WOW. Facebook reminded me that 6-years ago, today, I caught a red-eye flight that ended up putting a detour in front of my vision of the future. The picture is from the day I departed, while I was running around sunny San Diego on my bicycle. Many friends didn’t know I was quietly living in San Diego at the time and they would also miss the fast cross country move that happened a little over a month after this particular trip.

To start. This trip was the last time we were able to gather all the Besley siblings in the same location with Mom. My oldest brother was battling brain cancer, an eleven-year journey, and we all wanted to have one last family occasion. But, that’s not the story of the change.

This was the trip where we noticed a significant decline in Mom, her inability to reason and continue to care for herself was scary. Dementia was running laps around her brain. It freaked everyone out, including my brother with brain cancer. We made a plan.

At the time, I was running a digital agency and was putting my laptop on every flat surface I could find, from Florida, Atlanta, Boston, San Francisco, and Hawaii. I was extremely mobile. And, you know how much I love being mobile. The rest of my family. Not so mobile. Homes, families, careers with desks in offices. No options.

I would head back to Miami for an unknown period, to pull things together, visit doctors, get bills paid, and put a system in place for the entire family to share information. It was only natural that we needed to build the coolest website ever to share information, documents, and calendars that would help us stay up to date and make decisions.

Within 45 days, I ran some crazy relay race along the Mississippi River, reconnected with friends, sold everything I didn’t need and showed up at my local Post Office to ship the remaining belongings (10 boxes) to Florida. On the day before my birthday, I would start a multi-day journey back to Miami. Of course, I had to go to San Francisco to celebrate my birthday first. There was a certain amount of alcohol to consume before I showed up at Mom’s place.

For 3-months we visited Doctors, paid the bills, repaired the roof, fixed the fences, weeded the yard, and bickered about nearly everything. And I continued to fly around the country helping clients and finding new opportunities. Of course, there were hiccups, rarely from clients though.

This journey not only provided an opportunity to apply my problem-solving skills within my own family, but it also opened new doors. In fact, this was the start of the journey that resulted building a new organization with dreams of conquering the world and becoming the Chief Operating Officer. The door to provide problem-solving skills had opened wider than ever, and it was time to go international.

Two primary points here:

First, do the right things in life and see where they take you. Adaptability is one of our greatest traits, so stop being afraid of the change, make it part of the journey.

Second, you can create the lifestyle that feeds you. Take your ideas and build your passion. There’s an audience for each one of us to attract. Find your audience, develop your product/services, deliver to your audience and proudly enter the room with your head up high.

Yes, you will hear people say “no.” Most importantly, listen to the feedback and determine what is valuable enough to apply.

And when you do hear the “yes” – and you will, you will feel how they add fuel to launch you to the next level.