Feeling Alone (In a World Of Endless Opportunity) And What I Did About It...

HEADS UP: Graphic read coming in...

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For the record this will be a hard read…

But it has something in it for everyone at the end.

I’m not sorry it’s a hard read.

It’s been a journey I don’t regret.

I'm better off today because my life has not been "easy"...

I’m simply sharing this and in the detail you’re about to read to provide you context.

Context that you can create a life…

…where you don’t have to avoid reality.

Because...

I know for a fact, there are men and women who've had it FAR more difficult than what you’re about to read.

So as much as I own my experience...

I by no means use it as a crutch to lean on or a coin to deposit later in exchange for sympathy.

This is the start off point I envisioned for the Meaningful Man originally.

Because from my own experience…

Self abandonment is what stood in the way of a world of endless opportunities…

Opportunities I get to enjoy today.

My partnership deals?

They’re a blessing.

Because of what I’ve went through.

I value relationships.

More than ever.

And I prefer to choose them wisely now.

Both personal and professional.

So why do so many people feel alone today?

When we’re supposedly more connected than ever?...

It’s self abandonment in some shape or form…

Whether we do it consciously or unconsciously…

We assign meaning…

Let me share some context with you.

I remember the first time I felt really alone.

Terrified actually…

Cut off from the world.

And with no hope…

I was 7 years old.

I was a skinny little kid, living in the cold winter of Des Moines Iowa with my mom and step dad…

I was raised by my great grand parents and great aunt because my mom had me when she was 19 after she was sexually assaulted.

The same great grandmother who told my mom, “You’re not bringing that bastard child into this world.”

You can imagine how “warm” that household was growing up.

And no, I don’t know who my father is…

But a few years later, my mom wanted custody of me since she got newly married and created a new family.

And so...

I went from the warm sunny climate of Florida to the icy winter of Iowa.

And it was about 7:00 pm…

I was standing in the door way of an empty bedroom in the house I’d come to know as home two or three months earlier.

I was terrified.

Because I knew was about to happen…again.

But I had no idea it would go as far as it did this time.

As I'm snatched up by my frail arm with such an immense speed...

…all I see is a blur of walls as my frame smashes against one of the walls inside the room.

“You wanna DIE bitch?!”

I can barely make out the scream at first.

And although I can’t see much as I’m dazed from the impact...

This 6’2 285 lb hairy beast looms over me with the black .44 magnum in his hand.

My body has gone numb as I’m snatched up and thrown again across the room.

And I fall away from the pale yellow wall and land on top of a cardboard box that’s tipped over…

And I lay there…

Limp…

Praying he thinks the life has left my body.

Praying I’m actually dead.

But instead I feel the pressure of his huge hand grip the back of my neck.

His vice like grip is tight as I feel the cold steel of the barrel enter my mouth pressing pass my lips smashing into my teeth…

“I SAID do you WANT TO DIE mother fucker?!”

The scream sounds like it’s coming through the far end of a long damp tunnel.

I’m not even sure if this is real at this point.

And I can’t cry as the barrel is so far in my mouth all I can do is gag.

My body is limp as I sit there on what I think is his lap…

I can’t remember completely.

I just remember it was four and half months of torment…

This doesn’t include the time he had his 3 boys stab me in the hands with forks at the dinner table…

Or the time I was thrown in a cold shower at midnight and beat down the steps to the public theater him and my mom owned on Main Street.

There was a stair case from the boys bedroom that led down to the back of the movie theater that you’d enter on Main Street.

Where I stood there in front of the movie screen naked in the middle of the theater for what felt like at least an hour…maybe two.

Freezing.

Wet.

I was told if I moved, he’d murder me.

I remember feeling very alone...

Or the time I was thrown and landed on the bedrail of a bunk bead.

I ended up being rushed to the hospital and getting 38 stitches in my forehead.

I remember him speeding me to the bathroom…

…and me hanging over the side of bathtub crying.

Freaked out by all the blood pouring from my head into the tub.

And I also remember hearing and feeling the fear in his voice…

As I was lying in the hospital bed going into surgery telling me, “We gotta find a safer way to play like chess or something little buddy…”

He was saying it loud enough for the nurses to hear it.

But I can remember the look in her eyes as she gave him a gleaming look of bullshit…

You see…

Those were moments I felt…

Alone.

Desperately alone...

I couldn’t understand.

What did I do?

What was wrong with me?

Did I deserve this?

I must have deserved it.

And my brain went to work assigning meaning...

A lot of meaning.

Luckily it wasn’t long after I was sent back to Florida.

But not without scars.

Both outside…

And inside.

Missing chunks of hair and teeth, bruises, and visible scars from the stitches.

I was no longer the same child that went to Iowa.

I was filled with something I couldn’t understand.

It took me decades to recover from this.

But you see…

It woke me up in ways I couldn’t imagine...

All because of it.

I was broken open even if it was a little at a time.

Forced into a belief of responsibility.

Because when I didn’t?

I tried to numb the pain.

Through sex and drugs.

Overdosing twice on drugs…

…nearly dying.

Trying to numb the feelings I couldn’t fully understand.

The man I just shared with you…

…my step father...

We sat across from one another at pic-nic table on a beach in St. Petersburg Fl in my late 20’s…

…and I shared with him how I had forgiven him as much as I humanly knew how.

We held hands across the table and cried as he profusely apologized.

This man was faced with the natural consequences of his actions from all those years before.

Where that frail little 7 year old boy was now a man.

A man who sat in front of him, attempting to love what he still didn’t fully understand.

Because even back then I knew on some level...

When you hold people in your heart...

Then the healing can really begin.

He was sincere...

