which could be just as challenging. For now, I have some ideas, but they’re still in development.

Build It

Currently, my focus is on recording the show. However, I might need to reach out to experts to help launch the webpage. Alternatively, I can let the podcast distribute across platforms via Red Circle for now and work on the webpage after the show’s official launch.

“All that matters is that you are making something you love, to the best of your ability, here and now.”

― Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being

The Art of Play: Building Bonds Through Simple Adventures

Unless we live in a monastery, we all have busy lives,
and it’s important to find time to do less.

1. Monastery or Mayhem?
~Finding Balance in the Game of Life

So, just to be clear, I do not work at a monastery, and I have chosen to generate offspring. So for me, it is crucial to build in time for doing less. It’s crucial to build activities into our schedule that don’t really have any purpose other than leisure, fun, relaxation, or recharging our batteries. Last month, I took some time off from work because my daughter wanted to ride the carousel. So I booked time into my schedule to do that, and we entered the game-layer.

2. Quest for Gas: The Pre-Game Adventure

We were riding the merry-go-round, but let me back up. I picked her up from school, and we were driving to the park that had a historic merry-go-round. I needed to stop and get gas. At the time, I had already started recording for this podcast. I was playing an audio text message game of chess with my friend Sarah. She had expressed anxiety about being on a podcast show, and when I asked her to record a message that says “play chess,” she ended up sending me a three-minute recording about how she was doing that day and slowly phased in the statement I was seeking. Naturally, I just texted her back, thanked her, and then created my own audio message, thus beginning our chess game podcast via text message audio recording.

3. The ICEE Expedition: Fueling Fun

As I was driving to get gas, I got out of the car and recorded a message back to Sarah. Then I went in with my daughter and bought her an ICEE, which is a very special treat in our world. I sent the audio message, not knowing that in two days my new iPhone would automatically delete it. We went to Faust Park, and I purchased three tickets each to ride the carousel repeatedly. I made videos of the carousel, and later my daughter commented on how we weren’t in the videos. I created videos about the firsthand experience because I was in the game layer; I was focused on the process and the environment more than the faces of the people around me.

4. Emotions on Replay: The Carousel Connection

What struck me the most about the experience of riding the carousel with my daughter was obviously the emotion on her face, but that was for my soul. I didn’t want a record of that to be posted on my blog or captured in my podcast. I did take a lot of pictures of her, and there is some video of her riding the carousel, but I’m not going to share that footage here, and that’s intentional.

5. Soundtrack of Play: The Symphony of Joy

The reason this moment struck me to my core is because I was creating time for fun. I was planning play into my schedule. What struck me the most about the experience was mostly the sound.

There was the canned music in the beginning, which was overpowered by the mechanical sounds of the ancient carousel lumbering across its hub. The second round on the carousel also had canned music, but it was a different song—maybe a better song. But the third round was the best. The operator fired up the old Orchestrion, a mechanical instrument slightly bigger than a piano that can synthesize an entire orchestra with reels, xylophone, real drums, real chimes, and even real trumpets.

(Now I wanted to call that a glockenspiel which does seem like a better name, but apparently a glockenspiel is just a xylophone with metal bars.)

This is the experience that I had come for—not spinning around on an old, ancient wooden horse—although I did enjoy that significantly. It was the machine—the small machine that didn’t dish out a synthesized audio recording from a hard drive. It played; it had analog motors with sticks that struck objects. It was a physical representation of the GAMELAYER.

6. Rainy Day Revelations: A Walk Back to Base

After we got off the merry-go-round, my daughter and I were outside walking back to the van in the rain. I noticed a different energy about her. She was commenting nonchalantly about the pavement and the grass. And she turned around and looked at the building that contained the massive artifact of play. She said something that, to a six-year-old, is a comedic masterpiece: something about those people getting to live in there—that must be so fun! I agreed with her even though I knew I wasn’t understanding that statement on the level she was.

7. Heart-to-Heart Co-op: Building Bonds Through Play

My daughter turned and told me that she loved me, and I told her I loved her too, because I do. She asked me to carry her, which is basically her way of asking for a hug. So I carried her through the rain back to the van, and we spoke openly and freely, and our hearts connected through our words. And in the tone of her voice, I could tell that I had made a difference. I had put her needs ahead of my needs; in that way, we became better friends—we became closer. I built trust with her; I made time for her, I created empty space so that she could play.

8. The Missing AudioQuest:
~ Will Sarah Save Our Game?

Oh, and the audio recordings that my phone deleted? I think Sarah has those—or at least she said she does! We’ll see if she makes the choice to share them back with me so that I can add them into our audio-chat-message cat phone tag game of chess radio show episode of GAMELAYER.

Thanks Perplexity

I would like to personally thank Perplexity.ai for helping me shape this up for readability without changing my message, writing style, nor tone.

“What’s the passcode?
Carry me. Carry weary.”
[What I mean to say is I want a hug from you daddy.]

