There’s a version of leadership we’ve all been handed at some point, usually early in our careers, usually from someone who meant well but was quietly exhausted. It’s the version that says a leader stands at the front, directs the traffic, carries the vision, and makes sure everyone else falls in line.

It’s tidy. It’s efficient. It’s also not quite true. At least not for the kind of life I’m trying to build.

Because the longer I pay attention to my work, my family, my faith, and my own internal wiring is the more I realize that the leaders I trust most aren’t the ones standing above anything. They’re the ones standing under it. Holding it up. Carrying weight that isn’t glamorous. Making decisions that don’t get applause.

It turns out the most elevated form of leadership is the one that kneels.

It’s called stewardship.

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The Quiet Shift From “My Team” to “I Work for Them”

There’s a moment, sometimes subtle, sometimes jarring, when a leader realizes the job isn’t to be impressive. It’s to be responsible.

Not responsible for people in a paternalistic way, but responsible to them.

Responsible to:

• the humans who trust you

• the resources you’ve been given

• the culture you’re shaping

• the future you’re borrowing from

Stewardship is the shift from “How do I get them to perform?” to “How do I create the conditions where they can flourish?”

It’s less about managing tasks and more about tending to an ecosystem.

And ecosystems don’t respond to pressure.
They respond to care.

The Strange Freedom of Not Being the Hero

Traditional leadership loves a hero narrative while stewardship quietly opts out.

A steward doesn’t need to be the smartest person in the room. They don’t need to have the best ideas. They don’t need to be the center of anything.

Their job is to make sure the right things are centered:

• clarity

• trust

• shared purpose

• sustainable pace

• dignity

A steward leads like someone who knows the work is bigger than them and will outlast them. There’s a humility in that. But also a strange, grounding freedom.

When you stop trying to be the hero, you finally have the energy to be human.

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The Sacred Weight of What We Hold

Stewardship is spiritual work, whether we name it that way or not.

Because to steward anything (people, resources, time, culture) is to acknowledge that it’s not really yours. You’re holding it for a season. You’re shaping it for someone else.

It’s leadership with a sense of borrowed holiness.

And that changes the questions you ask:

Not “How do I get more out of them?” but “How do I honor what they bring?”

Not “How do I protect my authority?” but “How do I use my authority to protect them?”

Not “How do I look successful?” but “How do I leave this better than I found it?”

Stewardship is leadership with a conscience, a soul!
Leadership that remembers the point.

What Stewardship Looks Like in Real Life

Most stewardship doesn’t look like a keynote speech.
It looks like:

• making space for someone else’s idea

• slowing down so the team can keep up

• telling the truth even when it’s inconvenient

• choosing long-term health over short-term optics

• noticing when someone is carrying too much

• protecting the team from unnecessary noise

• asking, “What do you need?” and meaning it

It’s leadership that feels less like directing and more like gardening.

You don’t force growth.
You create the conditions where growth becomes possible.

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The Kind of Leader I Want to Be Found As

If I’m honest, I don’t always get this right.
Sometimes I slip back into old patterns of trying to control outcomes, trying to prove myself, trying to manage instead of steward.

But the older I get, the more I want my leadership at work, at home, and in my community to be marked by something quieter and truer.

I want to be found as someone who tended well, held things with care, and understood the weight of trust. Who didn’t confuse authority with importance.
Who believed that leadership is less about being in charge and more about being responsible for what’s been entrusted.

Stewardship isn’t glamorous.
But it’s good.
And it’s enough.

As You Find Me (AYFM) is where Brad Hachez - a visionary neurodivergent creator - explores tech, faith, health, & life. Join the journey to streamline productivity, deepen relationships, & reflect on purpose with resilience, presence, and servant-hearted growth.

There are certain milestones in adulthood that feel like they should come with a soundtrack. Buying your first house, meeting your child for the first time, or realizing you now own three different kinds of ladders.

And then there’s the day you sit down, in your early forties, with your partner, your coffee, and your shared sense of “Are we really doing this,” and you create your wills and health directives.

It’s not glamorous.
It’s not Instagrammable (outside of legal circles).
But it is one of the most quietly loving things you can do for your family.

Especially when your family includes an adopted child whose security depends on clarity, intention, and the two of you being the grownups you promised you’d be.

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Why We Finally Did It

We didn’t wake up one morning thinking, “You know what sounds fun? Confronting our mortality before lunch.”

It was more like:

• We’re in our early forties.

• We have a child who deserves certainty.

• We have a house, a life, and his future to think of.

• And we realized that not making these decisions is still making a decision, just a MUCH messier one.

So we sat down and did the thing.

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A Surprisingly Smooth Experience

We used Trust & Will, and honestly, they made the whole process feel less like a legal obstacle course and more like a guided conversation.

What worked well

• They walked us through each section in plain language.

• They helped us find a notary and witnesses without us having to wander the neighborhood like Victorian orphans asking strangers for signatures. This did take them time to find someone in our more rural area, so consider that. Tip: You can use your own notary as well.

• The documents were organized, clear, and easy to download and store.

• It felt like a service built for real families, not just people who already know what “per stirpes” means.

Other options we considered

Because every situationship is different, and every family has its own comfort level with DIY vs. professional help, here are the other routes we looked at:

• Other online services like LegalZoom, and FreeWill.

• Local estate attorneys who can tailor everything to your state, your family structure, and your specific needs. This is how we would handle forming a Trust if we selected to do so.

• Hybrid approaches where you start online and then have an attorney review the documents. This seems like it would be the most costly.

There’s no wrong choice. There’s only the choice that fits your life, your budget, and your tolerance for legal jargon.

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The Conversations You Don’t Expect

Here’s the part no one warns you about.

Creating wills and health directives isn’t just paperwork but a series of conversations that feel like someone turned the lights on in a room you didn’t realize you’d been avoiding.

Give it time.

Topics that came up for us

• Who would care for our child if something happened to both of us

• How we want medical decisions handled if we can’t speak for ourselves

• What “quality of life” means to each of us

• How we want our assets handled (important even when the bank technically still owns everything).

• What we want our child to know, feel, and remember

These conversations were tender, uncomfortable, clarifying, and strangely bonding.

It’s like emotional CrossFit.
You don’t enjoy it while it’s happening, but afterward you feel stronger and slightly proud you didn’t pass out.

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Pros of Getting It Done

• Peace of mind that our child is protected

• Clarity for the people who would step in if needed

• Fewer unknowns during a crisis

• A sense of partnership in facing the hard stuff together

• A documented plan instead of a cloud of assumptions

Cons (Because Let’s Be Honest)

• You have to talk about death which was hard with my health anxiety.

• You have to imagine scenarios you’d rather not

• You may discover you and your partner have different instincts

• It can stir up old fears or unresolved questions

• You will absolutely wonder if you’re doing it “right” even though there is no perfect version

But here’s the thing:
Avoiding the conversation doesn’t protect you from any of that.
It just delays it until a moment when you’ll have far less capacity to handle it.

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What Surprised Us Most

We expected the process to feel heavy. And parts of it were.

But there was also something deeply grounding about it.
Something that said:

“We are here.
We are a family, however oddly shaped!
And we are taking care of each other in every way we can.”

It’s not romantic in the traditional sense.
But it is a kind of love that grows roots and is focused on our child.

