The silent, stillness of the early morning is pierced by the shrill sound of the alarm clock. The clock says 5:30 AM. The pillow is fluffed perfectly. The covers are just right. It is still dark outside but I am forced to leave this perfect environment.
I stumble to the bathroom. With only one eye open, I scrape a metal blade across my face so that I am presentable. A starchy white shirt that feels like sandpaper against my skin goes on before the tie is tightened to the point of blood restriction to the brain. I give my feet the last breath of air that they will have for 12 hours as I cover them with socks and lace up leather dress shoes.
As I pull the car out of the garage, I turn on the headlights because it is still dark outside. If I do not leave the house before 6:30 am, then my stress level begins to rise because I would never make it to work on time because of the infamous Atlanta traffic. I still get cold sweats thinking about watching the sun rise while staring at red taillights and sucking exhaust fumes from the cars in front of me. My finely tuned Honda screams to go more than 3 miles per hour. I scream because I know I will do this again in 10 hours.
After walking by the boss’s office just to make sure he knows that I had made it to work, I make my way to the rows of cubicles always breathing a sigh of relief when my nametag with the Velcro on the back has not been removed. There is something very temporary about a nametag attached to a cloth cubicle wall with Velcro. A real unsettling feeling.
As lunch time approaches my coworkers and I begin the power negotiations to decide which of the 8 restaurant choices we will choose to wait in line to eat at that day. And of course every lunch excursion includes a trip to the ATM so that we can pull out enough money to make it one more day.
Afternoon in a cubicle was brutal. My eyes fought to stay open. I would prop my elbows in front of my computer screen in an attempt to create equilibrium for my head to rest on my hands and take a quick power nap. However, drool on a keyboard is not a good thing.
Officially, we were supposed to finish the day at 5:00, but it was an unwritten rule that no one could leave until the boss left. And, of course the boss did not want to be the first to leave. So we played the game of attrition to see who could wait each other out the longest. Kind of a warped, sick Mexican standoff with grown men and women in business attire. It was very scary to peek over your cubicle wall and see 50 sets of eyeballs doing the same thing. When someone finally cracked under the pressure it was like a wave sweeping through the cubicles in an effort to get out the door.
The sun was usually setting as I pointed my luxury Honda CRX toward home on the Atlanta freeways with 1.5 million of my traveling buddies. Brake lights as far as the eye could see. The drive home gave me time to reflect on how productive I had been that day. Or not. I soon came to realize that I was doing things that I did not want to do so that I could impress people that I did not even like. Definitely worse than a Chinese torture chamber.
I would pull in my driveway after dark, walk in the house, grunt a weak hello to my beautiful wife and start getting knots in my stomach in preparation for going through the same grinding routine the next day.
I mean one day like this might be tolerable, but the thought of doing this the rest of my life was pure torture. The really scary part is that millions of people live just like that and they think that life can never be better, or worse they are content to live a life of quiet desperation like all of their neighbors.
Power of a Decision
As you can tell, I still have a crystal clear vision of the way life used to be. What a nightmare! How can anyone do that day after day, week after week for 40 plus years? I know that some people enjoy that environment and function well within a large corporate structure. But I also know that many people are designed and created to achieve great things in business or ministry or other fields but they allow themselves to get stuck working in a daily grind.
I believe a true nightmare is never living to the potential that God intends for you to live up to.
There have been many times over the last 30 years when I did not know exactly what I wanted to do with my life, but I knew I did not want to live the nightmare that I described above. Every fiber of my body desires to never live that type of life again. I made a decision that I would do whatever it took to be free. To never work for anyone else, ever again.
When decision time comes there are three things that you must do:
1. Determine what you want. Or in my situation it was much clearer to me what I did not want.
2. Determine what you are willing to give up to get what you want. I realized I needed time and money to break free from my nightmare. So, I quit playing in the washed up athletes church basketball league. I disconnected CATV so that I could save a few bucks. I started a part-time business on the side so I could eventually break away from the corporate grind.
3. Develop an action plan and implement the plan. Or if you can't come up with a plan, just do something. Move forward, pray for guidance, hire a coach, find a mentor. Just do something and your effort will be blessed.
I am thankful that I decided to get rid of my nightmares!
