“It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything.”
-Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club
This is the story of how a young, single bachelor solopreneur unexpectedly became a father overnight, failed hard, lost everything, failed some more, went through some very dark times, and came out the other side. It’s a lengthy read, but you’ll learn how I survived through two years of adversity and came out the other side a better man, ready to play a much bigger game.
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Two years ago, I was doing better than ever financially. I was at the height of my career. I felt accomplished, I was enjoying the nomad life, having traveled to over 30 countries and living across four continents.
I was having a blast. Life was good, and business was smooth sailing.
Two months ago, I was almost ready to throw in the towel on the entrepreneur life, feeling like a complete failure, depressed, petrified by fear that I’d be unable to provide the life I wanted for my family, feeling inadequate as a man.
At times, I felt like my body was on the brink of giving up, on the verge of a nervous breakdown, completely depleted of energy. I had back pain, couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t think straight, couldn’t get my work done.
I’m pretty certain it was the worst I’ve ever felt.
I was questioning all the decisions I had ever made with my life, I doubted myself, had gone through some depression, thought about giving up, throwing my laptop off a 12th-story rooftop and getting a janitorial job.
I was questioning my own sanity at times.
Then came the toughest decision I had ever been faced with:
I could either spend time with my young son Chris as he learned to walk and talk, OR I could earn a living to provide well for him and his mother, Jam. I couldn’t do both, at the same time.
If I stayed with Chris and Jam in the Philippines, it meant I could barely bring in enough income for us to get by.
So I chose to return to Thailand, where I could run my business effectively and earn enough to provide well for my new co-parenting partner and our little one—but I would rarely get to see him or spend quality time with my new family I was working so hard to take care of.
This is probably something many of us are faced with in our professional lives—especially in the West.
But, my situation felt like an extreme.
And it left me with so little to put into my work, into my writing, my audience, and my customers.
Some days I really felt like I was letting everyone down, and I could barely push myself to get out of bed.
The Untold Story
I’ve been scared to write this article for weeks, and intimidated to share some of this story for the last two years. I’ve carried some of this around for far too long.
Fatherhood—and becoming the sole provider for a little family of three overnight—has demanded more of me than I have ever had to give.
At times, I’ve been utterly drained, doubting my ability to be a good father.
These have proven to be major life transitions that have devoured the vast majority of my time, energy, and thoughts for the last two years. I’ve literally been learning to be a new person.
I’ve had a bit of an identity crisis when it comes to my work and my business. Something felt wrong. While I had originally set out with enthusiasm and passion, after eight years, I had really built another job for myself—occupied 95% of the time with things I had grown to detest.
My business wasn’t truly aligned with my vision.
Actually, let’s go back even earlier…
The Year of Denial and Uncertainty
I was on the other side of the world, mentoring and experiencing a new culture in South America. I was pursuing a partnership I thought could lead to great things for my business. I thought I had found a group of like-minded young entrepreneurs who had a shared vision for the world.
I thought we could still do something that mattered. That would make a difference in thousands, maybe millions of lives. I was still young and irresponsible. And I was naive.
I found out I was going to be a father when I was literally on the opposite side of the globe.
I hadn’t talked to Jam for months. Out of the blue, she sent me a Facebook message with a sonogram attached.
I almost spat out my coffee!
I was with another girl. I was long gone—I was having another adventure, writing another chapter.
I’d only gone out with Jam for about a month. I met her in the second largest city in the Philippines, while doing some consulting work for a friend.
She had a heart of gold and always wore a big smile. But I was at a point in my life where I’d had it with the long-term relationships, I’d given up on the idea of Disney movie “Love” and settling down seriously with another girl anytime soon. We’d just had a lighthearted, fun time, and went our separate ways.
What a screwup. What was my family going to think? I knocked up a Filipina girl on the other side of the world!
I wasn’t even sure if it was mine. I had no way to really be certain. And, while Jam was a nice girl with a seemingly respectable background, I’d heard plenty of horror stories from other expat friends over the years about girls in the developing world taking them for a ride.