If You’re Considering Doing This Too

Here’s what I’d tell you, from one early-forties parent to another:

• Start the conversation even if it feels awkward

• Use a service that makes sense for your life

• Ask questions until you understand what you’re signing

• Don’t rush the emotional parts

• Remember that this is an act of love, not fear

• And celebrate afterward because you earned it

Maybe with ice cream.
Maybe with a nap.
Maybe with the quiet satisfaction of knowing you just did something profoundly responsible.

Whatever you choose, let it be something that reminds you that planning for the worst is really just another way of protecting the best parts of your life.

As You Find Me (AYFM) is where Brad Hachez - a visionary neurodivergent creator - explores tech, faith, health, & life. Join the journey to streamline productivity, deepen relationships, & reflect on purpose with resilience, presence, and servant-hearted growth.

I’ve been thinking about the word No lately.
How it’s only two letters, barely a syllable, and yet somehow weighs as much as a granite boulder I keep trying to roll uphill with my forehead.

I used to think No was the language of selfish people.
Now I’m starting to suspect it’s the language of grown-ups.

Because here’s the truth I keep relearning:
Every time I say Yes to something I don’t actually want, I’m quietly saying No to myself. And I’ve done that enough times to know it never ends well. It ends in resentment, or exhaustion, or that brittle version of me who smiles while mentally drafting his escape plan.

So I’m practicing No.
Not the dramatic kind.
Not the slammed-door, scorched-earth, “I’m reclaiming my life” kind.

Just the small, steady No that makes room for a truer Yes.

Saying No to Myself

This is the hardest one.

It’s the No that whispers:
No, you don’t need to check your email at 10:30 PM.
No, you don’t have to fix every feeling in the room.
No, you don’t need to outrun your own discomfort.

It’s the No that protects me from the parts of me that still believe I’m only as valuable as what I produce or prevent.

Saying No to My Child

This one feels like betrayal until it doesn’t.

Because sometimes the most loving thing I can do is say:
No, not right now.
No, that’s not safe.
No, I won’t let you talk to me like that.

Not because I want control, but because I want to raise a human who knows that limits aren’t punishments, they’re scaffolding. They’re the shape love takes when it’s trying to help someone grow.

And honestly, half the time I’m saying No to him, I’m also saying No to the version of me who wants to be endlessly available, endlessly patient, endlessly perfect. That guy doesn’t exist. And thank God.

Saying No at Work

Work is where my boundaries go to die.

There’s always one more task, one more meeting, one more “quick question” that is never quick. And for years I treated every request like a moral test I had to pass.

But lately I’ve been experimenting with the radical idea that I’m allowed to have a finite amount of energy. That I can say:

• “I can’t take that on right now.”

• “That’s not something I have capacity for.”

• “I need to think about that before I commit.”

And the world does not collapse.
No one storms my virtual office demanding an explanation.
Most people just nod.

Turns out the apocalypse I was afraid of was entirely imaginary.

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The Positive Ways to Say No (That Still Tell the Truth)

Here are the phrases I’m keeping in my pocket that are gentle, honest, and boundary-shaped:

• “That won’t work for me.”

• “I’m not able to do that, but here’s what I can do.”

• “I need to pass on this.”

• “I’m choosing to rest instead.”

• “I don’t have capacity for that right now.”

• “I want to give that the attention it deserves, and I can’t do that today.”

• “I’m going to say no so I don’t overextend myself.”

None of these are excuses.
They’re just the truth, spoken kindly.

The Quiet Courage of No

No is not a rejection.
It’s not a failure.
It’s not a moral flaw.

No is a boundary that says:
I’m allowed to be a person with limits.
I’m allowed to protect what matters.
I’m allowed to choose the life I actually want.

And maybe that’s the real courage
not the big, cinematic moments,
but the small, ordinary ones where I choose myself
without apologizing for it.

As You Find Me (AYFM) is where Brad Hachez - a visionary neurodivergent creator - explores tech, faith, health, & life. Join the journey to streamline productivity, deepen relationships, & reflect on purpose with resilience, presence, and servant-hearted growth.

There are three scams almost anyone believes they can pull off. They don’t involve burner phones, offshore accounts, or a suspiciously large number of “consulting fees.” They’re quieter and more personal.

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1. The “I’m Fine” Scam

This is the classic Ponzi scheme of emotional life.
You tell everyone you’re fine. You tell yourself you’re fine. You stack tiny emotional IOUs in a neat little pyramid and assume the whole thing won’t collapse because… well, it hasn’t yet.

The trick works until someone asks, “Are you sure?” in a tone that sounds like they actually mean it. Suddenly the whole structure wobbles. Because the truth is: “I’m fine” is usually code for “I’m overwhelmed, under-slept, and one minor inconvenience away from Googling hermit cabins.”

The insight: Most people don’t want the polished version of you. They want the real one. The scam only works on you.

2. The “I Don’t Care” Scam

This one is elegant in its simplicity.

You pretend you don’t care about the thing you care about so much that your entire nervous system is basically a live‑wire.

You tell yourself you’re above it. You tell others you’re detached. Meanwhile, you’re checking your phone like it owes you money, replaying conversations in the shower, and crafting imaginary speeches you’ll never give.

The insight: Indifference is a costume. And it never fits as well as we think it does.

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3. The “Future Me Will Handle It” Scam

Ah yes. The LONG con.

You convince yourself that Future You is a completely different species! Disciplined, organized, and even hydrated. A person who wakes up early, files paperwork on time, and somehow knows where the good scissors are.

So Present You delays, defers, and procrastinates with the confidence of someone outsourcing to a highly competent employee. Except Future You is… STILL you. Just more tired.

The Real Twist

The scams aren’t malicious. They’re protective. They’re the little stories we tell to get through the day.

But the moment you see them clearly, they stop being scams and start being invitations to honesty, to clarity, to a life that doesn’t require so much emotional bookkeeping.

As You Find Me (AYFM) is where Brad Hachez - a visionary neurodivergent creator - explores tech, faith, health, & life. Join the journey to streamline productivity, deepen relationships, & reflect on purpose with resilience, presence, and servant-hearted growth.

I didn’t plan on spending mid‑February learning the spiritual discipline of coughing, but here we are.

If I rewind the tape, the story really starts around February 10th, when Ben (my son) got sick and I took him to urgent care. Influenza A. The kind of diagnosis where the doctor doesn’t even need to say, “It’s probably going to move through the household.”

By the 13th, my body started sending its own telegrams:
Aches. Nose rebellion. Throat mutiny. Coughing. Four hours of sleep.
Not exactly the recipe for healing.

The middle stretch was the hardest. That’s when the flu stops being an “event” and becomes a lifestyle. I was trying to work with showing up for meetings, answering emails, pretending my brain wasn’t wrapped in a warm, damp towel. I kept telling myself I was “resting,” but really I was negotiating with my calendar like it was a hostage situation.

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I took Tylenol only when I needed it, which is a very responsible way of saying: I was stubborn.

But here’s the part that surprised me.

Not because I felt good because I didn’t. and not because I was being especially holy because guess what, I wasn’t. But because I could feel this strange, steadying presence underneath the misery. Like God wasn’t fixing the flu, but He was sitting with me in it. Jesus as the quiet roommate who hands you a glass of water and doesn’t comment on how terrible you look.

There was this thread of dependence woven through the whole thing. Not dramatic. Not performative. Just… real. The kind of trust that shows up when you’re too tired to manufacture anything else.

And then, almost without noticing, things shifted.

