Evan Sanders's Blog, page 48

The Untold Story Of My Life

This is my story.

As hard as this story is to write at parts, it sets me free.

There are a lot of versions of how this story can go.

I can take you all the way back to the moment in Chevy Chase, Maryland in 2000 to my grandfather’s room watching TV where all of this began. I can tell you about my struggles throughout my childhood with being slightly overweight, having to suffer through countless bad experiences, and never feeling like I really belonged anywhere.

I can tell you about those first moments during my young years where I felt like something was off in me and that I couldn’t really figure out why I tried to soothe that “missing” spot in my heart with food.

I can tell you about being laughed at, abandoned, betrayed, outcasted, cheated on, lied to, manipulated, heartbroken and torn to pieces throughout my entire life.

I can tell you stories about the scars I wear that would bring out pains in me you would never believe.

But as I’m sitting here today, a few days after accomplishing a lifelong vision I’ve had for myself since that moment, being 11 years old, I know that I have to tell you a very different type of story.

Truth is, I’ve sat down to write this out a few times and really didn’t feel comfortable with how it was coming out. But now, I know what feels right. Now, I can tell you the story of my life.

In 2010, I fell.

When I mean fell, I really mean fell. I fell straight to the bottom and when I hit it…I cracked.

I lost myself. I broke down. I felt like I was drowning.

It was the combination of years and years of denial, stress, running from my problems, losing the one thing that was keeping me held together (baseball) and a horribly timed lit match that started a fire that would not end until everything was burned straight to the ground. And when that fire raged, I was consumed in all of it. For the first time in my life, I had laid down flat on my back, having given up completely, and wondered to myself what the point was anymore.

There are scars that I will carry with me for the rest of my life reminding me of that day and the week prior where everything turned to ash. I remember that time in my life very clearly, and as painful as it was I could see one positive that could come out of having everything burned to the ground.

I got to start over completely.

I came out of that black pit without a clue what to do with myself. All I honestly had back then was the gym, a budding love for writing called The Better Man Project and a vision that had been sitting in the back of my mind since I was 11 years old. A vision for myself that I had tried time and again and failed endlessly…one that kept calling me to keep trying.

“Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place, and I don’t care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward; how much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done! Now, if you know what you’re worth, then go out and get what you’re worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain’t where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody. Cowards do that and that ain’t you. You’re better than that!” – Rocky Balboa

The gym has never been just a place for me to lift. The gym has been a metaphor for my entire life over the past 7 years. There was nothing else in my life where I could put in a specific amount of effort and get out a measurable amount of results. In there, I could have some sense of control. In there, I knew that my efforts could be seen quickly. I needed that momentum. I needed something to help carry me forward. As I grew older and spent more time lifting weights, it became less and less about my body and more about my mind. I realized my mind was completely out of control, undisciplined, and an absolute mess. In fact, I was an absolute mess.

I did things that were horrible for me, I broke relationships, and I continued to break myself as I was controlled by one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to deal with in my entire life.

This, is probably me at my most vulnerable right now.

For the past 7 years, I had been battling with a severe eating disorder exacerbated by a total storm of bad situations happening in my life, a couple of surgeries, but most of all…an addiction to trying to fill a very dark and painful place in my heart. I created the perfect storm for myself in always feeling deficient – both personally and where I was in my life – trying and failing miserably at big goals because of a lack of integrity, suffering after my failures, stuffing myself with horrible food, either ridding myself of all of it or suffering through keeping it inside, and then feeling absolutely ashamed, humiliated, and depressed because of going through the cycle one more time.

This didn’t happen a few times, it happened hundreds of times. Sometimes, when it got really bad…5 to 6 days in a row.

I lost count of how many times I found myself curled up in the shower with the lights off crying because I felt like I had been trapped in a prison.

It was a prison that was surrounded with food, but most of all, it was a prison of feeling like I really meant nothing in this world. I felt like I meant nothing. I never felt like I had anything to be proud of.

