Instead of "Why Can't I?", Ask "How Can I?"

 It was a Thursday morning that I came home from a double-shift that ran into the overnight tour of a $15 hour security job in the hood. After a two-hour commute on public transportation, I arrived at my small, furnished room located in a very "urban" neighborhood, went into my stash of very cheap weed (regs for all of you cannabis heads), and rolled a "Dutch". I put on the headphones and played my favorite "get lifted" playlist on an old I-Pod mini. 

I wasn't a kid, I was a grown-ass adult with a 430-credit score, $15 in my pocket for 99cent bologna, bread, mustard, and a few cans of Chef Boyardee for the week. I had the cheapest no frills cola in the fridge and a pack of hotdogs. I was not the best version of myself, to say the least.

While I sat there on the couch wasting away, all I could think about was that I wish my smoke session was taking place from the comfort of my own home office. I envisioned a large den, with cherry wood furniture, replica swords from all my favorite movies on my walls, and a window view to a large private lake in the back. 

Sometimes it was a corporate office high above the streets of New York City, sometimes it was the throne room of my own modern castle. Whatever it was, it was definitely better than that single room with roommates that were doing no better that I was. 

While I was high, I also daydreamed of imaginary businesses I had. Sometimes it was a music mogul, other times it was a corporate CEO, once it was the King of my own imaginary empire. The visions in my head were always the high-powered job, or the seat in my own fortress of solitude. Plenty of us have daydreams like these, visons of life lived on a grand scale, but whether it's in the driver's seat of your Italian sports car, or sitting within your luxury sanctum sanatorium, you crave for something more. 

Here's the question? Have you asked yourself "What is stopping you from making these visions reality?"

You probably have. You probably built walls of obstacles preventing you from those visions. I say that because I did the same too. I didn't have a college education, I had no skills, and I had no money at all to invest. My mental inventory was stocked full of the things " I didn't have" and a lack of fuel to gas up the engine to drive forward. So, what changed for me?

I started asking the right questions. 

• What about myself do I need to change?
• What skills do I need to develop?
• What am I good at? 
• How good am I?
• What am I passionate about?
• What motivates me? 
• What are my resources?
• What are my strengths?
• What are my weaknesses?
• How do I get ready?
• What makes sense?

Get rid of the "Why can't I?" list of reasons and start with a "How can I?" plan of action. Whatever you lack, there is a path to obtain what you need. I didn't have skills to offer any job, so I went looking for those skills. Some I obtained for free, some I went to school for. I did a whole lot of reading too. With the skills came better jobs, with the reading, came a smarter mind. The questions kept evolving too. 

Everything I wanted, every opportunity that presented itself I asked a new set of questions. "Does it make sense? Is it a strategic move, or an emotional one? What is the timeline? What is the investment? How do I fund it?

From those questions my path started forming towards what I wanted, the "objective" of my desires. So, I challenge you to start asking the right questions. "How can I?" instead of "Why can't I?" 

The Alpha