It doesn’t happen often—but every once in a while, life gives you just enough distance from yourself to see clearly.
For me, it showed up last week on a family vacation.
Not during the fun parts.
Not during the noise.
It showed up early in the morning at the hotel gym, headphones in, grinding through a workout before anyone else was awake. And later, standing in the water along the Orange County coast, waiting for the right wave, with nothing to do but think.
No meetings.
No notifications.
No expectations.
Just space.
Space to ask a question most of us avoid because we’re moving too fast to answer it honestly:
How am I actually doing?
A Reminder From an Unlikely Place
Somewhere between sets, a familiar voice came through my headphones—Real AF.
If you know Andy Frisella, you know he’s not subtle. No polish. No filter. Just blunt force truth delivered like a right hook.
That morning, he hit a line my dad used to repeat to me growing up:
“Take an inventory of yourself.”
My dad always framed it the same way—if you want a full life, you can’t ignore balance. Not the Instagram kind. The real kind.
Mental.
Physical.
Spiritual.
Economic.
Hearing that idea again—years later, in a completely different voice—landed harder than I expected.
So I did what I hadn’t done in a long time.
I stopped.
I closed my eyes.
And I took inventory.
What I Saw When I Looked Honestly
I didn’t rush it. I let each area come up naturally. And I didn’t score myself to feel good—I scored myself to get accurate.
Some areas were strong.
Some were drifting.
A few were overdue for attention.
Nothing was broken.
But nothing was static either.
That’s the part people miss—life is always in flux. The danger isn’t being imperfect. The danger is being unaware.
One insight cut through everything else:
I’ve spent too much time caring about opinions from people who aren’t building what I’m building.
That ends now.
I’m not building for the crowd.
I’m building for my wife.
For my daughter.
For the life we’re actually living.
That clarity alone made the week worth it.
The Six Areas That Matter (Whether You Track Them or Not)
On the drive home, I kept thinking about the patterns. These are the categories that kept surfacing—not as theory, but as lived pressure points.
Spiritual
Not belief as an idea—but alignment in practice. Who I’m becoming. Who I’m serving. Whether my life reflects what I say matters.
Personal / Mental
How I talk to myself. Whether I’m stretching or coasting. Whether criticism is shaping me—or shrinking me.
Financial
Not just money earned—but money stewarded. Skills developed. Freedom built intentionally instead of accidentally.
Emotional
How I handle stress. Whether my emotions leak onto people who didn’t earn them. Whether I create calm—or chaos.
Physical
Energy. Capacity. Discipline. Whether my body supports the life I’m asking it to carry.
Relational
Marriage. Family. Friends. Partners.
Boundaries. Depth. Alignment.
And whether I’m healthy to be around—or just familiar.
This wasn’t about judgment.
It was about orientation.
Measuring Without Lying to Yourself
Years ago, my mentor John King taught me the EARN framework:
Exercise
Attitude
Recovery
Nutrition
Simple. Daily. Honest.
I realized you can apply the same principle to your life as a whole. Not to obsess—but to course correct.
You don’t need a perfect system. You need a repeatable one.
Awareness precedes change.
Why This Matters in Relationships
Here’s where inventory stops being personal and starts being practical.
When you understand your own inventory, you gain discernment with others.
Not to judge—but to contextualize.
You wouldn’t take marriage advice from someone who can’t sustain one.
You wouldn’t hire a business coach whose life collapsed behind the scenes.
You wouldn’t buy health advice from someone who doesn’t live it.
That’s not arrogance.
That’s alignment.
Understanding someone’s inventory of self helps you decide how close, how fast, and how much to invest.
It protects your time.
It protects your family.
It protects your future.
Why Taking Inventory Is Important
Taking inventory isn’t about fixing everything at once.
It’s about telling yourself the truth—regularly enough that small corrections prevent big consequences.
You don’t need a breakdown to do this. You don’t need a crisis.
Sometimes all it takes is:
A quiet gym.
An empty shoreline.
And the willingness to ask, “Am I living in alignment with what I say matters?”
That question—answered honestly—changes everything.
If you ever find the space to ask it, don’t waste it.