You Are Responsible for Your Future

I have realized something extremely important, and it has to do with everything. It shapes everything, including my life, and by extension, every single person's life on this earth. And that is that we are in control of our destiny. We are the ones that choose whether we are going to sink or swim, that our choices have consequences, that the actions — or the lack thereof, the lack of action instead of action, inaction — that we take directly affect our lives and the lives of our loved ones, that we are responsible for where we end up in life at every turn.

And so, if we are in a job that we have to work 40, 50 hours a week, maybe even 60 hours a week, maybe plus overtime each week, maybe we don't even have weekends to ourselves anymore, that's on us. Full stop. Because the choices that we made, the things that we did do or did not do, the types of skills that we acquired or lack thereof — maybe we decided not to educate ourselves and learn and grow as individuals, so we didn't acquire the skill sets necessary to move forward in our lives, to have opportunities to grow and to have more chances for work, for different skill sets, different career paths, multiple ways of making income.

Maybe we made choices. Maybe we decided to trust people and allow them to influence our lives and the path that we were going to choose for the rest of our lives moving forward. And so we put limitations on ourselves. We decided to believe things about what we could and could not do, and as a result, life limited us. The jobs that we worked limited us. The freedom of movement limited us.

Back to that example of working 40, 50, 60 hours a week, being exhausted when you get off work and only feeling relief when you're able to punch out at the end of the day, but then feeling the dread of when it all happens over again the next day — that you are trading your time for money and that, in the long run, you know deep down that you are expendable, that they can replace you at any given moment, working for a corporation, working for any business that doesn't really care about you.

And I'm not saying that corporations are bad and that they're greedy and evil. No, I'm not saying that. Because businesses are businesses. A corporation's bottom line is to make money and to appease its shareholders. And so, especially if they're traded on the stock market, they're a publicly traded company. So they have stocks, and if the products and services and what they provide are not doing the job — if the employees are not actually producing and doing what they need to do, or if there need to be cutbacks, including firing you — then guess what? You're gone. It doesn't matter if you're "family," as they say. You're out the door.

But that's not the company's fault. That's not even your fault in those instances. But guess what? You are responsible for figuring it out. Figuring out, “What am I going to do now that I got let go from my job, if that happened?” What kind of plan do I have when something doesn't work out the way that I think it should?

We have total control over our situation. Of course, we don't have control over what happens in the sense of, like I mentioned, quitting, being fired, or being let go from a company. But we do have total control over how we respond to that and how we are either going to let that affect us or not.

Everything is cause and effect. Everything has a cost to it. We build things. We create things. We make choices. We decide to develop habits, whether good or bad. Whether you are sitting on the couch playing video games for hours on end or scrolling social media, and because of that your mind starts to get a little slower, you get a little more impulsive, you have less ability to think things through before taking action, and you instead have more impulses to chase quick dopamine hits by scrolling social media or watching a funny cat video — as opposed to if you chose to wake up every morning at 4 a.m., sit at your computer desk, and develop a skill.

Develop a skill knowing that that skill will actually help you in the long run, something that you can convert down the road into maybe a business, or just the simple fact that training your body to wake up at a certain time every morning starts to discipline you.

You have the choice to go down the road to your corner bakery and buy that nice cinnamon-frosted donut that always stares at you through the glass every day as you're walking home from work. You can either go into that shop and buy that donut and have that momentary pleasure that satisfies you for seconds and then disappears, or you can choose to go into your local gym and buy a membership.

But I think many of us have gotten so comfortable with our routines, with just the way life has been for so long now. And because of the responsibilities that we have — maybe we have a family now that we have to support — that weighs on us. To have that responsibility and then try and take on something new or think in different ways that make the people that we love doubt us or question us, saying, “Why are you acting this way? You never did that before. What's going on with you?”

Being questioned in those ways is not comfortable. It's not fun.

And so, I'm sure you're probably seeing a theme by now: anything that is truly worth it, that takes effort, is difficult. It's not easy. It is painful.

And that goes into my next point, and I guess my story.

So for the past year now, I have been working as a general laborer. I have been working from 7 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. every day, Monday through Thursday, and off at 2:30 on Friday. And for this year, this job has been wonderful. It's supported me. My coworkers have helped me better understand the job that I'm doing. We joked around. The camaraderie between us — there are some good days, there are some bad days as well — but overall, I had a very good time there.

