Exactly five years ago - today, I took a leap of faith that forever changed my life.
I reached out to a buddy, unannounced, vulnerable, and authentic by sending a simple email titled " Weekly Picture :) "
It took a tremendous amount of nerve and courage to do that. To my surprise, it was well received.
So the following Friday I did the same thing again, and again, and again, and again.
After a year and a half of showing up in your inbox every Friday I decided to take another leap, I started GratefulMan.com.
I created my own little space to put my thoughts down so I could always revisit them and or share them again with someone I cared about.
Fast forward to today. I am not north of 275 blog posts!
The discipline of touching base on a weekly basis has allowed me to literally spend thousands of hours in deep thought expressing myself through words what's on my mind or in my heart.
Unexpectedly, the outcome of this effort has carved a chasm from my brain to my heart exposing the soul of what makes me who I am today.
In April this year, Chas and I will have been married for 20 years. We have been together for more than 22 years. Being 41, we both have been a part of each other's life for half our life. This is longer than I have spent with my parents as a growing child!
Over this time I have lovingly, frustratingly, and playfully dragged my sweet bride through the trenches of this self discovery journey at a personal and professional level. I used to joke with her that if I wanted to do or become something, I genuinely - truly believed I could.
To my fortune, she has been there by my side, always being supportive of those efforts. :)
When I started these Friday Grateful emails I knew what interested me as a person, but at that time I did not KNOW me. As the thousands of hours spent behind this keyboard getting to know this person, my interests started deepening and I was uncovering many layers of the person I was becoming.
I soon found myself in a spot of personal/professional-growth-paralysis. I had so many interests! Interests and capabilities I was genuinely good at!
To coddle my curiosity of self awareness I took some deep level personality and career tests... and sure as shit it told me one thing.
Bro! You have too many personalities! Throw a dart at any career you want and not only will you be fine, you'll enjoy it!
In the Real Estate, your business is connecting with people - like all kinds of people! The better you know where your personality traits are the better you will be able to understand yourself and in doing so, you will be able to connect with other people. Even better, you'll know who you CANNOT connect with. A very popular test is called the DISC Profile: DISC is a simple, practical, easy to remember and universally applicable model. It focuses on individual patterns of external, observable behaviors and measures the intensity of characteristics using scales of directness and openness for each of the four styles: Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Conscientious.
Take your test here for free! Super cool shit!! :) https://www.tonyrobbins.com/disc/ (you get a nice multi page detailed breakdown on who you are... it's really neat!) AND! If you have a team of people! Boy! This is really helpful! :) Everyone also has two personalities... One, at work/social settings [ADAPTED] Two, at home, no pressure [NATURAL] Here's an image to understand better:
Want to see where I shook out?! FML! There's no hope for me! lol!
In short, what this means is that I can pretty much get along with, sympathize with, and fully understand almost anyone. LOL! In the business of serving people, this is very important. Although I play with the harassment of confusion I put myself through, I'm actually very happy and feel fortunate for these kinds of traits. :) Comparing my adapted and natural traits, (Work life vs Personal life) I see myself as being pretty authentic. Striving for that as a personal goal, seeing it shake out like this makes me really happy. :) Awesome! So I know my personality! What should I do with that?? Take a job preference test! CHECK! This is where it gets really confusing for me! Take yours for less than $5.00 - worth the $ www.MyPersonality.net (Like the DISC profile, you get almost a 15 page document of exactly who you are!) I am an: INFJ Introverted - I | Intuitive - N | Feeling - F | Judging - J
My breakdown for a career choice:
Which means:
Realistic Jobs:
practical and hands on, e.g., a hairdresser of a builder...
so, like a GÜD Handyman & Contractor?!
Investigative Jobs:
independent, academic and professional, e.g., a scientist or a surgeon...
so, like a Realtor or Licensed Financial Advisor/Asset Protector?
Conventional Jobs:
traditional 9-5 with an established career e.g., law clerk, or an accountant...
you mean I wouldn't do so well with a regular W2 kind of job? - I can agree with that :)
Social Jobs:
involving caring professions, or a social worker,
so, like a bleeding heart Realtor & Insurance Professional, or maybe being very involved in a non-profit?
Artistic Jobs:
involving a high degree of creativity, e.g., a writer, actor, or musician..
so, kinda like a GratefulMan blogger, or designer of constructible structures or web design, or digital marketing artwork kind of stuff?
Enterprising Jobs:
e.g., an entrepreneur or salesman requiring one to be persuasive and persistent...
which kinda means everything listed above, but entirely on your own as a sole-business self employed model?
All of this leads me to where I am today and what today means for me. Self discovery is not a flash in the pan moment. It's a lifelong practice. One that takes time and the willingness to fail multiple times, all while having the vulnerable courage to get back up and keep going to places and doing the things that make you happy, with the full understanding that what you do is not for everyone and that it's okay. :) For the first time in my 41 years of life, I have clarity to who it is that I am. I've always followed my own north star, however, it's been the last five years of my life sharing and developing myself that has brought such clarity. All of which leaves me with an abundance of intense gratitude. In short, I'm incredibly Grateful. I am, Grateful Man. and I fucking love it! As I celebrate the significance of today's post - of which hours ago I did not know that my first Weekly Picture was on 1/20/17 - here we are now, five years later on 1/20/23. :) As if the universe had planned the timing of this announcement :) I welcome you and all your friends to the newly revamped, rebuilt, rebranded, GratefulMan.com
It will always be a weekly picture blog where I will continue to share my positive perspective on life, family, damn delicious food and building cool shit! GratefulMan.com is now also a place where ALL of my personalities can come together as one single Grateful Man, showcasing the professional and creative life of me, myself, and Josh Brill.
I've spent countless hours over the last few weeks reinventing the old original site and enjoyed the hell out of the project. :)
Here are some quick 'before and after's :)
Home Page Before:
Home Page After:
Main Blog Page: Before
Main Blog Page: After
The About Me, 'just me' page: Before
The About Me, 'multiple personalities = one person' page: After
Unlike the old site, now all the blog pages have been sorted an organized by category allowing a reader to peruse throughout the site to easily read what grabs them. :)
Categories:
My Favorite Posts
Building Cool Shit
Damn Delicious
Family
In Loving Memory
Motivational
Patriotic
Random
Real Estate
Water Features
Each page is branded unique to the topic too! Gives the reading experience a very fresh and intimate feel.
And speaking of fresh! I've also made the site mobile friendly!
Scan the QR code to check it out even more :) I've put a ton of love and joy into this new site, so please take a look, and of course please let me know if there's a broken link somewhere! Hahah! :) I'd also appreciate your feedback about the new site. AND! Should you decide to take the DISC profile or Personality test, please share! :) I'd be really interested. ;) In the spirit of such a meaningful post, this week's weekly picture was taken by none other than our youngest, Tristan!! Looks like a Phoenix rising up from the water! :) The boy got's skills!! :)
Have a grateful weekend!! :)