Life Choices Matter

Following a 7-plus year stint in the Air Force, I made a life choice that has affected every minute of every day since. I promised myself to exchange security and retirement for living every day as an adventure. Thirty-five years later, when most of my friends and peers are either retired or soon will be retired, I continue to run a business, labor finding new clients, diligently commit my business to exceeding client's expectations, and reap the consequences of that decision made the day after I left the military.

The results: A lifetime of adventure, a lifetime without financial security, decisions made based on taking chances and wrestling with new opportunities, and a future that does not include retirement. In brief, that decision mapped my life. That journey looked like one charted by a nomad.

• A journalism degree from the University of Florida, where I met my wife of 34 years this August.
• A brief stint as a reporter then a sports writer with the Gainesville Sun.
• Two weeks as a life insurance salesman. (Yuck! Hated it.)
• Substitute Teacher.
• Moved to Wisconsin, completed post-graduate work in Education.
• Moved to Illinois, taught 4th Grade.
• Took work as an assistant editor at Scott Foresman, a text book publisher.
• Moved to Seattle.
• Founded New Horizons Publishers, wrote four travel books, wrote dozens of freelance articles for magazines and newspapers throughout North America.
• Took Executive Editor position overseeing several travel magazines.
• Traveled Europe and spent lots of time in Hawaii for one of the magazines.
• Became Supervisor of Communications at Puget Power.
• Recruited by Starbucks and became Manager Internal Communications.
• Entered Master's program in Theology.
• Founded Lewis Green Communications.
• Recruited as VP Marketing with a Connecticut software business.
• Founded L&G Business Solutions.

And, here I am today, fifth book recently published, running a small marketing/communications firm, still married, still working every day to earn a living, and loving my life, despite the future of no retirement and the struggle all owners and executives face to grow a business.

Did I make the right decision 36 years ago? Who knows? I took the road less traveled, and never looked back or spent much time looking ahead. Instead, I chose to keep my eyes open for new opportunities. And that, my friends, is the story of one entrepreneur who put happiness before profits and people before revenues, and lived a great life.

There are billions of stories measuring and recounting the lives of decisions made early on in our lives. My life's experiences suggest one recommendation: Whatever decisions you make in life, but especially in youth, be prepared to live them to the end of days.

Comments

[Steve Woodruff]

How many of us can look back and, like you, see our lives unfold in a way that looks like a pinball machine? The twists and turns cannot be scripted or anticipated. I once worked with an old Dutch mason, a hard-working guy who, when asked about when he planned to retire, would answer: "I retire every night, sonny boy!"

[Lewis Green]

Steve,

I often refer to life as a giant pinball machine. Thanks for sharing the mason story. I like the way he thinks.

Lewis

[Cam Beck]

We may not always make the right decisions, but the decisions are ours to make -- to reap the rewards or to adjust and recover from. As it turns out for most of us, our early years are front-loaded with bad decisions, which, if we're wise, we learned something useful from that helps us make better decisions later in life.

The thing about it is, if you take one of those decisions in the middle of your path and turn it into something else, it's impossible to see what your life would have been like -- how it may have made you different, etc.

In the cases where we think our life may have been different (and perhaps better) if we made different choices, I suppose it's useful if we have respect and love for the process more than the outcome. For the freedom that allows us to make bad decisions and suffer to make them right also allows us to make good decisions and enjoy positive outcomes.

There is little we can't recover from, eventually, but the young would do well to heed the advice of those who have walked the same roads before -- not to limit themselves, but to understand and develop the character and wisdom that would relieve some of their suffering.

[Lewis Green]

Cam,

Your comment adds so much perspective to what I am trying to say. We own the decisions, so we better learn from the bad ones lest we continue to make them. Wherever we end our journey, for good or for bad, we made the choices that got us there. The onus is on us to do the best we can with what life offers.

Thanks Cam.

Lewis