View Bert Russell's written Waves series -

Take the Journey with him - July 2026 by date and time.

Discover Bery Russell's philosophies of his learning progress - A lifetime of curiosity's?

Written Waves

The One Wave

by Bert Russell

Date and Time: 7-8-2026 @ 6:41 AM

Every time I hear another story about someone I care about, I quietly drift back to a place I know all too well.

The details are different. The names are different. The reasons are different.

But the feelings...

The feelings are familiar.

I've known what it feels like to believe nothing is getting better. I've lived through days when I felt helpless and nights when I wondered if life would ever feel normal again. I remember believing tomorrow would simply become another repeat of today.

If you've ever been there, you know how heavy those thoughts can become.

So before I say anything else, I want you to hear this.

If you're tired, you don't have to face the ocean alone. There are people willing to stand in the water beside you until you're ready to catch the next wave.

Life is a lot like learning to ride a boogie board.

You paddle toward wave after wave. One crashes over your head before you even get started. Another flips you upside down. Salt water fills your nose. You lose your board. You stand back up, wondering why everyone else seems to make it look so easy.

Then another wave comes.

You fall again.

And another.

Eventually, you begin asking yourself a dangerous question:

"Why do I keep trying?"

Because somewhere beyond those crashing waves is the one you've been waiting for.

Nobody learns to ride a boogie board on the first attempt. They learn because they keep walking back into the water. Sometimes the victory isn't riding the wave. Sometimes the victory is simply refusing to walk back to the beach.

Sometimes all you can manage is one more step into the water.

Sometimes all you can do is hold onto your board.

Sometimes all you can do is breathe.

And that's enough.

Then one day...

A wave arrives that feels different.

You paddle.

You commit.

You catch it.

Instead of crashing over you, it lifts you.

For a few beautiful moments, you're no longer fighting the ocean.

You're riding with it.

Those few seconds don't erase every wipeout that came before, but they remind you that the ocean wasn't trying to destroy you. It was teaching you balance, patience, resilience, and perseverance.

Life often works the same way.

Some days success isn't measured in miles.

It's measured in inches.

Sometimes all we can manage are baby steps, and that's okay. A baby step is still a step forward.

So if today feels like another wave has knocked you down, don't stay there.

Lift your head.

Take one more breath.

Take one more step.

Keep walking.

Keep paddling.

Your story doesn't end with the wave that knocked you down.

It ends with the wave you finally learn to ride.

And when that day comes, you'll discover something you never noticed while you were struggling.

Every wave before it was preparing you for the one that would finally carry you home.

Written Waves

Echoes Across the Pacific

by Bert Russell

Date and Time: 7-5-2026 @ 1:58 PM

The older gentleman looked at me and smiled.

"So...what did you learn?"

I laughed.

"I learned the older you get, the more sounds a person makes."

He laughed even harder.

"I could've told you that when I was five."

For a few seconds we were simply two strangers laughing in a Costco restroom over something everyone experiences but nobody wants to discuss.

Then we walked away.

I've thought about that conversation more than I probably should have.

Maybe because it reminded me of waves.

Meteorologists can watch a powerful storm develop thousands of miles away over the western Pacific Ocean. A typhoon spinning near China or Japan transfers energy into the ocean with every hour its winds blow across the surface. The longer the storm blows and the farther the wind travels over open water—a distance oceanographers call the fetch—the more energy is stored in the waves.

Those waves don't race toward California as giant walls of water.

The water mostly stays where it is.

The energy begins a journey.

Long-period swells often travel between 450 and 600 miles every day, crossing nearly 6,000 miles of open Pacific in roughly ten to fourteen days. Along the way they pass storms, calm seas, cargo ships, whales, islands, and millions of people who never realize something is moving beneath them.

By the time those swells finally reach California, the storm that created them may already be gone.

The sky over China might be blue again.

The fishermen have returned to work.

The rain has stopped.

Yet the energy continues its journey until it finally arrives on a beach where someone watches surfers paddle into waves that were born on the opposite side of the world.

Life works much the same way.

The words someone spoke to us as a child.

A teacher who believed in us.

A parent who lost their temper.

A friend who stayed.

A stranger who smiled.

None of those moments seem very large when they happen.

But they leave behind energy.

Sometimes it takes years before that energy reaches the shoreline of our lives.

The funny part is that aging works the same way.

The creaky knees aren't from today.

The stiff back isn't from this morning.

The strange sounds our bodies make in a public restroom aren't because of breakfast.