When I was in LA, I found myself at my worst.

The stresses from overworking myself, financial issues, personal issues, feeling the iron grip of this personally destructive cycle and watching dreams literally slip away from me day after day put me into a tailspin. I had no support network to help me through this and found myself heading back to that all too familiar bottom once again. I was gaining weight. Really gaining weight. And before long I found myself at almost 220lbs 18% body fat feeling about as bad about myself as I possibly could. I’ve never been under more stress in my life and I started to feel the pressure and weight of everything in my life starting to crush me.

Probably one of the most humiliating days of my life was the day I tried to fit into my suit, the suit I absolutely love, to go to an interview and I could barely squeeze into it. I remember coming home from that interview feeling awful and crawling into bed, covering my entire body with my sheets and sleeping through the rest of the day.

Eventually, I knew it was time to come home from LA, so I packed up everything I had and made my way back home to the Bay Area. I never really told anyone what that drive home was like…but I was in hysterics. For hours I lost it. I continued to lose it until there was nothing left to cry out. I was torn apart inside because I felt like I had failed. I felt like I was a failure. In my eyes, I was a failure.

In those moments after I came home, I looked at myself in the mirror and just shook my head. “What in the world have you done to yourself? You’ve destroyed your body with food, you look so tired because you haven’t slept in months and you let your dreams fall apart because you failed? What happened to you?”

Those honest conversations you have with yourself can be pretty difficult, and I can tell you for a fact that this was one of the hardest and yet most liberating personal conversations I had ever had. I knew that I had one attempt in me left to see this all the way through – one last shot – and that I had to give it everything or nothing. I knew that this was my last shot to become the man I had always knew I could be.

So out came the ultimatum.

100 days. 100 days you will eat clean. You’ve never even been close to achieving this but this is what it’s going to take. Part of it was about losing weight, but then again, most of it was about trying to develop my mind into a place where I could actually follow through with what I said I was going to do, to take care of myself, to establish positive habits and start to nurture my life instead of destroy it.

100 days later I crossed the finish line, in tears, having finally taken control of my eating issues and having dropped 30lbs.

Whispers. Whispers.

“You were meant for more than this. You’re not done yet.”

There was some sort of momentum. There was enough to keep going.

Soon after this victory, I found a trainer at Gold’s Gym who I knew could help me. I knew that he could lead me to the place I always wanted to go. I knew he could guide me through the land of the unknown to a place I had only dreamed of for years and years.

“So what are your goals?”

‘I want you to help me develop the strongest mind possible, create positive eating habits, and help me break a cycle that has been controlling my life for almost a decade now. Of course I want to get into shape, but that comes second to helping me develop a strong mind.”

I remember writing him an email later that evening I had met with him at the gym titled “What This All Means To Me” basically putting it all on the line – the full details of what I was battling through – and knew that I had someone who was invested into seeing me succeed.

“Let’s go.”

I spent the next 3 months of my life pushing myself beyond my limits, taking my life in a direction I never thought possible, struggling with erasing old bad habits and falling into a lifestyle that I had never been in before. But I could feel it happening – as much as I was struggling I could feel myself getting stronger. Sure, I was dropping weight which made me feel better about myself, but to have this feeling of breaking free from something that had been destroying my life for years.

Pain started dripping out from me in those workouts. Physical pain yes, but deep emotional pains that had been stuffed down for years. Confidence started coming back, self-respect, and the ability to take care of myself and being able to really believe in what I was capable of. These things all started to bud in me because of finally making another full fledged commitment to achieve something I’ve never seen or experienced before.

The day of my first shoot came in late February and as excited as I was to be in that moment, having dropped down from 218 lbs. and 18% body fat to 179 at 2.4% body fat I knew that the moment I was in wasn’t “it.” I was incredibly excited about the moment, but I knew I was just simply close to what I had envisioned. It wasn’t what I had seen for myself when I was 11. It was a huge step, but I knew I was going to have to come back to the drawing board as soon as I was finished with where I was at.

