Life Calibration Story

Why Did I Create “Life Calibration?”

I was 47 years old; I have an amazing wife and wonderful children and a beautiful home. I am the busiest I had ever been, my wife and I are building our business, life is good. Or was it?

I felt miserable and unhappy. Why? That I had difficulty answering.

While I had my bouts of funk, I was not a depressive person, so why the discontent? Maybe being a small business owner was not the journey I had anticipated. It was a seat belts on, pedal to the metal, slam the brakes, air bags deployed, I think I’m going to puke get me off this ride kind of trip. I think many business owners, managers, and professionals can relate to this at one time or another. I was pushing forward, wheels spinning in the mud, just because you punch the gas pedal does not always mean that you go faster. I was neglecting myself, as well as other aspects of my life. My health took the back seat, hell, it was more like tuck and roll, out of the car you SOB.

Well, all that caught up to me. On Sept. 2, 2015, at 3:30 a.m. I was dead on my bathroom floor in front of the sink with my wife trying to find a pulse. I remember waking Holly up, sitting down in front of the bathroom cabinets and giving her a play by play. “Holly something’s wrong, I am losing my sight, Holly I’m losing my hearing and that was it. I began profusely vomiting blood and there I was, an instant later not breathing and no pulse.

I looked like a pathetic corpse from the Walking Dead and all for what? I have a young adult son and two grandchildren, one of them just born a month ago. I have a 3-year-old and a 6-year-old daughter asleep in bed and who would take care of them now? The thought of them being without their father in their lives broke my heart in ways that there are no words. Time ceased for me; we do not know for sure how much time had passed by. In those long moments time truly stood still. My life was quickly and quite suddenly becoming a fading dream to me…

Then as sudden as it ended, I was back!

The EMT’s arrived and put me on an IV to replenish the fluids that I had lost. I was in the hospital for two days from an internal lower esophageal bleed that I had been completely unaware of. I had been given a second chance; I knew I had to make changes.

Over the course of the following days, weeks, months, and years. I began to gain a new perspective. There is a sense of genuine gratitude for my life and everything in it. Not that I did not have this prior, however, this was a far deeper perspective and gratitude than before. I began getting down with the real work. I needed to fill my empty tank and that begins with me.

For too long I had been working harder and not smarter, as the saying goes. I had to discover how to live a more fulfilling life and still run a business. I began to analyze how and where I was spending my time. I understood that my life was, and had been, way out of balance and I needed the tools to calibrate my life. My wife, Holly, and I were taking shop ownership classes and getting consulting for the last five years; we needed to put more of those tools in place. We did this and things began to improve, however, I still needed the tools to help calibrate me.

With the thousands of books on self-improvement out there I did not have time to do the necessary research that it would take for me to do this. So, I began to create the content before I consumed the content. This is when I began to develop and discover the Life Calibration as a tool to help me identify what areas of my life that I had been unintentionally neglecting. I created it out of necessity. This discovery would develop into the Life Calibration. This method continues to evolve into something of a simple actionable approach to our lives. I’ve often heard that people who experience a brush with death as I had, come away from the experience transformed by a new perspective. I can definitely say that this happened for me.

In doing this, I began to be very aware of how and where I was spending my time.

I made a much greater effort to make my time spent with those I loved quality time. Not that my time spent with my children and wife was not quality before, however, it was better now. All those long hours I used to spend at my business was just busy work; Now, I am getting more accomplished in less time on actions that can be better attributed towards my desired ideal scene. I also identified the things that I enjoyed doing that had ceased for quite some time and once I began doing them again, I gained momentum and the inspiration followed.

In short, over the course of the following years my awareness of how I had been using my time was made apparent. I accomplished more than I had in many years. I began to take better care of my health, mind, body, and spirit; I was working on myself. My relationship with my wife nurtured, matured, and grew into something greater. I spent more quality time with my children; I planned more family vacations. I built better relationships with my staff; I made more friends; we grew the company gross sales by 64%. I built & patented a music product. I wrote and published a children’s book for my daughters.

I began playing and writing music again; and I began discovering my new firsts and as a result, I was happier. I had calibrated my life and now I want to share this with others. When you begin to work on yourself, all else will follow. My definition here of “New Firsts” are the new positive experiences we that we can experience in our lives. New firsts can be a new interest, new hobby, new sport, learning a new subject, new places, new destinations or just expanding your knowledge and skill of a current interest. It can also be a new mindset, spiritual growth, and a new higher level of your physical health. A positive new first energizes you and creates a sense of fulfillment. You can easily loose time when you experience a positive new first. It is something that you can be thoroughly lost in for hours, it is therapeutic in mind, body, and spirit, it is fun, it brings you peace and fulfills something deep within you.

What lies at the center of the Life Calibration?

We are born innate with the tools and gifts needed to experience an enriching and fulfilling life. It is our personal duty to ourselves that we discover our given tools and gifts and put them to use. We must practice using these tools and nurture our gifts. In doing so, we are finding our calling, our purpose in life to serve others and setting our course on an amazing journey.