Yesterday and today, I’ve felt more like myself. I have more energy, normal vitals, a body that isn’t actively protesting my existence. The cough is still hanging around like the last guest at a party, but even that’s easing up.

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I’m starting to think about my rhythms again:
my daily walk, my work, volunteering, writing, the small rituals that make me feel human.

And honestly, that’s the part that feels holy.

Not the endurance.
Not the suffering.
Not the “I made it through the flu like a warrior” narrative.

It’s the return.

The quiet re-entry into ordinary life.
The moment you realize you’re ready to step back into the world, not because you forced yourself to, but because your body finally whispered, “Okay. Let’s try again.”

If there’s anything this week taught me, it’s that healing is rarely dramatic. It’s slow, unglamorous, and mostly invisible. But it’s also faithful. It keeps moving even when you’re not paying attention.

And maybe that’s the grace of it that God meets us not only in our strength, but in our congestion, our exhaustion, our half-hearted prayers, our Tylenol calculations, our messy middle days.

As you find me, flu and all.

As You Find Me (AYFM) is where Brad Hachez - a visionary neurodivergent creator - explores tech, faith, health, & life. Join the journey to streamline productivity, deepen relationships, & reflect on purpose with resilience, presence, and servant-hearted growth.

I picked up the updated and expanded version of Boundaries by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend because, frankly, I ran out of excuses not to. There’s only so many times you can wonder, “Do I actually want to do this, or am I just trying to avoid disappointing someone?” before you start to suspect that maybe, just maybe, you’re not as boundaried as you thought.

This book didn’t just confirm that suspicion. It held up a mirror, handed me a highlighter, and said, “Buddy, you might want to sit down for this.”

What the Book Does Well

Cloud and Townsend have a gift for taking something that feels abstract such as limits, responsibility, and emotional ownership, making it painfully concrete. The updated edition adds more nuance around modern life: digital boundaries, relational burnout, and the subtle ways we lose ourselves in the name of being “good,” “helpful,” or “easy to be around.”

Some standout themes:

1. You are responsible for some things and responsible to others

This distinction alone is worth the price of the book. It’s the difference between compassion and codependency, between showing up with love and showing up out of fear.

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2. Saying no is not a moral failure

It’s actually a way of telling the truth about your capacity. The book makes it clear that boundaries aren’t walls. They are clarity.

3. Avoiding conflict is not the same as keeping peace

This one stings. The authors gently point out that peace built on self-erasure isn’t peace at all. It’s quiet resentment wearing a polite smile.

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4. You can’t discern your desires if you’re constantly scanning for others’ expectations

This is where the book felt uncomfortably relevant. It’s one thing to know boundaries matter. It’s another to realize you’ve been outsourcing your wants to the room around you.

Why This Book Matters for Me Right Now

In the past few weeks, I’ve noticed a pattern in myself and it is one the book names with almost eerie precision.

• I struggle to tell the difference between what I want and what I think I’m supposed to want.

• I take on responsibilities that aren’t actually mine, especially in parenting moments where I feel obligated to be “on” even when my partner is hosting or leading something.

• I overextend myself to avoid conflict, criticism, or the possibility of someone being disappointed in me.

This moment where my son was going to join my partner’s D&D game night is a perfect example. I wasn’t deciding whether I wanted to go. I was deciding whether I was allowed to want something different from what others expected. That’s not discernment. That’s survival mode.

Reading Boundaries while noticing these patterns felt like someone finally turning the lights on in a room I’ve been stumbling through for years.

What the Book Offers for This Kind of Work

Clarity

It helps you name what’s yours and what isn’t.
Your time.
Your energy.
Your emotional bandwidth.
Your actual desires and not the ones you inherited or absorbed.

Language

It gives you words for things you’ve felt but couldn’t articulate.
“I’m not available for that.”
“I need time to think before I commit.”
“That’s not my responsibility.”

Simple. Direct. Honest.

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Courage

Boundaries aren’t about becoming rigid. They’re about becoming real.
And realness takes guts especially when you’ve spent years trying to be agreeable, helpful, or “easy.”

Permission

This might be the biggest gift.
Permission to rest.
Permission to disappoint people.
Permission to not be the emotional shock absorber for every room you walk into.

Why You Might Want to Read It Too

If you’ve ever:

• said yes while your whole body whispered no

• felt guilty for wanting something different than what others expect

• taken on responsibilities that weren’t actually yours

• avoided conflict because you feared the fallout

• or wondered why you feel tired in ways sleep doesn’t fix

…this book is a gentle but firm invitation to reclaim your life.

Not in a dramatic, burn-it-all-down way. In a quiet, honest, sustainable way.

As You Find Me

I’m reading Boundaries because I’m finally ready to stop living by other people’s expectations and start listening to my own inner truth. I’m learning that limits aren’t signs of weakness, they’re signs of humanity. And maybe the most spiritual thing I can do right now is tell the truth about what I can and cannot carry.

I’m not trying to become someone new.
I’m trying to become someone honest.

And this book is helping me do that.

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As You Find Me (AYFM) is where Brad Hachez - a visionary neurodivergent creator - explores tech, faith, health, & life. Join the journey to streamline productivity, deepen relationships, & reflect on purpose with resilience, presence, and servant-hearted growth.

Elon Musk’s latest cosmic shuffle of merging SpaceX with xAI comes with a very specific promise: the future of AI won’t fit on Earth. According to Musk, the only way to scale artificial intelligence is to build orbital data centers powered by near‑constant solar energy and launched by Starship in megaton batches.

The combined company is now valued at $1.25 trillion, the largest merger ever recorded, and the stated mission is nothing short of rewriting the infrastructure of intelligence.

But here’s the thing: every time someone says “space‑based data centers,” my brain immediately whispers, Have we tried… better data centers on Earth first?

Let’s walk through the questions this merger begs us to ask.

1. Do we actually need AI data centers in space?

Musk argues yes. He says Earth’s power grids can’t sustain the exponential growth of AI compute, and that space offers limitless solar energy and fewer environmental constraints. “In the long term, space‑based AI is obviously the only way to scale,” he wrote.

It’s a bold claim. It’s also a convenient one if you happen to own the rockets, the satellites, the AI company, and the social platform that distributes the narrative.

But need is a strong word.
We might need cleaner energy.
We might need more efficient cooling.
We might need better distributed compute.

Do we need to yeet the entire AI industry into orbit?
That’s… less clear.

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2. Even if we did, who thinks the internet connection back to Earth will ever be enough?

This is the part that makes me tilt my head like a confused luddite.

SpaceX already operates nearly 10,000 Starlink satellites, serving millions of customers.
And yes, Starlink is impressive.
And yes, latency is shockingly low for something that bounces off the sky.

But we’re talking about AI training, not Netflix buffering.
We’re talking about massive data movement, not checking email from a cabin in the woods.

If the plan is to train AI in orbit and send the results back down, the bandwidth problem becomes enormous. If the plan is to send Earth’s data up to orbit for training, the bandwidth problem becomes… even more enormous.

Unless the future of AI is somehow less data‑hungry than the present (spoiler: it won’t be), the physics of moving petabytes through space is going to be a bigger bottleneck than the power grid ever was.

3. Or is this merger about something else entirely?

Some analysts argue the merger isn’t really about orbital data centers at all. Instead, they indicate it’s about cash. SpaceX is wildly profitable; xAI is burning over a billion dollars a month. Combining them is a cleaner way to subsidize the AI venture without writing awkward checks between companies Musk already owns.