But, over the following months, I grew more and more confident it was the truth, and if this little bun in the oven really was my baby, of course I wanted to be involved in my child’s life! I didn’t have plans to leave my offspring to the wolves.
But I was TERRIFIED.
I was afraid my fun was over.
And she was far away.
And I had this whole other script all planned for myself—I was finally living on a new continent, getting involved in the startup scene in Chile, mentoring five young guys all working on building their own businesses. Then I had a whole round-the-world trip planned—Colombia for several months, the UK, Berlin for the summer, Eastern Europe, and I had tickets to a conference in Bangkok…
It was all very important for my developing career and my future success, I told myself.
But I was still in denial big time.
I remember the day Chris was born. I’d known it was coming for months. But I was enjoying the single life with the Paisa girls in Medellín, learning Spanish, dreaming about starting a coffee company, and having the wildest parties of my life.
But I was holding in this internal struggle that I’d not told another living soul about yet. I knew I had to make my way back to the other side of the world to meet my son.
But I had to get there first. And I didn’t know yet for sure that all her stories were the truth. I didn’t want to broadcast it to the world until I knew for sure, for some dumb fear of embarrassment. Not until I met this little person with my own eyes and took the paternity test.
I finally opened up to an old friend about my secret, spending a lot of time in reflection, and spent the summer in Berlin desperately trying to come up with some plan to 10x what I was doing with my business in order to be able to take care of my kid, and somehow craft out some kind of life I could still enjoy.
I finally returned to Asia after being away for nearly a year. I attended my friends’ conference in Bangkok, and then I got caught up in the energy that comes with an influx of 300 entrepreneurs to Thailand. I followed the flow of digital nomads back up north to Chiang Mai—almost the unofficial capital of the new location-independent movement.
Chiang Mai was a perfect base to set up for a few months, live cheaply and try to stack more cash before I finally made my return to the Philippines to meet my son, having little idea what kind of situation I would walk into.
When I finally met my baby boy, he was nearly ten months old.
It was certainly one of the most amazing moments of my life. It was terrifying and heartwarming at the same time.
I could feel that this was my baby boy—and almost sense he recognized I was his papa. Almost like there was some sacred bond between us.
Also, the resemblance is striking:
Later that night, I spoke at length with Jam about how we wanted to raise this kid, and how we would live our lives, and as we started to learn new things about each other, I developed a new respect for her.
I had no idea how I’d be received. I almost expected her to be furious since I’d kept them waiting for so long. But she understood my reasons, and we had as pleasant a reunion as you could ask for.
But I didn’t want to jump into a relationship, and I certainly wasn’t getting married just because we’d had a child together. No, I’d seen that play out with my parents. I was the accident, and after their failed marriage and the messy aftermath, I didn’t want to put my own kids through the same.
So I told her everything. How I felt, who I am, what I want for Chris, and for me, and what I didn’t want. I wasn’t ready to give up my freedom, but we decided to build some kind of partnership for the sake of our boy.
I was forced to adapt to being the provider, and a full-time dad, in quick order.
And I did a horrible job at it.
I crashed and burned. I don’t know if I just lost confidence, or what it was, but after making a few financial mistakes and taking on such a big lifestyle change all at once—going from earning just for one to supporting the three of us—I was stressed out, anxious about money, struggling to keep up with my business with the poor infrastructure in the Philippines, and just generally didn’t like who I’d become.
That’s when the setbacks really started rolling in.
Blessed with Challenges
After a year already marred by a failed partnership and a major hacker attack, business kept getting worse, there were several projects gone bad, a long laundry list of unfortunate and unexpected events that had got me really, really down, and made my world feel very small.
I really enjoyed getting to spend my time together with Chris and Jam, but I went from really thriving, and feeling on top of the world, to a fearful, stressed out, depleted loser in a matter of months. I went through a deep depression, which turned crushing when I received news that my mother had been diagnosed with breast cancer, and days later one of my earliest mentors and role models had committed suicide.
