For far too long, I have followed the words, thoughts, beliefs and decisions of others. It is only natural as we humans are mimetic creatures. We follow and mimic the actions of others.

For this particular decision in my life, it was about what business or decision should I pursue next.

As many of you may or may not know, I own a Sports academy with many students and coaches. We have had steady growth over the course of this past year, however, I wanted faster and more growth. I am now in year 4 of my business and after finally systematizing several parts of our business, getting lean by eliminating waste, specifically high maintenance clients, coaches who are not a good fit, I have finally been given the chance to take a breathe and think about what our next best move may be.

After, I would say, 100 hours of learning about different industries, different strategies, listening to advice from different mentors, I arrived back to me and my strengths.

Through my meditation, self introspection, soul searching, I realized asked myself: what is my goal?

Well, my goal is to be financially free by having passive income and/or a self managing company. This would allow me to give back to my loved ones, travel with my family, work on my writing, and do what I want, when I want, with whomever I want, as much as I want. Thus, my true goal is freedom, in every sense of the word.

Thus, by looking inward I realized there are so many gifts within me that would allow me to live peacefully, harmoniously and effortlessly.

God, the Lord, higher power, whoever, has given me unbelievable gifts and strengths that I simply need to tap into in order to live my fullest, dream life.

I realized through much thinking, strategizing and deliberating that all along within me were the answers I was seeking.

I am someone who does not need much to be happy.

As I’ve gotten older, I value peace, happiness and joy.

Anyone or anything that affects my peace, happiness and joy is a cancer and must be avoided.

That said, I realized I could achieve my end goal of financial freedom by focusing on writing, youtube video, business skills, managing skills, and make a huge amount of passive income without having to build yet another business in an industry I care little about that also is not within my circle of competence.

I can simply play within my circle of competence and stick to my greatest natural strengths and shine a light on just those strengths and allow myself to flourish.

Looking back, I could have saved myself years of headache and heartache had I simply focused on my strengths and keeping a lean business built on as few components as possible.

However, hindsight is 20/20. I am glad to have built a business with amazing Coaches. But I’ve realized I don’t enjoy managing or running the operations of a business. Therefore, I will do what I enjoy, which is teaching, training my students (as long as time allows and I am able), building relationships, bringing new students into our program to grow our impact, and hand the rest of my business to my COO, continue writing, creating Youtube videos and focusing on sharing my greatest strengths with the world.

All the answers I seek are within. I have always known this but as a stubborn, hard headed person at times, I need to go through the trials and tribulations in order to truly realize that this is true.

I hope through my mistakes and journey you too will learn, all you seek is within you.