In that reading, “AI in space” is less a roadmap and more a narrative wrapper or an ambitious, star‑dusted story that makes the financial plumbing look visionary instead of necessary.

4. The real question: what future are we building toward?

I’m not anti‑ambition.
I’m not anti‑space.
I’m not even anti‑Musk, though I reserve the right to squint skeptically at his PowerPoint slides and abhor his extreme political stances.

But I am pro‑questions.
And this merger raises good ones:

• Are we solving a real problem or inventing one?

• Are we building infrastructure for the future or building mythology for the present?

• Are we expanding human capability or expanding one man’s empire?

• And seriously though, has anyone run the numbers on orbital bandwidth?

Because if the future of AI depends on a stable, high‑capacity, low‑latency connection between Earth and a million satellites, we might want to pause and ask whether the bottleneck is really the power grid… or the story we’re telling ourselves.

As You Find Me, I’m left with this:

Space‑based AI might be brilliant.
It might be necessary.
It might be the next chapter in human computation.

But it also might be a very expensive way to avoid building better infrastructure on the planet we already have.

And until someone can answer the question of bandwidth with something more convincing than “It’s always sunny in space,” I’ll keep asking:

Do we really need AI data centers in orbit or do we just need better ideas on Earth?

As You Find Me (AYFM) is where Brad Hachez - a visionary neurodivergent creator - explores tech, faith, health, & life. Join the journey to streamline productivity, deepen relationships, & reflect on purpose with resilience, presence, and servant-hearted growth.

I have learned that distance
is not always a wound
sometimes it is a doorway
that only opens when two hands
finally stop pulling.

There are seasons when the map folds
in a way you didn’t choose,
and the roads that once braided together
quietly unspool.
No thunderclap.
No villain.
Just the soft arithmetic
of two lives diverging
by a few degrees each day
until the horizon forgets
they were ever one line.

But here is the strange mercy:
in the hush that follows the parting,
a new voice begins to clear its throat.
It sounds almost like yours,
but steadier
as if it had been waiting
for the room to speak.

You start noticing things
you didn’t know you loved:
the way morning light lands
on the kitchen counter,
the small courage of eating alone,
the relief of not performing
the version of yourself
someone else once needed.

You begin to suspect
that separateness is not exile
but invitation
a quiet apprenticeship
in becoming the person
you kept postponing.

And though you don’t say it aloud,
you feel it rising:
a hope that doesn’t depend
on being held,
a hope that grows like moss
in the cracks of what ended,
a hope that whispers,
You are still becoming.

Maybe this is the secret
no one teaches:
that sometimes the truest self
waits on the far side
of a goodbye
not triumphant,
not unscarred,
but unmistakably yours.

And in that gentle distance,
you find a new kind of belonging:
the kind that begins
when you finally return
to yourself.

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As You Find Me (AYFM) is where Brad Hachez - a visionary neurodivergent creator - explores tech, faith, health, & life. Join the journey to streamline productivity, deepen relationships, & reflect on purpose with resilience, presence, and servant-hearted growth.

I keep trying to live like a person who notices things. The way sunlight hits the kitchen counter. The sound my son Ben makes when he’s concentrating. The quiet satisfaction of finishing a thought without being interrupted by a man shouting life hacks at me. And then I open TikTok, and the whole experiment wobbles.

TikTok is still the digital equivalent of someone jingling keys in front of your face while whispering “don’t think, just scroll.” But now it comes with a geopolitical subplot. How fun! The United States has been wrestling the app into a new arrangement where Oracle holds the data keys and a U.S. specific algorithm is supposed to be running the show. It is a bit like watching two parents negotiate custody of a very hyper child who keeps running into traffic. And while all of that is happening, the app itself has been glitching. Videos freezing. Feeds looping. Notifications arriving like confused carrier pigeons. It feels like the platform is trying to reinvent itself while sprinting on a treadmill.

The truth is that TikTok is not just chaos and bathtub soup videos. Some creators have mastered the art of the micro hook. They pull you in with a fifteen second clip that feels like candy, then suddenly you are watching a ten minute deep dive on medieval architecture or the science of sleep. It is a strange kind of educational ambush. One moment you are laughing at a raccoon stealing a donut. The next you are learning about the Roman Empire from a guy who films in his garage.

I’m partial to Jose Monkey.

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So I am not deleting the app. I am trying to use it with more intention. Less “let the algorithm decide who I am” and more “I will choose what I feed my brain.” I want to be the kind of person who can enjoy a clever short video without letting it swallow an entire afternoon. I want to follow the creators who actually expand my world instead of shrinking it.

The real danger has never been the geopolitical drama or the data storage debates, although those matter. The real danger is how quietly the app steals your hours. How it convinces you that the small moments of your life are disposable. How it trains your brain to crave the next thing instead of noticing the thing right in front of you.

So I am practicing a different kind of scrolling.

A slower one.

A purposeful one.

The kind where I can enjoy the creativity without surrendering my attention like a tribute.

If you need me, I will be over here trying to remember how to be a human who can sit still long enough to hear his own thoughts.

As You Find Me (AYFM) is where Brad Hachez - a visionary neurodivergent creator - explores tech, faith, health, & life. Join the journey to streamline productivity, deepen relationships, & reflect on purpose with resilience, presence, and servant-hearted growth.

The cold arrived without asking.
It settled in the way winter does.
Quiet at first. Then louder.
Then all at once.

A storm that rearranged the week and the mood and the plans you thought were solid. You wake up one morning and realize you have not talked to the people you love in a while. Not because you stopped caring and not because they stopped caring.

Life just froze a little.

Sometimes this freeze comes from circumstances. A health scare. A season of anxiety (see basically every other post I’ve made). A stretch of days when you feel like you are moving through slush and every step takes more effort than you want to admit. You tell yourself you will reach out tomorrow.

Then tomorrow becomes a week.

Then a month.

Then you start to wonder if you waited too long.

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Relationships can feel like that too. A chill that sneaks in or a silence that grows. A misunderstanding that sits between you and someone you care about. You want to fix it. Yes, you do. (I know I did). You want to warm things up. You want to feel close again. You just do not know how to start.

Then the thaw comes. A little more light in the morning and a little less tension in your chest. A moment when you realize you want connection again.

The thaw is an invitation. It isn’t a demand or test but rather a gentle opening that says you can try again.

Here are a few ways to take that first step.

• Start small. A simple message. A short note. A quick check in. You do not need a perfect explanation. You do not need a grand gesture. You only need a beginning.

• Name what is true. You can say you have been overwhelmed. You can say you have been scared. You can say you needed time. Honesty creates room for others to be honest too.

• Stay present. You do not need to fix everything in one conversation. You do not need to solve the past. You can focus on the moment in front of you. One warm exchange can melt more than you expect.

• Let people meet you where you are. Some friends will respond right away. Some will need time. Some will surprise you with grace. Some will surprise you with distance. All of it is information. None of it is a verdict on your worth.

• Offer warmth without forcing closeness. You can reach out with kindness and still protect your energy. You can reconnect without rushing. You can rebuild trust at a pace that feels steady.

If you are navigating a relationship that feels strained, you can take the same gentle approach. Speak with clarity. Listen with curiosity. Share what you hope for. Stay open to what the other person needs. You do not have to agree on everything to move forward.

