Comfort

Quote
"Concentrate your energies, your thoughts and your capital. The wise man puts all his eggs in one basket and watches the basket."
-Andrew Carnegie

My Thoughts
Many people haven't heard this advice. It sounds risky, doesn't it? Most people dread the thought of taking risks or of getting uncomfortable. Here's the thing, if you want serious change in your life you have to take risks and you have to get uncomfortable.

How uncomfortable do you have to get? I suppose it has to do with how much change you want.
I also mentioned a few weeks ago about sacrifice.
I would like to share what is going on in my life at the moment. Why am I sharing this now? In hopes that if this inspires just one person then this message has done it's job. You know we have all heard Steve Jobs, Oprah, Donald Trump, etc... tell us to follow our passion. I know what some people think:
"Well that is easy for them to say. Look at them, they have succeeded in their fields. What about me? I can't do that."
To some people it's almost as if Jobs, Oprah, and Trump have reached the top of a mountain and are yelling down at all of us "Just keep climbing, you'll get here eventually".

I am in the process of climbing my own mountain. So I want to share this with all of you. All of us have our own struggles to overcome. It helps knowing that someone else has been through the same thing, or even endured more.

I walked away from a job that paid me $10,000 a month after taxes. I left behind a stable job, great benefits, and excellent vacation time to pursue a dream. That was just the beginning.
This is what has happened over the course of the last year or so:
I moved out of a nice apartment
I sold my car
I sold all my stock
I sold my 401k
I've used up most of my available credit
I recently started counting all the coins I have

Sacrifice. I have been here before, just not this far down.
In 2003, I had 500 won left in my bank account and I owed about $2500 on my credit card.
Five years later I had managed to pull myself up, and I had saved $100,000.
I owed nothing on credit cards.
Now I find myself back in 2003, except in a far more challenging situation.

You may be wondering why on earth did this guy do this to himself? It has all been to pursue a dream.
The interesting thing is I've had three job offers over the past year. All of them would put me back into being comfortable. They all pay between $8,000-$10,000 a month. I have turned them all down.
Why? For a dream.

How much are you willing to give up for your dream? How uncomfortable are you willing to get?

I firmly believe that you have the ability to change your life if you truly would like to. As I have said many times before, we all have our lessons to learn from life. This is just one of my lessons. It's not bad, it's not good. It just is.

Right now, I am in a stare down with failure. One of us will blink first. It won't be me.
I will get to the top of my mountain. When? I can't say for sure.
But know this, I will be here, climbing.
One day I will reach what appears to be the top.
I will look back on what I have accomplished, on what I have learned.
I will realize how much I have grown.
I will then look up, and notice the mountain has also grown.
There is still more to go. I'll have so much more to learn because it's impossible to know everything.

I'll have learned all of this through experience. It's not what I read in a book, or what I learned from my coaching certification, or what Steve Jobs, Oprah, Trump, Carnegie etc... told me, it's what I have experienced.
Why? Because I climbed the mountain.
I put all my eggs in one basket.
I risked everything....All for a dream.

Until next time...