Ahhhhh, thank god for blogs! What a way to clear myself!

Hey, blog buddies, how are you doing today?! I hope you are great. Today is a new, fresh day; a new beginning if you choose it. I hope you do, because life sucks when we're stuck, and when we refuse to enjoy life for ourselves.

Anyhow, at the beginning of May, I joined an MLM-type of company that distributes energy drinks. The company is called eFusjon, and it is really a DELICIOUS energy drink. Not only is it great 'cause it's delicious, but even better: I can drink it! You see, three years ago, I had a seizure after a night of partying during which I had a few Rockstars, so ever since, I have sworn off energy drinks because of the IMMENSELY UNHEALTHY amount of caffeine they have in them (and while we're on the health subject, let's not forget to mention how much sugar they have in them! Bah!)

Anyhow, I was introduced to eFusjon by a friend and I was like, "Yeah, whatever, dude, it's an energy drink, I don't give a damn about it." That was my front, 'cause I somehow had to convince myself to hate energy drinks so I wouldn't pounce on them every chance I got; I just loved their taste sooo much! Then he told me about their "Raw" version, which is the same energy drink, but without caffeine. And I was like, "Well, that's cool that they'd venture there, but it obviously won't work. Caffeine is the only reason the other energy drinks work....duh..." (Yes, this is the exact candid, uncensored bitchiness I gave him, lol). But in the end, I trust him with any financial endeavor ever, and would follow him off a skyscraper if he told me it would make me money and I wouldn't die. So I signed up. Note here, please, that I'm not trying to enroll you or sign you up. I'm purely writing my thoughts and my story because I think it's a fun story. :)

So, continuing:
I signed up because I ended up trusting what he was talking about. And I've learned that that's the only reason people will ever sign up for anything, specifically anything that they perceive will risk them money, time, or their reputation. I've also learned that people will trust other people for the silliest reasons sometimes! Haha. Anyhow, I signed up in May and I spent a little less than $200 doing so, and that was a huge risk/obstacle for me. I have clung to money like it's a collector's item -- at least when it comes to RISKING IT. When it's being blown on cute clothes, it just FLIES out of my hands! Haha! So I freaked out that I risked that much on something that's "not a sure bet." K, but technically, this is the surest bet I could possibly have put my money on. I'll willingly go to Wendover and Vegas and blow a few hundred bucks, which i silly logic because I'm completely betting on luck...some of the games involve skill, yes, but for the most part, I'm betting on luck. I'm investing money into something that I really have no or minimal control over. Yet this opportunity actually, logically, makes sense. 'Cause I'm putting money down on MYSELF. I'm betting how well I can perform a job. I'm betting that I can be a solid communicator. I'm betting that I have solid, trusting, engaging friendships and relationships. I'm betting solely on myself.

HOWEVER, I didn't realize this at the time, so I totally freaked out on myself. And because I freaked out, I shut down...I was already in shut down mode from having quit my job and not knowing what I was doing at that point, not knowing where life was going, and not knowing where my money was coming from next.....and then I spent some of the precious money I had! Ahhhhhh, my mind was going craaaaaaaaazzzzzyyyyy! So I shut down, and I didn't mention to anyone that I was a part of this club, and I totally hid. To illistrate how much I hid, I was talking to my friend Sara on Skype one day and she expressed that she was concerned 'cause I didn't seem like my normal self, and asked "When was the last time you left your apartment?" and I sat there and thought, and I couldn't remember! I honestly had to tell her "Shit...I don't remember......that's pathetic..." and she said "Yes. It is, Ryan. Get your ass up and go out. SOMEWHERE." Yeah, that whole hiding thing DOESN'T really work when you're in a position where you're only gonna be more successful by talking to people....

So the first month goes by, all the while I'm hiding from everyone. Of course, I don't have success, 'cause I'm nowhere near immersing myself. I'm just sitting at my computer saying "Go efusjon!" all the while hoping that eFusjon will pick me up on its lovely-tasting wings and ride me toward financial success and peace! (Feel free to note how lame I was being.) Meanwhile, my friend Lester, who had a direct effect on my having signed up, has signed up his 100th person. WHAT THE FUCK??? And Shawn, the guy who enrolled me into the club, is so successful he's already using it to pay for his house. K, WHAT THE FUUUUUCK??? So, little old lonely, Mr. creative poetic dancer kid over here is just retarded or something? Am I not destined for riches? At least not through this avenue? Does money not like me? Am I not good enough for money?? What a bitch money is that it would avoid me and tell me I don't deserve to be a part of its life and sneer at and mock me! Fine, eff money! I don't want any of it now anyway! It can stay in Shawn's hands, paying his freaking multi-million-dollar mortgage! It can stay in the hands of anyone, as long as it's not me...'cause I hate money now. It totally offended me. That bastard...
Yes, this is all the truth of what was running through my monkey mind. I am evidently VERY emotionally attached to money.

