Not as in the first client that I ever lost, but “first” as in the first client who signed up with me when I opened the doors to my little web marketing startup back in 2009.

It didn’t come as a shock – there had been a lot of tension between us for the past few months, and I actually made the offer to her that we should part ways – but it does highlight a significant point of growth and change in the nature of my business.

There are three lessons that you can pick up about business – and life in general – that I’d like to share that I’m wrestling with through this experience.

1.) It’s okay to let your business change and adapt.

I once interviewed for an Analytics position with a local online company. They prided themselves on their “scrappiness,” the ability to rapidly adapt and grow, wearing different hats to get the job done.

If you’re a solo entrepreneur or a small business owner, you’re not only allowed to let your business change, but you’re required to.

My business model has changed dramatically since I opened my doors. I started off as a social media consultancy. I’ve developed websites for clients. I’ve designed and taught marketing seminars.

I’ll lay it out there clearly… In the first three years of business ownership, I’ve changed my business model three times. That’s far too often, and it makes things really confusing for clients and employees like. But the lessons that I have learned from those changes have been absolutely critical in the growth of my business.

Make change early, while you can. If something isn’t working, don’t do more of it. Your business will fail if you don’t let some things go and make change for the better.

2.) Some pruning may be necessary to let your business grow.

A rose bush won’t flourish if it has too many buds on it. The buds lower on the vine take away the vital nutrients that the other buds need to grow. In order to get the most beautiful blooms, you have to prune the lower buds to allow the bush to flourish.

The same is absolutely true of a growing business. When you find yourself wondering if there’s something stunting the growth of your business and you’re eyeing a specific client or service offering that doesn’t produce the fruit that you were expecting, it may be time to truthfully assess your business and examine if it is time to prune your client base.

That’s not to say it will be easily. In fact, you’ll probably be terrified. But from time to time, pruning is necessary to produce better blooms – better results, better service, etc. – for your clients. In turn, you’ll find yourself with a more profitable business and more leads through referral marketing.

3.) When you do make a change, do so with grace.

Here’s the deal… When you make changes in your business, one party or the other may end up with the short end of the stick. Whether it’s losing revenue, having your feelings hurt, or otherwise,

If possible, make that change with grace. I’m at the crossroads with this client where I have to make a tough decision. Either I need to take a significant hit on revenue – not just a little hit, but one that is going to hurt pretty bad – or I need to pass the cost on to my ex-client.

Grace, in this context, is bowing out in a way that puts the other party above yourself. Practically, in my case, that’s going to mean taking the hit on revenue to make sure my client has the best experience possible as we part ways. Could I leave her hanging? Yeah. I might even go so far to say that it’s almost expected that I would do so.

Economically, it would make a lot of sense. In the business world, MBAs would say, “Guard your bottom line. Do what’s best of the company.”

Forget that. It’s crap. Do what’s best for the client. Leave them better than they were when they came to you.

If you do this, I promise you, the long term reward will be far greater than the short term gain. You’ll leave the relationship on a high note. Even if my client doesn’t see it that way – maybe she’ll just go on thinking that I’ve screwed her over – but I’ll be able to move on without being embittered, which is going to be crucial to my business growth in the coming months and years.

What say you? What changes do you need to make in your business to help it grow?

Here’s a short list of areas where people usually try to find stability:

• Work
• Retirement funds
• Relationships
• Kids
• School
• Self

What’s the common theme?  Every single one of those things is transient.  Each one fails to be ultimately or supremely stable.

In our economy, a job is never guaranteed.  The stock market oscillates off the charts.  Our society’s view or relationships is pretty jacked up (“I’ll stay with you…  as long as I’m happy.”)  Kids grow up and leave the home.  School doesn’t guarantee a good job anymore (I know PhDs in Law who are working in entry level sales jobs).

And contrary to what the self-help gurus will tell you, we will never live up to the standards we set for ourselves.

Where do you seek stability?  Where do you find it?  How do you navigate this crazy world?

It’s been a while since I’ve written, so let me catch you up on my life.

If you’re new here, let this serve as an introduction. If you’ve been around for a while, hold on to your seats, because this is going to rock your socks.

In the past year, I’ve:

1. Become a Christian…
2. Started preaching and leading worship…
3. Gotten engaged…
4. Gotten married…
5. Hired my first employee for my website optimization company – along with five more…
6. And recently, my lovely wife and I learned we’re pregnant with our first child.

Needless to say, life is a bit different for me than it was less than a year ago.