The 100th Post: Unveiling the iSPEAK Project

Personal Reflection

When I started the blog I was getting my Master’s Degree in Instructional Design. It was from a smaller local liberal arts college. The college had a strong online program with a foundation in technology. Fontbonne is not the greatest college in the world. In a few years, it will sadly close its doors. I believe that is a sign of our Post-Covid 19 world. It is not an indicator of the quality of education the University provided. Still, it gave me a great education and I am forever grateful. Thank you Fontbonne U. for showing me how magical online learning can be when done correctly, and getting me started on this beautiful journey.

The 100th Post

The thought came on a whim. It was a boring day at work that was infinitely brightened by a call from a friend. A conference call with people who did what I did but on the next level. They had been trainers, they had been designers but now they had died and moved on to bigger things. Traveling the world to speak at conferences, starting their own business, becoming keynote speakers.

The keynote speaker bit really caught my attention. So when Kassy said you need a strong speaker reel to be a real speaker, I had an idea. A potion of an idea. A crazy Dave of the theater idea. The sort of idea you get from listening to WEEN rock out your whole life.

Influence of Ween on Dave

If you don’t know WEEN they are the strangest band you never heard of. Unbridled creativity and a sense of power that no other band seems to wield… and some drugs. Lots and lots of drugs. They have said themselves in interviews that most of their best songs were conceived just before recording. These songs were written and recorded in under an hour’s time. I believe that. It is easy to believe. It has always inspired me. The speed of production and creative freedom, not the drugs.

The thing about WEEN, is you were never sure what you were gonna get. Each album was its in a genre, not to mention a new universe.

Then in 2016, they got the band back together. In 2023 came to St. Louis while my brother was visiting from Japan… So we went. They were better than ever, it was amazing. What had changed was they had a new crowd in the audience. Before it was the art crowd. The weirdos from every town. Now it was remnants of the stinky neo-hippy crowd. It didn’t matter. I didn’t care They still sang out harder than anyone I have seen rock out.

So What?

OK, Yes. That was way too much back story on Ween. I hope you check them out if you don’t know about them. Fast forward, to the 100th post of Improvement Dave, in 2024! It somehow channeled some of that energy that WEEN brings to the table without even trying. There was some coffee involved, but not very much. When people read the post and watch the video, the next comment tends to be around partying or drugs. (Why I thought of WEEN! 😂) I should just take in stride.

It was a very liberating post to create. People have said they review the video to reduce stress. Besides who am I trying to impress at this point? I have a successful and fulfilling career. I have a loving wife and two beautiful children who completely love me. (Well, they are still young) I am building my real estate empire!… and Yet, I was stone-cold-sober when I recorded iSPEAK. The excitement of making the post revved me up. I got Punch-drunk on the muse.

Here is the point, the video landed me a speaking gig at a local conference!

iSPEAK

The post was written much later than the video. The video carries the post, and somehow people have already calling me the iSPEAK guy. It is OK, I like it. The whole project is true to my brand. Do something bold, do it for free, do not over-rehearsed, be brutally honest, and don’t take yourself too seriously.

If you want you can check out my 100th post here:

https://improvementdave.com/2024/08/08/ispeak-real-speakers-need-speaker-reels/

Upcoming Projects

This was a fun post, but the post is just the beginning. I am developing learning sessions about how to be a better designer. To be a champion for the learner. I have a working title of “Get Out of The Way!” a command to educators to make room for the learner in the learning event. To make it about the learner and their experience. If we do not make room for their journey, deep learning does not happen. The whole damn thing is in vain.

My first speak will be in St. Louis at the ATD St. Louis LEARN Conference:

Speaker Bios can be see on this page.

I tell myself I am excited about it. If I am being honest, I am terrified. I have anxiety from not building out the presentation completely. I also haven’t rehearsed as much as I should by now. The problem is, I will do just fine.

What’s Next?

I started writing this post less than thirty minutes ago and now I am going to publish it. I still need to find a cover image. This was a simple message to recognize that my promise to myself in 2023 was to be consistent. I have been consistent. Now I am working on being more integrated, to tie all of my selves together. I aim to be a more whole person. In many ways I see that working.

Moving forward, I hope to keep the creative spark alive. I want to do what WEEN did later in their career. Don’t record a song 20 minutes after you thought about. Get the idea and then build on it, develop it, cite sources, generate illustrative examples, and tell relevant examples. In the next post, which I have been working several weeks on, I hope to do just that. To have fun with it, but do better at delivering a message the reader can walk away with. To give the reader something they can use… Like a gift. A gift for Improvement.

Quote

Facts are the Opinions of Numbers

~ David Kolmer

Grateful to be Alive

I want to share that I have lived a full life. I have sucked the sweet marrow out of life and lived life to the fullest. I should have died multiple times but I did not die, and for that I am thankful. I love that I am alive.

Thanksgiving

This is a big holiday in the United States. It had never been my favorite. The staples are glutinous action and binging American football. Oh, and we pretend that we did not euthanize the native Americans. These are not things I hold close to my heart. Give me Halloween and Christmas all day long, but I can leave Thanksgiving at the dinner table.

