PROJECT QUALITY OF LIFE, LLC
ROYAL PALM BEACH, FLORIDA

Hi, and welcome to Project Quality of Life. My name is David Roman. I live in a middle-class household, in a middle-class neighborhood. I have an incredible wife and two incredible children that I would do anything for. I have a “9 to 5” career, which I absolutely love, working for a great organization, managing a team of incredible employees and have no immediate plans of leaving this position. I have faced many barriers throughout my life which has provided me with an obsession to always learn and grow. This post was started 10/11 and the week is flying. I was making good progress in this week with another day in the gym consecutively. My wife decided to get the whole house sick and here I am in 10/29 finishing the post. Oh well, what are ya gonna do ? You have to scramble the old pattern of thinking and feeling; this is best done by using something unusual, such as making a radical change in what you say or how you move your body. So with that debacle comes a lot of wasted time watching the game and being unproductive but what are ya gonna do. We all have our vices. So how do we come back? The one thing I didn’t do today was let this affect my productivity. I was up at 4 AM for a gym session and some pre-work tasks to prepare me for the week. Speaking of productivity, its time for Day 4 of Personal Power. This day was spent on neuro associations. Whatever pleasure or pain we associate or “link” to a situation in our nervous system is going to determine our behavior. Having this long-term picture will help us through some of the short-term challenges we face. It will help us put perspective around things so that we remain driven. The Cowboys play the Green Bay Packers today. This is the very team that knocked us out of the playoffs last year so there will be some vengeance brewing. It’s going to be a tough game but will be a litmus test for where we really are this year. At 2-2 we are looking very mediocre. If they cannot beat the Packers at home with everything that happened last year I don’t know that they will have the heart to make it through the season as a true competitor. Okay, I’m done channeling my inner Rich Eisen. Back to the task at hand. The pain associated with exercising every single day is very simple. The time spent exercising has to come from somewhere. It usually comes from the sleep or from the fun category. For me personally, I feel that I need to go to the gym or exercise first thing in the morning because I do not have the energy to do so after work. The only way to do this before work is to get up at 4 AM during the week. By doing this I am losing out on a couple of hours of sleep. I have to be in bed at a decent hour otherwise getting up at 4 AM is an arduous task. There are many pleasures I have been able to gain by not exercising every single day. One, it allows me to sleep in during the week. If I don’t have to get up for the gym I can sleep an extra hour minimum, often two. Two, if I know I am not getting up early for the gym I can stay up later. In staying up later I can do more “fun stuff”. When I say “fun stuff”, I am referring to dumb shit I should not be doing anyway (TV, hanging out with friends, eating, etc.) While small pleasures, they are psychological pleasures never the less. There are many reasons why I should exercise some of which are: Because it makes me feel confident. Because it helps me get stronger. Because it makes me proud. Because it helps me achieve the goals I want to reach. Because I feel bad if I don’t. Because it improves my heart health. Because it prevents diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, etc. Because I want to be a good example to my kids. Because I want to look better. Because it lifts my mood. Because it feels good. Because it makes me feel accomplished. Because it helps me lose weight. Because it allows me to eat more. Because it is a way to spend “me” time. So the most obvious reason that I would want a promotion is to make more money. While money does not solve all problems it definitely makes it easier to deal with them. Another benefit of receiving a promotion would be to get further away from middle management. I love my team and it is great to do what I do however 15 direct reports with needs on a daily basis is not the easiest to deal with. Having less direct reports with more time to focus on overall strategy is something I definitely desire. I believe with my time in the trenches and my experiencing managing others through those same trenches that I need to focus more on making our customers, as well as our employees, experience much better through process change. A promotion will allow for me to focus on this aspect. Evaluating what you are doing is important at any stage in someone’s life. It is part of our commitment to lifelong learning. It begins with a goal in mind. My goal throughout this year has been to define a specific path for myself moving forward. This path would be one to financial and personal freedom to do the things that make me the happiest. You would think that this is a very simple thing and that everyone should already be doing this. It has not always been the case for me. By no means am I whining or groaning, I happen to lead a great life. I can lead a better life. Not to benefit myself but to benefit those I love the most and other people that need it the most. So enough with the rambling already, what did I do today to say f#ck it? For one, I refinanced my house to clear some pesky debt that was cramping up my lifestyle. After doing some soul searching and reading some great books on money management I thought it was time for a total money makeover. Thanks to Dave Ramsey (Total Money Makeover) and David Bach (Start Late, Finish Rich) I learned a lot of new things. I won’t go over all of those things here but I will go through an extensive review on both of those books as I highly suggest them to anyone. Secondly, I made a decision today. That decision is to hold myself accountable through transparency.