My life modified ceaselessly on October 1st, 2013.

I had simply walked into my new job once I acquired this voicemail.

“Mr. Stanland, that is Particular Agent McTiernan with the FBI. We’re at your residence and have a warrant in your arrest. You will have to name us and are available dwelling instantly, or we are going to difficulty an APB with the federal marshals in your arrest.”

It was, surely, one of the terrifying days of my life to date.

For slightly below a 12 months, I dedicated fraud towards one of many largest tech corporations on the earth.

In that one second, my life was not my very own.

It belonged to the brokers, the faceless individuals working behind the scenes, and the decide I had but to satisfy.

I pleaded responsible to 1 depend of mail fraud and was sentenced to 2 years of federal jail. 

I watched helplessly because the life I knew grew smaller and fainter as I descended into the abyss of uncertainty.

I watched because the darkish cloud of disgrace enveloped my life and solid every thing in its shadow.

I watched the underside fall out each single time I believed I had hit backside.

I watched as I walked down the darkest of paths, planning how I’d take my life.

And I watched what occurred once I selected to step out of the burnt ashes of what was and into a brand new life.

Stepping out of the ashes was one other terrifying second; I used to be leaving the recognized, even when it was horrible, for the unknown.

However there was one thing unimaginable ready for me once I did.

There’s a present once you hit all-time low and are available out the opposite facet.

It’s the knowledge and perspective that may solely come from staring into the eyes of the worst model of your self and despising what you see.

And as a substitute of making an attempt to kill it, you acknowledge its existence, settle for its existence, and study to like its existence.

However you don’t enable its existence to outline you.

It’s by this usually painful course of that I utterly reinvented my life.

I’ve spent the previous decade remodeling jail into objective, and I’ve discovered my life’s mission, and now I assist others do the identical. 

I don’t make as a lot as I did within the company world.

However I’ve what I used to be chasing for all these years, and I used to be too blind to see I’d by no means catch. 

Goal

That means

Success

Inside Freedom

Emotional Peace

These are the highest 5 classes I’ve realized from reinventing my life after jail.  

I spent my days in jail, wishing I wasn’t in jail. I spent my days wishing I didn’t make the alternatives I made that landed me in jail.

I needed and dreamed for all times to be something aside from it was. 

I used to be preventing towards a previous and circumstance that couldn’t be modified.

I’d by no means have the liberty to start out over and reinvent if I continued to battle for what can’t be modified. 

I needed to do what I used to be so afraid to do.

I needed to settle for actuality.

I didn’t wish to. 

It felt like giving up; it felt passive. Combating equals progress. However does it? What was I preventing towards? As a lot as I want there have been, there isn’t a such factor as a time machine Delorean.

Accepting actuality isn’t giving up; it isn’t passive. 

It was an act of braveness for me to say,

“I settle for that I betrayed myself and selected to commit against the law. I settle for I made the selection to proceed within the face of the universe screaming at me to cease. I settle for that I’m in jail. I settle for that I damage my household, my mates….”

A weight lifted off of me; I wasn’t trapped prior to now. As an alternative, I felt one thing I believed was not possible in jail, freedom.

It’s the liberty that comes once you’re not locked prior to now. 

“New beginnings are sometimes disguised as painful endings.” – Lao Tzu

2. Self-Belief is a Should

My fraud required 1000’s of decisions to maintain it going. Every a type of decisions was made within the face of my coronary heart, saying,

“Cease, don’t do that. This isn’t the way in which.”

I ignored my coronary heart, violated my voice, and I paid the worth.

My internal voice disappeared, and I didn’t belief myself to make the best selections. 

What to eat, and what workouts I’d do within the health club. 

I used to be paralyzed by the torture of self-mistrust.

I needed to study to belief myself once more, which was one of the difficult duties ever.

And it began by making and conserving commitments to myself.  

The extra commitments I made and stored, the extra I grew to become the one who did what they stated they’d do.

I reconnected with my internal voice.

3. Execute My Fears

Concern was a main driver behind my option to commit against the law. 

It was simpler to commit fraud and violate my internal voice than to be trustworthy with myself and my spouse on the time. 

I understood concern landed me in jail and that I might leverage concern to reinvent my life after jail.

I made an inventory of all my fears, and inside my jail dice, I dedicated to executing them one after the other. 

My #1 concern? Public talking. 

It took 5 years, however I landed on the TEDx stage. 

This was once I executed that concern, and my world expanded. 

4. Have a Mission

I believed I had a mission earlier than jail. 

Make as a lot cash as potential and spend all of it on fancy issues. 

That wasn’t a mission. 

It was what I believed I must be doing, not what I wished to do. 

Solely once I began writing my 1st ebook and pursuing public talking did I perceive what a mission really is. 

A mission is one thing I’m keen to sacrifice all of the short-term pictures of happiness (ingesting, social media, Netflix) in pursuit of long-term objective, which means, and achievement – with an unknown consequence. 

A mission is one thing extra important than myself and serves a better good exterior myself.

My want behind the ebook and the TEDx? 

To assist one particular person. 

That’s my mission to today. 

5. Cease Chasing/Begin Creating

Pre-prison, I chased happiness, objective, which means, and achievement on the backside of a bottle and the swipe of my American Categorical Platinum card.

I used to be on The Golden Treadmill, racing furiously to a end line I’d by no means attain. 

Goal, which means, and achievement aren’t chased; they’re created. 

And once I take the time to concentrate on what actually issues to me and align my actions with that, I create them.

And happiness naturally ensues in consequence.

The humorous factor about these classes is that this:

They’re what I realized from going to jail, shedding every thing, and reinventing from scratch, however they’re common. 

They apply to any one in every of us at any time. 

We don’t have to go to jail to implement these classes to create the life we wish to stay.

Nor do I recommend you look forward to the underside to fall out earlier than implementing them in your personal lives.  

Begin now to create a unprecedented future.