Life! By Design_ 6 Steps to an Extraordinary You - Laura Morton [8]
Even though we continued to date, I noticed when we were together that Kathy would introduce me to many of her girlfriends. I was trying to court Kathy, and she was doing everything she could to pass me off. We’d make plans that I thought were dates, and then Kathy would have two or three of her friends meet us. It took me a while to figure out what she was doing, but when I finally did, I told Kathy that I wasn’t interested in any of those girls—I was interested only in her.
“Give me a call when you’re serious about me because I already know that you’re the one I want to marry,” I said.
And she was. Kathy epitomized the girl I described on that piece of paper in the hotel room. She had every trait I was looking for and some I hadn’t thought of when making my list.
It was close to a year before we met up with each other again. It took that long for Kathy to figure out what she wanted.
One night Kathy and I had an argument over something silly. I can’t even recall what it was. What I do remember, however, is bringing her the note I wrote to myself on July 17, 1991, that described, in great detail, the woman who would someday become my wife.
At the top I had written, “This is the perfect girlfriend who will walk into my life and we will be perfect together.”
Brown hair.
Blue-green eyes.
Extremely understanding.
Big personality.
Loving but not overpowering.
Can make me laugh and loves to laugh.
Great family values.
Healthy body, healthy mind.
Intelligent and the desire to continue to grow.
Won’t take me for granted.
Athletic and competitive.
Has a good income and understands money.
Kathy laughed and said, “That’s me.” But then she said she didn’t believe I wrote this list before we actually met. She was convinced I had concocted it as some kind of prop.
I pointed out the date of the note, which was a full month prior to our meeting.
“I loved you when I wrote this list, I loved you the day we met, I loved you when you tried to fix me up with all of your friends, and I love you now and forever.”
Kathy didn’t buy a word I said. She broke up with me the next day because she thought I was lying to her. She really believed there was no way I could have written such a perfect description of her without first knowing her.
It took a lot of effort to convince Kathy I hadn’t made up the story. Fourteen months after we met, Kathy finally agreed to become my wife. She was already my best friend. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her, build our dream together, and live happily ever after.
Aristotle said the formula for happiness and success is to “First, have a definite, clear, practical ideal; a goal, an objective. Second, have the necessary means to achieve your ends; wisdom, money, materials, and methods. Third, adjust all your means to that end.” Brian Tracy put the idea into my head that I could achieve anything I wanted as long as I knew what I was looking for, whether my perfect spouse, the perfect job, weight loss, or any other goal I might have.
All success is predicated on finding what you are passionate about and then relentlessly pursuing every possibility to achieve your dreams. Finding the perfect mate and getting married perhaps were no exceptions.
I worked at my dad’s company for fifteen years. I became president nine years after he hired me. I learned the business by doing every job in the organization, from answering phones, sweeping floors, and working in accounting and shipping and receiving, to booking seminars, sales, marketing, coaching, and speaking. My brother Matthew joined the company and together we helped build it from an $8 million-a-year entity to a $36-million-a-year family business.
The first year of my tenure as president was nothing more than a change in the title on my business card. I had a strange and beautiful sensation of achieving something I wanted so much, yet I felt terribly empty after getting it. It was then that I realized that success is not about getting what you want, but who you become along the way.
I didn’t achieve