1) It has only been in the last few years that I’ve actually made an effort to even recognize my weaknesses.  I’m sure this is in large part because of our Journey, but without making an effort to catalog my weaknesses I would never have gotten anywhere in my quest to learn and turn my weaknesses into strengths (or atleast OK-nesses).

2) I’ve spent plenty of time on specific weaknesses like “I’m not any good at networking,” or “My soccer skills are pretty pathetic.”  But until a few months ago I didn’t even take notice of the overarching weakness that was affecting every area of my life.  It is my lack of follow-through.  I’m quick to begin projects and dive into them but I have a hard time following through and seeing the projects to their end (or atleast to some result).

Join in the Journey guys, leave a note in the comments of what your weaknesses are.

There are more places than just work where we men fall short: Relationships, Behavior, Reactions to situations, Money, Personal Happiness; to name a few.

I struggle with my weaknesses, but usually only notice the struggle afterwards.  One of my main weaknesses is that I am quick to react and often do not stop to watch, listen, and think before my reaction bubbles out of my big mouth.  This gets me in trouble with my wife most often, resulting in my profuse apologies and promises to shut up and think before I speak.  As well, at work with my business partner, I often get frustrated and want to spout off a comment or interject with some reactionary statement rather than think about a strategic way to answer.

What is amazing to me about my personal weaknesses are that I am aware of the existence of the ones I have identified and yet I still have them and realize when I am falling back to them.

I have found that analyzing a weakness can be very difficult, but even more difficult is the process of working it out of my life.

What is one of your weaknesses and what do you do to work on it?

Please tell us your answer in the comments!

From the #Reverb10 website:

Reverb 10 is an annual event and online initiative to reflect on your year and manifest what’s next. The end of the year is an opportunity to reflect on what’s happened, and to send out reverberations for the year ahead. With Reverb 10, we’ll do both.

Since the Journey to A Better man consists of looking at yourself and trying to define what it is that makes you better, how you can improve, and where you are in life – we really like the ideas that reverb10 has.

So, a challenge is in order:  Get over to the Reverb10 website, check out The Prompts and share them with us!  We will do a big recap of our favorites here on Journey.

—-

Dec 1 – One Word

Matt:

My one word: Busy.

I feel like all year I have been “busy”, trying to keep up with what is going on around me. Next year I am hoping my word is “content” or “profitable”.

Tony:

Commitment.

This year has been a year of commitment for me since I’ve committed to my WIFE (yes, we got married this year).  I committed to a new business that Matt and I started in February (Spotted Koi LLC <– shameless plug).  My wife and I committed to a new house that we bought.  My wife committed to a new job.  And finally I committed to try every day to become a better man.

Next year I’d like my word to be “success” or “follow-through” (I hyphenated it so it would be one word-ish )

Dec 2 – Writing

Matt:

Today is about writing. I often have “busy work”, which seems to be a theme.  As a programmer, I see writing in two contexts. The first being for sites like Journey, where I actually write posts; and second to write code. My busy work gets in the way of my writing, and to change this I am getting more organized, hiring people who can help and planning things more effectively.

Tony:

I do plenty of things each day that DON’T contribute to writing – mainly any time I’m not actually writing.  I’m pretty pleased about how much of my day inspires writing but I don’t actually write – if I had to say it was one single thing that prevented it would be will-power because I always get distracted and do something else instead.  Of course, this is no-one’s fault but my own.

Dec 3 – Moment

Matt:

The moment when I felt most alive this past year was when I was riding my bike down the backside of Cottonwood Pass. The guys I was with, claim I hit around 40mph. I have no idea. I got going, tucked into my handlebars and just rode the hill out. It was amazing.

Tony:

It was about 12:30 on September 17th – the day of my wedding.  I was out playing indoor soccer because that’s what I did every Friday at noon.  Being the day of my wedding I was just trying to let go of some of my stress that had built up from work and last minute wedding plans.

For some reason, that day, I was able to let everything go and JUST play – I had been in a good mood all morning because I was excited about the upcoming wedding so maybe that contributed to it but for whatever reason during that game nothing else mattered and I wasn’t thinking about the past or worrying about the future but living completely in the moment and it was thrilling experience.

Dec 4 – Wonder

Matt:

I cultivated a sense of wonder in my life by both working on this site and creating Spotted Koi with Tony Kimberly. Together, we have both been students of ourselves and our business, trying to figure it all out as we worked and wrote. It has been a rewarding year so far, with many speed bumps along the way.  Somehow, Tony and I are still in business and we are still really good friends.

