My Motivation?

The Journey

Editors note: Updated version to the original “My Motivation” post written earlier this year.

I often get asked if I took a more prominent gig half way across the country a few years back for the lure of money, the title or both and most recently, I’ve been asked why I left that same prominent gig half way across the country for the itch, the lure and the true hustle of coming home and starting and successfully running my own company (www.thethronemedia), shameless plug.

The answers? First, a new challenge. Second, Lebron can attest to this, coming home and creating something purposeful and meaningful (there’s no better feeling than doing something grandiose in your own backyard) and third, the mother-fucking journey.

Allow me to elaborate.

The Challenge

We’ve all been there. Lose five pounds, now time to lose 10. Run one mile, now let’s run three. We bench press 150 pounds, now let’s do 200. We get promoted, we look toward the next rung on the ladder. Regardless of the accomplishments, there’s never a sense of satisfaction.

We think it’s in our DNA to want to keep chasing accomplishments, but it’s not.

Would you believe me if I told you that we are actually wired to let challenges and accomplishments come to us? To live a life without forcing situations to happen but instead letting them occur naturally, as originally intended?

My challenge is no longer promotions, money, or satisfying my ego. It’s now a patience game. A game of allowing the world and its challenges to come naturally, easily, through following my life’s passions.

By learning how to “prepare and then let go”. By trusting that everything that is happening to me now, is happening as intended. The ambition and the drive that in the past came attached with wanting to outshine the next crab in the bucket, now comes with a deeper sense of meaning and purpose.

The new challenge is to trust that as long as we show up, work like mad-men and pay attention, the music will happen, again.

After years of working to satisfy my ego or to satisfy others expectations of me, I’ve reached a point where I’m guided by something larger than the self.

A point of freedom.

The Purpose

My definition of success has completely changed. No longer is the motivation how quickly I could move up the company, how much I could get paid, whether people like me or not or any other external factors. It ‘s about finding out what my true purpose in life is.

When I attained things such as the high job title or getting paid more, I realized a few things:

A. It really wasn’t that hard to move up in a company and get a fat pay check; (For those of you about to jump all over me for this one, get your head out of your ass, learn the skill sets needed and put the work in. There is no magic formula. It’s really that easy. )

B. They didn’t leave me fulfilled.

C. I felt like I was trying to be a carbon copy of others, instead of the original that we were born to be.

“You were born an original. Don’t die a copy”

There was no real sense of purpose. I realized that the money was always going to be a by-product of the grind, hustle and the courage to take risk. I no longer needed to chase it.

The titles were more to feed my own ego. I felt that by being in those prominent positions, I’d be happier and respected more. Ultimately, I learned that the respect would always be there as long as I did the right thing.

The happiness, well, that came from something much more profound.

To do something out of purpose became another motivation. There’s no greater tradegy than getting to the end and wondering if your life was wrong.

The Journey

Ahh, my favorite. The journey.

Having the guts, balls, courage or whatever else you want to call it to take chances in life has given my soul experiences and invaluable knowledge that I would never take back.

It’s not about whether the grass is greener on the other side or not, it’s about having the “huevos” to jump the fucking fence and take a look for your self.

From wandering into Hickory, NC and changing the dynamic and philosophy of a young and talented team (a job and team that I’m incredibly proud of), to coming back home and embracing the opportunity to do it all over again, the journey is about being able to grow from different experiences and embrace life as it comes. It’s about not being afraid to look at people in the face and say, “ Yup, I did that, got a problem?” It’s about doing what feels right in your gut, heart and soul. It’s about laying on your death bed 50 years from now and saying, “Damn glad I did that”.

The journey, has led me to guys like, “The Weave”, “White Mamba”, “T-Howell”, “Junk Food Jesse” , “J-Buch”(yes, you and my girls too, Janis) and back home to a talented team that represents the foundation of the Throne Media in Tino, Cassidy, David and Sergy. The journey has allowed me to live Mark Twain’s famous line:

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover”

The journey and its infinite wisdom, teaches you about the real you, not the Facebook, Twitter or Instagram version. It expands your horizons in ways that can only be understood once you have gone through it and more often than not, propels you to climb higher mountains or points you in the right direction (something I’m grateful enough to currently be experiencing.)

The journey enables you to tell a cool, adventure filled story when you’re 50, 60, 70 years old and laying on a beach somewhere.

Put in the work, consistent hard ass work and the money will come. A title is merely a way for others to define you; make it a point to define yourself. As the saying goes, the cream always rises to the top, so do good leaders.

The journey is everlasting and what true legacies are built on. The journey is an easy trusting, that everything will happen perfectly as intended.

If you enjoyed this post and it made you feel warm and fuzzy, please hit the recommend button below. That would make me feel warm and fuzzy. I’d also appreciate any feedback, good or bad, trust me, I enjoy it. Thanks for reading!