If you are carrying anxiety or health concerns, you are not alone. You deserve support that helps you feel grounded. You can talk with a trusted friend. You can reach out to a counselor. You can connect with a support group. You can speak with a medical professional if you have questions about your health. You can also lean on people who remind you that you are more than your fear.

Reconnection is not a performance. It is not a test of strength. It is a quiet act of courage. A choice to step toward warmth again. A choice to believe that relationships can grow even after a long season of cold.

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If you are reading this and thinking of someone, consider this your sign. Not pressure. Not guilt. Just a gentle nudge. A reminder that you can reach out today. A reminder that you are allowed to begin again.

As you find me, I am learning that the thaw is not the end of winter. It is the start of movement. It is the moment the world softens enough for us to take a step. It is the quiet truth that connection can return. It is the hope that warmth is still possible.

And it is.

As You Find Me (AYFM) is where Brad Hachez - a visionary neurodivergent creator - explores tech, faith, health, & life. Join the journey to streamline productivity, deepen relationships, & reflect on purpose with resilience, presence, and servant-hearted growth.

I spent the morning trying to convince myself that today would be the day I finally got my life together.

You know the feeling.

You sit down with a fresh cup of coffee and a sense of determination that feels almost suspicious. Then you open your laptop and suddenly remember seventeen things you forgot to do yesterday.

Productivity feels slippery. Like trying to hold water in your hands.

So I’ve been paying attention to the small things that actually help. Not the loud tricks or the color‑coded systems that look great for a week and then quietly fade into the background. I mean the tiny habits that hide in plain sight. The ones that don’t get the spotlight because they aren’t flashy.

Here are the three that keep surprising me.

1. Stop mid‑task on purpose

This one feels wrong at first. You’re in a groove and you want to finish. But stopping while you still know what comes next creates a gentle pull that brings you back later. It removes the dread of starting. You return to your work with a clear next step instead of a blank page. It’s a gift you give your future self.

Try it once. You’ll see what I mean.

2. Put one thing in the wrong place

Not a messy place. Just a visible place. A book you want to read. A form you need to sign. A project you keep forgetting. Put it somewhere it does not belong. Your brain will trip over it and remind you to act. It’s a quiet nudge that works better than any reminder app.

It’s the grown‑up version of tying a string around your finger which my wife has admitted as her go-to when she was younger.

3. Decide your stopping time before you start

Most of us decide when to begin. Fewer of us decide when to end. A clear stopping time creates a container for your effort. It gives your mind a boundary to work within. You show up with more focus because you know the moment you’ll step away.

It turns out that endings matter as much as beginnings.

I’m learning that productivity is less about force and more about rhythm. Less about heroic effort and more about small choices that make the day feel lighter. These three habits aren’t loud. They don’t demand attention.

They simply work in the background, making space for you to breathe and move forward.

This year, I’m trying to build a life that feels less frantic and more intentional. A life where progress happens in small, almost invisible ways. Maybe that’s enough for today.

As You Find Me (AYFM) is where Brad Hachez - a visionary neurodivergent creator - explores tech, faith, health, & life. Join the journey to streamline productivity, deepen relationships, & reflect on purpose with resilience, presence, and servant-hearted growth.

I used to think boundaries were for other people. People who were overwhelmed. People who were disorganized. People who needed color‑coded planners and inspirational water bottles to get through the day. I assumed I could simply push through whatever came my way with a little grit and a lot of caffeine. It worked for a while. Then it didn’t.

The first boundary I hit was physical.

My body started sending messages that were not subtle. Fatigue that felt like someone unplugged me from the wall. Anxiety that arrived without an invitation. A liver that decided it had opinions. I kept trying to negotiate with all of it, as if my body were a coworker who could be persuaded with a well‑timed joke. It turns out bodies do not negotiate. They tell the truth long before we do.

The next boundary was emotional.

I discovered that I could not carry every worry, every need, every request, and every expectation without something inside me starting to fray. I had been treating my inner life like a storage unit. If something did not fit, I shoved it in anyway and hoped the door would close. Eventually the door refused to budge. I stood there staring at the mess and realized I had to start sorting through what was actually mine to hold.

Then came the spiritual boundary.

I had been trying to live as if faith meant never reaching a limit. I thought trust required endless capacity. I thought maturity meant always being available. I thought God expected me to be some kind of spiritual multitool. What I found instead was a quiet truth that surprised me. God was not asking me to be limitless. God was asking me to be honest.

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The boundaries I hit were not punishments. They were invitations. They asked me to slow down. They asked me to listen.

They asked me to stop pretending I could do everything without consequence.

They asked me to consider that maybe the world would keep spinning even if I rested.

They asked me to believe that my worth was not tied to how much I could carry.

I started noticing the small signs that a boundary was approaching.

• The sigh I let out before opening my email.

• The way I avoided certain conversations because I had nothing left to give.

• The moment I realized I was volunteering for things out of guilt instead of joy.

• The quiet resentment that crept in when I said yes to something I knew I should have declined.

These were not failures. They were signals.

They open into healthier rhythms.

They open into relationships that feel mutual instead of draining, into work that aligns with who I am instead of who I am trying to impress.

and they open into a faith that feels lived rather than performed.

I used to think boundaries were selfish. Now I think they are a form of stewardship.

• They protect the parts of me that are fragile.

• They protect the people I love from the version of me that shows up when I am stretched too thin.

• They protect the work I care about from being done with half a heart. They protect the quiet places where God speaks.

The boundaries I did not know I needed have become the ones I trust the most. They remind me that I am human. That I am not meant to carry everything. That rest is not a luxury.

They remind me that saying no is sometimes the most faithful thing I can do. They remind me that God meets me at the edge of my capacity, not beyond it.

I still overcommit. I still underestimate how long things take. I still think I can squeeze one more task into a day that is already full. But I am learning to pause. I am learning to listen. I am learning to honor the limits that keep me grounded and whole.

They are not the end of my freedom. They are the beginning of my peace.

As You Find Me (AYFM) is where Brad Hachez - a visionary neurodivergent creator - explores tech, faith, health, & life. Join the journey to streamline productivity, deepen relationships, & reflect on purpose with resilience, presence, and servant-hearted growth.

I have experimented with LinkedIn Premium over a number of years, which feels a little like joining a gym for your career. You sign up with good intentions, you poke around the equipment, and you hope no one notices that you are not entirely sure what half the buttons do.

The platform promises visibility, opportunity, and a sense of professional momentum. It also promises that people are looking at your profile, which is either encouraging or mildly alarming depending on the day.

People change jobs more often. Networking is no longer something you do at a conference with a name tag and a lukewarm muffin. It happens online, in messages, in comments, and in the quiet hope that someone will notice your thoughtful post about leadership. Premium steps in and says it can help you navigate all of that with a little more clarity.

So who is it for?

• It is for the job seeker who wants to know if their application was actually seen by a human being.

• It is for the mid-career professional who wants to understand how they compare to other applicants without spiraling into self-doubt to which I am all too familiar.

• It is for the person who wants to message someone they admire without feeling like they are shouting into the void. Vendors, I see you. I still don’t respond.

• It is for the curious, the ambitious, the anxious, and the quietly hopeful.
  

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The value of Premium depends on how you use it. The platform gives you insights into who viewed your profile, which can be helpful if you are trying to understand your reach. It also gives you access to salary data, which is useful if you have spent years guessing what a job should pay and hoping you are not wildly underestimating your worth. The InMail credits allow you to reach out to people you would never meet otherwise. Sometimes those messages lead to real conversations. Sometimes they lead to silence. Either way, you tried.

