For those of you that have reached out to me over the last 3 months to see how I'm doing I want to extend a sincere & EXTREME THANK YOU! For those of you that have been out of the loop since my show in July I wanted to bring you up to speed. Not for vanity.... but because there is a lesson for growth within the story.
July 11- NPC Twin Cities Open where I took 5th place in two classes. Show was extremely stacked HOWEVER I was still devastated. I play the game to win. Anything else is disrespectful to the game.
July 14th- On a work trip with a major customer of mine I had a direct supervisor of mine begin to actively demean me (wrongfully) in front of some customers that were very near and dear to me. In corporate america I will just say that the RIGHT THING and the action taken are not necessarily occurring in the manner that they should be. I could go on about this however that would be unprofessional. I returned to my hotel room that night and spoke with my wife stating I needed to find a way to transition out of my job due to the fact that it kept me on the road entirely too much, my direct supervisor had no interest in allowing me to do what needed to be done to make the job profitable, sustainable, and life friendly.
July 15th- The commercial building I was working with the city on to have zoned correctly for me to place my gym & youth wrestling facility fell through. In all my time traveling for work I had been unable to efficiently work my way through the Minnesota red tape to get this building zoned the way I needed it to be.
July 16th- I was informed that the move that was supposedly being made at work in order to cut down my travel radius was "never really in the cards". Upon this note I IMMEDIATELY transitioned into a life pivot.
I began pursuing and interviewing for jobs. I also began searching for a home that I could see my family in for a long long while. My plan was to go 100% self employed and would be unable to lend for a number of years before the business numbers were established.
The other purpose of this was that I had grown up flipping houses and have done a few on my own in adulthood. The home my family was in was 4,500 sf with 4 beds & 4 baths. What was now a beautiful home I had purchased 3 years earlier in absolute shambles. The current economic situation in the world has had me extremely uncomfortable and I'm an individual that plans for the worst (an old habit that stems back to my much younger years when I took a lot of lumps for a long time and wins were few and far between). I knew that I could make a good amount on my current home when it sold and it would essentially change my life trajectory by opening up opportunity to ACTUALLY open my business and continue to progress on my financial endeavors.
I said all along "once this life transition is complete I will never have to sell something I don't want to sell for money again." Which meant that as I determined what I was going to do for work was that I only pursued things that I truly wanted to do.
As exciting and amazing as this sounds truth be told the process took much longer & much more work than anticipated. It took over an extra month to get the home onto the market, we had 4 other homes we attempted to purchase fall through, I changed jobs, all the while struggling mentally with the amount of strain I was under. I began sleeping 2.5-3 hours a night SIMPLY TO DO THE WORK THAT NEEDED TO BE DONE TO COMPLETE THIS PROCESS.
This turned into an extremely tough situation mentally that took me to the depths of darkness that I no longer knew existed. The hardest thing you'll ever have to do in life is DELIBERATELY STOPPING DOING WHAT YOU KNOW YOU LOVE TO DO AND THAT WHICH BRINGS YOU PERSONAL FULFILLMENT & PURPOSE IN ORDER TO ACHIEVE A GOAL THAT TAKES YOU TO A HIGHER LEVEL. All along you know that this is what is going on HOWEVER it does not make it any less brutal mentally.
Depression and heavy heavy HEAVY suicidal thoughts began to surface. I reached to point of exhaustion that I JUST WANTED THE PROCESS TO END. I didnt care how it ended.... but I wanted it to end.
Now here is the lesson..... I could AND POSSIBLY SHOULD HAVE quit right then. Depression and suicidal thoughts are not something that should be taken lightly! If you have these things creeping in then you DAMN WELL BETTER FIGURE OUT HOW TO GET THEM OUT OF YOUR HEAD AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE. During this period I was experiencing and extreme amount of emotional highs and lows. I found this one odd thing that provided me a substantial level of mental comfort during this time.
I began carrying 1 lone shotgun shell in my left pocket at all times. The shotgun shell was not there for the most apparent & morbid purpose that you would think.... It was there to serve as a reminder to me that those moments where I was feeling "good" mentally as this process progressed that just around the corned I would reach the mental depths where I wanted the process to stop again. If you would of seen me at this time.... late at night when I had long since had enough of the work for the day however still needing to put in 4-6 more hours of work you would have seen me slowing rubbing the outline of something in my left pocket. It was always there to remind me the demons I was fighting mentally. Giving me the push to keep going because the fear of failure in this endeavor was destroying me.
It was during this dark time that I had the epiphany "YOU CAN EITHER QUIT MOVING, WORKING, AND HUSTLING RIGHT NOW AND ACCEPT YOUR FAILURE JUST TO HAVE IT ALL END RIGHT NOW OR YOU CAN GRIT YOUR TEETH AND DIG YOUR HEELS IN FURTHER. CONTINUE TO FIGHT HARD AND SEE THAT YOU GET SOMETHING POSITIVE FOR ALL OF THIS SUFFERING! You can either quit now and recognize yourself as the failure that you are for not being willing to finish the job..... or you can suffer now and finish the process that will ultimately put you in the position to do the things you want to do long term with your life. No one else will think any more or less of you no matter which decision you make.... BUT YOU WILL ALWAYS KNOW THAT YOU FLAKED OUT AND QUIT ON YOURSELF. WHICH ONE CAN YOU LIVE WITH?"
I don't tell this story light heartedly. Nor do I tell it for the sake of sympathy from anyone else. The purpose to sharing this is to let anyone that needs to hear it know... YOU HAVE MORE IN YOU, YOU CAN AND MUST FINISH THE STRUGGLE WITHIN YOURSELF TO ACHIEVE WHAT YOU ARE STRIVING FOR, AND NO ONE ELSE CAN DO IT FOR YOU... TAKE CONTROL, TAKE A DEEP BREATH, UNDERSTAND SOME THINGS ARE GOING TO HAPPEN THAT ARE OUTSIDE OF YOUR CONTROL..... AND KEEP TAKING THOSE STEPS FORWARD, NO MATTER HOW DIFFICULT AND SMALL THEY MAY SEEM!
Keep pushing and during these time's of strife just remind yourself "If this were easy then everyone would do it, if it was easy then everyone would be successful & happy, if it was easy then everyone would be the next Jeff Bezos. IT'S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE EASY! IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE WORTH DOING, AND ANYTHING WORTH DOING YOU'VE GOT TO BE WILLING TO PAY FOR IT!"
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