Monsieur Alec—my French teacher in high school. The man who was largely responsible for instilling in me a fascination with travel, languages, culture, art, music, and good food. He had always been a hero in my eyes.
He had put me on a certain path in life. The first time I ever left my home country, I traveled to Cannes and Paris with Alec Hodgins.
He had always seemed like such a bright center to the universe, like he had such a love for life, a free spirit adding joy and light in others’ lives—he was one of the best teachers I’d ever known. I thought, ‘how could he end it all, when he had a son?’
All the while, I was trying to rebuild our community and get business back on track, improve what we do 10x, and no matter how hard I tried, I felt like a complete failure time and again.
This growing negative mindset I had allowed to take hold of me was like a little black rain cloud that followed me around—and I was like a walking accident, a manifestation of bad energy. Nothing seemed to go my way, a few big business deals fell through, I lost lots of money on some things gone wrong, ran my retreats at a loss, missed a deadline, lost a contract, then all my equipment started failing—first my Macbook Pro, then I shattered my iPhone screen in the most ridiculous way imaginable.
For six months, I felt like I had a string of bad luck.
All this on top of constantly trying to prevent a tiny human from getting himself killed, sleepless nights filled with crying, balancing work at home with a toddler at home, and the added expense of having to hop continents and leave the Philippines every time I needed to get actual work done.
It was a very rough time. I hadn’t felt so powerless in years. I felt just completely beaten by circumstances out of my control. Maybe it was a lesson I needed to learn. But I felt that life was truly testing me to my absolute limits. Every time I thought things could only get better, I was wrong.
Very wrong.
Jam’s father passed away unexpectedly.
And a few days later she was in a motorbike accident.
At that time, I was in Thailand, trying to complete a massive overhaul of our business training. The project had been growing in scope for over a year, and needed to be wrapped up, and I hoped it was going to make a big difference in our business, but I just couldn’t get it done from the Philippines. Internet just wasn’t fast or reliable enough for this heavy lifting.
So I was an ocean away, in another country, when Jam lost her beloved father Diosdado. Her family needed help to pay for his burial, which of course I couldn’t say no to. But, I felt horrible that I couldn’t be there for her in person to offer my emotional support as well. And I was saddened that I’d never really get a chance to know the man who raised her.
It started to seem like EVERYTHING was crumbling.
I felt like the universe was against us. I think I literally started to attract negativity like a magnet.
I was away from my boy for about three months, just hating it, resenting the situation I’d got myself into, feeling alone, bitter, and too ashamed to even talk business with my friends and customers. Here I was, responsible for teaching my students to start their own businesses, and I’d let most of mine whither or fail.
Once I was finally able to return to Jam and Chris again in the Philippines, my hard drive failed the day I arrived, and I lost loads of data I had neglected to back up. So I was again without a laptop for the better part of a month while techs replaced every component in the thing, one by one, and spent a fortune trying to restore what they could from the old drive. Our community forums broke randomly for no apparent reason. My email address started bouncing.
I pulled more cash out of my pocket and may have well just lit it on fire.
Meanwhile, we’d waited on Chris’ passport for six months, and between keeping two apartments in two countries, the maids, nanny, keeping my family fed, exorbitant business expenses, risky bets and major losses, travel expenses, documents, handouts and bribes (try getting things done in the Philippines), we’d just burned through money all year long, and here I’d been planning to finally move my family to Thailand so we didn’t have to spend months apart any longer.
Not an ideal time to be without a laptop. When you’re a solopreneur, things don’t run without you.
So I found myself in the worst financial shape I’ve been in years. Only now with the added responsibility of relocating my loved ones comfortably to a new home in a new country, getting visas, a house, and all the necessities of setting up a new life.
I had prepared for this, but now family emergencies and business setbacks had eaten through most of our savings, and things weren’t going to go as smoothly as I’d hoped.
And with my businesses, it had long started to feel like every day something new was broken. I found myself spending the majority of my time putting out fires, troubleshooting software, and getting caught up in the little details of every facet of my life.
