The Power of Change

Part I The Change in Me

As great as my recent physical change has felt in my life through my personal evolution, the emotional change is the real prize.  I find my mind working at a pace that I haven’t felt for many years, I used to worry as a kid that my brain was working so fast that I was either crazy or on the verge of a hallucination.  The faster my body becomes lighter, the more rapidly my brain function feels unencumbered.  I’ve described it previously as a cloud; literally a haze has lifted from my thoughts. 

Gone are the feelings of inadequacy, or the roots of depression, I feel powerful in the every aspect of the word.  I am confident, I find myself saying hello to strangers while walking my dog all the time, and making eye contact with people who in the past I avoided.  There is a level of mental clarity which is hard for me to tangibly describe other than clear thinking. 

How much better is life when you can appreciate the sounds, smells, and feel the feelings which differentiate us from other animals?

Kind of looked like this guy all the time.

My temper is no where near as short as it had become, I am able to control those moments of extreme anger which in the past would have set me off into a wild tirade.  I know there are studies which make a connection between physical well being, and brain function, yet is there something deeper than that goes beyond just physical connections of hormones and synapses.  What part of the brain am I accessing today which is giving me this feeling of well being, it is giving a rebirth to my drive and determination.

When I wake up in the morning the feelings of utter dread, and lack of desire to face the world are gone. 

I have always been ambitious, sometimes unrealistically so, the present state of my business coupled with extremely poor health had basically beaten any ambitions out of me.  Today I sit here typing with feelings that anything is possible. 

I've just started the real work too in terms of my weight loss, how much better will I feel when I get to the start of the rest of my life at 185 lbs?

Part II Revelation from Daily Recap

Today was the first day in quite some time that I’ve spent time helping my staff on the frontlines cleaning cars.  I know it may not seem like it, but the job of a car wash manager is difficult, dynamic, and thankless.  I know because I spent the first 4 years of my business acting as one, so now having to fill those shoes again after a couple years of not being the manager is like becoming an officer in the military and then running out of enlisted men and going through boot camp again. 

I have a couple of people who I think I will hire in the next week, with a consultant friend of mine coming in the first week of July to provide training I have to pick one of the candidates that I’ve already interviewed.  The process has been far more tedious, but my new found energy has kept me on track in terms of not going for the easy, and looking for the best available.  I went ahead and scheduled the training because I have a handful of people I like and given enough time I will analyzes them to death and not hire anyone, so a drop dead deadline was necessary.

Again the job of a car wash manager is both mentally and physically taxing, like a restaurant manager, but the compensation typically is no where near as high as high volume restaurant managers.  I think this is why there is no national chain of car washes. 

In helping to process cars today I could not believe my level of stamina, I could just keep going, and maintain a high level of mental alertness.  In the past I would help for an hour and feel like I had just gone 5 rounds with Floyd Mayweather.  I spent 5-6 hours today helping the both of the sites and I still had ample reserves of energy at the end of the day.  In fact after the physical part of my day I felt better, even more energetic.

I posted yesterday about my short term future business plans.  After a day to marinate on it, I am taking this up as a real challenge.  The piece which has been missing in my business’ further development was me.  I have been a passenger, after years of burnout, mental exhaustion, emotional frustration and a lack of physical well being I had given up and was looking for something easier.  I don’t see myself doing this for ever, but in the immediate future I plan on shaping this business into something which I conceived almost 10 years ago.  The business is successful, but not in the way I want it to be, it’s run like a good mom and pop business, but not one that could be franchised or have more 3 units.   

I won’t bore you with further details, but my mind can’t stop thinking about the fact that in order for me to reach the goals that I have in my life that I have to grab this business by the tail and make it into the vision that I had in mind when I first set out on this professional path.  To sell now for a dollar amount which would provide a good ROI, is not enough, I need the emotional ROI, the one that tells me that I can set forth a specific goal of not a dollar value, or revenue, or any other mathematical matrices that I can conjure up, but about creating and delivering a vision. 

If I can’t create a vision with what I have at hand, then how will I ever create a manifest anything on a larger scale?  My heart might not be in the particular type of work I am doing, but it is deeply in the overall scope of making sure I finished what I started.  I know I have greater business ideas, and business plans but to take the next 12-18 months to implement the change for the future which will help manifest the vision of the business that I set forth with, that I can’t put a price tag or value on.

It would also allow me to achieve a goal in my life which I set forth in my 20’s, which was to help leave a lasting legacy of the 30+ years that my parents have spent toiling in this country.  They ate shit, they sacrificed their bodies, they gave up their lives, to make sure me and my siblings had the true American Experience.  We never wanted for anything, and never missed anything because we couldn’t afford it, they always found a way. 

Many future generations of my family will exist, all stemming from the roots created by my parents, one day these bastards won’t even know the names of the people that brought about their existence or created their financial security, by helping to keep a legacy in place at least for the next few generations they will know of the story of a couple who didn’t’ speak the language who went from working their first jobs in textile factories, to driving Mercedes, and then leaving a foothold in this country which has helped multiple generations of their lineage a large step up in life. 

I know that to achieve anything less than excellence for me and my family is tantamount to failure. 

The inertia which existed in my body weight translated to an inert life.  I was in the same place day after day not making progress.  Each week of progress is showing me that regardless of how immoveable something may appear to be, a small step forward is like the initial push of a big boulder.  It may rock back and forth as you try and crate enough leverage to make it move, then eventually you get it closer and closer to the top of a hill where one big push is all it takes for the boulder to roll down the hill. 

I am such a dope; some lessons in my life take forever for my subconscious to accept.  These are lessons I should have taken to heart many years ago, and many of the epiphanies I am having along the way are more like forgotten memories than they are new revelations. 

Change is powerful, because I am powerful.