Fear not – if you’re not a Christian, I’m not out to convert you. I’ll discuss my faith and its impact on my life, and if that offends you, you’re welcome to unsubscribe.

If you are a Christian, I’m not out to preach to you and tell you how to live your life. If you want to hear me preach, you’ll have to drop by our youth ministry on a Sunday when it’s my turn to teach

You’ll be hearing all about those things in various capacities over the coming months, but with that update out of the way, let’s talk business.

In this post, I’m going to briefly outline three ways that coming to faith has revolutionized the way that I do business – and significantly improved my impact on my own little corner of the world.

1.) I’ve become radically focused on service

Christ served. Secular or Christian, there’s really no debate about this. His ministry was to serve to the glory of God, not Himself.

When a business engages in this sort of service – the kind of service that prioritizes others above oneself – everyone wins. Working hard to do a kickass job at what we do not only helps our clients’ businesses grow, but it yields awesome returns on our investment through referrals.

2.) My business has become my Mission

I’m not talking about the Tom Cruise/Mission Impossible kind of mission here. I’m talking about the capital-M Mission of God, which is to serve and bring the good news of the Gospel to the nations.

To be a follower of Christ is to engage directly in the mission of God with every facet of your life. Rededicating my business to His mission has given me both the reward that comes from being a good steward of the gifts and talents that I have as well as the freedom that comes from understanding that I’m not in charge.

By aligning your heart and your work with a mission greater than yourself, you find yourself with the drive to keep going, even when things get hard. What’s more, when you’re engaged with that mission alongside others you find that you have the encouragement and support that we all need to push through. We were made for fellowship and community with others, and being part of something bigger than yourself brings you into close relationship with others on the same path.

3.) The Gospel has helped me loosen my grip on my cash – and invest more of it in my business and in the Kingdom

Let’s be clear about something… I don’t make a crapload of money. I live pretty well, and I provide for my wife and our dog, but I’m not going to pretend that I’m making a million dollars a year.

To follow Christ is to be generous with others because He is generous with us. I’ve always been stingy. While I chalk it up to growing up dirt poor and having a terrible relationship with money, the truth is that I don’t give nearly as freely as I should.

You can imagine, then, that hiring my first contractor was terrifying. I’d built my business doing all of the work myself so I could keep all of the cash to myself, and suddenly I found myself writing a check to someone else to do something that I could do better myself.

The results have been awesome. Not only does hiring others free me to invest more creative energy in my business, but it gives me the opportunity to provide for others in a time when jobs are scarce on a global scale. I have a project manager in the Philippines, a developer in Pakistan, a writer in Southern California. Our team is spread out across the globe, and we do a pretty awesome job working together and supporting one another.

Bottom line: Christ has transformed the way I do business by transforming my heart

Look, I’ve always considered myself a pretty good person… But the truth of the Gospel has a way of bringing to light struggles that you never even know that you have.

You may never have heard the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and I’m happy to share it with you anytime you have questions. In the meantime, I hope that you’ll stick around and watch my life and work, so that you can see my testimony of how I’ve changed – and will continue to change – through the transformative power of the grace of God.

Questions? Comments? Concerns? Drop a line in the comments below.

Therefore, as my enthusiasm for my writing waned and I was drawn to other things, I started to carry a heavy burden of guilt, for I felt as if I was abandoning those who counted on me to improve their lives.

There are a couple of inherent problems with the inner turmoil that developed, however, and overcoming them has been the most rewarding experience that I’ve had in a long time.

First, because of my ego, I believed that the people who I was serving relied on me to provide for them, and that they had no other resource to whom they could turn for support.

Second, because of my narrowmindedness, I did myself–and the world–a disservice by neglecting a strong calling to new opportunities that could better develop and leverage my natural talents.

Two things that I am currently learning in my journey.

As I am a lover of learning and personal development, I do my best to be better each day than I was the day before.  There are two things that I’m currently learning and developing in myself that I’d like to share with you.

1.) Ego is the enemy of service

As I started seeing the fruits of my labor on The Tao of Rob, I started to believe that I was solely responsible for the wellbeing of those who I served.  Through the feedback I received, I felt power.  I exalted myself to believe that I was a provider, rather than a servant.

And so, I lost touch with service and acted out of pride, not love.  There is no more common or more devastating a tragic flaw in good people as ego, for ego claims its victims without mercy.

Discard your ego.  Shun vanity.  Serve with humility, for he who exalts himself will be despised by those he believes himself to be above.

2.) Your potential is far greater than you could ever imagine.

There are billions of human beings in this world, most of whom are waiting for someone like you or I to serve them with our talents.