And he meant it.

He was angry.

Feeling forced to raise a bastard kid that wasn’t his.

A bastard that reminded him of the pain his wife experienced before they were married.

I’m not justifying it.

But that was his reasoning.

From all of the confusion I felt for so many years...

I had nearly committed suicide at the age of 22 by putting a gun in my mouth and attempting to pull the trigger.

But grace had something else in store for me.

I had already nearly died of a drug overdose from a combination of heroine, xtc, cocaine, and acid…

But grace had something else in store for me.

You see…

There are a lot of other “stories” I’m not sharing that I could…

And I could say life has happened TO me…

That it’s not my fault.

That I didn’t ask for it.

But something happened…

Something called grace.

With all the torment, God still had his hand in my life.

Otherwise it could have been worse.

You see, it took a long time…

But I began taking responsibility.

A little at a time...

I’d like to say there was a particular moment it happened and all of a sudden my life was amazing thereafter.

But it didn’t work like that.

I’m not a Brendon Burchard where an accident nearly killed me and I woke up right after.

But I can tell you...

In my early 30’s after a divorce…

I still drove around for at least 3 years without wearing a seatbelt.

Hoping I’d be hit by a car or truck so I’d be near the point of death and forced to weak up from my numbness.

Looking back I was so selfish.

I was living in apathy.

No regard for what that may do to the other person who might have been involved.

Sure there were moments of hope.

A glimmer of light from time to time..

But mostly there was depression.

Apathy.

Fear.

A few failed businesses.

A failed marriage.

Even cheating…

Where I was waiting on someone to leave their marriage to be with me.

Which of course never happened.

How could I expect someone to want to be with me...

When I couldn’t be with myself?

Self abandonment.

It seemed like I had called in every obstacle I could unconsciously...

Simply because I couldn’t be with myself.

All so I could be right.

That I deserved to be alone...

Why?

Because that’s all that little 7 year old boy could come up with so many years ago.

That’s all he could fathom in that dark moment in time.

Today...

So much has evolved.

I love that little boy...

More than anyone else could.

Throughout all of this…

I discovered something.

About me.

And about the world.

The “abuse”…

Yes, today I get to assign meaning to it.

The overdoses?

I get to assign meaning to them.

The near suicide?

I get to assign meaning to it.

My own mother didn’t want me?

I assigned meaning to it.

And I told myself...

If my own mother didn't want me, then who would?

The failed marriage and being the “other man?”

They were all because of the meanings I assigned them.

If she’ll leave him, it means she loves me.

But I’d pick people who of course wouldn’t choose me.

Because “I” hadn’t chosen ME.

So I got to be right...

You see…

The pain of being right was what I was most familiar with.

It was all I knew.

So I kept seeking it out...

Because the certainty of the pain, was more familiar than the uncertainty of knowing if I'd be loved.

I remember a defining statement…

“What happened to you when you were a child wasn’t your fault..

IT WASN’T…

However, as an adult you have a responsibility to treat yourself like someone you care about and are responsible for…” ~ Jordan Peterson

Maybe my life wouldn’t have been so hard if I understood that sooner.

If I wouldn’t have self abandoned for all those years?

I’d be farther a long in my journey…

Here’s the thing:

But if if’s and buts were candy and nuts we’d all have a Merry Christmas...

So…

I began to wake up to this idea a decade ago actually...

I found myself starting to let go of my anger, my sadness, and my depression around my past through counseling, therapy and prayer…

Support and insight.

Because I was tired of feeling like I was living with something I didn’t want anymore.

Today, I find it ok to give myself permission to experience sadness if I feel it...

I just don’t stay in that emotional space for a terribly long time now.

Because I choose to take responsibility...

Response…able…

I’m Able. To. Respond.

Instead of react.

The voids I have been through have taught me much about myself and life...

And I’m sure they will teach me more.

But in all…

The BIG bonus is this…

As I began stepping into producing value in the world, in ways that leverage my natural mental talents…

I can be creative in finding resources to help me achieve those outcomes.

Whether it’s help, tools, finances, etc…

This is what happens when I put together partnership deals…

My partners resources are my resources if I can produce us both enough value.

Without any risk to them.

Resourcefulness is so much easier when there aren’t a lot of meanings assigned to it such as...

“It’s hard to do."

“It’s not easy…"

“I’m not smart enough…"

Etc. etc. etc...

So today…

I don’t look back except to marvel at how far I’ve come.

I aspire to be of greater service while I’m still here.

To think outside the box.

And experience joy in doing so.

You see...

I thought I was alone...

And I’d fight for the motivation to prove I was someone important and seek validation for it.

My “status” in life was everything.

And I’d fight tooth and nail to maintain it.

Meh…

Terrible terrible strategy.

Today, I’m “inspired" because there’s so much opportunity to be and to experience a life well lived.

And I don’t have to give a rats ass if anyone approves or not.

Money or status are just a natural consequence.

Partnership deals is just ONE way I accomplish a life of freedom.

It’s why I led with the book Deals Over Clients.

Because if you read between the lines?

It’s how I navigated what a healthy relationship is with myself.

Once I began facing reality.

And treating myself like someone I actually cared about.

It’s been a long road…

I’ve had lots of teachers, mentors, and deeply close friends who have supported me in this journey.

I’m not sure I’d be here if this wasn’t the case.

If you haven’t read Deals Over Clients?

I ask that you do…

For no more reason than to be inspired and see what you’re capable of.

Regardless of the past or even present.

And it doesn’t even have to be because you want to do deals.

But because you want to be inspired to walk your own path.

And then?

I can’t wait to read YOUR story.

In your corner,

~ Tony