Find Your Own Path to Success, How I Changed My Life and How You Can Too.

    There is no shame in it, if you were never intended to be an employee. A general rule of thumb, if you aren’t working on your own dreams then you are working on someone else’s. I think it’s really important to stop fighting against the current, and to pick a destination downstream. I’ve found from my experience that fighting against the current just keeps me swimming in place, and too I found that if I take the direction I am pushed towards then I can actually pick a destination and make some real progress getting there. Besides, the path to real wealth has always been the path of failure. Failure contains the lessons we need to grow, and shows us which directions we really need to travel in. This way, when we find success in our endeavors, we can double down and repeat it. I have often heard that the process of becoming truly wealthy is boring, taking the same simple process and repeating it hundreds, thousands, even millions of times. 

     There really is no reason to believe that the path you think you need to go down is the path that leads to your success and well being. Let me tell you a real glossed over story, about my struggle to conform to what I thought the world wanted me to be. I had this idea that employment was the sure route I needed to take to be successful. Everyone that I knew who had money and all of their physical needs met were employed. I was raised to believe that the path we are meant to travel is the traditional route of going to school, getting a job, and settling down with a family. The sad truth is that having this expectation is what made me unhappy more than anything, because I did not have and could not obtain what I expected life to have in store for me. This is the route to disappointment, anger, depression, and the eventual death of character that leaves a person uncaring, sinking into hedonistic habits which consumes all life and ambition. It wasn’t until I stopped expecting that I could really start to appreciate what I have, that is opposed to lamenting about what I didn’t.

     The sad truth is: I spent over ten years of my life trying to be an employee, when it seems so obvious now I was meant for other things. I expected to be able to have the steady income and the secure future that a trade could bring me. After three dozen jobs, many of which were completely different from what I wanted to do, but were simply some kind of job, I was unhappy, neigh miserable, because I expected to be like everyone else. That fact that I could not was a constant mark against me, against how I viewed myself and how others view me. 

     I look at that post I made almost two years ago, on this blog, and I can see evidence of the old mindset that kept me down. In it, I said that a blog isn’t going to make me rich, and that money will come when it is meant to. I stopped trying to work a couple of years ago, it was exhausting to constantly remind myself of what I couldn’t do, and that was the beginning of the process for discovering how to find my own path. I know now it is all about attitude, our viewpoints are the fatalistic determinants auguring intractable life consequences. I see now that I was trying to get what I was never meant to have. That observation incited a new viewpoint, a whole series of changes struck with so much force that I made more money in one month than I have ever made in any year previous. 

     My highest earning year of my life was actually during the height of the recession, in the year 2008 I earned earned $12,216. And by the fact that I had so many different jobs for such short durations I qualified for disability. I never was disabled, just differently-abled. I was always fighting against my own destiny, and I couldn’t recognize the hints life had for me that were directing me to my own personal legend. If you’re a reader, you might remember that term from “The Alchemist”. That story, among many others, laid the foundation of the mindset that made it possible for me to go from depending on food stamps and disability benefits of $800 a month to making almost twice my yearly income in just one month. And now the limitations that I have been imposing on myself are so obvious in hindsight.

     I want everyone to understand that if you are fighting for breath and swimming in place, there is a solution, you can also earn 17 thousand dollars in a month, while just one month earlier being dependent on others to provide for you. If you cannot do things that the world expects of you, that you expect of yourself, then the only answer is to stop comparing yourself to others and expecting to do what they do. Maybe you aren’t meant for the path that you are trying to force yourself into, and I say that there is no shame in not having precisely the needed abilities to do the things that everyone else does. Maybe you were not given that ability because you didn’t need it, maybe all you needed was to follow your own path to success. It could be that you are like me, and cannot maintain employment for whatever reason that might be, but you keep trying to force yourself into that role. Maybe you were meant to be a leader, and maybe you were not designed to follow, you really won’t know what direction you were supposed to go until you can give up the expectations you hold. 

     The biggest change in my life originated in my thoughts. My thoughts are what created my actions. The idea I mentioned earlier, written in a previous blog post, that money will come when it is meant to, that kept me from trying to get it, along with many other thoughts that were not productive. The thing is, when we try something and fail we tend to just give up. And when we try dozens of times, and fail dozens of times, it is hard not to think you yourself are a failure. But maybe you just need to change directions.