One of the most underrated features is the ability to see how you stack up against other applicants. This can be encouraging if you are in the top ten percent. It can also be humbling if you are not. The feature is honest, which is refreshing in a world where most platforms try to flatter you into staying.

The learning library is another area where Premium shines. There are courses on everything from project management to emotional intelligence. Some are surprisingly good. Some feel like they were filmed in a hurry. All of them give you the chance to grow without waiting for your employer to approve a training budget. You can learn during lunch or while pretending to fold laundry. It counts.

There are also creative uses for Premium that people do not talk about.

• You can use the profile views feature to understand which posts resonate with your network.

• You can use the applicant insights to refine your resume.

• You can use the salary data to negotiate with confidence.

• You can use the InMail credits to reach out to nonprofit leaders if you want to volunteer your skills.

• You can even use the learning library to train for board service or community leadership.

  Premium becomes a tool for service, not just self-promotion.

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Of course, it is not perfect. The price is high enough to make you pause. Some features feel like they should be free. The platform occasionally nudges you toward content that feels more like corporate fortune cookies than real insight. The job recommendations can be oddly specific or wildly off. You might get suggested for a senior engineering role even though you once broke a printer by looking at it too hard.

Still, there is value in a tool that helps you understand your professional landscape. There is value in a platform that encourages you to grow. There is value in anything that helps you feel less alone in the strange world of modern work. Premium is not magic. It will not hand you a dream job or transform your career overnight. It will give you information, access, and a sense of direction. Sometimes that is enough.

If you are considering it, ask yourself what you need right now. If you are job searching, it can be worth it. If you are exploring new roles or industries, it can be worth it. If you want to grow your skills or expand your network, it can be worth it. If you are content where you are and simply curious, you might not need it.

LinkedIn Premium is a tool. It can help you build a career that feels aligned with who you are becoming. It can help you connect with people who inspire you, help you learn, help you see your own progress.

It can also remind you that your worth is not measured by profile views or applicant rankings. You are more than your metrics.

Use it if it serves you. Skip it if it does not. Either way, you are doing just fine.

As You Find Me (AYFM) is where Brad Hachez - a visionary neurodivergent creator - explores tech, faith, health, & life. Join the journey to streamline productivity, deepen relationships, & reflect on purpose with resilience, presence, and servant-hearted growth.

I have spent a good portion of my adult life trying to figure out how to serve others without accidentally setting myself on fire in the process. It turns out this is harder than it sounds. Volunteering is beautiful until you realize you have said yes to so many things that your calendar looks like a toddler scribbled on it. You want to help. You want to be useful. You want to honor God and your community. You also want to sleep at night and maybe eat a vegetable once in a while.

Somewhere along the way I started to believe that saying yes was the same thing as being faithful. If someone needed help, I said yes. If a committee needed a warm body, I said yes. If a nonprofit needed someone who could type, breathe, and show up on time, I said yes. I thought this made me generous. It mostly made me tired.

Eventually I learned that serving without burning out requires a kind of quiet discipline that does not get much applause. The discipline of choosing what is actually yours to carry.

Not everything.
Not even most things.

Just the things that align with your gifts, your season of life, your health, and the small corner of the world God has entrusted to you.

This sounds simple until you try it.

You also discover how much of your identity has been wrapped up in being the person who always shows up. It is humbling to realize that your desire to serve has been tangled up with your desire to be seen as helpful. It is even more humbling to realize that God never asked you to be the hero of every story.

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In my time, I have volunteered on a community cable access board, online for app tech support and with a nonprofit youth soccer organization. In both instances I stepped out of my comfort zone and into a space where my talents in technology and leadership could be placed into broader use, not for my own reward.

Serving well requires honesty.

• You have to know your limits.

• You have to know your job’s expectations.

• You have to know how much emotional energy you have left after a long week.

• You have to know when your body is asking for rest.

• You have to know when your family needs you more than the committee does.

• You have to know when your yes would be sincere and when it would be a performance.

There is a kind of holiness in that honesty. It is the holiness of not pretending to be limitless and remembering that you are a human being with a nervous system, not a machine that can run indefinitely. Trusting that God can raise up other volunteers and that the world does not collapse when you step back.

Once I started paying attention to what was actually mine to carry, volunteering became lighter.

Sometimes it looks like:

• sending an encouraging email to someone who is struggling.

• stacking chairs after an event.

• serving on a board because you genuinely care about the mission and not because you felt cornered into it. S

• helping online because your schedule does not allow you to show up in person.

• choosing one thing and doing it well instead of choosing ten things and doing them all with a faint sense of resentment.

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I also learned that serving with integrity means honoring the people who pay you. If your employer trusts you with your time, your energy, and your attention, then volunteering should never become a secret second job that steals from the first.

The surprising thing is that when you serve within your limits, you actually have more to give. You show up with a clearer mind and a steadier heart. You show up without the simmering exhaustion that makes you question every life choice you have ever made. You show up with joy instead of obligation. You show up with the kind of presence that makes your service feel like a gift instead of a burden. You. Show. Up.

The rewards of serving this way are subtle but real.

1. You start to notice the people you are helping instead of rushing past them.

2. You start to feel connected to the mission instead of overwhelmed by it.

3. You start to sense God’s presence in the small moments instead of waiting for the big ones. and

4. You start to sleep better because your yes is honest and your no is grounded.

It is about trusting that God is not asking you to save the world. God is asking you to be faithful in the small corner you inhabit. God is asking you to show up with sincerity, not exhaustion. God is asking you to serve in ways that bring life, not depletion.

If you are learning this too, welcome. You are in good company. The world needs your gifts, but it does not need you to disappear in the process. Say yes when it is yours to carry. Say no when it is not. And sleep well knowing that faithfulness is not measured by how much you do, but by how honestly you do it.

As You Find Me (AYFM) is where Brad Hachez - a visionary neurodivergent creator - explores tech, faith, health, & life. Join the journey to streamline productivity, deepen relationships, & reflect on purpose with resilience, presence, and servant-hearted growth.

I have been thinking about the strange little celebrations that come with growing older.

Not the big ones.
Not the milestone birthdays with sheet cakes and candles that drip wax onto the frosting.

I mean the quiet parties. The ones no one throws for you. The ones you stumble into without realizing you crossed a threshold.

There is the party you throw the first time you stand up and your knees make a sound that can only be described as “ancient door hinge.” No one else hears it, but you do. You pause. You look around.

There is the party you host when you realize you can no longer eat certain foods after 8 p.m. without consequences. It is a very exclusive party. The dress code is sweatpants and regret.

There is the party you attend when you start talking to your doctor like a co-worker. You compare schedules. You make small talk. You joke about how many vials of blood they are taking this time, as I have done. You leave with a printout of your lab results and the unsettling awareness that you now care deeply about numbers you never knew existed.

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There is the party you throw for yourself when you finally understand that sleep is not optional.

It is not a suggestion.

It is not a luxury. (Although the right bed can make it feel luxury!)

Sleep is the whole foundation of your sanity. You start protecting it like a dragon guarding treasure. You turn down plans. You say things like “I can’t start a movie at nine.” You feel no shame.

This is a quiet party; a tender one.

You look at their hands. You hear the slight tremor in their voice. You realize you are becoming the adult in the room. You do not remember signing up for this, but here you are, holding the responsibility like a fragile heirloom.