When I was done with that shoot, my trainer and I had another discussion.

‘We’re not done yet. That was close, but it wasn’t it. I want to do everything possible to make it happen this time.’

“Let’s go.”

So we went at it again. This time, we went at my weak areas harder than before. I honestly don’t even understand what happened with my body because all of the sudden it began to change. Ironically enough, it started to change right when I had one of the most transformational life coaching graduate sessions of the year. My life started to take a turn for the better when I was actually offered a new way of looking at things.

The War Painter

The War Painter is someone who goes into battlegrounds and paints scenes and images in the heat of battle. If you’ve ever seen some of these paintings, while there is great darkness in the painting itself, they are almost beautiful and “light” in a way. I was given this story because at my roots I am an incredibly loving and happy person but I was living in such a dark and painful world I didn’t know how to process all of it. I had nothing to creatively express what was really going on inside and make use of all that I was feeling deeply. It’s not that writing wasn’t a way of doing that, but I didn’t truly see it that manner. However once I realized that I could accept both light and darkness in my life as both true at the same time, my expressions changed. My life started to transform. My pain became something I could create light with and that seeped into all other areas of my life. I used this pain in the gym, I used it in my writing, my work, and whenever something poured in I let myself feel it for once.

I stopped running from it.

I started running to it.

Months and months of this went by. The strange thing was, the more I dove into places that hurt and connected with how I was really feeling about things, the more free I felt. I felt free from things that had been plaguing me for years and years and everything got lighter.

This doesn’t mean the challenges ended. I guess were getting to that part.

They say that the demons come out to play right before you are going to break new ground. For every level there’s another devil. As I arrived closer and closer to my most recent photo shoot, the moment where I actually knew it was going to be “it”… they all came out to play in full force.  They threw everything they could at me to knock me off my course and to prevent me from achieving a lifelong dream. Physically, my body was completely drained because of severe calorie cutting and towards the end water manipulation to get into my best shape. I couldn’t sleep because my mind kept racing and my heart kept on aching. My spirit however, as hard as all of the things that were coming at me were to deal with, remained up because it knew that everything in my life was about to change. I knew that despite all of the things that felt like they were either trying to attack me or falling away would eventually pass and I would stand in that moment finally having actually done it.

The night before my shoot I sat upstairs in my bed and posted a video talking as much as I was capable of about the experience I was going through. In truth, while that prep week was incredibly difficult, I was completely overwhelmed by the amount of people who reached out to support me. I spent the majority of my life because of being outcasted during my childhood a bit wary of other people, but throughout this entire year incredible people have entered my life offering their love and support. Never before have I felt so held than what occurred one week before my photo shoot as people from all over were calling me, texting me, stopping by my house to cheer me on and make sure I was doing alright. I’ve never felt that loved before. I’ve never felt that sense of family and community until that week.

As I could feel some things in my life starting to fall away I also felt something growing beneath me that I knew would take care of me for a lifetime.

A net.

A net of support that would catch me no matter what was going on in my life.

I let that net support me and gave up my story of The Lone Wolf and watched myself enter into a moment where a lifetime vision and reality merged. I’m not sure how many people out there have felt this type of moment, but it was one of the most intense and yet peaceful moments I’ve ever had. As much as I had suffered through this time period, I also knew deep down that if I needed anything my network would support me. That’s a very different feeling than wondering if you fell hard again if you would reach all the way to the bottom. I never wanted to have that feeling again.

I didn’t.

Dreams and reality merged.

I don’t think I can accurately explain to you the feeling of being in that moment. I had been dreaming of that moment my entire life and didn’t really understand what was happening when I was in it. It was only after seeing some of the pictures that I even began to start comprehending what had just happened. I had freed myself from a debilitating addiction, I had lived up to what I was capable of, I competed with my potential and found myself having flashback after flashback of moments where I had dreamed of being in this moment years ago.

