I Literally Cringed When I Saw It

Thanks to the Wonder of Social Media, I Sometimes Get Reminders of How The "Old Me" Used to Live.

My friend Hannah sent me this picture she found of us back around 2003. This was me at my heaviest weight, in the neighborhood of 230 lbs.

Yikes! When I saw this, I literally cringed and turned my face away from the phone.


And while the vain part of me feels a little embarrassed about my appearance (both the weight... and those frosted tips), what I really feel is sadness. Because I know as bad as my exterior looked, the interior was worse.


I look at this pic and see a guy who put on an act each day, making jokes on the radio because he wanted to make other people feel good. He would speak at local schools and mentor young people to love and accept themselves.


But deep down, he had not accepted himself. 


I see a guy who valued significance over love. He thought making six-figures would make him important. He thought being a local radio celebrity would provide him a sense of connection. He thought buying a Lexus at age 24, wearing designer clothes, and buying a condo in an affluent neighborhood would make him more valuable. He confused net worth with self-worth. He thought social media likes equaled love and connection.


He got all the material things he wanted. Yet, he still felt empty.


I see a guy who would do anything for his friends. He would always pick up the check at dinner and pay for the bar tab at the end of the night. He wanted to be liked. And for the most part, he was.


But it couldn't make up for the fact he was hyper-critical of himself.


In dating, he bounced from relationship to relationship. He focused 100% of his energy on the person he was with, to the point of losing himself in the process. He fancied himself as Jerry Maguire, just waiting for the right girl to "complete him."


He didn't realize what he thought was love was really codependency.


Maya Angelou once said "When you know better, you do better." The truth is, I simply didn't know the strategies to take charge of my own life. I thought I was forever at the mercy of the outside forces around me.  I thought power was something that I had to obtain, not something I was born with. 


Thus, I wasted another ten years making excuses. I blamed my weight on bad genes. I blamed my depression on my childhood. I blamed my increasing levels of career dissatisfaction on the industry I worked in. I blamed my bad relationships and my lack of happiness on my childhood.


I waited for other people and things to "fix me." I believed taking a pill would fix things chemically. I kept going to therapy, talking about the same 4 stories from my past, and waiting for a shrink to "make me better." I kept waiting for the right woman to come along and make me feel whole.


I now call this "The Next Big Thing Syndrome." I kept putting off happiness, waiting for the next doctor, self-help book, the next relationship, or the next pay raise out on the horizon to be the "cure all."


Friend, I learned the hard way this kind of thinking is fiction. The "next big thing" is a merely short term fix to a much bigger problem. It's the equivalent of taking a home overrun with black mold, putting wallpaper over top of it, and expecting the home to be liveable. 


Your own thinking and beliefs are the disease... but what is really awesome and empowering is the moment you realize you are also your own cure. It won't come through the next prescription, the dream home, or watching the next TED talk.


When I learned a few simple strategies and mindset shifts, my world as I knew it changed. I powerfully and confidently made new choices. Those changes that helped me find greater levels of love, creativity, passion, purpose, and fulfillment the fat kid in the pic never thought were possible.


But here's the key point. My coaches and mentors only provided me with tools and strategies.


The answers came from within.


And to be perfectly honest, I cannot give you the answers for your life. But I know with 100% certainty that I can help you find them.


A great coach listens to you exceptionally well. They see your blind spots that you don't see. They ask the right questions to help you to tap into your own intuition.


Because for there to be sustainable, meaningful change, the answers have to come from you. In fact, part of your problem may be that you have been living everyone else's vision for your life instead of your own. 


I do not deny my clients the gift of discovering the tremendous power that's within them to design the life of their dreams.


Like the client who had spent most of her life stuck in a cycle of depression and anxiety. She could not seem to sustain a relationship for longer two months without it imploding in a dramatic way. Today, she's thriving in her career and dating a great guy. She's fulfilled and at peace.


Or the client who just walked away from a 40-year career on her own terms. She let go of the belief that she needs to stay in a career that makes her unhappy because she must be "a better man than her father." She's pursuing the things she's always wanted to do, but never made time for. She's reinvented her life at age 60.


Or the client who lost his way after college. He traded in his creative aspirations for a mundane office job. He struggled to find self-love after a breakup, saying his ex didn't "believe in him." Since working together, he's stopped looking to other people and found a renewed belief in himself. He's taking action. He is back to pursuing his creative passions on a daily basis and letting his amazing work be seen in the world. He is on the verge of a massive breakthrough just 6 weeks after we began working together. He told me he sees life "completely differently" than he did two months ago.


These are just are just a handful of the wins my clients are experiencing. And what's inspiring and fascinating is that time and time again, I see people who make massive increases in their happiness before they even reach their goal. They find self-respect and love simply through making progress. They find joy in the journey.


So as we wind down 2016, I ask you... where are you stuck? Have you refused to make change because you're waiting for the plan to be "perfect" before you get started? Have you been blaming others for your lack of progress? What does an extraordinary life look like to you? What needs to change?


I would love the opportunity to help you find clarity on these important questions. I've shared with you how lost I was in my life. I believe if I can turn it around, literally anyone can. 


And I'm ready to prove it to you.


Simply click here to schedule a time for a FREE, 25-minute Breakthrough coaching session. During this powerful coaching session, you and I will:

• Discuss your goals and aspirations for 2017. What do you really want?
• Find clarity on what is REALLY holding you back from getting it (Spoiler: It's probably not what you're telling yourself
• Come up with your first action step to help you turn "stuck" into "success".

The reality is your life didn't get messy in 25 minutes and we won't solve all of your problems in 25 minutes. But what I can absolutely guarantee you is a breakthrough. You will leave our time seeing new possibilities that you didn't see before. 

And by the way, the call is FREE. Click here to reserve yours and get on the fast track to massive fulfillment in 2017!