My own Mother has transformed before my eyes to a woman needing extra care, to needing a walker for assistance, to needing transportation everywhere. It takes a toll to provide this assistance and to see these changes.

There is the party you attend when you start losing people. Friends. Family. People you thought would be here longer.

You never feel ready. You learn to carry grief in your pocket like a stone that never fully smooths out.

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My Father passed from pancreatic cancer several years ago resulting in my processing of all sorts of experiences. His passing only further complicating my Mother’s aging that I highlighted.

There is the party you host when you realize your body is not the enemy. It is not a project. It is not a problem to solve. It is the place you live. The place that has carried you through every season and deserves kindness. You start treating it with a little more respect. You start listening to it; thanking it.

There is the party you join when you stop pretending you have to be impressive. You stop performing, almost stop caring!

You start telling the truth. You start laughing at yourself. You start letting people see the real you, not the curated version. It is the most freeing party of all.

Growing old is not one big celebration.
It is a series of small gatherings.
Some are joyful.
Some are painful.
Some are confusing. All of them shape you.

All of them invite you to pay attention. All of them remind you that life is not something you master. It is something you live.

It is a privilege. It is a chance to become more yourself. It is a chance to see the world with softer eyes. It is a chance to love the people around you with a little more tenderness.

If you are growing older, welcome. The party is already in progress. There is room for you.

As You Find Me (AYFM) is where Brad Hachez - a visionary neurodivergent creator - explores tech, faith, health, & life. Join the journey to streamline productivity, deepen relationships, & reflect on purpose with resilience, presence, and servant-hearted growth.

Every few months the internet invents a new way to make me tilt my head like a confused golden retriever. Lately it’s the wave of “AI Jesus” tools.

Text with Jesus
AI Jesus
Hey Jesus

Apps that promise you can chat with Jesus. Bots that answer your questions “in His voice.” Programs that claim to interpret Scripture for you, or even rewrite it to be more “relevant.”

I understand the curiosity. I understand the hunger for guidance. I even understand the appeal of a Jesus who responds instantly and never asks you to wait, reflect, or wrestle. But something in me tightens when I see these tools because the idea of simulating the voice of Jesus crosses a boundary that Scripture never gives us permission to cross.

There is a difference between using AI to help you study the Bible and using AI to impersonate the One the Bible is about.

The first can be helpful. The second is a problem.

AI can summarize a passage and give historical context. It can help you compare translations. It can even help you understand how a theme develops across Scripture.

When a tool claims to “speak as Jesus,” it is not offering spiritual insight. It is offering a performance.

And performances, no matter how convincing, are not the same as truth.

Scripture gives us many warnings about false voices. Not in a spooky, end‑times way, but in a very practical, human way. We are told to test the spirits, to discern and that the sheep know the Shepherd’s voice. The real one. Not the AI simulated one that is algorithmic and optimized for engagement.

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The voice of Jesus is not something we manufacture. It is something we receive.

And that is the heart of the issue. AI Jesus flips the relationship. Instead of God revealing Himself, we create a version of Him that behaves the way we want.

• A Jesus who always answers immediately.

• A Jesus who never challenges us.

• A Jesus who never surprises us.

• A Jesus who conveniently agrees with our preferences, our politics, our anxieties, and our assumptions.

That is not discipleship. That is projection.

The Bible is already the place where God speaks. The Spirit is already the One who guides. The community of believers is already the place where we discern together. None of these things need a digital impersonator to make them more “accessible.”

If anything, AI Jesus risks making faith smaller.

It replaces the slow, relational work of prayer with instant responses. It turns the living Word into a customizable character.

And it trains us to expect God to sound like whatever we want Him to sound like.

I am not anti‑technology or anti‑AI. I am wary of anything that encourages us to outsource our spiritual formation to a machine. Faith is not efficient, automated, or a shortcut.

Faith is a relationship with a real God who speaks in ways no algorithm can imitate.

So if you want to use AI to help you study Scripture, go ahead. Use it to understand context and explore themes. Use it to ask questions you’re too embarrassed to ask out loud. But when it comes to hearing the voice of Jesus, close the app. Open the Bible. Sit in the quiet. Let the Spirit do what only the Spirit can do.

The real Jesus does not need a chatbot to speak. And the real Jesus is far better than anything we could ever program.

As You Find Me (AYFM) is where Brad Hachez - a visionary neurodivergent creator - explores tech, faith, health, & life. Join the journey to streamline productivity, deepen relationships, & reflect on purpose with resilience, presence, and servant-hearted growth.

Yesterday I sat in a small exam room at Leahy Medical Clinic, waiting for my doctor to walk in and tell me whether my liver was still behaving itself. I’ve had a complicated relationship with this particular organ. A year ago it was inflamed enough to light up my lab results like a Christmas tree. My ALT and AST were over 500. That’s the kind of number that makes a doctor stop mid‑sentence and say “Huh.”

The culprit turned out to be a medication that my body did not appreciate. I stopped taking it, changed how I ate, moved my body more, and lost 40lbs of my weight. The liver is one of the few organs that can regenerate when you stop irritating it. Mine apparently took that as a personal challenge.

So there I was yesterday, joking with the staff about how many vials of blood they planned to take. (Only three. A personal record was 11.) My vitals were calm. My pulse was 55. My blood pressure was 113 over 69. My oxygen was 97. My mood was somewhere between “I hope this goes well” and “I wonder if they still have those stickers for grown‑ups.” They’s don’t.

On Bluesky and Threads, I am sharing related Therapy notes like this gem:

Pairing practical health changes with spiritual faith creates a sturdy foundation for facing medical uncertainty.

When the doctor came in, he smiled. He told me my ultrasound from July still looked great. No scarring. No cirrhosis. No signs of advanced disease. My labs were normal. My liver had, in his words, “fully recovered.” He even gave me a thumbs‑up, which is the medical equivalent of a gold star.

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He reminded me of a few things that might help someone else reading this.

• Fatty liver can improve with weight loss, movement, and removing the thing that caused the injury.
• ALT and AST levels under 40 are a good sign of a calm liver.
• Annual labs are enough when things are stable.
• Be careful with supplements and over‑the‑counter medications if you’ve ever had drug‑induced liver injury.
• If you ever see jaundice, dark urine, itching, confusion, or unusual bleeding, call someone who knows what they’re doing. I’ll clarify. Call a doctor.

So this is me, celebrating ordinary life. My liver graduated. I’m the proud parent of a well‑behaved organ.

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I’m sharing in our Facebook community tips for managing Fatty Liver Anxiety. From reinforcing the warning signs, I talk also about celebrating maintenance and giving yourself credit. I encourage questions and comments there specific to the Anxiety impacts of Fatty Liver or health crisis in general.

On Instagram, I am sharing general Fatty Liver awareness details to spread the word to others.

Thanks for reading. And if your own liver is on a journey, I’m cheering for it.

As You Find Me (AYFM) is where Brad Hachez - a visionary neurodivergent creator - explores tech, faith, health, & life. Join the journey to streamline productivity, deepen relationships, & reflect on purpose with resilience, presence, and servant-hearted growth.

Every January, I find myself standing in front of the Christmas tree like it’s a beloved houseguest who has overstayed their welcome. I know it’s time. The needles know it’s time. Even the cats, who have spent a month treating the tree skirt like a personal chaise lounge, knows it’s time.

Yet I hesitate.

