Years ago, I woke up with a pain in my stomach. But I don’t get sick, I thought to myself. Ever since I had begun my self-mastery journey, I hadn’t been getting sick or having any pains. I may have had some muscle pain from pushing myself while running or lifting, but I didn’t get sick, and my body was healthier than ever. This was strange, unexpected and surprising.

I see the world in themes. Usually, when there’s a message brewing inside of me, I see that same message throughout the day, week, or even month. I’m a spiritual guy and I’ve seen the power of astrology, and I do believe that there are ebbs and flows to our energy and areas of focus. We’re all in this together and experiencing similar challenges, opportunities, and cycles.

One time when I wrote a Facebook post about how I had gotten it all wrong by putting my family first, one guy interacted with the post only by putting one of those little angry-faced emoticons. I guess I’m in the business of making new friends. I stand by my position. I put my family first for many years. Now I don’t. They know that, too.

It might sound awful to say put your family last, but I’d rather live this way and have them prosper than to follow the norms of society and have them still experience the chaos they once witnessed. Let me explain.

I create a lot of content. A lot.  On a weekly basis, I record videos and training modules for my membership community, articles for publications in which I actively contribute, and blogs for my blog site. I also appear as a guest on podcasts and regularly speak to professionals on stage and in a corporate training environment. I am always up for serving, and content creation runs through my veins. My messages usually have a positive vibe, with ideas for implementation.

I was once Plant Manager for a $65 million manufacturing plant. Authority, autonomy, and accountability for results were all I ever wanted. When I aspired to this role, I had it all in my lap despite hating several aspects. I figured that in a higher position I’d be able to delegate the annoying tasks, but the budgets didn’t allow for that. So, there were parts of the job that I “had to” do in order to be able to “get to” do parts that I loved. Eventually, I loved fewer and fewer aspects. I felt stuck. After a few years, I moved on to another position that I thought would be a better fit. It wasn’t, and I found myself fired within 2 years.

After a long, successful run in corporate America, in March of 2016, I was fired from my second executive position in about 20 months. I was lost, and I didn’t know the next step in my life, family, or career. I felt mentally and emotionally paralyzed and thought my run of success was over.

A friend of mine who had started coaching on a professional basis called me and begin asking questions about my termination, my current state, and my future intentions. After a few calls, he asked if I wanted some help moving forward. He was a friend, and I said yes. His immediate response was, “are you saying yes to support from a friend or a coach?” This question shocked me because, well, we were friends. I never thought about him as a coach I thought coaching and his coaching business was a joke. I struggled with the concept of paying someone to talk to me and be my friend.

When my girls were toddlers, they would come into my bedroom in the morning to wake me up. My day began with a kiss on the cheek from either Katie or Meagan. They would wait for me to wake up. Sometimes it took them a few kisses. I would pretend to be asleep to get another kiss or two. When I did finally wake up I would whisper, “go ahead downstairs and I’ll be down.” This happened for the first 8-9 years of their lives until their “independence” kicked in. I was sad when the morning kisses stopped.

When my first daughter was still a baby, my wife Angie and I discussed how we were going to parent her. We decided on some of the family rules that we were going to lay down to establish boundaries and basic rules of engagement. The conversation was somewhat tense because we were two different people from two different backgrounds, trying to establish a path for our new family. Both of us were new parents, so every experience was new to us, including the expectations we were going to establish in our home.

When my wife Angie and I first met in 1999, I was a passionate Baltimore Ravens football fan. Soon after our first date, I bought us season tickets, and we went to every home game over the next few years until we moved. We found some friends who were Ravens fans, so we made a big deal about away games, too, spending numerous hours partying it up, celebrating our team. In order to keep up with the football world, I listened to nothing but sports talk, watched nothing but ESPN, watched football on Monday night, Thursday night, and of course, I spent all day Sunday watching three games. My favorite time was toward the end of the season when the NFL would add Saturday games, too! I was in sports heaven. But actually, looking back, I was in life hell.

I grew up in a German-Catholic family and neighborhood and went to a Catholic school from first grade to eighth grade. It was a tight-knit community and a very small school. I remember one key message I learned at home, in school, and at church – “It’s a sin to think highly of yourself.” I remember thinking, from a very young age, that shrinking myself was the key to heaven and to gaining favor in the world. It was the key alright – the key to feeling pain and insignificance.

I would venture to guess that well over 90 percent of humanity is living in survival mode as opposed to living in their purpose. Let me explain.

Picture a continuum, with fear on the left side and purpose on the right. Place a marker in the middle, and label this marker the ‘critical purpose decision.’ I would suggest – and I fully acknowledge that this is not scientific, in the least – that well over 90 percent of people are to the left of the critical purpose decision. Why is that?

Most people are running from fear.

