The Pajama Story

Can a single thought you have laying in bed one morning really change your life?

It changed mine.

And if you’re willing to give me a change – I think it will change yours too.

A disclaimer though –

This isn’t a sales pitch or marketing piece.

Not at all.

This is just a straight up story from my life that I have a feeling you may need to hear.

Whether you’ve been investing for a while or you’re still earning your stripes, this THOUGHT may just change your life like it did mine.

But I can’t tell you the what came into my head that morning – not yet.

First I need to take you on a little trip back in time…

Okay, maybe not that far back, I’m still a young dude.

It was the summer of 1997 and I was a sophmore are Rutgers College.

Rutgers is about 30 minutes from my hometown and since I’m a bit of a mama’s boy as my wife Charlene says – it was a perfect fit for college.

I was an A student in high school so when I got to Rutger I figured booksmart kids either went into Medicine or Business / Law. Since I just about faint at the sight of blood – I opted for Business – I was an accounting major to be exact.

In my first 2 years I probably only went to 2 college parties and I had zero girlfriends – but I did have a perfect 4.0 GPA. That landed me a fully paid internship in the accounting department at the Hess Corporation.

I still remember my first day…

I button up a designer suit I purchased for $50 at a thrift store and had taylored to look like $500. My grandfather had bought me my first briefcase and I even have a little corporate badge with my picture on it (complete with my beach blond dyed hair at the time – hey, I never drank or did drugs so the least I could do is make a mess of my hair!)

Funny thing is – just about every day after this first day all seems to blend together.

My boss is nice.

The people are nice.

And everyone thinks I’m doing a great job.

However, morning by morning I start to find that the first thing I do when I wake up is count how many more days to go before the weekend is finally here?

It’s not that the job is bad and even particularly hard – I actually completed all the work for the internship before half the summer was over.

But here I am – a 19 year old bean counting wizard who’s only been in this job for about two months and I’m already crossing off the days of my life like a prisoner serving life!

And that’s when it hit me.

I can’t say I remember the exact morning or what I was doing.

But I was laying in bed when the THOUGHT came into my head.

It’s the thought that changed my life.

Laying in there under the sheets, in the bed I great up in, it came to me…

“I want to be excited to start every day of my life.”

Thinking it was like a revelation.

Like someone had smashed the walls that had been crushing me and I could finally breathe.

And it wasn’t some sort of wishful revelation like a day-dream or fantasy.

Oh no – this thought was completely and totally natural.

It’s like thinking this way was what I was created to do.

And that’s when the perfectly carved path to surefire success, security and utter boredom radically changed.

I finished out the Hess internship and was invited back. But I never went.

In fact, I even finished my accounting degree and graduated first in my class.

But I never went on a single interview with the accounting firms. Not one.

Crazy as this sounds – I didn’t go on any interviews at all.

I began to head down the exciting and uncharted road of being an entrepreneur.

Has it been easy?

No. Not at all.

The work I do now is probably ten times harder than anything I ever would’ve done as an accountant.

Sometimes its mentally and emotionally utterly exhausting.

But as hard as it gets I’d never go back and take that road.

I’d never go back to a life wher eI couldn’t look forward to every single day.

So what about you?

Can you really say you’re excited to wake up and start your day every single morning?

Is one day really as much of an adventure as they next or do you find yourself just punching the clock until the weekend comes?

I’m going to tell you two cold hard facts.

One you’ve heard before – and one nobody wants to tell you.

You really can live an extraordinary life.

And it ain’t easy.

Whatever it is that you want to do – whether it’s retire before the age of 30, become a first generation millionaire in your family or just earn enough money to finally quit your job – the only way you’ll ever make any of these things happen is by realizing this:

An extraordinary life begins with extraordinary decisions.

When the average person goes left because it’s the easy way – you go right.

When the crowd all turns around because the challenge is too big and the risk too great – you muscle up and charge forward headfirst.

I wanted to share this part of my life with you because I thought it would help you.

I’m not saying all jobs are terrible and nobody should ever work.

Back at the ol’ Hess accounting department there was this guy Frank. Man, this guys was happy as a clam crunching numbers and counting beans. When the quarterly financials would come out he looked like a kid on Christmas morning. For him – accounting was his something exciting to look forward to every day.

So what about you?

It’s unfortunately become a cliché, but this life really is too short to waste.

Don’t be deceieved into thinking the life you’ve been given is the life you have to live and there’s nothing you can about it.

Every morning do you wak up excited to start your day?

Even more importantly – do you want to?

Remember an extraordinary life begins with extraordinary decisions.

Where the crowd gives up and turns back is where the untamed beauty of true living begins…

The only person who can make that decision is YOU.

Till next time – Damian out )

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Stay the Storm
“There Will Be Blood”
Man, Have You Ever Bought From These Guys?
Damian, Where Does Your Inspiration Come From?
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