While I read through the garbage I have written and decided not to post (and some of the stuff I have posted) I am struck with something. I come across as an asshole. Now this isn’t ground breaking news, I am not surprised by it, but it is interesting when you read your own material and there it is. I can appreciate as a guy who has been in charge of people for years now that I don’t always connect for the simple fact that I have become somewhat unrelatable. Not in the worst way but I see that I often don’t tell stories I share facts. I out logic those that are emotional beings and that probably doesn’t make them feel great. Hell it actually kind of pissed me off, at myself, and I wrote the shit. Do most of those that know me understand that my main focus is to help and to make a difference? I think and hope so. As I truly do want to see all those I am connected with succeed. But as a guy who has touted the “it’s not what you are saying, but how you are saying it” line more than a most I should probably check my own shit from time to time too, hey?

I have support and people have told me how they enjoy my writing. I don’t doubt that it connects with those that read it. But am I steering others away by not sharing the shit that I have been through, the shit I have put myself through to get to a spot where I feel I can write on things like mental toughness? Well as a guy that loves to get on his soapbox and preach about everything you need being in you already, and you just have to work to bring it out that is just what I am going to do. I am going to work to tell more stories directly about my life, how messy it has been and how much dumb shit I have done to get me to a point where I had enough pain in my life that I had to consciously choose working on my mental toughness every day. I do not talk about it because it has come naturally to me. I am such a big proponent of working on mental toughness because I have lacked these things in my life and have had to learn them later than most through trial and error (a lot of error). It is the journey that has spurned the research and writing. Yet I still have become so enamored by those ahead of me and so driven to improve that at times I lose sight of where I am and start to assume I am already there and that doesn’t help anyone. Especially not me.

So here goes. I started this blog because I want to have the chance to help people understand something I had to learn the hard way. Something someone didn’t tell me needed to be practiced and cultivated throughout life. I think like most of us through the advent of the internet and the typical media sources I had been sold a bill that happiness was the ultimate destination. Now I think more people are becoming aware of this pursuit of happiness as one of the largest issues we face today. It is not that happiness isn’t a place to be, it is just that pursuing it has wrought havoc much more than it has helped. I know for myself as I spent much of my 20’s doing the things my simple mind recognized as stuff that made me happy I had to do more of it more often to get the same feeling I was looking for. At some point the things I thought made me happy provided me with nothing and for a time I was mostly about numbing the dullness of the day just hoping something would happen that would bring forth some emotion. I also spent an exponential amount of time running from my other issues, as they piled up it became hard to ignore and with the pursuit of happiness along came many of the other issues we see prevalent in society today. I had a minor drinking issue, had cultivated a great debt issue and had found a way to alienate myself from the person I loved and was married too.

I’m sure for some this sounds similar and in some way most of you can relate.

All of the things I have posted to date are in reflection of a lesson I had to learn in my life. Most typically through pain because I wasn’t capable enough to learn before it hurt. I am sharing this journey in hopes of making the things I have had to unearth for myself more available to someone out there who needs it and as a place to house reminders for myself as I so constantly forget the lessons that are so important to my well-being. Maybe at times I am a rung ahead of someone on the ladder and am able to reach down to help but what I need to be reminded of is that I am nowhere near the top of the ladder and to share in a way that expresses that. No one has ever “made it” and there is always work to do.