F*ck what happens what will you make happen?

So as the we reach the year end of all of our quarters I think it's good to talk about success. When I was young I loved soccer I was good too but after an injury had to take a year off and then when I came back I needed some much needed growth that would have been key to my success at that age. The truth was I didn't have the insurance and my family was truly poor and wouldn't have the money for great medical advice and support that I would've needed then for another 15 years. So the growth wouldn't come for some time, although it did come. Since I was I kid I knew I wanted to play soccer and become an engineer graduating from UCLA. When I didn't make the team I remember thinking like well sh*t now what?

Someday we will sponsor Liverpool :D!

Ultimately probably a big mistake on the highschool coaches part and their lack of knowledge but this tends to happen for most people... sometimes you just don't get the mentor and guidance you need. So at this point in my life, 14ish, I was like well I want to have fun then, so I skipped class, met tons of women, made tons of friends, I broke mental barriers out of necessity that would make me into the man I am today. As a kid your mind is literally different than an adults; for men it's up until they are 21-25 and then their minds mold to adult form. So during that time before you're learning and unafraid to explore because your brain is built that way and less fearful. I became moral, unafraid, intelligent, social, analytical and so on. Had I got on that team my life would have been slightly above average I would have likely wound up less than I am out of a lack of life experience that I was able to gain early in a way most other kids never would or wouldn't until they were much older.

I wasn't really giving up and there was never a doubt in me that I would move on, but I knew it wouldn't be in the way I envisioned. I knew I'd do something great as a kid, it was a universal fact to me as much as any other universal truth just a matter of time and effort, but I had decided to experience life at full gear for a little while rather than drone on through life waiting to bloom till college. In a way it worked out and to be honest, a lot of those kids wound up overly structured in a way that made them less "it" then they could ever be, or just stuck in that high school moment for the rest of their lives.

By 19 I had a lot of real life experience, most kids my age were off to college insecure and susceptible to manipulation; I had a mind of my own that wouldn't be shaken because of those experiences but I knew cheap dive bars and dry wall wasn't going to be the rest of my life. Conversely I also knew bro-ing out at the latest frat party while getting C's and following the latest trend wasn't me either. I knew who I was. Inevitably a lot of kids my age meandered through college or fell into drugs and so on and sort of crashed out; I was already over that and knew what it was and who I was and by 15, just didn't want hard stuff and didn't care for it. Some made it out okay or solid but never with that extra umpf to get them up to the highest levels of profession, that outside the chamber of unique thinking you truly need to do successful things and beautiful things... artful and you to an instinctual level in all aspects of life and your expressions of them, that or they were too scared to apply that thinking to their professions due to those insecurities. Now we all have some shyness short of narcissists, but I never had a lack of boldness when it came to my work or something of the like that I was working on. I simply just believed this would help and was open to improving, I never thought I don't know if I should say something or maybe this is too much.

While the women at some ivy league or UC probably would've been nice to mess around with at that age, I actually had better teachers at community college by a stroke of luck of environment and great hirings they did during that decade. That community college was sort of at a peak in teachers in a way most of those upper schools were and it was cheap. I latched onto it and actually learned what they were teaching, got a job met great millionaire mentors; all of which would've never had happened had I done what I thought I was going to do.

A lot of people who search for success either don't have the drive but have the skill or don't have the skill but have the drive. The truth is a person with both will become great but the path won't always be linear. They will feel a need to crawl out of a situation that isn't providing in the way they need to grow. It is important that as leaders we provide that freedom and space and nurturing for people. I doubt you get a Steven Gerrard without the program of a Liverpool of that time.

So there is a need for structure for some but also a need for freedom for people who can become more, you need to be flexible as a leader and adaptive. A lot of your own success will depend on your ability to move forward from defeats and more importantly victories but always move forward. For me it was an itch a literal natural automated instinct to keep trying and keep going and it still is, and it's as natural as it is for me as walking. I just try for the next thing I have to, but not everyone is like that. I've had to learn to be accepting of that and am because of my life experiences and friendships I've had and still do have form when I was a kid. You learn the intricacies of people and their motivations and lack thereof and your opinion if done right shapes more around the existence of their deeper kindness. My only worry as a kid was that as a poor Hispanic indigenous child in the middle of LA I wouldn't have the chance to do something amazing; my ignorance in that was that as I continued trial and error trying to find a place that would give me the opportunity to prove I could do it and a place that could help me improve to do it, I didn't realize that it was inevitable that if I kept at that search I would find it and I did. I recognized opportunity immediately and seized it.

I'm literally sitting on a family owned 60 acre ranch, with my dream bronco vehicle, with my own company where I can make my own millions now, with a full life of great achievements and conquered adversities, served company and country, I'm in perfect dream-like shape, capable of playing four instruments and using about any known weapon/tool to perfection, having traveled multiple countries, with a brain like an agency genius; and I started my life in SouthGate,CA without a fridge or food to put in it, no money to pay for electricity to turn on lights to do homework with, a family with drama rivaling most 11am novellas, and a body suffering from a self eating nervous system... but even then there was never once a doubt in what I could do, only the amount time I would need to be able to learn it and whether I would want to or would use it, sometimes you just got to keep moving.

I found great teachers and while I doubt most people have touched a million dollars from where I was from, I've literally made companies multi-millions as direct results from projects and achievements that literally came from my ideas; from concept to execution. My most proud achievement though was never sacrificing who I was and being able to truly live while doing it. I've always loved all the people from my place of origin and will, my point is that if you want to make it happen you will and if you don't then that's fine, just don't get discouraged if the path isn't so linear or timely and don't be afraid to find a new way and enjoy the time you have while finding it.

To this very moment and day I have never once doubted what I was capable of, what I was able to learn, and my ability to devote to it. I knew there would be nothing I was incapable of, and I was literally right. To this day there's never been anything at all that I've applied myself to and wasn't great at. The only reason was because I knew I had and do have the brain to learn, I knew I had and do have the devotion and ability to learn, and I knew I had and do have the openness to; and I was right and applied it. With the right leaders and teachers and environment I thrived, had I stayed in a stagnant pond I would've become that myself with a mental block in the way.