One of the conversations I overhear most is this. “What’s up?” “Nothing. Just busy.” A close second is this. “You playing any golf?” “Nah. Too busy.”
Now why might someone be so busy? Job, kids, errands, time wasting, staring at phone, sitting in traffic, hasn’t taken the time to understand why he/she seems so busy, etc. Any of those ring a bell? I have been fascinated for years about when being so busy became a badge of honor. If you are busy doing something awesome, meaningful, and fulfilling, I am not talking about that. I am talking about if you are missing out on fantastic life experiences because you haven’t stopped to truly analyze all of the inefficiencies, illogical items, and wasted time in your life. You know…”busy”. I’ve spent tons of time and thought sorting through it. Try it. Remove the barriers. And focus your time, money, and energy on things that you personally love.
I love being outside. I love playing golf. I love playing golf at sunset in Pinehurst. Which leads me to this week’s adventure.
Let me introduce you to my friends Ben from Alabama and Jay from Iowa. We met 2 years and 10 months ago at a work conference in Minnesota.
Through a friend’s hookup, we were able to play Hazeltine National Golf Club right before the Ryder Cup, and that 18 hole walk was where we bonded.
It was magnificent. It was spectacular. It was and is a memory that brings out so much emotion in me. So we decided last year to start an annual adventure focused around golf. We have a 4th friend, Chad from Wyoming, who hosted last year but couldn’t make it this year. His home is on the tip of Yellowstone National Park, and last year’s trip was magnificent.
It was spectacular. It was and is a memory that brings out so much emotion in me. This year, it was my turn. What would be magnificent? What would be spectacular? What would be emotional? Pinehurst, the home of American golf, where the ghosts of the greats fill the air.
I love hanging out with these boys. I love the unusual adventures we get into. I love that I never know what is going to come out of their mouths. And I love the golf.
We traversed North Carolina and played 90 holes of golf over 4 days, some good and some not so good. We ate and drank locally. They met my parents, my family, my co-workers, and some good, good friends. I showed them my world. That’s part of the allure. This ain’t some fancy trip. We ain’t showing off. It’s real.
On Saturday, we stood on Wingate University’s soccer field, my favorite place in the world, as the sun started to set. And on Friday, we lumbered down the last few holes of Pine Needles in Pinehurst, a course that has hosted 3 US Women’s Opens, having played 36 holes. Ben and I were wiped. The sun was setting. And Jay was playing lights out. It was magical. I hope they had a wonderful, wonderful time.
We’ve known each other for less than 3 years. We’ve now done Hazeltine, Yellowstone, and Pinehurst. Beast Mode. Absolute beast mode. Next year is already in motion.
If you haven’t done the exercise, take a few moments to analyze and consider the inefficiencies and wastefulness in your life regarding time, money, lifestyle, etc. I have aggressively attacked those things, and the result is more everything (primarily time) to do things that are awesome, meaningful, memorable, magnificent, spectacular, and emotional. Pinehurst at sunset with the boys. Check.
Doesn’t need to be fancy…just what is specifically meaningful to you.
Have a great week.-Benj
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I have always been interested in the best and the most respected. You know, things that in whatever category have stood the test of time. Stores around for 30 years. Restaurants for 60 years. So on. Has to be good. I’ve never been interested in trends, who is the richest or most popular. Meaningless. So I have been traveling near and far to go see these “best” things and people in person with one or two goals in mind. Pick their brains, and maybe make a connection. And I have.
It is an intimidating proposition, even for someone who does not get intimidated easily, to go introduce yourself to one of the best. But if you truly share passions and there are no ulterior motives, you will connect. And your life will be so much more enriching. Mine has been.
I bought a couple of pieces from TRC on Friday including 2 ties from Kiton and 2 shirts from Hamilton and Eton. These names may mean nothing to you, but they represent some of the most finely crafted articles of clothing in the world. Crafted by
What do you geek out on? Where can you connect? It’s 2018. We live in our phones. But call me old fashioned, the best connection is still in person. A smile. A handshake. Passionate curiosity that you can feel. Whatever it is that makes you, individually, memorable.
Prior to leaving last Friday for this latest adventure, I hadn’t seen my 3 year old son in almost 3 weeks. You see, his mother and I had made the decision to let him spend a fair amount of time this summer with his grandparents at The Farm in Mississippi, getting a different type of education. It’s awesome for his development, but good God, I miss him.
So…let me take you to a few new places along the 2,425 miles I drove this week. New sights. New smells. New emotions. New day. New hope. Last Sunday, the family made Italian subs and sat on the beach in Biloxi and watched the Blue Angels do their show. Quite impressive. Later that night, the men went on an exploratory boat ride, only to stumble upon an entire community of “houseboats”- houses built in the water and only accessible by boat.
