Two years and just about four months ago, I moved from Michigan to Los Angeles with my girlfriend Britta Peele. We moved here to pursue acting and comedy. It has been exciting and has also been a struggle. Fortunately, I have a good job that pays the bills, a fantastic roommate, wonderful friends, my health and a beautiful woman who loves me.

Britta Peele and I after getting engaged at Lafayette Coney Island in Detroit, MI.

For the past six months I have been spending time thinking about where I am now, in my life, and where would like to be. I have been talking with my dad and my brother, Kyle about our goals, desires, our struggles, new insights we have found and personal victories. I have read some seriously great books, lately that deal with the human conditions, motivation and God. I have been listening to a ton of Tim Ferris, whom I only recently came across thanks to my brother, who also just gifted me one of Tim's online classes (I'm sure there will be more about Tim Ferriss in future posts). All of these things have been giving me some direction and focus and best of all, they are helping to pull me out of some serious self doubt, living in the past and dealing with the shame of not focusing enough to be where I believe I should be at this point in my life.

So, as all of these fantastic new things are floating around my head, getting me excited for the future and getting me motivated, I go home to Michigan for Christmas, visit with family and friends, ask my beautiful girlfriend to marry me (she said yes) and arrive back in LA on December 27. I'm back at work on the 28th when I am asked to be the speaker for our weekly Monday meeting at Galpin Motors - For those who don't know, I work at Galpin in their internet department. And, every Monday morning we have a gigantic sales meeting with all of the sales people, managers, owners, president, you name 'em, they are there.

Each meeting the V.P. goes over the weekly announcements, the news, updates, etc. After that, it opens up to a special speaker who gives a 15-20 minute talk on a topic of their choosing. These speakers range from managers, special guests, a salesman or woman, a charitable group, and more. - So this is what I was asked to do. I very reluctantly said, yes.

Now, some people who know me, may not believe that I was reluctant about saying yes to speaking in front of a group. Most believe I would relish any chance to get up to talk and joke in front of a room full of people. However, this is not an improv comedy club. This is a meeting with a bunch of guys... and some women, in suits, slacks and ties who are their for business purposes. What do I have to say to all of these folks?

I was in car sales for a while but I was not great at it and it was not at all the right job for a guy who was coming out here to try to keep at least a bit of an open schedule to pursue comedy and acting.

Was I going to talk about motivation that I had gleaned from the books and podcasts I was reading and listening to? "Hey, here's some stuff that will make you successful from some guys that know. I mean, I haven't done any of it, but you know, you can tell this stuff is gold, right?"

Nah! Not going to do that.

Maybe, since I am in the internet department, I could bore everyone to death about the best way to help with internet clients and how to properly follow-up?

Nah! I've been to the meetings where people bore you to death at 8:30 AM with that kinda exciting good-time learning. Not going to be that guy. I gotta walk around the place after.

So, what was I going to do?

I finally decided that, maybe, instead of talking about goals and motivation, I would just do it myself. I have always found it much better to listen to someone who has done something than someone who talks about doing something. Plus, I certainly needed the focus myself. I, also, really hate to be the guy that publicly states they're going to do something and then doesn't do it (not that I haven't failed after publicly stating a goal - see previous posts).

So, that's was it! The plan was to do something and not just to talk about it.

Now what was I to do?

There were, certainly no shortage of options for me.

I looked at my scheduled speaking time - April 10th. I realized that April 10th was almost exactly three months away. That worked out perfectly! A quarter of a year; 90 days. That's a perfect amount of time to set and achieve some big goals.

I began to think of what my goals would be. I knew that I wanted to get in better shape. Those goals came together quickly. The easy part about fitness goals is, they don't involve facing a fear. They are hard, sure, and if you look at my #NinetyDayGoals post, I have picked some difficult goals.

I had to think about goals that involved facing my fear. The biggest fears for me; rejection and failure. I know that I need to step out and go after what I came here for, comedy.

Facing fear and rejection are big things; What if I were to go out there and find out that I'm not good enough or my comedy just doesn't register with folks? That would suck!

Of course, those are the negative thoughts that is the fear talking. I could just as easily, imagine the positive in my mind. I go out there, it all works out and I have a good time working my ass off doing what I love to do. Why my mind hangs out in negativity and fear, I don't know. I don't feel like I'm a negative person. It seems half of me is optimistic and confident while the other half is full of fear. Unfortunately, the fear has been running things a bit too much lately. Not a good place to hang out for long. Time to move on. I set the goals.

I do have a couple of goals that have not been published. I will share them after but some things are best kept to yourself to think about and everybody doesn't need to know everything.

So, that's it. The goal is to walk in to the Galpin Sales Meeting on Monday morning, April the 10th having accomplished each one of my goals.

I'm not sure what I will put together to speak about, I have 90 days to put that together. For now, I will keep this blog up-to-date on my progression. I'll be sharing videos, pictures and posts about what I am doing to pursue each of my goals as well as the day-to-day things I may find interesting or helpful.

I would truly love to hear from you all as I continue through these 90 days. I will need encouragement and help and I know there are so many people out there that have their own goals they are working on. Let me know about them. Let me know what is helping you.

Thank you for reading this far. I truly appreciate it.

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I'll see you on the next post!