My early years....

     Well after my last post, I thought I tell you about some of the things that happened in my life that led me to believe that I was not a very good person…. or at least why at one point in my life I did not think very highly of myself and why I hated being me….. Don’t feel too sorry for me though I no longer support these old beliefs of mine although they still pop up their condemning heads from time to time and try to convince me otherwise.

     As a young boy, as I mentioned in the last post, I usually was always last to be picked on a team weather it was playing ball in the streets, tag or whatever… just did not seem to matter, my coordination was far from being perfected and the kids in the neighborhood wanted to be on a winning team. Even in school I had a very hard time, I was held back in first grade, attended remedial reading, went to speech therapy and could not get grades above a C in pretty much any kind of academic study. I remember my parents getting frustrated with me going over my spelling words…. I wrote them out, we sang out the spelling, repetition, repetition, repletion… yet 5 minutes later I would have no idea how to spell the words. I labeled myself as “Stupid.”  My younger brother Tim ended up in the same class as me, since I was held back; and when we would have a test he could study for 20 -30 minutes and get an A, sometimes he did not study at all – what a great memory he had, however I would study for hours and hours and still receive a D or C.

     I also remember the kids in the neighborhood giving me the nick name “Elmo” they were comparing me to Elmer Fudd from the Warner Bros. Cartoon. I must of really sounded funny – guess that is why I went to speech therapy. One time there must have been 10 or 15 kids from the neighborhood, including my three brothers all standing around in a circle with me in the middle calling me Elmo – I literally was throwing a fit, thus helping to formulate my belief of who I was at such a young age. (Our emotions and experiences are the cornerstones of our beliefs)

     I decided that I did not matter, no one wanted me on their team, I was stupid, definitely nothing smart in this brain and I decided to play life not to lose, because every time I attempted to succeed at something and I failed, I told myself I was right I am a loser. It would be better for me not to try something than to confirm what a failure I was.

     As I moved on through the years from elementary school to high school, some things did start to change. Actually things started changing in my middle school years. I discovered alcohol and drugs. At first, some other kids and I started experimenting with alcohol and all of a sudden I was laughing and having fun, I became a different person, people were laughing with me instead of at me. Wow, could this be possible….. So I continued to explore and tied all kinds of different drugs, probably could not even name them all. However this new found person did not appear to be too bad, I was building lots of new friendships, and people were calling me to hang out with and do things. I was being accepted by other people and they liked me. I really started to become more popular in my high school years, lots of friends; however I still graduated from my high school ranked in the bottom 10. Failure still haunted me, and I knew (at that time) I would never amount to much going the academic route – or at least I thought.

     I learned to adapt, I became a chameleon, and I learn to put on an act to hide who I really was. I did not want any of my friends to know the real me – the loser me. When I went through my training with Klemmer and Associates (www.klemmer.com) I discovered that I would put on the face of what is called the Promoter – fun, outgoing, energetic, life of the party type people in order to cover up who I really was at my core. Now people who are promoters for real are a blast; however that was just an act I was putting on… By the way my wife Mary has a promoter personality and I love that part of her…

     Now gaining an understanding of these thoughts/beliefs about me was really important for me to move forward in my life…. You see these were hiding in my memory, subconscious thoughts and beliefs that guided all the decisions I have ever made in my life. I unknowingly lived my life through the belief that I would never amount to much, that I did not matter and did everything with a not to lose attitude, once I discovered these things about me, I was able to step into my own “greatness" so to speak, develop new opinions about myself and could now play to win in life.

     I am really not much different than anyone else. I have my baggage, we all do, but we can let our baggage run our lives or we can find out how to use our baggage to propel us forward on our journey….