“I don’t need a watch, the time is now or never.” – Lil Wayne
Read that quote again if you have to. Don’t wait! The time is now. You know what I’m talking about too. That thing you keep saying you’re going to do. That dream you should be chasing but put off. Apply this to your life. “Oh, I’ll just start that when things settle down.” “I’ll do that in a few months when I’m more prepared.” Trust me, I get it, Life is so busy and can get overwhelming. There are always excuses to be made that you can justify to yourself. For years I always had big ideas I would tell everyone I was going to do. Something would always come up and I’d convince myself I’d just wait for a better time. Well…. what I got while waiting for that better time was chronic illness. Chronic Lyme Disease, Babesia and Bartonella and all the crazy symptoms that come with those. Add that to having 2 awesome crazy kids and being a husband and working, life is busier then ever. So in hindsight, I wish I worked harder back then on al the goals and Ideas I had. That being said, this is my bed now so I have to lay in it. So after 2 years of still struggling with my very complicated illnesses I decided I can’t let all this suffering be for nothing and something good has to come from this. I wanted to share my story and mindset shift and maybe inspire people.
I was driving home from work and heard the song Dodging Raindrops by the band 311. If you haven’t heard that song you should check it out for the lyrics. It’s about putting yourself out there and stepping out of your comfort zone. That day I got home and wrote my first blog post. I’m not even a good writer. In the next 2 weeks I figured out how to get a website and came up with the name Surf The Storm! I wanted to help inspire people to try and thrive (surf) through whatever personal life storm they’re faced with instead of just riding out the storm! That was 1 year ago. I finally followed through on something and took my shot! I’ve posted every month since then and started a Surfthestorm Tik Tok account, Twitter, Instagram and just started a Youtube channel. I’m still a very small creator/blogger but the feedback my message has been getting has been incredible. People have been reaching out to me across the social platforms saying how inspiring it is. I have imposter syndrome because I still feel like I don’t know what I’m doing. I still have a giant goal of launching a podcast where I feature other people sharing their stories and strategies on how they surf their life storms. That way so many different people should be able to relate to the message. I’ve found so many people battling the same issues that I am and I would’ve never found my tribe if I didn’t follow through and bust way out of my comfort zone and take the shot! Remember that quote by Wayne Gretzky, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” Trust me, It’s not to late to go for whatever it is you’ve been putting off. I feel like I’m just getting that positive life momentum rolling. Also, I just realized I quoted both Lil Wayne and Wayne Gretzky in this post! Anyway, Get out there and take that shot! What if it turn out better then you even imagined?
Crush it!
-Justin
