Bravery In The Face Of Pickleballs And Disc Golf

Welcome to the October 2026 edition of...
What I'm Into, What I'm Up To
#72

It's been surprisingly warm here at the end of all things... I mean October. I'm writing this at 1:51pm on the 29th and it's 70 degrees and sunny. Seems unusual, but I'm learning there's no such thing as unusual weather here in Maryland.

Can I talk about fear, courage, and persistence for a minute?

When you really want to do something but you're afraid to do it, you get stuck. Or at least I do.

I'm in the process of starting a video and audio podcast about creative stuff going on in and around Baltimore. It's called Explorimore and I am both thrilled and terrified about doing it.

On the one hand, I like talking to people and asking questions and following my curiosity.

On the other hand... who the hell am I?

Who am I to be talking to interesting people who are doing way cooler and more interesting and more successful things than I'm doing? Who am I to be talking about Baltimore? I pretty much just got here. Who am I to be podcasting? I'm not very entertaining, I'm a slow talker, and I have a habit of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.

Who am I to try to do this?

But... who else is going to do it? Who else has this vision to do this thing in this way?

And what is the cost of NOT doing it? What am I giving up if I don't follow this nagging impulse?

These are things that have been on my mind lately.

The back and forth between fear—which wants me to choose an easy, small, manageable, and comfortable life—and courage—which wants me to expand, grow, fake it 'til I make it, and only get comfortable when I've done the scary thing first—seems ongoing and ever-present.

My brother has gotten really into running. Like really into it. He ran a half marathon the other morning just for fun. He's got a 50k race coming up. And these runs are not on flat pavement. They're in the mountains of Colorado.

He's always bugging me about running long-distance so I can suffer as much as he does. At the end of last month, he asked if me and a couple mutual friends wanted to join him in a virtual race during the whole month of October. Fresh off the 'September Energy' newsletter about giving a little more instead of calling it a day, I said, 'Sure, it's your birthday month, why not.'

So this month I've been running once a day, six days a week. My goal was to get to 60 miles for the month. Today I crossed the 80-mile mark (although some of the runs the website logged from Strava are not actually runs, so somehow I've accidentally cheated and can't un-cheat myself.)

The fear of discomfort for a morning run is pretty small, but it is there. Facing it every morning, knowing I did it yesterday and I'll do it again tomorrow, makes it much easier. I go through the routine and before I know it I'm out running and then I'm back home and it's done.

It's much scarier when it's not automatic and there is no routine. Interviewing strangers is scary. Figuring out the logistics and the technical side of a podcast leaves a ton of room for things to go wrong. Then there's the high chance of rejection when I ask if a random stranger is willing to be interviewed, or the high chance in my mind of disappointment by them and everyone else at the finished product. Not to mention my own perfectionism and self-critique, not feeling like it's quite up to snuff or something I should be promoting.

So many feelings. And so many of them driven by fear.

But, at the end of the day, I don't want to live in fear, or shrink into the background, or choose being comfortable as my highest goal in life.

Also... I've been playing a lot of disc golf.

Don't laugh, it's super fun. It's one of those deceptively simple sports that can take you from the highest highs to the lowest lows and back again in a matter of minutes.

And I'm terrible at it.

A couple neighbors and I started playing around the same time. Both of them are better than me. One of them is shockingly better.

But I keep going.

Why?

To be honest, I don't really know. I just know I want to get better. Maybe it's a midlife thing.

One of those neighbors I've been playing with also plays pickleball. He invited my kids and some other neighborhood kids to learn pickleball in his driveway the other day.

My son, Ezra, got really frustrated and upset because he wasn't doing as well as everyone else or as well as he thought he should be doing. I could tell he wanted to give up and be done. But he told me he just didn't want to play with everyone else all together (they were playing three to a side just to get some practice hits and volleys). So we stepped away and hit it back and forth for a few minutes. Then he said he wanted to rejoin everyone else. So he did. Then I had to leave to get dinner ready. He stayed and played, even after it got dark and they could hardly see the ball anymore. And now he wants to play again.

I was so proud of him for sticking with it and not giving up. I don't care if he ever plays again. I just care that he doesn't give up when things get hard or when he feels like he's not good enough or not keeping up with everyone else.

Whether it's disc golf, running every day, sitting down to write another book even though it might not ever get read by more than a hundred people, or continuing to try and make a go at a podcast idea that's scary and hard, I keep showing up to make my slow and steady progress.

I need to be proud of myself the way I'm proud of my son for doing the same thing. My whole family, actually, because all of us are having to do uncomfortable stuff every week we don't want to do that triggers our fears and highlights our weaknesses. But we do it anyway.

And we grow into the kinds of people we want to be.

You do it too. I'm sure you do. And you should be proud of yourself. And you should keep showing up and facing fears and doing the scary, uncomfortable things, because the world is looking for heroes. And heroes are just people who are brave enough to do things that scare them over and over again.

What I'm Up To

Well, besides running and disc golf and trying to start a podcast, I just finished an online course on making 3D video games. The next course I want to do is on making multiplayer games. For those in the know, this is all in Unity so far.

On the books side, I am working on getting Greysuits turned into an audiobook, probably by a real human narrator this time instead of an AI voice. I've made some small changes and corrections to the book and am hoping to publish a 10-year anniversary edition when the audiobook comes out. I'm also re-reading it in preparation for writing the sequel, which I intend to start November 1st in the spirit of ye old NaNoWriMo (may she rest in peace).

What I'm Into

The Inner Game Of Tennis by W. Timothy Gallwey is helping me not get so caught up in results, especially in my disc golf game. It's about focusing on what you're doing (mostly tennis) in order to quiet the critical, analytical voice. Don't overthink and don't get frustrated, just observe the self in action.

Nobody Wants This season 3 is out on Netflix and we are blazing through it. This season's possibly even crazier, but still super funny and lots of fun chemistry between all the actors.

Paper Boys Disc Golf is my new favorite channel on Youtube. They're also new to disc golf but they've already played with several pros, been to a couple tournaments (as spectators), and have even made a pretty good song about the sport called 'FROLF'.

That's it for this month. Thanks for reading! Stay brave and see you next month.