When you’re young, as I am, that calling can change rapidly, for we’re still learning about what exactly we can offer the world.  When you’re in your 40s or 50s, like some of my readers, that calling may change slowly, but one day you’ll feel a strong attraction to some other opportunity or path, and you will refuse to act because of a sense of fear or pride.

But here is the truth–every one of those opportunities that you are given to change is an opportunity to move closer to your true potential.  It’s an opportunity for growth, an opportunity to develop your gifts and talents and to better serve yourself and others.

Two practical steps for improving your life through service to others.

There are two actions that I want you to take in reading these words.

1.) Drop your ego in order to humble yourself to your calling.

First, in the grand scheme of things, you are not so important that you can’t be replaced.  That may come across as an insult to you, but I say these words to you in order to empower you.

For you are likely thinking to yourself, “There has to be more to life than this.”  You might feel an intense calling to serve overseas, or to start a new business, or to take a job in a new industry in which you believe that you are unqualified.

But, if you’re like every other human being on the face of the Earth, fear of the unknown and pride in your position of security hold you back.  Because the fear of changing your situation is more intense than the strength of the discomfort that you may feel by not following your mission to serve in the way that you are called, you do nothing.

And doing nothing is reprehensible.

So when I say that you’re not so important that you can’t be replaced, I mean it to empower you to rise above where you currently are and set your sights on your calling.

2.) Explore, acknowledge, and develop your true talents.

You have talents of which you are entirely unaware.  You have gifts that you’ve not yet received.  It is your right–nay, your duty–to use those talents to your full ability.

Let go of your fear, your pride, your ego and step out into the world, humbling yourself to true service and use your talents and abilities in the most productive way possible.

No matter your life situation, if you feel a strong calling to pursue a new chapter of your life, take it. Your first response will likely to be to resist, saying, “No, I can’t do that because [insert your favorite excuse here].”

(I’m the MASTER at making excuses, just for the record, so don’t think I’m preaching here.)

New opportunities are not inconveniences, thrown into your path to hinder you or distract you from your true goal.  Instead, they are given to you for a reason.  For only through exploring these opportunities can you develop your potential.

Consider this…  If you stay in that safe, 9-to-5 job, are you really moving toward your potential?  Sure, you might pick up a couple of new word processing skills and you might save up enough money to retire on over the course of 30 or 40 years, but are you exercising your talents to the best of your ability?

You have massive potential.  There is always a way that you can improve yourself.  The next time one of those opportunities falls in your lap, seize it. Do not let it go by without acting on it, for to do so is to do yourself–and others–a disservice.

What will you do today to move boldly in the direction of your calling?  How will you develop yourself so that you can better serve others?

Leave a comment if this post has moved you to action.

I took a job.  On Jan. 31, I officially started working for BrandGlue, a Facebook marketing agency in Washington state, to head up their sales and marketing initiatives.  I work remotely from my home office on my terms.  As long as I get the job done, our CEO is happy.

You might be surprised–as much as I’ve preached about creating your own work to live your life, why am I taking a job?

Part of it is for the consistent income to help me focus on building my business the right way.  Part of it is to sharpen my skills as a marketer to better serve my clients.

But a lot of it is so I can figure out what a “real job” is.

Except for a couple of fast food jobs in high school, I’ve never had a “real job.”  When I was 11, I started a lawn care business (big business, let me tell you), taking my parents’ lawn mower from door to door offering to mow lawns, and reinvesting the revenue back into gas.

In college, I did freelance web design for a while, then started a marketing consultancy.  And I took my marketing skills to the small business world after I graduated.

But I’ve never had a real job.  And I believe that, if I’m going to effectively serve my purpose and help people be successful by working for themselves, I need to understand where they are now and what they deal with day in and day out.

Working for someone else is physically and emotionally draining.

In my current role, I’m a salesperson.  As an introvert, interacting with people is a physically and emotionally draining activity.  So as I’ve been doing it day in and day out over the past three weeks, I’ve been going through life pretty much like a zombie.

I’ve started avoiding social activities–I haven’t been to my martial arts classes in two weeks because I just don’t want to be around people.

I believe this experience really highlights the importance of finding work that fits with your natural talents.  In my situation, I can learn to be an extrovert in a sales role, but it doesn’t suit my natural communication style.

When you have no energy, there isn’t much motivation to succeed.

Nearly everyone, regardless of profession, will end up doing work that drains them.  You, too.  That work, I’ve discovered, can totally drain you of any motivation to be successful.

