Anchored In Gratitude

Welcome to my first newsletter! I'll typically be providing biweekly tips on entrepreneurial wellness, gratitude, and creativity but I figured this first edition would be best spent with you learning more about my professional background and my thoughts on our most important asset as humans.

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned as an entrepreneur is that our most valuable asset as humans is time. The more of your time you can free up, the bigger the goals you will accomplish, and the more opportunity you’ll create. If you’re not spending the limited time you have in a day to build your dreams, you’re spending it building someone else’s.

If you don’t truly have control of your time, not only will your business suffer, but so will your health and personal life. By applying your skills, you can always figure out ways to make more money, but what’s more difficult is undoing the damage you do to your health by not taking care of yourself. Exercising regularly, having the means to prepare healthy meals, and having the time to practice self-care for your mental and physical health have become luxuries that most can’t afford these days.

During my first four and a half years as a business owner, I held down and excelled at a full-time role in corporate America as a logistics manager in the medical industry. In that time, I built the infrastructure that helped grow a one person department into a twenty person team, between the logistics and courier staff. This supported the company's growth as they scaled into one of the largest privately owned laboratories in the state.

This wasn’t without cost. I was working twelve to sixteen hour days, nights, weekends, and holidays to keep up with the work load of my corporate role and being a new business owner. The grind never ended, and it’s hard to have gratitude when you feel like a hamster on a wheel.

Fast forward, a few years, I was visiting California with Tessa, my wife and partner at Anchor Design, when we found out she was pregnant. We had talked about starting our own family, but hadn’t fully decided on it just yet. Later that year, we welcomed home our daughter and planning ahead for this time, I saved up my PTO, and took an entire month off. About two weeks in, I received a call, asking if I could come back. Luckily, I was completely remote at this point so I could still be home, but it was right back to twelve to sixteen hour work days.

Up until then, we had been seeing growth year after year, but for some reason I couldn’t let go of the idea of having a two income household instead of going all in on our business. I was finally faced with choosing between the business we had worked so hard to build, or my corporate career. The decision was easy, and I couldn’t be happier with my choice.

Have faith in your gifts and ideas. As I write this, we're not even a quarter into the year, and we’re already on pace to double our revenue from last year!

You have more control over your fate than you may think. If you don’t feel it at this moment, know this, 5 years ago, I was in your shoes. I couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. My physical and mental well-being suffered because of it. I wasn’t comfortable being uncomfortable, and because of that, I refused to make the jump that’s now completely changed my outlook and quality of life.

Until next time, remain anchored in gratitude!