My perspective got very narrow… and eventually I realized I had completely lost sight of the BIG PICTURE.
Even the Darkest Clouds have Silver Linings
Sometimes you have to tear everything down to the foundations in order to build yourself back up to what you truly want to be.
The benefit to being off the grid for a month was that I had tons of quality time to spend with my son, and I was finally able to bring my family to Thailand with me and give the proper time and attention to help get Jam acquainted, introduced to new friends, and settled in to a brand new country for the first time.
And I was finally able to step back and look at my life, at who I really want to be, what I really am passionate to do, to remember the change I was put here on this earth to push forward, and I finally remembered how BIG my goals and dreams really used to be.
While I had dwelled for far too long on all the negatives of the last year or two, eventually I reached a place where I could see that most of these challenges were blessings in disguise.
My mentor’s suicide helped me confront the reality of impermanence and mortality again. It reminded me that we don’t get that long here, and there are no guarantees you’ll see the people you love again tomorrow.
My mother’s cancer has actually led us to reconnect and rebuild our relationship again, and I can see it is opening her eyes to looking at life differently, and appreciating what is truly important.
Financial troubles have shown me that even though there will always be ups and downs, I am always capable of creating more wealth in our lives when I put my mind to it. I have never gone broke, and even when I feel like we don’t have a lot, really, if you have your health, and people around you that you care about, that is true wealth.
Even when life throws its most difficult obstacles in my way and it seems like the world is falling apart, life doesn’t seem so uncertain as long as you’ve got people you love.
And struggles in the Philippines helped me see that a good environment and having good friends around you truly makes all the difference. We were missing that in Cebu.
I love Chiang Mai because every day I cross paths with great people in the cafe, at lunch, meet for dinner, or a couple drinks, have inspired conversations with like minded friends, and we are surrounded by good folks who are constantly willing to go to bat and help each other. And Chris has lots of adopted aunties and uncles around who adore him and he’s learning and socializing faster than ever.
Finding your place, with your people and your community, makes a huge difference from living isolated somewhere where you lack that support network.
Technology problems reminded me that I spend too much time focused on the little details, too much time looking at screens, and in my business I really need to take my own advice—to step back and work on what I truly love: writing, photography, creative work, and actually helping people. That’s what I got in this for, that’s when my soul comes alive, and I have spent too much time distracted by other things I’m not best suited for.
So it’s time to find creative solutions.
Though we’d had an unexpected child under fairly difficult circumstances, and though it caught me completely unprepared—I’d always wanted to have kids, and I was blessed to have that happen while I am still fairly young and can spend lots of time with my boy.
Otherwise it may have not happened for quite some time, the way I was going.
My son is my favorite person in the universe! Such a handsome little dude, always making me laugh. We wrestle, we have dance parties, we tinker with motorbikes together, we look at chicks, and he always gets their numbers. He likes to poke my belly button and lick my face when he gets the chance, and he can’t stand being apart from me for 2 minutes while I use the bathroom. It’s not easy being a dad, but it is certainly great fun.
Thank you for coming into my life Chris, you are the greatest thing that ever happened to me!
Fatherhood is certainly uncharted territory for me, but I love it.
As for Jam, while I certainly wasn’t in the market looking for wife material, I could not have picked a better partner to be with if I had planned it. The Universe just gave me exactly what I needed, even if it’s not what I thought I wanted at that moment in time.
In my own way, I love her. She’s stunningly beautiful, she’s intelligent, she is a woman with self-confidence and courage, but not with attitude or an inflated ego, she is humble and generous, she is patient and accepting, nurturing, and she is funny as hell—a sign of her astuteness as English is her second language and humor is the hardest thing to master when there’s a culture gap.
She is a lady. She is elegant, but caring, selfless, she carries a smile and a song on her lips and doesn’t take much too seriously, she is always positive, and she just enjoys life and appreciates what she has.
I do. I love her—like I’ve never loved anybody before. She is the perfect balance I need.