The pressure that I’ve experienced thus far in my new role has been so great that all I want to do at the end of the day is sprawl out on the couch and play video games.

And so, at the end of the day, when I preach that you should get off of your ass and start working for yourself, now I get it it. I’ve heard all sorts of excuses.  ”I don’t have time.”  ”I don’t know what I could do to earn money.”  While those excuses seem to be true, I find that there is usually more to it than you recognize.

It’s all part of something deeper.  You don’t want to create work for yourself. Before you jump out of your chair, unsubscribe from my mailing list, and write me a nasty email, think about it.  Do you really want to expend extra energy after a long day at work?

It’s not about the work, though.  I’d wager that you do want to create work for yourself.  You just don’t want to expend the energy to do it.  And so you rationalize the idea away.  ”I don’t have time.”  ”I don’t have an idea.”

It’s about the energy. To successfully create your own work, you need the time, the energy, and the inspiration to step out into the unknown.  And a draining job robs you of those needs.

In order to find that energy and inspiration, you have to create work that feeds and inspires you.

Improve your condition today by shifting the way you do your job.

Work is draining because it doesn’t fit your natural talents and abilities.  In my example, I’m forced into a situation where I have to perform as an extrovert when I’m one of the most introverted people you’ll ever meet.  For extroverts, staying cooped up inside of a cubicle all day is maddening (whereas someone like me would enjoy it).

The important part, I believe, is to seek out your natural talents–the activities that energize you, the prospect of which pulls you out of bed in the morning–and to proactively shape your job to be more in line with who you are.

Let me give you three steps on how you can find work within your existing job that fires you up.

Three steps to negotiating for work that excites you in the job you already have

1.)  Identify your natural talents.

Think back through your personal and professional lives.  What excites you?  What fires you up?

To get really deep into this subject, I recommend the free online Keirsey Temperament Sorter for finding your personality type and StrengthsFinder 2.0 ($12.86 at Barnes & Noble) for discovering your natural talents.  Make sure you buy a new copy of StrengthsFinder, because there is a one-time code in the back of the book to take the assessment online.

2.) Identify alternatives to your current situation.

“If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.” – Cheshire Cat, Alice in Wonderland.

If you want to improve your quality of life at the workplace, you need to know what alternative you would like to pursue.

Start by making a list of the tasks and circumstances that you dislike about your job and the environment you work in.  This should be easy.  Most people spend hours of their time bitching about their jobs.  All you’re doing is writing it down.  Don’t stop until you have at least 25 things.

Next, write down everything that you do like about your job.  This is going to be a little harder–we tend to focus on what we don’t like far more often than we focus on what we do enjoy.  Again, don’t stop until you have 25 things.

Applying the strengths and abilities that you identified in step one to the likes and dislikes of your job, what can you do differently? The goal here is to craft a new way of approaching your current job description such that you can accomplish the same results in a way that is better suited to your talents and abilities.

3.) Step up and take control.

With every element of your life, you are in complete control.  You don’t have to settle for the role that your boss has defined for you.

So here’s what you’re going to do.  Ask for more work.

Using the list of alternative ways to successfully complete your job, bring up one new idea to management that will add value to the company in a way that is better suited to your natural talents.  You may have to work more, but if you choose the work wisely (meaning it is something that you will enjoy), the added work with be energizing rather than draining.

You should be able to complete this task quickly and easily with tremendous results if it is a good fit for you.  After you have done so, take your results back to management and ask for a second alternative task.

By stepping up and taking additional responsibilities, you’ll set yourself apart from 99% of the other employees in your workplace.  You’ll position yourself as a self-starter and an innovator, giving you leverage to ultimately craft a new job description for yourself in which you focus only on tasks that energize you.

What can you improve about your current job?  What is the first step in doing work that fires you up?

What I didn’t mention is that it was inspired by someone who blindsided me with gratitude.  It was exactly what I needed to give me a second wind and keep me going in a time when I was starting to believe that I was on the wrong path.

In this post, I’m going to show you how, with every little thing that you do to help someone else, you’re impacting more people than you can imagine.

Stop.  Smell roses.

I’ve been feeling totally insecure about my work for the past couple of months.

Back in November, I launched The Lifestyle MBA program to help people start tiny businesses that helped them live their best lives possible.

At the end of December, it seemed like everyone had lost interest, and I felt like it was me who wasn’t good enough.  So I put the program on hold and started having personal conversations with everyone to try and put my finger on what exactly I was doing wrong.

That’s when a DJ in Greenville, NC blew my mind.

