The people (you) have spoken! From here on out, this newsletter will be more personal and less business-y. The whole point is to build community, so it’s important that you’re part of the journey. If you want more of my professional insights, feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn.
Now, the moment we’ve all been waiting for — the knee surgery. It happened Monday. I’m still feeling it on Saturday as I write this.
The theme for this week is “Painful Progression”, and here’s why.
I’m a man of my word and I promised a flexed knee pic.
Even under anesthesia, my body wasn’t exactly thrilled, but this procedure needed to be done to improve my quality of life. Growth comes from uncomfortable circumstances, and at least I had a general anesthetic for this one.
Now that I’ve delivered on last week’s promise, let’s talk about why this has been transformational for my mindset. To set the stage, you need to understand the knee manipulation process. Strap in.
When you undergo a manipulation under anesthesia (MUA), the surgery itself is the easy part. The real work begins once the drugs wear off. Why?
Because just seeing my knee bent at 120 degrees in the picture doesn’t mean I can naturally bend it that far right away. That image shows the biomechanical limit — the ceiling of what’s possible now. My body has to be pushed to remind it, “This is possible, now come get it.”
This is where Painful Progression comes in. When the anesthesia wore off Tuesday morning, my knee was back to a smooth 60 degrees like nothing happened. But this time, there was pure pain throughout the joint from those Bane-like exercises just 18 hours before.
How do you go from 60 to 120 degrees? Through aggressive physical therapy. Not the gentle kind with a few small exercises, either. We’re talking two intense programs. One built on self-accountability, the other built on teamwork.
One is at home: lying on my back, using an exercise band to bend my knee and holding it for 5 seconds — 40 times a day.
Normally, I love starting my day working on my business after coffee and a walk. But this exercise is so uncomfortable my coffee sometimes takes 30 minutes to finish because I dread the pain so much.
Even though it hurts like hell, I never skip it. I know I have about a month before scar tissue hardens. Right now, my knee is like Play-Doh — malleable and ready to be shaped. If I coast through PT, this whole MUA was just a waste of time.
So, here I am, voluntarily signing up for torture four times a day, dedicating at least an hour to my future self’s health.
The other program is PT at the hospital, where I work with a group of therapists who’ve been by my side throughout this journey. They’ll know who they are when they read this — THANK YOU all.
While I’m happy to see them, I’m equally upset when they bend my knees for 30-45 minutes straight with small breathing breaks. But we both know the goal: get me to that 120 degrees and beyond.
Love ‘em, but hate ‘em... but still love ‘em
Back to the knee MUA process — here’s where the real lesson lies.
In the 90s, all the cool kids wanted to “raise the roof.” If you’re born in the 00s, let me introduce you to a great arm exercise.
Today, this cool kid (me) is “raising the floor.”
This may not have a YouTube tutorial, but it’s incredibly effective for growing through challenges. How?
The key to restoring my knee range of motion is to never let it go back down to 60 degrees. Every PT session, the goal is to start higher than the previous session’s baseline. The toughest part? Showing up every day, sometimes multiple times a day. But that’s an investment you and I should make on repeat like we’re DCA’ing Bitcoin.
Sound familiar? Good.
Writing this week’s entry from the recovery corner
Whether it’s your career, relationships, or workouts… raise the floor.
If you consistently increase your floor, you won’t fall below your baseline. Over time, that floor becomes a low bar that’s still higher than most.
For me, that means pushing to the brink of pain every day so that in two weeks, my floor moves from 60 to 90 degrees. Then I can walk into my post-op appointment with my chest held high and tell my surgeon, “It sucked, but we made it to the first peak. Now we’re going to get that next one at 120.”
Moral of the story: progress will hurt, but you are never given more than you can handle.
I’ve seen the paralyzed take steps after being told they never would. I’ve seen friends conceive after being told it was impossible. I’ve seen my own knee surpass 55 degrees when doctors said it was stuck forever.
You have the power to go get what you want. Don’t let self-limiting thoughts or societal constructs hold you back from your full range of motion in life. Any growth worth having is going to hurt, but remember that every day your floor is getting higher.
Go get your 120 degrees and don’t stop until you get there. Be obsessed, be ruthless, be humble. See you at the summit 🏔️
PS: I’ll be announcing some AMAZING news over the next few weeks on Instagram so follow me there to stay updated!