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Sometimes the only way around suffering is to go straight thru it.

—Unknown—

Gotta make ya wonder…. If suffering didn’t hurt us as bad as we feel it, would we really call it suffering?

Date: August 21-2020

Time: 11:30pm

Place: The club in the ATX

Max here

It’s a Friday night and damn… things are starting to look like normal here at the club in the ATX. it’s a packed house of beautiful women and customers at almost every table ready and willing to have fun….

But what about Max, How is Max doing on this Friday night?….

Max is still down on one knee, still on the mental battle. Still trying to believe that life has purpose…. let me rephrase that… Life has purpose, but right now, with my mental state, it’s just super hard to find focus, motivation, discipline and all things that tie together that make the great recipe for successful attainment of my goals.  As I mentioned in my last post, my motivation is taking a hit and taking a hit hard.

Now….. what else has happened since my last post?

Well a minor step towards one of my goals finally happened and at the same time I almost died. Funny part about the moment when I almost died….. I didn’t even really think about dying, instead I went into “damage control” mode. Almost as if I just didn’t care about death. Really weird.

Makes me wonder about the funny parts of loneliness, or at least what loneliness is for me, and as a few of my really old school friends would know about me, I have always been someone that hated to be lonely. I always “needed love” in my life. But as I got older I realized that I needed to embrace loneliness, at least for a while. But yea, I have always hated being lonely. And now with this journey to my millions and the long slow breakdown of who I was and the rebuilding of who I am meant to be, It’s just so amazing and deeply painful on how so much of my life is literally peeling away for me mentally. And in the process of peeling away of who I was, there is this quiet emptiness of  just silence, like straight silence, like loneliness to the 10th degree. Handling this is so unbearable, its surreal. Maybe that’s why few people ever journey this path in life to personal development.

Let’s get off the loneliness for a minute. My mind already runs to it on its own accord. and plus, I’m 100% sure it’s gonna be there long after I make this post.

Let’s talk about a million dollars for a second. This blog is about my journey to my first million. So…..let’s talk about a million dollars because it will be the first truly major milestone on my journey to 20 Million. So, In order to make a million dollars in a year, it means that I need to make a little over $83,000.00 a month. That may sound like a lot, but if I break that down per day then I roughly need to make about $2,500 per day. Now many years ago $2,500 per day might have seemed like trying to touch the moon. But the reality is this…. If I can slowly work at acquiring property… aka apartments. then $2500 a day is do able. Obviously it won’t happen over night, however if I rent an apartment for $1000 a month and if I take the $2500 and multiply it by 30, then that means that I need roughly 75 apartments each paying me $1000 a month. and that will yield me $900K a year. That’s in just one year. Now the reality of the dream is that currently not all of my apartments are yielding me $1000 a month as a matter of fact, I have 4 apartments and 2 houses. and currently only 3 apartments are rented and the two houses need remodeling. So currently I only have one unit making the $1000 goal while my smallest apartment is only fetching $450 a month. And at the same time I have an apartment that is in the remodel phase and when it is completed will fetch me $1000 a month. However in order to finish the remodel of that particular apartment, I still need approximately $10K to finish the remodel. And currently my main source of income (the club) is still trying to get back to normal. And when I started this post, I said that the club looked more like normal. But again, the wheel of this club business are just barely beginning to move in the proper direction and not yet constant or stable. So I must still be cautious about truly knowing when I can have the money to complete the project…..

So that first million dollars. Although I can mentally take that first million dollars and break it down into bite size chunks and also translate that into the number of apartments needed, the reality is that I must first start with even smaller pieces. I must first learn to save money. Not spend money. (maybe small pleasures that lead to other goals, but really limit random spending) Then once I can save money then I can complete the remodel of the apartment, then I can have it rented. Then I can move on to the next apartment. The process is super long and tedious. And many times it feels as if I am not gaining any traction. But many people say that making their first million is usually the most difficult. And so for me, I can truly feel that sentiment.

Now lets talk about what a million dollars could buy me.  A million dollars can literally buy me just about everything except for one thing…. Money can’t buy me happiness, but it sure as hell can buy me “fake happiness”. You see, no one can completely make me happy. That’s just the reality of life. I must learn to just “be happy”. Which currently these days is so much harder to do. So yes, money can’t buy me happiness, But if I can learn to mentally do things right, then the creation of a family and friends will happen and thru that creation will help to complete me.