I was chatting on Skype with brotherSouL, one of the folks I invited to join the program as an inaugural member.  His dream is to travel the world, collaborating with musicians all around the globe to help them share their art.

I asked him, “What are you finding most valuable about The Lifestyle MBA?”

His response:

The program opened my mind, man.  I feel so trapped in this traditional mindset.  Connecting with you and going back over notes from the classes have helped me hone in some out-the-box things that, to this point, I’ve thought pointless because it didn’t seem feasible.  I’ve changed my paradigm about how I can do what I want to do… and why.

I was like, “Holy crap…”  I had no idea.  In an instant, I was inspired again.  I had not a doubt in my mind that I was on the right track.  That comment was the empowerment that I needed to go forth and help even more people see the world differently.

I had never, in a million years, considered that what seemed so mundane to me was impacting others in such a meaningful way.

We all have things that are second nature to us.  For me, it’s this sort of thing…  Working with folks to help them do awesome stuff.  I ask hard questions.  I make people’s brains hurt.

I help people think so radically differently about their lives that their entire worldview changes.

But you can never really gauge the impact that you’re having on another human being until you get feedback. When you’re doing what you love, money isn’t a just reward.  Instead, gratitude is the currency on which we thrive, the fuel that keeps us going and gets us out of bed in the morning.

And I never would have known if I didn’t take the time to ask.

I would like you to do two things with this story.

First, I want you to stop what you’re doing–right now–and let someone know how much of an impact that they have had on your life.  It is the greatest reward that you can give someone.

Second, I want you to go to the people who you serve–either with your business or with your job–and ask them what value that you provide.  What I’ve learned is that there are many people out there who sit quietly on the sidelines, taking in what you have to offer but not speaking up.  Those are the people who you are impacting the most.  It’s your job to check in on them.

Who have you had an impact on today?

You’ve probably long since forgotten many of them.  Heck, I have a folder on my computer filled with unfinished books and manifestos.  I’m the king of not following through on things that I get started.

And every single time that I quit something, it’s because I reach a point where there is a gap between what I’ve accomplished so far and what I want to achieve in the end.

In this post, I’m going to talk about how focusing on your end goal can blind you to what’s really important, and how to leverage the resources that you have right now to help you reach those goals faster than you’ve ever thought possible.

First, let’s talk about what it takes to make a dream come true.

Results are born out of a two part formula:

1. Knowing exactly what you want the end result to look like, in vivid detail.
2. Leveraging what you have right now to help you get there.

People fail when they forget one or the other.  Either they forget to create a crystal clear picture of the end result, or they forget to leverage what they have here and now in order to get there.

I’ve written at length the importance of knowing what you want to get out of life.  In the words of the great Lewis Carroll:

“If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.”

But knowing what you want to get out of life is just one part of the equation.  Second, you need to know how to get from where you are to where you want to be.

You’ll never have a complete plan, for the best laid plans will change the moment that you put them into action.  Success, instead, is a product of knowing the very next step and leveraging the resources that you have today in order to get there.

Let me give you a real life example of what I’m talking about.

Yesterday afternoon, I was having a discussion with a new friend.

Diane [name changed to protect the innocent] has a dream to transform her late grandmother’s home into a retreat center at which she plans to help change people’s lives through classes in personal and spiritual development.

The way she talks about the dream gets you wrapped up in the scene.  She can describe–in vivid detail–every section of the house, from the hardwood floors to the colors of the walls.  She sees people sharing stories around a campfire in the back yard, with classes taught indoors and goats and chickens running around the property.

This is perfect, because falling in love with the scene is the first step in making your dreams a reality.

But something was holding her back.

As with any life goal, a host of barriers stand in Diane’s way.  Left unchecked, these barriers can be daunting.

For Diane, she would have to fix up the house, paint the rooms, find the goats and chickens, develop the classes, find people to attend…  And that’s just the beginning.

When you break down a major project, you start to see many of the steps that you’re going to have to accomplish to make it a reality.  This is paralyzing.

Seriously…  How many projects have you created and abandoned because you thought, “Well, I have no idea how I’m going to make that happen.”  My list is a mile long.

The same thing was going on with Diane.  She has this burning desire to make something happen, but she can’t see a way to break the project into chunks.

Victory is born out of leveraging what you have today to propel you to where you want to be tomorrow.

Let me be really clear about something…  While it’s imperative to have a detailed idea of what you want to accomplish, you will not accomplish it in one step.  Like I shared last week, living your ideal life is a long series of tiny steps in the right direction.

And so the magic starts when you identify what you can do today to live out some part of that dream.

