Great clarity can come from disaster, this car crash made me the man I am today (true story...)
I started my entrepreneurial journey right here, as a gas station attendant at this exact Chevron station on Steveston Highway in Richmond, BC, Canada. (pic below)
It wasn't fun, I hated every moment of it, the pay was crap, and I came home smelling like gasoline every day.
If you told me then that just a few years later I'd be building multi-million dollar companies sharing solutions to shift the planet, I probably wouldn't have believed it.
Yet every day, at that gas station, I had a feeling that I was meant for something greater, it just felt it like a voice from my soul telling me of something coming.
The feeling was akin to an enormous amount of inspiration wrapped in doubt and despair.
I knew that life was suppose to be more magical than this, but my environment and all my self doubt said otherwise.
Have you ever had that feeling?
During these times, I've learned, if you don't listen to that inner voice, eventually life will push you, or shove you in the right direction...
That shove doesn't always look pretty, but it's a blessing in disguise because it's your soul forcing you onto a different path.
One fateful day, as I was driving to the hospital to see a friend, with my step-brother Paul in the passenger seat, it happened...
I took a left turn on a green light in a dedicated lane...
Suddenly, the sound of screeching tires alerted me that my life was about to change... I had just enough warning to instinctively floor the gas pedal to give us inches that probably saved Paul's life.
Metal contacted metal, the smell of burnt rubber filled our noses, shards of glass flew in our faces, and the force of a sledgehammer flung at full speed rocked my spine as the car spun and did a 180.
A speeding car T-boned my 91' Acura Integra and practically folded it in half.
Many blurring moments later... I was shivering from impact trauma, covered in a blanket, sitting in the back of a firetruck watching the first responders pull my totaled car off the road...
Looking back, I probably had a big smile on my face and didn't even realize it.
Sitting in that firetruck, part of me was upset, that my teenage fantasy of having a car and freedom just came to an end... part of me was frustrated at the loss of that freedom.
But another part of me was in bliss...
A higher power had intervened, thankfully due to me pressing the accelerator, no-body got seriously hurt (though I had back problems for years.)
As I sat there in the firetruck, I just knew, right there and then, that this was it, this was my moment to start doing what I came here to do and stop screwing around.
Since I couldn't drive to work anymore, I showed up at Chevron the next day and quit my job.
I was scared, I didn't really know what to do, but what initially felt like disaster turned out to be a gift as I fully embraced the uncertainty.
Eventually, I got another job that paid more and was way more fun (assisting a wedding decorator), my mom let me drive her spare car to that job (the car had seat warmers too)
I took the money I had saved up and invested it in my first ever business education, I got a course from a guy called "Michael Enlow" in 2003 that changed my life, and I started my first online business which grew into a half a million dollar company quite quickly.
Since then, over the past 21 years as a thought leader and entrepreneur, I've had many ups and downs, as my personal evolution accelerated and I've had to pivot and change...
...but all my successes I attribute to the internal decision I made that day.
Even though it sucked, I decided that day this was going to be the point where I listen to my inner calling and the higher vision.
That stuck with me, and it came in really handy, because this type of situation in life doesn't just happen once...
It's happening all the time, every day you get invited to a higher wisdom and a higher path, but you don't always choose it.
If you ignore it long enough, or you're lucky enough, life will come and push you like it did me.
This might look like losing something... or the path you've been on all of a sudden drying up...
It might look like something that was "working" that you've put a ton of effort and time into suddenly just not working anymore.
It might look like a total calamity.
It usually feels like nothing makes sense anymore, you don't know who you are, or where you're going, and start questioning everything.
While it's difficult initially, if you take the moment to slow down and fully receive the situation, you will begin to feel that there's something greater trying to happen.
Ten times out of ten there is a solution or a path being presented for you that is easier, faster, and more aligned with who you really are.
During this time you are being forged into someone new, as the old pieces of you fall away.
It's important to know during these times, that it's okay to struggle a little bit.
It's okay for it to take time, it must take time.
During these times the thing you usually want most is action and certainty.
...but this is precisely the last thing that you need.
To speed up, you need to slow down.
You need time with yourself, you need to connect to yourself, and take as much time as you need.
You need more you.
More you is the medicine.
"More you" connects you to the vision which your soul is asking you to connect to.
You cannot connect to your vision without connecting to you.
Eventually, the vision and clarity and the next steps will emerge, and it will be glorious.
But first, you've got to embrace everything that's happening, fully, completely, totally.
The reality is, in order to get to the vision and the promised land, you're actually being asked by life to become a completely different human being.
This usually means making some big decisions, cutting off distractions, old stories, and paying attention only to what matters most.
Letting go of fear, embracing courage, and loving the heck out of your life and everyone around you.
And most of all, taking the time to connect to feel and LISTEN, your soul is speaking to you.
Usually what is falling away are all the distractions you've put in your away that have prevented you from listening.
It's why they are being removed.
It's uncomfortable, I know, but trust me, ignoring your soul is much more expensive in the long run.
Slow down to go fast.
What's the nudge or shove you're getting from life lately?
What's your version of getting T-Boned on a left turn right now?
Lean into it, there's a gift in there waiting to be opened.
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