Circumstances

Hey team, all right, so here we are. It’s still March. March is an awesome month. We’re coming up on St. Patty’s Day here really soon. I’ve got something for you about that. I wanted to chat with you and see what you guys think.

But first, I want to talk to you about a guy that lived a really, really long time ago. He was a stoic philosopher. His name, if I got this correctly, it’s Epictetus. Anyway, he says, “Circumstances don’t make the man, they reveal him.”

Many times we want to blame our situation on other people or circumstances. A flood, whatever the event might be, or an earthquake, whether it be man-made, god-made, or person-made. It’s my wife’s fault, it’s my kid’s fault, it’s my boss’s fault. It’s always somebody else’s fault.

Sometimes when we say that the circumstances, if the circumstances were better. If I were born on the other side of the tracks…if I had a better education…if my teachers were better. If my teachers would have seen that I was a rambunctious child and crazy. And if my parents would have taken me to the doctor and got me some Ritalin. And if, if, if…It’s always the circumstances.

The circumstances have made my life worse, and that’s not really…that’s not what makes you. Circumstances don’t make you into the person you are. I have read plenty of stories about people that have had it hard. Einstein was told by his parents, by his teachers, that he was unteachable. That’s Einstein, right?

And people like Henry Ford. Just great men and women across our that were that came up against the ceiling. Many great women, you know, that kept coming up against that ceiling because just because of their gender and yet they accomplished so many great and amazing things. They had so much going for them because the circumstances didn’t make them who they were. It just revealed who they were inside.

So if you’re running into a problem in a situation. And the reason we’re doing this on this Monday is because I just really believe that somebody needs to hear that the circumstances around you are not making you who you are. They are not keeping you from accomplishing the greatness. It’s within you and it’s going to reveal who you are.

So change who you are. If you’re feeling that the circumstances are causing this…well, change your circumstances, change your life. It might require you to take some classes and double up on some things. Maybe take another part-time job to pay off the bills so that you can put yourself in the right place. There are so many things that you can do to change your circumstances and make them different. Let them reveal you as a person of resolve. As a person that is valuable because nothing else will do.

Going to our core values and our core purpose. Again, those values are not just Northwest Enforcements or at least they shouldn’t be. I think the value of resolve and not quitting and digging deeper and investing in yourself is something that you should ascribe to and want to ascribe to because you can change your circumstances.

All you have to do is do something different. And if that’s read a book, if that’s take a class, if that’s take a part-time job, if that’s whatever it is. You can start changing your circumstances, you can make things better.

You want to pay off debt? Stop eating out. Eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for a month for lunch. Go out and eat a cup of noodles. Buy Cup of Noodles. You get 30 of them probably for six to eight bucks, and there’s your lunch. It costs you $8 to eat lunch for 30 days, plain and simple. A jar of peanut butter, a jar of syrup or honey or jelly, and couple of loaves of bread over the course of the next month, and you have yourself a changed bank account to begin paying off debt. Simple things, really.

You want to save? Buy some envelopes. Invest in yourself, and join SmartDollar that we are paying for so that you have access to financial coaching that will help you change. It might change your path, which might change your ZIP code, which might change a lot of things for you.

Don’t go out and buy a $25,000 car. Buy a $4,000 car. Drive it. One of the things that Karen and I did years ago is I sold all my expensive vehicles and I bought, believe this or not, a 1987 Lincoln Town Car. I paid $3,000. $3,000 and I had zero payments on anything else. I paid off all of our debts and I drove a Lincoln Town Car down to California and all kinds of places. And I lived in Northeast Portland, so I fit in, too.

I fit in when I was a young man driving a big old giant massive car and had a huge trunk too. It was awesome. But paid three grand for it and I drove that thing for about 13 or 14 months. I sold it for $3,700. So not only did I drive that car and I made money on that car, but I paid off a ton of debt and I was able to get into my first house because I didn’t have any debt and we were able to make a good car payment.

So me choosing to change my circumstances and not let my circumstances define me but reveal a purpose that I had within me to do something different for myself. You can do the same thing.

All right, God bless you, have a wonderful Monday. And if you notice behind you, this big old long stairway, I can’t remember exactly where this is but it really inspired me. And today’s leg day so I’m just thinking about leg day. All right, God bless you guys. I’ll see you next week.