Fast forward several years and Shelley and I now have children, a house, a mortgage, cars, a boat, a vacation property, some money in the bank.

I have it all? Then why am I unhappy? Why do I feel like my life is passing me by as one day blends into the next? Is this all there is to life and business?

So I did what I tended to commonly do … Do what others did. Kept hearing speakers on the platform say that the key to success was more volume. So I continued to build the volume.

300 pv/week …… 400 pv/week …….. I still remember the first week we served over 500 pv/week …… short lived euphoria followed by wondering why nothing important seemed to change.

The sun still rose in the East, the mountains didn’t move and the seas didn’t part. Must not be enough volume. So we built to over 600 pv/week. Nope that wasn’t it.

Great opportunity. My business partner wants me to look after his patients while he is away. Served my volume and his. Almost 1,000 pv/week for those two weeks.

The definition of hell:

“on your last day on earth, the person you became will meet the person you could have become”

– Anonymous

EUREKA MOMENT … THIS SURE AS SHIT ISN’T “IT” FOR ME.

This is hard work. I am tired at night. Not sure I served the 980th person that week as well as I did the 1st. That sucks. Sure as hell was not the kind of father, husband, friend and team leader I wanted to be.

Damn now I am really “lost.” What is the key to success and happiness because these experts and leaders in my profession sure don’t seem to have it figured out for me.

If they aren’t right about volume … What else aren’t they right about? But if I don’t listen to others and do what they do then who do I listen to? What do I do? I am confused.

I remember reading about “the wee small voice within” as a guidance tool. That is for crazy people … Isn’t it? What do I know about success and running a business?

I am just a small town farm boy with deep roots in blue collar working folk. How could I know what is best for me? What I want? Or could I ?

The idea was so foreign and unusual it both frightened and exhilarated me. Do I really know what I want and how to get it? How do I access this information? How do I listen?

Easy to listen to others tell me what to do through their words and actions but this … this is a whole new world. Maybe it would be OK to have others who live in this world teach me how to access it?

Seems like a subtle difference as I am still listening to others BUT … I am listening so I can learn how to lead myself in everything from silent prayer to living a successful life in my ideal.

So that is what I did. I read, researched and went to seminars and retreats put on by people I would have at one point labeled crazy or quacks. They weren’t either. They just had a different frame of reference and different world view.

But it turns out that this journey inward was not going to be easy and completely straightforward. Apparently I had accumulated a lifetime of “debris” in my mind and heart that blocked my connection to this other part of me. Seems like most everybody does.

A collection of judgments, stories, hurts, fears, limiting beliefs, guilt and shame that have been layered on by well meaning but unaware friends, family, teachers, siblings and society.

People that wanted the best for me but didn’t take the time to get to know the “real” me or never bothered to ask what I really really wanted and believed. They just heaped on their wants and beliefs.

Once I started looking I realized there was a lot of stuff blocking me. Going to take awhile to work through these layers but I was confident the juice would be worth the squeeze.

And that my dear friends has made all the difference for me.