Life is Awesome!

Every morning after I wake up I usually do a few things in no particular order.  I kiss my wife, read my bible, look at June on the monitor and check a few things on my phone.  One thing that I have been checking more regularly lately has been an app called Time Hop.  It's an app that shows you what you posted on social media last year, two years ago and so on.  Well, today when I checked the app I saw this photo from SEVEN YEARS AGO!

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Look at me!  I look like a little kid! I probably wasn't even shaving at that point in life.  There is something very special about this photo and as I looked at it I felt tears come to my eyes and "love waves" hit my heart.  This is one of the first photos that my wife ever took of me.  We had only been dating for about two months and this photo shoot was one of the reasons we started talking in the first place.  This is the beginning of what has become seven of the most amazing, spectacular years of my life.  Now, not everything has been sunshine and rainbows for us.  We've had some hard and difficult times, we've had heart ache, frustrations, mistakes and pain, but I can still look at this photo and scream, "LIFE IS AWESOME!"

Because life will always be awesome when you have love in your heart. I am not talking about superficial or attention grabbing love that you see all over our news media.  I am talking about a love that fills your soul with purpose, passion and life to the full!  While I would like to give credit to my beautiful wife Brooke for that love, I cannot.  That love that has filled the last seven years of my life with awesomeness comes from Jesus.  I can't make it any clearer than that.

Now there are two types of people in this world.  People who will read that and think, "that's awesome!" and people who will read it and think I just offended my wife by saying her love isn't as good as the love of Jesus.  Well, to the first type of people, "Thank You, It is awesome!" and to the second type let me explain.  Jesus filling my life with love has given me the ability to love and be loved by my wife in a way that's on a whole new level.  His love makes our love more valuable, richer and bigger than it could ever be on it's own. It's God's love that has made these 7 years so spectacular and His love that will carry us through the next seven and the next and the next!

Yesterday Brooke and I were running some errands and when we parked the car in front of our house it was pouring!  June was sleeping in her car seat so we just waited in the car while it rained.  After it stopped Brooke wanted to take a few photos of June and since she can't stand on her own that makes me her set of arms and legs while Brooke shoots.  I think when June is older she is going to wonder why I am holding her in so many photos.  Mom has the skill, dad has the arms...

So here is the most recent photo my wife Brooke has taken of me.  It happened yesterday.

So why am I telling you this story?  What is the point?  Well, first of all I just wanted people to see that old photo of me because it cracks me up.  More importantly, I wanted to tell this story because sometimes you just need to know that life is awesome.  That you could have just taken a photo or had a conversation that seven years from now will mean so much to you.  I had no idea when Brooke took this photo that it would be on the precipice of the best seven years of my life.

So if you feel like life is not great right now, keep pushing through.  Keep going at it with a positive attitude and passion.  If you feel like you don't even have that then open the Bible and read about Jesus, let His love push you to the place where life is awesome because it always is with Him.

Life is flying by and it's only when we look back do you really understand the value of a moment.  Try to enjoy those moments as they happen as much as you can. Take a second when something awesome is happening.  Turn off the TV, turn off the phone and enjoy that moment.  Remember it. Treasure it. Cherish it because...

LIFE IS AWESOME!

30 Things I've Learned in 30 Years

You probably clicked on this link expecting to see a list of 30 bolded bullet points that you would scroll through.  Well, the title was a lie!!! Muahaha!  And that's because life isn't best lived from a list of suggestions and ideas.  Life isn't bolded lists and Buzzfeed.  Life is a paragraph and ellipsis...

So, in 30 years here is what I have learned.  I've learned that just because you read a post on the internet of 25 Places You Should Visit Before You Die, you won't necessarily go to those places.  I've learned that posting a photo about the diet you want to do on Instagram, doesn't mean you'll actually follow it and loose the weight. And here's why... 

Life is lived with action, passion and energy.  Life is full of awesomeness and excitement, especially when it's lived by following God, loving others and working hard.

But, more than anything, I've learned that I have a lot of learning left to do.  I'm looking forward to another 30 years of learning through action, risk, hope, triumphs and mistakes. And not by reading lists on the internet. Wouldn't you agree?