The true realization of this actually having happened to me hit me the next morning when I was looking through the photos again and said, “That’s me.” I never thought I would ever say that. I never thought I would ever see that moment happen. And yet, at the same time, there was that little fire within me that always knew it was possible.

Tears of joy.

This story isn’t about fitness.

Well maybe part of it is about fitness. But this story is about something much deeper than what you can do with your body. This story is about never giving up. Through anything – the worst of it all – if you continue to try and keep your heart out in the game of life things can start to happen for you. But you have to try. You can come from the blackest of pits and still be a light for yourself and for others. When I started this journey, I was absolutely nobody. No one knew of me, no one followed me, no one knew what was inside of me, no one could have looked at me and said I was going to be anything. I had no blog, no audience, nothing. I was a depressed, anxious, cracked to pieces young man who didn’t know which way was up or how to put himself back together again.

I didn’t try to do it all at once. I remember day 1 of starting all of this my goal was to smile that day.

Let me repeat that.

My goal was to smile.

That’s where I began. And that day, I did smile. I found a little something within myself to be proud of and I let myself be proud of it. Thousands of days later, failure after failure, little victory after victory and a set of dreams that I never allowed to die in my hands started to come true and I grew.

I grew into a man, not a scared little boy.

I grew into someone who had self-respect, who intuitively knew what was right and wrong, who could walk with integrity, embrace his darkness, build the foundations of his life with character instead of things, and who could love his heart out despite knowing that it may not work out.

I grew into someone who trusted himself, who allowed himself to be loved and adored by the people around him, who could reach out to others and take care of them without expecting anything in return, who could always walk tall because he didn’t live in a land of regret, and who knew how to take care of himself when those heavy times came.

Yes, this story has a fitness aspect to it, but it wasn’t about the body. It was about me growing into a man whose body was a manifestation of his spirit. I am much more than my body. I am much more than the fitness goals that I have had throughout the years. I am actually becoming me, and for the first time in my life I don’t feel deficient. I don’t feel like I need someone there to make me whole. For the first time in my life I feel that what I have to offer this world is something special and don’t have to try to emulate someone else to be loved.

There are a lot of firsts in this story.

8 months ago my mentor coach looked me directly in the eyes and said, “What if heartbreak was your greatest healer? Would you be willing to find out?” I was terrified. I had felt heartbreak multiple times throughout my life but it always destroyed me when it happened. It broke me down to pieces and I didn’t know how to pick anything back up again. To be honest, my heart has been broken over the past couple of weeks and I’ve been in a lot of pain. But at the same time, I have never felt more joy in my life in having stepped into something completely new. It’s amazing how both of those could exist at the same time as true. I remember what my coach had told me after he challenged me to think about this concept for the year…that maybe, just maybe, I wasn’t being broken down but being broken open.

As those heartbreaks have come throughout this year, I have ended up realizing that having the walls covering my heart being broken down and wide open has allowed for the light to pour out.

Yes, there are times of darkness and severe amounts of pain that seep out of me. But I let them do just that. I let them come out of me and I don’t try to hide them from anyone or anything. I feel them. I feel them down to their roots and understand exactly what those pains mean to me. And now, since I know what to do with them, I allow myself to heal and paint the wonderful white canvas of my life with those colors that drip out of the places where I feel those pains. I paint my life with the colors of joy and colors of sorrow. Even though I suffer, I continue to love deeply. Even though I hurt, I continue to put my heart on the line.

The journey never really ends. You never stop learning. Even though I’ve accomplished a lifelong dream, I have more that is in this heart of mine that wants to come out. As I am broken open more and more, I am in a place to step in front of the next dream saying, “I can. I will.” I’m also at a point where I can step into this moment, this one right now, and be exactly who I am.

Great love and great achievement require great risk. You can spend your entire life hiding from doing what your heart is calling you to do or you can go out their on the field of life and give it your best shot. Of course you are going to take some hits. Of course you are going to fall down very very hard. But that’s part of really living. That means you are living.

