https://youtu.be/UuNFR_M2BFs

I'm going to break down a little bit of how I've been able to create space to be there for my girls ANY time they need me, both in time and financial support.

I am not the flashy sort. I'm weird by almost every standard. Always have been, always will be. And I'm okay with that.

I have had people look at me and shake their heads more times than I can count and just say “You are so weird.”

I do things differently because a lot of what other people do just doesn't make sense to me. I can sound really smart but I can also sound REALLY dumb. It can take me a while to wrap my head around some things.

Despite this, I've reached a level of success that most will never acheive, when compared to the general population. I won't quantify that because frankly, it's private. Suffice it to say I have an incredible amount of freedom in my life due to what I earn and how little time I have to spend earning it.

The first thing to understand is this did not happen FAST.

Part of that is because I got started in 2002 on DIAL UP and NOTHING about the internet could have been considered FAST at that time.

Except for how quickly people could waste time, lose their money or find someone to destroy their marriages with. Some things haven't changed in that regard.

Even though I had a full-ride scholarship, I dropped out of college three times after only getting past the first term.

Another example of how I can be really smart and REALLY stupid.

I graduated with honors in high school but I never did homework and always did the minumum work to get good enough grades that I *could* earn a scholarship because I wanted a different life so badly.

The pattern of doing *just enough* to get where I wanted to go has been consistent throughout my life.

In some ways, I've felt ashamed of that.

I've felt like I never really lived up to my potential because I never had the discipline to reach mastery in any particular area.

Case in point, I spent less than an hour on this post between writing, recording, and making the image.  There are MUCH MORE polished people than I. That said… I’m pretty happy with my less-than-polished efforts and results.  

Over the years and decades of adulthood and watching people climb their different ladders… I noticed something about most of those who DID acheive mastery levels.

• They had more stress.
• They beat themselves up a lot.
• They were hard on themselves AND others.
• It took a toll on their health and relationships.

I also noticed that a pattern I would observe in most tenacious Goal Getters was how hard they would work to push towards their goals, even when it seemed like the powers of the universe had conspired to slow them down by any means necessary.

And that's when I realized…

There is a natural rhythm to life that does not respond well to brute force.

There's a pace at which things seem to have their own “will” to be flowing at.

I learned that if I stopped trying to brute-force my way to the things I wanted, I would get there just as fast, but with less battle scars.

That was one of my experiments. I “tested” what it would be like to cool my jets and push things as far as I could… not to the point of resistance but to the point of PUSH BACK

Resistance is a word people use a lot but I'll replace it with friction. That uncomfortable feeling of heat from the grinding efforts of pushing forward against a barrier. I never let friction stop me.

What I *do* work to recognize is the point at which my pushing is not getting me any further and now I am on a hamsterwheel, running without going anywhere, or falling down and flying off the wheel completely.

I have experimented with abandoning goals that didn’t seem to be achievable.

I have experimented with letting things take their cool down periods or go at a slower pace periods and just refocusing my energy elsewhere for a while.

What I have found is that many times, inspiration or  opportunity will come that allows me to start making more progress towards a goal again, or allows the progress to resume at a faster pace.

During the cool down periods or slower pace periods… I haven't stopped thinking about what I wanted and how I can get there.

I starting taking off any fixed/hard deadlines about when things had to happen.

The side effect of taking off what are essentially ARBITRARY DEADLINES is that I removed the desparation from the equation.

I shifted the expectation from WHEN something has to happen to just having something happen.

I have applied this practice to business goals, health goals, spiritual goals and relationship goals.

I have PRIORITIZED PROGRESS OVER DESTINATION AND DEADLINE.

I found that when I took the desparation out, I had more room for INNOVATION and EXPERIMENTATION.

Here's the thing…

When you are working on a deadline you want to go with the thing you THINK is going to get you the best results.

That is almost always going to be something you learned from someone else. You know about it and think it will work because you saw someone else do it.

What you LOSE in that type of behavior is the opportunity to make your own magic.

If you are less focused on HAVING to do something by a certain time, you can explore the different paths you can take to get there.

When you go slower, you have more time to observe  your surroundings.

You have more time to experiment with different tools and resources and processes.

You can make the journey to  your destination that much richer.

And I would encourage you to strongly consider that.

The truth is, none of us knows when we will draw our last breath.

I can think of nothing sadder than ending this life full of regret and wishing I had better used the time I had here making my own kind of magic.

I test EVERYTHING in my life.  I am always looking to strike a balance between a fulfilling level of growth and improvement with an optimized level of energy and peace.

I have learned I cannot be happy if I don’t have enough work to do in my life.  It does not all need to be income producing but I MUST be employed in purposeful action for the majority of my day or I will languish.

I have learned that if I do too much, my health and relationships suffer, and axiety abounds.

I have also learned that some days and some seasons I can do more than other times.  So I test my capacity often and do not ever assume that what I can do today is the same as yesterday, or that tomorrow will be the same as today.

Through simple little tests, and a willingness to remove arbitrary deadlines that were set “because I want to” or think that’s what they “should” be, I have created a life and business of power, purpose, and peace.

I hope that you can find some value in these things and grow in power, purpose and peace yourself. 💙