Rock Bottom
As a young boy, I had to grow up alone, my bedroom was a closet. My mom had a to work two jobs just to survive as my father left when I was three, so I ended up working as young boy for a few of the local farmers just so I could eat. But that’s all a story for a different time. My current story begins in 2002….
After the Marine Corps I found myself in the mortgage industry. I didn't know anything about the industry, sales, or business in general. So, I cheated. I sat next to the best in the room, I listened to their words, I plagiarized their systems, when I outperformed them, I found other mentors and repeated. One thing I did know as I needed guidance, so I aligned with a coaching organization called Building Champions. They taught about life plans, and business visions and how to build a business so I did. Over the next 8 years I did business in all 50 states, I even did foreign national lending in Guatemala. It became my identity. At my peak I was doing over 7 million a month in production and I have amassed rental holdings of over 14 units. I have built teams and managed offices. I was making shit tons of money and filled a passport by the time I was 30.
The Crash - Simply put, it was a perfect storm. I did not survive, I was too deep, not diversified and the blood bath eroded nearly 2 million in assets. I lost the respect of my wife; I love my identity and I lost the future I had set in stone. I lost all self-respect for myself. I made promises of a future to a family I could no longer deliver. Mirror reflected one thing, epic failure. So I ran. I lost any desire to live. I reenlisted in the military after 8 years of being a civilian with the sole intention of dying a hero's death. At least some level of redemption.
Without consulting my "wife" I reenlisted with a unit that was in the deployment hopper for Afghanistan. We were on and off the rotation but finally had our time. Afghanistan, was what it was. The reality is that I was ok when I left and when I got back, I wasn't even sure who I was or what I was. I knew I couldn't sleep. I knew I was taking handfuls of Benadryl just to sleep. On the advance party home (because my first daughter was due to be born days ago), once out of Afghanistan we stopped at an air base in one of the dirty stans, and we could drink. limited to two beverages scanned by your ID, as soon as that 2nd drink was down, I started to feel better. So, I walked around and just started randomly consuming drinks until.... darkness.
Relief, I didn't dream. I didn't think. The hang over sucked but it was better. Better than.... the dreams, the panic, the guild, the disgust, the hatred.
For the next 4 years I build a successful business, a beautiful family, was an active member of many community projects and boards. On the surface, American dream. But every day once my eyes opened it was a war in my head. The more I started losing the war, the more I drank, the more I drank the more I destroyed my marriage. I blamed everyone and anything except myself.
The Decision.
I decided I was done with life, but I needed to prepare my family. I tried to find a life insurance without a suicide clause. (Awkward conversation with an insurance agent), Ended up getting a good chunk but it had a 1-year suicide clause. So, I set a reminder in my phone (no shit) went through the next year empty, mechanical, checked out. The day finally came. As if it was any other day, kids in bed. The wife and I fighting so I grabbed a bottle of Sailor Jerry, sat on the porch and started drinking.
1st Attempt
Kids and wife, a sleep I grabbed my .357 magnum, sat back on the rocking chair on the porch, loaded one hollow point into the cylinder, spun it, flipped it shut, and without hesitation put it to my temple and pulled the trigger. Click
Again, without hesitation, pulled the trigger, Click.
I actually laughed out loud and remember saying, I can't even kill myself without fucking it up.
Again, Click. I paused for I don't know how long but I started to cry. Now I was confused. But stubborn me, I made up my mind, so I was going to do it. Again. Click! A very long pause and with a trembling hand, one more time. Click. One chamber left, I slowly placed the weapon down and balled for hours. I didn't understand. I was confused. Part of me believed it was my mother, my Guardian Angel in heaven. I know statistically I am not that lucky.
1st Arrest - https://hudsonvalleycountry.com/catskill-man-arrested-for-reckless-endangerment/
The article exaggerated, but it wasn't far off. The result, I lost my home, my kids and my family. I was promoted and transferred around the same time upstate NY. In the end, no convictions but the damage was done. Embarrassment, loss of my role in the community, and again my identity as Coach, Father, Mr. Community was destroyed.
2nd Attempt.
