My Average Addiction: Stress

7 months married. Working 3 jobs at about 90 hours a week. Volunteering time and money. Living in a 300 sq ft. house. Building the remaining 800 sq ft. from the ground up; by ourselves.

This has been my life since November 2015. A life filled with so many great things that it’s almost impossible to know what needs to give in order to ease up this schedule. I had one main conclusion when reflecting on my life; I’m addicted to the stress.

Some call me a workaholic. Some call me crazy; which I’m actually proud of, but more on that later. Still others say they wish they could accomplish what I attempt to on a daily basis. My primary occupation is working for Dekorte’s Landscaping (http://dekorteslandscaping.com/) as the Lawn Maintenance Division Manager. Working an average of about 70 hours a week maintaining nearly as many properties every single week would be more than enough for most people. But even moreso than the time spent mowing lawns is the financial compensation for this position; let’s just say it’s more than fair than what you would expect a lawn mower to make. I’ve been very blessed to work for a great company that provides me with such opportunity.

But apparently it wasn’t enough for me so I started my own media production company, Wide Open Media, to fill any spare time I had outside of landscaping. Because, you know, I spent $100k on a university degree, I should probably use that for something. And who doesn’t love the satisfaction of making something from scratch, labouring over it for weeks, and then sitting out on a summer’s evening taking it all in. That’s right, I started brewing my own beer as well. It had become a surprisingly somewhat successful venture without pushing anything. Orders started coming in and I realized I could make a few bucks doing this on the side as well.

And yes, in the meantime I got married to my wonderful wife, Heather, who for some reason puts up with all of this and I decided to tear off 3/4s of our house to re-construct/enlarge it from the basement up. This is me in a nutshell. There’s a lot of stress and I fear I’ve fallen victim to the addiction.

If this were the end of the story, I understand you’d leave fairly disappointed with this blog post and never read again. But thankfully, That’s just the start of this journey.

I QUIT.

Something has to give. The onslaught of stress and work got the better of even me. So I made the most logical decision I could think of. I left my steady paycheck, secure, full-time job to pursue my part-time at best media production company. Sound wise? Just about anyone is going to call you crazy if you agree with me.

But I’m thinking BIG PICTURE and LONG TERM.

I had a revelation. I’m not actually addicted to stress or a workaholic. I’m the type of guy that will never be truly happy while working for someone else which is why I always had at least one side hustle going on. The dream of working for myself, of taking control, having the schedule flexibility, being the face of an organization that fulfills other people’s dreams and sees the smiles on their faces.

I know I can’t do it by myself; I need a team. My wife, Heather Hessels, is an integral part of that team. I’m also SO PROUD to announce that renowned auto journalist and entrepreneur, Jeff Voth, is joining the team as well. He brings http://www.exhausted.ca/ and http://www.loveismedia.com/ to this venture along with much wisdom and many valuable relationships.

I have no idea where this is all going to go, and there are many questions left unanswered; such as “How are we going to pay mortgage next month?” and “What if we have an unexpected expense?”. Typical stuff, right? All I do know is that this is the right move. Friday was my last day in financial security, tomorrow starts the chapter of uncertainty but we couldn’t be more excited to see the plan unfold around us and how many people we can help along the way. This just about wraps up my first blog post ever, and I’m beyond excited to keep you all informed on all the crazy changes along the way.