In the coming weeks I want to focus some on what I brought up yesterday regarding picking our hard and the fine line between success and pain—well, specifically the effort for success being pain.  There’s a lot of nuance to that in regards to the idea that work is hard and our mindset to the belief that work has to be hard.  I talked about pain the other day in regards to our ability to focus on the end goal no matter what and the fact that in any goal there are things we will have to give up.  That remains true.  I want to keep that eye on the prize because we are entering a new phase.  We are entering a time where it’s more important to find the reality of who we are than it is to wear any mask we can create for our own comfort—or anyone else’s for that matter.  The chance of failure, while painful, is far less risky than taking no chance at all and any time we take a chance like that, we risk some type of pain.  I don’t believe all life has to be struggle or maximum effort but I am aware that the definition of pain depends on our resilience to the matter.  I’m reminded of the leader of our business referencing the graveyard and what we do with the dash between birth and death.  I’m reminded also that we speak of the richest place in the world being the graveyard for all the untapped potential and ideas buried in the earth.  I’ve seen family success and failure—One day I’ll share the full story of our bakery and our trucking business.  I’m aware of the pain of effort, the pain of the ALMOST, and the pain of loss and that background has created a fear in me for years that I didn’t recognize before now, before we approach the end of this chaotic and confusing year.  I’ve seen the wasted effort (I’ve felt it in my own actions) and I’ve seen the massive success of that same effort. 

With the latter point, I fully understand Hormozi when she says that successful people have a high tolerance for pain.  She also says, “Extraordinary results in public are the result of extraordinary suffering in private.”  It always bothered me that my ideas were misunderstood and often ignored because people couldn’t see the same picture I painted.  It bothered me even more that, in the act of taking on my own efforts to bring that picture to fruition was seen as hyper-independence and control.  Fine, there was a degree of the latter two points but it wasn’t about controlling others.  It was about controlling the outcome I so desperately wanted to see.  Regardless, with the entrepreneurial spirit high in both sides of my family, I understand the tolerance for pain as well as the work required out of the limelight to get there.  I’ve experienced that pain myself in trying to launch different ventures on my own and what I’ve seen in my brother and his own business.  Now, I share all of this because I’m 100% entering a new phase in my life.  I’ve faced some unexpected lessons this year with people I loved and cared about and I’ve had to learn new levels of what it takes to get what I want.  I’ve also learned that creating what I want looks and feels differently than I thought it would.  I’m finally aware of the potential I’ve always felt within and what it actually takes to unleash it.  None of that light would come out sitting in the  darkness of the blanket I put over my life to make others comfortable.  The ironic part is even offering that blanket to others became lonely because they still didn’t want to share when I offered exactly what they asked for.  That’s beside the point in the moment. 

The real point is that we need a particular mindset to go after what we want in this life.  We need clear values and a discerning eye and a certain tolerance for bullshit and a certain intolerance for the bullshit of others.  We have to tread the line of not being afraid to go it alone while being soft enough to adapt as needed.  We need to know when to put our heads down and do the work in silence and when we need to raise our hands, either to ask for help or to tell others to get the hell out of the way.  Life has this ebb and flow of taking control and taking orders and that pivots when we decide we want to go in another direction.  This has been a massively beautiful year and I’m still sad—gain takes loss and the losses I faced hurt.  But I will not regret the changes I went through and what they have brought into my life already.  Now it’s time to commit to moving forward and embracing the changes still to come.  We get to write our own story—we truly do—we just don’t always get to pick the color of the ink or where we write it down.  I’ve become very clear in these last few weeks, perhaps even just these last few days if I’m honest, and I see what needs to be done in the next year.  It’s ok to let go of the idea I’ve held onto for so long.  Several weeks back we spoke about what we have to leave in order to cleave—and sometimes the reverse is true—we have to cleave in order to leave.  Regardless of how we do it (separate the behavior to attach or separate the attachment to allow new behavior), we must change to change.  This isn’t one of those “New Year New Me” things—this is the awareness that change takes clarity and effort and focus.  This is the understanding of what we need to be willing to endure to get where we want to go. I look forward to sharing this next part of the journey.