Find a way home??

One of my first mentors was a peculiar but interesting man named John Paul Mendocha. He was a tremendous influence on me for the longest time.

(He also has a book called Position To Win, check it out if you're interested.)??

Before he became a business consultant, he was a teenager counting cards in Las Vegas for some really shady ass people.

Working for questionable people in Las Vegas is kind of like the primordial form of entrepreneurialism.

His role was “the agitator.”??

So when you sit down at a poker table, his job was to piss you off so you make stupid bets.

This came with a series of rewards, benefits, and risks.

One of those being you might not come home.??

You piss off the wrong person, and you end up buried in the desert.

Well one day he started pissing off the wrong people.

One of his “associates” took him for a ride.??

They go out to the desert in the middle of nowhere.

“John, get out of the car.”

So they both get out of the car, stand belly to belly, and look at each other.

“You know what I'm supposed to be doing here, right?”

John says, “Yep.”

“…Listen, I don't ever want to see your face around here ever again. Do not ever come back. I'm going to get in this car, and I'm going to turn around and leave.”

He leaves.

John's standing there in the middle of the desert alone, scared to death, but alive. Now he just needed to figure out how to get home.??

And eventually he did.

After getting driven out to the desert where you were supposed to be killed and buried and forgotten about, how to get home was the least of his concerns.

He took this lesson with him and shared it with me…

“I'm never going to worry about how I get home.”

And one day I got to live that lesson out (although no one was trying to kill me).

I was coming back from an international trip one time and the first flight leg landed in Houston, Texas (which is about a 3 hour drive from my house in Austin).

The flight was late and the connection to Austin was delayed by at least an hour more. So we’re sitting here after midnight waiting to board what would be about a 30 minute flight to get home.

When we got on the plane (FINALLY) the pilots come on to tell us that they had “timed out” and were not permitted to fly any more that day.

So a bunch of cranky ass people deplaned into the airport (again) around 2am.

Most headed straight for the customer service desk to yell at some poor employee whose night just got completely ruined.

But not me.

I went straight to the car rental shuttle.

Rented the first car I saw.

And drove my tired ass the 3 hours home.

Without my luggage.

Cost me 100 bucks.

But I managed to lay my head on my own pillow by 6:30 that morning.??

And they delivered the luggage to my door the next day!

Everyone else from that flight was still waiting to get reticketed. But I just did what I had to do.

When it's time to go home, you get your ass home.

Don't worry about what it takes, how hard it is, how much it costs or what obstacles are in your way.

Just get home.??

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I am Factor One for my own success. If you want to know more, go to www.iamfactorone.com