6 days ago13 min read

A Legacy in Print: The Grateful Man Collection, Books 1-7

Trickling from my left hand, up around the elbow, twisting through my neck like a dust devil then spilling from the top of my ear leaving my body, energy to the universe... I have chills as I ponder these next words.

In January 2017, I stepped deep off the edge and vulnerably sent a buddy an email...

In July of 2018, one and a half years later, the emails evolved into something more. My readers started calling it a weekly blog. With that inspiration, I took all the emails and creatively merged them into a legitimate website - GratefulMan.com. That post was #75

Today is November 1 of 2024. This means I'm on the cusp of 8 years...

Friends, today is post number #375.

For people who are not good with numbers:

That's three hundred and seventy-five. ;)

This accomplishment has required me to spend thousands and thousands of hours transcribing thoughts, emotions, ideas, all onto this digital paper you're holding in your hand now. I surmise that it takes me one hour of creative writing + editing for one minute's worth of reading.

I have been told by many that my words have changed their lives. It's like going to church, some have said... the sermon is rich and deep, but not all the time does something resonate; however the subconscious is listening. Every now and then, the words work their way to the soul, and like the miracle of life, something changes inside. To my humbled spirit, I have unexpectedly received emails saying so.

Powerful, moving, inspiring... leaves me eternally grateful.

Like many over this time telling me to start a blog, so many others have also said, "you'd be a great writer! You should write a book! Ho-ners English has kept me humbly grounded cause I've never seen it like that. But it's you, the reader, that keeps that fire going.

@Post #187

Re: Weekly Picture :) Stop lying to myself

Wow......this should be the opening page to your book!!

I love your insight into all our lives. You are good!!

It is all so relatable.

Enjoy the day.

Margaret

There are so many more... but it's you who's motivated me to this level.

My biggest fear has been the finality of life showing up sooner than I would be ready. Amongst other real fears, I was haunted with the possibility of no longer being here. In my absence, the domain name would eventually expire. As soon as the hosting site wasn't getting its money, GratefulMan.com along with the thousands of hours invested, like me, it'd be gone forever.

This was a deep level of haunt. So much so, I made a blog post specifically about creating books combined with my blogs... Personal Goal it was titled.. that was January 2020. I can throw a rock at 2025 we're so close!

Just as one receives difficult news from the doctor, "if you don't do something about this, well..." Like a crazed man, I started to dedicate hundreds of hours into an executed strategy to make sure this would be a knock down drag out fight. Little did I know those hours would be stretched out to almost FIVE years.

The challenge with this commitment has been that every week I add another blog post that ultimately needs to be copied from the website, pasted, formatted and proofed... is a grind! One easy to get bogged down and forget your commitment.

But the adage is, if it's important to you, you will find the time. You will make the time if it matters. (Now as I proof this, 9:57PM I'm 13hrs into the blog post... shit is important!) Looking back at all the milestones and struggles leading up to today, I would never have guessed what it would take to make this what it is.

I was so excited to share #75 with you. Such a little boy I think of as I reminisce... I remember the technical challenges in trying to hunt and find all the blog posts to make a website even happen. To build the website was a demand. It ultimately changed how I did things, things that paved the road for the future in which I'm living now.

Before I could get to the future, I still had to write another seventy-five blog posts, four times in a row thereafter to be where I was ultimately going.

For math people, that's 75 x 4 = 300

Today, #375, A Legacy in Print~

Someday when the sands of time have taken my final breath, it is my hope that you will find memorable happiness in the following pages.

This is my legacy, and I made this for you.

To my sweet boys Avin and Tristan:

I hope you and your children enjoy the stories of your life before they were born.

I am a better person for having fathered you two.

And to my bride, my bestist friend, my Chas-luv:

My life started when you showed up.

Thank you for your love, patience and incredible support for anything that captivated my creative attention...especially the thousands of hours I’ve spent behind this fucking keyboard! :)

I love you on the mucho!

For everyone else:

I hope that within these words you can find the vulnerable confidence to live the most authentic life you can.

It is not easy, but it’s worth it.

