Lifeonaire

An Uncommon Approach to Wealth, Success, and Prosperity

Steve Cook

• Publisher: Lifeonaire Promotions, LLC
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9780986322884
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Persönliche Entwicklung
• Subtopic: Persönlicher Erfolg

Will becoming a Millionaire really set you free? How about the American Dream? If we, as a nation, declare freedom to be our number one priority, then why do so many of us, at a gut-level, feel less freedom than ever? Americans are working harder than ever to obtain financial success and material possessions based on the delusion that more will lead to a better life. The typical American is trading away the vast majority of their life in hopes that, someday, they will have enough to experience ‘the good life.’

Meanwhile, this tradeoff is the very thing that is robbing them of their freedom and the ability to enjoy an abundant life... right now.

So, where do we find freedom? What should we pursue?

In Lifeonaire: An Uncommon Approach to Wealth, Success, and Prosperity, Steve Cook answers these questions by challenging us to consider what it is that we really desire out of life. Through this fictional story, he shares how Americans blindly pursue financial wealth—thinking that money will reward them with what they want—and helping us to discover that our heart’s desire is to become more than just a Millionaire… what we really desire is to become a Lifeonaire.

CHAPTER

1

Alex thought his head might explode. Here we go again, he thought, she just doesn’t get it.

“I don’t understand why you can’t do something with your son once in a while!” Kerry was visibly upset and quickly reaching her wit’s end. “You spend every waking moment working. Justin hardly knows who you are anymore! Can’t you take one weekend out of the entire year to enjoy some quality time with him and maybe, just maybe, be a positive influence? Pretend that you care about him?”

“That’s not fair,” Alex snapped back incredulously, now feeling offended as much as angry. “I work my guts out so that he—and you for that matter—can have the things you have! I put this roof over your head, I put food on the table, I pay for the ridiculously expensive toys that he has.”

“Now that is not fair, Alex. You are the one who bought those toys and the guitars. Justin would have been happy with any regular old run-of-the-mill guitar, but no, you had to get him the most expensive thing in the store to feed your own ego. It’s always about you, even though you try to pretend it’s about us!”

This one was getting ugly fast, Alex thought. Why didn’t she understand? What was he supposed to do? Let everything go, perhaps file bankruptcy so he could go on some stupid camping trip?

It was true. Alex worked a lot. A lot. But it wasn’t about him, at least not in his mind. He honestly wanted the best for his family, and that’s what he worked for. His heart’s greatest desire was to provide a great life for his family. He was doing it all for them, and that meant long hours at work most of the time. It wasn’t supposed to be this way, not that it had started off any smoother. When he started his own construction company years earlier, Kerry hadn’t been very happy about it. She’d wanted him to take a safer and more secure route in his career choice. Starting your own business is a little risky isn’t it? she’d asked him. It had been more statement than question, even then.

His response had been that working for himself would mean more freedom to do what they wanted, when they wanted. Being the boss was always better than being the employee, right? She had given in, of course. Looking back, he realized that it was more that she’d reluctantly agreed. She’d loved him and believed in him, and at that time, they were still young and fresh, with their whole lives ahead of them—just a few years out of college and still wet behind the ears. He had promised her that this would be the key to their future. They would live full and abundant lives. Owning his own business had seemed like the icing on the cake of the American Dream.

Now, of course, it seemed less like a dream and more like a nightmare.

Between the long hours, meeting payroll for his crew, the hassles of permits, and the never-ending paperwork, he felt like he would never get caught up with work, let alone get ahead enough for a weekend of camping with his son. Every time he thought things would get better, a new slew of issues arose for him to deal with. He was only 39 years old, but he felt and looked closer to 50. Now he was starting to question how long it had been this way.

Kerry’s complaints were coming at a time when he’d already started to doubt the direction his life was headed. He wasn’t sure whether his doubts made her comments better or worse, but they definitely made him feel defensive. And angry.

“You know, if you didn’t run straight to the mall every time you got upset about something, maybe I wouldn’t have to put so many hours in,” he snapped. This was below the belt, and he knew it the second it left his mouth. The expensive “toys” out in the workshop and his “man cave of all man caves,” which he just had to have five years back but hardly ever used, flashed through his mind a split second before the response flew back from Kerry.

“Are you kidding me?!” Her eyes were now burning through him. “You’re going to compare a purse or pair of shoes here and there to the stinking snowmobiles and four-wheelers that just sit out there? It’s one thing to blow the money on them to start with, but you don’t even use them! At least I get use out of the things I buy. Besides, I put my time in too, and you know perfectly well that I’m not happy about having to work a full-time job. Maybe if you had a job that provided insurance, I wouldn’t have to send Heather off to strangers every day just so I could spend all week trying to cover the extra expenses that you cause! The daycare knows more about our daughter than you do!”

