A Snapshot of My Life In 2006 – Flashback

This is Part 3 of a series of posts. You can check out Part 1 and Part 2 for the backstory.

In order to understand the epiphany I had, we need to go back in time.

Flashback to 2006…

I suddenly went from a bachelor in debt to financially supporting a wife and teenage boy. Lisa and my stepson Teruya, who was about 13 at the time, have been living with me in L.A. for over a year now. My 15 year old stepdaughter, Sara, refused to come to the States so she could be with her friends.

Lisa and Ted (Teruya) were only permitted to the States on a visitor’s visa, so Lisa couldn’t work. She poured her heart out supporting me, even though she had no direct income.

Our living situation was pretty meager. Ted was at a local school, which he hated for good reason. It was vastly different, culturally. The school was mostly lower income Hispanic kids, whom he couldn’t relate to. He missed his friends and his hometown, but tried to make the best of it.

Sara was living with Lisa’s sister in Vancouver. She got into the wrong crowd, which introduced her to drugs. It was really Hell for Lisa. The stress of being in L.A. under our circumstances was hard enough. Sara’s rebellious state and long distance from her family nearly threw Lisa over the top.

We spent the better part of a year helping my sister and brother in law build a financial services business. It was a grueling journey but was starting to pay off. My monthly income began to reach the high 4 figures, then 5 figures, and even made about $29K in one month’s commission.

It was a time of tremendous personal and professional growth. We were trained by a variety of world-class business leaders. Several promotions and awards, a leadership position on a team that was generating millions of dollars per year, a decent car and a side career in the film industry that was just starting to take off.

…and yet we were very, very unhappy.

Lisa and Ted hated the rushed, superficial, polluted LA life. We had zero social life or [us time]. We gained weight and became pretty unhealthy from the busy and stressed 99cent Taco Bell burrito lifestyle. Lisa missed her daughter who was slipping away. My parent’s didn’t support my marriage. It was a very stressful time.

Lisa was fully dependent on me financially, and pretty much everything. It was something that her independent, adventurous free spirit couldn’t handle. We were always busy working and Ted was being seriously neglected. Although a new career was building, I wasn’t enjoying many aspects of work.

We had the pressures of having our own business, managing a team of dozens of agents (often highly emotional and overbearing), the fact that Lisa and Ted had no legal rights such as employment and medical protection, and perhaps the most emotionally painful challenge of having my marriage outright refused by my parents. Our marriage remained a secret for many months.

It became absolutely clear that we needed a break. The pressures of living up to other people’s expectations and facing their judgments was destroying our spirits. Especially when it comes from the closest people to you. We wanted to get away from all the unhealthy negative pressure and lifestyle. It was affecting our relationship in the worst way.

I was building careers in business and stunts, a wife that basically had no legal status in America, a depressed teenage stepson in the same boat, a teenage stepdaughter living in Canada who desperately needs guidance, and a struggling marriage of only a year.

There were times when I seriously considered “giving up.” Where do I go from here?

To be continued…

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