A lot of people in the world today are becoming motivated to do something about the world around them. These people aren’t taking conventional approaches. They’re digging in for the long haul, understanding there really is no such thing as an overnight success, especially when it comes to global, systemic change.
They know the planet and the beings on it are calling for something different. They think they know what that different things is, and they’re not waiting to get around to it: They’re getting on with it.
It’s exciting to see and be a part of the wave. I’m not talking only about the fabulous people of Copiosis, the ones who see something, are excited about it, and are doing something to make that something real, although they’re a part of it.
I’m talking about the larger picture, the millions of people who are each doing that thing that can’t wait for the perfect circumstances—for retirement, for enough money, for more time, or for the right resources.
As the years pass, I’m feeling richer and richer. No, I’m not talking about financial wealth. I’m talking about wealth that comes from doing something that means something. I left my bullshit job eight years ago thinking I knew what I was going to do. I had a pile of money, plenty of runway and lots of time to make that thing happen.
Today most of that money is gone. I could feel fear about making ends meet, but after leaving Intel some remarkable things happened that make being fearful irrelevant and have proven to me that when I follow my dreams, the universe will help me out.
Meeting my partner helped a lot. She sees something in me. I see it too, but I’m fascinated that she sees it as well. She believes it so much that she’s willing to support me as I continue headlong down this crazy road. Now I know she won’t need to do that much longer. That she’s willing to and is, though, has transformed many of my long-held beliefs about me and my self-worth, people and their generosity, and the way the universe works, sometimes in uncanny ways so that I get what I need while I do what I must.
Meeting Mark, my business partner, was a similar situation. He continues to teach me so much while we forge ahead on a separate but no less crazy road toward our entrepreneurial dreams. He, too, once mentioned that if it ever got to that point he would help me out. I guess he sees something in me as well.
Last month I sold the final vestige of my corporate life. It was bittersweet seeing someone drive off in what was once my dream car. Bitter because I loved driving that thing. Sweet because I know something better is on the way. As I let go of the past and optimistically crash headlong toward the future, I feel a sense of excitement, a quickening that feels as though remarkable things are not only coming, but are here.
Perhaps it’s just me.
As I sit here in an Oregon park on a sunny, cool day writing this, I’m awed at how my reinvention, something I had run through three separate careers to avoid, is being completely supported and enabled by the universe while I pursue my passions. Passions that include entrepreneurial success, personal happiness and authenticity, love, and, of course, making the world way better than it is today.
What I’m finding is the more authentically I live my life, the more resources and people come to my aid. It’s funny because I once thought I’d need lots of money or an opportunity or some other thing I was missing before I could do something I really wanted, before I could sink my teeth into something that had meaning for me.
Turns out, I was wrong. And right?
I had lots of money, and I had the opportunity. And though I thought at one time those things were finite resources, I realize now that they are in abundant supply. I just had to adjust my idea of how they would come when I needed them.
There are all kinds of sayings that support how my life has gone so far, particularly after leaving my bullshit job:
- Jump and the universe will catch you
- Leap and your wings will appear
- Let the universe control
I guess I would say today that there’s a ring of truth to all of them.
If you’ve got a niggling voice in the back of your head urging you to quit your bullshit job, but you’re afraid to go for it (and I know it’s easy to say this)—go for it. The universe will be there. No question.
In my opinion, backed by personal experience, there is no risk.
