I can totally dominate my 11 year old daughter in tennis. I kick her ass basically.

Like, if she hits an easy shot, I can slam it back to the other side of the court and with her small legs there’s no way she can run to catch the ball.

That’s the way I roll. I destroy the dreams of 11 year old girls.

Here’s the problem: I get tired. After about eight minutes I’m too exhausted to play anymore.

She’s like, “Daddy, what’s wrong?” But after all the strenuous work of slamming shots, dominating her with my topspin, running the net, lobbing, serving, etc I need a break.

My breath can’t be caught and for some reason I’m spitting gray gunk onto the ground.

We say kids have a lot of energy. Do they have a battery? Is it fully charged? Do they have more electronic chemicals or something? How does it work?

I’m older and I’m better at everything. And I know everything because I’m the father.

I can see her or my other daughter and I can see the life around them. I’m not talking about “auras”. I don’t know what that is. But just LIFE. They have it.

They ooze it. They spray it everywhere. And it comes out smart and it comes out stupid. It doesn’t matter. They can waste it at that age. They have enough to spare.

I have to bottle mine. Use it appropriately.

In Jimmy Connors autobiography he talks about how he started breaking down when he was #1 in the world in tennis. The new guns (John McEnroe) were coming up and beating him. He couldn’t hit #1 anymore. His bones were tired.

He was 29 years old.

Ok, that’s ok. That’s why I like chess and not tennis.

So I took a look at a list of the top 100 chessplayers in the world. They must be a bunch of old men.

#1, Magnus Carlsen, was born the year after I graduated college. I had to scroll down to #65 to find someone who was older than me. Julio Zuniga. Three months older than me.

I was at a conference last week of entrepreneurs. There were 15 speakers. I was one of them. Tim Ferriss was another. Marc Ecko was another. Lots of smart people. I was the oldest speaker.

But then I realized: out of the 110 people in the audience, I was older than all of them as well.

Where is everyone? Did they put the 45 year olds in a concentration camp? Is that even appropriate to say? Did they put the 45 year old Jews in a concentration camp?

Did I miss the exit on the ramp and end up in the under-45 year old world?

I feel better than when I was 20. And I know more about things. A lot more.

I could write a book with what I know!

I know that when a spouse starts telling me her problems, I need to LISTEN and not SOLVE her problems.

I know that if someone says, “I have a great opportunity for you”, then he is trying to send fuckness in my direction.

I create my opportunities. In my entire life nobody has ever magically given me one.

The only magic I believe in is when I cast the spells. I have 45 years worth of spells to cast.

I know at 45 that if I’m not happy “here” then there’s even less chance I will be happy “there”, in whatever daydream “there” exists.

But what the hell, every day is a battle: with depression, with health, with money worries (no matter how much you have, or how little), with love, with kids, with the institutions that always try to imprison us and scare us, with the arguments that always try to engage us.

One of my best friends for 20 years is no longer speaking to me. He brought up a web post I wrote two years ago that angered him. It was my anti-war post.

“Are you kidding?” I asked. I was so shocked. But he didn’t respond. He’s no longer speaking to me. Some years I lose friends. Some years I make friends. What’s the point of dwelling on it?

And I know if I let anything bother me, if I don’t truly appreciate the things in my life, if I don’t cherish the moment, and take care of my body and mind and emotions and spirit, then I can start to age.

We don’t just have a physical body. We have emotional, mental, and spiritual ones also. They all age. They all need to be taken care of and exercised and fed nourishing food.

Energy changes. I still have the energy of my youth. But it’s spread now through my other bodies.

Now I have to go and crush the hopes and dreams out of my 11 year old on the tennis court. Someone has to teach her the harsh realities of life.

And yes, then I will feel like the king of the world.

For about eight minutes. Until she is standing over me, laughing, with her tennis racquet raised in victory.

 

I gave my 11 year old daughter important advice the other day: there’s no painless way to kill yourself.

“What about with a gun?” she said.

I told her about a friend of mine who shot himself in the mouth. He put the gun in his mouth and pointed upwards towards the brain.

He missed.

He shot off half his face, he went blind in one eye, and he is now in a wheelchair.

If you type in “I Want to Die” into google, my website is the first result.

My first business I sold for $15 million. We built websites for entertainment companies. Bad Boy Records, Miramax, Time Warner, HBO, Sony, Disney, Loud Records, Interscope, on and on. Oh, and Con Edison.

Mobb Deep would hang out in my office. Trent Reznor from Nine Inch Nails would stop by. RZA from the Wu-Tang Clan would want to play chess. We even made a website for a brothel in Nevada.