The single most important element in any project is to take the first step, and stressing over everything that needs to be done isn’t going to help make that happen.

Let go of the big picture to focus on what you can do now.

In my talks with Diane, I quickly learned that she was blinded by her vision for her grandmother’s house.  She was focused on the end result of her labor.  She focused on all of the work that needed to be done on the house in order to prepare a retreat center.

She lost sight of the fact that the true purpose for creating the house was to help other people by teaching them how to live happier, healthier lives.

So I advised Diane to take a first step and start living her passion today by starting to organize her classes now. Remember, your passion isn’t something that you do or make, it’s a game of crafting an experience for other human beings.

That tiny nudge was enough to shift her perspective.

Suddenly, the house was no longer a roadblock.  She realized that she could do what she loved to do–teach people how to live healthier lives–even without the house.

Immediately, opportunities came to mind.  She thought of people who could lead the classes.  She thought of opportunities to find people who would like to attend.  In an instant, she was on fire.

As she lives her passion, she will gather the resources to make her retreat center a reality.  She will find people who will want to join her in achieving her goal, attracting into her life the people who believe in her mission and who will go out of their way to help her grow.

As long as you’re moving in the right direction and impacting people along the way, you’ll be living your dream with each and every step of the journey.

Success starts with leveraging the resources that you have now.

If you pursue success by striving for that which you don’t have, you will always be one step behind.

If you look around you, however, at that which you do have, and you apply your resources reaching your goal, you will find yourself moving in the right direction.

In Diane’s case, she was looking at the problem backwards–first, renovate the house, then start teaching classes.  The end goal–that dream of opening a retreat center–was a roadblock that was holding her back from living her true purpose.

If you find yourself standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon with no way across, take a look around.  You never know who is standing by to help you build a bridge.

What is your dream, and what can you do right now to start living it?

1. Know what you want.
2. Find a way to get there.

Conceptually, it’s not all that difficult.

The problem is that it’s really freakin’ hard to settle on “what you want to be when you grow up.”  Making a decision feels dangerous.  After all, what if you choose wrong?

So most people just don’t act.  They stick it out in their boring, everyday lives, unwilling to take risk because they’re afraid that they’re going to make the wrong choice.

This is totally unacceptable.

Seriously…  If you’re willing to settle for that, stop reading my blog right now.  Close your browser and come back when you’re ready because there is nothing that I can say here that will do you any good.

But you’re better than that.  You’re reading this post because you know that life can be better.  You want it.  You’re willing to take the steps to make it happen.

And it’s easier than you’d ever imagine.

Just take one little step toward making your life a little bit better.

I want you to stop and ask yourself, “Am I living the life that I want?”  If the answer is “yes,” awesome. You’re officially in the 2% of the population who are.

But 50 to 1 odds say that you’re not totally satisfied with your life.  And so I challenge you to stop and ask yourself a second question–”How can I make my life better today?”

Take just one little step to improve upon what you have now to make your life more like you believe it should be.  I took my step today–I got off my ass and wrote this post.  I haven’t been updating my blog regularly because I’ve been totally confused about what I’m put on this earth to do.

And today, I said, “Screw it.  I’m going to improve someone’s life today.”  And here we are.

So ask yourself this question every single day of your life. “What can I do differently today to make my life just a little bit better?”  Ask it over and over again until the answer is, “Nothing.  Life is perfect.”

And it all starts with one little step in the right direction.

What can you do differently today?

In this post, I want to show you that asking yourself “what you want to be when you grow up” isn’t nearly as important as asking yourself “what am I passionate about today?”

And I’m going to show you how one of the most famous men in America battled with that question for 22 years before he walked on the moon.

When I was a kid, I thought I wanted to be an astronaut.

Taking a trip to outer space was every kid’s dream.  Looking up at the stars, imagining themselves looking down on the Earth from a space ship, 60 miles above the surface…  I was fascinated by the Final Frontier.

I did a lot of research on astronauts.  As a six year old, my encyclopedia was more worn than most kids’ comic books.  I watched videos of rocket launches, and then I went out and built my own model rockets.

But the more I learned and the more I dreamed, the more I got this nagging feeling of self-doubt.  ”You can’t be an astronaut,” it said.  And that got me thinking.  Was I really cut out to be an astronaut?  I started making all sorts of excuses for why I couldn’t be one.  I wore glasses.  I had asthma.  I was overweight.

I had reached a crucial point in my budding astronaut career.

Seth Godin calls it the dip.  It’s that point where the high of getting started on a new project wears off and reality starts to catch up to you.  It’s the point where the work starts to get hard.

