THE CLIMB: THE BUILD

I reflect back to when I was 19 years old and I made the decision to go to treatment. I told my mom I needed a couple of weeks. And I don't even know if there really was a reason. Whether it was something deeper inside me saying I need to let go of people, or the fear of I'm changing — who am I going to be when I get out, what am I going to be — I have no idea what the truth is behind that. Probably a combination of all of it.

I'm getting emotional just saying it. Which tells me I'm talking about the right thing.

Because that is very similar to right now.

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## I. The Call

I keep coming back to these finding myself, who am I statements, and I think it's more than that. That is the normal talk — the therapeutic, the spiritual — most people say I'm trying to find myself.

No.

I know where I am. I know myself, my true self. I've seen him, I've talked to him, I understand who he is. I may not know how to be him yet. I may not know what it feels like to live like that. And those are two different conversations.

So it's not finding or figuring out who I am. It's building that person. It's understanding that I am in construction and I have to keep building myself, following my path, staying grounded in my work and my process, not skipping steps just to try to get there faster.

Think of it like neighborhoods. You go into the new additions right now and all the houses look exactly the same. Cookie cutter. Built from the same foundation and structure. No character, no personality. Then you go into the old neighborhoods where every house looks a little different, every house has had different stories, every house has had their own life, built from different material, different ground.

That's what humans are. That's what living is about.

Their life has no impact or effect on where I'm at and where I'm going. This is where I am. This is where the journey of true building to that version of me began.

So I just start now. That's the guts of it.

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## II. The Fracture

June 1st arrived.

I know in the past when I would hit things like this I would be able to push that date, just keep edging it out. And that is fear. Maybe it's part of the worthiness wound, maybe it's disbelief, I can't always nail it down. But I do know that I would always find reasons not to.

This morning was quite the opposite.

The meditation was aligned and the Jaguar came — not as a vision outside of me, more of him combined with me, speaking into me the things I need to believe and do. Build your social media presence. Learn what works. Build your podcast. Write your book. Start the book. Build your social media presence. Just that, on a loop. And when the ego kicked in during the meditation I stopped, looked straight at it and said look, I appreciate you giving me the heads up, I appreciate you showing me what I need to learn, but this is the direction we're going. And from there just went right back into building.

I know I can do this because I've done it before. A business in Hays with monthly subscribers. A soccer club built from scratch in a small town. A name built in Tulsa's coaching community. The way I can go into things when I have my mind set and talk to people and sell myself and sell what I'm doing.

I did all of that when I was angry. When I was negative. When I was living in pain and suffering and doing it for not always the best intentions. If I can do that for the wrong reasons, there is no way it is not in me to do it when it's out of my heart and out of love and for all the right reasons.

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## III. The Forge

I started the room.

That's it. Before anything else. I started the room.

The storage under the staircase cleaned out. The kitchen — if it's not going with me, if I don't need it to last the last two months in this place, it's out. And it feels good to do that.

What I'm finding out is the work isn't hard. It's not drastic, it doesn't wear me out — which is all the ego's story of it takes so much effort, it takes all this. It just takes constant movement. That's all it takes.

Here's the honest part of it: I can accomplish a lot more in a day than I've ever wanted to believe. I've known it, I've seen it, I just chose not to do it. That's more honest. Decades of just doing the bare minimum every day so I could sit in the chair and watch TV and eat and numb out — that doesn't get erased in one day, one month, one year. It takes time, it takes construction, and that's what I'm doing.

You build belief. Belief isn't just a given. You have to break through milestones. You have to keep going on the days you don't feel it and look back at where you were a month ago, three months ago, a year. That's where belief comes from. You see the tangible steps. That's how it gets built.

I couldn't tell you the last time I've had that kind of comfort — knowing I'm ahead of target, working on something even though it's not due for quite a while. That's just different for me. It's a different feeling and I like it, so why would I want to change it.

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## IV. The Collapse

There are mornings when none of it settles.

The house is getting emptier. A friend — a young man I love like a little brother, two small kids — has been coming with his truck and taking what they need. End tables. TVs. Everything. And there are mornings when that reality just sits in the meditation and nothing comes through. The noise is just noise.

What's going to be left when I walk out. What's going to be left.

I don't always have the answer to that.

And I think it's a combination of all of it. It's becoming real because I am really doing it. And then when I leave it's just going to be me and Kirby, nobody else. The fear of who am I, what am I, what it's going to look like — the unknown of all that. That's a big leap and just trusting that I'm going to go out there and figure it out is a lot.

So there are mornings where I just got to be okay with being okay. It's not always going to be connecting the dots. It's not always going to be color within the lines. Sometimes the canvas is just going to be blank and you just keep moving until the strokes start hitting the canvas.

That's the practice doing exactly what it's supposed to do. Holding you through the morning that doesn't deliver so you can show up for the one that does.

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## V. The Return

I had lunch with a young man I mentor, and I noticed — he didn't need the philosophy. He didn't need the self-leadership talk or the framework. He just wanted me to be there. He just wanted a conversation where I was present and not trying to take everything to some higher learning level.

And then I'm watching a show and there's this moment — a woman with compassion and grace looks at a man about to have a hard conversation and she says: listen more than you speak.

And then the meditation brought it home. All people need is presence. All we seek is somebody to be there for us and listen and to be seen.

My grandfather never told me how to do things. He simply allowed me to be who I was and let me find my way, and when I stepped out of that he put me right back in line. He and I used to go golfing. I was his summer golfing buddy. I cannot really remember the entire golf experience. I can see us sitting in the golf cart going down certain fairways. But I don't really recall if he was good or bad. I don't remember any of that.

It was the experience of being with him.

I don't remember the golfing. I remember him.

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## VI. The Walk

I almost want this house to be empty.

Everything that's going to storage is going to storage. Everything else is going to somebody who needs it. When it's done all I'm going to have is my clothes and my daily necessities and what I need to cook and Kirby. That is all I want. I want to know that feeling. I want to see what I become and what I feel and what's inside of me in that moment.

It's scary even talking about. But at the same time I want it.

Because on the other side of that is not the guy who has all the possessions and the TVs and the whatever. This is a guy who's just absolute bare minimum of living, nothing extra. And the becoming of all of this is starting to look like the exciting part — not the end result, the actual who am I through this and after it.

Who am I on the other side of that.

I won't know until I'm there.

But I started the room.

Every single portion of my life I must give to myself before I can give to others.

That is the build.

That is the climb.