The heavy, 10 foot garage door was opening as the headlights of my convertible BMW M6 hit the the back wall of my garage.
Sitting there on my heated, stamped concrete driveway, waiting for the garage to open enough to drive in and park and the only discernible emotion was fear.
FEAR.
What a day it had been..
It was the day that I learned that we were not going to be able to keep our end of a large commitment we’d recently entered in to.
Inevitable lawsuits were coming…
Relationships would end.
My empire would crumble right before me.
FEAR.
The irony is that I was surrounded by material beauty.
In the eyes of the world, I had no reason to be wracked with fear.
I was wearing a custom suit with my initials embroidered on the cuffs of my shirt; cuffs that covered my $15,000 timepiece.
Sitting outside of a 10,000 sq. foot Mediterranean style estate in a $125,000 sports car, that’d I’d park next to a $90,000 SUV, that was parked next to a $100,000 luxury sedan.
FEAR.
I couldn’t wait to get inside and pour myself a drink.
Make the voices go away.
Seemed to be the only way to get the voices to go away was to drink them to sleep.
That moment it was starting to sink in how empty my life really was. I had all these signs of material wealth around me and I couldn’t shake the fear that I was about to be found out to be a fraud.
My relationship was about to be tested in a way that it had never thought possible.
My health was going to give out.
But I was only concerned with how it all looked from the outside.
That my success wasn’t based on actual success principles.
I wasn’t actually this business genius that had burst on the scene.
My prosperity had been based on luck.
Or at least that’s what I was telling myself.
My business had started to take a drastic turn because I’d let this fear govern all of my decisions.
And hence the pending doom with this soon to be breached commitment.
To my friends and family I couldn’t let on that I was hurting; scared out of my mind. Feeling that the only way people would respect and love me was if I was covered in the material signs of success.
That fear was at my CORE.
FEAR.
I was more concerned with optics that anything else.
Instead of feeling optimistic about how great my future could be, and being thankful for how blessed my life was, I felt this sinking feeling every single day that that the ride was about to be over.
DONE.
I was going to lose it all.
Didn’t have to be that way.. But I knew it would.
.
.
.
.
It’s funny, have you ever played blackjack?
You know that moment when you’re on a bad beat, having lost several hands in a row and your chip stack is dwindling…
You make bigger and bigger bets HOPING to gain back all you’d lost in one hand?
And then you lose it all even faster because you acted like an idiot?
That’s how this moment felt outside my garage.
IDIOT.
I kept telling myself.
I had just done that very move in my business, and that very day was when the proverbial dealer showed he’d hit 21 and I had nothing left for another hand.
All these years later I see things completely different.
I know I didn’t have to lose it all, but I was more concerned with appearances and public opinion over sound business and mindset principles.
All of that was based completely out of not knowing my real value. From years of sabotaging myself on a smaller scale, this meltdown would be of epic proportions because underneath it all I didn’t know how to deal with life at all.
I was the guy with tons of potential. But when the potential ran out and it required disciple I was weak.
With created such a looming FEAR of exposure that it robbed me of all my confidence.
I hated letting people down so much that I created a way to let everyone down.
Which ironically would be how I would lose it all.
My company had risen to the top so quickly that I felt that if people really knew how lucky we were, I’d be judged as normal; not the business savant that I had been labelled.
I loved the recognition that financial success brought.
Not having the cloak of money to hide all my sins would be a fate worse than death.
Or so I thought.
I would do anything to avoid that reckoning.
FEAR.
I had so many people relying on me that needed me to succeed..
FEAR.
FEAR was my constant companion and my most relentless enemy.
As I look back on those experiences, I realize that they set the stage for my career in coaching.
I was so afraid to let fear be my friend.
My dance partner.
I lacked the mindset and skill sets to succeed outside of my business that it ultimately destroyed my business.
REPEAT: I lacked the mindset and skill sets to succeed outside of my business that it ultimately destroyed my business.
Is that you too?
I would do everything I could to avoid fear; so much so that I emboldened it.
I had my stories, but all these years later I know now that unless you’re willing to make fear your dance partner;
YOU WILL FAIL.
So, I ask you here:
If you’re reading this, how are you handling your FEAR?
That feeling that it’s going to end.
That you don’t really deserve what you have..
What are you doing to address it?
Do you just run away to booze, sex, and drugs?
Do you abandon your family’s emotional needs while claiming “I’m doing the best I can…”
Are are you willing to be friends with it?
Honor it? Yes, honor your fear. As a gauge. A barometer of what you know you should do different.
As clear as the memories are from this day, I have other memories as well that have become the foundation of all of my coaching and mindset principles.
And that’s this:
The most importance currency you can focus on in your life is not money, or fame…
Or influence.
It’s CLARITY.
And not the woo-woo clarity.
There are no trips to the Sudan to feed orphans in the type of clarity I’m refencing; the type of clarity in my coaching program.
It’s about PERSONAL CLARITY.
Ask yourself,
“When was the last time I had a clear head?”
“When is the last time I felt that it was all going to TRULY work out?”
What I learned re: those questions is this simple truth.
You can change your life, your results and your experiences by adopting powerful mindsets, skill sets and habits.
Create your life, not be a whim to a twisted version of it.
If you’re ready see what your life could be like with a new quiver of powerful mindsets, skill sets and habits…
Reach out to me.
You don’t have to be wracked by fear. It doesn’t have to control you.
It can all work out.
I can show you the way out.
