Three Questions About Your Life:

1. What was the earliest adversity you faced, and how did it affect your life?

2. What’s your passion and purpose in life?

3. If all your responsibilities and obligations were lifted for one year, what would you do?

Take the survey: http://bit.ly/MGtvZ

RESPONSES…

1. What was the earliest adversity you faced, and how did it affect your life?

  • Lost my Mother to Cancer when I was 13. Don’t really know the true affect, don’t know how I would be different today had she not passed when she did. I do know I learned there will always be brighter days and in order to see them you have to keep moving forward.
  • Dysfunctional, alcoholic family environment. Has hurt me in business in terms of damaged confidence, difficulty showing passion/emotion for things, etc. However, I have had to adapt and overcome those things in order to be successful.
  • My sister was born with Down’s syndrome and a poorly working heart. I was four when she was born She was given a year or two tops to live. She’s now 30 and a Special Olympics gold medalist. She has educated me in so many ways to the extent that it’s hard to see that was an adversity for me at all.
  • I’m going to answer this question as the first significant adversity that produced a uniquely distinguished life altering outcome/change in my person. When I was 18, the foundation of my beliefs and support structure from family to religion was eroded. I had to learn what was in fact truth, and what if anything was absolute if absolutes can be determined. As a result my core beliefs in God were refined, my reliance or belief in people and the definition of my personal purpose redefined, and the principles of my personhood tested and strengthened.
  • I cannot think of the adversity but I learned early on that you control your own destiny.
  • That you need to control what you can and make the best of any situation. I also learned early on that you should be happy doing whatever you are doing.
  • Being teased about being so skinny. To this day while I am thin, I keep myself in very good muscular shape. In some ways, I am still trying to silence the teasers with being in the best shape a 46 year old could be. It also made me a “pleaser”…I did not try to fight the teasing; I tried to make them “like” me. To this day, I am always trying to make the customer happy rather than fight them.
  • Boarding school. It made me love where I live and feel lonely when I travel.
  • The earliest I remember was my older brother starting school when I was only three; bored, I taught myself how to read.
  • Moving frequently. Still move a lot, rely primarily on self.
  • My father lost his job and we were very poor. It affected me through developing a strong sense of self reliance, commitment and a strong work ethic — sometimes too strong.
  • When I had my house broken into, and all of my college money was stolen. Devastated, then may favorite Aunt and Uncle came through and reimbursed me. I try to pay it forward whenever I can with people who aren’t as blessed as I am
  • My parents divorce, It taught me nothing is forever, everything is changing.
  • Being diagnosed with kyphosis, lordosis and scoliosis in grade 7. I was fitted for a Milwaukee back brace, and started wearing it the second week of 8th grade. However, we had moved in the summer between 7th and 8th grade, and I went from a large suburban school to a small rural school. I was immediately ostracized, bullied and heckled. This lasted for over a year and well into 10th grade. I learned to ignore the ridicule, how to move around under adverse conditions, and learned how to determine who to really trust. This has affected me in that I’m now able to see people in many different ways, and have learned better how and who to trust in both personal and work life.

2. What’s your passion and purpose in life?

  • My family.
  • Further God’s Kingdom in various ways, including prison ministry; spend as much time with my wife, kids, and someday grandkids as possible, and teaching the grandkids what I can about life, fishing, outdoors, etc.
  • Grow myself, my family and have work in harmony with the Oceans.
  • To help people while standing up for what is right.
  • To make sure my family is healthy and happy.
  • My purpose to be the best person I can be so that someday my kids will do the same. If I can do that, I have not only helped my own kids, but I will have helped many others along the way. It is my hope that my kids will not be perfect, but will at their core do the right thing and treat others the right way most of the time. Before kids, it was my first company, but now that seems silly in comparison.
  • Teaching people less fortunate than me.
  • Teaching others how to be happy by changing how they think.
  • Curious to explore and challenge life and give back more than I take.
  • My passion and purpose are to develop people to be the best they can be. This applies to my family, work and church life
  • Serve the Lord by serving others
  • Personal freedom to pursue the life of your choosing from a place of utter awareness and the means to share this with others
  • I want to be remembered by someone for something I told them that has affected them positively. But I really don’t want or need to know that its happened.

3. If all your responsibilities and obligations were lifted for one year, what would you do?

  • I’ve always said that if I won the lottery I would donate my time to a non-profit charity.
  • For just one year, that’s difficult. I would catch up on many of the little things that slip past when we’re busy and find a way to make a difference for someone.
  • Give as much time to prison ministry, church, family and fishing as possible.
  • Explore the ocean and spend time educating people about its beauty, and bring my daughter and wife along for the ride.
  • I would invest all the time and resource I could muster to affect the current political state of our nation at a grass roots level.
  • I would spend time with my family.
  • To be truthful, I have been in this spot two times, and both times I have done the same thing. My daughter was year old when I sold the first company and my son was a year old when I sold the second. I spent time with the kids, coached their sport, spent time with my parents and tried to play golf. I have not done what others dream about, travel the world, and stay in faraway places, but I think I have made good time with the time I have…I love my wife and kids and have tried to do the right thing.
  • Train more, run more, spend more time with friends.
  • Spend more time with my daughter and wife, and still have time to write six books.
  • Travel and volunteer for projects around the world.
  • Spend lots of time with the family and focus on continued development of my mind, body and spirit.
  • I would finish my book, and try to launch a part time consultancy
  • Form a rock n roll band and tour the world!
  • Take my family to the mountains and enjoy life as a service provider (working in a bike shop, bartending during the day, trail guide, etc.).

Share This!

Posted in

Related Posts

1 Comment

  1. vincenzo on May 26, 2009 at 12:47 pm

    great stuff. reassuring to know that there are still empathetic people around.

Leave a Comment