I received a letter today that I thought I'd share- not because of what it says about me, but rather what it says about the person who wrote it, a fellow out in Queens, New York that I never met, but who recently bought a couple Bohemian Brand shirts. The letter reads:

Hey Tim, I got the shirts today and they look great. Thanks for shipping them out so quick. I love the "obliterate self-doubt" motto. It really reminds me of Evan Tanner and "believe in the power of one". Those are the things that I personally choose to support. Positive messages from positive people. I wish you nothing but success and happiness in your personal and professional life. And you'll always have my ultimate respect for testing yourself in the cage/ring during a time when the sport wasn't respected or even considered a sport. Happy Holidays.

Fighting was a tough way to make a living. I never made a lot of money. Four or five hundred a bout for those early fights. Twice I beat three guys in a night for a thousand dollars. And my three fights in the UFC netted me five grand. I've never spent much money on myself -in part because I don't really have much I want in the way of material things. But also, during my fighting career I developed the habit of equating the money I had with the punches I took to earn it.

In those three-fight nights I guessed I had to eat about a hundred punches to earn the thousand dollar prize money- roughly ten bucks for every punch. So if I walked past a nice restaurant and saw a dish on the menu that cost twenty dollars, I'd ask myself if it was worth two punches in the face. Then I'd head to the nearest burrito joint and eat for four bucks.

Nowadays I get an occasional letter like the one from this fellow in Queens and I'm reminded that I got more than ten dollars from each of those punches. I made a connection with a host of decent people that I otherwise would never have encountered. I don't know how to quantify the value of that, but I think it'll make it easier to indulge in a twenty dollar meal every so often.