Freedom: The Key to A Meaningful Life

First of all, let me be one of the first people to say welcome to the third quarter! As many of us in the United States head into a holiday weekend, this is a great time to pause, reflect and evaluate your performance over the last six months. Personally, the last six months have been filled with highs, lows, transitions and lessons that have all empowered me to become the next best version of myself. While the last six months have felt very chaotic, I have still been very intentional about living centered, having clear priorities and being the catalyst for change in my own life. I hope these insights will both inspire and empower you to push, stretch and realize your greatest potential.

1. You have to be willing to pause and reflect on your life. As i just stated, the first half of 2025 is over, you can rush your way through the rest of the year. However, I guarantee you that it will only produce regrets and repeated cycles. If you want the next six months to be different, then you need to take the time to pause and reflect on your life. In order to pause, that means you will take to put the phone done, turn off notifications, and set aside some time where you are unavailable for emails or meetings. You need to take time and reflect on the goals that you have set for 2025. Are you living in alignment with those goals? Are you making progress? Can you say that you are pleased with your performance? While I am sure that your answers to these questions will vary, what I am trying to say is that it is impossible to know where you are if you never slow down and look at what you have done. You may not be pleased with your outcomes and you may even find yourself frustrated. However, the great thing is that you still have six months to course correct and collide with the life of your dreams. What you ignore will only persist in your life.

2. You must be committed to breaking negative cycles. One of the things that i find so fascinating is that many people reach out to me because they want my help. They have identified that something is not working in their lives and they want me to assist them in making the necessary changes. The problem is that most people want change without discomfort. Anything that offers you change without discomfort is a counterfeit solution. The reality is that transformation begins in tight places. What do I mean by that? In my life, it has only been when I have been willing to be inconvenienced that improvement and growth have occurred. One thing I want to make very clear is that you cannot change the last six months. If you keep pondering everything that you did wrong, and everything that has not happened in your life yet, it will not be long before you send your life spiraling into cycles of frustration and failure. If the next six months are going to be different for you, then you are going to have to be committed to breaking negative cycles. Most people identify cycles but they never break them. In order to break.a cycle, you must be willing to confront the habits and behaviors that have shaped the current cycle in your life. In other words, breaking cycles is not about the modification of behavior. In order to break a cycle, you must mold the mind to embrace a new belief system. You break cycles by exposing the mind to a new reality and then expanding the mind to make room for this new reality.

3. You must be liberated in your mind. I hear so many people talk about freedom and liberation. However, they are not free and they cannot articulate a reality that they have never embraced. Many people think that freedom is about being rebellious, reckless and maybe even rude. However, that is not freedom at all. Freedom is making an irrefutable decision that you will not live another moment of your life as an emotional or psychological slave. Freedom is living liberated in your mind so that you can live fully in every moment. Freedom is renewing your mind so you can rule and master your life. Freedom has nothing to do with living wild and careless. Freedom is about living whole and conscious. Freedom is about living true to your core values and principles. Freedom is living free from the judgements and expectations of other people. Most of all, freedom is having the courage to find your voice and to speak up even if your voice shakes. In my life, I have had some horrible things said about me. However, when I took my personal power back, I realized that what really matters is how I speak about my own life. Until I was willing to stand in my own power, I would always live as a slave to the perceptions of other people. An emancipated mind is the catalyst to an empowered life.

4. You have to believe that freedom is worth fighting for. If you have followed my life and work for any length of time, then you know that I am very careful about what I attach my name to. Over the years, I have turned down countless offers to be part of various projects and collaborations. It is not that they were all bad or that I was being finicky. My challenge has always been that it is impossible to be authentic if you continue to embrace things that do not align with your values and principles. Every single time you compromise who you are to cater to the expectations of other people you lose a piece of yourself. If you do this consistently, you will ultimately lose your voice and lose yourself. Many people see my life today and they make assumptions. However, very few people know the inner work that I have had to do to become who I am today. I've fought too many battles in my life to be free. Therefore, I am not for sale and I refuse to be attached to anything that forces me to shrink and make apologies for my singificance. From decades of doing the work, I can tell you that freedom is worth fighting for and it is always worth pursuing. Anything that infringes upon your freedom is an enemy that must be quickly annihilated. Anything other than freedom is a facade and all the trappings of a powerless life.