It took me 19 years

Previously, I’ve written about a new business taking 3 years. I think that’s a good number. There’s a lot you don’t know at the start that you will learn over 3 years. I try to get people to focus on a 3 to 5 year journey, since that’s far more realistic than overnight success, or a direct arrow up.

As I reflect when writing on this blog, I can put a date of when things permanently turned for me. When I went from surviving to something beyond that.

In 2012 I can remember hitting some financial goals for some real change in our lives. I had a safety net established and real stability. If we measure success as peaks and valleys, at that time the valleys no longer got low, and the threat of them went away.

I left home at age 18 in 1993. Not counting the work I did when I was a teenager living at home, my journey then took 19 years. A 19 year “overnight success”.

All the successes and high points I had over those 19 years were fleeting. Some incredible highs, but I was still not protected from the lows. I could be on stage, with thousands of people in front of me, and then go home to a small apartment. An apartment I was often late paying rent, because my income was so inconsistent.

Obviously if I could go back in time, and tell myself to do things different, there’s a lot I know now that I didn’t know then.

But that’s the point of my work today. 1) To share my expertise with others to help them along their way and 2) To remind people that the journey can be long, and that’s ok. You are always learning and growing.

The reality is I’d never trade my life today for anything, so I never would go back in time to tell myself to do anything different. It was necessary for me to go through that, all of it, to arrive at where I am today.

So today it’s about sharing this story, and helping others realize the value of the lives they’ve lived, and leverage that for the success they are seeking.