I’d like you to meet one of my business partners! We seem to work pretty well together….she sleeps and I’m the head rest. Frankly, all this computer stuff just bores her to death so I have decided to take on the roll of advertising online even though she is a huge part of it still. She does more advertising for me than she knows, just being her. So whether she is helping me shave, falling asleep on me while I work or just wanting to play, she is reminding me that I am successful! My reason for doing what I do is to be at home. This picture is my success!

Choosing business partners is a serious matter and I have chosen mine already. I have more than just one. I have chosen them because they inspire me and remind me to have fun. They’re loyal and honest. I love seeing the world through their eyes as it gives me an entirely new perspective. They greet each day with new excitement and energy. There is never a dull moment and they definitely keep me on my toes. Most importantly, I love them. They are my family!

Honestly, let me ask you a serious question. Who would you rather spend the most time in your day with? Your Boss, your business partner, your employees or your spouse and kids? I guarantee that nobody in this world deserves more time with you than your own family. Yes, you must still build relationships, do business, make money, go to church and all that stuff, but not at the sacrifice of those you love the most, your business partners for life, your family.

If you have a goal to have more time for your family, what are you waiting for? Something is not going to fall out of the sky and hit you on the head saying “here it is!” Although, that would be nice at times. It would be so much easier. I actually quit my job before I had the income to replace it because I knew that wasn’t the life I wanted to live. That was nearly 5 years ago. Now, I am successful. I work from home, make Great money and am living the lifestyle I chose to live nearly 5 years ago when I quit my job. I didn’t hesitate on that decision and neither should you. Don’t find yourself five years from now still wishing to have more time to spend with your family or for that lifestyle change.

What’s more painful for you: Spending your entire life wishing, or, taking a risk at your dreams and failing? I sure hope you chose the first. You can always try again at your dreams but will never, ever get your life back. Make it happen!

Stay at home Dad time is a very special time. It is the time that most Dads and quite a few Moms miss out on. Stay at home Dad time starts from the moment you wake up, or your kids wake you up, until around 5:30 or 6pm. From then on until the kids are in bed is “regular Dad” time. I make sure my kids are in bed at around 8 – 8:30 pm, so that leaves about two solid hours of time. In my opinion, NOT enough time for regular Dad time!

And yes, being a stay at home Dad means you are at home or with your family all day long! To me, that’s the whole point. It is to be there and have the experiences that Mom usually tells Dad about when he gets home, like: “Macy took her first step today, I wish you were here to see it!” There are certain things that I would much rather experience first hand. My family is one of them.

Yesterday, I asked this question to my Facebook friends: “If you were a stay at home Dad, what would you do today?” One lady got upset because I didn’t ask about stay at home moms, another was grateful her husband isn’t home all day right now and one guy told me that he would be getting “thrown up on and (with more profanity) pooped on. Hi ho, Hi ho it’s off to work I go.” It’s amazing to see the different perspectives and priorities others have in their lives. For the most part, it was a negative perspective.

Sure, anyone can be a stay at home Dad, especially if you have yourself a “sugar Momma” right? She makes the money and you stay at home with the kids. I sure hope you can live with yourself! It’s one thing to have the ability to stay at home and another to have the ability to be a stay at home Dad making CEO level income.

So right now, two of my girls are in school, my one year old is napping and I am working. Instead of my girls coming home from school and having to wait for their Dad to get home from work, I am here at home eagerly waiting for my kids to get home from school. It is a very good switch.

I wake up every morning on my terms, not on a time clocks terms or an employers terms, MY terms. If you can understand what it would be like to have every day as a Saturday, do it. Except, when you want to go to the pool or to a popular spot, there’s nobody else there. They all have things going on and here it is in the middle of the week for you. It’s so refreshing.

The purpose of writing this post is not to brag in any way. It’s to educate you of a completely different lifestyle that most people will never realize exists. It just involves stepping out of the norm, or what everyone else expects you to be doing for a living, and into the creative. That’s all it takes!

