Why Should Anyone Listen to Me?

A few years before COVID, when I was still pursuing motivational speaking, I got asked a question by a writer from a local magazine, “You haven’t had massive success.  Why should people listen to you?”  The question took me by surprise.  I guess in my head going from a timid overweight kid to a US Army Green Beret was enough of a success story to be worth telling.  But the qualifier he was looking for was how much money I had or didn’t have.  I am not a financially successful business person or corporate leader, so why should anyone listen to anything I have to say about self improvement?

It’s a fair question.  The question really touched on something that I was struggling with deeply at the time.  My financial future seemed really uncertain at the time.  I knew I had a great personal story that was full of inspiration and useful lessons learned, but the financial anxiety of trying to build a business was crippling at times.  I’ve said this before, I didn’t have any debt (I still don’t) and I was living a very frugal lifestyle (I still am) but I was still worried about my financial future.  This question only served to magnify that worry at the time.  Today I’m much more settled about the future in terms of finance.  I still don’t make a ton of money.  I’m a security guard now, just like I was then.  The difference is I’ve accepted this reality and I’m appreciative of it.  This is precisely the reason people should listen to me in regards to self improvement:  I’m a normal person.

I was a kid working on my own with no expensive supplements or personal trainers when I went from 305 lbs to 225 lbs.  I was a first generation college student who had family members asking me for financial help while I was earning my Electrical Engineering Degree with Honors.  I was a lower enlisted soldier in the Army, living on base in barracks housing when I paid off $60,000 dollars of debt that included student loans and a repossessed car.  I was able to become a US Army Green Beret when previously I had never been on a hike, never shot a gun, never been camping, and I didn’t know how to swim.  This on top of growing up a shy timid overweight unathletic kid struggling with the impacts of abuse who never saw himself being in such a physically demanding role.  The point here is that I’ve been able to solve some fairly difficult problems with access to very normal resources and huge barriers to progress.

Being a security guard and not being ‘hugely financially successful’ means it’s a little more difficult for people to look at me and say, “That’s easy for you to say!”  I’m a normal person just like you.  Unfortunately, it’s become normal to be in poor health, in debt, and miserable.  I’m just encouraging people to understand that they don’t have to have any special resources or excessive amounts of money to reverse those realities.  But, you do have to take total responsibility for your life and take small consistent steps with the tools you have available.  This is something that any one of us can do.

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