Welcome!
Hey there! Glad you stopped by, I’m Paul!
Welcome to Bending Destiny!
A lifestyle blog where you will find tips surrounding starting and growing businesses, personal finance, re-building from setbacks, travel, and wellness.
THE PURPOSE | LIFESTYLE DESIGN AS A MINDSET | A PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS
The purpose is to give insight into how to create a different type of life.
One that maybe you didn’t think was possible, or just were not quite sure how to do it.
This is what is meant by Lifestyle Design.
Centered around the concept centered around you are the master of your domain.
The locus of control is always within you.
If things are not good now, they do not have to stay that way, it is a matter of choice.
A place to connect with other like-minded individuals that help each other to focus on responsibility, accountability, and positive productivity.
GROWING UP
I was a latch key kid in the streets of Las Vegas.
My mom was a single mom that worked 3 jobs just to make ends meet.
She got cancer when I was in 3rd grade and I remember being really scared if something happened to her how I would survive.
She beat it the first time, yet she battled with cancer again later in life.
We were always moving, which further reinforced a feeling of uncertainty.
I hated Christmas and Birthdays. Christmas was by far the worst, not because I wanted stuff, but you would go back to school and other kids would have presents and then they would always ask you what you got.
My Mom worked in X-Ray and had very little freedom and flexibility to build her own path in life, yet she never complained. If there is one thing she was it was a very hard worker.
I thought at a very young age, there has to be a better way.
I dove into schoolwork and rebelled in my head against the people who told me I would never make it.
Looking back, I think part of my ambition came from a race to be successful as fast as possible to buy my Mom a safe, stable home where she did not have to be so stressed about money.
At the end of the day, I wanted to make sure that no matter what happened I would control MY OWN DESTINY and create my own OPTIONS.
Whether or not that let me to a path of extreme wealth or just a comfortable life.
LITTLE GUIDANCE AND NO MENTOR
No one in my family had any investments or knowledge about how any of that stuff worked.
There wasn’t anyone that graduated college at the time, that could give me any guidance on what college to go to, how to apply for college or how financing for college worked.
Growing up without a father and my mom working all the time I didn’t have the guidance to learn important things in life.
My Mom was always really good to me, she just didn’t know what she didn’t know.
When it came time to go to college (there was no internet at this time), I went to the library and found a book of colleges.
I picked one out, planned my trip, bought my plane ticket to Seattle, and went to visit the University of Washington. All paid for with my own earnings.
In that trip, I realized very quickly I could not spend $1,000 each trip to visit a bunch of schools.
So I went back to the library to choose another school, picked it based on what I thought may be a good school for me, never saw it, and applied.
I got accepted and drove to my new college at Western Washington University site unseen.
CREATING MY OWN WAY
When I was around 16, I started reading a lot of books. Books on business, productivity and investing.
I wanted to find a better way to do things. I wanted to live a different life than the one I saw around me.
At 17 looked up in the phone book (yes, the internet did not exist yet lol) an investment firm, I called, made the appointment, and went.
I didn’t think it was weird until the man conducting the meeting asked me “how old I was”, and asked, “who told me to come here.”
When I said nobody, I found out about investing through books, his expression was half shock and half being impressed.
I realized then that what I was doing was unusual.
The paths I wanted to go down continued to be unusual.
This type of thinking led me to want to be an entrepreneur.
It led me to create my own 100+ person finance company making over $5M in gross revenues annually.
It led me to acquire massive amounts of real estate, with millions of dollars in equity.
The wind shifted directions and in 2008, in a matter of months, I lost it ALL.
However, during the crash of 2008, this thinking also showed me that I could pivot into a TOTALLY different industry and re-build a new business and life again (E-Commerce).
Win or lose, I wanted to create my OWN destiny.
Bending Destiny is for the people with similar stories that are looking for another path, even if that path is just to realize that things are possible.
Your current situation does not define your entire life and that you have the power to change it for the better, always.
MY LOVE FOR TRAVEL
My Mom did not have a passport. I don’t remember her ever talking about traveling to other countries. So I was not exposed to the possibilities of travel at an early age.
All our travel was via car. She was so funny, looking back on it as she was scared to fly and later became scared of tunnels and bridges, which then made traveling by car challenging (too funny).
I remember one time in Yellowstone National Park she got scared on the mountain and we had to wait for the park ranger to finally find us and drive us off the mountain. She was so funny at times.
It wasn’t until I was in college where I was able to first see the incredible aspects of traveling and experiencing other cultures.
I sought out a study abroad program. It was to Pecs, Hungary to work on a project for a coal mine.
It was a 6-week program where half the time we worked in multi-cultural teams with very talented Hungarian students, the other half we traveled.
We from Pecs, Hungary to Budapest to Krakow, Poland and onto Prague, Czech Republic.
We were taken to climb in the incredible Tatra Mountains.
This experience sparked my lifetime love of travel, and my choice to be an entrepreneur has allowed me the freedom and flexibility to experience travel on a greater level than I ever thought possible.
When I was that young kid in Las Vegas, I never dreamed I would even leave that city let alone earn my way to travel the entire world.
My only regret is that I did not do it fast enough to take my Mom with me!
THE PATH IS NOT EASY, BUT WELL WORTH THE EFFORT
In any event, the journey continues. The path of small daily improvements continues. My path to share and help other like-minded entrepreneurs continues.
I believe with an abundance mindset is how we can lift each other to new levels. There is enough for everyone and helping each other level up is the fastest way to achieve greatness!