Then there is the proverbial math problem…. How much money does someone need to be happy? Here’s a true story. I have a friend we will say his name is Jose. Jose is a very close childhood friend, we both grew up extremely poor, then about 8 years ago, he called me to borrow money and in the conversation he told me that, he didn’t care if he ever had any money, he didn’t care if he drove an old beat up car, he didn’t care if he had a fancy house. Basically he was trying to say that he was comfortable with living the life that we had during our childhood…. And I was completely beside myself. I thought… “Dude, are you fucking serious? Like you actually enjoyed that shit life of our childhood enough to say that you are ok with having that same shit for the rest of your life?”

That just blew my fucking mind!!!!!!

Here’s the reality about the culmination of life, physical things, and money.

1. nothing lasts forever. Literally just about everything needs some form of maintenance. Even the great pyramids need work after 3000 years. And that shits EXPENSIVE.
2. Money WILL NOT always fix your problems in life….. However, with money, you can sure as hell show up to your problems in style. And that in itself is worth having money.
3. All you kinda need to do in life is to “survive”. But what the hell is it to just “survive”? If I wanted to just “survive” then I would have done all the stupid shit that my half brother #2 did in his life. Or I could have just become a beggar on the corner. And give it a few decades of begging on the corner, with no real bed, no real showers, no real food, no real rest, no real enjoyment of life, and I promise, my life would have gone to shit….it never gets easier.
4. If you wait for life to give you things, then life will only give you what the other people have already used and rarely is it anything of good quality.
5. Life ONLY gets easier when you work hard to make it easy.
6. If you live an easy life in the beginning, like what I see many of the girls at work do, then in the end  you will have a hard and painful life with little to nothing to enjoy. Facts, I can actually see that happening now to people that were in my childhood circle of friends.
7. Your gonna get old… That’s a fucking fact. And getting old means less energy, less time, less of everything, so if you don’t work your ass off now to have great things, then in the end you will be forced to have the left overs of those that have things.

So my friend Jose, the guy that doesn’t care about really having nice things…. Remember, when I first mentioned him, he called me to borrow money! That should say it all. His life of having to work hard at an old age is already beginning. Now luckily I don’t talk to him anymore, but I am sure in another 10 to 20 years him and I will be in very different places in life. And worse… Not only is money useful for physical things, it’s also important for your health. As you age, life will put a beating on your body. And money is the one thing in our current society that will allow you to have time to take care of your body and money will also give you time to take care of your mind.

so yeah money doesn’t buy happiness, but god damn, it sure is a close second. And in my opinion, those that really win at life are those that work at acquiring money and also work at finding every tool possible to ensure that they internally cultivate happiness.

Wanna hear something funny? As I just wrote the above sentence, I just mentally stepped back in my mind and saw that I still have so much to learn. To learn how “to be happy” and to learn how to “make the money”. I can luckily see that I am on the right path, And I can luckily see that I am somewhere down the road, but damn…. I can also see that where I am now is still a long way from where I want to be. Maybe that’s why I feel so lonely and empty. Maybe I am still just in the beginning phase of transformation. And if… just if I am still just in the beginning phase of transformation, then DAMN… I can only pray to God that he give me the strength to weather this storm.

Speaking of “weather” and “storm”…. Let’s jump back to how my day was a day or so ago (or Wednesday that is)…. Wednesday I went skydiving, and that minor step forward that I mentioned at the beginning of this post… Well I finally got my “A license” for skydiving. high 5 to myself!! Oddly enough the “A license” doesn’t mean too much other than the ability for different skydiving locations to know that I am a knowledgeable skydiver. Which is good…. but for me, I already have over 70 skydives under my belt and the number is just going to keep growing. But the “A License” is a step in the correct direction for me to get to my goal of wingsuit base jumping. And to be honest, I can’t express how something about skydiving allows me to not feel pain. For example, this week, on the ride up in the plane, I can still feel the emptiness tugging at my heart strings, but oddly enough, its at least bearable during the plane ride. And when that door to the plane opens at 10,000 feet. My mind shifts. At that moment there is no emptiness, there is no pain, there is no worry of going home to an empty house. There is no worry if I can keep my job at the club long enough to get my 20 apartments. All that shit just goes away. Instead, my mind is all about one thing…. How can I make this one moment in life worth it. I only get about 30 seconds to feel and do whatever I want. I only get those 30 seconds to be somewhere in space (in mid air) where few people ever play. where few people ever get to see the world from a whole new perspective. And so during those small 30 seconds, all I think about is the moment I am in.