By this time, she’d picked up and was holding and trying to console the child in question. Heather, their three-year-old, had been crying on the living room floor for some time—since Alex walked in the door late again and this blowout started. She didn’t seem very happy in Kerry’s arms either, and the sobbing continued, making the already thick and combustible atmosphere even worse. Alex was quickly coming to the conclusion that the air around him would be sparked into an explosion if things didn’t calm down soon. It didn’t look like that was going happen, though, because Kerry wasn’t finished.

“Have you seen the kids Justin has started hanging around lately? Of course you haven’t, that would mean you’d have to be around him once in a while. Your real family is your crew and clients. You care more about them than you do us. I guarantee that you know more about them than you know about your own kids! Since you haven’t been paying attention, I’ll tell you. Justin is not hanging out with a good crowd. Half of those kids are going to wind up in prison by the time they’re eighteen, and they might take our son with them! Are you willing to let that happen to your son just so you can make a few more bucks at work? Well, I’ll tell you right now that I’m not!”

Alex started to feel sick to his stomach at that point, and it got worse as Kerry bombarded him with accusation after accusation, blame after blame, as if the sum total of all their problems was his fault alone. This was a bad one, he thought—not the typical argument that peppered their weeks with tension and discontent, but the kind that ended with them not speaking to each other for days on end.

“I never thought I would say this,” Kerry pressed on, her anger swelling in her like a tsunami ready to engulf a small island, “but I’m not sure if I can do this anymore. I made a commitment to you when we got married, and I have stuck by it and stuck by you. But everyone has a breaking point. I’m just not sure that this is the best thing for me anymore. And it’s not just me. I’m more worried about the kids. It’s already like they don’t have a father…”

The tsunami crested, and Alex couldn’t decide whether it would be better to hide from it or try to fight against it.

“Do you even want to be part of this family anymore, Alex? I honestly don’t know anymore. Do you want me to take the kids and go so you can get on with your business without us?”

The wave crashed down, crushing Alex and sweeping him out to sea in its wake. He loved his family dearly, but it was becoming increasingly obvious that they didn’t realize it. Everything he did was for them— for their futures—but instead of seeing that and believing in it, they could see only that he was never around, more committed to his work than his family.

At least that’s how Kerry obviously saw it—no telling what the kids actually felt.

Before he could say any of that, though, the defensive fight-or-flight anger that had always led him to the wrong place at the wrong time surged, eclipsing any feelings of remorse or fear of losing his family.

“That’s enough!” he almost screamed, the last bit of control he had over his emotions slipping. He could hear himself, and he knew that he was on the brink of sounding like a madman. He also knew that he wasn’t going to be able to stop himself. His control wasn’t strong enough. “I’m not going to just sit here and listen to you put me down and threaten me like this! You do what you need to do, just figure it out before I get back!” He spun around and grabbed his coat, yanking it off the coat rack and knocking it over without stopping to notice, let alone pick it up.

Behind him, he could hear Kerry yelling, “Where do you think you’re going? Don’t you walk out of here like that! Alex!” But it was in the background, drowned out by the pounding in his head: the soundtrack of his own personal horror movie. He stormed out of the house, climbed into his big dually truck, and pulled out of the driveway, nearly taking out the mailbox as he slid into the road and threw the truck into drive.

He didn’t know where he was going, but he knew he needed to drive. His brain was swimming with thoughts, emotions, and memories that swirled together in an unfocused pattern in his head. Whenever he tried to focus on a thought, three more forced their way through and wrestled for his attention, resulting in a tangled mess of thought and emotion. He had to calm down, he realized. He probably shouldn’t be driving at all in this state. Out of the corner of his eye, though, he noticed the sign for the highway loop that circled around the city and as he headed toward it, he nearly ran the light that was already red and probably had been for some time. As he braked sharply, his brain ran even more rampant, thinking of all the sacrifices he’d made – all of which he did for his family, and yet somehow no one really appreciated everything he’d worked so hard to create. How could she sit here and accuse me of not doing enough? Everything I do, I do for them! All I want is for my family to be happy. All I want is for us to have a good life together. What does she think I’m trying to do? And yet, no matter what I do, it’s just never enough. Is it, Kerry?

Alex could feel the back of his neck getting hotter as the seeds of anger sprouted into full bloom in his head. And what is this, the longest stoplight in the history of the world? There’s not even a single car around, why is this light even red right now? Alex thought in frustration as he sat impatiently, fidgeting around, waiting for a flash of green that would seemingly never come. Fed up, Alex slam...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• What others are saying about the Lifeonaire book
• Acknowledgments
• A Note from Steve Cook
• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8
• Epilogue
• Final Thoughts from the Author
• How can you get started?
• Here’s what others are saying about Lifeonaire events…
• About the Author