I knew I was a fucking coward and didn't even have the balls to kill myself. At this point my mission in life was to die. Every day, I would wake up and pray today would be the day. I would visualize and plan. One night, after my typical night, a bottle min I was so drunk I couldn't get the keys in my truck I ended up walking for miles. Saw this huge MC (Motorcycle club) party, I figured this would be as good as any place to start some shit. Made my entry, walked around a bit. Saw the bartender had a sawed-off shotgun sitting on the counter, walked up ordered a drink and as soon as he turned to make it, I grabbed the shotgun, aimed at a clock on the wall and pulled the trigger. BOOM. Deafening, and in 2 second had handguns to my forehead. I uttered a single word. "PLEASE" and I closed my eyes. Nothing. Fuck. Nothing. They said I was the craziest mother fucker to ever cross their paths. Asked me to join them. We partied and I don't really remember the next week or so.
Homelessness & Termination
So even though I had been paying my child support which was based on a much higher income, but the time it took NY to get their shit straight with a case number, they said I was thousands behind (which I wasn't and had all the cancelled checks) they did an extra $900 garnishment on top of the child support that was already way more than the legal limit. Well, I couldn’t afford my apartment, so I lived in my car. I whored myself out for a bed once in a while (fucking disgusting isn't it) Some nights when it was really cold, I would sleep in my office. Upper management found out and said it was poor leadership. I was terminated even though professionally some of the best site numbers in the region. I deserved it.
Pennsylvania -
Within 24 hours I was offered a position in PA doing mergers and acquisitions. PA was not good for me. I met and fell in love with a Toxic woman, I surrounded myself with really bad people and I went down a dangerous path. I won't talk about some of it here. But if I felt comfortable posting the rest of this, you can only imagine how bad the bad must be for me to leave it out. I continued to spiral out of control Death was my mission. Intoxication, no helmet and extreme high speeds on my Harley was a daily thing. It was my new identity.
3rd Arrest & 3 Suicide Attempt - “Not even stun guns stop Plains man…”
I realized I was too much of a coward to kill myself and all my attempts to get someone else to do it failed. On this Oct night, my then girlfriend and I got into a huge fight, drunk of course, cops came and even though I could barely stand they made me leave on the Harley. 5 miles up the road, it all happened. In the end they shot me twice. Both times with Tasers and both times I ripped the tasers out. They never gave me the business end of their weapon. I am so incredible sorry that I ever put those men in that position. I have always had profound respect for LEOs. Many of my close friends are on the job. I make no excuses for my actions. I own them.
Rock Bottom
Sitting in a Luzerne County jail, PTSD out of control on top of a real alcohol detox. I thought I was going to die from that alone. Laying in that jail cell. I realized something. I had been working so incredibly hard trying to die. I asked myself a simply question. What would happen if I put in half the effort trying to live? Finally for the first time in many years I wanted to LIVE.
I didn't know how to do it. When I went before the judge, I was a complete mess. Couldn't stand walk or talk. The judge picked up his personal cell phone and called the VA intake.
That was the last time I have been intoxicated. Oct 2/3, 2018. Rock mother fucking bottom. The good news is I lived 400 yards from the Wilkes Barre VA.
So, that is how I destroyed my life. I was a successful business owner; I was a loving father and husband. We had a beautiful home on 6 acres and an inground pool. I was a coach on many youth sports teams, board member for the little league, Senior Deacon in my Masonic Lodge, etc.
And now I was.... nothing. So how does one fight back from all of that. My financial problems were mounting. I wasn't working while I was in treatment. The child support kept racking up. Then lawyer after lawyer, for divorce, family court, my various legal issues. I had dug a grand canon sized hole and I had no idea how to get out. I was lost. I had nothing.
The Life Plan -
Since I really couldn't leave the house, mentally, I went through some of my old stuff and found my life plan from a few years back from before everything fell apart. I read it and cried for what seemed like days. How did I get so far off course? What happened to me. How did this happen. How can I fix this? I know I needed a plan, a goal, they started small, real small but I build on them when I could. It started out like this
Today's Goal: Don't die, not today. My demon will not win today. It was like that for many days, then
Today's Goal: Make it to the VA lobby, get a coffee. and it went like that for a while, then
Today's Goal: Go to your therapy appt. just make it there. do the work.
This continued for a while and then I hit myself with my biggest goal yet.
Get my kids back. I'm not sure how many of you are parents but when you go from coach, dad, husband full time to you can't even facetime your children, ON CHRISTMAS. Let me tell you the pain you live with. I hated everybody and everything. I was doing the work, but it was out of anger, I still blamed everyone else for all the bad shit that happened to me. I was on a revenge path, not one of healing.
