THE CLIMB: THE LOVE

I walked through every room in my house with one word.

Thank you.

Every room. The bathrooms. The laundry. Every single room in this place. Just walking through with the sage, saying thank you for everything you've done for me. That's how this week started. Not with a vision or a ceremony. Just gratitude and smoke and every room in a house I'm leaving.

I had no idea what was coming next.

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## I. The Call

The meditation that morning was different from the start.

I can't tell you exactly what it was. The surrendering felt different. The intention felt different. Not just saying the words to say them — actually feeling them, actually seeing the people I was speaking to if they were right in front of me.

And then I got to a place I have never been in my journeys, in any of the ceremonies that I've had, in any of this.

The complete understanding of everything that I've done, everything that I have said, everything that I have ran from or ran to or chased or any of that. Why I get the fear, I get the suffering and the pain, but now I understand why.

Live for me. Live from inside me. Live for my heart.

And then the mantra started: keep teaching me. Keep teaching me. Keep teaching me. I did not want to get out of that place.

And that's when the question arrived.

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## II. The Fracture

If you were given $100 million dollars right now — what would change.

I have big monetary goals for my company and my business. So the question hit different. If it was just handed to me right now, what would change.

And a lot of different things came in through it, but the one thing that I realized is it would make it easier for me to not do the hard things that I need to do to get to where I want to be.

Would I still have to stand in front of the people at the Gypsy and do my storytelling. It wouldn't make facing my fears and building and continuing the work easier, but it would make it easier for me to bypass it.

Why would I have to go to the Gypsy if I already have the money. Why would I have to do all these other things if I already had the money.

And then it came to me: when I'm ready I will get that money. It's already there. I literally felt it inside me that I already have a hundred million dollars in my bank account. It was literally a feeling that I had. It's in there. When I'm ready for it, I will get it one way or the other.

So then it came. What would this change in your life.

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## III. The Forge

And it gave me my family.

And I'm going to cry.

And it gave me my kids and it gave me a woman to share life with and it gave me friends.

Not the money doing that.

The becoming.

Because the person who builds that kind of wealth — that person has already done the work. He already knows how to love himself. He already knows how to give. That level of building doesn't come to a man who hasn't done this first. The wealth is downstream of the becoming. The becoming is what produces the life. The money is the evidence. The love is the reward.

That's where it came to the true realization. That is what you were chasing. That is what you are trying to fulfill in your life. The money, the generational wealth, the legacy — none of that will happen without what you're truly chasing and building.

The love.

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

When I look back through my life, I saw times when I'm a gravitational pull, when I am that person, when I am flowing, when I am charismatic, when I am just being me — I attracted people like a bug light with mosquitoes.

It just is what it is.

And that's my storytelling. That's the gift. That's how I've always been able to bring people in.

Give yourself that kind of attention, that kind of love, and work on it every single day. It will naturally come out of you because that's all you will know.

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## IV. The Collapse

I did not anticipate what came the next morning.

I never anticipated the feeling of sadness, of loss, of letting go of all those journeys, those candles, the sage, the ceremonies. I did not anticipate a mourning of this type of sadness, the feeling of loss, like I'm putting someone to rest.

45 years is how long I've dealt with this. 45 years of running one way or the other, of hiding behind stories and anger and entitlement and just feeling I've been wronged my entire life. Losing that and those identities and stories — the true weight of who am I is hitting me this morning.

There is an unknowing right now.

I need to take the proper time, consideration, and grace to let myself have that moment. I can see myself trying to push through it. But I won't force myself or any part of me through something that it needs to process, grieve, mourn, simply just feel.

It's not failure. It's not a setback. It's not losing.

It's another step of the process. 45 years of living through pain and suffering in the stories of my identity to get me here is real, and that just doesn't go away by letting candles burn out.

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## V. The Return

Two days of noise. Two days of just hanging on.

And then this morning the noise told me exactly what it was.

I just need to stop, quit worrying about trying to get in such a deep meditation, quit forcing it, and deal with the noise.

So I sat with it. And I let it get it out. I'm not going anywhere. I'm sitting here until you're done and we're going to talk about it.

And through that conversation we got to this: we don't need to keep suffering to make that person or that event suffer. Our suffering does not constitute their suffering. It's time that we quit beating ourselves up. We made mistakes, but we don't need to beat ourselves up anymore because all we do is take that out on other people.

And then my grandpa came.

He and I used to go golfing. I was his summer golfing buddy. And you know what — 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.

Quit worrying about winning and losing and appearing a certain way in any given situation. What is the experience you are gaining with that person or that event at that moment.

I don't remember the golfing.

I remember him.

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## VI. The Walk

A few days later I woke up before my alarm and I stepped on the scale.

I hit a number I had been working toward for a long time. A number I had made a promise around — that when we hit it, Riggo was going to get a bag of Funyuns. That treat that goes back to high school, to the addiction days, to him. Simple. Human. His.

I cheered a little. I was proud.

And then I sat down and I thought about what it means to celebrate yourself. Not perform celebration. Actually do it.

The foundation needs to be celebrated. It needs to understand its worth. If you build a beautiful strong foundation and then don't take the time to paint the walls beautifully or hang beautiful pictures on it or decorate with things that you enjoy looking at — that doesn't make sense.

So why would you do that to yourself.

If I don't celebrate myself and if I don't reward myself for little victories along the way I will get lost in the you're not accomplishing theory.

I cannot afford to not allow myself to be happy and enjoy this journey and celebrate the victories no matter how small.

Because here's what this week taught me.

The money was never what I was chasing.

The love was. The family. The kids. The woman to share life with. The friends.

And the love — all of it — starts with giving it to yourself first.

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

That is the climb.