When the Puritans and the first white people landed in the American nation we had basically no plan. I say “we” here because I am German/Hungarian and therefore caucasian, but I do not adhere to any of the Puritan doctrines. (Idealistic Christian beliefs that included spreading hate and fear of those who who ar not white and heterosexual.)

The first white people in the Americas were lost and afraid. They probably ate corn and some deer with the Native Americans in a desperate attempt to stay alive. This has evolved into a gluttonous feast around pumpkin pie, sugared cranberry, and Turkey. I mean, Turkey is a superfood so I am totally on board with that part, regardless of the historical inaccuracy.

In fact, we had such a poor plan that the first white British colony resorted to cannibalism just to survive. and then there is the fact that we wiped most of the Native Americans off the face of the earth. Not no real reason to celebrate in my book. In spite of all of this, I am still happy and I am still grateful.

If you disagree you should listen to this masterpiece by Avery Trufelman

https://archive.curbed.com/2019/5/30/18644531/nice-try-curbed-podcast-jamestown

I am Grateful because IT IS THE WAY

Thankfulness is a buzzword. Let’s just call it what it is. At this point, it is a painful offshoot of the frenzy of consumism by the most successful capitalist society of all time. But the US needs to watch out because China is closing in on us for such a prize.

That is not what I mean in this post. I am talking about being grateful for the benefits of gratitude. Now there is plenty of research on how this act of being thankful decreases the stress hormone cortisol, and I am an avid listener of the 10% Happier Podcast, but I am going to fall back on Headspace in my content curation here because Headspace is the BOMB.com. If you are not using Headspace then where have you been!? You need to get on that, BOSS!

What is one thing you are thankful for today!? Be mindful of being thankful for what is good. The delight will overwhelm you and the fact that we have systematically disenfranchised the women and people of colour in this world will start to matter less. Or at least, they will not overwhelm you with guilt as they tend to do for me on this dreadful holiday of denial of history.

Move Forward

I got dark here. I got a bit too real for some. If this is too real you need to grow a pair (testicles or ovaries, however, you identify.) If you live a life of privilege you need to own that shit and live up to it. You need to capitalize on that shit so that you can empower those who have been disenfranchised by the very systems that empower you.

“When you practice gratefulness, there is a sense of respect towards others.”

The Dalai Lama

How to Generate Solutions Easily

Yesterday I mentioned in my blog that as I am creating videos to post on my Vlog of my doing my 50 pushups a day for St. Jude, my camera on my phone keeps crashing or shutting down. Sometimes this happens when an alarm goes off, but other times I’m not sure if it crashed or if I failed to hit record.

Last night I went to bed asking myself, “How can I solve this issue without buying a stand-alone camera or a new phone that I only use for making these videos?” … I really like how my phone connects with iCloud and then later the videos are just on my computer or easily available for download on the cloud web page. (That reminds me I need to delete all that raw video that I have processed and posted on YouTube.com)

The Power of Your Subconscious Mind

I have spoken about this book before and I will speak about it again.

The_Power_of_Your_Subconscious_Mind by Joseph Murphy

The method of this book is asking yourself a question a few times before you go to bed. Then, have a good long night’s sleep, (or not, I mean that is not as good but you do you.) […On the side, hey you should really prioritize your sleep. No, seriously, sleep cures stress and stress kills you.] While you sleep your subconscious mind works through the details and provides you with the best possible solution or solutions based on what you know and remember. Really you are tapping deep into your subconscious, so you really are using the power of things you don’t know that you know. The book gets even deeper still and basically labels this as an unlimited resource not dissimilar from getting messages from “The God”. Honestly, if you adhere to the research and proof of the Collective-Subconscious then this really isn’t that far-fetched.

Ask yourself a question a few times before you go to bed. Ask your subconscious to solve the problem. You will have solutions when you wake up.

The_Power_of_Your_Subconscious_Mind by Joseph Murphy

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/68984.The_Power_of_Your_Subconscious_Mind

https://soundcloud.com/kexp/under-the-needle-episode-154-khruangbin?si=2f971492e69c4cc08c3ede6e4efb0fd3&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

The Solution Provided

So, when I woke up I was staggering around my bathroom in the dark. I hadn’t had any coffee yet and I was going to brew a cup. Then I realized I had an idea. When I record I could simply put the phone in airplane mode. That would disable all the phone calls, text messages, and alerts. I am not completely convinced it will disable the alarms set, (which really do cause the biggest problem), but there is only one way to try it out and that is to test it. Today was Saturday so Science failed for today… HA! but Monday isn’t that far away.

Also, I could not do my fucking pushups when it is time to take my son to school … …so there is that. [Com’on Improvement Dave. Get it together… Seriously! Improve, make a better plan…that’s like your thing. When it is time to take your kid to school don’t do pushups and record them with your phone, and post them to YouTube.com]

So, there you have it. It is not complicated, but it works every time if you take it seriously. Right before you sleep ask yourself the same question over and over. Meditate on what it is and what you know about it. Then fall asleep.

It Will Work

Enjoy!