the choices we make

This week I find myself in a situation that I never dreamed I’d be in, not in a million years.

I’m in Cleveland, Ohio. I’m wrapping up my last day at an event called the Titans Master Class.

And what it is, is a business/marketing training/mastermind hybrid. It’s put on by people who have decades and decades of experience… veritable geniuses in their fields.

And I get to learn from them?! Whhhaaaaaatttt?

If you’d told Angie from five years ago that this would be her reality in a few short years, she would have looked at you like you were an extra terrestrial casually landing your space ship to ask for directions… a fun little mixture of confusion, alarm, and disbelief (with perhaps a little “Is this the moment I get probed?” thrown in for flavor).

The only real difference between today’s Angie and the one from five years ago?

Choices.

I chose to believe I could do it, when others projected their fears and doubts on me.

I chose to ask questions and favors of people that I thought for sure would say no… and who actually said yes.

I chose to put myself in situations that made me supremely uncomfortable, knowing that was the only way to get better.

And most importantly, I chose to look for reasons why I was on the right path, instead of searching for reasons I was doomed to fail.

I’m in a room with men and women who’ve created multimillion-dollar companies from scratch.

Who have bought and sold companies like going to the grocery store.

There are names you’d recognize in this room. And many more that you’ve never heard of, quietly making millions under the radar.

And being in this room is another choice…

Choosing the believe I belong here, not that I’m an outsider.

Looking for things I have in common with these successful people I admire… instead of searching for ways to prove I fall short.

I could take this situation I’m in, choose compare myself to others and lament I’m not better than I am. I could use their success as a weapon and cut myself down before I ever have a chance to make something big and meaningful.

Or I could choose to believe that success leaves clues, that I’m smart enough to decipher them, and that being around people way smarter than me challenges me to rise to new heights.

Seems like a no-brainer choice to me…