I grew up on a college campus, so it’s kind of a thing for me. After visiting, I found the best hole in the wall in town for some red beans and rice. (It was literally underneath an interstate underpass.) Aye, aye was it good.
I then drove for a few hours on I-10 through Cajun country, battling a beautiful storm and that sinking feeling you get when you see that Texas is 880 miles across. At that point, I decided to find a hotel. (I rarely book hotels in advance if I am driving. Allows me to stay nimble.)
I talked hats and had one made for me at Miller Hats in this random industrial area, and then finished at Golf Club of Houston, home of the PGA Tour’s Houston Open.
I had wonderful conversations with my tour guide Harold about his life as a D1 basketball referee, the owner of Miller Hats about how rap culture saved his business, and my playing partner Justin about living a passionate life and combatting hungry raccoons. 
I shared a riveting Saints-Panthers conversation with our Uber driver Morris, as well as traded war stories about the best Kansas City restaurants with our waitress (her hometown). I deheaded fresh shrimp straight off the boat on Friday in anticipation of a shrimp boil with the family on Saturday, which was delicious.
What was my favorite part? That’s easy. My son’s greeting last Friday night, his greeting again Wednesday afternoon, and the fact that he is in the car coming home with us right now!
That is so powerful to me, because I am fascinated with the “why” we as a society do what we do. Why do we treat people the way we do? Why do we behave the way we behave? Why do we teach our kids what we teach them? Why are we afraid to open our minds and our hearts?
I’ve always been curious, but I never had permission to just travel.
I usually travel based on natural curiosity, whims, interests, and desires. Trip Advisor, resorts, etc. do nothing for me. I want to meet the locals. I like to do it an original way. The anything but khakis way. One of a kind. But I am making an exception this week, although it is not really an exception at all. I am going to Houston, TX for the first time because Mr. Bourdain did an episode in Houston. It was fascinating, and I am going to use it as a guide for my trip. I’m not copying, because that’s not my style. But the show introduced me to a joint called Burns Original BBQ. And BBQ, to me, is like air. So damnit, I’m going to Burns Original BBQ Tuesday.
The more I travel, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I know. The more I know, the more I realize that I don’t know a damn thing. And that, my friends, is what the world needs more of. That’s what I’m an advocate for.
Friends, I was in West Virginia last weekend enjoying the PGA golf event held annually in the wild, wonderful state. It inspired this week’s “Best Of” post, because so many people shat on West Virginia, never having experienced it for themselves. Same goes for a lot of places and things.
Having said that, I want to tell you about my infatuation with golf. It’s about a 15 year journey, and I’m going to start with the present. I was down in Southern Mississippi last week, and I got in 2 rounds of golf at one of my new favorites, Shell Landing Golf Club. It’s gorgeous, perfectly manicured, and adjacent to the Gulf of Mexico. Round 1, I shot 87, which easily could have been an 80. Round 2, I shot 99, which easily could have been a 110. It’s maddening.
I have a big goal to become a scratch golfer in 2019. In layman’s terms, that is the consistent ability to shoot at or around par. Before everyone starts laughing, let’s travel back a few years. My dad loves golf, and he tried to get me involved as a teenager. Not interested. Too boring. Early to mid 20s, I caught the bug bad. I joined 2 local rural clubs and played nearly every day, sometimes twice a day. Often, the darkness is what made me quit, only to have the first tee time at sunrise the following morning.
During that time, I got my handicap down to around 3, not shooting out of the 70s for months at a time. Stellar for a complete amateur, and proof that it can be done. I took 1 lesson if I recall, and then just plugged away incessantly. But I had one major problem. I couldn’t be present and stay present. If I screwed up a hole, I couldn’t let it be. I would stew on it, which as you know, just made it worse. Contrastingly, if I had a really good round going, my mind would jump 5 holes ahead to how this could be the best round ever. And, of course, that just ruined it. My best score ever is 76, which I shot multiple times. And I firmly believe that I never beat that because I couldn’t be in the moment. Always behind or ahead.
Okay, non-golfers. Here we go. There are a lot of experts and non-experts out there making noise about the importance of being present. I’m a non-expert, but over the past few years, I have focused in on this concept, that for whatever reason is hard as hell. Minus blow-up holes on the golf course which might have caused me to throw a club or 3 at one stage, I managed the past piece pretty well. Can’t really do anything about something that happened 10 years or even 10 minutes ago. It was the future piece that I had a hard time with. Looking 5 holes ahead. Looking 2 weeks ahead. My 5 year plan. Anything but the present (.com). Well, I’ve worked really hard to sort that out, and I encourage you to do the same.
