I love a challenge. I have always taken the path that requires me to push myself to my limits and then a bit over. I hate aiming for the middle.

If I had I would have never finished MIT. I would have settled; I would have quit. Instead I fought through the pain. I conquered every setback. Problems became learning lessons.

The same holds true of my career. I took risks — big risks. Some paid big. Some are still seeds that will someday grow into something wonderful. The rest are lessons learned.

It rarely snows in San Antonio. Last time I saw real snow here I was a kid back in ’85. Now I have seen plenty of snow in my lifetime. And I am pretty much over it. You pretty much get over it when you have to walk across the MIT campus during winter because Sloan isn’t accessible by the underground tunnels. Or the 20th time you have to dig your car out in Somerville to move it to the other side of the street or risk it being towed. But when it snows here in San Antonio it’s special. I can’t help but recall that snow day in ’85.

Wool Hat

My brother and I got all bundled up really to go outside. Back then we had no Northface outerwear (at least we didn’t), nor did we have a moisture management base layer, insulating mid layer or weather protecting outer layer. We had on a sweater with a windbreaker over it, jeans, tennis shoes, gloves and a wool cap with that silly bob on its end. You stay warm as long as the wind doesn’t hit you.

We went outside and I remember seeing white ice going up about half way up the stairs to the porch. Not very snow like at all. So we stepped into the ice and swoosh goes our leg into the ice. There was a little over a foot of snow beneath the ice. We of course proceeded to break up all the ice in the front yard and destroy the peacefulness of it all.

Snow On The Dog Igloo

Next we tried building a snowman. Of course we have never actually seen one in real life so the task ended up being harder than we thought. There was no way we where going to get nice round snowman parts. At some point we gave up and simply packed snow into roundish like objects; a big one for the lower body, a medium one for the tummy and the small one for a head. The snowman’s arms where made of some old branches that had survived the annual burning of the dead tree branches in the back yard in a big trash can. No carrot for us– we tried but our mom had those set aside for the caldo for dinner. As for the eyes we threw on some sunglasses, the snowman was in Texas after all.

I’d like to think our snowman lasted a while but I doubt it. He was probably gone by that afternoon. Hopefully tonight’s snow lasts a bit longer.

It’s really hard to consistently create new and interesting things. But I have found the easiest way is to make it a habit. Force yourself to be creative on a schedule.

For example, I brainstorm once a day for about 30 mins to 1 hour. I write my ideas down in my notebook. Most of the times the ideas are pretty bad, but everyone once in a while I get a real good one. I then take that and polish it up some more. And little by little I build these ideas up. Some have taken years to get where they are now (my world view, my financial strategy, my political beliefs etc) and others I just thought of last night

I am a night owl. I have been since I was a little boy. My parents would put me to sleep at the ridiculous hour of 7 pm. At first I would fight them, but eventually I realized it wasn’t worth the fight.

So I simply went to bed. Yet I didn’t go to sleep. I would just lie there awake with my thoughts. Some nights I would make up stories, other nights I would think of problems and solve them.

To this day if I am not sleepy and go to bed early (2am), I just lie there and think.

4 years ago she said yes.

I Love You Gina.

In the long run life is not a zero sum game. In the nearsighted horizon it may feel like there are winners and losers. But over time you will learn that by working together and helping each other out you will add much more value to the world. Great things are done by teams and not individuals.

Think of it as a text based radio.  Listen when you can, don’t listen when you don’t have the time.  Hell try it for a week.  Follow me @jmontemayor  and I will follow you.  I will be your audience.  If it helps just pretend you are texting to me.  Send me your thoughts, interesting websites, questions etc  The worst that can happen is you lose out a week.  (Inspired by a conversation with a friend.)

Without risk you will never know if you have actually succeeded.  Failing is good and it’s healthy.  For every one successful endeavour there are hundreds of failures.  So if you only try once you’ll more likely to be in that fail group.  But if you take a risk and try all the time, you will be much more successful.  You will have failed a lot, but everyone only remembers the wins.

In that spirit I started this blog “Yelling at the Wall”.

The reason I called this blog “Yelling at the Wall” is that for the most part I will be talking to myself. I am literally yelling at a digital wall–the audience isn’t there, but who cares. Most of these posts will be failures.  Most will be filled with poor grammar, poor assumptions, poor logic and poor value (to anyone other than me of course).

Yet I may end up producing some gems.  Come and join me on this journey and see where it takes me.

I have had this domain for quite some time (close to 10 years).  It’s about time I did something with it.  I figure this is a good way for me to keep my writing skills sharp.  So if you notice bad grammar or mis-spellings please drop me a line in the comments section.  I’ll make sure to fix them.  But please be constructive don’t just yell at me.