“If something is worth doing, there’s probably a dip.” – Seth Godin

When I learned what it took to become an astronaut, I hit my dip.  I was in fifth grade, pondering a decision that most adults aren’t mature enough to ask themselves.  Do I have the guts to see this through?

Since you’re getting to know me in this blog and not from the news, you can probably guess what my answer was.

I wanted the result of flying in space, but I wasn’t committed to the process that would make it happen.  My dream of looking down through a tiny, round window as the Earth lay sprawled out below me was an infatuation.  I didn’t want to be an astronaut.  I just wanted to do what an astronaut did.

A lesson in walking on the moon from the first man to do it.

Let me tell you a story of a man who did commit to breaking through the dip–Neil Armstrong.  More than forty years after setting foot on the moon, Armstrong continues to be the envy of aspiring little astronauts all over the world.

But most people pick up his story near its climax, with the words “That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.”  What few people care to read about is the back story about how he got there in the first place.

It took Armstrong 22 years to reach the Moon.

Armstrong walked on the Moon in 1969, but his story starts more than 20 years prior when he entered Purdue University as an aerospace engineering student 1947.  He went in on a Navy scholarship which required him to start his degree, serve for two years in the Navy, and then return to finish his degree.

If there was ever a man who must have battled the dip, it was Armstrong.  The 22 years from the time he enrolled in school to the time he set foot on the moon were filled with hard work, dedication, perseverance, and a good bit of luck.

He started studying engineering at Purdue in 1947. He was an average student with a wildly fluctuating GPA.

He was called to active duty in the Korean War in 1949. He flew fighter planes as an escort to recon planes over North Korea.

During the war, his plane was shot down by anti aircraft fire and he was forced to eject over open water.

He received his B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from Purdue in 1955. He wanted to become an experimental research pilot, but there were no open positions.  He took a job flying chase planes at Edwards AFB.

Persistence paid off, and he flew his first experimental plane in 1957. He logged 2,450 flying hours–and he even crashed a few multi-million-dollar aircraft.

His wife, Karen, died of a tumor on her brain stem in 1962. The couple had three children together.

He submitted his application to participate in a second round of recruitment for NASA astronauts. His application arrived a week late, but a close personal friend working in the Manned Spacecraft Center noticed the application and slipped it into the pile unnoticed.

He was one of nine astronauts invited to join the program. He flew the Gemini missions, becoming the third man to walk in space, and the first to dock two spacecraft together.

And then he got lucky–again.

When it came time for the U.S. to put a man on the Moon, Armstrong happened to be in the right place at the right time.

Armstrong joined the Apollo program in 1967.  What most people don’t know is that during the Apollo missions, flight crews rotated with each mission and there were several attempts before Armstrong was up.

In training for Apollo 1, several crew members died when they were trapped in a fire during a training exercise.  Apollo 4 through 7 were test missions.  Apollo 8 orbited the Moon ten times, but couldn’t land because the lunar module wasn’t ready for go.  Apollo 10 tested the lunar module, descending to 15.6 kilometers from the Moon’s surface without touching down.

And Armstrong just happened to be named commander of Apollo 11, the first mission to actually land on the Moon.

Armstrong wasn’t meant to be the first man out.

Technically, according to protocol, Buzz Aldrin was supposed to be the first man on the moon.  But in rehearsal for the “real deal,” they realized that in order for Aldrin to be the first man out, that he would have to climb over Armstrong–fully suited up–to reach the hatch.

So on July 20, 1969, Armstrong became perhaps one of the luckiest men in human history.  He happened to be in the right place at the right time, over and over again–luck that he created for himself by being determined and persistent in his line of work.

For Armstrong, it wasn’t about walking on the Moon.

It wasn’t even about being an astronaut.  Neil Armstrong became the first man to set foot on the Moon because he was fascinated by flight.

It was a fascination with flying and a deeply rooted desire to pursue that passion that led him to engineering.  That same fascination led him to flying fighter jets, then to flying experimental aircraft, and then to training to become an astronaut.

That’s what kept him going through the dips. He was shot down in North Korea.  He was an average student.  He was turned down for a job as a research pilot.  He wrecked aircraft.  His wife died of cancer.  He missed the deadline for NASA’s call for astronauts.

But his fascination of flight kept him going.

And do you know what he did after he returned to Earth after becoming the first man to walk on the moon?  He went back to earn his Masters’ in Aerospace Engineering from USC.

The secret to loving what you do is pursue what fascinates you.

