First off, I want to thank everyone who has come to support my relaunch of this blog. I wrote my first post in nearly 2 years recently and have received numerous comments and emails from people offering their support. I am humbled at all the wonderful thoughts you all have shared with me.

The BIG Decision

As many of you know, I spent almost 12 years in the financial services industry and for pretty much all of those years, I was miserable. I’m not unlike many of you who feel trapped in a job you do not like. As a matter of fact, millions upon millions of people detest their jobs and are solely using it as a means to an end.

Unfortunately, that end is often a time where we are too old to truly enjoy our time here. Will we have the same life experiences when we are 65 or 70 as when we are 45 or 50? Of course not.

The thought of growing old while working in a job/career I didn’t like was almost more than I could handle.

Almost.

You see, after allowing myself to stay in the wrong career for faaarrrrr too long, I made a decision. A BIG decision.

I decided that I could no longer tolerate the life I was leading. I couldn’t fool myself for another day into thinking that it was OK to spend 8+ hours of my valuable time doing something that straight up bored me to death.

As Tim Ferriss said in The 4-Hour Workweek, “the opposite of happiness is boredom.” And he is exactly right.

I looked at myself in the mirror every morning as I tied my overpriced JoS. A. Bank tie and thought, “I can’t believe I have to spend the next 8 hours doing this again”.

So on a warm September afternoon, I chose to live life differently. I quit my job to start a new career. And I felt damn good about it.

The Financial Challenge

money-problems

Now if you think my decision was made easier by the fact that I had a large savings pool from which to draw upon to make the transition easier, you would be incorrect.

You see, I made this jump from finance to fitness with less that $500 in the bank. I had NO back up plan or safety net. For me it was sink or swim and I knew this going in.

You may think I’m foolish or selfish, especially given the fact that I now have a substantial child support and alimony payment in addition to all of my own living costs. And I may be both.

But it was something I had to do.

Most people will never take a risk like this. We are all taught not to take risks, especially financial risks. Leave your great job in this economy?? Unheard of.

And this is the precise reason that the vast majority of people will lead their lives to the tune of someone else. They will accept what life hands them, beg for scraps, rejoice at the 3% COLA raise, and be thankful that they are able to retire at age 67.

Fuck that.

How about we say to hell with the status quo and go after what we love? Why the fuck not?

Can we go broke? Guess what? I’m already there. And it sucks. Badly. I mean really badly.

But so what. Will it always be like this? Hell no because I won’t allow it.

Sure many of my friends and family think I’m an idiot for throwing away a lucrative career but I don’t give a shit. This is MY life and I’m going for it.

I’m already 42 years old and will not spend another year rotting in an office staring at spreadsheets.

In years past, I have received thousands of comments and emails from people asking me for ideas, support, and tips for ending their own personal grinds.

Many of the concerns revolved around money. Actually almost all of them did.

And it’s obviously a valid concern. If you quit your job, you can’t pay your bills and then you’re screwed. Right. We all know that.

But what about that little word “hustle” that Gary Vaynerchuk made so famous in his bestseller, Crush It!?

In a future post, I will be talking a lot about hustle and why it’s imperative to your success as you try to break free from your job.

I will tell you that going from a decent income to just above the poverty line flat out sucks. I was spoiled in the fact that I was able to afford the finer things in life such as cable tv, nice clothes….and food….

Yea, when your income drops by 30% and you still have the same expenses, life gets pretty stressful. And that’s where I am now. I live every day with the stress of not having enough money.

There is the very real possibility that I simply will not have enough money at some point and something will have to give. Will I lose my power? Will I lose my car insurance? Will I lose my apartment?

These are all very real things. Am I scared of these things happening? Of course. But I choose to control my fear by hustling every day to make sure that they don’t happen.

If they say that struggle builds character, then I’m Mickey fucking Mouse because I am deep in the shit.

But the good news is that I know it’s temporary. If I didn’t, then I would never make it. Living in constant fear of being broke/destitute/homeless will scare 95% of you out of attempting to leave your job for a lower paying one, regardless if it’s their passion. People will readily accept mediocraty over uncertainty.

Fear will keep us from doing many things. And we have to ask ourselves if this is how we want to live our lives.

You know my answer..

The Time Challenge

time1

Of course with not having nearly enough money comes the need to hustle. I mean hustle to the point of having your body start to shut down because you’re running on fumes. Hustling to the point that you forget to eat….all day.

Now I’m not saying that this is healthy, because it’s not. I am so fucking ridiculously tired all the time that I’m amazed that I haven’t collapsed into a steaming heap of sweat and man tears.

But I know and you should as well, that if we are going to make a dramatic change in our lifestyle then we must be prepared to do whatever it takes. And if that means getting up at 5 am every day and getting home at 10 pm, then so be it.

I have a running to do list 20 things deep and can never seem to find time to get to it. Every second of my day is accounted for. I simply have no time for anything but hustle.

I don’t even have time to write for this blog. It’s taken me two weeks to write this one post because I cannot find the time to sit for 2 hours, collect my thoughts, and write.

But I make it happen and will continue to make it happen because I love it and I want to share my story and inspire others. I feel as though I need to do this.

And please understand that I’m not complaining at all. It’s brutal on my body but my mind is sharp. I know what I got myself into and I’m going to get out as well. I chose this path and the only one that can make it or break it is me. If I take my eyes off my dreams, then my life will turn into a massive grind. A grind even worse than before.

And I can’t let that happen.

Taking On A New Grind

I want everyone to understand that my ultimate goal is not necessarily doing what I am doing now. Yes, I love fitness and training people. Yes, I love working in a healthy environment and getting to talk about protein and strength training all day. And yes, I really love wearing sweatpants to work every day too!

But this is merely a step on my path to a life lived with freedom. And freedom is something I sure as shit don’t have now.

My days are long. Really fucking long. I get up at 5 am each day to teach boot camp classes or train clients. I then work from 11 or 11:30 am to 9:30 or 10 at night. and I don’t stop moving. Ever.

I am so busy all day that I virtually have no time to eat or go to the bathroom. It’s that crazy.

The good thing is that I really enjoy the work. The bad news is that it’s not sustainable. It can’t be. Our bodies require rest, recuperation, sleep, and proper nutrition to survive. And I am short on all of these things.

And weekends? My weekends are the high point of my life. Not because I get to sit on my couch and watch football (oh wait, I don’t have any tv stations)..

No, my weekends are spent with my 2 young daughters. And while it’s far from relaxing, it’s the absolute best time I have.

Right now, my life is a grind for sure. It’s hard some days to motivate myself to go to work or to get up again at 5 am when it’s 15 degrees outside. But it’s temporary.

I’ve done the hardest part of all this which was making the decision to quit my job to chase my dreams.

And then taking action.

I want every person who reads this post to understand one thing. There is no fucking reason that you cannot live the life you want. If you don’t want my life, that’s fine. If you don’t want to bust your ass until you bleed from your eyes, that’s fine. If you don’t want to do whatever it takes to wake up each day with a purpose, that’s fine too.

But what if you did?

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