At one point or another, we all had dreams. Maybe it was dreams about success.  Maybe it was dreams about love. Maybe it was dreams of adventure. Whatever it was, dreams need attention. What gets in the way of dreams? Life. We attend to what is immediately in front of us. We all have obligations and priorities. These obligations and priorities may be paying for a mortgage, a car payment, children’s activities, and any bandwidth leftover we want to go have fun. This can be going to the movies, going out to eat, or going on a weekend getaway.

There is nothing that is left over for our dreams and our true purpose in life. Your dreams require energy, time, money, focus, and commitment. Bottom line is it takes sacrifice! 

A payment for a dream is sacrifice. 

Your dreams are alive in you. Whether it’s a desire to write a book or open a company, whether it’s engaging in a creative venture, and even traveling the world. These dreams are alive and in you....

Two critical factors to amazing success are inspiration and motivation. The main difference between motivation and inspiration is that motivation has to do with the everyday motions of life. Being motivated to be present with your family, being motivated to put in effort at work, being motivated to do the right thing or partake in self-improvement are all examples of daily motivations. On the other hand, inspiration has to do with the big picture of life. What do you want for yourself? What do you want for the people that you love? What kind of experiences do you want to have?

You can also be inspired by the negative. What if you kept ignoring your dreams?  What if you ignored the big idea or your big dream? One of the issues that inspires me is the thought that, at anytime, my disability can literally stop me in my tracks. The same goes with my fears or insecurities. The more I focus on my inspirations, the less those fears will come true. There were days where the only factor...

On your journey to amazing success, you are going to deal with challenges and part of dealing with challenges is facing discouraging moments. These moments can either stop you or empower you to pursue amazing success.

Throughout my journey, I had and continue to have many moments that are discouraging. Some of these moments are directly related to my disability, but most of these feelings are related to my desire to become amazing. I chose to be an author, a speaker, a father, a husband, and I chose all my ambitious crazy dreams.

If I am not careful, I can be daunted by negative emotions and feelings. With regard to my disability, I can be consumed by everything I cannot do. I can be consumed by my speech impediment, the fact that I need so much help, or the sheer effort that my disability requires. My disability makes most activities exponentially more challenging. In my pursuit of amazing success, I have to deal with marketing, sales, leading a team, and everything that it takes...

Challenges are a part of life and they are especially part of an amazing life. Loving your life does not mean that you love dealing with challenges. It means a commitment to dealing with any and all challenges that come your way. Part of life is learning to deal with challenges in a better way and exploring how to succeed despite them.

When I want to take on something amazing, a big part of the process is understanding how my physical disability or mindset blocks are going to limit me. The goal is not to ignore these challenges or let them be roadblocks. The goal is to look at them creatively and navigate them on the path to amazing success.

I don’t love being disabled. I don’t love my speech impediment. My disability has provided me with a certain kind of unease, discomfort, insecurities and other emotions that can have the potential to kill my ambition, drive, and love of life.  To be honest, it has the potential to slow me down, and, in the past, it has.

I always...

I have a deep love of life. I love the possibilities of life. I love the opportunities of life. I have many experiences, both professionally and personally. I have the opportunity to inspire people. My career has introduced me to many unique experiences, which I cherish. I had the opportunity to have lifelong friendships and have a great time with the people who I love being with. I get to collaborate with amazing thinkers. Finally, I love my family, from my parents to my wife to my favorite boys, Andrew and Tyler. I love being a father, a husband, a friend, a professional, and a partner in crime to many. Frankly, I love life.

There is a difference between loving life and loving every single aspect of life. In fact, part of having an amazing life is dealing with struggles in order to find the parts of life that you love. I deal with my physical disability, and the psychological ramifications that go along with it. I also deal with the every day challenges of creating an amazing...

I have spent an exorbitant amount of time, energy, and money studying what it takes to live out an amazing life. I read books, attend conferences, and try to learn how I can achieve amazing success despite my disability.

There have been times when I blamed all my stress on my disability. In the past, I have started thousands of sentences with the phrase if I were not disabled…. That action does not empower me. It also provided many negative emotions and created feelings of victimhood.

With the pursuit of amazing success can come additional stressors and overwhelming factors. In fact, most of the challenges in my life are not because of my disability per se. They are because of the fact that I am going after an amazing life. I chose the challenges of becoming a speaker, writing a book, becoming a husband, and becoming a father.  My job is to enjoy my life and take on the challenges in a positive way.

Most people in the U.S. don’t have $400.00 in case of an...

One challenge that we all face is being stressed or overwhelmed. If you want to live out an amazing life, there is going to be some stress, some overwhelming factors, and some growing pains. These feelings are just some sacrifices that you have to endure on your path to an amazing life.

Many people experience stress and overwhelming factors and let their feelings be roadblocks on the path to amazing success. There is reality and your reaction to reality.  Feeling stressed and overwhelmed can happen because of circumstances that  are genuinely giving you those feelings. For example, if you were brought up in a chaotic family or your parents were not emotionally stable people, that adds a certain kind of stress. There’s no doubt that these kinds of stressors influence the way you go about your life or your mindset. There are many stressors that I have to deal with because of my cerebral palsy. I have to deal with the stress of relying on people, having to deal with a...

Factors that get in the way of amazing success and your dreams is the way we feel about situations, the way we feel about performing activities, the way we feel about others, or the way we feel about life in general. This is a topic I read about in the 5 Second Rule, by Mel Robins.

When we think of feelings, automatically, we think about sensitive people who cry at movies or people who get their feelings hurt over a joke. Everybody has feelings about their own lives, what it takes to succeed, what gives them pleasure, and what gives them pain.

Robins writes that people are not afraid of hard work. They are afraid of stress. It’s not inherently hard to have to call customer service, but we all have feeling towards that. When we have to have a tough conversation, it’s not inherently hard, but it can be stressful. We play out negative scenarios in our heads and these feelings get in the way of habits and routines.

The reason bad habits are so attractive and good habits are...