There’s something strangely emotional about packing away the sparkle. In my most recent years, the fake tree adds to the packing where the real tree would have been an act of disposal in the nearby woods. The act of packing it away feels like closing the cover on a chapter I wasn’t quite finished reading. The lights go back in their box, the ornaments return to their tissue paper cocoons, and suddenly the living room looks a little too honest. No twinkle to soften the edges. No excuse for hot chocolate at 3 p.m.

I used to think this hesitation was laziness. Now I think it’s something closer to grief. Not the dramatic kind, but the quiet ache of transition. The kind you only notice when the house gets still.

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Tinsel is a funny thing. It’s cheap, it sheds everywhere, and it somehow manages to look both magical and slightly chaotic. But it represents something we don’t get enough of during the rest of the year: permission to delight. Permission to be a little extra. Permission to believe that ordinary things can shimmer if the light hits them right.

So when we pack it away, we’re not just cleaning up. We’re letting go of a season that gave us a socially acceptable reason to slow down, gather close, and remember what matters. Even if what mattered in the moment was simply watching a kid lose their mind over a stocking stuffer.

The real challenge isn’t taking the tree down. (Unless it’s real, you don’t live near the woods, don’t have a truck, and no one picks up). It’s figuring out how to carry that sense of wonder into the weeks that follow. January doesn’t hand out magic the way December does. You have to look for it, to choose it. You have to create it in small, almost invisible ways.

A warm light in the early morning. A conversation that lingers. A moment of gratitude that sneaks up on you while you’re unloading the dishwasher.

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Maybe the theology of tinsel is this: wonder was never meant to stay in a box until next year. It was meant to follow us into the ordinary. It was meant to be practiced, not stored.

So yes, take the tree down. Sweep up the glitter that will somehow still appear in July. But don’t mistake the end of a season for the end of its gifts.

The sparkle was never in the tinsel. It was in the noticing.

And that part doesn’t have to go anywhere.

Note: This year my wife has taken down the Christmas tree and I feel compelled for the continuation of my own existence and happiness to both clarify, recognize and thank her for that effort here. Thank you, Mara.

As You Find Me (AYFM) is where Brad Hachez - a visionary neurodivergent creator - explores tech, faith, health, & life. Join the journey to streamline productivity, deepen relationships, & reflect on purpose with resilience, presence, and servant-hearted growth.

There’s a very specific kind of dread that hits when your phone buzzes at 5:42 a.m. and you see the subject line: “Important Update Regarding Today’s Schedule.”

You don’t even have to open it. Your soul already knows. Somewhere in the distance, a snowplow groans. The weather app is still insisting it’s only flurries, which is adorable. And your brain begins its rapid‑fire calculations: childcare, meetings, snacks, the whereabouts of the one mitten your child swears they didn’t lose.

I used to treat these moments like emergencies. A two‑hour delay felt like a personal attack from the atmosphere. A full closure? Meteorological betrayal. I’d scramble to rearrange everything, convinced that if I just tried hard enough, I could bend the day back into the shape I wanted.

But weather doesn’t negotiate. It doesn’t care about your calendar or your carefully stacked obligations. It just does what it does, and we’re left to decide whether we’ll fight reality or work with it.

Somewhere along the way, I realized these emails were giving me an uninvited spiritual practice. A chance to loosen my grip. A reminder that flexibility isn’t a failure of planning but a form of grace.

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Because the truth is, most of life is a two‑hour delay we didn’t ask for. Plans shift. People need things. Circumstances change without consulting us. And we can either panic every time the universe sends a surprise update, or we can learn the sacred art of adjusting without losing ourselves.

So now, when the school email arrives, I take a breath before I take action. I let the day be what it is instead of what I scripted. I remind myself that my worth isn’t measured by how tightly I can cling to a schedule. And sometimes, if I’m feeling especially brave, I even enjoy the unexpected slowness.

The takeaway is simple: control is comforting, but flexibility is freeing. And grace often shows up disguised as inconvenience.

Even in the form of a 5:42 a.m. email.

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Ten Things To Do During a School Delay

1. Declare a Slow Morning Treaty
   Everyone moves at half‑speed. No one is allowed to panic. Pajamas remain legal attire until further notice.

2. Make the Fancy Breakfast You Never Have Time For
   Pancakes shaped like questionable animals. Eggs that may or may not be edible. The bar is low and the vibes are high.

3. Turn the Weather Into a Science Lesson
   “Why is snow sticky?” “How does ice form?” “What is wind?”
   Pretend you know the answers. Google later.

4. Do the Backpack Audit
   Remove the mystery items. Return the library books. Rediscover the missing water bottle that smells like regret.

5. Have a Mini Reset
   Ten minutes of tidying. Not cleaning. Tidying. The kind where you move things into piles and call it progress.

6. Go Outside for Five Minutes
   Touch the snow. Touch the cold. Touch grass if it’s visible. Then immediately retreat inside and appreciate central heating.

7. Play a Quick Game
   Uno, Connect Four, or the classic “Why is your shoe wet?” detective challenge.

8. Check In With Yourself
   A delay is a built‑in pause. Ask what you actually need today besides caffeine and a miracle.

9. Let the Kids Burn Energy
   Dance party. Obstacle course. Sprints between the couch and the fridge. Whatever keeps them from climbing the curtains.

10. Reframe the Day
    A delay isn’t a disruption. As I’ve highlighted above, it’s a reminder that life doesn’t always follow the schedule. Sometimes that’s annoying and sometimes it’s a gift.

As You Find Me (AYFM) is where Brad Hachez - a visionary neurodivergent creator - explores tech, faith, health, & life. Join the journey to streamline productivity, deepen relationships, & reflect on purpose with resilience, presence, and servant-hearted growth.

Brad introduces himself as the creator of As You Find Me and shares that this is his first update using Substack’s native video tool.

He explains his plan to post monthly community updates throughout 2026.

As You Find Me is described as a generalist space where Brad explores tech, faith, health, and life, reflecting his wide range of interests.

He notes that generalist platforms often struggle to gain traction, but he hopes to build connection and trust over time.

Brad shares that the main Substack will remain free to help grow the audience and foster authentic engagement.

He reveals a second, more specialized Substack launching in February 2026: Moonberry and Friends, focused on children’s stories.

The Moonberry Substack will include a paid tier with author-read audio, Moonberry’s journal, and parenting resources tied to story themes.

He explains how themes like anxiety may appear across both Substacks, one for adults, one adapted for kids and parents.

Brad highlights tools he uses, such as Bear for notes, Fastmail for email, and Kagi for search, emphasizing the value of paid, privacy‑respecting services.

He mentions recent book reviews, including The Let Them Theory and AI for Dummies, and how these readings influence his life and work.

He acknowledges that As You Find Me is still small (fewer than 10 subscribers) but expresses gratitude for early supporters.

Brad encourages people to join the community at asyoufind.me, even if they discovered him through Instagram, Facebook, Threads, Bluesky, or YouTube.

He shares that his podcast, piloted in 2025, will receive new episodes in 2026.

He talks about developing a more predictable posting schedule instead of relying on impulsive bursts of creativity.

Brad commits to monthly update videos and ongoing content growth through January and February.

He closes by thanking viewers, inviting feedback, and encouraging authentic engagement across platforms.

As You Find Me (AYFM) is where Brad Hachez - a visionary neurodivergent creator - explores tech, faith, health, & life. Join the journey to streamline productivity, deepen relationships, & reflect on purpose with resilience, presence, and servant-hearted growth.