     The thoughts that led me to where I am, and I have another deal in the works to make me $40k, maybe as soon as next month, those thoughts are not as complex as needing a whole book to explain. If you are stuck, just stop swimming for a minute, float down the river and look around at what is actually in your reach. This takes five precise thoughts. Repeating these thoughts to yourself as you would if you were a Hogwarts student writing lines for professor Snape, embedding these thoughts into your mind and thinking them as often as possible, and if your life isn’t vastly different on a month, then you need to stop swimming and look around again.

      I wish everyone could be successful, but the reality is that only a disciplined and determined person will reach that destination, the three D’s of apparition. You can teleport yourself to a whole new life in just a few short days by controlling the greatest tool in your arsenal, your own mind. Even now, my thoughts are holding back my potential, and the odds are that yours are too. If you master your thoughts and understand their consequences then you suddenly gain control over the outcomes of your efforts. 

     I want you to think in, and act, in accordance to, thoughts of courage, self-reliance, and decision. You know something that you would be good at, but there is some idea in your head that stops you from acting. The vital step is to change that. The most important thought to change is the one that says you can’t do something because of some reason outside of your control. No, that is self-destructive, stop thinking that way. If you instead ask yourself how can I do this thing, yes I have this current limitation, but how can I work around it, then you will find success. Don’t think about how you can’t, because that just means you wont; Think about what you can do, right now, to work towards your desires. Don’t look at all the problems you see, find one thing you can do right now that will maybe just inch you forwards just a little, and then another step will become apparent to you. So that is four thoughts, you remember them right? We need thoughts of courage, thoughts of self-reliance, thoughts of decision, and thoughts of finding a solution one step at a time. But the last and final component of thought that will lead to actions which create success is the thought that there is a lot of wealth, a lot of love, and a lot of everything you want, more than enough for everyone to have as much as they desire and more, and you deserve to get a piece of that pie. 

     I will say one of the beliefs I had that held me back the most was “It takes money to make money.” I want you to be aware of the difference between a struggle and effort. If you are putting your effort into a struggle then you need a change in direction. Success leaves clues, someone said, and those clues can give you direction. It is important to be aware, important to watch the results that your thoughts have on your life. There is no shame in being different, having a different path in life than your expectations had you believe were important. Listen to what the universe is telling you, it will nudge you in the right direction if you just would pay attention. Use the five thoughts to inspire actions that will lead to success. My thought that it takes money to make money, well it doesn’t take your money, at the very least, is what you could think instead. This deal that I am about to make $40k on, my first deal is still closing right now so I didn’t even have earnest money. But I stopped thinking about why I couldn’t get it, and started thinking about how I could get it, and I made some phone calls. It turned out that someone I knew was looking for an investment and I can get them a 100% return on investment in the time it takes to buy and sell a house. And my track record, the property itself too, served to convince this investor to help me get my next deal even before my capital had returned from my first one. 

     I had a lot of excuses, a lot of reasons why I can’t do things, a lot of very intense and real struggles in my life made me feel like a victim. I was a victim, but I victimized myself with my own thoughts primarily. And I am sure you do too, you have a lot of reasons why you can’t go in the direction you are nudged into, but it is vital to control your thoughts. One how can I do it despite this limitation could be all you need to achieve your goals, maybe it wont happen on your first effort, not the first time, but eventually this leads to success. The worst thing I could imagine thinking in my deathbed is not how many times I failed and how many mistakes I made; No, what I want to think as I face the beginning of the next adventure is that whether or not I achieved everything I could have, at least I put in my best effort.

     When you start to make it, you can start to give back. When you give freely of yourself is when the greatest opportunities in life present themselves, one of many laws by which this universe abides. I actually have a list. Just like science has identified fundamental laws by which the universe behaves, there are also a great many laws which determine not the speed of a ball after a second of free fall, but also predicting the results of all your efforts, thoughts, and even the creation of circumstances. Mastering these laws allow you to build a rocket, much like the laws of science allow you to build a rocket. But instead of going into outer space, this rocket will take you to the precise destination that you design with a carefully laid plan. Remember, stop comparing yourself to others, think the five thoughts, learn the laws of the universe and build yourself a rocket. If I can change my life so drastically in a month, move across the country and actually start winning in life, then I think that if you listen to my advice, you might be able to find your own brand of success, even if the brand you expected is upstream and out of reach. Good luck brave adventurer. I’ll see you in outer space, where we can explore the limits of our capabilities.