We have all heard of the people that say their biggest desire in life is to live “The Simple Life.” Not much responsibility, worry or care, just simply them and what they love the most. Out of all they have experienced in life, their truest desire is to live simple, to get away from the hustle and bustle of the world.  That’s the simple life!

Living the Simple Life

I think that living “the simple life” has different meanings for different people. I have personally had conversations with people that say their idea of a simple life is living like a hermit in the mountains without clocks, a schedule or even a wife. Just them, nature, maybe a dog and no where to be. The more common idea of living the simple life is to own a home in a suburb somewhere, have a few kids, a mortgage, a dog and a white picket fence.

I just asked my wife what her idea of a simple life would be and she said, “My idea of a simple life would be to live on the beach, in a hut with clothes made out of hemp, bathe in the ocean and just lay out all day!” I think her idea of the simple life wins the golden nugget for today! I wouldn’t think that hemp clothes would be that comfortable but obviously she is a beach bum at heart!

The word simple means, easy or not complicated. So the simple life is plainly a life that is easy, or not complicated. It is a life without much worry or stress, a life of simplicity. Although life can be complicated by nature, it is our choices that make it that way. We create our lifestyle. We either are the cause of our simple life or the cause of our miserable and complicated life.

My idea of the simple life involves a few key words. It involves financial freedom, so that the worries of bills, mortgages, rent, basic necessities of life, gas for my car or anything else that requires money will not be in my simple life. It involves complete time freedom. I mean the ability to choose for myself the schedule of the day, which is never set in stone and always subject to change. It involves service, the ability to give, teach and inspire those in need. It involves pursuing my hobbies and passions. It involves my family right along side me every step of the way.

That’s the simple life and in order to ensure that I have all those key elements in place, I have got to make key decisions right now that lead me closer to the simple life and the more I think about it, I am mostly there!

Know this, 9 out of 10 people who read this post will statistically NEVER reach their ideal lifestyle. They will never live their version of the simple life. Believe it or not but it’s true! Most people grow old wishing they had done things differently. They wish that had purchased that land or they wish they would have started that business. Your life can and will be just as you plan it to be if you choose to do so starting today. So tell me, are you hanging out with the nine……or are you the one?

Today I received a phone call from a friend telling me that my kids school was in Lock Down. There had been reports of a man wearing a trench coat, carrying a gun, walking around the school grounds. Needless to say, I dropped what I was doing and headed to the school. I live about two blocks away and was there in no time.

My intent was to check my two girls out of school and bring them home. So I pulled into the parking lot, got out of my car and started walking towards the front doors of the school. About half way there I was approached by a police officer decked out in his tactical gear asking me what I was doing. I told him that I had heard about the guy with the gun and wanted to check my kids out of school. He informed me that they were not letting anyone in or out of the school until they could verify that the area was secure. My immediate reaction was to get angry and throw a fit. They were my kids and I wanted to check them out of school right then. Instead of putting on a scene, I knew that there were about 20 to 30 police officers surrounding the school, my kids were safe.

I simply asked, “Well how long will it take for you to verify that the area is secure?” He told me that it would take about 30 minutes to an hour. So I said, “Okay! I’ll be back in 30 minutes!”

I went home, just furious at the possibility that this could happen here, at my childrens school. If you are a parent you can imagine the thoughts that would be going through your head if this had happened to you. 30 minutes later I showed up at the school, I asked the same police officer if everything was secure and within a few minutes they made the decision to allow students to leave.

The principle was almost in tears. I was the first and only parent there to pick up my children. The second person there was a reporter from the local newspaper. The office wasn’t even getting flooded with phone calls yet. I checked my kids out of school and they are home with me now. That is the safest place for them to be, right here with me!

I can tell you this much, I am glad that I have chosen to work from home. Whether it’s a school play, swim lessons in the summer or a potential disaster at school, I am always there!

I am a stay at home Dad, and I am glad I am! Don’t ever get so caught up in your own life that you forget what is most important in the lives of those you love. It’s you!