So at this point I'm pissed. Not just at my lack of money, but at my actual eFusjon cans; at the guy who signed me up; at all the successful people out there (not just the ones participating with eFusjon!); at the sun for coming up every day and reminding me that it's a new day -- a new beginning -- and I could be out there signing people up and making money and making rent and being able to eat for another day; and then at food 'cause it makes me eat it, and I need money to buy food to eat; and then at my body for needing food to run successfully; and then at my apartment 'cause not only is there enough reasons in general for me to hate my apartment building/company (like most other people, right? Lol), but additionally because it charges me rent every month, as if my being on this world is not grace enough to waive the "necessity" or paying a few hundred bucks every month to LIVE. In case you're still wondering, no, I'm not taking ANY accountability for any of this. Basically, screw everything and everyone. Haha!

So, I go to my friend's house for a "raw food tasting." She's on a new diet for health purposes, and is to eat only raw foods, and she decided to make an event out of it to share it with other people (and 'cause she's just one of those "event" types of people). I've always wanted to do something like this, and she's a DAMN good cook, so of course I go. For a while now, I've contemplated switching to raw food and as such, eat and live more healthily -- but in my beliefs, raw food is expensive....so screw raw food then! Mocking me with its health AND cost.....what a bitch....Wait wait, no, get over yourself Ryan....Just go TASTE the food...you don't have to be mad at it just because it is aligned in some way with money, and in this moment you're still choosing to be TOTALLY unaccountable for your anger toward money and eFusjon..it'll all be okay, just go taste some food....

And thank god I went, because Lester was there. But I was angry at him, and eFusjon, and money, remember? So, of course, right out of the gate, he starts talking about eFusjon (um, not helping, sir!!) and I'm just like "Yeah, I'm totally interested, and I'll pretend to be nice, blah blah" and then something just hit me. My higher self, I think. I say to myself: "Wait...just for a second...stop listening for a second (or half-listening, really)...stop thinking..just for a second. Okay, thank you. Now....what if you were mature." "Wait, what???" "Yeah...what if you were mature. Or let me put it this way, what if you weren't being IMMATURE?" "Hey, fuck you! Your my higher self, you're supposed to be supporting me!" "Just think about it and feel about it...what if you weren't immature, Ryan? Love you, bye." "Buh! Ugh, you just leave like that...whatever.."

"Wait, that was a really immature response, Ryan." "So?" "No, that's not where you're going, Ryan. Mature means you don't bite back just for the thrill of arguing." "Oh yeah." "Yeah....." "Sigh..." Okay. So I start listening to Lester. With an open heart. As if he's signing me up all over again. And then I get to myself. I think, "Yeah, well you know what, Lester. It's easy for you to say and do all that. You're, like, 33 or something? And you're already immensely wealthy, pre-eFusjon. you've got it down. You know what the hell you're doing. I'm just this stupid 22-year-old who's taking a stab at something he's never tried before, and has definitely never been successful at it before, who doesn't know what he's doing, and who has no confidence in his money-making abilities. And on top of that, because I don't come with a built-in foundation of people who trust my money-making abilities, like you and Shawn and Rich do, it's more (basically impossible) work for me. So say all you want, but we're two VERY different people, and I can't make this work." Note that I'm THINKING all this...I haven't uttered a peep of it. And then he says something that floors me. Lester: "And, I mean, look at Joe Blow [I'm keeping the name private out of respect]. He's young, to my knowledge he hasn't had any 'huge' success making money, or businesses or anything like that, and he certainly doesn't have a big following of people who think that he's a financial guru like Shawn or I do. But he's being wildly successful at it." Wow. That's all I know how to say, to think...I am literally speechless, so much so that my monkey mind can't even THINK anything! Now that's a DEFINITE wow. Haha!

Lester pointed out that there seems to be a lot that Joe and I have in common, especially in the Obstacles Department. So what's so different between me and Joe? Well, besides his fabulous body, beautiful blonde tresses, and perfect facial structure that is... Granted his outside is amazing, the biggest difference is inside. He's unafraid to risk. He's unafraid to fail. and probably most importantly -- he's unafraid to succeed.