In Between

I graduated college in 2007 and took an internship with XXXchurch.com.  I only lasted a few months before the head of the intern program told me I wasn't a good fit and I was asked to move on, aka I was fired.  I moved home to live with my parents and took the first job that I could get, packing and shipping boxes from a warehouse.  I was really good at it and quickly became the lead shipper.  It wasn't glamorous or exciting but I tried to make the most of it.  I never missed a day, showed up on time and worked hard.  I eventually was promoted to a graphic design position after about a year and a half.   I did that for seven months until I quit to work for myself as the owner of Brooke Courtney Photography and walk in love. That story isn't glamorous or flattering by any means, but either is the land in between.  The land in between jobs, careers, life paths, big decisions is never really glamorous.  If it were  it wouldn't be considered in between.  I talk with a lot of young people on a day to day basis and when you ask most young ppeople (15-25 years old) what they want to do with their lives they have no shortage of ideas, vision or buzz words.  If you follow up that questions with, "Well, what are you doing to make it happen?"  The excitement fades and you usually hear a couple of popular excuses like, "I don't have any time right now",  "I am just waiting until I get some of my debt paid off", "Its really hard to find a job like that",  It's the economy."  The list goes on and on.  Lots of vision is usually crippled with lots of excuses, which leads to living in between.

Now let me fill in some of the missing parts of my story above.  While working in the warehouse I took every extra penny that didn't go towards bills, college loans and life and put it toward t-shirts.  I didn't really go out with friends or buy new clothes unless it was a box of walk in love. shirts that I could sell.  I would get home from my job where I shipped boxes all day and I would ship shirts out of my basement.  I would come home from staring at my shipping computer all day and I would look at my computer to design new shirts, come up with new ideas, find a way to grow walk in love.  When I was given the idea of a kiosk by my father-in-law I took my vacation days so I could run it.  I took my vacation for 3 days so I could sit in the mall from open to close and sell shirts from a rinky dink kiosk.  The following year I saved up 2 weeks of vacation and took them again so I could do the same thing.  The next year when I didn't have enough vacation days and had to hire people to work the kiosk, I would spend my nights working at the mall.  I would finish my actual job, eat dinner and work at the mall until it closed.  The gaps in the story above are filled with hard work, sacrifice and doing things that I didn't always want to do but had to be done.

It's so frustrating to me when I talk to In Betweeners about what they want to do and they can have vision shooting out of their butts like rainbows but when it actually comes to making it happen they are lost.  It's like I am the first person to ever challenge them to work hard to make it happen.  If it isn't literally falling into their lap they aren't ready to make a single sacrifice for their dream to come true.  That is a recipe for a lot of regret, sadness and disappointment.

When I look back to my days in between I am so thankful for them.  They taught me that I had to get up every day and make it happen at work, make it happen at home so I could make it happen for my future.  I remember when I finally started being self employed I felt like I had way too much time because for over 2 years I was doing another job while trying to be self employed.  It was awesome.  I had trained myself to work hard with very little time that when I had more of it I was excited!  I wasn't lost, trying to figure out how to fill it.  I love the land in between.  I love that it's filled with the grittier side of life.  I don't ever want to lose the feeling of being in between and that's why Brooke and I are always asking each other "What's next?"  We always want to be in between something worse and something better.

So, if you are in between I have some advice for you.

1. Work hard.  Never stop working hard.  If you want something to happen in your life you have to work hard.  No one is going to give you anything just because you show up.  It's not 3rd grade soccer anymore.  I have noticed that a lot of young people think they are working hard, but actually aren't.  Find someone who you know works hard and follow them for a couple of days to see what hard work actually looks like.  Hard work is not something that comes natural.  It takes practice and dedication to work hard.

2. Stick with it!  If you want to do something stick with it.  Don't just give up on it because it's hard. Here is a little secret - every job or life path has it's challenges, they are all going to be hard at times!  When you stick with something you are passionate about it makes the difficulties worth it.

