About Me... With A Twist...

Have you read the "About Me" section on my website yet? If you haven't, don't worry, I'll give you the lowdown right here. But let me warn you, what you read on my website is the sanitized version. This is the "real real" of how it all went down... 

It goes like this... 

In a way, I always knew where I could shine. But like many of us adulting in the 21st century, we were strongly influenced, likely imposed, a specific career path from an early age. So off I went from Haiti to Montreal, Canada to get a bachelor's in Economics, at a time where I thought Econ simply meant being a cashier at a bank... so, not a strong start. 

After an all "A" semester, I still didn't understand anything of my chosen profession. So, I did what any sane person would do: I added another major to the mix, this time in Mathematics!...

-  "Why?" you might ask.
- "Why not!" I say. Why not add some spice to the mix and make life more difficult than it needs to be.

 For the many years that followed, I worked hard at setting myself apart and becoming successful in a field that I was diligently working to conquer.

As time passed, although I grew to genuinely appreciate what I was doing, my career was starting to look like some of the romantic relationships I had been in so far. I was committing to settling because why not? No reason to expect more out of life, I was already considered above the national average.

Nonetheless, my soul kept tugging at me, and my buried desires remained unquenched. What about abundance? How about greatness? Wasn't I destined for any of it? Was this only reserved for a select few? For the lucky ones?

My internal flame rose whenever I was in a position where communicating with others was at the center of the endeavor. I would come alive whenever it was time to lead a meeting, to present a topic, to answer a friend's plea for advice and direction, or in the process of making up any kind of story for the sake of entertaining an audience. I loved to inspire people with my words and my perspective.

Yet some fool still managed to tell me, "Hey, just write a book once you're done with your long and successful actuarial career and start cashing in on that pension at age 65!" 

Many of us can formulate this about ourselves: "I feel fired up and engaged when I..." Yet we remain very much unclear about the practical direction we should take with these feelings, ideas, and thoughts because they usually seem either too far-fetched or too aspirational and lacking practicality and realism. So we let these inspirations go, we push them away, we shove them away, and we keep moving blindly forward. Opening our eyes is just unbearable, so we comfort ourselves in darkness.

We sometimes have a sense that our treasures are not so far from us. We sit on our natural blessings thinking we are simply sitting on an empty wooden chest and that there is nothing else to it.

Meanwhile, I was fated to work for an organization that appeared to be having a really hard time leading from a growth mindset and was still operating within a fixed mindset framework. Or maybe it was I who was selfishly holding back the remaining parts of myself that I refused to give away to the master scheme that had nothing to do with me or my life. This push and pull was low-key giving out the same vibes as my prior complicated and unsatisfying romantic relationships: Settling.

I understood that remaining in any situation, faithfully delivering bad news, was alarmingly ill-advised and could be terminal.

So I simply said, "I QUIT!!!!"

...Ok... not quite...

Instead, what I did was prepare myself psychologically, mentally, physically, emotionally, and financially. I was determined to create a life where the pursuit of happiness was not a scam.

Nevertheless, I couldn't deny how much stronger I got over the years, with all of these new skills I had acquired and strengthened. I was also elated to discover the new passions that were born from these various experiences at work.

Silmutaniously, I couldn't ignore the dilemma my mind was intending to solve: "I'm out here diligently investing 70% of my life to help build the giant puzzle that had nothing to do with me, in exchange for money and barely any self-fulfillment and personal satisfaction other than the intermittent gratification I was receiving."

I was grossing a six-figure salary, fruit of activities narrowly aligned with my natural talents which were dying to come into existence. Curiosity took me to wonder (or wonderland) where I would be, operating in my true talents and solving my own life puzzle. I was intent on understanding what such a life could look like.

The first trimester of my newfound freedom, I decided to plant seeds into any and all opportunities that felt good to me. A couple of months following that season, Christmas holidays imminently approaching, instead of harvesting juicy fruits, I was picking anxiety and confusion.

Nothing was ready, and the puzzle still remained vague, yet so recognizable.

Back to the drawing board, I had to go. "Don't be afraid to start from zero again if you have to," I thought to myself.

Here were the puzzle pieces:

I had a general sense of what my natural talents and abilities were but unclear on the specific actions I needed to take to manifest those into something sustainable.

1. Money needed to be a priority as it was a finite resource in my life.
2. If this was to work out, I needed to play my best card, the one with the highest potential for success, the one with the highest reward.
3. I had a few money-making ideas, but they couldn't be soul-sucking endeavors. No misery allowed in this new chapter!
4. On one hand, I had solid ideas of what I could do. On the other hand, I wanted happiness, growth, and abundance in whatever I pursued. No biggie, right?
5. Oh, did I mention I'm an actuary? Yeah, I love that stuff. Finally, a chance to unleash my actuarial prowess in unconventional spaces!
6. And being an actuary could be my safety net in case I needed to crawl back into the corporate world and lick my wounds.

The puzzle was in front of me. I needed to solve it, I had to solve it... But couldn't. So I did what any normal person would do: I went to bed with Netflix and I chilled!

A few days into my binge, Christmas ended up being the next day, and outside of sleepless nights, I had nothing else to show for my time. My soul kept screaming, my heart was crying, and my mind was looking to take me down with its obsession. I was on the verge of a breakdown... or maybe a breakthrough...

I was consumed with the puzzle. I had to solve it; if not, what was the point?

One day between Christmas and New Year's, I managed to drag myself from the bed to my desk and went to work.

I had all of these questions and no clear answers. I had the pieces of the puzzle but wasn't sure where and how they fit together.

I reopened myself to any and all possibilities. I removed all obstacles from my vision and my imagination. I started the game over and played the daring cards since I felt like I had nothing else to lose... I really didn't at this point.

In a moment of deep inspiration and creativity, relying on my actuarial skills of assessing, analyzing, and managing risks, the puzzle started forming in front of my eyes. After days of working on this riddle, with very little sleep in between:
 
I solved it!
It all made sense!
I understood clearly what I had to do!
I understood clearly what my next step needed to be!
 
It was also super evident the whole time.

My vision was clear, my purpose took shape. It all made sense, and I felt every little inch of darkness, heaviness, numbness, fear, doubt, and confusion lift off and disappear. For the first time ever in my life, I felt truly free. I opened a new floodgate of creativity, inspiration, motivation, and determination that I had never experienced before in my life.

From this moment on, these feelings deepened and cemented into my life. I was flying! What I did, folks, is that I opened the box I had been sitting on since forever. I opened it and saw what was inside. My treasure was in there a long time ago, since I was a child. It never got lost, it was never taken from me. It was an extension of me and was never under any threat of being lost or stolen. It also never expires!

Then I thought about my family, I thought about my friends, I thought about my community, and I thought about the world. I thought about all of the people I personally knew who felt the same way I did and had been struggling for years! The people who felt lost and confused in this game of life! They too could find relief!

I understood how to share this with them and set them on their journeys of health, wealth, and personal growth! I couldn't stop smiling at the vision of so many lives that would be forever changed once I shared my system with them! I understood how profoundly transformational this could be for those who were stuck and living a life that was below their own expectations.

I was excited! I was delighted! I was blessed!