The post you’ll read below is from a year ago today. It represents feelings I still currently have and shows the progress that has been made not only for Rules of Success but for Urbia Exchange, the I Am Movement, and my development as a man.
I am thankful for this reminder.
Enjoy! – BP
Read below.
It’s Sunday afternoon…
Today I am planning on taking things slow.
Enjoy the process.
BE present.
It’s been a good week, but as I’ve reviewed my own Facebook feed I recognize that it has turned into a billboard for Rules of Success.
“Hey, go get my book at my website.”
“Hey, look at this meme with the cool watermark of my show.”
“Wait, here is an awesome quote!”.
“Hey, read this timely, pre-chosen article that my social media scheduler posted!”
That wasn’t a deliberate intention, just something that happened as I have been so energized with all that’s been happening with that project. I am proud of not only the direction things are going but the velocity as well. I wanted everyone to know about it and how it could benefit them.
The result is that I noticed that my feed was sterile. Without me sharing more of my personal experiences outside of that project if comes across like I am unavailable and only putting forward the rainbows and unicorns of my life.
So, I am deciding to use post as a long-form entry to lift the kimono and get a few things out there. Here goes:
I have a great family.
A wife that is so incredible that I wonder how I ever convinced her to be with me in the first place. This week she was so supportive of me as my focus to get the book done took my workload further into the evenings that I had hoped. She didn’t get mad, she was understanding and even welcomed me “warmly” into bed when I was finished. Her support throughout this phase has been a huge part of my success and something to which I am forever grateful. She’s my best friend. Over literally anyone else, it’s her.
I have great kids. My two daughters that live in Idaho with their mother or fun, smart young women that never cease to amaze me with their creativity. Obviously, I’d rather have them here with me, but I know that they are well cared for, loved, and safe where they are. October can’t come soon enough when we will see them for both their birthdays. Here in Utah, both Dorian and Isabel started school this week and it was fun to see their different reactions to what they were heading into. Dorian was subdued and nonchalant in his excitement. Izzy couldn’t wait to go back. I am reminded that each child comes with a personality that you could never gauge beforehand. It’s a constant effort to fortify truth to them as they bring things home from school about life, their place in it, and how to achieve.
The good thing is that Amie and I are on the same page about it all so the kids know where we stand. #GoTeamPrescott
My body continues to get stronger.
I notice what is called an “upper limit” problem every now and then when I see in the mirror how close I am to being just RIPPED. There is this emotional trap where I start to feel content with my current results and start to sabotage them through bad eating or excessive drinking.
I am reminded of during what I will call my “Landmark” years (when my real estate company was flourishing) I did not equate being fit to be successful.
It was about money and toys.
I had some great toys, but my use of them was slowed down by being out of shape.
I remember one time, we were wake surfing behind my business partner Mastercraft X2 and getting so sore in my thighs after 5 minutes of surf.
Not wakeboarding, wake surfing. It’s not strenuous.
Not too long ago I was able to wake surf again and I went for 30 minutes straight without even a tense muscle. A few weeks ago I went mountain biking and felt like I was better than ever. Yesterday, I play pick-up basketball and although I was pushed to my limits in agility and endurance, I could have played longer.
My point is that I am recognizing that my heightened attention to my fitness has actually given me more capacity to enjoy life. I am so thankful this realizing has settled over me.
I declare that I am committed to fully succeed in all the important areas of life this time around.
Not just financially.
Which is funny… I recognize that if I was neglecting the other areas of my life (family, body, and being) that my business might just have grown faster. But it would have been short-lived and I would have probably been in a position to lose it all. I like this way better; pay attention to what matters in every aspect and watch the tide raise them all.
My business pursuits feel more inspired than ever before.
Case in point. Recently an opportunity presented itself to be involved in real estate in a similar capacity as I was in the Landmark days. Using technology to scale and grow opportunities not just for myself but for those associated with me.
I had been opposed to going back into that arena for so long.
It beat me up.