Now, of course, we all have our days, but I knew deep down for the longest time that I belonged there. And I didn't even think once about leaving that job. I didn't bitch and complain to management about my circumstances there and the jobs that I was doing. I knew that God was supporting me in that job, in that decision that I made. And where I was at that time, I needed that job. I needed something that was hands-on, something that was paying for my time. I needed it to be more simplified. Something where I could still focus on what I cared about most and still do my job. And that's my business.

And for that year, I have been working on my business. I have been growing myself. And that's how I've gotten to where I am today, where I feel much different from when I started that job. A lot more confidence, a lot more ambition, and a lot more proof that I can do things that are challenging to me, that I can actually go above and beyond and perform in a way that is able to get results.

And I'm not talking about my nine-to-five job, because the nine-to-five job was just the background. It was just the bare minimum, to be honest. Because anybody can do a nine-to-five job. Anybody can work as a general laborer, or a carpenter, or a welder, or an accountant, or a lawyer, or a doctor, or whatever you want to be. You can get that training, and you can do it.

Now, the thing is, not everybody — where they currently are in their current state of mind, I should say, and in their nervous system — is capable of being an entrepreneur and going outside of what is comfortable and what is accepted. Because it's easy to go after something and pursue something that has, in a sense, perceived stability, where you make the same amount of money every two weeks no matter what, depending on if you show up to work. And as long as you do that, you'll be good.

But what's more difficult is to build something where not only do you have to work a nine-to-five job to pay for rent and groceries and gas and just standard living, but on top of that, you choose in your free time to develop a skill set that will eventually pay off and get you to a place where you can actually leave your nine-to-five job and work for yourself and make money in multiple ways outside of just a check every two weeks.

And what I have done for the past year — my weekly schedule has been Friday, 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. This is me and my own business. So for the past nine months, I've been building my business outside of my full-time job. And the schedule has been Friday, 3 p.m. to 7 p.m., because I get off on Friday at 2:30, and I am straight at it, sitting down at the office, grinding it out from 3 to 7.

And then Saturday, I wake up at 4 a.m. every morning and work until 5 p.m. And then Sunday, 4 a.m. to 6 p.m. And that's with breakfast and lunch breaks. So after accounting for about one-hour breaks each day on the weekend, that comes out to roughly 29 hours per week dedicated to building my business.

So that's over roughly nine months or so, or close to a year. That is 1,131 hours invested. And none of that was wasted.

But I'll tell you one thing right now: to be honest with you, it wasn't actually difficult at all. It was very easy. Because when you actually enjoy — not just enjoy, but are passionate about — what you're building, it's not work. It's not grinding. It's just amusement park fun and enjoyment.

And so, with these skills and with training myself to actually prove that I can wake up at 4 a.m. every morning, and I can sit down at the computer, and I can create things, make videos, do scripting, create thumbnails, record, frame the video, edit the video, create businesses, create websites and programs and books — across the board, all of these different things.

And the thing was also the idea that I could deal with rejection from people commenting on my videos, or the lack of commenting and the lack of views, and doubting myself about whether I should continue, but still moving forward anyway — that is the training ground.

Because it's not just about listening to podcasts or taking a course and sitting down at your computer and reading a book and filling out questions and writing answers down. It's about actually proving to your body, proving to your nervous system, that you can do those things. That you can wake up at 4 a.m. That you can sacrifice time for fun and instead sit down and do the things that you need to do to create the skills that you want in order to get the results that you want to change your life.

To understand over time, to realize, that it's actually not about you, and that your future — what you're doing right now — is going to affect your future drastically. And that is going to help future generations, your children, your wife.

But if, as men, we grind now and decide to do what is difficult now and make sacrifices now and build ourselves up now and understand internally what we need to do and heal ourselves internally, then when the time comes, we will already have the support, we will already have the financial ability, the freedom, when we're ready for a family, to actually support them and not before.

I had to understand that I had to sacrifice partying and going out with friends and just enjoying “you only live once” types of situations. But that being said, for me, I've already done that in my past. I already did that in my youth. So that was already out of my system by this point. I'm now 34 years old. I did that in my early 20s.

But if you're young, do not do those things. Do not party. Do not go out with friends and all that stuff where you're at the bar and sleeping around or however you think you need to have fun. Make those sacrifices. Instead of going out on the weekends, develop skills. Don't be like everybody else. To be like everybody else is to be a loser in life. That's what that comes down to.