Tony:

Since I was a little boy I loved to examine the world around me and just think about how things work and how things could be made better.  I often enjoyed my sense of wonder the most when I was lost in thought.  I’ve cultivated a sense of wonder by making an effort to take some time alone, particularly when driving, and consider life and what it can be.

Dec 5 – Let Go

Matt:

I actually let go of my full time job and my sense of security.  Even though I have been working there part time since, in order to replace myself with the new guy, who has yet to be hired, I still gave up $85,000/year and a $30,000 bonus. I did this for many reason, unofficially for my sanity and health, officially because I was not happy and very much wanted to build Spotted Koi as a business.  It has been amazing starting my own business and learning what its like to have fear as a motivator.

Tony:

I let go of my old life this year.  I used to work long hours as a mechanic.  Now, there were a lot of things about that job that I really enjoyed but one of the things I hated was working for someone else.  All of their follies were so blatantly obvious to me that it pained me to watch it all play out.  Instead I started at Spotted Koi full-time and (I believe) I sealed my future as an employer instead of an employee. I’m proud to tell people I’m a small business owner and I’m glad I let go of my old life.

Dec 6 – Make

Matt:

My wife and I recently bought a house and we have been making a home for ourselves, much like birds bringing sticks and trash together for their nest, we have made about 1000 trips to Home Depot and Lowes to gather materials to make our house truly ours.  So far, this journey of remodeling our house has been tough, fun, and exciting. We both have lists of things we want to do, and we are both fully aware that if we don’t get them done now, they might never get done. I am proud of what we have created, knowing that everything else we do is just polish on this amazing thing that we have done.

Tony:

The last thing I made was a small wooden burr puzzle.  Every year my immediate family has a policy that the gifts we exchange must be homemade so I made some wooden puzzles to give out!  (Similar to the one shown below)

Dec 7 – Community

Matt:

2010 taught me to pay more attention to the people who I spend time with and the people I want to spend time with.  It made me think in more detail about who my true friends are, whether I spend tons of time with them or not.

I have also learned that I really want to spend more time with my family, that my family is extremely important to me even though it has not been all that important or present to me in the past.

Tony:

In 2010 I found the Twitter community!  I’d known it was there but hadn’t gotten involved and I’ve found the twitter community to be extremely intelligent, diverse and open.  I love all three of these traits and I hadn’t been getting enough of them!

In 2011 I’d like to grow the community here at Journey to a Better Man because I’ve been passionate about self-improvement and I love the input I get from others about what they’re doing to improve themselves.

Dec 8 – Beautifully Different

Matt:

I am a joker, a trouble maker, and an idea person (sometimes called a shit-disturber). The problem with thinking about what makes me different is that I often think about those things that make me the same as well. I am unable to follow through, or complete things. A creator with no follow-through is not really a creator.

I am working on these things, in the hopes that I can improve upon what I have, what I have planned, and what I leave sitting on the table constantly.

Tony:

I’m different from most in that my jokes are laaaaame!  My jokes are so lame that my friend call bad jokes Tony Jokes.  My jokes are so bad that I often have to cue people by laughing first so they actually realize I was joking.  My jokes are (hopefully) so bad they actually make people laugh.  I think people actually enjoy this because they associate these jokes with dad-jokes.  The show How I Met Your Mother actually did a piece on dad-jokes this season.  Maybe I should give you an example of the kind of joke I tell.

Sometimes people call me T.  I said “Oh well atleast that’s better than calling me coffee.” ( If you don’t get it then say it out loud, that usually helps.  If you still don’t laugh then ask someone nearby to laugh to help get you started)

Dec 9 – Party

Matt:

I absolutely loved the Movember events that I participated in this year. We got together with the intention of raising money, we did that, but we had great parties around these efforts. I loved seeing so many people getting together for a common cause and having so much fun.

Tony:

My favorite Party in 2010 was, by far, my wedding.  There was no other party that had the perfect mix of people I love, food I love and reason to celebrate.  As far as I’ve heard plenty of shenanigans ensued.  Fortunately I was left out of most of it.  With the exception of the traditional serenading of the bride with You’ve Lost that Loving Feeling straight out of Top Gun. (requisite picture below)

Dec 10 – Wisdom

Matt:

The wisest decision that I made this year, this is an interesting question that I am not sure I can put a finger on. I believe that this would be a question best asked of someone who looks towards me and watches me, rather than by myself.

