My story of how I escaped the rat race, defeated my inner battle, found my identity, and started living my ideal life.
No matter how bad it gets, no matter what mistakes you’ve made in the past, and no matter how old you are, you can overcome anything, become successful, and lead a healthy ideal life. I say this because I overcame my inner battles and won. I escaped the rat race and found true meaning in life.
Now, I run a successful coaching business and help people every day start a new promising life. This is the story of how I did it and what I learned in the process.
It was 2012, and I found myself waking up in a cold, dark, windowless detention cell. I was alone with a pounding headache at 41 years old.
How did I go from being a successful part-owner of a multinational company to sleeping off a party in a cell?
Then the pieces of last night came back…..
The party, getting blackout drunk and the cops showing up.
How did my life end up here?
From the outside I was accomplished. I had a successful career, the big house, fancy car, and I took my family on amazing vacations. But my mind was always around work and my tools for success were coffee, beer, wine, and nightcaps.
Don’t all the great entrepreneurs use the same tools? Even Marc Andreessen joked to Tim Ferriss once saying “The perfect day is caffeine for ten hours and alcohol for four. It balances everything out perfectly.”
Does it?
In my case it made me numb.
I thought I was doing okay and was doing what society expected of me. But in reality I was living based on other’s expectations instead of living my own ideal life.
I had a mindset where the more I worked the more successful I would become. So, I would hustle and work over 80 hours a week and used a mixture of coffee and alcohol to keep me focused.
In reality I was just numbing myself and feeling overwhelmed with stress.
Working for money and the hope money will buy you happiness never works. But if work has meaning for you and allows a more enjoyable and fulfilling journey, then you’ll find happiness in every moment.
Working to the grind is only healthy when you have goals, passions, and values behind it. But at the time I had no idea that was a thing. I didn’t know my identity, what my values were, or what I was passionate about. I just worked so I didn’t have to think about them.
Before, I thought my stress, overwhelm, low self-esteem, lack of energy, and emotional roller coasters were due to my job as a business owner. I was tired. I was tired of working long hours and knew there had to be more to life than this. So I organized a successful exit.
Leaving life in business was never the answer to happiness.
No one was telling me to work crazy hours.
No one was telling me I had to do everything myself.
No one was telling me it was all on you.
But I didn’t understand this and it was all I knew and all I had. Without life in business I had zero identity. My whole career was my identity and I just left it. I didn’t know how to rebuild my identity or establish values, so I just continued numbing myself.
It wasn’t until I found myself in that detention cell with no escape that I finally realized that my real problem was not having a life outside of work.
I wanted to start building my ideal life. But how?
It turned out that the first step was actually taking a step back and evaluating my life.
Changing habits and creating your ideal life starts by taking a step back and deciding what is important to you and what you value inside and outside of your business and life. Change, no matter its form, takes work and is a process. It’s not a straight line of progress, and there is no instant magic formula that works.
Numbness can creep in when you don’t make time for your own life and happiness, which was exactly what happened to me. I was living life and working for superficial reasons. When instead, I should have been working towards values and living a life I would find meaning in.
Happiness is not defined by what we own, but by what we value and experience.
Finding Your Ideal Life
You can’t have your ideal life if you don’t take the time to step back and answer what it is that you want. Once you can see and feel what you want in your life, you can look at where you are right now, and start taking action to move forward.
As you start to progress down the path towards your ideal life and ideal business, you’ll begin to see how your entire identity is not tied up in the business or materialistic items.
Having an idea of what your ideal life looks like can help you set a vision to align your business with that life. You can turn your attention to work with a newfound passion and purpose and transform it so you can start authentically living the way you envision.
Where am I now?
I am happy, healthy, and more fulfilled than ever before. I now have an MBA with a certification in exit planning and am also a certified professional coach. But most importantly, I have a big picture of what I want my life to be like and know what my values are, and how to lead with my authentic self. Everything I now do is led with meaning and purpose.
I got out of it, am no longer numb, survived, and created a new life full of abundance for myself, my family, and my business.
I work as a coach, helping organizations and people create a new life, new businesses, or new careers that fulfill their own definition of success. My goal is to inspire and help others change their life sustainably and with purpose. I want to see others achieve the same success I gained after I did the work and found meaningful happiness.
No matter how large the obstacle, you have it in you to overcome it and succeed in life.
Use my story as fuel to light your fire, overcome your obstacles, and make a positive impact in society.
Are you ready to discover your Ideal Live? Book a free 30 minute discovery call.
Ever heard that what may trigger us and make us uncomfortable may be a clue as to something we need to make peace with ourselves?
