A Rare ‘Open’ Reflection Inside My Life

As most of my friends and family know, I am a very private person.

While I care a lot about my friends, family, and coworkers I do not often share my life with them.

In this rare open post, I will share a little in hopes of inspiring others, but you’ll have to work for it.

I’m long-winded, so you’ll have to stop scrolling, click the ‘more’ word and sit a spell with me.

It all started a long, long time ago…

Just kidding, I’m not going that deep. Ha. Here goes…

2018 was extremely tough for me, lots of lows and few highs.

Personally and professionally, I found myself unhappy and wishing for more.

Despite my situation, I wasn’t doing much to change it.

Towards the end of 2018, I started to try to change things but wasn’t getting anywhere.

I dealt with a lot of rejection, again both personally and professionally.

The 2019 outlook did not look better but I hoped for change.

My old boss from Ohio use to say, “hope is not a strategy”.

This is fantastic advice that never resonated personally but now I see how profound that statement is.

I was lucky enough to meet a fantastic person that believed in me.

This led me to try even harder… to strive to do better and be better.

As my professional and personal life started to improve, I drastically increased my focus on learning new skills.

I took on mentors to help me refine my skills and take them to the next level.

The tremendous amount of life-changing things I’ve learned from those mentors is priceless.

And it inspired me to work even harder.

This relentless focus eventually led to two things.

The first was the official establishment of my own business, which was a life-long goal.

This was certainly one of the high points of the year.

However, the relentless focus also led to a major low point in my year.

After working 10 to 12 hour days then working on my business after, I let my sleep and fitness suffer.

This led to major medical issues.

Not a cold or injury… but rather a debilitating illness.

To the point my parents flew out here to help take care of me.

Miraculously though, I pulled through and have rebounded very well.

I no longer take my health, fitness, and sleep for granted.

I got back to eating super healthy, I worked hard on increasing my sleep hours and I hired a personal trainer to force my dedication.

Then things kept falling into place from there.

Following this, professionally, a new opportunity presented itself and brought back a high level of professionalism and happiness that was missing from my life.

Likewise, personally, things continued to grow into something pretty fantastic.

And to cap off the year, another thing I have dreamed of for a long time, I traveled outside the country.

Visiting Germany and London was truly life-changing and amazing.

I really would never have guessed all of this was possible when I started 2019.

But why am I sharing this with you?

As mentioned in the beginning, my hope is to inspire you.

If you truly want to make a change in your life, you MUST be honest with yourself.

You have to understand ‘who you need to be’ more than what you need to do.

I gave up wasting time on television and replaced it with books.

I gave up on eating out and now consume fantastic meals daily.

I gave up listening to music in the car and replaced it with podcasts and audible books.

I consume information like coffee… I’m a bit addicted and it gives me a high.

I take chances, force myself outside my comfort zone and push my vision to higher levels.

Understand who YOU need to be and do whatever it takes to become that person.

“If you want to have more, you have to become more” – Jim Rohn

“Nothing will change unless YOU change” –Jim Rohn

“Don’t wish it were easier, wish you were better” –Jim Rohn

I am proof that you can get more out of life than what you’ve been settling for.

So I ask you, Who do YOU need to be in 2020?