This story might make you cringe

Wearing sunglasses in photos is corny. Telling sob stories is also corny. And today I’m gonna do both.

Here goes:

In 2013 I moved back to Seattle after living in Ohio for about 9 years. I was glad to be back home but to be honest, I was hanging on by a thread.

I was coming off an extremely toxic job (design & marketing for Abercrombie & Fitch. Incredibly awful company culture, and I had to spend 4 months a year going to factories in China which was brutal).

Add in an extremely toxic relationship, and I’d been drinking and doing a ton of drugs because of those two things.

When I got to Seattle I was in bad shape: everything I owned fit in 6 boxes, I had $90k in student debt, a car payment, about $5k in the bank, and no job.

I was 34 years old. My peers had started families, gotten many promotions, etc etc, and I had basically nothing.

It was fkng scary to stare all that down, but I knew if I stayed in Ohio I would be in a very bad place, very soon.

(vodka and speed 6-7 days a week only leads to one place and it ain’t good)

I was scared and ashamed of who I’d let myself become.

But I never gave up. I never let myself believe that I was doomed. I kept trying, no matter how defeated I felt.

And within about 6 weeks of moving back, everything started coming together:

First, I met my (future) wife.

Then I got a job at CreativeLive, an online education startup that had just raised their series A. I did some cool sht there I’ll talk about another time.

Then I started doing freelance digital marketing on the side.

(oh and I quit drinking literally the day I moved back to Seattle)

Fast forward through the next 10 years and I:

• Got married

• Bought a house, sold it, and bought a better one

• Paid off my student loans and car

• Got 130 million views on YouTube

• Had a kid

• Saved & invested close to $2 million

And to be clear, it wasn’t easy— I had to grind my fkng face off for over a decade to make all that happen.

I’m not saying you need to work 360+ days a year for 11 years straight like I did. But that’s what I felt like I needed to do, so I did it.

And for me, it was worth it.

In 10 years I went from feeling like I was doomed to be a fkup forever, to having what I always wanted: a calm, comfortable life with a loving family, doing work that I enjoy.

So why am I telling you this?

Most of my life, I told myself that I was destined to be broke, miserable and alone like most of my family members— but as soon as I chose to reject that narrative and act accordingly, sht changed FAST.

→ It’s really all about the story we tell ourselves.

Because that story influences our actions, which determine the results we get, which then reinforces the story.

→ “Whether you think you can or think you can't, you're right”

Ask yourself this: what’s ACTUALLY stopping you from having what you want?

The honest answer is probably nothing other than a bunch of work.

(you may have some trauma or other sht to work through. So do I. Acknowledge that it’s real, but don’t let it define or limit you)

So instead of telling yourself all the reasons you can’t do it, ask yourself “but what if I can? How would I do it?”

Write down the path to your goal, with crystal clear, specific steps (create the product by this date, get X number of customers by that date, etc). Then work backwards from there.

→ I decided I wanted to buy a house, pay for a wedding, etc, then figured out what I needed to do to get there… and then I did it.

It’s not mysterious or even all that complicated— it’s just about laying out the steps, then putting in the work day after day, for as long as it takes to get there.

And never, EVER accept defeat.

That’s it.

(now can call me a boomer for posting cringe about pulling yourself up by your bootstraps 😘)

PS - Here’s the part where I try to sell you something. If you want to talk about how you can use LinkedIn or YouTube to grow your business, reply to this email or just set up a call here!