Then I saw that kids in junior high school were learning HTML. So I sold the business.

I bought an apartment for millions. I rebuilt it. Feng Shui! I bought art. I played a lot of poker. I began investing in companies. A million here. A few hundred thousand there.

Then I started more companies. Then I bought more things. Then I became an addict. The worst kind of addict.

From June 2000 until September, 2001 I probably lost $1 million a month.

I couldn’t stop. I wanted to get back up to the peak.

I wanted to be loved. I wanted to have $100 million so people would love me.

Writing this now I even feel like slitting my wrists and stomach. I have 2 kids.

I felt like I was going to die. That zero equals death. I couldn’t believe how stupid I had been.

I lost all my friends. Nobody returned calls. I would go to the ATM machine – from $15 million to $143 left.

There were no jobs, There was nothing.

One weekend when I had $0 left in my bank account I called my parents to borrow money but they said “no”. “College was enough” they told me, even though I had ended up paying for every dime of college. That was the last time I spoke to my dad, who had a stroke six months later.

I tried meditation to calm down but it didn’t work. I never slept. I lost 30 lbs. I’m 5’9″. I went from 160 to 130. I couldn’t talk to anyone. I couldn’t move. I stopped having ideas. I cried every day.

There was never a moment when I didn’t feel sick. I had let my kids down. I would die and they would never remember me.

We moved 80 miles north of NYC with the tiny bit of money we took out of our apartment after being forced to sell at a million dollar loss.

I couldn’t leave the house for three months. I was depressed. I gained back all my weight and then another 30 lbs.

Finally I had to either die or feed my family. I was forced to choose myself.

- I started to exercise every day. I started to eat better. One item for breakfast. A healthy lunch. Tiny dinner. No snacks.
- I started to sleep 9 hours a day.
- I started to only be around people who loved and supported me. I broke off all ties with anyone who I felt bad to be around.
- I wrote down ideas every day of articles I could write and about businesses I could start. Bit by bit I started to get paid to write. If you don’t exercise the idea muscle it atrophies.
- I decided I wanted to help people every day and be honest every day. I was grateful for my daughters. I was grateful for what I had. I didn’t fight reality or regret. This was my reality and I had to make the best of it.
- Every day I came up with ideas for new businesses. I had a waiter’s pad. I would go to a cafe at 6 in the morning with about 4 books and read for an hour or two and then start writing down ideas for new businesses, articles, etc.
- I started a hedge fund. I started a fund of hedge funds. I started a newsletter. I did deals. I made introductions every day, expanding my brand new network from scratch. At least 5 introductions a day.
- I got involved in a mental health company I sold for $41 million.
- I started a website, Stockpickr! which got millions of unique users. I found advertising for it. I sold it to thestreet.com
- I had made millions again from scratch.

Then I stopped using the fundamental techniques I described above. Every time I’ve lost money it’s because I squandered my physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health.

I was really bad. I did everything you should not do. I was like an addict. Picture the worst abuses. That was me. Again.

And then I lost it all again. Everything. Agh!

I had to start over. I couldn’t even believe I had to start from scratch atgain.

Every day without fail I focus on physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health. And it’s worked. I hope. I hope I don’t squander again.

People say it’s not about the end, it’s about the journey.

This is total BS.

It’s not about the journey and it never was.

It’s about right now.

Right now is the only place you’ll ever be. Choose yourself not to waste it.

Jawbone announced today that its app for UP, the company’s movement-tracking wristband, is now available as a free download for Android on Google Play. The $129 UP was previously only compatible with iOS. The wristband can also now be purchased in European Apple stores, and will be made available in Asia and Australia next month.

“We are excited to expand the UP community by introducing support for Android, 11 new languages for iOS, and product availability in more than 25 additional countries around the world,” said Travis Bogard, Jawbone vice president of product management and strategy, in a statement.

When coupled with its app, the UP wristband allows users to track their sleep, movement, food, and mood. Apple Stores in Asia and Australia will begin carrying the gadget next month, along with other retail locations in Europe, Asia, Australia, and the Middle East.

While Android users can now use Jawbone UP, the company says it currently has no plans to release the UP app to BlackBerry 10 or Windows Phone.

We're all seriously bummed about Google Reader shutting down, but it's not the end of the world, and there are a number of great news reading apps and services out there stepping up to replace it with syncing features and easy import tools to keep you organized. This week we're going to look at five of the best, based on your nominations. More »