On The Beach Education Corporation

I’ve been living in Ontario since mid-October 2009. Our portfolio of 229 units was not performing well under professional management despite our efforts to modify management techniques from reactive to proactive. This required careful discussion over a ten month period and the decision was obvious: fire existing management and take over active management.

This type of decision does not come lightly. It comes from having a clearly defined vision, mission statement and purpose for your life and business. Answers come easily when you know who you are, who you are serving, what your purpose is, why you are on this planet and how you are going to implement it.

These past twelve weeks has been a priceless learning experience: a gift from God. These types of gifts are often challenging to accept and receive because it’s pretty damn hard work and it requires a lot of stretching out of your comfort zone.

This is the gift. Challenges create perseverance, patience, resourcefulness, flexibility, determination and fortitude. Where in the world do you get these wonderful gifts? You could say that fortitude is having the guts to go for your dreams even when it requires you to walk through shit to get to the roses. Because that’s what it feels like for me right now. Steve is from a different planet. He’s always happy and enjoying himself. Put him in a sewer and he’d find a way to play in it. It’s a mixed blessing. I always react this way and I don’t want to feel this way whenever I am stretched. It happens when I am growing and learning. It’s not comfortable. Que sera sera whatever will be will be.

The other side of the coin is to stop growing and retreat to my comfortable life and play golf every day. Been there done that. It’s a dead end. No wonder people die within five years of retiring. There is no more purpose for them to continue, no more challenges for them to solve, no more growing and learning to the next level.

It was pretty cool to retire at 41 and it lasted about three months. So I renegotiated my dreams and realized they weren’t big enough. Now I have an 80 year plan and a $2.224 Trillion dollar goal. This kind of manifesting requires a lot of growth, on my part, which I don’t like by the way, but its part of building character, experience, wisdom. You just can’t skip this part. It’s mandatory. It’s a pre-requisite for the next level. No skipping grades.

I just wanted to share with you that life is what you make it. I can make this a horrible experience or I can make this a glorious experience. It’s all in my interpretation. My excitement and enthusiasm comes from knowing that my gains through these experiences will serve me for the rest of my life. That puts things into perspective. And isn’t it always rosy when you’re looking back with 20/20 hindsight? That comes after the fact, not during it.

I’ve seen in my daily experiences why people give up. They don’t have the fortitude to keep going. They quit. Fortitude will keep you going through the tough times, when you don’t feel like it, but you do it anyway. Fortitude is when you’re doing it for the right cause even in the face of sacrifice. Fortitude is having the patience to wait for your desired outcome. Fortitude rewards you with riches beyond measure. This is not something that can be taught. This is something that must be experienced. So embrace your opportunity right now and have the fortitude to see it through.