Heartbroken, but not broken – a fathers triumph

I sure do miss my little guy…

No father should ever have to be away from his 3 ½ year old boy. It’s been almost 4 weeks since he left me and it’s more difficult than I ever imagined. He and I used to do everything together. We’d sit on the couch and watch TV, we’d play with his cars on the floor and I even enjoyed going to the park to ride his motorcycle.

When you go from spending 10 hours a day with him to spending no time at all, it’s really hard. It’s even hard to focus on what you’re supposed to be doing each day.

I’ve been very fortunate to have a Sales career that allows me to set my own schedule. If I need to take a few hours off to attend his pre-school function, I don’t think twice. I’ve spent so many years with a flexible schedule that I really never understood what it’s like to have time restraints like so many others.

Free time does not equal Time Freedom

I always believed that I had time freedom, but now being away from my boy proves otherwise. I can’t imagine what it’s like to go to work at a set time, go to lunch at a set time, or take a break at a set time.  Only to return home at a set time to sit in traffic like everyone else who’s hoping to pick up their children from school or daycare before they get penalized. Too much stress!

Over the past 3 weeks as I’ve watched my baby cry on Facetime, I just can’t stop thinking about parents who have to be away from their child whether it be because of divorce or simply because they have to travel for their career. It’s ridiculous to think that so many parents have to put their children in the care of somebody else just so they can make enough money for a meager existence. By meager I mean most families have more month left at the end of their paycheck… let alone enough to take a nice family vacation.  It doesn’t have to be that way.

That’s not the reason why we’re here.

The cost of living is crazy. Even though we’ve done pretty well financially, when you choose to live your life to the fullest, it means there’s nothing left. My wife and I have traveled a lot over the years. When our baby was only 8 months I won a cruise, and of course he came with us. He’s been to Minnesota in the winter and he’s been to Hawaii and Disney in the summer. He’s done really well for 3 1/2 year-old. He’s even a frequent flyer!

What bothers me is that he and my wife have been to South America three times… without me. Even though we make a very good income we still have plenty of bills to pay. Can you relate? So rather than keep him from his grandparents and keep my wife from her family, I choose to stay home and let them go without me. I used to think that that’s what a good husband, and father would do. But it’s horrible. Have you ever had to do something like that? There’s nothing good about it.

This time, I was a little rough on myself. I kept asking, why am I not stepping up to the plate? So, the day that they left, I made a decision as I drove home from the airport. This won’t happen again. Not to my family!

Make a decision, and take massive action

I immediately began to take action. Stepping into my better future was no longer an option. It’s my responsibility as a husband, and a father to provide the best I can for my family. I had to admit, I had a lot more to give and I decided to become a better version of… me.

It’s amazing what you can accomplish once you’ve reached your breaking point. When you set your mind to something, you realize how powerful you really are. I’m sure if you’ve ever gotten to that point in your life, you know exactly how I felt.

So the good news is that I already had a home based business in place. Thankfully, I didn’t have to start something from scratch. I’d been “getting ready to get ready” for a while. The business is good, but as you know results follow action, and I hadn’t yet committed 100%. Don’t get me wrong, I knew what to do, and I’d actually made several thousand dollars over the past year, but this time it would be different.

When I got home from the airport, I turned on my computer determined to do something about this. As soon as I logged in the first thing I noticed was a Les Brown quote on my friends Facebook wall. Here’s what I read:

Count your blessings.
GRATITUDE is the fuel of resiliency…
Train your mind to think of at least one thing for which you are THANKFUL every day.
It is often easy to overlook the small but significant blessings in your life.
Look for POSITIVE things outside of yourself, because sometimes you cannot trust your mind…
When you choose to look at the positives instead of focusing on the negatives, you strengthen your COURAGE and your internal capacity to take on life.
Look yourself in the eye and realize that you are ultimately responsible for working your way out of this situation.
Give up the desire for things to be easy and deal with circumstances such as you find them.
Know that you have the POWER to live a meaningful and happy LIFE.
You have GREATNESS within you!

-Les Brown

Can you believe that? Wow, I thought to myself, that’s powerful. The universe is so incredibly powerful.

I took it as a sign that this was now my time. No excuses. I looked at the calendar beside my desk and said out load. “I’ve got 4 weeks to transform this bitch, and I’m not going to stop until I do it”. I remembered a similar situation when I was laid off after 20 years with a company. I was so pissed back then and I wanted to break free from the system. But this time, there’s no denying me.

My mind immediately got clear and I started to implement some of the strategies I’d learn over the past few years. It felt so good to be productively moving toward my solution.

They’ve gone to South America for the last time without me. We’re going as a family from now on. We deserve it. We work hard. We deserve to take vacations, and from now on, we’re taking more vacations than we ever have before.

This is the cool part: when you set out with hard work and the belief that your hard work will actually produce a result… guess what? It actually does!

Just a few days later, my buddy Paul posted a picture of my son and me on his Facebook wall. Here’s what it said: Greg Stadler is WINNING! Congrats on 2 new team members yesterday!

You know, that sort of support was just the validation I needed to turn it up another notch! And it proved to only be the beginning. The future is bright, and I’m stepping into it. I’ve even connected with an accountability partner from our tribe. Together we can move much faster and achieve much better results. Once again, the universe answered my call.

All online systems are actually set up to make things easier, however until now; I never really got much traction. Finally, with the proper mindset, and commitment to succeed, this simple system was able to produce the results I had always hoped it would. This proved that it wasn’t the system at all; it was me.

As I type this I can’t stop thinking about seeing my wife and my son. I’ll be waiting for them at SFO within 48 hours. I can’t wait to see them, and hug them. Of course they have no idea what I’ve been doing since they left almost 4 weeks ago, but I know they’ll be proud of what I’ve accomplished.

I even purchased tickets to our next National event being held in April. This will be the first Event that we will attend as a family. No more going it alone. Instead, we’ll be together to meet more of our wonderful tribe mates to form lifelong relationships. I can’t wait.

I’m so grateful for those that poured all of their heart and soul to mentor me. Without it, my family would not be on our path to the life I always dreamed of.

It’s the same blueprint that my team is now using to empower 100 families per year to live their dreams!

– Free from your job if you like
– Free to spend more time with your kids
– Free to never have to worry about money again
– Free to live your life on your own terms!

So I invite you to take another look and see if our visions align.

If you’d like to see my blueprint for 2015, simply click the link above, and trust that if it can work for me and so many others; it can work for you too.

Thanks for reading, I appreciate you.