I stumble to the bathroom. With only one eye open, I scrape a metal blade across my face so that I am presentable. A starchy white shirt that feels like sandpaper against my skin goes on before the tie is tightened to the point of blood restriction to the brain. I give my feet the last breath of air that they will have for 12 hours as I cover them with socks and lace up leather dress shoes.
As I pull the car out of the garage, I turn on the headlights because it is still dark outside. If I do not leave the house before 6:30 am, then my stress level begins to rise because I would never make it to work on time because of the infamous Atlanta traffic. I still get cold sweats thinking about watching the sun rise while staring at red taillights and sucking exhaust fumes from the cars in front of me. My finely tuned Honda screams to go more than 3 miles per hour. I scream because I know I will do this again in 10 hours.
After walking by the boss’s office just to make sure he knows that I had made it to work, I make my way to the rows of cubicles always breathing a sigh of relief when my nametag with the Velcro on the back has not been removed. There is something very temporary about a nametag attached to a cloth cubicle wall with Velcro. A real unsettling feeling.
As lunch time approaches my coworkers and I begin the power negotiations to decide which of the 8 restaurant choices we will choose to wait in line to eat at that day. And of course every lunch excursion includes a trip to the ATM so that we can pull out enough money to make it one more day.
Afternoon in a cubicle was brutal. My eyes fought to stay open. I would prop my elbows in front of my computer screen in an attempt to create equilibrium for my head to rest on my hands and take a quick power nap. However, drool on a keyboard is not a good thing.
Officially, we were supposed to finish the day at 5:00, but it was an unwritten rule that no one could leave until the boss left. And, of course the boss did not want to be the first to leave. So we played the game of attrition to see who could wait each other out the longest. Kind of a warped, sick Mexican standoff with grown men and women in business attire. It was very scary to peek over your cubicle wall and see 50 sets of eyeballs doing the same thing. When someone finally cracked under the pressure it was like a wave sweeping through the cubicles in an effort to get out the door.
The sun was usually setting as I pointed my luxury Honda CRX toward home on the Atlanta freeways with 1.5 million of my traveling buddies. Brake lights as far as the eye could see. The drive home gave me time to reflect on how productive I had been that day. Or not. I soon came to realize that I was doing things that I did not want to do so that I could impress people that I did not even like. Definitely worse than a Chinese torture chamber.
I would pull in my driveway after dark, walk in the house, grunt a weak hello to my beautiful wife and start getting knots in my stomach in preparation for going through the same grinding routine the next day.
I mean one day like this might be tolerable, but the thought of doing this the rest of my life was pure torture. The really scary part is that millions of people live just like that and they think that life can never be better, or worse they are content to live a life of quiet desperation like all of their neighbors.
Power of a Decision
As you can tell, I still have a crystal clear vision of the way life used to be. What a nightmare! How can anyone do that day after day, week after week for 40 plus years? I know that some people enjoy that environment and function well within a large corporate structure. But I also know that many people are designed and created to achieve great things in business or ministry or other fields but they allow themselves to get stuck working in a daily grind.
I believe a true nightmare is never living to the potential that God intends for you to live up to.
There have been many times over the last 30 years when I did not know exactly what I wanted to do with my life, but I knew I did not want to live the nightmare that I described above. Every fiber of my body desires to never live that type of life again. I made a decision that I would do whatever it took to be free. To never work for anyone else, ever again.
When decision time comes there are three things that you must do:
1. Determine what you want. Or in my situation it was much clearer to me what I did not want.
2. Determine what you are willing to give up to get what you want. I realized I needed time and money to break free from my nightmare. So, I quit playing in the washed up athletes church basketball league. I disconnected CATV so that I could save a few bucks. I started a part-time business on the side so I could eventually break away from the corporate grind.
3. Develop an action plan and implement the plan. Or if you can't come up with a plan, just do something. Move forward, pray for guidance, hire a coach, find a mentor. Just do something and your effort will be blessed.
I am thankful that I decided to get rid of my nightmares!
Tim Winders has over 25 years experience as a business owner, entrepreneur, coach and consultant. He founded Accelerate Growth NOW to provide business owners with the training, coaching and resources to double, triple and 10X their business. To learn more and to claim your FREE business growth resources, visit AccelerateGrowthNOW.com.
