What’s next?

Find out what you enjoy doing, not what you can tolerate, but what you genuinely love to do, and try to monetize it. Most people, including me, are used to living day by day, or week to week, in a job or situation that we don’t like but we know it pays the bills and we feel a certain complacency with that. We tend to tell ourselves, well, if I can make X amount of dollars this week, then I know my bills are paid. There is nothing wrong with that, that’s not what I’m saying.

But are we only living to pay our bills? That can’t be our only purpose in life. Do we want to work 40 hours a week just to use all our earnings to have a place to sleep when we are not at work?

Everyone has a gift, believe it or not. Whether it be athletic, intelligence, social skills, or even video games. Everyone has a craft. Most of us go to work 40 hours a week to come home and do what we love on our own time for free, our free time can be spending time at the gym, playing video games, or working on social media, etc.

Here is my question to all of us.  What if we spend our free time figuring out how to monetize our craft, so eventually we are our own boss?  Look, I’m not saying quit your day job and try to become an entrepreneur today. But figure out your purpose. Our purpose in life is not to just pay bills, that can’t be it.

If one door closes, I promise you that door wasn’t meant for you. You were meant for something else, maybe something even greater.

I could’ve sworn I was going to the NFL. I went to a smaller division 1 school but none the less, I did what I had to do, had great statistics and great attributes/measurements. Was I going to get drafted?…. most likely not. But I was projected to be in a preseason camp, and a priority free agent. I was the 36th ranked tight end for the 2015 NFL Draft and broke every single receiving record at my school for my position. Long story short, after receiving heavy interest prior to the draft and several pre-draft calls from NFL teams when that day came….. NOTHING. Not a single call, not one camp invite…. nothing. That really hit me hard, especially seeing my teammates who I’ve been grinding with for five years get their shot. It was a tough pill to swallow. 32 NFL teams smacked me in my face and said, “you’re not good enough”.  That’s okay though, when that door closed I knew another door was going to open soon.

I didn’t get a 9-5 job with my college degree. Instead, for the last 2 years I was serving tables, substitute teaching, and working security at a bar. In my free time I loved the gym, I knew I could do a lot of athletic things that many people could not do. So that was my craft. I didn’t get to showcase it at the NFL, so I went down another avenue. I investigated other opportunities that I could showcase my craft at a national level and it eventually landed me on America Ninja Warrior and Big Brother season 20 television shows. These shows have given me other opportunities and I’ve met some great people throughout my journey. Of course, I’m grateful for what I have and we all should be. But we need to use our craft, connections,  and platform to our advantage. Use it as a stepping stone to where we really want to go and what we really want to be in life.