I truly believe that this might be my most important blog post that I have ever written. More than anything else I have ever learned, what I am about to write about has changed my life for the better above all else. And the premise of it all is this:
“The Beauty of Life is found in the Mess”
I will explain more about that but I wanted to talk about how it ties together with something I saw on Instagram the other day. A friend of mine, Casey Baugh, posted a quote that made me think…
“The saddest sight in the world is the human being that settled for a life they never wanted because they listened to others who did the same.”
This is the sad reality for most people. Most people are afraid to do what their heart is aching to do because they have too much fear of failure. They have too many people on the sidelines that think they are doing them a favor by playing it safe and “keeping them away from the pain it would cause” to chase their dreams.
They have too many bad examples that are used as to why they can’t do great things. I would guess that over 90% of the people on the earth never truly pursued their life’s passion or their ultimate purpose to be here on earth. 90% of the people just kind of take enough from life to feel comfortable and get by. Most of them never even achieve that. But I have a secret and here it is…
ALL OF LIFE’S REWARDS ARE FOUND ON THE OTHER SIDE OF COMFORT
So back to my original statement. The beauty of life is found in the mess. Can I tell you that of all my success’s; I think I enjoyed the failures even more! Talk to any successful entrepreneur and they will tell you the same thing. Why? Because you know you tried and you learned so much doing it. The achievement of goals doesn’t make our life happier or more fulfilled, it doesn’t! But having something to shoot for, something to look forward to, something to get you excited to get out of bed each morning, that is the fun of life! This is what I am trying to explain, you don’t have to even achieve the damn goal, you just need to have one and life is so much better!
Think about a trip you went on in your life, a big one. If you look at what it was, it probably wasn’t so much the 7 or 10 days laying on the beach or exploring the world that was so amazing. But it was the lead up, talking about the trip, playing scenarios through your mind of what you might do. You got to experience this trip for much longer than 7 days! Then when you do have the experience or go on the vacation, even if it all goes to shit, you still will love the memory of it because you’ll laugh at all that went wrong!
This is the same thing with our lives, we don’t have to live a perfect life to be happy. We don’t even have to accomplish the things we have set out to do. We simply need to be moving in that direction and fulfillment will come along with us. We simply have to keep working towards becoming who we want to be, understanding all the while that it is ok that we aren’t yet there.
Our mind is a funny thing as well. When we try things and they all go wrong it helps us to realize that the reality of it all wasn’t that bad. This in turn gives us confidence to try even bigger things until eventually our lives become something great.
Some of the best moments of my life are when I absolutely fell on my face. I look back and I just laugh, these are the stories I love to tell! The absolute worst thing that ever happened to me in a dating situation took place in the past year. A few days after it happened I was having lunch with my friend Haysam when I told him what happened. He immediately began laughing so hard that he started to cry. I literally took out my phone and recorded him because he just laughed at me for about 45 seconds straight.
He was laughing because this was a guy that left everything in Egypt in his teen years and came across an ocean to the United States with not a dollar to his name. From nothing he built up a hugely successful business only to have his partners rip off millions of dollars from him. He has family and friends back home that won’t talk to him because of his religious beliefs and neighbors that won’t let their kids come over and play because of those same ex beliefs. So needless to say, he found the humor in the fact that a girl I was dating decided she wanted to have phone sex with her ex-boyfriend while I was in the other room on a vacation we were having.
I love this man for his perspective and for teaching me about the beauty of all of this. That situation could have wrecked me but because of examples like Haysam and other friends in my life, I realized that it was all just part of the mess. Part of what I needed to experience to become my best self. I didn’t even regret taking her on the vacation or having the experience. I know 100% that we are both much better people because of it. The bottom line is, things don’t always go our way. Life can be cruel. But one thing I know is this, people on their deathbeds don’t regret the things they did. They don’t regret the so called “failures”. They regret the things they never did.
“Don’t be afraid of death; be afraid of an unlived life. You don’t have to live forever; you just have to live.” – Natalie Babbitt
Here is a little secret that helped me out and allowed me to start trying big things. Play out in your mind the worst case scenario, if you can live with the worst case scenario you should go for it. Most of the pain we experience in life isn’t from the actual bad things that happen to us.
“Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.”
These words were spoken by Caesar, in Julius Caesar, by William Shakespeare. The comparison with the valiant is integral to the meaning of the statement. The valiant do not think of themselves, but the work ahead of them. There is no time for machinations, jealousies, regrets, or cover-ups.
“To die a thousand deaths” means that when we stress and worry over something happening to us, our body literally feels the same physiological response as it would if it happened. Therefore, when we worry about it, we experience it in real time as if it is actually happening.
If you are worried about the pain that will come from failure, you are already experiencing the worst-case scenario. Think of something terrible that happened to you in your life because you put yourself out there, did you recover? Did you do ok afterwards? Are you ok now?
Of course you are.
The only failure is the one we never try. So go make a mess of your life and have the time of your life doing it! Failure is simply not trying, not taking risks, and not putting it all on the line. My living hell is watching someone’s life pass them by and they never do anything to change their very mediocre state in life. They stay in shitty relationships because of fear. They stay in shitty jobs because of fear. They have shitty experiences in life and with friends because of fear. What do you really have to lose? A mediocre life? Put yourself out there and make the changes you need to.
In my own situation, I have taken on a new adventure many times even when my real estate career was doing great. I started coaching High School baseball at Bingham High School, I moved to Arizona to get my Master’s Degree at ASU, I took on a sales career with Vivint Solar and completely fell on my face doing it. I started a podcast and a real estate training company. I don’t do all these things because I am bored with real estate. I love my career and I love what it allows me to make of my life. But I also know that I want more. I want to affect many more lives and touch millions not thousands.
I have to think that when God and I had our final talk before it was my turn to come down to earth, his last words weren’t, “Now go be a mediocre real estate agent and live a normal life.” I have a purpose for being here and I will always strive to live up to it. I will fail many times between now and when I die but in the words of William Wallace in my favorite movie “Braveheart”
“Everybody Dies, Not Everybody Really Lives!”