I’ve personally learned a lesson from Armstrong’s story.  You’ll never know what you want to be when you grow up. Instead, focus on who you are, right here, right now.  Pursue what is meaningful to you in the moment.

People become blinded by “professions” and “degrees.”  They think that, in order to teach, they need to go to school to become a teacher.  That’s bullshit.  If you want to teach, teach.  Become a tutor.  Start teaching workshops in an area that you’re passionate about.  You don’t have to “become a teacher” in order to teach.

If I want to fly, I can take flying lessons.  For $112k, I can own my own plane.  I don’t need to spend years of training to “become a pilot” to do so.

And if you want to stare down at the Earth through a tiny window from 60 miles above its surface, you’ll soon be able to book a flight for $200,000.  (It’s on my list of things to do.)

Don’t let yourself be driven by what you want to do.  Let yourself be driven by what fascinates you.  If something sticks, then commit yourself to becoming the best in the world at that one thing.  But if you don’t have the dedication to work though the dip like Armstrong did time and time again, have the guts to say “this isn’t right” and move on.

Don’t worry about what you want to do.  Find who you want to be.

What gets you out of bed in the morning?  What makes you say to yourself, “Yeah…  That’s what I’m supposed to be doing with my life”?

For me, it’s part figuring out how things work, and then teaching others.  It’s part challenging people’s perceptions of what is possible and what is not.  It’s part inspiring others to become better than they are.

My friend, Ryan, is an engineering student at NC State University.  Who knows… Maybe he’ll be the next man on the moon.

Or maybe he’ll be the first person on Mars…

I haven’t been posting much lately.  I’ve been doing a lot of self reflection, battling with self doubt, questioning my motives and wondering why I do what I do.  I’ve wondered if my actions were in line with my values.

And so, I decided to turn inward to examine why I write.  A few weeks back, I promised that I’d bare my soul to help change the world.  This is it.

I write to inspire.

I believe that the world needs more “doers.” Too many of us sit idly by and wait for someone else to change the world for us.  I’m on a mission to change that.

Once upon a time, I was a hardcore marketer.  I lived, breathed, and dreamed about social media marketing.  A walking, talking encyclopedia of social media tactics, strategies, and case studies, I was a damned good consultant.

But all of my work, all of my blogging, everything…  It was all aspirational. I told people all about what they could do, but rarely gave them the inspiration to go do it.

This blog is my way of making up for that.  My goal is to inspire people to go out and be awesome, and then to give them the tools to make it happen.

I write to mature.

Some of my colleagues in the writing world will tell you everything that you can do.  They’ll give you seven tips on how to make your life more awesome.  They’ll show you three hundred and seventeen ways to earn money online.

But how many of them are living it?  I’d argue that most bloggers are simply doing lip service.  They write for what they think people will click on and share with their friends.

For me, writing is a process of developing my core values and my beliefs and then aligning my actions to them.

I’ve decided to write from my heart.  To hell with copywriting tricks and traffic secrets.  I want to find people who can accept me for who I am and what I stand for, not how well I can write a sales page.

I write to relax.

I find writing deeply therapeutic.  The more ideas you have running through your head, the more difficult it is to hang on to all of them.

By writing, I give myself the opportunity to get ideas out of my head, letting them loose to the world and making room for fresh thoughts.

I write to find and connect kindred spirits.

For a long time, I felt alone.

Since I started writing, I’ve connected with dozens of people who believe what I believe.  I’ve found passionate people around the world and learned more about life from them than I’d ever learn on my own.

The most beautiful thing, though, is when I have an opportunity to bring my readers together and make connections amongst them, because we can only change the world if we do it together.

I write to earn a living.

“99% of everything done in the world–good or bad–is done to pay a mortgage. Maybe the world would be a better place if more people rented.” – Thank You For Smoking.

I’m not one of those bloggers who will pretend that I’m not earning money with it.  I’ve got to pay the bills.

That said, it doesn’t earn money like you might think.  My Lifestyle MBA program was a total flop (more on that another time).

Where I do find great success is in connecting with readers.  I meet some of my best clients after they read my blog.  I have people come to me regularly to ask how they can get started with a blog (it’s that whole inspiration thing).  I earn only when I genuinely serve…  A lesson that I’m learning a bit more with every word that I write.

I write to change the world.

I firmly believe that the world needs more passionate people who are out there sharing their stories, touching others, and inspiring the world to be better.

Imagine a world in which people stand up for that in which they believe.  Imagine people learning to inspire others with that vision for the world, coming together for good.

This is my vision for the world.  What’s yours?