Paul Garay

I was talking to this huge bodybuilder the other day. The conversation eventually turned to him telling me how his friends use to tease him about being really skinny. And he shared how that fueled him to be massive. I could sense the pride in his eyes as he showed me his contest photos. But…

I am quite a pessimist so I always dwell on problems and things that could go wrong. As I was going to sleep, I read this post on X and I instantly shifted to being thankful. I will make it a habit to count my blessings every moment!

Work hard but don’t expect much from that hard work. Your hard work might make you money. Or your hard work might not result to anything. There are many things that are out of your control when you are working on something, so it is quite reasonable to have low expectation. Low expectations relieves the…

One thing I have learned through the years reading Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, and other Stoics is that you have to let go of things you cannot control. An athlete could pour millions of dollars to his training and preparation, but he cannot control the outcome of a game. Nor can he control the possibility of…

It recently has dawned on me that it is quite futile to seek advice from people who are not living or have lived through your experience. They could sympathize theoretically but it is way different when you lived through that experience. You really feel what the person is going through. Hence, it is better to…

I admire people who are articulate with what they want out of life. They are sure about who they are. They make choices according to what they think and feel is right. Slowly but surely I want to find that clarity.

I see entrepreneurs who are happy with one store. I also see some with the ambition of scaling to multiple locations. Scaling a business has its financial rewards but the level of risk and stress is also high. If you scale a restaurant to 10 locations, now you have more than 10 times the problem.…

I am now experimenting with packaging design. I had to learn about CMYK and Pantone instead of RGB. I absolutely had no clue that digital and print have different color system! So in order to print your designs, you have to convert RGB to CMYK/Pantone so that it comes out as you envisioned it. And…

I am pretty disciplined now when it comes to my diet. I eat very clean. But back then, I ate a lot of junk food – chips, donuts, pizza, ice cream. I not only eat but binge junk food. It was usually a cycle. I vow not to eat junk food, then all of a…

I think a lot of problems can be avoided if you simplify aggressively. Whether it is in business or in your personal life, simplicity can be the cure. I know of business owners who are constantly stressed because they have not developed a system where the business runs without them. And the reason why they…