Tony:

I kind of have to agree with Matt on this but I’ll take a stab at it…. I think the wisest decision I made was to stop fighting my personality and work around it.  For instance, I hate getting up in the morning so, instead of getting up in the morning and hating myself I decided to shift my work schedule.  Another example would be that I hate working out in the traditional way but I LOVE to play soccer, so I stopped trying to run, lift weights or do any of that other crap and just play soccer regularly to stay in shape.

Dec 11 – 11 things

Matt:

1. Hard work with little to no return – This one and number 6,7,8 all go together. I spend a lot of time on things, getting nowhere.

2. Stress for the sake of stress – My life is stressful, not because it is too hard or there are too many unreasonable expectations on me. It is stressful, because I am not getting what I want out of it and I am not enjoying the things I am working on.

3. Feelings of having “missed out” – What comes with the feelings of wasted time, come the realizations of all the things missed.

4. Feeling disappointed in decisions and situations – This is a reflection of #3, whereby I feel I am missing out on things, causing me to think about the decisions and situations that got me to the place where I missed out on things I very much wanted to be a part of.

5. Not knowing my family as well as I should – I very much realized how very little I know my own family over this holiday season, and this has focused me towards taking steps that will bring me closer to my family and allowing me to spend more time with them as well.

6. Wondering where all my time went – I spend so much time doing “stuff” but very little of it gets me anywhere. I am working to be more productive and to spend my time on things that benefit me in greater ways.

7. Not being prepared – too many times this year, I have fallen behind or allowed surprises that I knew were coming but failed to prepare myself for.

8. Not taking enough time to relax, play, and enjoy my life.

9. Being out of shape – exercise. I said that I would do this last year, I don’t know how yet, but I will be in better shape this year.

10. Being uninformed – I want to read more, and be more informed of what is going on in the world around me, both locally and nationally.

11. Having unreachable goals – many of my goals were not well thought out, well planned for, or executed in any manner resembling reality. It is frustrating to say the least.

Tony:

1. Stress – F that stuff, who needs it anyway?

2. Too Much Work – I work too much!  It really isn’t bad because I love my job but I don’t spend enough time with my wife or out doing things in the REAL world (I work on a computer all day).

3. Half-Used Time – I spend too much of my time half working and not really getting anything accomplished and not even enjoying some relaxation.  I’m committing to being more productive when I’m working and taking more time relaxing when I’m not working.

4. Not Committing – All too often I dive into projects half-assed instead of going full steam ahead.  As the saying goes “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth overdoing”

5. Wasted Time – I spend WAAAY too much time doing nothing – I remind myself that every day (week, month, year) I don’t get something done is another day lost but I need to remind myself more often because too many days go by where I still don’t get any closer to my goals.

6. Negativity – I don’t exercise enough control over my mental state, I try to remind myself that it’s all in my head but some days I let my environment control how I feel.  In the coming years I’d like to be more diligent about controlling my mental state especially when I’m out of my comfort zone.

7. Lack of Follow through – This has been trouble when it comes to projects at work but it has been getting better.  Matt and I have been working on this together but there is a ways to go.

8 through 11.  Ok my life must be pretty good because I can’t come up with anything else.

Dec 12 – Body Integration

Matt:

I do not have a single recognition of something like this happening over the last year.

Dec 13 – Action

Matt:

Ahh, exactly the thing I have been working at. I am very good at having ideas, knowing what things should look like. But my problem is two-fold. I am no good with the connecting between the idea and what should happen, and then as a result, I am not able to finish. I believe that what I need are the “right people” who are good at making these connections, and who know how to take an idea somewhere.

Dec 14 – Appreciate

Matt:

The thing that I have come to appreciate the most in the past year is my wife. She is the person who keeps me going, she is the motivation for everything I do, and she is often the person who is neglected as a result. She stands by me, believes in me, and understands what I am doing and why.  I love my wife and I want very much to show her how much I appreciate everything she does for me.

Dec 15 – 5 minutes

Matt:

Matt – you have lost your memory and these are the high points of what you have done in 2010:

- You purchased a house with your wife Melissa, replaced every floor, and painted every wall.

- You have created a successful company with your friend Tony, the company is a web development and business consulting firm called Spotted Koi. You are currently in the middle of monetizing a few sites, as well as building a a few sites.

- Your desires for 2011 are to free yourself from the day-to-day work that you currently perform, as well as produce more profit and better returns from Spotted Koi, so that you can spend more time with your wife and extended family.

