Vince Fowler

"Life is HARD. Easy is not an option." - Les Brown

I think can all relate to the hardships of life, wouldn't you agree?

In November 2019, I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress, in part, the result of my military deployment to Somalia in 1992/93.

I didn't believe the psychologist's words. I responded, "You've got the wrong guy. I didn't see combat. I didn't do anything worthwhile. I was just there."

While I didn't believe the diagnosis, I was well aware that my life at the time felt a lot harder than it needed to be.

Staying where I was at was already hard.
Choosing to participate in therapy was also going to be hard.

I had to choose my hard, and 22 months later I'm so glad I did. 🙏🏼

Choose Your Hard has since been a very important message for me to share.

The man in the photo is my friend Adam. He lives in North Carolina. I gave have him a t-shirt a few weeks ago - along with the context - and this is what he shared with me today...

"10 miler this morning in this oddly sexual but super motivating t-shirt 😉 😉 "

I laughed. Quite honestly, when I had the shirts made up, not for once did I think of any sexual innuendo. It is what it is. 😂

Regardless if you're the CEO or the leader who reports directly to the CEO, you have so much power and influence in the community and beyond... and if you want to make the impact you aspire to make in our world, then I hope you already know you have to choose your hard.

All paths are hard. Choose YOUR hard... because easy is not an option.

STOP 🛑
STOP waiting for others pick you.
Pick yourself.

There’s a debilitating and disempowering narrative out there (or worse, a belief) that your success is somehow predicated on the condition of you getting picked… as if success is somehow an *if only*;

• if only a VC would invest in my company

• if only a sponsor would contribute to my event

• if only a Dragon or Shark would buy into my business

• if only an influencer would share & mention my company and product

• if only a celebrity would…
• if only the government would…
• if only [insert disempowering condition here]…

Sound familiar?

Stop waiting for others to see the potential in you and/or your idea, to back you, to fund you, to pick you.

Pick yourself.

Sure… along the way someone may very well step to support you, contribute to your cause, donate, partner, sponsor, etc… the determining factor, however, is, “along the way,”…

…meaning;

• no one picks you if you’re sitting still
• no one picks you if you aren’t already putting in the reps
• no one picks you if you haven’t already picked yourself

As we head into 2022, make a conscious and deliberate decision at the the beginning of each and every day forward to pick yourself. You gaurantee you won’t regret it.