Today is day sixteen of the Oxygen Fitness Magazine challenge. I need to remind myself that I am in the midst of fierce competition so that I remain focused, except my focus is not on fitness, my focus is on real life. This contest is not about building the perfect body. It’s not even about health. For me it’s the opportunity to explore a system that works, a business that works. This competition is brilliant business. The most compelling piece is the volume of people the business helps.  There are thousands of women entered. I wake up to each day to new celebrations as I scroll through my Facebook feed to witness them achieve and reach their goals.

MY BODY IS MY BUSINESS. I will open a business with that name if I do not open a business with another. BLOGS FOR BUSINESS. I think I should start that business too. Those are the things I think about when I should meticulously obsessed with my package, or the body I need to enhance in order to win this particular leg of the journey. I need to win the cover of Oxygen Fitness Magazine and the judges do not care, nor are they invested in the reason behind the body. They will be judging based on measurements and body transformation alone. Now is not the time for me to be running my mouth, now is the time for me to run my happy ass to the gym. I will go first thing this morning or I will go later. The point is that I will achieve what I wish to achieve and right now the requirements are tangible results.

My body is not the only temple I am building. I’ve been very public about my ten million dollar plan. In fact, I have been blogging about this goal almost daily for three years. Well, that is not exactly true either, sometimes I stop talking about my goals because I am embarrassed. It shames me to know that if I fail I will stand in the skin of a liar or fraud. I worry that people read my words and they think I am stupid. I worry that others think I am full of sh*t and of course I know that people say mean things about me behind my back, “She carries a rubber chicken around with her. Can you believe that? What a freak!”

Yesterday, I sat across from a woman who should be my mentor in business if she wasn’t already swallowed by her own sales identity. I was trying to talk to her about business on the scope of all business and she kept her stream of consciousness on the product she wants me to buy. I can’t tell you how annoying this is to me. I wanted to get up and shake her shoulders, “Hello? Are you in there? I do not want to listen to a perfectly regurgitated sales script. I want to talk about business on real terms with real growth potential.”

She drew a complete blank when I insisted that her company begin to take steps to ensure a global market. “You mentioned that the leather is hand painted? Who is painting the straps and where?”

Her composure stuttered, but she was forthright. “The leather is painted in LA, but the majority of the products are made in China.”

I was quick and insistent, “China! Yes, that is a huge market. Your company is paying China for labor, but are we offering them products to buy?”

She tried to explain, “You need to understand that a company can only grow so quickly. We do not yet have the capacity to handle international sales.”

I raised an eyebrow to that, rejecting the truth and accepting it all at once, “Your company is already in international sales. You are just on the back side of understanding that you could come back around to capitalize on the investment of the product they are creating for you. If we buy it here in America, why wouldn’t they want to buy it in China? Yes, I understand that growth needs to happen at the proper pace. I watch Shark Tank and the number one challenge I see most start-ups facing is the inability to keep up with demand. The entrepreneurs on that show are not there because they are trying to be successful. They are there because they have too much of it.”

She smiled and nodded like I was exhausting her. I could tell that the meeting was wasting both of our time and I wished I could replace her with an actual head. I am also still invested in purchasing her product as well as joining her multi-level marketing company. The woman I am describing is one of the elite team members of a direct selling business called KEEP Collective. By the time you read this blog I will have most likely already put my $150 down to gamble on an opportunity to see if this particular business model will fly as a straight sail. Sailing is not as easy as catching the  wind. It is the art and mastery of navigation. It is also more than mere mystery and weathered happenstance. It is an art. I am an artist.

Later that evening, yesterday evening, on the very same day I sat in front of an replicated bot, I had the immense pleasure of finally meeting my rivals. Except they are not that. They are the kind of people that remind me that mine is a premature intellect. I was no longer the smartest person in the room. I was suddenly emptied of every piece of myself. Last night I sat across from Seattle Washington’s best and brightest entrepreneurs and I will tell you that the experience was profound and it was also like needing to pay for a strip tease at a titty bar. I was free to watch and listen, but if I want to be brought to climax I will need to pay extra for a lap dance. Cash is king…

I don’t know if most of you are in my boat, but I do not have a lot of extra money I can blow on frivolous pleasure. I have not been on a vacation in years and I work to make enough and I do. I barely get by. Now, here’s the thing that you need to know about MY success. I say that I could not afford a vacation. I also mention that for most of my professional career I have been “getting by with not enough.” To be clear, I have made more than enough money to take vacations. I could not afford the time. I have made plenty of money. It was never enough.

I realized somewhere along the way that I build machines that feed on me instead of allowing them to root in the right soil. Most professional photographers I know run their businesses this way. Most of the pros I know are terrible business people. Some of those people make really good money. Most of those people do not get more than three hours of sleep and they are tapped out of every resource, especially time. Sole-proprietorship is not running a business, it is working a job without a boss. I spent a decade of my career running business that way.

It’s Ok that I did not know what I was doing. I was doing it when no one else believed I could and it was a business built on impossible odds. I did not graduate high school. I ran away from home at sixteen and I stayed gone until I was legally right to be human. American juveniles are a different sort of justice, more like pets and property than people with equal rights. I hid from the system, until I turned a legal age, and then I spent the remainder of my youth rising when everyone expected me to fail.

I have never known failure really. When I am honest about my power I realize that everything I have asked life for it has given. The idiosyncrasy or turmoil is that I am not always pleased with the results, and even if I am pleased the result itself in an indication of completion. What next? I left the EO Accelerator (An Entrepreneur Organization Program) knowing that I would return to it. I do not know if I am going to pay to play. What I mean by this is that there is a think tank program I can enroll in. It is a business accelerator program designed to advance and progress innovation in business. These are the people who know and can teach me how to make my first million. If I enroll in their program they will work by my side to ensure I get there…

What future do you see? Do you see me getting to my first million and then making more until ten million was the first goal and then?

#wearewhatwebelieveweare #millionairemindset #AmberGaribay #livehappy #asmilelikeyours.