Most people that have never skydived have probably never been able to mentally see skydiving from that perspective. Instead all they see is fear. It’s also what I saw in the beginning. But now…. now 77 jumps later, fear in this regard, is luckily, for the most part behind me. I still get fear, but I no longer allow it to steal my joy during the jump.

Maybe that’s why when I almost died, I just wasn’t that worried about it. Instead when it was all said and done, I was more worried about how I was going to get home. So what happened? What happened to Max that he almost died? Well, a couple of weeks prior to this past Wednesday I decided to make plans with an old friend of mine from Dallas. He has lived in Dallas for about the past 10 years and is the General Manager of one of our sister strip clubs. I rarely see him, but I deeply enjoy his mind. The guy thinks a lot, and also has a ton of potential and so I want to ensure that I stay connected to him. So him and I decided to do dinner in Dallas after my skydiving.

So all went well with meeting my friend, and it wasn’t until about 3am, that’s when I decided to drive home. And by the way, it’s a 4.5 hour drive from San Antonio to Dallas. And that’s with little traffic. So after I shook hands and gave my friend a hug, I began walking to my motorcycle, my mind instantly began to think about the drive home and I began to visualize the rush hour traffic thru all the cities from Dallas to San Antonio. And personally, I don’t care much for rush hour traffic, so I mentally decided that I would haul ass as fast as possible back to San Antonio. And hopefully if I went fast enough, then I could beat most of the rush hour traffic. I will be driving thru multiple cities each with their own traffic…… So yea, the goal was to ride like the wind.

But remember… I Max, still has a lot on my mind. This damn loneliness thing is like a monkey on my back. And the 4.5 hour drive gives me ALOT of unwanted time to just think. But that’s not where I lost control and almost died. Nope, instead, I began my ride home,  I was doing about 90 mph or faster when possible. Now mind you, it’s 3am, and I don’t know the freeways of Dallas. For some stupid reason, I wasn’t thinking about not knowing the freeways of Dallas, instead all I thought about was driving fast…. really fast. Like I said my mind is having a difficult time to focus.

So I was about 10 to 15 minutes into the ride and doing about 90 to 110 mph….. and that’s when I came to a point in the freeway where I didn’t see a curve in the road until it was too late….. Like I saw it early enough to slow down from 90 or 100 mph and got down to about 60 or 40 mph. But even though I got down to 60 or 40 mph I just didn’t get enough room to make the turn in the curve. It all happened within a second or two, and there was a lot to think about. If I would have tried to do the turn at the last moment then I for sure would have dropped the bike and it would have slid off onto the freeway and I would have been laying in the road with the possibility of a car not seeing me and running me over like a bloody pancake. So instead I said fuck it! As I got to about 60 or 40 mph, I saw that I was about to hit a curb and on the other side of the curb was a patch of dirt. I quickly said fuck it, lets see if this huge bike can jump a curb. (Which btw I own a 2006 Honda Goldwing – Like one of those huge bikes that you see the cops ride) Now mind you, Its a huge 900 to 1000 lb beast of a bike that is similar to a classic Harley Davidson. Just fucking bigger. And to make it worse, before the accident I made sure to have a full tank of gas! FML. So I finally get the speed of the bike down to 60 or 40 mph, I see that there is no safe way to make the turn and so I try and keep braking until the last moment that my bike is about to hit the curb, within feet of the curb I release the brakes, and within a flash I feel the front tire slam into the curb, The slamming of the tire was something that I have never felt before, all I could think of is to hold on tight and say “fuck it do or die”. My 1000 lb bike all of a sudden gets airborne, It was truly a surreal moment. I was really fucking impressed so see myself take flight on a 1000 lb beast and I was also deeply concerned for what to do when it lands all at the same time. and for that split second of airtime, all I can remember is me telling myself…. “land this bitch properly, and keep the bike up and steady and keep braking and fucking try to get it to stop” And in the end after it landed, I was by the grace of god able to keep the bike up and still moving forward, and when it landed I instantly reapplied the brakes. But remember its 3am and this part of the dirt that I landed on did not have good lighting, and I didn’t’ notice that the dirt area was almost like a small tiny hill. And within a quick moment of me sliding the bike about 30 or 40 ft while braking, my bike crashed into a small hill that I couldn’t see until I hit and crashed the bike. The sudden crash and instant halting of the bikes momentum, had me fly off my bike like a rocket, and I can vaguely remember the moment of me actually hitting the ground and worse, the momentum from the bike after I hit the ground had me rolling at least another 20Ft. and during the rolling all I can remember telling myself  is to “just roll, its like what you do when you land sometimes during your skydives, just fucking roll like you have been taught”. And damn during the rolling, I could tell, but couldn’t process the fact that I hit the ground pretty hard. It wasn’t until after my body stopped rolling and was able to stand up that I was able to begin to process things. Luckily and oddly enough I got up pretty quickly. and luckily I was wearing all of my gear. (Protective jacket, protective knee guards and a helmet and gloves) later after inspection, my helmet now needs a new face shield. half of my face shield has scar lines all over it. My protective jacket luckily is still intact but it definitely now has battle scars and needs to be replaced. the right shoulder pad of my jacket now has two large cracks in it from me slamming my shoulder and body into the ground… I can only imagine what my shoulder would feel like if I wasn’t wearing my jacket. This was definitely a fight that I won… but just barely won. And my protective knee guards?… Well they luckily saved the knee and shin of my right leg. the knee guard also has battle scars and was barely still attached to my leg.

