Hey Friend,

Feels like it's been forever since I emailed you last. I got a note from one of my subscribers earlier today wondering where I've been.

The short answer is, I got FREAKING SICK.

A nasty little flu bug took me down for the count.

I was so sick, in fact, that one night as I was crumpled up into a little ball on my bed and my wife asked me if there was anything she could do for me... I literally told her to shoot me.

She asked me to repeat myself because there were no laughs as I said the words and the truth was, I was literally feeling like that would be a relief. (not that I would ever seriously consider that mind you)

So that's the short answer.

The longer answer is... Life was crushing me for a while.  

I won't go into all the detail, but the bottom line is that this sickness came after my wife had been in an accident that totaled her suburban.

The fact that she could have easily died in that crash, brought a surprising amount of emotional weight onto my soul.

Then we were under the stress of finding a replacement vehicle for her while simultaneously having one of the worst insurance experiences in the history of the world. (at least that's what it felt like).

Then I happened to get sick just 2 days before we'd scheduled a family vacation out of town, hotel room booked and all, to go see my son play in a state baseball tournament.

This was the same week that I ran into an unforeseen series of ridiculous problems trying to perform a simple and routine process of turning on the sprinkler system at one of our rentals.

This was the same week that I got a letter in the mail from the State Attorney general's office requesting a written statement in response to a complaint they'd received from someone I'd sent a text message to about my business.

All of these things seemed to combine into one great big Tsunami of a Sh*# storm, and of course, when you feel like you're being pulled in a million different directions, and then get sick to top it all off - the mind can play funny tricks on you.

There were moments throughout this whole ordeal where it felt like life was crashing down, right on top of me.

I don't want to go on and on and on about this because at the end of the day, there are FAR worse problems in the world and many people who are dealing with issues MUCH more serious and heavy than mine but I DID want to write about them in this email just to say that...

If life ever feels like it's crushing you Friend... Or you ever start feeling down and out on yourself..

It's ok.

It's normal.

You're not alone.

It's totally cool to take some time off and just shut the world and business out for a while (as much as you can) - so you can take the time you need to catch your breath.

And while you're catching your breath remember what Little orphan Annie said..

'The sun'll come out tomorrow'

And it always does.

The clouds always dissipate...

There's always a brighter day ahead.

You just have to remember that and FORCE yourself to put on your big boy (or girl) britches, at some point,

...after you've shed whatever tears you needed to shed & had whatever pity party you needed to have for yourself,

...and face the world again.

I heard a speaker recently say that 'Facing life is hard. The only thing harder is not facing it.'

So while it's ok to take a break, it's also IMPERATIVE to remember that the only thing that will REALLY make things better in the end to is get up and go back to work.

Start checking those items off the to do list so you can WORK towards bringing the sun out even faster.

That was good advice for me and I hope it can be good advice for you too (even though it's probably nothing you haven't heard before and already know is true).

Anyway Friend, I DID miss you and I DID miss being on purpose in my life and I'm excited to be back to the freedom crusade. ;-)

To celebrate the grand event and epic comeback (ha ha.. yes, I know, probably a little over dramatic but oh well) I created this brand new podcast episode in response to a question I had sitting in my Facebook messenger inbox called...

You can catch the video or the audio version here if you want to listen and hear some quick (but important) tips that took me a long time to learn...

These are super helpful especially if you're leading a team of any size.

Thanks for reading and here's to an AMAZINGLY productive day,

Paul