Sure it may not work out. But what if it does? Wouldn’t that be the greatest adventure ever? Never again will I live an un-lived life. And I know, moving forward from this moment on, that I have to show up as myself no matter what and be exactly who I am.

And as Hagrid once said in Harry Potter, “What’s coming will come and we will meet it when it does.”

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

-Evan Sanders

What If You Fly?

Oh but my darling, what if you fly?

Discover what life coaching could do for you – maybe you could fly – aykme.com

Feathers On His Path

Signs.

Feathers are everywhere on the paths that I’ve been running and walking. I’m not even really looking for them, but they show up day after day after day. Hawks feathers. Turkey feathers. They are right in the middle of my path and I pick them up every single time I’ve seen them.

Signs.

I’m building my wings.

There’s been a lot on my mind over the past couple of months and there have been a few very meaningful things that people have said to me that have stuck in my mind. But one of the most meaningful of all came when they told me that I had the biggest wings they had ever seen but hadn’t really used them yet. It’s been stuck in my mind, and ever since that comment was made there have been feathers showing up everywhere. Not even just the feathers, but the birds themselves are always right there.

Settling into an unsure place is one of the hardest things to do.

Your mind runs at times, you struggle with the constant jabber of the internal critic and you can have a hard time diving into what your inner wisdom tells you. I’ve struggled with this. I’ve struggled with this hard actually. But as the days go on I dive deeper and deeper into what that inner voice is telling me and it’s whispering that everything is going to be just fine. Everything is going to turn out great. Everything is going to all pan together and we are going to fly. While at times that doesn’t stop you from worrying about things, it does help you return back to center day after day no matter what is happening in your life.

Breathe.

When it really comes down to it, you have to breathe. You have to be able to sit in everything that is happening, to breathe, and to realize that no matter what you are still here. No matter the situation, the consequence, the struggle, the challenge, the obstacle or anything else in the book – you’re still here. So breathe. Breathe and breathe again. When we lose our breath we lose our ability to be here right in this moment.

I understand just as much as anyone else does that the past and the future can rip your mind out of appreciating this moment. I’ve lived in both of those places for a long long time and it’s a challenge to slow yourself down when all you want to do is speed things up. When we fall out of our practices, the things that nourish us, the things that we know we need to do – we disconnect from ourselves and we turn into a mess. We suffer through our breakdowns and life becomes pretty hard. The best thing to do is slow down. Slow down and see what’s actually going on and create a gameplan for yourself. Be willing to step back from everything during times of stress and see everything for what it actually is.

I am no stranger to having serious moments of stress. Those moments however have come and gone a lot easier – or at least I have still been able to be incredibly productive and open during this moments because I give them room to play. By giving stress a lot of room to play around in…it eventually calms down. Old life? Oh I used to try to lock it up, throw away the key, and launch it out into the ocean. But the old ways didn’t work too much, and no matter how far I tried to launch it or run from it…I knew it was always there.

Face things head on.

You can’t run from them. You can’t really ignore them and think that they are going to go away. You have to take care of yourself and even further, nourish yourself. We live in a world where everyone is taking. Everyone is strip-mining their relationships, their environment, their bodies…everything. In this world, it’s tough to come back to a place where you feel really connected to yourself, the people, and the things around you. It’s hard. I’ve been there so many times. I fall into “go” mode and forget to keep coming back to “connect” mode. Because when I connect, the best is brought out in me and I can be the best man I can possible be (I also get everything done and more that I would in go mode.) But that “go” mode…it keeps you moving so fast you don’t have any time to really appreciate what you are doing. You’re just constantly going.

Slow down.

Slow way way down.

And if you have a ton of things that you need to be doing, just take 5 minutes to slow down as much as you possibly can. Check in with yourself. Connect. Understand what needs some attention and understand what you need to be doing in your life.

There’s magic in those connections.

A lot of it.

