As humans, it’s in our nature to believe we can control everything. That’s simply not true.
HOWEVER, we must live with the choices we make… and those choices are where our “control” does exist.
I’ve made choices over the years. Bad ones that gave me experience… and better ones that bestowed blessings.
I’m not bitter about the bad choices I’ve made. Those experiences afforded me the wisdom to make the better decisions I’ve made.
At the time of you reading this email, I’ll be in the hospital prepped for surgery.
Thanks to an angel on earth who desires no credit for the sacrifices made, today I’ll wake up born again.
Nearly two years ago as my wife and I prepared to travel to a wedding, I fell ill. Truth be told, I was sick long before diagnosis… by that time I was knocking on death’s door.
Any amount of physical exertion led to chest pains like I had never experienced before. I couldn’t hold any food or liquids and at my absolute strongest, I felt my weakest.
Through all of that, I never skipped a beat. I just kept on grinding, just as I planned to that weekend we were traveling for a wedding.
But several days before we were about to get on the plane, my wife put her foot down and said if I didn’t go to the doctor, she wouldn’t be joining me at the wedding.
I was waiting in the doctor’s office when he walked in and before saying hello, he said, “you look like shit”. That just tells you the long standing relationship we have.
We talked, he drew some blood and said he’d call tomorrow. Good enough. I went back to living my life as I was.
The next morning, he calls and says: “Do not get on that plane, you won’t come back alive.”
I thought to myself, well that’s an awfully bold statement. So naturally my wife and I dropped what we were doing and headed to the hospital.
I had been in complete renal failure for some time, living through my internal organs literally shutting down.
As soon as I walked in and shared the reason for my visit, they wasted no time stabilizing me.
They scanned my kidneys and they looked like a boxer’s ears, all curled into themselves.
This was caused by years of Advil consumption. In my younger years I was a heavy weight lifter and all my life worked with my hands.
The damage done to my body was relieved for many years throughout the day with over the counter pain management. Apparently 20 years of that stuff is enough to kill your kidneys.
So I was faced with hard choices … transfusions and dialysis, or death.
When you’re faced with those choices, it seems obvious that you’d choose to live over dying. But the bill that comes due with living certainly isn’t an easy one and it took me some time to decide to allow them to move forward.
They asked my wife to gather my legal documents as hard choices could be on the horizon.
A port was inserted into my chest with a direct line to my heart. Several tough days ahead of dialysis led to unstable blood pressure, blacking out and vomiting.
Needless to say, we never made it to that wedding we were headed to, nor was it exactly the way I had planned to spend my summer vacation.
Fast forward nearly 2 years of 9 hours a day of dialysis, today I’m getting a new kidney.
It typically takes 5 – 7 years in New Jersey though the deceased donor program, the waiting list is much longer than you could ever imagine.
I was blessed. Blessed with a donor that the day they found out I needed a kidney, they started the process of donating theirs.
You’d think that process would be easy, but it’s not. 5 months of testing before being approved to donate, then having to retest because matches weren’t found.
My angel went through 2 years of hell to make sure I got a kidney.
Their kidney wasn’t a fit for me so they gave theirs away to a complete stranger in return for one given to me from a complete stranger through what’s called a “swap” program.
When I tell you that I’m blessed . . . I can’t mean it or say it enough.
While my angel made many sacrifices, so did the people in my life.
My wife is the reason I’m alive today, while I openly refer to her as a hemorrhoid – she is the reason and purpose I continue to roam on the face of this earth.
My business partner, more importantly my best friend. We’ve worked shoulder to shoulder through the good times and through the darkest days of hell together for the past 25 years. He’s had my back throughout this journey just like he knows I’ll always have his.
My faith, my family, my friends, my colleagues, my clients have ALL been my inspiration through the darkest of days. There have been more times than not that I’ve wanted to give up. Their thoughts, prayers and well wishes have lifted my spirits time and time again.
Earning a living with my hands is something that I’ve always known but had to part with these past few years. I have an implant that allows me to do my dialysis, if I damage it – I die.
Which meant hands off all heavy activities.
If I didn’t have the market in my life, if I didn’t know how to earn a living through trading – these past 2 years would’ve been impossible for me to survive. Not just financially, but mentally!
I was the second set of hands running the shop. That came to an end, meaning trading needed to replace that income. But more importantly replace my purpose as a provider.
Things in life happen on God’s timing, not ours. It may have taken me to have gotten sick to become the trader that I am today. More importantly a trader skilled in how to train and help other traders find the success that I have.
Today I’m born again, a renewed opportunity to live a better life. A life of better choices because I’m wiser from my prior life’s bad choices.
Not many get to say they can start over at 40. While the immediate road ahead is going to be a really rough one, you can count on the balance of my life being a blessed one!
Click here to watch how my trading abilities have helped me throughout my journey.