About Upgrade Dragon
Hi, I’m Miles and welcome to my little corner of the internet. I’m a married father of two, musician, garage gym warrior, and retired Air Force veteran. I was a professional musician for the USAF for 16 years and spent the last 4 years of my career as a Military Training Instructor (AF drill sergeant), instilling discipline and transforming civilians into Airmen at Air Force Basic Military Training, Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland.
I’ve been interested in self-improvement for as long as I can remember. Now, I run this website full-time and write on the topics of fitness, productivity, workspace optimization, online learning, and skill acquisition. I hope to provide information and tools for those who wish to improve in their own lives.
More About Me
I was born and raised in Raleigh, North Carolina and eventually attended the University of South Carolina where I earned Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Music (Jazz Performance). I joined the United States Air Force in 2002 and began touring with (and learning from) some of the best musicians in the world. As I worked to improve my musicianship, I also gained experience leading groups, running fitness programs, and mentoring newer Airmen.
Eventually, I was selected to join the USAF’s Military Training Instructor Corps, where I worked for Air Force Basic Training’s Drum and Bugle Corps as well as served as line instructor and Instructor Supervisor. During this time I was surrounded by the most dedicated professionals who I was fortunate to learn from and work alongside. Being an MTI was full of challenges, long days, and a lot of hard work, made even more complicated by the 2020 pandemic. My time at Air Force Basic Training remains the part of my career that I am most proud of. I retired from the USAF in October of 2022.
Like most of us, I am a compilation of all of the different experiences in my work life and outside of it. Over the course of the sometimes wildly disparate parts of my career, I gained skills directly relevant to the self-improvement niche, including managing competing priorities, habit change, fitness and nutrition, and the process of learning new skills.
On the other hand, I grew up on Batman, wrestled in high school, and fell in love with jazz at an early age. Yeah, I motivated civilians attempting to better themselves in the World’s Greatest Air Force. But I came home afterward and binge-read spy memoirs (seriously, I can’t get enough of these!). Now I devour as many books as I can, workout in my garage gym, and try to figure out how to keep all the plates spinning in the air.
My interests vary widely, but I’m always eager to connect the dots as to how they relate to human performance and self-development. Analogical thinking is fun. Here, you’re just as likely to find a piece on habit stacking as you are a serious discussion on the merits of the Batcave. You’ll find reviews of worthwhile tools, thoughts on deliberate practice, snippets of wisdom from Frank Herbert’s Dune series, and a plethora of unique and varied ideas from the far reaches of the internet.
On this blog I’ll share what I’ve learned on my own journey, what I’m doing to get better now, and what I hope to learn from others out there in the self-improvement space. I hope you find value in it.
Sincerely,
Miles Hudlow
Contact me at —
upgradedragon@gmail.com