-Evan Sanders

Join the #TransformationTribe to start your journey

Discover what life coaching could do for you – www.aykme.com 

Never With Half Of Your Heart

I’m standing out here tonight looking across the entire Bay in a much different place than I was this morning. Tonight, I want to tell you something that changed my life…and maybe it will spark some magic in yours. You have this intense, fiery, lightning-esque love in you that could set an entire forest aflame with. It’s so powerful it could shape everything around you and it could heal even the deepest wounds of anyone, including yourself.

But you have to let it out. You have to let it be.

When you do, you couldn’t imagine the things that it’s capable of. I spent a lot of my life living in fear, and I still work with that fear every day. But there’s something about these Bay lights tonight that brought this out in me. Be fearless. Take chances. Find the one reason why it will work and run on faith. It could be the greatest adventure of your life. That’s where that magic is. That’s where the good stuff lives. ⚡️

Discover what life coaching could do for you – aykme.com

#TransformationTribe

The Transformation Tribe

It’s time to transform your life.

The #TransformationTribe is an exclusive offer for those who want to enter into the world of transformational coaching and get onto the fast track for development, growth, and seeing your true potential.

It’s time to build a new story for yourself.

You have a ton of potential – but we all have blind spots.

Everyone needs some coaching, some help, and a little bit of support to get themselves going. In the end however, what you really need in order to be able to drag yourself out of being “stuck” or to start walking the path of your dreams is to actually get some good coaching!

You don’t have to be born with all the talent in the world to change your life. You don’t have to have all of the skills and the tools in the world to get started, but you do have to get started to begin to see what you are really capable of. 

In the Transformation Tribe, you will learn HOW to achieve these results from receiving coaching, professional advice, resources, tools, skills, and wisdom from the smartest people in the industry. More importantly, you will have fun doing it and know that you are making progress towards your dreams and goals.

We don’t make it complicated. In fact, the simpler you make something the more effective it becomes. The Transformation Tribe is designed to help you unlock your full potential so you can exit out of living a life of “what if” and truly become a man or woman of action.

Join the Transformation Tribe so you can become the very best version of yourself, fall into a life of constantly developing and fulfill your life purpose with more ease and joy.

What You Get When You Join The Transformation Tribe

Your own personal online digital coach

Full email access to me throughout the week (excluding Saturday/Sunday)

Exclusive weekly newsletter for members of the #TransformationTribe

Exclusive monthly Google Hangouts Sessions

Discounts on personal 1 on 1 Phone/Skype coaching calls

Priority seating for Total Transformation 3 & 6 Month Coaching Programs

Order now to get Instant access to the Transformation Tribe ($199) $99 (billed monthly)

#TransformationTribe

The Transformation Tribe

It’s time to transform your life.

The #TransformationTribe is an exclusive offer for those who want to enter into the world of transformational coaching and get onto the fast track for development, growth, and seeing your true potential.

It’s time to build a new story for yourself.

You have a ton of potential – but we all have blind spots.

Everyone needs some coaching, some help, and a little bit of support to get themselves going. In the end however, what you really need in order to be able to drag yourself out of being “stuck” or to start walking the path of your dreams is to actually get some good coaching!

You don’t have to be born with all the talent in the world to change your life. You don’t have to have all of the skills and the tools in the world to get started, but you do have to get started to begin to see what you are really capable of. 

In the Transformation Tribe, you will learn HOW to achieve these results from receiving coaching, professional advice, resources, tools, skills, and wisdom from the smartest people in the industry. More importantly, you will have fun doing it and know that you are making progress towards your dreams and goals.

We don’t make it complicated. In fact, the simpler you make something the more effective it becomes. The Transformation Tribe is designed to help you unlock your full potential so you can exit out of living a life of “what if” and truly become a man or woman of action.

Join the Transformation Tribe so you can become the very best version of yourself, fall into a life of constantly developing and fulfill your life purpose with more ease and joy.

