“I’ll be honest – we weren’t really “looking” for an opportunity when our business stumbled into our life, but it ended up being everything we wanted all in one amazingly cool package.”
I’ll just start by saying that this whole journey started with some incredibly thin threads. Neither of us were searching for anything else to add to our plates when I met our now mentors. Sheri and I met completely organically (literally in the self checkout line at Target), and from the get-go, I just had a feeling that my life would be better with her in it. It’s really hard to explain. I’ve never felt like that before…but I just like to think that it was a God thing and not try too hard to make sense of it.
You have to understand that I come from a background of being pretty introverted. I love people but I’m not necessarily the “bold” type. So me getting involved in a people-based business that involves sales and becoming a leader…yeah, not exactly what I saw myself doing with my life if I’m being honest. BUT, like I said, I just wanted to surround myself with good people. And our mentors are a shining example of that. They had a great marriage, great friendships, a thriving business that they were excited about and they loved the Lord. All things that I admired and aspired to have and/or be one day.
The ability to have our own business outside of what we do full time in our careers has taught us so much over the years. We’ve literally become new people, in the best possible way. Now – a lot of that is due to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, not simply because of an endeavor…however, we grew closer to God through the relationships that we developed with people on our team. So to us, they sort of go hand in hand.
We’ve learned to develop more people skills, to have more patience and always give others the benefit of the doubt. We’ve learned what a healthy, Godly marriage looks like and how to protect that over anything else. We’ve learned from some of the most humble servants what it looks like to love on people wholeheartedly…even when there’s no immediate “benefit”. We’ve seen people come to know Jesus, overcome challenges, mend broken relationships, and develop new skillsets. All of this while also learning how to develop and grow a business of our own that no one can ever take away from us. We get to call the shots. We don’t have a boss or someone telling us what to do or when to do it. Just the example of those who have gone before us and who model success in its various forms and encourage us to come alongside them. It is truly a process of iron sharpening iron.
The day to day aspects and the “how to” of what we do is so simple…which is why we love it! I mean, let’s be real, if it were that hard we probably wouldn’t be doing it. But in all honesty, because we were so attracted to the intangibles and all the serendipities that came along with the package…we were willing to learn a thing or two at our own pace in order to get to be around the people and the team. THAT is what sold us. Not the way we do business, not the money we can make or the products that we have access to. It was the people before anything else. After all, they say that you’re the sum total of the 5 people you spend the most time with. For us, we wanted to make darn sure that was going to play in our favor. I couldn’t look back on my life and my experiences before we met the team and say that I would have been proud of who I had surrounded myself with.
It’s the coolest thing to know that we’re doing things today that others won’t so that one day we’ll be able to live like others can’t. We’re investing our “less productive” time (nights and weekends) now in creating something GREAT for ourselves, and we know that it’s going to be well worth it. We’d much rather be chasing after our dreams and putting in the work now than look back years from now and have the pain of regret saying “what if we had actually gone for it?”, or “where would our life be today if we would have just been willing to do a little extra work while we were young?”. I don’t know, maybe that’s just us. Maybe we’re too passionate. But a wise man once said…
“There is no passion to be found playing small – in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.”
– Nelson Mandela
Ultimately, we’ve found a second family through this opportunity and it is SO much fun! Entrepreneurs in business FOR themselves, but not doing it BY themselves. The support is amazing. We all love to laugh and have a great time, while still developing ourselves and focusing on the future and making it as bright as possible. It’s honestly hard to imagine where our lives would be and the trajectory it would have followed had we not decided to do life this way. We are forever thankful and truly consider ourselves blessed. Our greatest desire is to share this opportunity with others so that we can play a very small role in them getting the experience all the amazing things we have thus far.
The best part? It’s only the beginning…
The Abundant life 