45: Growing Pains & Pleasures...

Hey, hope everyone's doing well out there. Though I want to be publishing a lot more on here in the future. And partly, hope everything's going well for you. It's Christmas here. Or two days after, now. Just wanted to reach out to you guys again and I hope you're doing great. It's been snowing a lot here. It always reminds me of making snow forts. I skied like crazy growing up. My dad was on track to, he was gonna be an Olympic downhill skier. He is very fast on moguls. He was extremely fast at moguls. He still won't tell me the highest cliff he jumped off of. But, anyway so ... I come from a long line of adrenaline junkies. And people who push boundaries. Anyway, the snow here in Boise, Idaho always reminds me of skiing. I grew up in Denver, though. And the mountains here are not quite as big in Boise as they are in Denver. I kinda miss it, to be honest. I wish there were bigger kind of better mountains. The mountains here are tiny in Idaho on this side of Idaho, anyway. Anyway, hey. I hope you are doing great though. I love the game of business. I love what it does to people and how it makes them stretch and grow and become something else and brand new. So for me, I love vacation, obviously as much as the next person, but man, after three days of time off, I am itching to get back to work. So I got up super early on the 26th and I just started working. I think I worked for 12 straight hours. Is it an issue? Probably. But there are worse things, so I guess. I wanted to real quick just acknowledge a quick story. A lot of you guys know that I'm in the Army. I'm literally about to get out. I was an officer in the Army for a while and really enjoyed that. Before I was an officer, I was enlisted. Actually went through basic training. Really enjoyed it, loved the chaos in a weird way. It was actually when we were sitting down and doing nothing that was actually harder for me than when it was crazy. Which I don't know if my head's just kind of messed up like that or I don't know. It comes from the adrenaline junkie side of the family. But, there was this mentality. You got to understand that when I went into the Army, I was like significantly older than a lot of the other people. We did it for a lot of reasons. Number one: I just wanted to. I wanted to know what that was like. I wanted to learn how to push myself and things like that. I already knew how, but you know. I think it goes back to the adrenaline junkie side of the family a little bit. Like I really wanted to go to crazy zone a little bit. And it was fun. And I enjoyed that. But there were ... multiple times. I was a bit older. And I was married, which immediately set me apart from a lot of people. I had a kid, which really set me apart from a lot of the other people. I was about to graduate college, which really, really set me apart. I'm not saying above. I'm not saying I was better than. Nothing like that at all. I'm not trying to say that. But what I am saying is that I was just in a very different place in life than a lot of the other people that were there. I didn't realize that I'd been with a bunch of 17-year-olds and I was 25, married, had a kid, almost through college. There was some life lessons that I had had that a few of the people had not had there. And vice versa. I'm not saying I was any better or anything like that. But I learned a really big lesson while I was in there. Especially when I was in basic training. I'm struggling to find words to say this. I should have probably thought that part through of this a little bit more. I definitely know where I'm going with this, guys, I'm just trying to figure out what ... how to say this. Don't be afraid of progression because of feeling a little bit of discomfort. You know what I mean? There was an attitude of ... there was a few guys I would talk to and I'd be like, "Hey, look. This is my goals in life. What do you want to do?" And you get really close with your fellow soldier buddies. We call them brothers and sisters. I mean, literally. It's ... I have struggled to find a connection with people the way that I've found it in the military. It's because shooting live rounds around each other, you know what I mean? Like ... the amount of trust is insane. But there was ... I was talking to a ... this happened many times. I'm having a hard time finding a specific example in my head of it. Possibly I should have thought through that part a little bit more. But like I ... please understand the lesson here that I'm trying to say. There was many times I would go talk and I would say, "Hey. Look, what do you want to do in life, what do you want to do in life?" And again, I was on a different area of life than most of the people there. I was literally like eight years older than a lot of people there. Married, kid, almost through college. Right? So I had certainly addressed the topic in my own head of what do I want to do with my life. Whereas a lot of other people, other of kids, honestly, that were in there with me ... had not. Anytime I would say, "Hey, I want to go do this, this or this." A lot of times, the answer was, "Oh. Yeah. But then you gotta do x, y and z. That's kind of hard." Like, "So what?" It's the same attitude, same mentality a lot of times that I'll see from people when I'm on stage teaching. Okay? A lot of you guys don't know, I worked for two years at a place called ClickFunnels. I still technically do for the next day and then I'm done. Or two days. And then I'm done, which is crazy. I'm actually leaving my job over MLM. Okay, because it's going well and I practice what I preach and I'm not here blowing smoke. Okay? I'm telling you exactly what I do. But there was this mentality of hey, let's not do something ... or let's not pursue something. Let's not go for something in life simply because it's challenging. I hate that. I hate hanging out with people who believe that. I hate ... and I'm using hate for ... on purpose. I hate it. It is some of the most ... it makes me feel like there are walls around me. It is some of the most controlling, constricting attitude I've ever experienced in my life. Or if somebody else is like that, like I ... have a hard time. Maybe it's a personal issue of mine, but I have a hard time spending time around an individual who believes that. That hey, let's not go from something simply because it's going to be challenging. Man, I do crap because it's challenging. I like it. You know what I mean? I do that on purpose. Some of you guys are like, "Steve, what does that have to do with MLM and my own MLM?" Everything. It has everything to do with it. Whatever you're doing right now ... and I'm not trying to poke fingers or peg you and say, "I got you, I know exactly where you are. I've been in your shoes before." Like no. Everyone's different. We all come from different walks of life. But I bet ... if you are brand new to MLM or even if you're experienced, a lot of times, it's the first place that people go when they're still in a job. I came back to MLM to do this after I've been selling things online and things like that. I came back to it. So, if you're working for another person, the thing that I'm trying to put across and the thing that I'm trying to tell you is that ... this business will require your growth in a way that you probably may not be thinking about. Which is fine. MLM and business and entrepreneurship in general requires you to grow. As a person. It requires you, why? Because if you have not mastered simple things like ... hey, let's go ... let's make sure we get up on time. Or hey, I can't shower appropriately. Or ... there's simple things in your life that you've not actually accomplished. How can you expect to accomplish other bigger things? That make sense? It requires your personal growth. And then when you add in the other human element of other people being on your team, other people that you've got to work with...