Life is pretty simple really. When you break things down, it’s the simple things in life that truly make people happy. Time is a very simple thing, it exists all around us, yet hardly anybody has it. Those who do are hopefully grateful for it. Money is very simple as well. It is only worth the value given to it and is a tool used for leverage. You can’t build a house out of it, you can’t wear it or eat it. It is used for a greater purpose, to show value. The level of happiness in ones life directly depends on the simplicity of it, or the simple things in it.

It’s not only what you do but also how you do it that determines your level of happiness. And the thing that determines your level of happiness is your lifestyle. If you work more than you want, you’re unhappy. If you don’t make enough money, you’re unhappy. If you make a ton of money, yet have no time, you’re unhappy. You see, it’s what you do and how you do it that determines your level of happiness.

My role as a husband and a father is very black and white.

It’s the three P’s of fatherhood:

1. Provide
2. Preside
3. Protect

If I’m not fulfilling one of those three P’s, I am not happy because my family isn’t happy. There are fathers all around the world that barely see their families because of the way they decide to fulfill the three P’s. Fathers in the Military are shipped out for 6 months or more at a time. They do it to provide for their families. Fathers in corporate sales are shipped all over the country for their company being gone days and weeks at a time. They do this to provide for their families. Fathers and mothers leave their children in daycare to provide. All of these people are noble and responsible and are doing the best they know how. Leaving the home for long periods of time is the way they know, so they continue to choose that way.

Most people just don’t know how to provide for their families, without being absent all the time. There are ways, tons of ways for you, the working father and mother, to stay at home and make a great living. However it involves a choice to do it in a different way instead of the traditional way of leaving the home. Times have changed. Take advantage of what the world has to offer. The world has made it so easy for you to still fulfill the first of the three P’s, provide, while at home. I choose to work from home and by doing so, I am able to better fulfill the other two P’s by being completely present in the lives of those I care for most.

So you see, it’s just a choice really. Everyday you leave the home to provide for your family, you are choosing to do so. One day, when you are sick and tired of being gone, you will start to choose differently. You will choose to open your eyes to that “different” way of doing things. Once that happens, look forward to seeing your life through a brand new pair of eyes because it will be nothing like the life you know right now. That is, if you are still choosing to provide by being absent.

You all remember the game you used to play back in grade school called “Follow the Leader” right? If not, allow me to refresh your memory a bit. The basic concept of the game is to have one person doing things that everyone else has to follow, or mimic. There’s no real way to win the game as far as I can remember unless everyone else in the game can’t duplicate what the leader is doing. I think the reason the entire game was invented was to teach kids how to follow instructions and to keep them entertained.

Again, as I have mentioned before, as we grow up we tend to forget some of these simple lessons. Maybe it’s not so much that we forget, but maybe we just get more stubborn. While some people completely forget, others take these lessons way too literal. Some people get stuck in the follow mode and will never become the leader. Others get stuck in the leader mode and never learn to follow. There is a reason why you must switch back and forth from follower to leader constantly, or just do both at the same time.

I speak to people everyday who are looking to create something more out of their lives. They are tired of the daily grind, tired of struggle and tired of not having results. They tell me that all they want is the lifestyle that I currently have. They want the money, the ability to travel with their family, the time freedom and the business to provide it all. So I show them what I do and how they can turn around and do the exact same thing. You see, this is their opportunity to follow the leader. I know how to make it happen. I am the leader.

It is common sense to say that if you want something that someone else has, figure out what they have done to get it and do “that.” It’s the simple concept of “Follow the Leader.” But just as in school, some people don’t want to follow the leader and think they know all there is about how to create that success they long for. So they sit out of the game, doing nothing.

In order to get something you have never had, you must do something you have never done! So how are we all to learn how to do something we have never done? It’s simple, find someone who has done it and follow the leader! Even the leaders have leaders to follow. Just because I have been able to assist many people in realizing their ultimate lifestyle doesn’t mean that I know all there is to know about success. So I too must find the leaders who have what I want and follow them! It’s a continual process. Where you are on the level of success determines how much you are the leader and how much you are the follower.

If it is lifestyle you are looking for, time, money, passion, personal development or a business opportunity, play a little game of “Follow the Leader” with me. I’ll lead, you follow, until you are ready to lead yourself!