I was not wired as an entrepreneur
The truth is I was not wired as an entrepreneur. I can't even spell the damn word. You hear about people like Jordan Belford who as a kid sold cones of ice (the innocent type) on the beach as a kid and brought in more money than his parents. I had no entrepreneurial spirit, none. I thought the only way to make money was to get a job, which is what I did at 14, I went straight into Safeway, and worked jobs for around $12 an hour until I was in my early 20's. I didn't know that there was a different way. I had ideas. Sure. I remember having the idea to set up a juice stand at the Seapray beach near my hometown with a friend. But it never got further than conversation. So I did what I knew how to do in order to make money, I went to uni and studied money, got a job in finance, studied some more, worked late nights, and did what I was told. It wasn't until I started to listen to Tony Robbins and Allan Watts that I started to open up to really FEEL that I was being called in another direction. I just wasn't sure what the step was that I needed to take. I just didn't believe it was possible for me to be an entrepreneur. What could I do without the support of a company? Here I can hide out behind my juicy paycheck. I don't have the pressure of 'making it work' that's the owner's job. Plus what would I even do? What value do I really have? I'm naturally very critical of myself and of others, the nature of Virgo perhaps, or the nature of the human being. I would freak out before my performance reviews obsessing about the mistakes I had made. Doubting my value. Doubting my ability. I remember clearly standing at the tram stop in Collins street and feeling this burning from my Manipura chakra to my heart. It was so strong, so powerful, it was like rocket fuel. I had so much energy, so much power, so much fire in me. I could feel it edging to be cycled into projects of purpose. I'd run, like really run, just to shake some of it off. Some weekends I'd run up to 60km, in one weekend! It gave me a lot of time to listen to more of the people who spoke a truth I could relate to. I didn't need to listen to R&B to get me going, give me a Wayne Dwyer recording and I could run forever. Then the ideas started to flow to me, firstly in small sprinkles, then they got louder & more of them rushed in. There was actually so many I didn't know which ones to act one. It was quite overwhelming. But as I started to act on them I became more discerning on the ideas that were a fit for me and which other ones to send back into the realm to be given to someone else. I ended up in Sri Lanka driving from production house to production house looking for a manufacturer to create a sportswear label I'd designed. That fire was so strong and now I was using it to drive me. I didn't know what the fuck I was doing. I still don't to be honest with you. The sportswear line didn't work out. I didn't have the focus to really go for it and problem solve, it was before the sportswear surge so back then the manufacturers didn't have the machines to make what I wanted nor the fabric. I know I could have made it happen and I just wasn't well practised in 'failure' and couldn't hack the roadblocks. That idea left me and went to someone else. PE Nation I'm looking at you. Not that it was ever my idea, no idea is 'ours', I believe ideas pick us. I've had many flops & many successes. All I can do is be in service to the idea. To ask 'what would you have me do today idea?' then put my head down and do the 'thing'. When it's on, it's on. And I don't stop until it's done. When a friend asks me to lunch and the 'thing' is on my shoulder, I do the thing. When I'm tired and want to go to sleep, I do the 'thing' first. When I feel like I should be more subtle, more refined, less polarising, I say the damn thing anyway. Reprogrammed is now open for enrollment. 7-week immersion to reprogram everything. Click here for the details.