Beg for the Challenge

My son goes to ABA therapy instead of a regular school. I won’t get too detailed, but it’s an intensive, one-on-one style therapy where he has a dedicated person with him for several hours at a time.

Our ABA center is attached to a local university, so students are the people who actually provide the direct therapy. Being students, their schedules tend to change every semester.

For the 4 years we’ve been with this center, we’ve always had a few top students clamoring to work with Travis.

Here’s the interesting part—my kid’s autism is what you would call severe. He can be real tough. He’ll pull your hair, he’ll spit on you, he’ll scratch and bite and try his hardest to hurt you when he’s having a hard day.

Now, I’ll put my mom hat on and mention he’s also a cuddle bug and loves nothing more than squeezes and tickles, but it’s a toss-up from one minute to the next what you’re gonna get. It makes working with him incredibly challenging.

But all the best students are dying to work with him.

I’m honestly a little jealous of these kids. I’m old enough now to call college students kids, and I’ve been through enough in my career to know that these kids are onto something.

They’re not looking for easy money. They’re not taking a job where they’ve got down time to study or work on class projects. They’re not settling for some passive job that pays the rent without piling extra stress on their plate.

These kids who fight to work with my son are purposefully adding more stress, more work, more strain to their already-busy college student lives.

They're fighting to be challenged and pushed outside their comfort zone.

They’ll be better at whatever they decide to do in life because of it.

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This summer marks 9 years of Blue Steele Solutions. After 9 years of running a business, I feel like I have things pretty well under control.

Do you think I’m fighting to be challenged and pushed outside of my comfort zone?

Yeah... not fighting for that much at all.

But I should be.

Having kids, running a business, having responsibilities and stress and a busy life and never enough time to get everything done—that doesn’t excuse me from pushing and challenging myself.

If I’m going to continue to be the best for my clients, my employees, my family, and my friends, I have to keep pushing and not just passively accept challenges.

I have to fight for those challenges and appreciate the heck out them.

If I’m going to be a person who brings value and lives a fulfilled life, I can’t ever stop begging for the challenge.

I’ve let myself get tired.

I’ve let tired be an excuse to take it easy.

But nothing great ever comes from easy.

And I plan to be great.

Do you?