Originally posted on Facebook HERE
That’s the moon over Maui this morning taken from the back of our room. We love this island. We’ve been all over the world, but this is the one spot we continue to visit over and over. Sitting here, listening to the waves, full moon glistening on the water… it’s incredible. How did we ever get here? How is it that we get to do this, not just once in a lifetime, but basically every year since 2013? We never really foresaw this lifestyle at all. For years we worked our butts off and never had the ability to do anything like this at all. And life just – well sometimes you just get led in a direction that might not make a lot of sense to anyone but you, ya know? And some of the scariest things I’ve ever done in my life have been totally done following my instinct, not my reason. Instinct offers no guarantee of success. Instinct can sometimes be confused with “wants”, too – because both will pull you to do something that might not be the most comfortable path to take. The difference can only be found within ourselves. Instinct will have a calm inner knowledge that things will work out. Wants will have a feeling of anxiety that you really shouldn’t be doing this, but you somehow “deserve” it, in many cases. The more at peace you are within yourself, the more you can recognize the difference between the two. But in 2006, when the opportunity to change careers came up, it was not an easy decision to make. I loved being a Realtor. I had just taken three years to build an extremely successful Real Estate business. And I quit to start all over as a financial advisor because everything I ever did my entire life seemed to be done in preparation for that job. On the surface, anyone from the outside would probably think “what the heck is he doing?”… even I thought that many times as I moved forward. But when I went home one day and told my wife – “hey, I know you just watched me start at the bottom and build up a great business that I love in the last three years, but I’m thinking about quitting and doing something else”… I expected to maybe be hit over the head with a rolling pin. Instead, she said something along the lines of “I could see that”… her intuition is “woman’s intuition”, and at the risk of sounding sexist – there might be a reason for that phrase. But, once verified with her, I moved forward – and oh my God, I love what I do. And my new business grew rapidly. And it has taken us, after many years of working almost every night, and every Saturday – to where we are now. I really never foresaw this. We know what it’s like to work hard and be in debt, and never be able to consider this lifestyle. So we stay grounded. We donate 10% of our income to people and causes that matter to us. The lives we’ve been able to touch with our “generosity” fund alone has been worth the work put in to get here. You have to stay humble, and grateful. There will be waves in our lives yet to come, too – tides go in and out, and the future is unwritten. But for today, I am in awe at the wonder and beauty in our lives. I love that it came from a business that allows me to help hundreds of other people in extremely meaningful ways. And my heart is just full of love and wonder and excitement for what the future holds… I really hope wherever you are in life, you get to have moments like this. Overwhelmed with gratitude. And joy. And love. Watch where your instinct is leading you… your heart knows things your head can never explain…