My 87 in round one was pretty focused, considering I’ve played no more than 10 times in 2018. The flaws were simply physical. No problem. My 99? Well let’s just say, I had 99 problems and that day, being present definitely was 1. Work in process.
3. Bodies of water- Got on a boat in the Gulf of Mexico where I couldn’t see land. Tried to outrun a storm. That solved that.
4. What people think of me-wrote an 
As many of you know, I have found great interest in hats over the past year and a half. I co-designed my first one about 15 months ago in California, and did a second one earlier this year in Texas. I keep telling anyone who will listen that I want to learn how to make hats, which I am still toying with honestly. Do I want to know how to fully make them, or do I just want to take a base model and customize it? It’s like, do I really need to know how to grow my own food, or just know how to cook it? Anyways, I took my first blank base model a couple of weeks ago, and decided to customize it on my own. First thing I did was set the hat on fire in a couple of different places to “distress” it. I had no clue what I was doing, but sometimes you just have to dive in. Then I took a leather necklace that had been made for me from Venetian glass and an Italian coin and wrapped it around the base. Voila. Not another one like it in the world…just how I prefer it.
I wore this hat to a party the day I set it on fire, and it started the conversations that I thought it might. People asked if it caught fire on accident. Others thought the distressing was manure or that it had been dragged through the mud. Regardless, it got people’s attention. It got one of my mate’s attention enough that he has commissioned me to customize one for him. So I am working on that tonight…my first one for someone else. Maybe the beginning of a small business?
In the meantime earlier this week, I took one of my older straw hats, and set it on fire. And as you can imagine but I had not fully thought through, it burnt a nice hole in the damn thing. Right in the front. I was pissed. That was my “mistake”. Then I quickly reminded myself to keep on open mind, and that oftentimes the coolest surprises come out of our “biggest problems” if we keep a positive mindset. So I calmed myself down, and then proceeded to set it on fire 4 or 5 more times. I’ve let it rest on my table for most of the week, sneaking glances every chance I can because I secretly know it’s the coolest, most unique one I’ve done yet.
So what gives this week? 3 things. First, many problems aren’t real problems if you keep an open mind and a positive attitude. Second, if you want to customize hats or grow your own food or whatever sets you on fire (sorry, had to), what’s stopping you from doing it? And third, if you want a custom hat or a custom anything, message me. I absolute love doing it because I love what customization represents. Always have. Everyone in this world is unique, and yet so many people talk, act, think, and dress the same way. Be you. Be free.
Meanwhile, my new friends in Mexico were busy upsetting Germany in the World Cup, and the Swiss surprisingly drew with the Brazilians. Pure magic. See, I’m pulling for Mexico. Team USA didn’t qualify. The folks in Mexico City treated me like 
Speaking of which, my son is a bit of a magician in my eyes. He makes me get out of my seat. There’s a sparkle there. I have been pondering all year what the most important things are that I want to teach my son. Last year, I wrote about keeping that beautiful smile on his 
Long story short, there is an immense amount of great stuff going on in the world right now. Amazing talents. Deep passion. Unreal skills. You personally may not be a professional golfer or soccer or baseball player, but I guarantee you that you possess some piece of magic. In your field of work. A hobby. A skill. Something. The world needs it. The world craves it. Whatever it is, use it. Make your dad proud. Make your son proud. But most importantly, do yourself proud.
Let me tell you about the latest incarnation of Benj, in the hopes that you can glean something valuable from it. Let’s call it Benj 9.0, for simplicity’s sake. Benj 9.0 has a basic annual schedule now. Today through the first Sunday in November is racing season. The first Sunday in November through today is eating season. God, I love good food.
My body can’t take constantly being in marathon shape, so I listen to it. My hunger for life and for literal good food is a choice I make. So I eat and I savor and I don’t care for a good part of the year. But then I crave a stern test that requires discipline, patience, and self awareness, and that’s where today comes in.
If having the country club membership or competing with your neighbor or being comfortable is important to you, go nuts. I’m not a hater. But if there are all these wonderful things that you personally want to do with your life that you are not doing, let me give you some advice. Walk your proverbial ass down to the proverbial track. Start with 2 laps. And see where it takes you. I had to learn this. Man, I had to learn this. But you know what? I ran 2 laps today. In a few months, I’ll be able to run 104 freaking laps. And along the way, I’m going to savor the journey once again. (And probably a few pizzas and burgers as long as y’all don’t tell.)
anything but khakis 