"No One Else Is Getting The Last Word"

“Most people are either content to stay with the safe thing, or they’re too scared to leave a bad thing…” - Tim Grover

Four years of school, $100K in loans, 12 months of interning and I was fired from my first “career” in less than a year.

Five years employed, hundreds of hours of self-education, hundreds more to improve my standing in the company and my second “career” was over with a phone call and a script that read as little more than to say “fuck off”.

Since then, I’ve taken my personal brand, what you’d know now as JCodeFit, and decided that it would be the career that takes me forward and puts food on the table.

I think people want to believe that when a job, a relationship, or a specific journey ends, that they’ll arise like a Phoenix out of the ashes.

Maybe - but not me.

A Phoenix’s rebirth only comes after it lights itself on fire, bursts into flames and dies - I’ve refused to die.

We’ve been living through a lot in recent years, no doubt about it. My favorite shift I’ve seen in the world is this “Great Resignment” that’s being reported so often. Statistics showing how people, largely in my generation, are saying, “fuck off” directly to the jobs that make them unhappy or unfulfilled.

It’s such a brave thing - to take a leap of faith and bet on yourself instead of relying on what, to this point, has felt like the safe option.

I’ve never been that person until this last year.

I didn’t have the courage to leave my first job post-college because, although I was miserable, I felt like I’d be letting *insert anyone or anything in my life* down.

I didn’t have the courage to leave the job I was most recently fired from, regardless of how toxic that environment had become, because I wasn’t prepared to bet on myself in a way that would allow me to leave the illusion of safety.

Hell, I didn’t have the courage to leave a terribly draining relationship when I should have, and which ended up lasting far past the limits of what it had to offer me, because I wasn’t willing to feel the pain of ending it.

Does all this mean that I failed?

Was I really just a coward?

Ironically, or perhaps not so ironically, I finished listening to “Relentless” by Tim Grover today. Tim’s an insanely successful trainer who, instead of a “coach”, calls himself an architect (I love that) and describes what sets unstoppable people apart from everyone else.

This quote, I suppose specifically today, smacked me in the face like a baseball bat;

“No one else is getting the last word on whether he succeeded.”

“He” is someone who’s steadfast, determined to win, and believes they have no limitations.

I am “he”.

I haven’t always been, but I am.

I’m almost 7 years removed from the end of that first job, 1 year removed from the second, and decades away from being finished on a journey that I genuinely believe will be mind-blowing.

My past does not determine my future. If anything, it enhances it.

I’ve learned to stop complaining or blaming anyone or anything for what’s gone or will go wrong. Whether blame is just isn’t the point - the point is that I am in full control.

Whenever you’re reading this, whether it’s March 22, 2022 or August 14, 2031, I want you to know something that I’ve never been so sure of in my entire life; no one is in control of your future except for you.

Listen, if I’m being totally transparent here, as of writing this exactly 12 months from the last day of my last job, my coaching business isn’t anywhere near as busy as I’d like it to be or, in the traditional sense of things, where I financially need it to be.

Simultaneously, I’ve lost more money than I care to share while grinding towards other endeavors, I’ve spent an enormous amount of time working to better myself, and I’m entirely unsure of what next week, next month, or next year will bring.

But guess what?

Regardless of all the things I’ve said, I’m going to win anyway.

I’m saying this because it’s the truth and it’s the truth because I know I won’t stop until either I succeed, or I die.

Please do not get this twisted - I’m not “manifesting” this. I think for the large majority of people, “manifesting” is a cop out to avoid the work and blame the world when shit doesn’t work out for them. It’s like a tarot card or a horoscope.

While I don’t necessarily think of “success” as one specific definition we need to subscribe to, I know I’ll work for mine - whatever that may be and however long it takes to get there.

I’ll leave you with something that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately;

Will you be satisfied when you succeed?

Will you be willing to hang “it” up and relax for the rest of your life, or will you want to find something new or something more to keep you going?

I’d like to think that I’ll lay down and relax and be content, but I probably won’t.

Will you?