I partied hard. HARD. It was a fantastic time of my life. No worries, drankin’, smokin’, and doing summa - summa everything. I blinked and a few hours later, it was 2019 (15 years later).
Look at that header picture. That was a photograph that came up in my Facebook memory feed from 15 years ago. That’s me and my buddy John. I called him Nigga John. That’s right, I said it - he was my brother from another mother.
Smooth talking cat that had the lingo of a brother but could get down with anybody. Yup. That was Nigga J. Me and J hung out often. One thing we liked to do was drank. We ALWAYS got our drank on. ALWAYS. What made it even worse… we got our smoke on too. We chiefed many many days.
I remember J and I got super faded watching Super Bowl XXIX with the Eagles and Patriots. We were amped up and having a good time with drinks in hand and had a few rolled up at kickoff. Then we blacked out. Woke up and the game was over. I still watch highlights of Super Bowl XXIX to this day because I don’t remember how the game ended.
It was a fun time in my life but I wasn’t focused. In fact, I had NO FOCUS. No wait, I had focus, … focus on when the next party was. That’s all I cared about. How to party and have a good time. The funny thing is that John and I had dreams and aspirations to want to make it big but we didn’t have any discipline or focus whatsoever.
Wait, … I take that back. We did have good discipline and focus. It was on the wrong things.
This story is to show you how 15 years can go by in the blink of an eye. This Facebook memory was a strong reminder of that.
If I could go back and slap that 26 year old upside his head, I would. I would tell him to STOP fuckin’ around. The world will be completely different from what he knows it in a decade.
Nah….. 26 year old Fred heard that story. He was STILL hard headed. You see, J had a dad and his dad warned us of the very thing that I’m talking about. John’s dad warned us to get our shit in order.
WE LACKED FOCUS.
Stop messing around. Find a gig and stick with it. Find something that’ll generate some money. Our problem was that we were focused on partying and not finances. Lack of focus is what got us to where we are in 2019. It was fun and games in 2004. You couldn’t tell us nothing. But 15 years go by in a matter of moments.
To put this in true perspective, Skyler (my 5 year old baby girl) asked me a question about her Grandma and her health. Her Grandma (my mother-in-law: Julie) is about 62. Still with it, still hip, still young, still vibrant.
The question about health didn’t matter so much as the answer and my realization of what I said after that. I told Sky “Grandma will be fine. She’s young. She’s got a lot of good years ahead of her - don’t worry baby.”
The key point here is that Grandma Bubbles (as the kids call her) is only 21 years older than me. A 60 year old when I was in my 20s seemed ancient but a 60 year old seems like a rock skip and a jump in the water to me now. I blink, I’ll be 50.
IT'S TIME TO FOCUS.
How much focus do you have to accomplish the things you want in this life? As you get older, your time seems to slip ever so quickly out of your hands. What seemed like the longest days soon becomes shorter days of hours, minutes and seconds as you get older.
Most people are super excited for 2020 but I remember back when everyone was singing Prince’s song 1999 and THAT WAS THE THING. That in itself was 20 years ago. Again - a blink of an eye.
This article is to show you how quickly time can pass you by. If you mess around and think that you’ll have plenty of time to do what you desire or there will be a better time to do it, THINK AGAIN.
Think about this for a second and it’ll make you feel old (if you’re my age). Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, TikTok, and a slew of other huge social media platforms didn’t even exist. Facebook JUST came out that year (2004). LinkedIn was actually around for a few years but in its infancy, it wasn’t even recognized as a platform to begin with.
Google was around for a handful of years but even then, people weren’t using it for much of anything. What was the hot social media thing back then? MySpace.
The first iPhone didn’t even come out until 2007. Three years after my photo with John.
Fifteen years from now, it will be an even crazier. The job landscape will be COMPLETELY different. I wouldn’t be surprised to see more people working from home his laptops as opposed to the traditional 9-5. At that point, the 9-5 will be all but obsolete and you’ll be required to be a 24/7 worker for X amount of days in a row.
Think I’m far off? Look at the technology we have and the ability at which people communicate globally. Is there EVER really down time?
YOU NEED TO FOCUS.
Make a game plan that focuses on your why and plan out the next 20 years of your life. Sound crazy? Good. I want you to design what you want to accomplish and what you want to have by 2034.
Forget 2020. Be someone who plans FAR AHEAD. I want you to be able to reverse engineer your grand plan into bite sized chunks of activities that you NEED to be doing daily.
I have a Greatness Plan. It had my goals planned out to 2039. I’ve reversed engineered down to what I should be doing every day til now.
How does this help you?
Great question. Because I need you to get into the habit of figuring out what you truly want beyond next week, next month, next year. THINK BIGGER. What do you truly want? What is it that you truly want to experience out of life? What do you truly desire to achieve?
Because most people have hopes and dreams but they end up getting old and that’s all they do is hope and dream. I want you to STOP hoping and dreaming and START working towards making the hopes and dreams come true.
To make this really simple, I want you to get focused on what you truly want. I need you to answer these five questions:
What do I want to accomplish in my lifetime?
What five experiences do I want to have in my lifetime?
What is it that brings me the utmost joy in my life?
What kind of people do I need to be surrounded by to create the life that I desire?
What kind of legacy do I want to leave behind when I leave this earth?
Are you focused on what you want in the next 5-10-15 years? In 15 years it’ll be 2034. Sounds far off doesn’t it? Don’t let it creep up on you like 15 years crept up on me and my buddy John.
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