She is a wonderful mother, even if our parenting styles vary widely. (the balance is what matters)
She is the greatest gift life has ever given me, and she has given me a beautiful child.
I fought it for a long time, when it set in that I had to shape up and become a man capable of taking care of someone other than himself. This was also forcing me to become a better, stronger, more disciplined, responsible person.
Do your best to “show up” and give each day your best, but realize you can’t control everything, and maybe your real purpose is something other than what you’ve been led to believe it was.
For a long time it was difficult to remain motivated through the dark times, to feel good, I was struggling with my purpose in life, what my worth is… The meaning in my work felt lost… I had all these new responsibilities. Suddenly I had a family I have to support, but because I was struggling to run my business in the Philippines, I ended up feeling completely isolated from the people I loved the most while I toiled away elsewhere.
That was the hardest thing I have ever had to do, working hard while I knew I was missing out on my son’s development every single day, and missing my family desperately.
It felt outside my capabilities at times, but I just have to keep stretching myself further and expand what I am capable of. The struggles and new responsibilities of fatherhood showed me that I was a boy before.
But now I am working to become a man.
I’ve learned, after going through many iterations of myself—periods of time that almost feel like different lifetimes—that actually I really am quite the family man, and I am a believer in something, some higher power maybe that brought all this into my life, some bigger purpose. For all of us.
I think things happen for a reason, and life presents challenges to us for a reason.
And I think many of us are selling ourselves short.
Dealing with Setbacks and Challenges is the same as Lifting Heavy
Dealing with adversity is training yourself to handle harder and harder problems. You’re crafting yourself into a stronger and more capable person. And life won’t throw more at us than we’re capable of handling in one way or another.
Hitting a low point can be a great thing, if you take the opportunity to recreate yourself, better and stronger.
Being disconnected gave me the opportunity to do a lot of soul searching. Thankfully I serendipitously connected with just the right people and resources at just the right time, and I was able to really clarify what I’m about.
My vision is to see a world with fewer boundaries that keep people where they are—where it’s easier to travel, share ideas, and learn through self-directed education and mentorship, not so much through traditional “gatekeepers” of knowledge and credentialism.
My goals are to be the best father I can be, give my son every opportunity I can and provide an amazing mind-opening life for my family, to directly help at least 1,000 individuals to quit jobs they hate and start their own businesses, to write a book about what I’ve learned from traveling four continents for seven years, from love, loss, death, struggle, religion, psychedelics, volunteering with children, business, bar fights, and fatherhood—from monks, millionaires, prostitutes, drug lords, and even ex-Beatles. And to help bring more entrepreneurial learning to kids and young adults, as well as ambitious creatives in the developing world.
My own mother said recently that I seem like everything comes easy to me. It shocked me, because I feel the opposite. I may make it look easy, but I often feel like nobody in the world has it as tough as me.
Every day in every way I’m failing at things, making mistakes, hitting obstacles and setbacks, unanticipated emergencies, financial losses, major fuckups sometimes, and it’s always a challenge to get where I’m going. Nothing about this life comes easy.
That’s the truth that few people will be real about.
Maybe growing up I kind of floated by, I was blessed with a decent mind, so school was easy and I got lazy. But I think at some point that all changed. Work and the “template” lifestyle were just too monotonous and boring for me. So maybe I almost subconsciously set out to challenge myself in every way imaginable.
Now I live a great life, but I have put myself in the most challenging circumstances I can think of in many aspects of my life. I moved abroad, started my own business, had a family before I was ready, and am constantly in over my head, doing 1000 jobs, pushing my mind, body, and soul almost beyond their capabilities.
Often I let the stress, frustration, fear, and doubt get to me. But I suppose that facing these things, and facing the unknown is how we grow and improve.
The struggle is real if you want to do big things and live on your own terms. This shit is NOT easy. Don’t ever listen to anyone who tells you anything worthwhile will be easy.