If you have not yet read my blog entitled "Your Personal Brand, Pt. 1" then go read it now and come back. And then comment here and let me know how many of you ACTUALLY did what I just told you to do, haha! If you have read it, you know something very special. In it, I posted an image of the beginning stages of my own personal brand. Among the long list of everything I want to be thought of/remembered as, there were three I wanted to achieve very quickly. They were: Willing to Risk, Willing to Fail, and Willing to Succeed. I'm not even shitting you. Go check it out if you haven't yet -- and note the date I posted that blog. I went to the raw food tasting this Sunday: July, 5th. Not only was the blog posted before the raw food tasting, but it was written a week or so before I posted it. Holy Love, the universe works in mysterious ways, right??

So in that moment, I expressed gratitude to my higher self for directing my attitude toward being open for this talk, and I made a decision. I decided to let go of my jaded attitude toward the big, scary "Multi-Level Marketing" concept we all have. Yes, there have been some shitty ones out there, let's all just be honest. There have even been ones that were started specifically just to screw over their participants so that the Big Wigs could make just fast cash, let's all just be honest.

And in the spirit of honesty, let's all just be honest about OURSELVES. Whether or not we like it, money really does make the world go around -- not ONLY money of course, but it is definitely a large key. We've just made it that way as a society. This is a concept that has taken me a LONG damn time to recognize and to feel good about accepting...I'm the one who doesn't really care about money. My dream is simply to be in public service for the rest of my life. Always with one caveat: if I could make enough money to live like that. That caveat is always there. Not just in MY expressions, but in my mom's, in my sister's, in my friends', in my cousin's. Money is important in today's world; we have made it so. AND we like money! We love the abundance of money. We may have walls up against it for whatever reasons (Lord knows I did and still do to some extent), but we all truly love it. I mean, it makes the world go 'round! How could we not love it? It offers us the freedom to vacation to all these crazy places we want to go. Or to take three months away from our job and not worry about how we'll make ends meet and JUST RELAX! Or my personal favorite right now: To just make rent this month! :) Or simply to be able to take enough time off work to fly to Chicago and grieve when our mom passes away and we NEED to go to the funeral, we NEED to grieve. Or to take our kid to Disneyland every year for their birthday! I mean, wow, how fun would that be for your kid? I mean, I don't even like Disneyland -- even as a kid -- (yes, feel free to leave your hate mail in the form of a comment), but I'm sitting here as I type that, thinking "God, THAT would have been a nice childhood. I actually would have felt special for once." For these reasons, and more, I decided to let myself be successful.

And when I decide to love myself and be successful, the world shifts. The rest of the world jumps onto my groove and goes along for the sweet, blissful ride! I'm not even joking you when I write this: I shifted my thinking while at the raw food tasting, and by the time I got home, someone had commented on my Facebook page requesting more info about eFusjon. And then I talked to someone else and they got interested. And just last night I talked to someone else about it and they seemed hella interested in it. And before that day, any time I talked about it, everyone I talked to would say, "Look, I'm not at all interested, so let's stop talking about it!" right when they heard me say anything about that big, scary three-letter word: "MLM" (multi-level marketing). Now that I've decided to risk, and to posibly fail, and no matter what to definitely succeed, I have changed the definition of "MLM" just for me. I remind myself that it stands for "Me Loves Me," 'cause that's truly what it is about for me. It is about me choosing to love myself enough to risk and still love myself, and to fail and to still love myself, and to succeed and still love myself. That's what this journey is about for me. AND I get to make money in the meantime. Hell yes, I'm in. :)

If you're in, you can sign up through my web site www.efusjon.com/ryanlr or you can request more info from me, if you still need some to believe that you can succeed. Please note that this isn't a solicitation, and there's obviously no obligation or anything like that. And I'm definitely not attached to whether or not you sign up. I'm simply putting my link here so you have a way to sign up if you're interested in doing so.

My biggest wall was money. Coupled with my self-worth and self-love (or, more apropos, my lack thereof). And then top onto that my need to be right, my belief that I will never be good enough, and my fear of communicating with people. And I'm not just talking about eFusjon. eFusjon is simply a "symptom" in my life...it's another area in which I engage myself on this Earth. All the things I listed above get in my way EVERYWHERE ELSE, haha, it was just rippled over into my efforts with eFusjon. It was like Great Life for me -- a great mirror for me to look at how I do life, and then a sharp realization of how doing it that way is getting in my way of happiness, success, love and peace.

So what is your biggest wall? Leave a comment below and let us all know. Share this space like it is your own backyard, please. It is here for you and your free expressions.

Full of Excitement and Love,

Ryan