I can not come to words on what holding one of these in my hands feels like. The weighted substance of the hardbound binding. The glass smooth cover, the crick-clack sound emanating from the spine of the book once opened. As the pages fan their countless stories in front of you, the aroma of the book is intoxicating.

I made this thing...

I wrote this thing...

and it's real.

Placed like a battle fought trophy, there is no missing this collection.

Front and center within the world I have created. They remind me of what I have gone through, the lives that I have touched, the lives that are no longer here, the everything I have poured myself into, into finding my true authentic self.

Grateful.

This 7 book collection consists of approximately 2,900 pages... Book Seven is a 622 page, 6.2lb monster! ;) Not only are they just gosh damn beautiful to hold and peruse through, they are riddled and packed with you. Yes, these are my words, but when I see them, hold them, admiring their details, man?!... you are there, there as a reminder to me in ways that literally bring me to tears.

Before I show you more pictures, it's important that you know what went into taking them for this post. It would have been a lot easier for me to just snag screenshots of the book's digital file, however, considering the intense love and time that went into the development of the books, especially at this level, it was important I also loved them in hand to capture their "real life".

A true photo'opp shoot for the entirety of the book! :)

Although a bit time consuming, way time consuming, I would have done the books ZERO "printed justice" without taking true, live action pictures. :)

Now that I've shared...

Come with me

Each book consists of all the blog posts written in that specific year. 52 weeks in a year, 52 blog posts broken down into their own chapter.

Each year was named according to the mental spirit I found myself in at the beginning of that year. To give that title life, true substance, I branded the "year's" words in a particular manner as if to be a story of their own within the entirety of the collection.

The cover picture was chosen amongst all of the year's weekly pictures. Today is blog post #375... that makes a collection of 375 pictures.

Each picture is named what post number it is, followed by the date the post was made. Keep in mind, it's been almost 8 years worth of pictures. The pics ultimately evolved into an efficient naming structure; all for better file management. Is why I didn't share what the earlier years looked like! haha! :)

Today's picture will be 375_110124. In all of the 375 weeks I have published, I have only ever used the same picture twice.. That was in honor of my good buddy Jon. RIP dear friend.

To keep things digestible, I chose my favorite picture within that year's selection, then paired it with the flow and footprint of the title/overall theme/vibe of the year. It also needed flow/fit well over the back too.

The branded year carried over and you can see the extended cover picture. Rather than adding a legitimate UPC with its own ISBN# (because I could have also done that too) I decided that a QR code taking you to GratefulMan.com had a better feel. Not to mention it would have graphically impacted the look... can't have that!

Long before the graphical grind of making the books took place, I did share the excitement of the idea with many of my close readers. I was at lunch with a close friend, he said “are you going to have the thing in there at the front where someone is talking about the book?” the Foreword I said. “Yeah, that’s it!”

Foreword:

A book's foreword is a short introduction written by someone other than the author, usually appearing before the first chapter. The purpose of a foreword is to introduce the book and its author, and to lend credibility to the work and relationship therein.

Up until that moment I had not even thought of it. Therefore and thereafter, all the forewords written in all my books are solely credited to my friend's playful suggestion. For me, this decision was a NO BRAINER! It really threw gas on my creative fire! :) I mean, if you are going to have a book, a real book, it must have a foreword! I thought of nothing better than asking some of my regular feedbackers, opinion holders, and weekly conversationalists if they would grace me the honor of writing the foreword.

And so they did!

Back to the details! :)

Do you remember the arrows pointing at the elephants? Although the elephants change throughout the years, I showcase and inspiring quote by Aaron Koblin that does not ever change:

They say an elephant never forgets. Well, you're not an elephant. Take notes, constantly. Save interesting thoughts, quotations, films, technologies... the medium doesn't matter so long as it inspires you.

~Aaron Koblin

It's you who inspires me!

The motivation goes beyond just the foreword... it also includes the people reaching out at the random after a post! For the window of each full year, the books year, I have responses from frequent readers saying something positive, moving, funny, about the post.

Like Aaron Koblin said,

"the medium doesn't matter so long as it inspires you"

My gosh! What an inspiration!!!

Book 1 , 152 Pages | The Year of 2017 "Commit"

Foreword by: Jeff Smith