And so when I started this journey, this year-long journey, and now I've come out the other side of it, I know that I am ready to quit my nine-to-five job.

And it's interesting because I wasn't actually planning on doing so until a situation happened at work where I realized that where I am going now in my life, and who I am becoming, no longer fits the environment that I'm in anymore.

And that's not saying that the environment I'm in is bad. It's just that we shift. We change nervous system states. And there comes a point where your nervous system shifts, your state changes, and you no longer fit that environment. And that environment will actually start to reject you — like a magnet, when two of the same polarities are pointed toward each other, they repel.

And so, knowing that deep down and realizing it for myself, that's when I knew it was time to leave.

And the interesting part was that I realized through this process — and the reason why I'm creating this blog post in the first place — is because I realized that this whole time, I was in control of where my life was going to go.

In the sense of: was I going to stay at this nine-to-five job and continue working there until I was able to free myself by having enough views or getting enough support on my business to the point where I was able to make money from the business and then leave the job comfortably?

And for some people, maybe that might be the direction. But I realized that outside of work, I was preaching and teaching and sharing about money mindsets, about understanding that we are all capable of being millionaires, that we can shift and change the way that we do things by creating skills and getting out of the circumstances that we find ourselves in, like nine-to-five jobs.

But at the same time, while I was thinking and acting in those ways — waking up at 4 a.m. every morning and grinding with my business — I was still holding on and thinking, “No, no, no, I need to be secure, and I need to be safe by waiting for the right time to leave my nine-to-five job and to have enough money saved up so I can leave comfortably and not have to worry.”

But it doesn't work that way.

Because the reason why I'm not able to actually take that next step is because I am not taking a leap of faith. I am not depending and relying on the fact that God created me and that He created me for a particular purpose, and that is to be free.

When my heart is pointed and molded toward His desires for the Kingdom, to understand that every single one of us is fully capable of becoming the best version of ourselves — to be kind, but at the same time to be wise, to be powerful, to be capable, to be able to go out there into the world and create our own realities and get what we want, and in that way benefit other people.

When I was able to understand that — when I was able to understand that I am a child of God — then that means I don't have limitations. And that means that when I choose to go after something, and I know deep down in my heart that I can do it, I can take action in the real world and it will bear fruit.

So when I quit my nine-to-five job, I know that I will come up with a solution to move forward and make money in a different way, to make progress in a different way, and to find success in a different way.

Because when I first accepted that nine-to-five job, it was out of fear. A year ago, I was in fear, trying to make sure I was getting work because I was just trying to get whatever I could in order to survive.

But things have changed drastically since then.

And so now I have to not just talk the talk, but walk the walk to prove to my nervous system that things have changed and that I no longer align with certain people and certain environments anymore.

And again, nothing against those environments and those people. It's just that nervous system shifts are very real. And that's the reason why there are worlds happening outside of where we all live. There are little pocket universes all over this earth. People are living in their own worlds.

If you want to know more about that, check out my Inner Game of Awareness planet concept. It is very real.

And there is a divide happening right now between the upper middle class and the middle class. Instead, it's going to become either poor or rich, because we're no longer able to sit on the fence anymore.

We're no longer able to work a 40- or 50-hour-a-week job and still be able to put groceries in our homes and gas in our tanks and pay our rent and support our families and still live comfortably. No. Not happening anymore, my friend.

We are being forced to put rubber to the pavement and ask ourselves, “Okay, how much growth have you actually done? What choices have you made, and what does all of that actually equate to?”

When it comes down to it: how much money can you make from the lifestyle that you have now? How much freedom do you have to travel, to move? How much time do you have for yourself? And how much time do you have to sacrifice now at this point in your life for others, whether that be for a business, a corporation, or somebody else other than yourself? I'm not talking about family.

And so now, honestly, this is the greatest time to be alive because there's no more hiding anymore. We are all now fully out in the open, exposed. Exposed to life.

And now we are in the driver's seat. We always were in the driver's seat, but now it's very clear.

Are you a child of God? Are you going to stand up? Are you going to take back control over your own life and create your own future? Or are you just going to live for somebody else and have so many regrets in your old age?

And now more than ever before, not even retirement is going to save you. We have to start thinking outside of the box, because if not, we are going to sink.

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