The last two months have been the craziest of my young life.

As someone who shares a lot, having to withhold this secret has been difficult but necessary. Now that I’m writing about it, you can assume that all is well.

Now for what happened.

January 18th, 5:02 AM

The day before the National Championship, I was jolted awake by a phone call from my wife in New York. She was calling to let me know she had some swelling in her feet and was heading to the hospital just to get checked out.

Three hours later, the tone changed completely. I was booking a flight to New York.

Hallie was having labor contractions at 28 weeks. For those new to pregnancy (like me), you have a baby at 40 weeks. Twenty-eight is pretty premature. Everything was spinning. Are babies okay at 28 weeks? The worst thoughts crossed my mind.

I don’t want to string everyone along, so I’ll say it now: everything is okay. But the next eight weeks were spent in and out of the hospital—in the labor and delivery room, in different apartments throughout New York City. It was chaos.

Yesterday, we flew home from New York back to Miami at 35 weeks. Our baby girl behaved, and my wife was a superstar.

I can’t thank everyone enough, those who did know, who did help, who offered support, who shared kind words.

In today’s newsletter I hope to share a few things I learned or was reminded of over the last 2 months.

Editors note (My wife):

God willing everything is okay. Our little girl would still go into the NICU if any craziness happened soon.

And it was preterm labor not just contractions.

Proper credit is deserved for my tough mom to be.

A New Level of Gratitude

I’ve journaled every day for the last three months, kicking off each morning with three things I’m grateful for. Nothing will smack you in the face harder than a health scare. But that’s not the real lesson here, this was just a reminder of that.

What I actually learned is a new level of gratitude for what we already have.

Getting home to my bed, my messy apartment, the elevator that moves a little slow, they were all a little more special than I had realized.

Enjoy the Journey

I was also reminded about enjoying the journey.

The feelings I had on the flight home and when we finally landed in Florida were nothing short of elation.

But then we woke up this morning. There’s traffic on the way to the doctor. My key didn’t work to get up to our apartment. Already, you’ve left all that gratitude behind and those feelings of elation have faded.

Nothing will make you forever happy if you’re not already happy.

Not more money. Not getting a girlfriend. Not even landing back in Florida after the two coldest months in New York City history.

I’m very lucky that I enjoy doing what I do, so I’m not chasing the next vacation or big win.

There’s no such thing as “once I get this, I’ll be happy“

You Have No Clue What Others Are Going Through

My number one takeaway from this whole experience is really a reminder from something I learned back in 2017.

I was in a class taught by Nike employees at the University of Texas.

Instead of a traditional icebreaker, they had us really talk about who we were. We were going to be classmates with eleven others for the semester, so we got at it right away.

I opened by sharing my story of fear, self-consciousness, and identity loss from my Alopecia Areata condition. I thought what I was dealing with was difficult.

But my god, stories of family loss, cancer diagnoses, coming out as gay.

We spent two hours and not one eye was dry after.

My biggest takeaway: We have no clue what others are going through.

Since that day, I’ve tried my best to give others grace, since I would’ve had no idea what any of my classmates were going through.

Someone cuts you off driving? Maybe they’re rushing to the hospital.

Someone is rude to you? Maybe they just got devastating news.

Your food is taking a while at the restaurant? Maybe someone quit and left them short-staffed.

We’ve all thought the driver who cut us off was an asshole before.

They probably were.

But this time, we were the ones in that position.

Frustrated with the speed of a Lyft driver because we couldn’t miss a doctor’s appointment, frustrated with a customer service representative while trying to figure out our insurance policy.

The point is: if you were in our shoes, you wouldn’t think we were being unreasonable given what was going on. It was never personal to the Lyft driver or the customer service rep.

And to be clear, no one was actually rude or disrespectful.

The point is: We have to give grace to others because we’re all living in this difficult-to-navigate world.

Give grace. Enjoy the journey. Be grateful for what you already have.

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My goal for 2026:

Write this newsletter once a week and release it every Monday at 12pm EST

If you found value in today’s edition, send this to someone who would also gain value from it