I don’t believe that struggle is a necessary part of life, and here’s why:

Life contains natural turbulence. Life is certainly not a smooth ride where everything goes according to expectations and plans.

I view it as similar to getting on a plane. We choose our destination before the flight. We sit down buckle up and pull out our search-a-word book. The plane takes off and the seatbelt sign goes off. At some point, the captain says, “there’s going to be a little turbulence, so I’m turning the seatbelt sign back on.” Then we bump around for a bit and survive the turbulence. The plane lands.

When we started our professional development business, my wife Angie and I had two outcomes in mind:

Success and happiness.

We were tired of the hustle and the spinning wheel of career torture and sacrifice and wanted to enjoy ALL of life, not just some of it.

Today, I woke up on my own terms, carried out my morning routine on my own terms, got in a lift on my own terms, then Angie and I went on a 2-hour walk. We stopped at a coffee shop along the way.

This is not a vacation day. Just an average day in our life.

Every discussion I have leads back to health, wealth, identity, and love. It always comes down to these four factors. When I speak with business owners who are struggling or have big goals, everything they want can be tied back to one of these areas, and sometimes they don’t understand that it’s not those things that they are seeking, but rather to show up in a state of internal, personal power. Internal power will unlock and open every door you desire to have opened. The answer is always inside, yet we always seem to look on the outside.

If she attacks you, it’s because she doesn’t trust you, and you don’t bring safety, security, and love to your relationship.

She doesn’t trust you because you don’t know who you are.

She wants you to stand for something, and show up for something greater than yourself and your family.

If you don’t know who you are and your greater purpose, how can you possibly lead yourself?

If you can’t lead yourself, you can’t lead anything or anyone.

I was always scared to tell folks that they didn’t need more to be happy.

I always felt like I’d be criticized and shamed by the hustle whores and grind gurus.

It was enough to hold me back.

I once believed that people made me angry.

I also believed that others could make me happy, frustrated, sad, disappointed…

I felt like I was just a victim of everyone around me…

Others’ behavior determined MY emotional state.

And I needed others to treat me exactly the way I needed to be treated so that I could feel exactly the way that I wanted to feel.

All three of my girls have jobs.

I don’t have a job.

My girls see me wake up when I want and go to bed when I want.

This is a very personal blog post. Deep realizations for me, and I am grateful for a channel to share my soul and my life’s lessons.

Who you serve and who you sit around a campfire with matters.

Professionally, I’ve worked with people who struggle with both internal happiness and financial success. They are often stuck and will not get out of their own way. There is nothing anyone can do to help. These folks are not fun because they make excuses and claim victim. I grew beyond working with them quickly.

Let’s talk about preference versus judgment.

Imagine I have a glass of water sitting here in front of me and I say, “I like my water cold with lots of ice.” And somebody else may say, “That’s stupid. You like ice in your water? You’re frickin stupid.” Why is that stupid?

We judge all the time based on our preferences. Sure, we prefer certain things, but then we project those preferences onto everyone else.

Desire is a natural part of living life as a human being. You want what you want. You want more money and nicer things. These desires are natural. But some people never move past accumulation as their purpose.

Living a life based on accumulation will leave you high, dry, and unfulfilled. I’ve worked with a tremendous number of leaders who had everything their hearts desired but were still chasing ghosts to try to overcome the emptiness they felt inside. That emptiness is the lack of purpose and impact. They might have moved the needle on their organizations and their bank accounts, but since they don’t feel that they moved the needle on humanity, they continue to feel incomplete.

I’m a Marine Veteran and a former Fortune 500 executive leader. I achieved massive success through sheer force, overworking, and sacrificing everything else in my life for professional success.

In the process I deteriorated from Marine Non-Commissioned Officer (NCO) who was rated the number one NCO in my functional division, to a 300-pound suicidal alcoholic with a dysfunctional family fueled by abuse, neglect, and chemical dependency. My wife Angie was embroiled in a 25-year chemical addiction while I struggled in every way, and my two little girls, Katie and Meagan, witnessed the ravages of two parents who thought money, materials, titles, power, and professional success was all there was to life.

Do you feel you are forcing life or are you enjoying what you are doing and who you are with on a daily basis? We learn most through our failures, not our successes. Competence grows with experience. Mastery comes with extreme competence. In order to increase your competence, you must fail. Celebrate failure. That’s how human beings learn. Master failure, and grow.

If there’s one thing I can say for certain in my life, it’s that what I learned about relationships from the day I was born was 100% wrong.

It’s okay to be living in fear of what the future holds right now. It’s okay to not know. It’s okay to be anxious. It’s okay to dread the uncertainty that the future is bringing us. These are typical human emotions. When I didn’t have a healthy relationship with fear and uncertainty, I became paralyzed and was brought to my knees.

Are you concerned more about creating extraordinary impact and making a massive difference in the world…

Or nurturing relationships with, and the feelings, emotions, and judgments of those who were never aligned with you to begin with?

I’ve spent too much time on the latter and I’ve held myself back.

I can honestly say that I’ve tried to manage impact and the judgment of others, and effectively did neither well.

Today I’m feeling all the emotions around wanting to be wanted more than I want to create impact. More has been revealed to me, and I feel emotional rawness.

Of course, we want to take care of our families. Of course, we want to serve people. Of course, we want to be physically healthy. We want to have pride in ourselves and how we show up in the world, and what role we play with our family. Feeling proud of yourself and achieving is healthy.

That’s healthy pride.

But there’s unhealthy pride that can show up and can cause us a lot of pain.

People are scared right now, I get that. I am too. Fear is a natural human response to uncertainty. But it’s also an amazing time to grow.

Here are some leadership behaviors that serve at all times when you are looking to increase your internal happiness and external circumstances, especially during challenging times:

• Cease blaming anyone else. Stop looking to pin your fear and circumstances on others. That may satisfy your bruised ego and deepest fears, but it will not change your circumstances. Justice is a temporary salve. Personal power ONLY resides in absolute personal responsibility (APR).

Over my years as a coach I’ve learned one powerful unifying force in every single human being on the face of the planet: we crave internal freedom above all else. Some people are chasing love, wealth, health, and fame while others simply chase a more powerful connection with God. Internal freedom. That’s what everyone is trying to attain. It might look different for different people, but we’re all after the same thing. We all experience pain, suffering, and pressure of some sort, and freedom is our answer.

I’ve endured molestation and carried on.

I’ve experienced neglect and abandonment and learned to stand alone.

I’ve witnessed intense violence and bullying and learned to defend myself.

I’ve been called worthless, useless, and a waste of space, only to excel academically and professionally.

I’ve been told I could not become a Marine, and I am. I crushed it.

I assumed responsibility for a failing manufacturing plant, and I led a turn-around from the captain’s seat.

Yesterday, in connecting with a referral, I made two errors. I misread the time we were scheduled to connect and ended up calling about 10 minutes late, and I completely misunderstood who actually connected us, so I misspoke over the phone.

Mistakes like that would have embarrassed me in the past, but that I’ve learned to extend grace to myself.

There are a few things I know for certain every day, and one is that I will make errors and mistakes. I hold myself to a high standard, but I know perfection is never possible.