All in all I was pretty lucky. I walked away from something that I could have easily died or broken a shit ton of bones and would have laid there until daylight in hopes that someone would have seen me and my bike laying on the side of the road. Now even though I was lucky enough to live, I still had problems….My bike now is completely laying on its side and is now missing the right side mirror and the right side of the engine now has a small hole in the valve cover. (That’s actually very important. Remember I am still 4.5 hours from home!!!) And I still had to pick the bike up and get it somewhere safe. I remember standing next to my bike after I stood back up and saying to myself….”Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!! What the fuck am I going to do now? I don’t know anyone that can help me at this moment”. I sure as hell wasn’t going to call my friend. he was now at work and dealing with his own issues at work. And plus there is not much he could do, he doesn’t ride motorcycles, let alone have knowledge of how to deal with a motorcycle accident. I then quickly thought about having my bike towed home…. But FUCK… that would cost a shit ton of money. Money that I don’t have. Remember I have apartments to remodel and a personal home to finish building. And remember I am also already struggling just to move the financial ball forward on my life. So if at all possible a tow truck is out of the question. so after a few minutes of trial and error I was finally able to put my beast of a motorcycle back on it’s two wheels. Luckily the ground was at an angle, kind of like a hill, so I was able to leverage my weight to get the bike on its two feet. I then mounted the bike, and was blessed enough to have the engine actually start. I then slowly got it to a gas station. That’s when I was finally able to take more time to inspect it. And that’s when I noticed that hole in the valve cover. which means that its losing or lost oil…. But how much oil? That’s the question And worse…. where the fuck am I going to get motorcycle oil at 3am in Dallas? Yes motorcycles are supposed to use “motorcycle oil” and not car oil. something about the gears not working that great with regular oil. So what the fuck was I to do?