Nobody is entitled to easy. So don’t look at other people and think they got lucky. Figure out how they got there. Consider all the hard work you never witnessed them do. The years of struggle toiling away behind closed doors. The repeated failure before something finally worked. And if you want the good life, get ready to work for it. Living a life on your own terms is the hardest thing ever, but it will be worth it!
The path is NEVER clear-cut until you KNOW where you’re going.
When I recently stepped back and looked at the big picture, that’s what I realized I was missing: I never had a super clear image of who and where I wanted to be.
But once you see it, once you get clear on your dreams, goals, and desires, then you will see the path. There still won’t be any guarantees you will make it. But you have to start walking the path, and never give up.
Your mind will play all kinds of tricks on you—fear and doubt—and other people will question your big ideas. Other people get uncomfortable sometimes when you commit to being a bigger, better, different person. They like you the way you are.
But don’t let their objections hold you back or dictate your direction in life. If you want to be happy, only YOU can decide where you’re going.
I know where I’m going now—finally! And that is why I know that I am becoming unstoppable.
Who do you want to be? You just have to make up your mind.
And when you decide, surround yourself with people who are similar to the person you want to become. When you can see others who have achieved it, and visualize and touch what their reality is like, then you are becoming a person who is capable of creating that same type of life for yourself.
I’m so grateful for the amazing people, communities, and inspiring energies around me in my life that have helped re-inject the passion back into what I do, remember my BIG crazy goals and dreams, and helped guide me back to my purpose in life!
With new rejuvenated purpose, it’s finally time for me to change things up a bit.
A lot of what I know I have to do now is scary. But all the right things are finally coming into my life at just the right moment when I need them most—people like Benny Esco and his GlobalShift movement—Benny is a very special, inspiring individual who has had a big hand in helping me make some of these bigger realizations about my purpose (you have to find him on Periscope!). I’m grateful for people like Rob Hanly, and James Altucher, and even Joe Rogan, whose lessons keep falling in my lap right when I need them. I’m thankful for this weekend’s Think and Grow Rich seminar with Bob Proctor. Napoleon Hill’s book Think and Grow Rich is where the concept of MasterMinding comes from, and it was the first book I read that truly changed my life and set me on a new, more ambitious path, back in my college days
I’m thankful to many friends who have helped guide me through this process, navigate the dark times and come out the other side. And I’m thankful to my many students inside DNA and our customers, who have always supported me and our mission all along the way, even when I’ve stumbled.
Recommitting to Myself
This year I am finally ready to write my book. I am going to recommit to the creative work that I always loved—the writing, the photography, the video work—to reading, learning, sharing inspiring things, and interacting face-to-face with people to help them overcome challenges.
I have been blessed with challenges, which have made me stronger, and now I am committing to transformational change, and new bigger goals for the year ahead:
I want to finally writing the book I’ve always dreamed of writing. I was approached in January by a publisher about writing a book, but it was not really the subject matter I’m passionate to write about at this point in my life. So I am in talks with a friend who is helping guide me into the process to finally start writing my travel memoir, filled with lessons I’ve learned from 7 years living abroad and working for myself, about creativity, curiosity, faith, mortality, responsibility, entrepreneurship, independence, self-mastery, impermanence, resistance, fatherhood, forgiveness, and purpose.
I want to go on an odyssey to reconnect with my mother, and help her overcome breast cancer, find new meaning, meet her grandson, and live healthier
I want to transform and grow my business training course and community into something MUCH bigger, a more effective organization more in line with my vision, and somehow nurture a more open project to provide motivation and entrepreneurial training for young people—as well as having a measurable impact for individuals in the developing world.
I want to become the best father I can be, take an active role in my son’s education and development, and potentially even build out a full homeschooling program (for us to use with Chris, and for others in the future), and possibly an in-person organization to help develop young men into the best they can be.
I plan to launch a podcast with one of my closest friends, focused on hosting insightful, empowering conversations with inspired creatives, writers, entrepreneurs, musicians, artists, and leaders.