That leaves less than 10 percent of the population living in their purpose – aligned with their talents, gifts, wisdom, experience, and most important of all, their deepest desires in how they serve society. The opposite end of the continuum is always in a state of craving, conflict, grasping, searching, and eager to take from others for their own benefit.

A few months ago, I was asked to speak at an event in St. Louis for about 75 women. The room was full of professional women who were there to step into higher levels of power in their lives and businesses. My wife Angie had spoken there a few months before, telling the story of her rise from childhood poverty, neglect, addiction. She was received so warmly and powerfully that they asked me to speak as well.

I grew up in a lower-middle-class neighborhood in Baltimore, Maryland. My neighborhood had bars on every corner and thrived when the steel mill was booming. I was born into a blue-collar family, and the blue-collar, rough-and-tumble mentality surrounded me at all times. I kept my guard and demonstrated a tough exterior at home, school, and on the playground. I didn’t do a great job of it, and I was bullied everywhere I went.

Please allow me to paint a picture for you. You’re watching a movie and the story revolves around a middle-aged guy who has a professional title, a big bank account, and a beautiful family. His life may look perfect from the outside, but inside he is completely restless, uncertain, and unsatisfied with his life. He’s lost his fire. This is the stereotypical mid-life crisis, right?

At this point in our movie, and according to the traditional stereotype, our guy buys a Corvette or a motorcycle, gets a divorce and then marries a younger woman, and shifts into an entirely new level of fun and enjoyment in life – only to realize later that he’s still as miserable as he was before his new car and hot new wife. Maybe this doesn’t always look nearly as dramatic in real life, but a version of this happens to many of us as we near middle age.

I had a high paying job and a big title, but I was miserable. I had the appearance of a perfect family, but we were imploding. I was living life the way I thought I was supposed to live it, but I just wanted to end it all. Thankfully, I never pulled the trigger, but I had been seconds away.

I remember being at my corporate desk thinking that I didn’t want to be where I was, so I thought there was only one place to go – up or out. Either I would be promoted, or I would look for something that looked like a promotion at another company. Since I didn’t love my job, I was basically a mercenary. I would take the next big offer that came along. Career advancement for me was all about the numbers associated with the offer. Sure, the title meant something, but the money was really what I craved most.

I connect with audiences on social media. Platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn provide a ready-made outlet to deliver messages, videos, and articles to a pre-built audience, and from those messages and audiences, business naturally develops. I’ve sold courses, books, and even coaching programs on both of these outlets. I’m certainly not the only one. There are many coaches and businesses doing the same thing.

My coaching is certainly not for everyone, just like businesses cannot serve everyone. My business is best appreciated by male leaders who have achieved success and financial health, but still feel that something is missing. The something missing is often purpose, and a purpose – significance coupled with impact – is what most people desire at a soul level. But sometimes you need to attain everything outside of you that you want in the world, and still feel empty, in order to realize the deeper need for more. I had to learn the hard way that you can’t fill an internal emptiness with external achievement, possessions, or relationships.

For 43 years, I settled. I separated life and work. I thought there was work time and off time. Work time meant that I would leave the place I wanted to be, and those I wanted to be around, to go a place I didn’t want to be to do something I didn’t want to do. After I was done being where I didn’t want to be, I would leave there and go back to the place I wanted to be. Work paid the bills and provided for my family and my role in their lives was doing things I hated – for their benefit. No matter how miserable I felt in this miserable cycle, my duty was to suck it up and carry out my miserable responsibility.

The holidays are the very best time to be grateful for all of our blessings, family, and friends. The holidays can also trigger stress, anxiety, and depression. It’s easy to appreciate the joy of the food, presents, lights, fables, traditions, and pageantry, but many dread the swirl of family drama, high expectations, and the demands of our consumer economy.

During the holidays, I make extra efforts to enjoy the festivities, while not losing myself and my own desires and lifestyle in the season. In the holiday seasons of 1999 and 2000, my wife Angie and I juggled the holidays with our two families and groups of friends, and we felt like we missed out on enjoying the true essence of the holidays: peace. We knew we didn’t want our life together to include feeling the stress of constantly being pulled in multiple directions. For two years, we missed out on the joy of the season, and we agreed that raising a family during the holidays would be easier without the tug of extended family.

I used to think I needed to know everything to be valuable. I couldn’t answer “I don’t know” or even give the appearance that I didn’t know something. I needed to know everything all the time in my professional role, as a husband, as a father, and even as a friend. I tried to maintain a mask of an all-knowing, wise man. It was pure chaos.

I remember when my children were young, and we had gatherings of friends at our house. We worked hard to teach our children to respect our space and time when adults were gathered together. Often our children were guided to be in a different room, especially when we were playing certain games or having specific discussions. My little girls were brilliant and mature for their ages, but we never deemed them mature enough to be in a room with adults. As they grew up, they honored this more and more without resistance, and I thought this was powerful parenting. I demonstrated that I could teach my kids and that my kids were disciplined.