I've done cool shit, so what!

 I've done some pretty cool shit in the last year.  So what!  What do I mean by that?  Let me explain.

I sat down last week to write my blog post for the week.  I had thought I wanted to talk about 2023 in review basically.  Leaving the fire department, being my own hero by betting on myself, taking my health seriously, taking my family on a once in a lifetime vacation, and on and on...

Let me know how you liked that one.  Can't find it to read it?  Yeah, I didn't even finish it, never mind publish it.  Why?  Honestly, I didn't feel good about it.  Again, you may ask why.  On one hand, I am super proud of everything I worked for and accomplished last year. To spend an entire month on the road with nothing to worry about other than to have an amazing time with my wife and boys. So cool! The feeling I got while writing it all down the way I did though, it made me feel like that old guy that still wears his high school letterman jacket to the bar, talking about how marvelous he was as a quarterback, thirty some years ago!  You see, there is nothing wrong with being proud of your accomplishments, and to celebrate your wins, but the truth is, there is a season for celebrating, and I feel like I'm beyond that season.

I think it's easy to become seduced by your successes.  To get stuck thinking on your wins, only to realize that time has continued to move forward and you have not. In the coming weeks you may see a blog or two dedicated to one or two of the things I/we did last year, because let's face it, Suck Fest, Live Hard, and a month long cross country trip all deserve their story told.  What I didn't want to do was "brag" about all those things in one sitting. 

The reason I thought to share what I had titled "reflection" was last week made a full year since I left the safety net of my full time job.  I thought that was a good time to look back on all that had happened in the last 365, but when I sat down to do it, it felt wrong.

In that moment I came to a realization.  Retiring early from the fire department was a big deal.  WAS.  Past tense.  A year later, I'm not a firefighter that left early anymore.  Now I'm an entrepreneur that just so happened to be a firefighter.  I celebrated the win of retiring early.  Time to move on to the next thing.

This is about so much more than just the retirement piece too (did I mention I was a firefighter?  just checking!).  In the process of sticking to the world's greatest mental toughness program, I lost a whopping 60 pounds!  Awesome, now what?  Real talk, I got seduced by that success and let off the gas a little.  The result, I found a handful of those pounds I "lost".  Not a significant amount.  I know I can get back to where I was in a week or two, but the reality is if I kept my foot on the gas rather than celebrate those 60 for too long, where would I be now?  Do I NEED to lose more weight?  Honestly, I don't think so, and that's not the point here.  I'm at a point where I care way more about how I feel and what I see looking back at me in the mirror than I do the number on the scale.  How will I get to where I want to be?  The same way I got to where I was on this journey, hard work and discipline.  I will certainly "celebrate" my wins along the way.  I am by no means saying not to.  What I am suggesting is celebrate the win today and today only.  Get your ass back to work tomorrow!

How about the business?  Yeah, it can even happen there.  Get a couple of jobs in the pipeline and have work booked out a couple of months.  Now what?  Let me tell you what not to do.  Don't stop hunting and selling!  I learned that lesson the hard way last year.  I had plenty of work to keep me going a few months, so I focused on that work and didn't put much effort into selling future work, until I "all of a sudden" completed all that work and had nothing to go to.  Luckily that didn't last too long, but it could have.  Now more than ever I can't afford to become seduced by the success of what I have lined up, because now Paragon Tile is more than just me.  I've got two other families to provide for and am looking to continue to grow the team.

I could go on with examples on a number of different topics where this is relevant, but I'll end this one by saying this...Go out and do all the coolest shit you possibly can!  Plan it, do it, and celebrate the hell out of it!  Don't become seduced by it.  Continue to stack wins by planning your next thing, or continuing to move forward with the thing you're building.  I'm going to continue to grow my team, continue to build my body, and continue to push myself to do epic things with my life.  Be your own hero and do the same for yourself.