“‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty,’ – that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”
Something strange happened to me on August 27, 2015. Really strange and amazing at the same time.
I had a breakdown.
A full blown breakdown. I mean tears and mental exhaustion.
This doesn’t usually happen to me. I’m a pretty even-keeled guy. I don’t get moody unless I’m hungry. But on this day I lost it.
In the days leading up to this breakdown I felt weird, like my website, my mission, my goals were all a pile of crap. Nothing made sense anymore. It felt like I was just going through the motions. I was mentally distant from my wife and kids. Spinning my wheels. Pounding away on a laptop with no real reason behind it.
Up to this point I just launched the website and had been trying to help other people build legacy wealth through real estate investing. I thought it was a noble cause because that’s exactly what my wife and I were doing, buying rental properties slowly but surely.
But it was all wrong. It was inauthentic. I was doing it for me. And worse I was doing it out of fear.
My wife had enough. She was tired of me chasing things. Tired of me wearing her out with tasks that didn’t make sense. Why was I doing this project? I couldn’t answer it.
Why couldn’t we just buy properties and keep it to ourselves? Why did I need to blog about it? Why did I need to do Periscopes everyday and inconviencence our family if we had something else planned? Why did I need to spend two-hours trying to figure out how to put a graphic on my website? Why? Why? Why? Why are you doing this Clayton?
I couldn’t answer the question. Then came the breakdown.
I’d spent most of my life chasing things, chasing money, bullshit goals. I’ve had a fear of money, of loss, of failure, of missing out. Anytime I started something new it was always out of fear of money, fear of success, fear of something.
For my wife it was just another thing I was chasing. I was doing it for all the wrong reasons.
It finally hit me, it finally hit us that I need to stop chasing. Just stop. That I need to take a deep breath and realize that I have everything I need right in front of me.
Out of that stillness emerged a kind of peace with a lightening bolt of inspiration.
Clayton, this is what you need to talk about.
I realized that true wealth, forget real estate wealth, but true wealth has to start somewhere. It has to come from a place of authenticity, from love, from passion. It’s free of self-doubt, free of negative self-talk, free of fear, free of comparison to others.
I want to understand this. Why do we chase? Why do we compare? Why are we fearful of money? Why is the Upper East Side in Manhattan both the unhappiest and wealthiest zip code in the United States? Why do certain people seem to be lucky and others unlucky? I want to understand all of this and more.
So welcome to my new website. A place that’s free of bullshit. A place that empowers people to build true personal wealth. Every podcast interview I conduct, every blog post I write, every pixel on this website will be devoted to that. Authentically and honestly.
