This Is Not What I Thought My Life Would Look Like At 35.

Here I am, working to replace the striving for stillness, replacing the envy with gratitude, and to replace the tomorrow with today.

35.

Or, Tres Cinco, as I would say when I pretend like I can speak Spanish.

(Yes, I know that means three five, not thirty five)

But, here I am, 35 years old.

It actually feels hard to write those words.

Not because I’m finally at the age where I need to consciously remember how old I am but because my life is so incredibly different than I thought it would be.

I had plans. Big fucking plans.

Married, two kids, and a million dollar business. All by the age of 30 kind of plans.

Instead, I’m 35 with no kids or plans to have them, and I just finished a call with my therapist talking about attachment issues with my parents and how common this is for people with neurodiversity.

This is not what I thought my life would look like.

As you may have noticed, my default was to try and open this letter with some poor comedic relief because this is going to be a real and raw look into my past and where I actually am today.

And I share this because I know so many others that have also watched the calendar flip year after year and what they had anticipated was not coming to fruition. Maybe my story will lend you some comfort in knowing you’re not alone or, maybe this is just for me, and the catharsis I receive from my putting these words down.

Ever since I can remember I wanted to be a millionaire.

I know that this may seem like a childish goal that every person has as they grow up. But, I genuinely thought I was going to be a millionaire.

I think this all started as a boy sitting on the sidelines of a basketball court.

You see, I fell in love with sports as a child.

I would travel around the province weekend after weekend with my parents staying in hotel rooms, hanging out in hotel hot tubs, and eating subway sandwiches watching my two older brothers play volleyball and basketball.

I carried a basketball or volleyball with me everywhere I went. You could always find me on the court squeezing in a little practice every time the whistle blew and the play stopped.

My two older brothers were pretty good, and I think this is where my competitive spirit birthed.

As the youngest of two older brothers, whose only goal in life was to be included, this must have sparked something inside of me to become the best.

I’m having a little epiphany as I write this. Maybe it's the microdose of mushrooms starting to hit, the therapy session I had yesterday, or the fact that all of this may actually stem from the relationship with my brothers and I simply never examined it until I wrote these exact words.

I learned from a very young age the importance of being the best.

When I was the best, I was included. When you’re the captain of the team, you’re always with a group of friends. When you win games, your family wants to come watch and cheer you on.

So I became the best.

All of my earlier memories revolve around sports.

When I close my eyes I can still feel every victory and every loss.

Every game-winning shot. Every time my name was announced for MVP.

The taste of pepperoni pizza at Pizza Hut after we won a tournament.

Goosebumps still come over my body when one of my old warm-up songs comes on the radio.

And to this day, I can’t watch a sports movie without my eyes swelling with tears as the memories wash over my body and a hint of sadness lingers.

I officially joined my first team in grade 5. While I wasn’t a child prodigy, I quickly became the best on my team. And that “best on the team” carried through every single team I played on until I entered college.

I have boxes in storage filled with gold medals, MVP trophies, and a giant plaque and ring from when I was named the best player in my city in Grade 12.

So it might not come as a surprise when my competitive spirit followed me into business and entrepreneurship where my goal was the same, to become the best.

In this arena? The best meant making a million dollars and being named a Top 30 Under 30.

In my pursuit, I created and ran more businesses than I can count.

I built and sold computers.

I worked as a freelance web designer.

I launched a supplement company where I formulated and created my own products.

I was a partner in an e-cigarette company before they went mainstream.

I started a boutique advertising agency.

I coded and launched a social network for businesses before I discovered LinkedIn.

I launched news and magazine websites to generate ad revenue.

I became a personal trainer.

I took out a $500,000 loan and opened a brick-and-mortar gym.

I worked as a mentor and business coach to fellow gym owners and personal trainers.

All before the age of 30…

I can still remember sitting in the Chandelier Bar of the Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas while on a business trip I couldn’t afford sipping on $28 cocktails while checking my bank balance to see if I could pay for them.

This was the moment it hit me.

I wasn’t a millionaire.

I didn’t get a Top 30 Under 30 Award.

I no longer desired to have children.

And my life was being driven by status and ego.

30, for me, brought the awareness that things didn’t go as planned. And this laid the ground for the depression and existential crisis that ensued.

But 35, has begun the journey to acceptance.

The time in between? Was spent attempting to run and escape, numb and avoid.

Taking on $100,000 of debt to close our gym business. Moving across the world multiple times, Arizona, Puerto Vallarta, Bali, Playa Del Carmen, Edmonton, Vancouver, and now Victoria.

None of it worked.

Not “changing my environment”, not moving to Bali, not making more money, it was time to re-think things.

So here I am, working to replace the striving for stillness, replacing the envy with gratitude, and to replace the tomorrow with today.

A series of micro adjustments towards improving my quality of life.

My back hurts all the time from years of sports, training, and powerlifting.

So I’ve reduced weight training for yoga, mobility, and conditioning so that I can feel great in my body and maintain resilience as I age.

I’ve dropped the “I’ll make a million dollars and don’t need to worry about it” mentality and realized I was concerned about savings so I reworked my expenses and started to save and plan.

I realized I was wired a little differently so I began to work with coaches, therapists, and learn more about my Neurodiversity and take steps to better accommodate my needs.

I started to actively do less, and constantly re-assess, so I could recover from the years of burnout.

I started to set my aside to buy things and do things for myself like a video game, or a massage because I struggle to prioritize myself and my needs.

I spend time in reflection to be with and process my thoughts and feelings after so many years of avoidism and masking.

And I sought a massive transformational purpose to lead the work that I do rather than focusing on what is going to make me more money.

This is 35.

Realizing that the journey is the destination.

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