Be Careful What You Ask For!

Have you ever heard the saying: “Be careful what you ask for because you might just get it”?

This phrase has always fascinated me because it felt like some kind of a challenge

Well over the past year I have experienced the real meaning of this quote on a very deep level.

Let me explain when I was a young man around 23 years old I decided to work really hard and build a successful business in order to earn and save enough money to retire at age 50 and spend the rest of my life completely free of whay I called “Have to’s” I would only do work that I loved I would relax, travel, spend days just reading and enjoying life.

In my mind this was the epitome of total freedom, doing what you want, when you want, with whomever you want and if you want. Well last year at the ripe old age of 49 I achieved my goal.

I sold my business and we had enough money saved to live the lifestyle we were accustomed to.

I had spent the last 4 or 5 years preparing for this transition going back to school and becoming a professional life/business coach and started on my new path of total freedom.

Well by now you can guess what this article is about.

Freedom was and is still not so easy to handle.

Do you remember the movie “A Few Good Men” with Jack Nicholson and Tom Cruise?

There was a very powerful line in the film when Jack tells Tom “You Can’t Handle The Truth”

Jack Nicholson (Col. Jessup): You want answers?
Tom Cruise (Kaffee): I think I'm entitled.
Jack Nicholson (Col. Jessup): You want answers?
Tom Cruise (Kaffee): I want the truth!
Jack Nicholson (Col. Jessup): You can't handle the truth!

I was now free to enter the second half of my life with total freedom of choice to be or do anything I wished to work or not work to volunteer or just relax.

The last 12 months have been such an incredible journey (I won’t bore you with the details) but here are just a few of my take a way’s from the last year. What I thought was going to be a life of utter bliss turned out to be a bit of a struggled at times. Making the transition from a life of constant and frenetic busyness with all my time planned out well in advance to where I was suppose to be and who with ; to one Mon. morning I literally woke up and I had no where to go and no real plans for the next day or the next one for that matter it was exhilarating and scary at the same time. The freedom to choose was really mine but now I needed to choose something. Yikes!

I had created what I thought was going to be the ultimate experience to be able to do something wonderful with this precious time but I had no idea what to do with it from one day to the next. One day I would start writing a business plan for a new business, the next day I was traveling on my motorcycle for days and then buying a second motorcycle and next buying condo in Florida all this stuff would distract me for a while, but buying more stuff I knew was truly not the answer. Next I started working on our house fixing everything in sight everything that I had let go over the last 15 years. I decided let go of the landscaping company and do all of my own yard work. (Not one of my best moves) After 6 months or so everything around the house was repaired and I started cleaning out closets. This is when I knew that something had to change and that something was me.

I was going crazy I found myself standing in the middle of the grocery store aisle one particular Mon. morning (I had now also taken over the shopping and cooking duties) realizing that I had gone from running several companies with multiple offices and dozens of people every day needing me and my advice and making dozens of decisions that impacted our bottom line and dozens of peoples lives to “what was I going to make for dinner tonight”. My 3 phones stopped ringing, pagers, meetings, responsibilities and requests all just went extremely quiet. It was eerie

“This was just what I had asked for 25 years ago” Total freedom I was not expected to do or be anywhere and no one was looking or asking for me to do anything.

No one expected anything from me including me?

I was listening to a speaker the other day talk about being careful what you ask for, he shared his story of wanting a woman in his life and how he was asking God to please put a woman into his life so he could share this wonderful life with her. The very next week his 18-year-old daughter moved in with him. His point was; you need to be specific

I still had my coaching business thankfully and really do love the work I do with my clients so I decided to dive back into my coaching business and see what comes next. And to stop moping around wondering what should I do with this gift which was causing the squandering of this incredible gift. I am putting myself back into the game.

The game of life “The best game around”. Its no fun just watching others play I love to play. So Game on….