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Check this out. I repeat several key points throughout this book. This is intentional and meant to drive home each message. I find the more times I say the right thing over and over again, the less likely you are to forget it. So, if you’re ready for a life change, to find your passion and to live at an extraordinary level, this is your wake-up call. No more pity parties. No more excuses. No more procrastination.

Are you ready?

Turn the page.

Three years after I started my own company, I was on a family vacation in Mexico when I had one of the most inspiring “dad” moments of my life. It also turned out to be one of the most poignant wake-up calls I’ve ever had. I was in the ocean teaching my then seven-year-old son, Michael, how to surf. We were on a small break off the sandy shore of the hotel where we were staying, a perfect spot to get Michael up on a board. Three hours after we hit the surf, I noticed Kathy, my wife, on the beach packing up our things to head back to the hotel. I turned to Michael and said, “Time to head in, dude.”

“Just one more wave, Daddy. Please, can we stay for one more?”

It was official. My son was hooked on surfing. I loved it. I told him I was going to ride the next big wave in and he could stay in the water to catch one more for himself. I began paddling toward the shore when I noticed the perfect wave about to break. I jumped up on my board, looked to my right, and saw Michael up on his board directly next to me with a smile as big as the ocean on his face. For the first time ever, we were riding the same wave. It was an absolute moment of joy. There are no words to describe the feelings I had watching my boy cruising next to me. I will never forget what my son and I shared in that moment. Worried he might not be able to maneuver the wave as well with me next to him, I cut out to let him ride the wave on his own. Plus, it gave me the opportunity to watch him ride that last wave all the way in to shore.

I was a few yards back, paddling in until the water was too shallow. I began gingerly walking among the rocks as I made my way toward the white sandy beach. All of a sudden, I hit my leg on something under the water and cut my shin wide open. I didn’t think much of it at the time. It stung for a second but I had to keep moving. As I walked up onto the beach, blood was dripping down my leg. I must have cut it on the jagged edge of a rock. My wife and I did what we could to clean it up and stop the bleeding, before making our way back to the hotel with the kids.

When we returned to our home in California a couple of days later, I noticed that the cut on my leg looked badly infected. I went to a local emergency room to have it looked at. The doctor gave me a tetanus shot and said to keep off my feet for the next couple of days. Was he kidding? I am not the kind of guy who takes days off during the week, especially because I was still getting my company up and running. I had just returned from the first vacation I had taken since getting my company off the ground. I had no time or desire to be out of the office for a few days. As hard as it was for me to do, I begrudgingly called my assistant and told her to clear my schedule.

By the time I got home, I began feeling sick. I was having an adverse reaction to the tetanus shot. I climbed into bed, spiked a fever, and before I knew it began slipping in and out of consciousness. A doctor friend assured me that I would be fine but I’d have to ride out the fever until it broke. Thankfully, it did just that around midnight. Although I was feeling a little better, I would now definitely be out of commission for the next couple of days.

I spent the following day taking it easy—something I wasn’t used to doing. I watched television for a few minutes, read a magazine, surfed the Net, and lounged around for a couple of hours. But it wasn’t restful because I felt that there was something more I could be doing with this found time. I decided to read all of the journals I had kept since I was twenty