I’m daydreaming about possibly even starting a co-working office in Chiang Mai that brings new elements that nobody else has implemented before, to offer an ideal gathering place for nomads and like-minded entrepreneurs in this growing hotspot.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. But first, I’m starting with improving myself.
I never intended to set up this business where I spend 95% of my time fussing with technology and managing my email inbox—I am in it to help people.
So that is where my focus is going to go from now on. I am recommitting to myself—and I will be re-sculpting my business—bigger, faster, more disciplined, and closer in alignment with who I really am.
These are BIG goals, and I can’t do it alone.
I need to change who I am in order to accomplish these major goals—to improve my mindset, and develop better habits, get more disciplined, think bigger, and seek more collaboration in my work, rather than always trying to do everything on my own.
You have to change your mindset, your beliefs, your relationships with others, your rules with yourself, your behaviors, your addictions, your dopamine pathways, if you want better things in your life.
You can have the best. But if you want the best you must be willing to CHANGE. You cannot have something different if you continue to be the same way you are now.
So I know it’s time for me to get unstuck from my ways. To think outside the box. To commit to new endeavors and new strategies.
I will personally be embarking on a 30-day personal transformational challenge in the coming days, to work primarily on improving my mindset and creating better habits.
And I want to bring along good people for the journey with me. Because I know it will help me actually stay accountable and excel in this challenging process.
I believe there is almost nothing we cannot do when we put our minds to it.
But you’ve gotta have good people on your side. I know it’s a struggle for me at least—trying to do everything alone.
So I am already talking with some of my students and friends about starting a small, high-level MasterMind group to kickstart some MASSIVE transformational change, in my own life—and in others’.
If you are at a point like me—where your life and your business need a reboot—if you are close to the point of committing to making a real change…
…Like, you have to change who you are to get what you want—you have to CHANGE the way you think, what you believe! And it’s HARD.
If you are in the same boat—and it’s time to either commit to becoming something more, OR shut it down for good—then join me, and let’s make the decision to go big. I want to bring together a family of incredible people and harness our collective potential to improve together, to help each other, to vastly expand what we believe is possible, to build some wildly successful businesses and transform our lives for the better—as a team.
This year has been almost unimaginably difficult for me and my family. But, when I look around I have SO much to be thankful for. I have a wonderful family, I have a beautiful son, a lifestyle that many people admire, I have built a pretty great business, that even though it’s become a headache in some ways and I have struggled to do as best as I can with it, the mission is real, and I have customers I care deeply about and a vision for changing the world that I truly believe in, deep in my soul.
I’d just lost sight of it. But, through lots of recent introspection, I have at least started to improve my mindset, and it has given me new energy. It has put the fire back in me!
I want to harness this energy, I want to finally stop making excuses and stop playing it safe, and go ALL IN.
So I’m tired of playing small ball. I’m tired of thinking small. I’m tired of trying to do everything all my myself and just getting half-ass results. There is so much awesome around me—it’s time to level up my game, and bring people and resources and ideas and talents together to start building something MUCH BIGGER.
Join me for a Hero’s Crucible
I’m finally coming out of the gate at full speed, and ready to manifest my true greatness. I’m looking to surround myself with good people who want to go on a similar journey—for support, collaboration, accountability, and even business partnership.
I have already started bringing together some of my students and friends to build a 3-month challenge for all of us—a high-level program where I’ll take you guys along for 30 days of hardcore, guided personal transformation—focusing on gratitude practice, goal setting, motivation, mindset change, and habits—plus a full 3 months of business MasterMinding, where we can all get on the phone together weekly to help support each other and hold each other accountable to our goals, connect each other with great resources and key people.
But I want to do it right. I want to collect an amazing group of people around us as we do this—I want to bring in some of my most successful and accomplished friends and role models to participate, give mentoring, answer business questions, and give you the best feedback for your projects across a wider range of areas.
