An Epic Life is not Without Struggle

I'm not as depressed as I was last year. But I still am. A little. Many of my personal struggles remain, yet we've been fortunate to set ourselves up with a fantastic life, an epic life, now living another one of our dreams with the lake house (condo) in the mountains.

Yet, for some of us, the epic life doesn’t mean freedom from struggle, it means different struggles. It means struggling with accepting certain challenging things as normal, as I have once again had to do recently. Of facing up to and owning all of who we are, the good and the great, the mediocre and the ugly, and loving all of it for the unique whole it creates.

Thankfully, I’ve come to see the struggles as a part of the package. That when I am able to face the challenges and the pains, that I get through them faster, with greater relief, and with greater commitment to action afterwards.

My mom instilled in me the belief that I could do anything, and indeed I have since done what seems like everything... (ha) That sort of incredible support, early in childhood and across it, is indeed a privilege, one that too few have.

When I did my first company back in 94/95, I had no idea what I was doing. But I had a belief in myself.?

What I did know, was that you had to work hard. There were long hours. There was too much information and too many advancements each day. But I was CEO and Chairman of my first company, on my way to building the Heuer Holding Company.

Back then, no one really knew what we were doing fully, we figured out a lot as we went along. Or as I did before starting Guru Communications Inc, we read in the library, online, and in community forums. We taught ourselves.

I've since come to understand that this is being self directed. Perhaps this is why Doug Kirkpatrick's work around Self Management resonates so deeply with me.

Unfortunately I worked too hard. I didn't take care of myself. I slept one too many times underneath my desk. I stayed out partying till sunrise once too often.

I burnt out. I drowned myself in Vodka for a month.?

But I surfaced from that situation with a new view on work and life.

I had already understood the need to stop and smell the roses, but now that sentiment flowed through me deeply with a force I did not expect. I recognized the importance of fully experiencing, fully enjoying, and fully taking part in life. Not to the extreme, but in harmony with what we typically call work.

So when we launched Remotely last year, one of the most important themes we landed on was Life-Work Integration. That Life should come first. That it should be integrated differently. That the goal should be harmony not balance.

This is a way of life which I have embraced for over 20 years. And while it's worked for me, it is definitely not for the faint of heart or those with weakened resiliency systems. {Though, to be fair, I've had a weakened resiliency system for the past several years and here I stand with more wisdom to share and more life to live and love because of it.}

Why am I sharing this now? Well, it's part of the retrospective I've been doing to better understand the through line of my life. To find greater meaning in it, so I have clarity with myself instead of uncertainty. To figure out what really matters and how to focus on it. In short, it is the theme of our Waymaker Webinar this week.

By almost every measure that matters to us, we are blessed to be living a pretty epic life. In fact one of the only ways to make it more epic is to help more people to realize that anything is possible. That with the opportunity presented by remote work, by untethered work more accurately, that more people have the opportunity to pursue an epic life just as I have been doing.

What do I see as key to living an epic life? Well, I am biased given my experience, but for me it starts with exercising agency over your time and your choices. It requires figuring out ‘who you are’, knowing thyself. It requires getting clarity on what matters most to you. It will mean different things for different people!

Whatever your idea of an Epic Life may be, I suggest you need to find yourself a new perspective. I suggest you will need to develop a plan. I suggest you will need to invest your time, intention, and energy to make it real.

Just as I still need to do. It's time for me to level up too.

It's why I am excited about the work I am doing with Michael Moon in creating Waymakers. That there is a more structured pathway for more people to live more of life on their own terms. That those who are self directed can learn self mastery. That the structure of a good plan might make all the difference by just touching upon something inside of you that stirs you to action.

If you are standing in the possibility of what your Epic Life might look like, join our free webinar tomorrow, Wednesday July 21 at 10am PDT (GMT-7 Pacific)?

Pivoting to an Epic Life: Waymakers’ roadmap for discovering your unique gift and how it transforms the experience of life of your True Fans.?

https://waymakerwebinars.eventbrite.com/