3. It takes time.  A new website, facebook page or youtube video isn't going to launch you into a life of success and gold toilets.  The truth is you might not ever make it.  You may never achieve the success that you hope to, but that doesn't mean you give up or don't put everything you have into making it happen.

4. We are always in between. Whether you are the CEO of a Fortune 500 company or working the night shift at Wal-Mart we are all in between this life and the balcony of heaven.  Knowing that and trusting God helps put things in perspective.  It encourages us in defeat and keeps us humble in victory. It reminds us what we are working for and keeps us moving forward with a purpose.

5. Be Happy!  Living in between can create a lot of bitterness and resentment toward people who get out of it and move forward.  Don't let it get to you.  Don't let it steal your joy.  Stay happy and keep moving on. Work hard, stay humble, trust God and keep going!

Failure is Always an Option

A little over six months ago, I was driving down the Garden State Parkway with a van full of supplies, plywood, power tools and excitement.  Brooke and I were about to start our newest adventure and we were filled with excitement at the possibilities this new endeavor might bring.  We started the month of April with 19 days of hard work.  We planned, built and filled an entire walk in love. store in 19 days!  We knew the season would start slow, so we weren't going to let low sales figures disappoint us for several weeks.  Local shop owners told us that it picked up around Memorial Day, slowed down for a few weeks and then really picked up at the end of June, leading into the 4th of July.  So, I waited for Labor Day to come.  Labor Day came and sales went up a little, then back down again.  Then the end of June came and we started to get worried.  Sales were still very low.  Both our Lancaster and Online Store were beating Stone Harbor on a daily basis during what we heard was "the busy season".  Brooke and I started having conversations about what we would do, what this meant and how we would respond.  To be honest, there were times when walk in love. seemed to be coming to an end mentally.  I remember thinking that if I couldn't get a second store off the ground then what was I going to do in the future?  How would growth come?  Was this the beginning of the end?  Could I recover from the money I saw us losing? The 4th of July came and went and nothing spectacular happened.  We were still doing better in Lancaster and Online.  We had conversations about trying Stone Harbor for another year and just going at it even harder.  We started really, really talking about the future and what it looked like.  What did walk in love. look like in 1, 2 or 10 years down the road.  We started talking about things we loved and things we were good at. At almost all at once, a shift took place that forever changed the future of our business.  It's a shift that could have never taken place before Stone Harbor because we had never failed like Stone Harbor.  Failure has become the catalyst for great change in our company that we so dearly love and care for!  Within a month of this shift, we launched a new website and a collection that has been our best ever!  Our goal was to have our Online store be the most successful branch of walk in love. and last week it was the closest it has ever been.

I can really get down on myself for failure.  It is the number one thing I fear.  I fear that if I fail at something people will laugh at me.  All I could see during those first few months of the Stone Harbor store suffering was myself, my failure and what that meant to me.  It was like I staring at a single drop of water right in front of me and failing to see the entire ocean behind it.  An ocean that is filled with possibilities and adventure.  Yes, it will probably have a few failures mixed in but without those failures there is no room for growth to take place.  There is a popular phrase that we hear in movies and speeches - "Failure is not an option."  But, to be honest, that is a bunch of crap.  Failure is always an option.  Failure is real and it is always there.  Failure being a very real option gives us the drive and passion not to end up there.  Failure being an option is what makes the tough decisions really mean something.

I use to hide from failure.  I would run away from it and just play it safe.  Playing it safe will land you a mediocre life and purpose.

The past two days I was in the Stone Harbor store packing it all up for good.  It is closed.  It simply wasn't successful enough to keep going.  It was a failure, but without it we wouldn't have a new website, new collection and something so new and exciting on the horizon that wish I could tell you about right now, but I have to wait!  Trust me, it's really awesome.

Failure will always be met with criticism of others from the sideline and you have to push that aside and look at the lessons it taught you and the growth it provided.  Failure will always lead to growth if you'll allow it. If you can look past the drop of water and see the ocean for what it can be.

In closing I leave you with one of my favorite quotes by Teddy Roosevelt:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

 

Thanks,

T.J.