One day I will…Starts today–take Action.

Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.

“So much time and so little information”…. wait… reverse that. lol. For those of you who remember Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory with Gene Wilder as Willie Wonka (not Johnny Depp although I enjoyed the remake as well) those words always made me chuckle.

I wish I could remember all the funny lines in movies and could recall them on demand. So much of what we take so seriously is just nothing.

Today while trading the market and looking for little bits of information to bring to this blog I was listening to an audio tape from David Sharpe co-founder of the Empower Network. He was telling his story about how he was an alcoholic and a drug addict just five years ago.

Most of us know someone who would be considered an alcoholic. Some of the ones I knew were highly successful and what is termed functioning alcoholics.

But David Sharpe shared a story about how his parents used to go looking for him in places that most people don’t dare.  He didn’t use the words but his description was of something I would refer to as a “crack den”  A  place where filth, prostitution, degradation and most of all desperation permeates the air. He told the story of how his parents would go looking for  him in these places.

As you might imagine your presence is unwelcome and your safety is far from guaranteed. His story was vivid as I could see two large men grabbing his father by the shirt collar and almost tossing him of the front steps. He told how he was hiding in the back in some room as he was too high, too ashamed, too rebellious to be seen. My words not his.

How remarkable that he turned his life around. His success in the world of online marketing is impressive enough to make him worthy of listening too. His remarkable story of how far he has come makes him worth following. The fact that he is willing to share and teach other to duplicate his success makes him extraordinary.

I am well acquainted with alcoholics and drug addicts. However, my experience was that I met them as incredibly successful individual (even famous) and watched as they let themselves deteriorate.  People love watching famous people fall from grace. I remember Anna Nicole’s reality show. I watched 10 minutes of one episode and had to turn it off. She was obviously still alive at the time, but watching her lying on the couch drunk and almost not moving haunts me to this day. Her plan whether it was a conscious choice or not was to drink herself into oblivion. Tragically, for her daughter that is what she did.

I am sure I could not have documented that as I would want to get her some help. Get her some coffee, Get her to the hospital,  Help her up..my mind was racing for a solution.

As I am writing this I want to switch topics and write about how I helpless and frustrated I feel when I see people living so far beneath their potential. They are like Zombies–sleep walking through life–giving up on themselves, their dreams and their families. Hey People wake the fuck up. We have all been their at times in our lives. Life is not a dress rehearsal.  Go for what you want.  Reach for the stars..if you only reach the moon you still will be in the less than 1% of the population and you will feel happy in the process.

I guess this is really not off topic as David Sharpe’s point was exactly this. He realized where he had been in his life and he wanted to make a difference in life. This would give him purpose…translation make him feel happy doing it.

It is really what we all want if you scratch us deep enough. You don’t have to do on a world wide stage or a world wide web–people do it in their families, in their communities, in business niches.  Making a difference is what makes us feel good.

However, when you focus on something like this beware of the results.  You could exceed your wildest expectations. If you are good at making a difference people come and seek you out.  Now ask yourself. Are you trying to make a difference?  Do you have a plan?  Or are you one of the Zombies. Yes, the ones who are just trying to get through the day  thinking— one day I will…