My life modified endlessly on October 1st, 2013.
I had simply walked into my new job after I acquired this voicemail.
“Mr. Stanland, that is Particular Agent McTiernan with the FBI. We’re at your residence and have a warrant on your arrest. You’ll need to name us and are available dwelling instantly, or we are going to problem an APB with the federal marshals on your arrest.”
It was, no doubt, one of the terrifying days of my life up to now.
For just below a 12 months, I dedicated fraud in opposition to one of many largest tech firms on the planet.
In that one second, my life was not my very own.
It belonged to the brokers, the faceless folks working behind the scenes, and the decide I had but to satisfy.
I pleaded responsible to 1 depend of mail fraud and was sentenced to 2 years of federal jail.
I watched helplessly because the life I knew grew smaller and fainter as I descended into the abyss of uncertainty.
I watched because the darkish cloud of disgrace enveloped my life and solid all the pieces in its shadow.
I watched the underside fall out each single time I assumed I had hit backside.
I watched as I walked down the darkest of paths, planning how I might take my life.
And I watched what occurred after I selected to step out of the burnt ashes of what was and into a brand new life.
Stepping out of the ashes was one other terrifying second; I used to be leaving the identified, even when it was horrible, for the unknown.
However there was one thing unbelievable ready for me after I did.
There’s a present once you hit all-time low and are available out the opposite facet.
It’s the knowledge and perspective that may solely come from staring into the eyes of the worst model of your self and despising what you see.
And as an alternative of making an attempt to kill it, you acknowledge its existence, settle for its existence, and study to like its existence.
However you don’t enable its existence to outline you.
It’s by way of this typically painful course of that I fully reinvented my life.
I’ve spent the previous decade reworking jail into objective, and I’ve discovered my life’s mission, and now I assist others do the identical.
I don’t make as a lot as I did within the company world.
However I’ve what I used to be chasing for all these years, and I used to be too blind to see I’d by no means catch.
Goal
Which means
Success
Interior Freedom
Emotional Peace
These are the highest 5 classes I’ve realized from reinventing my life after jail.
I spent my days in jail, wishing I wasn’t in jail. I spent my days wishing I didn’t make the alternatives I made that landed me in jail.
I needed and dreamed for all times to be something apart from it was.
I used to be combating in opposition to a previous and circumstance that couldn’t be modified.
I might by no means have the liberty to start out over and reinvent if I continued to combat for what can’t be modified.
I needed to do what I used to be so afraid to do.
I needed to settle for actuality.
I didn’t need to.
It felt like giving up; it felt passive. Combating equals progress. However does it? What was I combating in opposition to? As a lot as I want there have been, there isn’t a such factor as a time machine Delorean.
Accepting actuality isn’t giving up; it isn’t passive.
It was an act of braveness for me to say,
“I settle for that I betrayed myself and selected to commit a criminal offense. I settle for I made the selection to proceed within the face of the universe screaming at me to cease. I settle for that I’m in jail. I settle for that I damage my household, my buddies….”
A weight lifted off of me; I wasn’t trapped previously. As an alternative, I felt one thing I assumed was unimaginable in jail, freedom.
It’s the liberty that comes once you’re not locked previously.
“New beginnings are sometimes disguised as painful endings.” – Lao Tzu
2. Self-Belief is a Should
My fraud required 1000’s of selections to maintain it going. Every a type of selections was made within the face of my coronary heart, saying,
“Cease, don’t do that. This isn’t the best way.”
I ignored my coronary heart, violated my voice, and I paid the value.
My inside voice disappeared, and I didn’t belief myself to make the best choices.
What to eat, and what workouts I might do within the gymnasium.
I used to be paralyzed by the torture of self-mistrust.
I needed to study to belief myself once more, which was one of the difficult duties ever.
And it began by making and protecting commitments to myself.
The extra commitments I made and saved, the extra I turned the one that did what they stated they’d do.
I reconnected with my inside voice.
3. Execute My Fears
Concern was a main driver behind my option to commit a criminal offense.
It was simpler to commit fraud and violate my inside voice than to be sincere with myself and my spouse on the time.
I understood concern landed me in jail and that I may leverage concern to reinvent my life after jail.
I made an inventory of all my fears, and inside my jail dice, I dedicated to executing them one after the other.
My #1 concern? Public talking.
It took 5 years, however I landed on the TEDx stage.
This was after I executed that concern, and my world expanded.
4. Have a Mission
I assumed I had a mission earlier than jail.
Make as a lot cash as attainable and spend all of it on fancy issues.
That wasn’t a mission.
It was what I assumed I must be doing, not what I wished to do.
Solely after I began writing my 1st ebook and pursuing public talking did I perceive what a mission really is.
A mission is one thing I’m keen to sacrifice all of the short-term photographs of happiness (consuming, social media, Netflix) in pursuit of long-term objective, that means, and achievement – with an unknown final result.
A mission is one thing extra vital than myself and serves a better good exterior myself.
My want behind the ebook and the TEDx?
To assist one individual.
That’s my mission to today.
5. Cease Chasing/Begin Creating
Pre-prison, I chased happiness, objective, that means, and achievement on the backside of a bottle and the swipe of my American Specific Platinum card.
I used to be on The Golden Treadmill, racing furiously to a end line I’d by no means attain.
Goal, that means, and achievement aren’t chased; they’re created.
And after I take the time to concentrate on what actually issues to me and align my actions with that, I create them.
And happiness naturally ensues in consequence.
The humorous factor about these classes is that this:
They’re what I realized from going to jail, dropping all the pieces, and reinventing from scratch, however they’re common.
They apply to any certainly one of us at any time.
We don’t must go to jail to implement these classes to create the life we need to stay.
Nor do I recommend you look forward to the underside to fall out earlier than implementing them in your personal lives.
Begin now to create a unprecedented future.