I have a confession to make.

I’ve been absent, and well, I haven’t written here, consistently, for a long time and that’s not what I intended.

I’ve been “here”, aka present … but … I’ve been absent while being present. Not good.

That’s about to change, but first, let me ask you a question …

Have you ever looked back on your life and wondered … man, what happened to the last few years? Where did they go?

Yeah, me too.

In fact, that just happened to me, and to be honest it was rather depressing. Super depressing.

You see, I just wrapped up a three-day conference in Miami (where I was when I wrote this this) and this conference helped me realize I was not hitting my full potential.

Not even close.

Like, I’m a total loser slacker right now. It’s like someone smacked me in the face with a hammer. That kind of wake up call.

It wasn’t always like that …

I remember years when I accomplished so much – writing a best selling book, kicking off my consulting career, having another child, moving, blogging multiple times a week and writing apps for multiple clients. I’ve done all of those within a year before. The past three years though … I haven’t even come close to that capacity. I’ve been slacking.

How do I know?

I’ve been wanting to write a couple of books for a few years now.

Guess what?

They’re not written.

But … how do I know I’m slacking? Books take a long time to write, right?

I know I’m slacking because I wrote my first book, which was a best seller according to Neilsen Bookscan, in under 3 weeks. That’s no joke. I worked 16-18 hours a day. 6-8 hours of sleep each day and did nothing but work at my client and write a book. I finished it in 3 weeks.

So yeah, I know I am capable of massive action.

This last few years though …. Not so much … I haven’t done shit in comparison to what I can do.

Ok, sure … some things have happened … I’ve helped our podcast (Fragmented Podcast – An Android Developer Podcast) grow to over 2.2 million listens, I’ve re-launched Caster.IO (an online platform for teaching mobile development to all walks of life) and I’ve expanded my knowledge of leadership, sales, marketing and more.

Some might think “work that’s a lot that you’ve got done”. You kicked ass man!

I don’t think so. Not at all.

I know I can do more.

A lot more.

You see, I could have done all of that in a matter of months, not over three years … but I didn’t push myself.

How is that possible? Why didn’t bigger things happen, Donn?

It’s because I was absent while being present.

Yes, I was in the chair.
Yes, I was doing the work.
Yes, I was showing up.

But …

No … I was not giving it 150%. I was there, but I was mentally absent.

I was giving it 25% while my mind was aimlessly wandering around. Social media, books, distractions, shiny objects. Drinking a few beers “to relax”, watching Game of Thrones. You name it.

The only thing I was crushing it at was my consulting career. I can do that with my hands behind my back and to be perfectly honest with myself, I could have done that 3x better. So… let’s scrub that too, I didn’t crush that at all. I should have though.

Frankly, I’m rather disgusted that I haven’t done more. I have much to offer everyone and I’ve kept it to my self, and well, … thats just plain selfish.

Why am I telling you all of this?

Because I’m changing things.

It’s a simple concept to grasp – If you want changes to occur the #1 thing you have to do is CHANGE.

Do you want to work for yourself?
Then CHANGE what you’re doing.

Do you want to get more speaking opportunities?
Then CHANGE what you’re doing.

Do you want to be a leader in your field?
Then CHANGE what you’re doing.

Do you want to have a bigger social following?
Then CHANGE what you’re doing.

You can’t get better doing the same thing you’re doing.

You need to CHANGE and then you need to be disciplined to perform the life-changing tactics over and over again over long periods of time.

Change + Discipline + Long Periods of Time = Life altering results

That’s why I’m writing today. I’m changing. I’m going to be much more active in your inbox.

What am I going to be sharing with you?

I’m going to start sharing more information about how you can start working for yourself.

That’s right.

Be your own boss.

No more full-time job for “the man”.
No more commute (or less of one).
No more saying “Yes” when you really mean “No”.
No more saying “I wish I took that one change”.

We’ll start off with consulting and work our way into some products that you can create over some time.

Stay tuned because some more stuff will be coming your way soon.

If you’ve read this far. Hit the comments section and let me know.

Thanks for reading.

I’ll be sending these articles to my email list a week or two in advance. If you’d like to jump on that list, you can do so here.

Photo by Fortyozsteak on Unsplash