Long ago and far away, I sat in my Father’s office chair, completely soaking up the awesomeness of going to work with Dad! From my 4th floor command center, I plotted my world domination of the sales profession in a rather “Stewie Griffinesque” fashion. I was hooked!
I had fun, I believed and was curious
Right about here, I’m supposed to insert some kind of cute story about how I was the kid with the lemonade stand and how I rocked even back then. Truth be told, I was the kid with the lemonade stand who had the smarts to realize he sucked at selling lemonade. I made necklaces and sold them to the hippies in my neighborhood instead. Sometimes when life gives you lemonade, you need to send it back with an indignant “this isn’t what I ordered”!
Then it happened, and I have no idea when, the little boy packed his bags and Paul “grew up”.
In those bags were the childhood versions of fun, belief and curiosity.
From time to time, those components would show up at my door again but always with lots of “baggage”
If one were to look inside those bags they would find rules, caveats and disclaimers. They would find examples of how I was burned or how the status quo was safer. Oh and the bags always reeked of fear!
This continued for quite some time until I lost my business. Then they stopped showing up altogether. Talk about really being broke, huh?
In retrospect, I believe deep down I felt as if having fun was being disrespectful to the severity of my failure. Belief and curiosity were just too risky. Someday when they invent time travel, I’m gonna go back and kick my ass for thinking that way!
One night during my 8 pm – 8 am shift my press broke down and I was given the gift of 12 hours paid thinking time.
I looked over at a coworker who started working there after he was laid off 5 years ago and saw my destiny if I wasn’t willing to change some things.
And change many things I did. I decided to stop grieving for my dead business and did something that was extremely hard. I forgave myself for my business sins. Note: Have you cut yourself a break for mistakes you’ve made? They’re weighing you down!
I decided to believe again that anything was possible and decided to not only fix my situation, but come back stronger! I created some very clear “Why’s” one of them was a dream vacation to Disney (a real lofty goal when you’re making $8.50 an hour) Do you have pictures of your “Why’s” on your desk, on your computer screen, on the bathroom mirror, the dashboard of your car and basically front and center so you are continually reminded of the “prize”?
I decided to be curious and ask better questions. Instead of “Why me?” I asked myself “What good could come of my failure?” and “What was the lesson?” I questioned my relationship with my wife from a perspective of how I could make it better. Did the same thing in the Dad department too. Later, I would question how I would hunt business in ways my competition neglected to and ask the questions that would make people take notice of my solutions.
My final decision was to bring fun back into my life. It had been way too long since I had laughed and I was quite done with being miserable.
It was right about that time, that “the kid” moved back in with me and like the 4 year old version of Paul or the badass in this picture, I was unstoppable at that point.
It’s a funny thing about kids.
They believe
They’re curious
They have fun
Because they know no better.
Tony Robbins often encourages his participants to approach his training like a “kid”. He asks “When a kid sees a puddle. What do they do? They jump in it! What does an adult do? They not only walk around it, they bitch and moan about the puddle all day”
Here’s to finding our “inner kid” again and cannon balling every puddle we see this week!
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