Practicing Self Care! · Real Men Real Style Community

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Practicing Self Care!

I found myself in Chicago this weekend for a mix of work and pleasure.

When I travel by myself, during my “Downtime” I tend to find an excuse to stay in my room and work on my laptop 🙄.

As I get older I have been working hard to get out of my comfort zone and push the work away and actually find something to do or experience. Believe it or not I tend to be much more of an introvert than most people realize.

Today was one of those days and I’m glad I did!

I left my hotel early and started wandering around the shopping areas. I was able to visit several different watch stores and men’s clothing stores just to check things out but on my own schedule, while I didn’t buy anything from them, I had a very nice and long conversation about watches with true collectors and we shared stories and I learned so much.

Then I found myself at a true men’s “Old School Barber” Merchant & Rhoades I treated myself to a hot towel shave and manicure. This is something that I have enjoyed for a long time but it is increasingly difficult to find a true Barber. It was 1.5 hour process and SO relaxing. If you’ve never tried it I would encourage you to. It’s very nostalgic as well as I remember going with my father as a young boy while he would have this done.

For me, it is one of the last bastions of men’s self care. The other gentleman in the shop were all regulars. Everyone knew each other by name and you knew it was their standing weekly appointment!👏👏

I also found a niche fragrance house and watched them actually blend the fragrance for me and bottle it. It was so fascinating!

Then believe it or not I found the countries oldest tobacconist Iwan Ries and co. Still family owned and operated since 1857! It has that old school But so welcoming. I was able to enter their lounge and relax over a cigar and met some interesting people with great conversation.

Now I’m off to my work dinner but I’m In such a great frame of mind that I can see why my father and others of his generation made this a priority!!

On another note for the hat wearers out there or those that are thinking about it. Every single person I interacted with today complimented me On my hat and asked where to get one 😎

Getting out of your comfort zone and practicing some self care is a good thing!!

It’s been a great day!!

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Practicing Self Care!