My life modified ceaselessly on October 1st, 2013.
I had simply walked into my new job once I obtained this voicemail.
“Mr. Stanland, that is Particular Agent McTiernan with the FBI. We’re at your residence and have a warrant to your arrest. You will want to name us and are available dwelling instantly, or we are going to situation an APB with the federal marshals to your arrest.”
It was, surely, one of the terrifying days of my life to this point.
For slightly below a yr, I dedicated fraud in opposition to one of many largest tech firms on the planet.
In that one second, my life was now not my very own.
It belonged to the brokers, the faceless individuals working behind the scenes, and the decide I had but to fulfill.
I pleaded responsible to at least one rely of mail fraud and was sentenced to 2 years of federal jail.
I watched helplessly because the life I knew grew smaller and fainter as I descended into the abyss of uncertainty.
I watched because the darkish cloud of disgrace enveloped my life and solid all the pieces in its shadow.
I watched the underside fall out each single time I assumed I had hit backside.
I watched as I walked down the darkest of paths, planning how I’d take my life.
And I watched what occurred once I selected to step out of the burnt ashes of what was and into a brand new life.
Stepping out of the ashes was one other terrifying second; I used to be leaving the identified, even when it was horrible, for the unknown.
However there was one thing unimaginable ready for me once I did.
There’s a present if you hit all-time low and are available out the opposite aspect.
It’s the knowledge and perspective that may solely come from staring into the eyes of the worst model of your self and despising what you see.
And as a substitute of making an attempt to kill it, you acknowledge its existence, settle for its existence, and study to like its existence.
However you don’t permit its existence to outline you.
It’s by way of this usually painful course of that I utterly reinvented my life.
I’ve spent the previous decade reworking jail into goal, and I’ve discovered my life’s mission, and now I assist others do the identical.
I don’t make as a lot as I did within the company world.
However I’ve what I used to be chasing for all these years, and I used to be too blind to see I’d by no means catch.
Goal
Which means
Success
Internal Freedom
Emotional Peace
These are the highest 5 classes I’ve realized from reinventing my life after jail.
I spent my days in jail, wishing I wasn’t in jail. I spent my days wishing I didn’t make the alternatives I made that landed me in jail.
I wanted and dreamed for all times to be something aside from it was.
I used to be combating in opposition to a previous and circumstance that couldn’t be modified.
I’d by no means have the liberty to start out over and reinvent if I continued to battle for what can’t be modified.
I needed to do what I used to be so afraid to do.
I needed to settle for actuality.
I didn’t need to.
It felt like giving up; it felt passive. Preventing equals progress. However does it? What was I combating in opposition to? As a lot as I want there have been, there is no such thing as a such factor as a time machine Delorean.
Accepting actuality isn’t giving up; it isn’t passive.
It was an act of braveness for me to say,
“I settle for that I betrayed myself and selected to commit against the law. I settle for I made the selection to proceed within the face of the universe screaming at me to cease. I settle for that I’m in jail. I settle for that I harm my household, my pals….”
A weight lifted off of me; I wasn’t trapped up to now. As an alternative, I felt one thing I assumed was inconceivable in jail, freedom.
It’s the liberty that comes if you’re now not locked up to now.
“New beginnings are sometimes disguised as painful endings.” – Lao Tzu
2. Self-Belief is a Should
My fraud required hundreds of selections to maintain it going. Every a kind of selections was made within the face of my coronary heart, saying,
“Cease, don’t do that. This isn’t the best way.”
I ignored my coronary heart, violated my voice, and I paid the value.
My interior voice disappeared, and I didn’t belief myself to make the best selections.
What to eat, and what workout routines I’d do within the gymnasium.
I used to be paralyzed by the torture of self-mistrust.
I needed to study to belief myself once more, which was one of the difficult duties ever.
And it began by making and conserving commitments to myself.
The extra commitments I made and saved, the extra I grew to become the one who did what they mentioned they’d do.
I reconnected with my interior voice.
3. Execute My Fears
Concern was a main driver behind my option to commit against the law.
It was simpler to commit fraud and violate my interior voice than to be sincere with myself and my spouse on the time.
I understood worry landed me in jail and that I may leverage worry to reinvent my life after jail.
I made a listing of all my fears, and inside my jail dice, I dedicated to executing them one after the other.
It took 5 years, however I landed on the TEDx stage.
This was once I executed that worry, and my world expanded.
4. Have a Mission
I assumed I had a mission earlier than jail.
Make as a lot cash as doable and spend all of it on fancy issues.
That wasn’t a mission.
It was what I assumed I must be doing, not what I wished to do.
Solely once I began writing my 1st guide and pursuing public talking did I perceive what a mission really is.
A mission is one thing I’m prepared to sacrifice all of the short-term pictures of happiness (ingesting, social media, Netflix) in pursuit of long-term goal, which means, and success – with an unknown final result.
A mission is one thing extra vital than myself and serves a larger good outdoors myself.
My want behind the guide and the TEDx?
To assist one particular person.
That’s my mission to today.
5. Cease Chasing/Begin Creating
Pre-prison, I chased happiness, goal, which means, and success on the backside of a bottle and the swipe of my American Specific Platinum card.
I used to be on The Golden Treadmill, racing furiously to a end line I’d by no means attain.
Goal, which means, and success aren’t chased; they’re created.
And once I take the time to deal with what actually issues to me and align my actions with that, I create them.
And happiness naturally ensues consequently.
The humorous factor about these classes is that this:
They’re what I realized from going to jail, shedding all the pieces, and reinventing from scratch, however they’re common.
They apply to any certainly one of us at any time.
We don’t must go to jail to implement these classes to create the life we need to dwell.
Nor do I recommend you await the underside to fall out earlier than implementing them in your individual lives.
Begin now to create a rare future.