So how hard is hard? When I was working again, I couldn't come close to what they wanted me to pay monthly after tax for child support ($2,900) a month. It was brutal, I had completed the project I was working on and at this point wasn't making nearly enough money (fucking PA), so I worked two full time jobs.
I worked 50-60 hours a week for Heartland doing payroll and consulting and I worked 50-60 hours a week bartending night at the casino. I was also selling my plasma several times a week. Yes that’s right, you can get blood from a stone. $500 a month was a lot of money, so I had a needle in my arm three days a week for an hour and a half as I sold my god damn blood to pay my support. I also only got 1 hour of a supervised visit in NY, so I had to leave the bar, close, shower, change and drive 2.5 hours to NY, see my babies for 1 hour, drive back to PA and get ready for work (on zero sleep for two days) then work that night.
Let me tell you what. This, this sucked so bad. I only made it on pure hatred for the world. You motherfuckers will never beat me down. Knock me down and I’ll keep getting up.
I knew I had to get back to NY to be a father again. Not so easy because I had to find a new career that could pay me what I needed to cover support and still be able to survive myself. I terminated a 2-year relationship and found a great opportunity as a GM for The Edge Fitness Clubs, which was great. I could live in NY and commute to Danbury. I made promises to my kids, Daddy was back. Things were going great, and I was promoted again. Transferred to the middle of CT. Fuck, I just got home and now, being sent away again. Literally over a weekend again, I moved to the middle of CT, worked all week there and came back to NY on weekends. Like always professionally I was a stub, my personal life, not so much.
Time to really take this bitch to the next level.
I leveled up my career shortly after, firmly planting stakes near my kids. My office now only 1 mile away from my babies I realized something. My absence as a father was evident. My children needed their father to get his fucking head out of his ass and be a fucking leader. Not an angry Dad. Covid, total blessing on me
part. It gave me a chance to spend time and reconnect with my kids. It gave me an opportunity to work on my plan, read, study, learn, listen.
My aha moment came when I was in Minnesota on a business trip and the woman, I was seeing at the time broke things off on the phone. She said one thing that has stuck in my head.
Shawn, be the man you would want your daughter to marry............Danger close, impact. Fuck me. Blind spot.
I went to the airport bar after seeing Mr. Ownership himself Jocko Willink, sat down with my notebooks, life plan and got writing. That's when I decided to lock myself off from the world and dive into 75 hard and develop myself into that man, the one I would give my blessing to if he asked for my daughter's hand in marriage.
I will go more into that process in later posts. What my point is, I was a suicidal, disaster of a man, and no matter how much legal, financial, relational issues I had I still found a way to completely change my life. Where am I today.
I am the most disciplined guy you will meet
I am in the best shape of my life (down about 75 lbs.)
My cognitive scores are in the 97th percentile (up from 78%)
I have an aggressive saving and investing plan
I paid back over 35K in child support in the last 12 months to be completely caught up
I took a 5-million-dollar home services company with 25 employees to a 12.5-million-dollar company and to a 120m acquisition in less than 12 months
My coaching company has received contracts to partner with a major financial Corp to do their sales training and development
I involve my kids in all development and growth activity
I have repaired the relationship with my ex-wife
I sit on the board of a nonprofit
I have finally found myself; I respect myself; I love myself
What's next for me?
I am excited to focus my time and attention as a mortgage loan officer, with a talented support team so that I can give back more of my time to my children and those who need my strong leadership. I am passionate about serving my fellow veterans through our non-profit American Warriors Initiative (AWI) by helping raise funds for service dogs to be partnered with deserving veterans, and as a Military Mortgage Specialist (MMS) to help my fellow veterans with VA Loans to achieve the dream of home ownership. To visit Shawn’s lending page please visit him at Fairway Mortgage
44th Birthday update
This year Oct 4th, we celebrate my 4 years of sobriety & Bandit’s 4th birthday. So I guess you could say we are both celebrating 4 years of LIFE. Its amazing how my life keeps getting more in alignment with my authentic self. Its a product of years of incredible focus, discipline and incredibly hard work. The work continues because I have fallen in love with the journey and I now have complete confidence and faith that the destination will take care of itself. So, where am I know?