What You Get When You Join The Transformation Tribe

Your own personal online digital coach

Full email access to me throughout the week (excluding Saturday/Sunday)

Exclusive weekly newsletter for members of the #TransformationTribe

Exclusive monthly Google Hangouts Sessions

Discounts on personal 1 on 1 Phone/Skype coaching calls

Priority seating for Total Transformation 3 & 6 Month Coaching Programs

Order now to get Instant access to the Transformation Tribe ($199) $99 (billed monthly)

When Your Compassion Is Incomplete

Be kind…especially to yourself. Don’t forget that in order to really take care of others you have to take care of yourself

Discover what life coaching could do for you – aykme.com

It’s About How You See It

Putting yourself in other peoples hands is not a sign of weakness. This is coming from a guy who had the world of a time learning this lesson. But what I’ve found time and time again after I’ve put myself into the hands of those who care about me is that they love helping me. They love offering up their advice after I’ve spilled my guts about everything that is showing up for me. They love helping me shift my perspective. Greater than all of that tough, the just love being there and being supportive when I need a pick-me-up.

These moments do arrive at my doorstep once in a while and I know when I need to ask for some support. I know when to reach out when I’m confused and need a sounding board. I know when it’s time to let someone offer me a new perspective on a blindspot that I’m dealing with. I know I have a blindspot and today up in the city I was helped with that. Better yet, helped with that blindspot by someone who knows me incredibly well. And where we arrived together was pretty interesting.

It’s about how you see it.

This shouldn’t be much of a surprise, but it’s a lesson I needed to be reminded of.

Wayne Dyner once said something to the effect of – if we change the way we look at things, the things we look at change. My perspective on many things is changing right now. My relationships with many things are changing as well. Yes there have been great struggles in the past and I’m sure that they will continue to surface over time, but the truth of the matter is that I’m continuing to grow and change no matter what has come my way. There have been times where I didn’t think I was going to make it out and sure enough I battled through it and came out a better person for it.

The things that have really changed for me are not so much circumstance but rather how I see and approach situations and events. I don’t even know where to begin in mentioning how different it is from all those years ago, but I can tell you the effect is has had. While I do get stressed out, I don’t react as much. I act. I act with intention. I’m aware.

I used to go blindly through life without looking at the current circumstances or possible future challenges that may occur if I took a specific path. I just floated through like a stress reaction to everything and pretty much “winged” life. Always on the go. Always just shifting from one place to another. But when I slowed down, stopped juggling everything and actually started to ask myself what was really important for me…I learned a whole lot about connecting. The more I slowed down the more I connected and the more mindful I became.

What tends to surprise people about all of this project – the social media, the writing, the videos etc…is that it is only a fraction of what is going on in my life. Sure I can come to the table and write something about what’s happening for me, but even the writing doesn’t really touch what’s really going on inside. I don’t know if any words could really describe all of what’s going on in my life. There are constant thoughts, ideas and emotions that run through me and 99% of those never end up said or end up on paper.

The mystery of my life is unknown even to me…how in the world do you think you could possibly have me figured out?

Shift the way you see things. Shift the way you look at them and everything will change. Shift how you view the world and your world will change.

-Evan Sanders

Zig

Safe Makes You Good. But Chances…

Every few years, and this has been the way it’s been forever, comes along a day that I know will define many many days to come. In the past I’ve called these “life events” and for anyone who has read my book will know what I’m talking about. Today, I had something come out in me that I’ve been looking to get back in touch with for almost 6 years now. When my arm fell apart in high school baseball, I lost contact with this deep type of energy – this “I got this” + this moment is mine + my best vs. yours + the confidence and work ethic to back it all up. When you lose faith in your body, your mind runs rampant on you. I felt this massive page flip in my life today.

For the first time in years and years, that feeling came back up in me and I made contact again. That leaves me with what I want to close out with tonight. Risk it. Take a chance. Reveal everything there is to know about yourself and let the chips fall where they may. Put it all on the line. You can play it safe and be good, but if you take big risks with your life you have the opportunity to be something much greater. I’m in that place now. It brought me to tears today multiple times. It’s time. I’ve got this.

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