Dec 16 – Friendship

Matt:

Sometimes it is hard to realize what has been taught to you, until much later. I feel that this is the case in this situation.

Dec 17 – Lesson Learned

Matt:

I am writing this on Dec 24th, but the thought still applies.

While I was sitting in the hospital with my family, hoping that my step-grandmother would get better and recover from what seemed like a recoverable hiccup in her health (she did not), I met a man who started talking to me.  He needed to talk to someone about what was going on for him, and informed me that he brought his wife to the hospital two days prior because she was having flu-like symptoms.  The night I talked with him, he had found out that cancer was currently ravaging her internal organs and she would not make it through the night. He had 5 small children.

This lesson smacked me upside the head to tell me that I needed to do everything I could to spend more time with my wife, and with my extended family. I have never in my life had such a draw towards spending time with my family and getting to know them better that I already do.

Dec 18 – Try

Matt:

I would really like to try trusting people more often to do the things they have been asked to do, and then being clear and forthright with them when these things do not get completed.  This will allow me to read my goals of autonomy from my business while creating the environment that we need from that business.

Dec 19 – Healing

Matt:

I have no idea.

Dec 20 – Beyond Avoidance

Matt:

I should have quit my job completely and dedicated myself to my business 100%. Instead I was afraid of not having enough money to keep my house.

Update: I finally stopped contracting in Feb.

Dec 21 – Future Self

Matt:

Focus on the parts of work that make you happy. Focus on your wife and making sure that she is happy. Focus on doing things that make your life better, not just things you should or have to do.

Dec 22 – Travel

Matt:

I traveled to China this past year, a place that I never thought I would ever get to go. Just being in Asia was such a treat, but being in Beijing, China was amazing. I absolutely loved the food, I enjoyed all of the people I met, and got to see some absolutely amazing things that I had only heard of.

Dec 23 – New Name

Matt:

I wouldn’t introduce myself as someone else. I am happy as I am, with who I am, and with how people see me.  I have earned these thoughts and feelings about me through my actions.  If I am being seen in a way that I don’t like, I need to get off my butt and do something about it.

Dec 24 – Everything’s OK

Matt:

Waking up every morning next to my wife and knowing that she is there with me and beside me gives me the feeling that everything’s OK.  Without her, I would be extremely lost.

Dec 25 – Photo

Matt:

There is a photo of me floating around, licking the top of a table in Beijing. The table was hundreds of years old, and it was in one of the best restaurants we visited while in Beijing. I licked the table because I said I would lick a table when I was there. I try to be a man of my word, silly or not.

Dec 26 – Soul Food

Matt:

The best and most amazing food that I ate was in Beijing. Not only did I have my choice of new foods to enjoy, but I was able to almost completely eradicate my GERD while I was there. I didn’t have to take my meds and it made a huge difference for me.

Dec 27 – Ordinary Joy

Matt:

Sitting on the side of the mountain at Copper, looking out at the view. This is my favorite, preparing to hit the run as fast as I can, hitting jumps and just enjoying the outdoors and the sunlight.

Dec 28 – Achieve

Matt:

I want to be completely self-sufficient with my company, in such a way that I am comfortable knowing that we will be OK with our bills and our house.

Dec 29 – Defining Moment

Matt:

The day I put in my two weeks and realized that I was able to survive outside of a real job allowed me to define the rest of my year. It allowed me opportunities to explore ideas and systems for my company that I would not have been able to explore had I been working there.

Tony:

This isn’t really a series of events so much as it has been a building over the last 10 months.  The biggest change for me has been the building of our business Spotted Koi – it’s an outlet for most of my creative ideas and a constant challenge to stay on top of an entire business.

Dec 30 – Gift

Matt:

The best gift that my wife and I gave ourselves this year was our house. We no longer live in the oppression of an apartment and we finally have the thing that we both worked so hard to save for.  We replaced every floor and re-painted every wall.  It was a chore for sure, but it was totally worth it. We have a house that we love and that we will live in for some time.

Tony:

This is such an easy one that I almost feel bad I didn’t have to work for it!  The best gift I got this year was my wedding ring.  I wear it every day and it is a consistent reminder that no matter how things are going my loving wife is there for me.  I’ve never been a jewelry person but I’ve found that I really enjoy that I (almost) always have it with me, it’s almost like she’s with me.