I am not the expert here—I have a fair amount of experience, but I am a student just like you, and I am just on the journey trying to better myself and build something more meaningful and more sustainable just like you. But I have developed an amazing network of incredible people around the world, and I want to finally harness the collective knowledge and resources of all our people inside DNA, here at Thrilling Heroics, and in my circles to create something bigger, to create real change and kickstart your business.
So we are going to help foster close relationships with high-level, experienced entrepreneurs so you can get knowledgeable help scaling your business from people who’ve been there before.
The format is still just taking shape, but it will likely look like this:
Weekly group MasterMind sessions on Google Hangouts
An ongoing chat group with a community of experts
Get matched with an accountability buddy for daily check-in calls or messages.
A framework and exercises for personal transformation, positivity, goal setting, and success
Access to our wide network & introductions to people who can provide services or even partner and joint venture to help scale up your business
Daily motivation, videos, and tips
And more
This will be a very limited, select group for motivated individuals who can bring the right things to the table. I hope to kick something off within the next 10 days, so if you’d be interested, please apply here.
If I am going to become the person I truly want to be, I need your help, and I want to have ambitious, like-minded people on a similar journey alongside me. Otherwise I don’t know if I can do it in isolation.
I need this just as much as you do. But I also want to utilize what I’ll be doing and help make a HUGE measurable improvement in your business and life in the next 3 months too—guaranteed.
I am on a damn MISSION—to grow this community 100x and expand what we do and how well we do it, and more importantly, to truly help take you by the hand and establish successful sustainable businesses for each of you in three months’ time.
No more half-measures. As far as we KNOW, we only get ONE shot at this life, and I am committing to being a better man, a better father, a better entrepreneur, a better servant, a better creator, a better writer, photographer, artist, a better teacher and a better student.
I’m not playing around anymore.
Let’s GET IT! Who’s with me??
Join me for a 90-day personal development & business MasterMind—click here to fill out the survey.
To follow along with the journey—make sure you’re signed up for the Thrilling Heroics newsletter here, where I’ll soon be working to bring you regular, positive news and spotlights about heroic people doing extraordinary things.
Get regular motivation—follow me on Instagram where I’ve been mixing my love for great quotes and travel photography.
Since becoming a father, one thing I can say I believe for sure is that we are all born with unlimited potential. There’s greatness inside all of us. But we forget we are great and that we are capable of great things.
YOU are great!
When my son was born, I created this short film as a message that I wanted to bestow to him one day:
It’s only recently I’ve truly committed to living according to these courageous principles myself.
If I can eat shit every day for two years, dabble in depression, lose everything, and come back with a damn vengeance, then you can too.
If you’re going through dark times, depression, or feel buried under mountains of setbacks—just wait. With time, and perspective, comes the realization that there is almost always a silver lining to your problems.
“Neither temporary defeat nor adversity amounts to failure in the mind of the person who looks upon it as a teacher that will teach some needed lesson. As a matter of fact, there is a great and lasting lesson in every reverse, and in every defeat; and, usually, it is a lesson that could be learned in no other way than through defeat.”
–Napoleon Hill
You can be a victim of your circumstances, wander through life feeling sorry for yourself, and expecting more bad things. Or you can take that adversity and use it to fuel your resolve even more.
And realize that you only build strength by lifting HEAVY.
The strong push themselves beyond the limits they thought they had.
Nearly all leaders have a trail of hardship, loss, failures, and impossible challenges behind them. They just NEVER gave up.
Heroes are the people who have faced impossible odds, slaughtered their own inner demons, and pushed against resistance so much that they’ve become GREAT at what they do.
So don’t give up. ANYBODY can be a hero. You just have to commit.
If you’re ready to embrace your greatness and become the best you can be, and you want to surround yourself with others on a mission in improve themselves and scale up their businesses for an epic MasterMind accountability group and 3-month business challenge, please fill out my survey so I can get a better idea what you guys need most.
Let’s manifest our greatness!
Namaste & keep hustling
Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: Follow Me Through the Fire: the Hard Truth About Fatherhood, Entrepreneurship, Living Abroad, and Chasing Greatness
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