It’s usually around this time in the morning that I find an intersection of space and time, person and place. Not many people enjoy working during the late hours of the night. My Dad did. It’s during these times that I tend to think of him a lot, as if I can feel his presence trailing during these late hours.
He’s usually telling me to go to bed and get my rest – that whatever I’m working on can wait until morning. Like most of his admonishments, I usually hit snooze and push on for one more stretch.
Tonight, I’m halted by a server error that only my team can resolve, and I’ve decided to pack things in for the night before starting it all over again in the now-morning.
I’m pushing more and more towards the launch of Couture Soul, and I’m experiencing something I never felt before in my career as an entrepreneur; observations and appreciations for my journey – an awareness of how every path in my life has contributed to the one I’m now on.
During my earlier years, I didn’t yet have the benefit of experience, as well as an appreciation for the things I’ve learned that led me here. For example, there aren’t many people who know what a press release is, let alone how to submit one properly to a news room.
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They’re important.
I know this because years ago I took courses at a university that taught me. While I’ve spent most of my life scoffing my college education and the cost of tuition, I’m now old enough to recognize that experts are paid for the tiny pieces of knowledge that have exponential returns when put in practice…like writing a press release that gets published on the front cover of a newspaper…that’s another story for another time.
My parents did a really good job of raising me. As a parent, I now appreciate their efforts more than ever. I understand the sacrifices they made when they could have taken shortcuts. I know this because I’m the living output of their efforts, and in many ways, I feel like they prepared their children very well to navigate the world around them – as well as create their own within it.
I’ve seen a lot of people quit in their journey as an entrepreneur. There are a tremendous amount of moments that cause people to throw in the towel and give up on their dreams. I know this, because I’ve come very close to quitting on my own. Something always made me push ahead – sometimes it was God. Other times, it was the realization that quitting wouldn’t do any good even if I tried.
In a lot of my earlier pursuits as an entrepreneur, making money was a big driver for me. I think that might have been the reason it never came the way I hoped it would. I certainly wouldn’t have known how to be responsible with it – that’s for sure.
Now, what drives me is time and love. I want to spend more time with Atlas and feel like I’m a human being, rather than being exhausted all of the time. I want to enjoy my days and spend them doing the things I love with the people I love. I want to create a world for Atlas where he never knows stress or worry and is able to enjoy each moment to its fullest.
I want to spend my days creating, teaching, loving and helping others. I want to play music, take on new hobbies, and become a master at things that matter.
As a Dad, I want to show Atlas a working model of what it means to be a human being. I want him to see what it means to be independent, self-sufficient, hard-working and generous with his talents, time and resources.
Most of all, I want to take all of the tools, talents, abilities and intuitions God has blessed me with and roll them all up into one single [mat] idea and have every one of those items honored in the creation, outcome and delivery of the things I create with the resources entrusted to me.
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