Dec 31 – Core Story

Matt:

I am not sure what story would be at the core of me, but there are for sure values. I value honesty, humor, and diligence. I am a man of my word and I do my best in the things I take on.  Without these values, there would be nothing left of me.

The self betterment quest never ends, nor should it. One thing I think we’ve all heard at one time in our lives is, “Never stop learning, there will always be things within your power that you can improve upon.” So I decided this post would be just that, a plan, a short list of areas that I’ve identified as my own continuing battlefronts.

• Listening – I was taught long ago that there is a difference between hearing and listening, yet I still need to work on this. Too many times, my wife will be telling me something important and I only hear it, thus it is not retained. What I need to do is listen, consciously focus on what she is saying, comprehend, and then act on it. After all, she was important enough for me to commit the rest of my life to, so she should be important enough to drop what I am doing for a second and listen to what she has to say to me.
• Patience – My kids are 14, 18, and 21, and though I think I’ve done a pretty good job at being Superdad, I still frequently come completely unglued when they’ve done something wrong. What makes me do that? After all, I was a kid once and I made many mistakes and bad choices of my own. If I could just master this skill called patience, it will greatly enhance my relationships with my kids.
• Follow through – Best intentions just aren’t good enough. When I promise something to someone, I really need to get right on top of it and get it done. Too many times things fall off my radar and I let someone down. For example, I’ve had house projects that get 99% done then sat for years to get that last 1% finishing touch.

I think for now, I will stick with just this short list. Even though I gave only one a few examples of how I can better myself, there is much work to do within each of these areas. Thank you Matt, for what became a self evaluation challenge. Identifying some of my shortcomings in writing has already been of great value to me. Who knows, if I can stick to this plan, I just may have some future progress to share here on Journey to a Better Man.

I feel like I have uprooted all my routines; eating, exercising, relationships, having quiet personal space, etc. So making the drastic move and leaving everything that was comfortable is something that has required focus on my health, both mental and physical. Before I left Denver, I felt on top of my life routines and stable physically and mentally, and I wanted to make sure I kept it that way.

So what have I done exactly to stay healthy you ask? Well, I’ll tell you!

Mental health is something that ebbs and flows for every individual. It’s dependent on the people you’re around and the situations you’re experiencing. For the most part, I’ve always felt mentally stable. I’ve always known when to professionally unplug and avoid burn out. I’ve known how to maintain a healthy mental balance ever since high school (and maybe before). I’ve learned to live in the moment and not being preoccupied has always been an important thing for me to focus on. I have family preoccupation “tendencies” that I do a good job suppressing.

I have always made it a point to surround myself with friends who are supportive of being slow and living in the moment. Recently, my friend Alyssa reminded of this through her eloquent writing. She writes about various life passages and about experiences and thoughts she’s had in conversations with some of our mutual friends. She says that “there’s no reason to get to the next chapter, this is the book you chose.” Two mutual friends she mentions in this post are Derik and Lee. They are two friends very dear to me that have given me room to slow down.

Physical health is a little less obscure. When possible, I’ve used biking for transportation, I try to walk as much as possible, or take the stairs. If it’s available to me, I’ll stop by a local farmer’s market or go to the grocery store to buy my food. To the point of sickness, I fill my diet with veggies, fruits, and nuts. To the point of being like an old man, I maintain healthy sleeping patterns. To the point of looking like a hypochondriac, I avoid touching my hands to my face and wash them whenever soap and water are present (thanks Uncle Fred!). In theory, I think physical health is the easiest to maintain but realistically the easiest to slip up on. Food can be so fast and oh so unhealthy. The subway or car ride can be so quick but so much more encouraging of a sedentary lifestyle. It takes work but can be one of the most important means of staying healthy.

Most important for me, however, something that influences the way I stay healthy beyond anything else, is to maintain a positive attitude. I think for a lot of people, this can be the hardest rule to follow. It’s all too easy to be pulled into being negative. For me it is similar to living in the moment, you can choose to make circumstance better by having a positive attitude and choosing to not bring everyone else down. I’ve been stretched with this so many times and in so many ways but in the end a positive attitude is paramount to maintaining a healthy attitiude.

So that’s it… fresh veggies, fresh fruits, nuts, exercise and a positive attitude. I’d love to hear from you all if you have any thoughts. Make sure you check out my friends’ blog over at

Journey To A Better Man (I should totally do a spoof site called Journey to a Better Mann, har har!) for providing me with the inspiration to write about becoming a better man. Oh! And my parents for raising me well

Since then I have paid more attention when I approach people, not so much to myself but to the people I approach.  Mr. Collins made it perfectly clear that I had this locked down, whether he was joking or not, I took him seriously and ran with it ever since.