So I did a quick research on my phone about how I can use regular oil, and in the end, if…. and only if its for a short term, I would be able to use regular oil without ruining the engine. and luckily I was at a gas station, so I prepared to go inside and buy some oil. But first… and here’s the important part… in order for me to put oil in my bike, I now needed to take my bike off of the kickstand and now stand my bike on the center stand of the bike. this means that I must know use all my energy to awkwardly pick up a 1000 lb bike and set it on it’s center stand. On regular days where I am full of energy, I have a tough time putting the bike on its center stand. And now not only did I just have an accident and fly off my bike, but now my bike also has a full tank of gas! FML!! But I had no other option. So I attempted to put it on its center stand, and that’s when I noticed a sharp pain on my right side in my rib cage area. Fuck, that means that I might have broken or cracked a rib. Sadly after multiple tries, I just was not able to set it on the stand, the pain and weight of the bike was just too much for me. And so after those multiple tries I found a guy that was pumping gas and asked him to help me. luckily he agreed. I then went into the gas station to get oil and upon my return to my bike, a black guy comes up to me and asks me for money. Remember this is about 330am in the morning, and worse, he was like super persistent about me giving him money. He was so persistent that I almost had to be rude to the guy. It then took me a while to put the oil in the engine and then do a second check of the front tire to hopefully ensure that nothing was bent or about to fall off. I then also had to find a basic, rudimentary way to temporarily plug the hole in the valve cover. This took a while and during that time, the black guy came back and was again asking for money, but this time he said, “look man, would you at least buy my headphones, they are wireless, I’ll sell them to you for $5”. And so during my bike inspection and adding of oil, I thought about my ride back home and realized that I lost my headphones in the accident, and that I now need headphones so that I can listen to the GPS to get me home. Remember I don’t know Dallas or the freeways of Dallas….(Guess God was willing to help me out a little). After a minute or two of conversing with this black guy who could have easily been some homeless guy, he asked me what happened, and during our conversation I learn that this black mans name is Jim. I don’t know Jim’s life ( I never asked him that) I knew nothing about Jim other than it looked like tonight, both him and I were both pretty down on our luck. And I will say… At first I was extremely skiddish of Jim…. It’s 3am and I just had a pretty impactful almost life changing accident which could have easily left me to die on the side of the road, and not to mention that  I’m in a city that I don’t know. And the area of town where I had my accident did not look like an area that someone should travel at 3 am. So when Jim walked up to me out of the blue asking for money, I had my spidey ears up and was guarding myself. But by the end of the second conversation with Jim, I lovingly shook Jim’s hand and truly wished him well during whatever he is going thru.

Funny part about life….. I literally just almost died, I just ruined a $20,000.00 motorcycle, I possibly broke a rib and I’m lost in the dark in a city that I know nothing about. And worse… I basically have no one to help me…… But yet amidst all my problems, all my loneliness, all the crappy physical and mental shit going on in my life…..there is now a man named Jim, an older heavyset black man probably in his mid to late 50’s walking the dangerous streets of Dallas at 3 in the morning. I couldn’t help but to wonder…. who had it worse? Jim or me? I eventually will somehow get home…. But could I really say the same for Jim? I truly send Jim love and hope that he is doing better than that day that I met him.

so yeah…. I bought Jim’s headphones for $5. Thank you Jim. Now its’ time to get home. I then put on the headphones, paired them to my phone and began my journey home. Sadly I had to stop a couple of times to check the oil. And with each stop I could feel that pain in my ribs grow from a sharp pinpoint pain to an overall pain that lit up the right side of my whole rib cage. By the time I got home 5.5 hours later. the endorphins and adrenaline from the accident had worn off and now all I can feel is excruciating pain from any semi major movement of my body. needless to say..When I finally got home and was able to finally take off my clothes I could see that even though I was wearing protective gear, that I still had semi major rash burns from the accident, and worse, sleep was not easy.

Since that time of the accident I have spoken to my motorcycle mechanic and he is supposed to come out on Monday to check the damage. Now luckily the bike did make it a 5.5 hour ride home but I definitely was not driving fast and stayed within the speed limit. I just didn’t know how safe the bike was, But it got me home, so obviously it works, but also remember I ride fast, on average I usually travel at about 100 to 110 mph, so I need the bike to be in its best shape possible. So this visit from the mechanic is imperative. Since the accident I also purchased two of the major parts that are needed for the bike…. the rear view mirror and the valve cover…. Painfully these two items cost me a little over $400 and worse, these are aftermarket products for the bike. And as for my body…. Well its still not perfect, but I am healing faster than expected. I figure I should be back to normal in about 4 weeks.

So lets tie all this together….Loneliness… shits real. shits just real painful and I don’t even wish it upon my worst enemy. Currently this loneliness is like pegged to every aspect of my brain 24/7 and just won’t leave. its so damn painful. It’s now slowly affecting almost every aspect of my life. I must find a way to fix this. As for the accident… Question….Would I still have had the accident if I didn’t have the pain of loneliness on my mind 24/7? idk. That’s a secret that I will never find out. Then there is the fact that I walked away from a deadly accident with minimal injury, and luckily my bike still made it a 5.5 hour ride home. And luckily the damage to the bike is within a range that I will somehow find a way to afford. It financially fucking hurts, but it’s do able. And finally there is Jim.

Just when I thought my life was fucked and broken and so damn hopeless, God brought someone into my life that not only helped me to get home, but also helped me to see that in spite of myself literally almost dying, that there are people at 3am in the morning that have it worse than me. I send you love Jim.

Wish me luck on this journey,

Love, Max.