Well, my “Wake Up Call” was more of a “Wake Up Fall”. Unfortunately for me, I have always learned my lessons the hard way!
Have you ever had a feeling you were meant to do something different with your life, different then what you are doing right now? I always had that feeling, but I had worked really hard to get where I was. At the time, I was the COO of a 200 million dollar vitamin company. I was making a lot of money, had a lot of power and for someone who grew up in poverty, whose father had died homeless at the age of 40. It was hard to think, “Let’s give this all up and just do what you love.” It’s not like I didn’t enjoy the success, but throughout my career I had always felt that I was meant to do something different, something more meaningful with my life but I had worked so hard to put myself through college and law school, why would I ever give it up? Honestly, I thought it was a little “Airy Fairy” to think you could just “Do what you Love” but the nagging voices persisted “You are meant to do something different.” I just ignored the voices, put my head down and worked even harder. Now, I have had a lot “Wake Up Calls” in my life, in fact I was diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor in my last year of law school. You would have thought, hmmm maybe you should take a look at why you’re here, what is your purpose? But “NO”, instead I threw myself into sports, first running then biking, I was actually hit by a car in a race outside of Dallas Texas, another “Wake Up Call”? I began to compete in Triathlons, then I moved to Las Vegas and I got into “free climbing” without ropes, why, because I was afraid of heights “Face your fears”. Well, one day while climbing at Mount Charleston, I fell. I hit a patch of ice with my foot, it was June in Las Vegas and I wasn’t expecting an ice patch. I fell about 30 feet, it’s only a couple of stories high but, unfortunately for me, I impaled myself on a stump! All my ribs broke off and punctured my internal organs, sounds fun, right? I had popped my kidney in 6 places, punctured my lung and I was laying there thinking “Oh shit, what are you going to do?!” I had been in worst situation, I had already lived thru a brain tumor, I had actually lived 16 years longer than anyone expected me to. I was in a lot of pain and I was having a hard time breathing. At this point I didn’t know I had punctured my lung, boy that takes me right back there. So I got up and started climbing down the mountain. While I was going down, I was totally out of my body, sort of behind myself and to the left. Now I’m not a “Woo Woo” person but if you don’t believe in divine intervention, you should, because this was definitely an out of body experience!
So I’m in the hospital, it took me about 6 months to recover, which gives you a lot of time to think. I had been through enough in my life at that point to know “This too shall pass” I’ve never been a “Poor Me” type of person, I’m an “Okay lets figure this out” type of person. Bottom line, I believe everything happens for a reason, for me this happened because I wasn’t listening to my intuition, to that nagging little voice in my head that had been nagging me all my life. But what was the nagging voice trying to tell me? What do you “Really” want to do with your life? What are the things that you are “Passionate” about? I have always loved fitness, my ability to play sports was a big factor in getting into college, and it helped keep me be focused and “Sane” when I was growing up in an abusive, alcoholic family. I didn’t get into drugs like the rest of my friends, I played sports instead. For years I used to drive around with Yoga and indoor cycling schedules from different clubs in my car. Trying to go from one to the other and always asking “Why doesn’t anyone just put the two together?!” I was sort of annoyed someone hadn’t done this. For me it really was the perfect combination. I didn’t have to do weights the Yoga kept me strong the cardio helped me get my anxiety out and my body never looked better or felt better for that matter. And then it came to me in the shower one day why don’t you put the 2 together and open a Fitness center, I know dah right? Yes, in hindsight it seems pretty obvious but at the time it was one of those “Erika” moments!!
I finally listened to the nagging voice and actually figured out what it was saying to me, but that was just the beginning. I didn’t have any positive feedback for my big dream of owning a gym, my friends thought I was crazy! I was a lawyer, I had had my own firm, and I was a “Big Cheese”. My friends were saying to me, “You’re going to do what?!” They thought opening a gym was beneath me, it wasn’t the picture of what they thought I should be doing with my life. They thought I should go back to being a lawyer and one of my close friends actually said “You can’t do that, you’re too old!!” Okay, I was 42 years old at the time, not exactly the age you get into the Fitness Industry. I actually have to thank him because the best way to get me to do anything is to tell me I CAN’T do it!! Hmmm, well what do you think happened next? The stock market crashes, do you remember when the stock market crashed in 2001? All the dot com stocks went from being worth millions to nothing. It reminds me of what’s happening now in 2009 with the stock market. I thought at the time, “Enough already”, just when you thought you were on “The Right Path”, that you were doing “The Right Thing” bang, no money. So what do you do? Do you give up or do you say, ”I must be on the wrong path because this just isn’t easy?” I have to admit, I went there for a second, but no, you do it anyway, you just figure it out! I know a lot of people are struggling and I can completely empathize with you, but I want you to realize, if you truly believe in yourself, anything is possible.
Now my love is my life’s work. Don’t get me wrong, I work just as hard as I did when I was a lawyer and in the corporate world, actually I work harder, but I absolutely love what I do, so it doesn’t matter, I wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s 2009, my company YAS is now a national brand and growing rapidly, it has expanded to 7 locations, a clothing line and a production company, I even have a philanthropic arm called YAS Gives Back. Life is good. I hope my story inspires you to Wake Up and Live the Life you Love, it’s never too late!!
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