I have been known to get things for free, just by joking when something goes wrong during checkout. I have been able to get into places that I should not have ever been just because I was willing to walk right up and ask questions when no one else would even think it to be possible.  I actually got in to see the back filtration and treatment room of a huge Cabelas and helped with the fish feeding time because my wife and I were curious about their filtration system.

I have learned to ask and be willing to be turned down, because the worst thing that can happen is that you hear the word “no”.

With a little confidence, a smile, and light hearted attitude in your approach to just about any situation you will quickly realize that you will get to do more, see more, and have more fun with the things you spend your time on.

Have you ever gotten away with something on your approach alone? Got any good stories of something gained just by having a little confidence? I would love to hear your stories in the comments!

The approach is a useful tool in just about any situation where you are interested in getting something from someone else.  It doesn’t matter if you are asking a banker for a loan, a hostess for the best seat in a restaurant, or the manager at a store for a discount.  Either way, you still need to consider how you come across when you approach a situation or a person.  These are the tips I’ve come up with:

1) Start with a smile.

It doesn’t matter if you know them well of if they’re a stranger, smiles span languages and cultures and generally put a person at ease.

2) Be mindful of your phrasing.

When someone says “give me” instead of “can I have”, I’m already much less likely to want to help.  Phrasing can change the impact of a sentence to a recipient without sacrificing the content you want to convey

3) Tone is just as important as content.

We’ll have to do some examples of this in an upcoming podcast but consider different tones when phrasing a request.  i.e. Whiny, pleading, hopeful, declaratory, commanding, etc.

If you just aren’t sure – or you don’t think you have a problem with this – you should take notice of other people’s tone when they’re addressing you, and compare it to their tone when addressing another person (particularly a person who is serving them i.e. cashier, waiter or waitress, secretary).   These subtle differences can make all the difference in the world.

4) Say “Please” and “Thank You”.

I know this is dead obvious but I can’t even tell you how many well-mannered people forget this in day-to-day activities.

Above all, I try to just realize how I might come across to the other person.  If you imagine someone saying the same to you’ll be miles ahead of the average person.

The Approach will likely be a series in how we’ve developed methods for getting the best results out of others.  Are there any situations you’d like to hear our experiences with?

How do you get the best results out of other people?  Let us know in the comments below and you may get your own post out of it!

In every new job I have acquired I have worked to get a better job than the one before. Always thinking when I started that “this one is better, and my manager really gets it”.  Only to realize later on that no matter what I do, I always grow out of my job and I always get to the point where I am saying “My manager was great, until [whatever]“. I learn from them and then I move on to another job and go through the same thing over again hoping for something new. Insanity.

My ultimate goal in life is to have the control and responsibility that Tony was talking about in his article to which I am responding.  When something goes well, it’s because I accomplished it or my team accomplished it. Not because some manager ordered it, I accomplished it, then they took the credit, the bonus, and the raise because of my hard work.  This is why Tony and I are changing the course of our future towards our own business.

We are staying up late, working our asses off and doing everything we can to make this work.

What are you doing to break the insanity in your life?

In college I spent a lot of time considering how my future could turn out. I had a few options

• Go to school, get a degree, get a job and spend the next 40+ years working to make someone else rich.
• Add to my skills as much as possible and build a business doing the things I love.  (This also gives me one of the things I love, control.  Control over my situation, my income, my future.  You name it.)

What this all comes down to is my what I want out of life.  There are probably a good number of people who DON’T want to run their own business, they DON’T want the risk involved and they DON’T want to learn multiple aspects of business in order to succeed.

I’m not one of these people.  I thrive on challenges and I relish the learning process when it comes to things that matter to me.  I’m a problem-solver at heart and I’m willing to work hard to improve the skills that I’m lacking.

I’ve worked too hard before only to realize that my hard work pays off ten-fold for my boss.  I’ve grown tired of watching dollars pass by while I struggle to live the life I dream of.

To that end I began to study successful people.  I wanted to know what it was that made them successful, I wanted to know what skills they possessed, what attitudes they relied on and what markets they concentrated on.

I recognized a lot of patterns in skills, methods and attitudes that ultimately lead me down a path less traveled.  I tracked what I was seeing and began to spend my time building myself to be the person I want to be.