Yes, I made a lot of money, but I also had to deal with shit that came from mismanaging that opportunity.
Damaged relationships.
Damaged reputation.
Lawsuits.
Bankruptcy.
Taxes.
I hated a part of myself for squandering what was a great business for foolish reasons.
As I did the work on myself and addressing my demons I stayed away from real estate. I wouldn’t let myself see it as a way to make money because I had placed an unfair definition on it.
In my disconnected, immature mind it was part of the problem.
I told myself I hated real estate. I told myself that the word on the street about it was bullshit and that honest people can’t make money in real estate. I told myself it was treacherous. It was a minefield of dishonest, unsavory people. All bullshit lies I told myself.
And the funny part?
I decided to work in AGRICULTURAL COMMODITIES! The WORST of the WORST type of people are there!
American real estate shit heads are one thing. Global Ag brokers?! They make the Devil blush with some of the shit they try to pull.
I’d see tons of people make money in real estate while I was scraping by, traveling the world, wracking up debt to chase agricultural deals that never panned out, and further digging a hole where it felt the only exit was another deal that probably wouldn’t close.
Anyway..
I’ve had a breakthrough recently that has opened my eyes to how foolish it is to hold on to those beliefs. I was sitting in a business meeting with two other partners and they were asking me specifics about how I used to run my old company. Specifics about the market, how we structured our deals, how we managed our supplier relationships, raised money etc.
As I was telling the ins and outs to these guys of what made me all that money it clicked in my head.
I am REALLY good at this shit.
After that meeting, I started digging to see how much good from the old company I could resurrect (tech, resources, lists, etc.) while leaving the bad by the wayside. It was both a fun trip down memory lane and the biggest shot in the arm of HOPE that I could have ever asked for.
One of the cool things about all this is that with the success of Rules of Success there already exists a media platform to share opportunities with! I won’t announce anything here, I will just let you see the moves that are made in the coming weeks and months and at the appropriate time share the details. It will be fun, to say the least. #rulesofsuccess
Lastly, I like myself again.
If you’ve listened at all to Rules of Success, you know that I grew up as a religious kid. I served a church service mission in Brazil for two years and for the majority of my adult life had religion be something that was a big part of my identity.
It wasn’t until the divorce from my first wife that I started to question the “why” of all of that. I hated myself because I couldn’t live up to the standard that the church had for me. In my mind, the church = God and so I felt like God didn’t approve of me, and (heaven forbid) He didn’t love me.
People do dumb shit when they don’t think God loves them.
It’s an awful, lonely place when your identity is wrapped up in a belief system that can’t reconcile itself between how you feel and how you think you should feel.
The effect is that I loathed myself for being a horny dude that liked to curse, drink and gamble. I was always honest about my hornyness, my cursing, my drinking, and gambling. But I didn’t give any value to that because on a foundational level it all seemed contextual. It didn’t matter. But because I couldn’t reconcile it, I hated myself.
It wasn’t until I started meditating on a regular basis that I was able to deal with that lie that I believed. I started to feel okay with my feelings knowing that they didn’t reflect me AND that they didn’t define me. Further, the “feeling-ness” of my life started to align with my “knowing-ness” of life and it started affecting my behavior in an incredible way.
Instead of trying to run a marathon on the first day, I would just commit to taking a few steps.
It is amazing how much we can accomplish in the long term when the goal is just doing what we absolutely should do TODAY.
Meditating, writing in my journal, and strength training every day was my goal. Nothing else mattered until I did those three things.
It was simple.
Definitive.
Measurable.
So I did it. Downloaded the DayOne Journal app and started the Deepak/Oprah meditation series. I revisited The Science of Getting Rich. Involved myself in strength training.
The rest is daily history.
To wrap all this up. I have been blasting Rules of Success all over this feed because the focus of balancing those 4 key areas; Body, Business, Being, and Relationships is something that I have found to make a monumental difference in my life.
I hope you can find value in it too. If any of these words have inspired any thought to which you should act upon, DO IT…
-BP