They're echoes from thousands of yesterdays.

Years of lifting.

Years of working.

Years of stress.

Years of healing.

Years of simply living.

Every mile leaves behind a little energy.

Eventually it reaches shore.

The older gentleman wasn't making more noise because he was old.

He was making noise because he'd traveled farther.

His body had crossed oceans mine hasn't crossed yet.

Maybe that's why I enjoy watching waves.

When I stand on a beach, I know I'm looking at history.

That swell didn't begin here.

Someone standing on another shoreline, thousands of miles away, unknowingly witnessed its birth almost two weeks ago.

We only see the ending.

Rarely do we appreciate the journey.

Maybe that's true for people too.

Every person we meet is carrying waves that began long before we ever knew their name.

Written Waves

Fear of Success

by Bert Russell

Date: 7/4/2026 @ 4:41 AM

People often talk about the fear of failure. I have lived much of my life fearing something different. I have feared success.

Not because I was afraid of working hard, but because success meant change. It meant becoming someone I had never met before. It meant leaving behind the version of myself that spent years trying to fit into a world that never quite felt right.

For most of my life I searched for where I belonged. Sometimes I changed who I was just enough to blend in. The strange part was that every time I became someone else, I liked myself a little less. I learned that pretending is exhausting, and eventually your own reflection begins to look unfamiliar.

My greatest joy has never been collecting things. It has been discovering forgotten stories.

Estate sales have always fascinated me. Every house tells a story. Every photograph, every tool, every handwritten recipe card belonged to someone who laughed, struggled, loved, and eventually left this world. Their belongings become waves washing back onto shore, waiting for someone else to appreciate them.

I also love marketing, building maps, measuring progress through KPIs, teaching others, and creating systems that make life better. They seem like unrelated interests, but they all share one purpose—they help people move forward.

Above everything else, I seek peace.

Real peace cannot exist if we spend our lives pretending to be someone we are not.

Life is like standing on a paddleboard in open water. The lake is never perfectly calm. Small waves constantly shift beneath your feet. The secret isn't learning how to stop the waves. The secret is learning how to balance while they continue moving.

Every experience becomes another wave beneath us.

Some push us backward.

Some carry us farther than we expected.

Some teach us balance.

I don't know exactly who I am becoming. I don't think anyone truly does. But every day I paddle a little farther from the shoreline of who I used to be.

When my journey finally reaches its last wave, I hope I can honestly say that I spent my life becoming the best version of myself—not someone everyone else wanted me to be.

The waves never stop.

Neither should we.

Written Waves

- When the Water Is Too Calm -

by Bert Russell

Date: 7/3/2026 @ 11:26 PM

It was Friday before the Fourth of July weekend, and something felt off.

I had the day off.

That shouldn't have seemed strange, but it did. The post office was still delivering mail. Banks had adjusted their schedules. Businesses were open, while others had already closed. Everything was just a little different than what my mind expected.

I found myself trying to make sense of it.

Is today a workday? Is it a holiday? Why is this place open while that one is closed?

The more I thought about it, the more I realized it wasn't the schedule that bothered me. It was the interruption of a pattern.

Our minds become comfortable with routines. We stop questioning them because they become part of the current that carries us through the week.

Paddle boarding teaches a similar lesson.

Most people think the challenge comes from the rough water. It doesn't.

The strange feeling comes when the water is almost perfectly calm.

Without waves, wind, or current, your brain loses many of the reference points it normally uses to stay balanced. Every tiny movement becomes noticeable. Every shift of your weight feels larger than it really is. You begin making corrections that aren't necessary, and sometimes those unnecessary corrections are what cause you to lose your balance.

Life works the same way.

When our normal routine changes—even for something as simple as a holiday weekend—we start looking for reasons. We question things that usually don't deserve our attention. We become uncomfortable, not because anything is wrong, but because our expectations no longer match reality.

The best paddle boarders don't fight every little movement beneath their feet.

They relax.

They trust the board.

They let their body adapt to the conditions instead of forcing the water to behave the way they expected.

Maybe that's the lesson this Fourth of July weekend gave me.

Not every unexpected day needs an explanation.

Sometimes life simply reminds us that our routines are only routines because we've become accustomed to them. Change isn't always a warning. Sometimes it's just a different current carrying us in the same direction.

So whether you're standing on a paddle board or standing in line wondering why today feels different, remember this:

Balance doesn't come from everything staying the same.

Balance comes from learning to stand steady when it doesn't.